resisting to the hilt all efforts of successive English kings to
interfere in the election of their pastors, the Scots of Ulster
had already declared for democracy.

It was shortly after James VI of Scotland became James I of
England and while the English were founding Jamestown that the
Scots had first occupied Ulster; but the true origin of the
Ulster Plantation lies further back, in the reign of Henry VIII,
in the days of the English Reformation. In Henry's Irish realm
the Reformation, though proclaimed by royal authority, had never
been accomplished; and Henry's more famous daughter, Elizabeth,
had conceived the plan, later to be carried out by James, of
planting colonies of Protestants in Ireland to promote loyalty in
that rebellious land. Six counties, comprising half a million
acres, formed the Ulster Plantation. The great majority of the
colonists sent thither by James were Scotch Lowlanders, but among
them were many English and a smaller number of Highlanders. These
three peoples from the island of Britain brought forth, through
intermarriage, the Ulster Scots.

The reign of Charles I had inaugurated for the Ulstermen an era
of persecution. Charles practically suppressed the Presbyterian
religion in Ireland. His son, Charles II, struck at Ireland in
1666 through its cattle trade, by prohibiting the exportation of
beef to England and Scotland. The Navigation Acts, excluding
Ireland from direct trade with the colonies, ruined Irish
commerce, while Corporation Acts and Test Acts requiring
conformity with the practices of the Church of England bore
heavily on the Ulster Presbyterians.