The proportion which they bore to the population of England was very much smaller than at present.
For at present a constant stream of emigration runs from Ireland to our great towns: but in the seventeenth century there was not even in London an Irish colony.

Forty-nine fiftieths of the inhabitants of the kingdom, forty-nine fiftieths of the property of the kingdom, almost all the political, legal, and military ability and knowledge to be found in the kingdom, were Protestant.

Nevertheless the King, under a strong infatuation, had determined to use his vast patronage as a means of making proselytes.

To be of his Church was, in his view, the first of all qualifications for office.

To be of the national Church was a positive disqualification.