replied: “I can not pardon him, because I dare not. His blood be upon your conscience. You could have saved him if you pleased!” And this craven king, a few years afterward, on his deathbed, called for the ministrations of a priest of the Church outraged by the murder of an innocent prelate! The slaughter of Oliver Plunkett was the most atrocious political assassination in English history, which reeks with such crimes. The shooting of Duc d’Enghien by Napoleon did not approach it in cold-blooded infamy. The king, the minister, the court, the jury—everybody—believed the archbishop innocent, and yet he was sacrificed that his blood might satisfy the rampant bigotry of the times. The Catholics were ferociously pursued in Ireland after this shameful tragedy. Proclamations were issued against them by Ormond, who had yet again become Lord Lieutenant. They were forbidden to enter fortresses or to hold fairs, markets, or gatherings within the walls of corporate towns. They were also forbidden the use of arms—an old English expedient in Ireland—and they were commanded to kill or capture any “Tory” or “outlaw” relative within fourteen days from the date of proclamation, under penalty of being arrested and banished from Ireland. This was the setting of brother against brother with a vengeance. Few of the Irish people were found base enough to comply with the unnatural order, but Count Redmond O’Hanlon, one of the few Irish chiefs of ancient family who still held out against English penal law in Ireland, was assassinated in a cowardly manner by one of Ormond’s ruthless tools. The blood stains from the heart of the brave O’Hanlon will sully forever the escutcheon of the Irish Butlers. Just as the spirit of persecution of Catholics began to subside both in England and Ireland, Charles II, who had been much worried by the political contentions in his English kingdom, which resulted in the banishment of Monmouth and the execution of Lord William Russell and Algernon Sidney, had a stroke of apoplexy, which resulted in his death on February 6, 1685. In his last moments he was attended by the Rev. Father Huddlestone, who received him into the Catholic Church, which he had betrayed so foully. He was immediately succeeded by his Catholic brother, the Duke of York, who ascended the throne under the title of James II. James was a man of resolute purpose, good intentions, no doubt, but had a narrow intellect and sadly lacked discretion—at least in the moral sense. His physical courage has been questioned, although the famous Marshal Turenne certified to it, when he, in his fiery youth, served in the French armies. He was destined, as we shall see, to ruin his friends, exalt his enemies, and wreck the ancient Stuart dynasty. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XI Well-Meant but Imprudent Policy of King James—England Invites William of Orange to Assume the Throne