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The Irish parliament sitting at the start of 1699 had first assembled in September 1698. Its final legislative business was completed in January 1699, and the parliament was formally dissolved on 14 June. It was not a representative national assembly in the modern sense. Catholics were excluded from parliamentary life by the oaths required for office, while the executive and the machinery of legislation remained closely tied to Dublin Castle, the crown and English approval under Poynings’ Law. Nonetheless, its statutes mattered deeply, especially to the Protestant landowning and mercantile interests who dominated it.
Ireland was formally quiet, but it was not detached from the wider Nine Years’ War between William III’s coalition and Louis XIV’s France. The French court still sheltered James II and Jacobite exiles, while the possibility of a French-backed restoration remained a serious concern for Williamite governments. In February 1696, a plot in England to assassinate William III intensified official alarm across his kingdoms. On 4 March, the Irish administration issued a proclamation offering £1,000 for the apprehension of James FitzJames, duke of Berwick, James II’s illegitimate son, and his alleged associates. Berwick was a prominent Jacobite commander in French service. The proclamation did not mean that he had landed in Ireland; rather, it shows Dublin Castle treating Irish security as inseparable from the international struggle against France and the Stuart cause.
