Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and Belfast were the only considerable towns in Ireland after the Irish capital. Not many years had passed since Cork was besieged by Marlborough himself, and taken from King James. The Duke of Grafton, one of the sons of Charles the Second, was killed then in a little street or lane, which still commemorates the fact by its name. The same year that saw Marlborough besieging Cork saw Limerick invested by the forces of King William, under William's own command. The Irish general, Sarsfield, held out so gallantly that William had to give up the attempt, and it was not until the following year, and after the cause of James had gone down everywhere else, that Sarsfield consented to accept the terms, most honorable to him, of the famous Treaty of Limerick. There was but little feeling in Ireland in favor of the Chevalier at the time of Queen Anne's death. Any sympathy with the Stuart cause that still lingered was sentimental merely, and even as such hardly existed among the great mass of the people. To these, indeed, the change of masters could matter but little; they had had enough of the Stuarts, and the conduct of James the Second during his Irish campaign had made his name and his memory despised. Rightly or wrongly he was charged with cowardice--he who in his early days had heard his bravery in action praised by the great Turenne--and the charge was fatal to him in the minds of the Irish people. The penal laws of Anne's days were not excused because of any strong Jacobite sympathies or active Jacobite schemes in Ireland. The Union between England and Scotland was only seven years old when George came to the throne of these kingdoms, and already an attempt had been made by a {84} powerful party in Scotland to obtain its repeal. The union was unquestionably accomplished by Lord Somers and other English statesmen, with the object of securing the succession much rather than the national interests of the Scottish people. It was for a long time detested in Scotland. The manner of its accomplishment, mainly by bribery and threats, made it more odious. Yet it was based on principles which secured the dearest interests of Scotland and respected the religious opinions of the population. Scottish law, Scottish systems, and the Scotch Church were left without interference, and constitutional security was given for the maintenance of the Presbyterian Establishment. In plain words, the Union admitted and maintained the rights and the claims of the great majority of the Scotch people, and therefore, when the first heat of dislike to it had gone out, Scotland began to find that she could be old Scotland still, even when combined in one constitutional system with England. She soon accepted cordially the conditions which opened new ways to her industrial and trading energy, and did not practically interfere with her true national independence. [Sidenote: 1714--Life in Edinburgh]