On the 1st of November, 1641, it was suddenly learned that an immense insurrection had broken out in Ireland, threatening the most imminent danger to the Protestant religion and the Protestants of the country. The Catholics had everywhere risen, chiefs and people, claiming the liberty of their faith, vaunting the name of the queen and even of the king, setting up a commission signed, it was said, by the latter, and announcing the design of delivering Ireland and the throne from the tyranny of the English Puritans. On the very eve of the day on which the conspiracy was to break out it was accidentally discovered and quelled in Dublin. Throughout the country it had met with no obstacle. Murders, fires, horrible and nameless crimes, it is said, were rife throughout Ireland. Everywhere Protestants were massacred without resistance. The Government, disarmed by Strafford and the crown, was powerless before a half-savage people eager to avenge in one day centuries of outrage and misfortune. The Earl of Leicester, nominated viceroy in place of Strafford, had not yet arrived. To oppose so terrible a storm the English Government had in Ireland only two judges of no ability, of no credit, whose Presbyterian zeal alone had caused them to be invested with that difficult employment. {74} England uttered a prolonged cry of terror and rage; every Protestant considered himself attacked in common with his brothers of Ireland. The king, who was a stranger to the insurrection, hastened to communicate to Parliament the news which had reached him in Scotland, placing the affair in the hands of the Commons and entrusting them with the repression, partly to rid himself of all complicity, partly to avoid in the eyes of his Catholic subjects, whom he had not encouraged, but whom he was in no hurry to restrain, the responsibility for the severities to which they might be compelled to submit. The leaders of the Commons were not much more eager than the king to stamp out the Irish insurrection. It furnished them with the popular agitation and general uneasiness of which they stood in need in order to continue their work. They eagerly took possession of the power which the king offered them; but their efforts against the Irish insurgents were more ostentatious than sincere, and more noisy than efficacious. The Protestants of Ireland were left in the hands of their enemies. All speeches and acts were directed towards England; the moment for striking the great blow had come.