Note 548 — Chapter XVIII · ON THE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND

"I perceived (says Preston, general of the Irish, writing to Lord Clanricarde) that the catholic religion, the rights and prerogatives of his majesty, my dread sovereign, the liberties of my country, and whether there should be an Irishman or no, were the prizes at stake." Carte iii. 120. Clanricarde himself expresses to the king, and to his brother, Lord Essex, in January 1642, his apprehension that the English parliament meant to make it a religious war. Clanricarde's Letters, 61 et post. The letters of this great man, perhaps the most unsullied character in the annals of Ireland, and certainly more so than even his illustrious contemporary, the Duke of Ormond, exhibit the struggles of a noble mind between love of his country and his religion on the one hand, loyalty and honour on the other. At a later period of that unhappy war, he thought himself able to conciliate both principles.