Excerpt from Loyalty and Disloyalty: What It Means in IrelandIreland-men, showed itself capable of courage and zeal in defending the claims of Ireland to liberty and justice. The Kings, moreover, who coveted from Ireland a revenue to maintain their Imperial state, and an army at their own bidding to increase their power, needed a prosperous and well-peopled island, and the royal policy was to encourage trade and manufacture, and to favour the towns.A decisive change, carrying with it tremendous consequences to Ireland, began with Cromwell, when the Commonwealth Parliament, after beheading the King in Whitehall, took on themselves his business and authority. Dominion passed to the English Nation, which now took control of the Irish Lords and Commons, and of Ireland itself. The Parlia ment of England claimed supreme control and arro gated power to pass laws for Ireland over the head of the Irish Parliament.The Kingdom of Ireland was thus suddenly degraded from the high status of a co-ordinate part of the King's dominions to a strictly subordinated position. Its inhabitants became a subject people under the English Parliament. Nor did they, in becoming English citizens, secure in return the privileges of English citizenship. The Irish Parlia ment was now cast into abject submission to the Parliament of another nation. The new authority could compel assent to its widened powers from the foreign sovereigns, William III., who held his place solely by their election, and the Hanoverian Kings.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.