of that Act was mitigated by a beneficent administration. Some
fierce and stubborn non-jurors who would not debase themselves by
asking for any indulgence, and some conspicuous enemies of the
government who had asked for indulgence in vain, were under the
necessity of taking refuge on the Continent. But the great
majority of those offenders who promised to live peaceably under
William's rule obtained his permission to remain in their native
land.

In the case of one great offender there were some circumstances
which attracted general interest, and which might furnish a good
subject to a novelist or a dramatist. Near fourteen years before
this time, Sunderland, then Secretary of State to Charles the
Second, had married his daughter Lady Elizabeth Spencer to
Donough Macarthy, Earl of Clancarty, the lord of an immense
domain in Munster. Both the bridegroom and the bride were mere
children, the bridegroom only fifteen, the bride only eleven.
After the ceremony they were separated; and many years full of
strange vicissitudes elapsed before they again met. The boy soon
visited his estates in Ireland. He had been bred a member of the
Church of England; but his opinions and his practice were loose.
He found himself among kinsmen who were zealous Roman Catholics.
A Roman Catholic king was on the throne. To turn Roman Catholic
was the best recommendation to favour both at Whitehall and at
Dublin Castle. Clancarty speedily changed his religion, and from
a dissolute Protestant became a dissolute Papist. After the
Revolution he followed the fortunes of James; sate in the Celtic
Parliament which met at the King's Inns; commanded a regiment in
the Celtic army; was forced to surrender himself to Marlborough
at Cork; was sent to England, and was imprisoned in the Tower.