This is elementary doctrine, borne out by the whole course of English history."[45] That the position was paradoxical calls for no denial; but the pith of the paradox lay in the fact that a movement denounced as "rebellious" by its political opponents was warmly supported not only by large masses, probably by the majority, of the people of this country, but by numbers of individuals of the highest character, occupying stations of great responsibility.

Whatever may be thought of men engaged in actual political conflict, whom some people appear to think capable of any wickedness, no one can seriously suggest that men like Lord Macnaghten, like the late and present Primates of Ireland, like the late Provost of Trinity, like many other sober thinkers who supported Ulster, were men who would lightly lend themselves to "rebellion," or any other wild and irresponsible adventure.

As _The Times_ very truly observed in a leading article in 1912: "We remember no precedent in our domestic history since the Revolution of 1688 for a movement among citizens, law-abiding by temperament and habit, which resembles the present movement of the Ulster Protestants.

It is no rabble who have undertaken it.

It is the work of orderly, prosperous, and deeply religious men."[46] Nor did the paradox end there.