h. Fitz-William's

attempt at conciliation, 1795.

iv. TheIrish Rebellion of '98.

and the 'United Irishmen were suppressed. But when Earl Fitz William became Lord Lieutenant and attempted some genuine reforms, the religious scruples of George III. were aroused by his proposals to admit Roman Catholics to the Irish Parliament and Pitt had to recall FitzWilliam after a residence of 80 days only. This meant the formal abandonment of Parliamentary Reform and Roman Catholic Emancipation. Open rebellion followed.

The Society of United Irishmen had continued as a secret society and began negociations with the Revolutionists in France. Lazare Hoche, a French General, planned a fresh expedition to help them in 1796, but a storm dispersed it. Admiral Duncan's victory off Camperdown ruined similar plans in 1797 and the United Irishmen took matters into their own hands. A great insurrection was planned for 1798 but the leaders were seized with much violence, and the camp 1798. of the Wexford men at Vinegar Hill had to be taken by storm by the Yeomanry under General Lake. Too late the French arrived, a thousand strong, and defeated Lake at the Race of Castlebar," but Lord Cornwallis, who had been transferred to Ireland from America, forced them to surrender. Wolfe Tone was captured also, and committed suicide, and the rebellion collapsed.

"The battle of Vinegar Hill"

v. The Union with Ireland 1800.

a, Its motives.

6. Its methods.

c. Its provisions.

The rule of the Protestants had completely failed. To place the government in the hands of the Roman Catholics would have been an equally certain failure, for they would have used their enormous majority to wreak a not undeserved vengeance on their Protestant oppressors. It appeared to Pitt that the only way out of the difficulty was to establish a government for Ireland which should be free from the passions of Irish religious parties. He proposed to do this by (a) admitting Roman Catholics to Parliament, and (b) uniting the Parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland. The latter provision would prevent the danger which was feared from the former.

By dint of wholesale bribery, such as the expenditure of a million and a half in the purchase of seats, the latter proposal was carried though the Irish Parliament but George III. absolutely forbade the former to be proposed. Pitt's measure was therefore robbed of half of the benefits he desired to grant, and must be judged accordingly.

Its provisions were as follows :— 1. Parliamentary. Ireland was to be represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom by 4 spiritual lords, 28 temporal peers elected for life by the Irish Peerage, and 100 members of the House of Commons.

2. Financial. The National Debt of Ireland was to be kept distinct, and Ireland was to contribute two-fifteenths of the Revenue of the United Kingdom.

3. Trade. Ireland was to be on terms of equality with Great

Britain.

Although this Union has lasted, with unimportant modifica- d. Criticism. tions, to the present day, it has never been popular in Ireland. (a) Its failure to grant liberty to the Roman Catholic majority (till 1829) prevented it from being favourably received by the Irish people as a whole. (b) It was carried through by disgraceful means, (c) It sacrificed Irish nationality without

giving any compensating advantages. While, therefore, the (Lecky's Eng. ii. 302) Union with Scotland paved the way for friendship and harmony between the two nations, the Union with Ireland left a legacy of discord and discontent.

i.

ii.

RELIGIOUS HISTORY, 1715-1832.

I. INDIFFERENCE AND TOLERATION.

Causes of Decline

a Universal disappointment of ideals

b Political repression of enthusiasm and activity

The Silencing of Convocation: the Bangorian Controversy '

Its disastrous consequences

iii. The Deistic Controversy

iv. Growth of Toleration

V.

a Early efforts

b Postponement

c Reform

The Attitude of Churchmen

General Awakening.

The Methodists

i.

ii.

iii. Wesley

a Causes of opposition

b Results of opposition

c Development of separation

iv. The Wesleyan Schism

The accession of George I. marked the beginning of an age Wakeman, ch. 19, 20 of indifference to higher things. Ideals of all kinds had been

Lecky ch.8.

May ch. 12, 13, 14. shattered.

i. Causes of decline.

(Green 735.)

a, Universal disappointment of ideals.

(a) The Stuart ideal of a beneficent autocrat, held by such
men as Falkland, and described by Charles I. in the
words 'there is no fairer form of liberty than under a
pious king," had been discredited by the incapacity
of the earlier Stuarts and by the easy way in which it
degenerated into tyranny under the later.

(b) The parliamentary ideal of such men as Pym had been
shattered by the tyranny of the Long Parliament.
(c) The religious ideal of Laud, of a National Church,
Catholic in doctrine though free from Papal abuses,
was hopeless from its novelty, was unacceptable both
to Roman Catholics and Protestants, and had been
ruined by his connection with arbitrary and unpopular
government.

(d) The Puritan ideal of liberty of religion was shattered by
the intolerance of its professors in their day of power,
which provoked a natural desire for revenge in those
they had persecuted when their turn of power came back.

The struggles of all these in the past had left men weary of controversy. All attempts at reform seemed equally to have failed, and zeal and enthusiasm fell consequently into disfavour. The age is well represented by the Test Act (1673) and the effects it produced. It kept out the honest but admitted the lax and the hypocrite, and dulled the religious and moral instinct of the nation which was content to have it so.

sion of enthusiasm
and activity.
(Wakeman 421.)

Political causes worked in the same direction. The clergy b, Political repres had, as a whole, taken the Stuart side and fell under the disfavour of the victorious Hanoverians. Even in the earlier Whig days of William III. political necessities had ejected the Non-Jurors, who took with them the greater part of the honesty and learning and zeal of the Church. The Hanoverian accession being a party triumph for the Whigs still further operated in the same way. Churchmen and Clergy were generally Jacobite in sentiment: they found themselves looked upon with disfavour and distrust. Bishops were now appointed solely with the object of increasing the political power of the Government and thus were out of sympathy with their flocks. Energy of all kinds was repressed and discouraged: "let sleeping dogs lie." Trade meanwhile prospered exceedingly, and absorbed the interests of the nation. It is not a beautiful picture, whether we look at religion, politics, art, literature or social life.

Convocation.

Bangorian Controversy."

The Bangorian Controversy. Hoadley, Bishop of Bangor, one ii. The Silencing of of the Whig political appointments, was attacked by the lower House of Convocation (the lower Clergy) for his heretical opinions. The opportunity was seized to silence Convocation altogether. The result was that the Church had no means for meeting new requirements e.g. :

1. Colonial expansion.

I.

1717.

2. Increase of population in England due to industrial Disastrous consedevelopments.

The consequences were

I.

2.

3.

that the Church became out of touch with the people;
indifference and neglect of duty became general, e.g. in
regard to Poor Relief, Church building, the Slave trade;
a spirit of rationalism and unbelief naturally resulted
from the decline of churchmanship;

4. degeneracy in public morality set in e.g. Truck system,
sweating of employees;

5. and general growth of ignorance

quences of silencing
of Convocation.
(Wakeman 422.)

Controversy. (Wakeman 428.)

e.g. absence of Schools, corruption in Universities (and iii. The Deistic cf. agitation against the Reform of the Kalendar). There was however much learning among the higher Clergy, though it was mainly of a secular kind. This showed itself even in religious controversy. Against the Deists and Unitarians, Churchmen like Bishop Butler (who however had a

high ideal of duty), Warburton, Berkeley, and Paley argued merely that Christianity was reasonable not that it was divine. It was under such influences of indifference and not from (Taswell Langmead motives of charity that Toleration progressed.

iv. Growth of

Toleration.

758-61.)

a, early efforts.

1718.
1727.

1778-80.

b, postponement.

c. Reform.

761.)

1. The Act against occasional Conformity and the Schism Act were repealed and Acts of Indemnity excusing noncompliance with the requirements of the Test Act were annually passed.

2.

When however it was proposed to extend the same advantages to Roman Catholics the intolerance of Protestant Dissenters broke out in the Gordon Riots, and the proposal was abandoned till 1829.

Further delay was caused by

a. George III.'s religious scruples

b. The outbreak of the French Revolution.

In 1813 the Unitarians were admitted to the privileges given (Taswell Langmead by the Toleration Act to other Protestants, and in 1828 the Test Act and Corporation Act, long since abandoned in practice, were repealed. The Roman Catholic Relief Act was passed in 1829.

v. The attitude of Churchmen.

To these removals of Tests Churchmen were often opposed. The reason is to be sought less in any feeling of intolerance— for they usually favoured Freedom of Worship--than in the close union which existed between Church and State.

Before the Reformation, Church and State had been interchangeable terms; and after the Reformation all parties, Churchmen and Dissenters alike, desired equally strongly to compel all to think and worship in the same way and so to make a Church' still co-extensive with the nation.

But Dissent increased, so that the old laws and arrangements, continued through Tudor and Stuart times,-animated as has been explained by the idea that Church and State were the same thing looked at from different points of view-became inapplicable to the new condition of things.

e.g. Parliament very largely controlled Church affairs

The Government appointed Bishops and other Church officials

Town Corporations often appointed Parish Clergy.

It seemed important therefore that such bodies should be confined to Churchmen only it is obviously wrong that a Parliament (and a Ministry) which comprises all varieties of Religions should have control of Church affairs.

Moreover the Silencing of Convocation (see p. 301, 381) had deprived the Church of all power of independent action: she could neither make reforms nor remedy abuses, and she still labours under this disadvantage.

Later history shows the fears of the Churchmen of those days to be not altogether groundless. The interference of Parliament in religious matters is generally inefficient and injurious.