C. L. CLARKE, 
 PLEASE RETURN TO SPECIAL 
 BOOKCASE 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 -s.i . 
 
 / 
 
 /
 
 HISTORY OF THE POLICY 
 
 CHURCH OF ROME IN IRELAND.
 
 HISTOliY OF THE POLICY 
 
 CHURCH OF EOME IN IRELAND, 
 
 FEOM 
 
 THE INTRODUCTION OF THE ENGLISH DYNASTY 
 TO THE GREAT REBELLION. 
 
 BY WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 
 WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR, 
 
 BY JOHN JEBB, 
 
 LATE lOED BISHOP OF LIMERICK ; 
 
 AND INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, 
 BY JAMES LORD, 
 
 OF THE INNER TEMPLE, ESa., BARRISTER-AT-LAW ; AUTHOR OP "THE VATICAN AND 
 
 ST. James's; or, England independent op rome," etc., etc. 
 
 * » » " It is hoped that when temporary excitement shall have subsided, it may 
 be studied with advantage * * not least by members of the Church of Rome." 
 
 —Bishop J ebb. 
 
 LONDON : 
 WERTHEIM AND MACINTOSH, 24, PATERNOSTER-ROAV ; 
 
 AND PROTESTANT ASSOCIATION OFFICE, 6, SERJEANTS' INN, 
 FLEET-STREET. 
 
 1854.
 
 ALEX. MACINTOSH, 
 
 PRINTER, 
 GREAT NEW-STREET, LONDON.
 
 "^K 
 
 77^ 
 
 -7>/"/i; 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE 
 
 LORD JOHN GEORGE BERESFORD, D.D., 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH, 
 PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND, 
 
 ETC., ETC., ETC. 
 
 My Lord Archbishop, 
 
 It is with much satisfaction that I avail 
 myself of your kind permission to dedicate to yom- 
 Grace this third edition of Phelan's " Pohcy of 
 the Church of Rome in Ireland." 
 
 The subject is intimately connected with the vital 
 interests of that portion of the Chiu-ch of Christ 
 over which your Grace has so long presided. 
 
 Nor is it confined to these. It concerns the 
 well-being of the British nation, — for national religion 
 
 1328878
 
 VI DEDICATION. 
 
 ever brings national blessings with it ; and no course 
 more efficient could be adopted to render Ireland 
 and every portion of the British empire as happy 
 and prosperous as they might be, than to pervade the 
 whole with the animating principles of that primitive, 
 Scriptural Christianity, — which was received in Ireland 
 before Popery was known there — and will survive, 
 when Popery shaU be no more, 
 
 I have the honour to remain, 
 
 My Lord Archbishop, 
 
 Your Grace's 
 Very obedient. 
 
 Humble Servant, 
 
 JAMES LORD. 
 
 31, Bedford-square, Bloomshnry, 
 London, March 3d, 1854.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Introductory Remarks, by James Lord, Esq. - - - v 
 
 Bishop Jebb's Biographical Memoir - - . - i 
 
 Introductory Chapter to the " History of the Policy of the 
 Church of Rome in Ireland, from the Introduction of 
 the English Dynasty to the Great Rebellion" - - 65 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 From Henry the Second to Edward the Sixth - - 99 
 
 Appendix to Chapter I. - - - - - - 169 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 Elizabeth 181 
 
 Appendix to Chapter IL > - - - - - 257 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 From the Accession of James the First to the Great 
 Rebellion - - - 261 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 Quotation from Sir Richard Musgrave's " History of the 
 
 Irish Rebellions " 333 
 
 a 2
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 Page 
 
 Extract from the late Mr. Wilberforce's " Practical View 
 of Christianity" --....-- 333 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 Archbishop Tillotson as to National Religion, National 
 Blessings, and National Judgments - - - - 335
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 BY JAMES LORD, ESQ. 
 
 The writer of the following work was an Irishman. Dr.Phekn 
 He cannot, therefore, be justly suspected of writing man, 
 with any unfriendly feeling towards Ireland. To her 
 best interests he was warmly and inteUigently 
 devoted. 
 
 By education he was a Roman Catholic. Bishop and a 
 Jebb, in his Biographical Memoir,* records some of catholic, 
 the interesting circumstances under which he became 
 a Protestant. But, though he escaped from the 
 Romish apostasy, he never indulged in rancorous 
 feelings towards the Church he had left, or the 
 individual members of her communion. 
 
 In his highly-cultivated and charitable mind the The odium 
 odium tlieologicum found no place. He felt as a cKwhadno 
 patriot and a Christian. He -wTote as one mourning ^^-^^ ^^ 
 over the social and physical miseries superinduced by 
 Popery upon his native land, and desirous of amelio- 
 * Pp. 7, 8, 9.
 
 INTRODUCTORV REMARKS. 
 
 rating the temporal as well as the spiritual condition 
 of his fellow-countrymen. To effect this, theu' 
 emancipation from the thraldom of Rome seemed an 
 essential and a preliminary step. His Christian 
 patriotism was that of one who lived and laboured 
 for the good of his country : — not of that modern 
 school of patriots, who assume the name the better 
 to disguise selfish purposes. 
 Bid not He did not regard matters through the distorting 
 
 view 
 
 matters mcdium of party optics, but taking a broad and com- 
 medium of prehcnsivc view, formed his own opinion as to what 
 optics. would best conduce to the real benefit of his country. 
 Instead of advocating any diminution of British 
 influence and authority, or of supposing it incon- 
 sistent with the welfare of his native land, he has 
 recorded his opinion that England's toeahiess, and 
 not her strength, has been the bane of Ireland. 
 Extent of The territorial extent of England's rule in that 
 ndfin^ couutry was, for a long time, vcry siuall. From the reign 
 of King Henry the Second to that of King James the 
 First, it is thus graphically described by Dr. Phelan at 
 p. 71 : — "A level district round the capital, contain- 
 ing the small shires of Louth, Meath, Kildare, and 
 Dublin, limited the range of the English law, the 
 jurisdiction of the Viceroy, and, except on some rare 
 occasions, the ambition of the crown. Far from 
 indulging schemes of more extended authority, the 
 conscious weakness of Royalty took refuge in a 
 ludicrous but humiliating fiction : — all beyond this 
 pomcerium was presumed not to be in existence, and,
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XI 
 
 in Court language, the land of Ireland was synony- 
 mous with the Pale. 
 
 " Of the Pale itself, an ample stripe, comprehending 
 one-third, and sometimes half, of each county, was 
 border land^ in which a mixed code of English, Brehon, 
 and martial law, and of such points of honoiu' as are 
 recognised among freebooters, suspended for a season 
 the final appeal to the sword.'* 
 
 Why, it may be asked, has England's influence 
 in Ireland been so small, and so crippled for good 
 purposes ? Why was that of Ireland so small ? 
 Why the separate or combined influence of the two 
 countries so small ? Why is it so now, compared 
 with what it might be ? Why but because, prior to 
 the period of England's connexion with that country, 
 and, indeed, ever since, there have been internal and 
 external causes in operation, of a nature alike hostile 
 to the interests of Ireland and of England ; — causes 
 which had from the first produced unpleasant conse- 
 quences in each of those countries ; causes, too, which 
 continued in operation after Pope Adrian, in 1155, 
 and Pope Alexander, in 1171, in conjunction with 
 Romish dignitaries in Ireland, handed over that 
 country to the English. Ancient historians record 
 these facts. Erom them we learn how the exoteric Exoteric 
 influence of Rome had created divisions, and fanned kome. 
 the flame of sedition amongst powerful and rebel- 
 lious chieftains, as best suited the far-sighted 
 designs of the Papacy, and its perfect recklessness 
 of consequences as regarded others, — even before 
 Henry Plantagenet, with his warriors, set foot upon the
 
 XU INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 shores of Ireland. Trom the testimony of modern his- 
 torians we gather information as to the continued efforts 
 made by Rome to consolidate her sacerdotal despotism, 
 and to extend her jurisdiction over temporal, no less than 
 over spu'itual, affaii's ; and how, by stratagem in some 
 cases, by force and intimidation in others, and often 
 by the two combined, she succeeded in extorting 
 from monarch, nobles, and people, fresh concessions 
 to her power and continued augmentations of her 
 influence. 
 Tactic3 ]\Iatters, indeed, have chano-ed crreatly dm-ina; the 
 
 changed to ' n n j a 
 
 siiitthe last few centuries. The days of feudal tyi'anny are 
 
 times. , *' . " 
 
 past. Rival chieftains assemble their followers no 
 more, and Rome cannot, as before, send forth her 
 mailed warriors to the battle-field. But, adapting her 
 mode of operation to the changed position of affairs, 
 she now seeks to effect, through the people and the 
 priests at the hustings, what she of old accomplished 
 by the swords of nobles and subservient kings. The 
 domestic, no less than the foreign, policy of our own 
 country too clearly indicates the existence of such 
 influence and efforts, and the success with which 
 they have been attended. 
 Study of The study of Irish history, and especially Irish 
 Church Church history, in connexion with Poperv, has been 
 
 history, • i i *^ 
 
 with refer- too uiuch ucglcctcd. Hcnce it has happened that 
 
 Popcrr.has fallacies the most ludicrous, and inaccuracies the most 
 
 much neg- gross, liavc bccu put forth by some as axioms which 
 
 could not be disputed, and received by others, almost 
 
 as the oracular edict and inspiration of infallibility. 
 
 This has been felt for more than half a century. An
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XIU 
 
 historian, writing in the year 1800, says, " I consider ^{^^^"^'^^^ 
 it, then, as an important, nay, as a sacred duty, to lay quoted, 
 before the people of England the origin and progress 
 of the late conspiracy and rebellion : for I have good 
 reason for saying that the majority of them are as 
 ignorant of the real state of Ireland as they are of 
 Kamshatka or Madagascar," — Musgrave, Irish JRebcl- 
 lions* 
 
 " The History of the Policy of the Church of Rome 
 in Ireland" deserves, therefore, the attentive study 
 and perusal of those who have to perform the duties 
 of legislators. The highest, the most intelligent and 
 influential in the land, may derive light and instruc- 
 tion from it. It tends to demonstrate clearly that the 
 imperium in imperio, the divided empire, created by Mischiefs 
 the presence of Popery, ever works ill for the monarch. Hum in 
 for the people, and for the best interests of a country, 
 in its foreign no less than in its domestic relations. 
 
 Rome, when struggling for power and supremacy, 
 creates discord ; when supreme, tyranny and oppres- 
 sion. Wliere her influence most flourishes, it is upon 
 the ruin of those who have been the longest and the 
 most servilely subject to her despotic sway. 
 
 Ever may Great Britain be free from Papal supremacy 
 and dictation ! Earnestly may she struggle to sever each 
 tie that holds her in guilty alliance with Popery, and 
 may her theologians and statesmen perform the high 
 and holy duties which devolve on them, whether in 
 the senate, on the platform, in the pulpit, or through 
 the press, in a manner worthy of the most illustrious of 
 
 * Vide Appendix A, p. 334, for the alleged causes of this. 
 
 tmperio.
 
 XIV INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 their predecessors ; worthy of the Christian, the Pro- 
 testant name they bear ; of the eventful time in which 
 their lot is cast, of the crisis now present; and 
 of that more terrible one which seems to be fast 
 approaching ! 
 
 The history clearly shows that subserviency to the 
 cause of Rome in Ireland has neither tended to pro- 
 mote the happiness of the people : — the security or 
 independence of the crown. The object of the Church 
 of Rome is still the same as it was at and prior to the 
 period of the Reformation, though her policy, her 
 mode of seeking to attain the object or end in view, 
 may be different, varied — skilfully varied — according 
 to the changing aspect of the times. 
 
 Protestant- Protcstautism, too, is the same. It is no mere 
 
 mere nega- negation. It is primitive. Scriptural Christianity. 
 It is positive, as asserting the fundamental truths 
 of the Christian religion. It is negative, as 
 rejecting those errors and corruptions which, dm*ing 
 the lapse of ages, the Church of Rome has engrafted 
 on, or substituted for, the soul-saving doctrines of 
 Christianity. 
 
 The above may be taken as a description or definition, 
 which, though not perhaps a perfect one, will render 
 tolerably clear the import and meaning of the word 
 Protestantism, as used in this introductory sketch. 
 
 ^ni^^'""^'* By the Church of Rome may be signified strictly 
 the religious system of Popery, or Popery theologically 
 and ecclesiastically considered. 
 
 The Court gy the CouH of Romc, when used in contradis- 
 
 01 Rome. _ _ 
 
 tinction to the Church of Rome, is implied the
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XV 
 
 political system of Popery, or Popery politically 
 considered. 
 
 In common parlance, tlie term Fopery is made use 
 of in opposition to the term Protestantism, and 
 embraces the descriptions or definitions above given. 
 
 In the course of these introductory remarks, " The 
 
 Policy of the Church of Borne in Ireland " is a term 
 
 made use of to imply some account of the?' designs and 
 
 doings of Rome as a compound system: a politico- Popery is a 
 
 politico- 
 religious system, of which, however, politics form the religious 
 
 ..„.„. . , . STstem. 
 
 chiei portion oi its constituent or elementary items. 
 This also appears to have been the comprehensive 
 sense in which Dr. Phelan made use of the expression, 
 and which he intended it should convey to others. 
 
 The controversy between these conflicting systems Neutral 
 
 grounds di- 
 
 of Popery and Protestantism gains strength day minisbcd. 
 by day, and neutrality becomes more difficult. 
 They started originally from the same point. They 
 diverged into different lines as they went onward. 
 They lead to diff'erent results, and, in their termina- 
 tions, are wide as the jDoles asunder. 
 
 The indifferent and lovers of ease may disregard 
 distinctions as they please. They may call virtue, 
 vice ; and vice, virtue. They may substitute the 
 name of darkness for light, and that of Hght for dark- 
 ness : and put sweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet. 
 
 But the inherent contrast will remain the same; light 
 will still be pleasing to the eye, and darkness its 
 aversion ; sweet still agreeable to the taste, and bitter 
 the reverse of it ; and truth, Divine and saving truth
 
 XVI INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 • — that merciful emanation from Deity — continue in 
 perfect harmony with the Divine will, though scorned 
 and rejected by an unbelieving world. 
 
 Hence Popery, as a system of darkness, error, 
 delusion, will, so long as it endures, be in opposition 
 to Protestantism, however politicians or Jesuits may 
 seek to deny the fact, or disguise the nature, of the 
 difference, afid to sophisticate the minds of men upon 
 the subject. 
 PopeiTand The two systcms, then, are irreconcilable. They 
 
 Protestant- 
 ism ii-re- will struggle so long as they both exist. Rome 
 
 coiicilablo. • /. /-^ -n • • i 
 
 strives tor supremacy. Great Britam dare not grant 
 it. There cannot long be an equality. One or other 
 must be supreme. 
 
 This difference, however, is to be borne in mind, 
 as regards the result. Protestantism in the ascendancy 
 is tolerant of Popery ; but Popery in the ascendancy 
 is intolerant of Protestantism. 
 
 If statesmen professing to be friendly to the 
 Church of England, or theologians, members of her 
 communion, are determined to persist in lowering 
 the tone of British Protestantism to meet the insi- 
 dious requirements of Rome, they greatly mistake 
 their vocation, and sadly betray their trust, and 
 throw away a golden opportunity for good which may 
 never again occur. 
 
 It has been grievous, in past years, to witness how 
 ministers of religion have lent their aid, by promoting 
 concessions of political power, or of pecuniary endow- 
 ments, or by theological tendencies and teachings, to
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XVll 
 
 help forward the cause of the Papacy. Yet let it not 
 be supposed that all have desired to produce the evil 
 consequences which have resulted from such courses, 
 or that reference is here made to one denomination 
 only, to the exclusion of others. 
 
 The expression — ministers of religion — maybe taken 
 in its most comprehensive sense, as including those 
 belonging to, or seceding from, the Establishment, 
 many of whom seem to have been not less in fault than 
 the laity of their respective communions in these 
 matters. 
 
 The errors we deplore, have, alas ! been too 
 general. Yet from those — whose peculiar office it is Theiaity 
 to guide and teach others, the laity naturally expect their spiri- 
 a high and consistent tone, and to have their own Ho^rsTo^be 
 deviations rectified by the higher and holier standard guided. 
 or practice of their recognised spiritual superiors, 
 teachers, pastors, and masters. Consequently a very 
 painful impression is produced when the contrary of this 
 is the case — when such expectations are not realized. 
 
 A modern writer of celebrity has given expres- 
 sion to the feehngs of disgust with which slave- 
 holders themselves regard ministers of religion, who 
 become the apologists of their cruel and nefarious 
 traffic, and seek to prove from Scripture the divine 
 right of buying, and selling, and enslaving the souls 
 or bodies of their fellow-creatures, in this the nine- 
 teenth century of the Christian era ! 
 
 They themselves well know, that, however a fancied 
 expediency, or necessity, or love of gain, may urge
 
 XVlll INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 them to enter upon or to continue a traffic which 
 many of them abhor, and which common humanity 
 condemns, it is a perversion of the Bible, and 
 a misrepresentation of Christianity — a venal or 
 sycophantic degradation of the high and holy 
 functions of the ministerial office, to stoop so low 
 as to distort the sacred writings, and seek to force 
 from them proof that slavery is a Christian institution. 
 Pohticians sometimes seem to be so surrounded 
 by circumstances, that they find or fancy a neces- 
 sity — the statesman's, often, as the tyrant's, plea — 
 for yielding to the exactions of Popery. But how 
 great is the disgust justly entertained by many, even 
 amongst themselves, when they see Protestant divines 
 voluntarily defending and applauding such course; 
 when they see the constituted guardians of oiu* faith — 
 it may be even those who not only minister in holy 
 things, but consecrate, ordain, and set apart those 
 who shall do so, and who partake of the emoluments of 
 the Church of England — devoting themselves assidu- 
 ously to advance the cause of Rome, and to impair, 
 if not destroy, the interests and institutions which every 
 tie of honour and duty, and obligations the most 
 sacred, call upon them to vindicate and to promote ! 
 Great Bri- The pcoplc of this couutry, come what will, are 
 prepared uot prepared for Popery. The vast proportion of 
 Romish, the ChuTch of England is against it. Scotland is 
 against it. The awakened spirituality and activity 
 of the clergy and laity of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church of Ireland are against it ; and the Dissenters
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XIX 
 
 of this country, with the influence which they possess, 
 especially amongst the middle and lower classes, — 
 are against it. They will never consent to see 
 Popery dominant, nor much longer endure to see it 
 endowed, promoted, and patronized by the State. 
 
 Too long and too silently have they acquiesced in 
 what they disapprove, while Rome with her bold inva- 
 sions, almost unchecked, has pursued her course, 
 despoiling Protestantism both of gold and power, and 
 encoiu'aging herself therewith for fresh encroachments. 
 But that mischief, we may hope, is now at an end ; 
 or, if it still progresses, it will be only as the result of 
 the impetus already given by past attempts at con- 
 ciliation. 
 
 The avalanche loosened from the mountain's brow 
 acquires a power and velocity in falling which renders 
 useless all resistance to its progress, but the very 
 impetuosity of its movement quickens the period 
 of its transit, and, once in the valley, its short 
 reign of terror and destruction is no more. The 
 afirighted villagers recover from their alarm, 
 and set to work with promptitude and vigour to 
 repair the mischiefs they may have sustained. So Reaction 
 now, the Protestants of this empire are beginning placed 
 to recover from the consternation produced by the 
 demands of Popery, whose evil influences for more 
 than a quarter of a century seem to have paralyzed 
 the energies of the hereditary, no less than those of 
 the elective guardians of our rights and liberties.
 
 XX INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 We hear no more of sacrificing bishoprics, or 
 despoiling the Irish clergy, and making fresh con- 
 cessions to Rome — too strong, as it is — but Pro- 
 testants arc claiming that concessions and endow- 
 ments already made — to propagate the errors against 
 which they protest — be modified or withdrawn. 
 
 Nor are they bestirring themselves too early or 
 too earnestly in the matter. They have lost much 
 vantage-ground, and may lose more by delay. 
 The There is a conspiracy centralized at Rome against 
 
 Papacy a . 
 
 conspiracy, thc riglits and liberties of mankind. Its design is 
 to subjugate the human race and to render all 
 Churches and empires obedient to its sway. It 
 styles itself religious, but is no less secular and 
 
 Its extent political. Its ramificatious extend to every quarter 
 
 and acti- 
 vity, of the globe, and almost to every country. Whether 
 
 amongst the inhabitants of the polar regions, — or 
 
 those under the burning influence of the torrid zone, 
 
 — or those inhabiting more temperate regions, — 
 
 the agents and emissaries of this system have been, 
 
 and still are, active. Nothing seems too lofty for 
 
 its vaulting ambition, nothing too small to escape its 
 
 microscopic observation. It stoops to conquer. Having 
 
 conquered, it tyrannizes over its victims, whether in 
 
 itsunhai- mind, body, or estate. Not satisfied with dominion 
 
 lowed in- ^ ^ ^• i> n • 1 • 
 
 trusion limited by the hfe of man, it extends its empire 
 
 world of beyond the grave. Crossing the border which 
 
 ^^"^^ ^" separates the seen from the unseen world, — 
 
 Rome professes to involve in the punishment of
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XXI 
 
 penal fire, or to witlicbaw from it, the spirits of the 
 departed not dying in mortal sin. Thus making Pm-gato- 
 the world of spu'its to re-act upon this ; nome uses 
 the imaginary fires of purgatory to extort from the 
 weak or dying, the patrimony which should go to 
 the orphan children, or other surviving relatives and 
 friends. Nor is this power exercised only when 
 " filthy lucre " is in question ; nor are the terrors of By sphi- 
 
 - , • o ^ /-•I 1 rm tual terrors 
 
 this portion oi the system connned to any class. Ihe sways the 
 monarch and the peasant have alike trembled before xuen aud 
 them. The wise and intelligent have often, like the 
 philosophers of Pagan Greece and Rome, been scarcely 
 able to rise above their system. The wealthy and 
 the poor have felt the necessity of yielding to the 
 fears which superstition had first engendered, and 
 then fastened on them. Often, indeed, this spiritual 
 arm of the Church of Rome has compelled princes 
 and statesmen to adopt a policy which they disap- 
 proved, and to reject a com^se which they may have 
 deemed essential or conducive to then* country's 
 good. Even at the present day this is the case. 
 
 It is not long since her spiritual appliances and The Sic- 
 death-bed terrors were brought to bear against the Laws, and 
 colleague of a statesman who, in one of the smaller Rosa?" ^ 
 nations of Europe, had attempted much, and 
 accomplished something, to ameliorate the condition 
 of his country. Santa Rosa, when in extremis, was 
 refused the last rites of the Romish Church. He 
 trembled like a child at the chimera which Papal 
 superstition had conjiu'cd up before him, and was 
 
 h
 
 XXll INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 offered the viaticum, on condition of betraying a 
 cause he had held dear to him as hfe. This he would 
 not do. The last solemn rite of the Church, therefore, 
 was withheld. " He received absolution, but he did 
 not receive extreme unction." — Tablet. 
 Theology Thcologiaus who derive then- theology from the 
 of Rome written Word of God, will in no case find a more 
 subtle, dangerous, and perfidious foe than Popery, 
 though coming in the appearance of a friend; and 
 politicians will rarely find a deadlier enemy of consti- 
 tutional government, the independence of sovereigns, 
 the rights, the liberties, and interests of the people. 
 Monarchy or Republicanism, whether limited or 
 unrestricted, may prevail with less or greater advan- 
 tages or disadvantages, taken per se. But Popery 
 looks upon those ruling or administering national 
 affairs, as so many instruments, to be used at the 
 discretion of Romish priests and Jesuits, as may best 
 tend to advance the interests, and to promote the 
 powers of the Papacy. The Monarchies of Eiu-ope, 
 whether absolute, limited or mixed, equally as the 
 Republic of the United States of America, may 
 be referred to in illustration of this. The Chiu-ch of 
 Rome may flourish in the country which she ruins, 
 and triumph over the fall or confusion of individuals, 
 families, nations, and Churches which would oppose 
 her authority. 
 Rome not Yet witli tliis systcm our theologians and states- 
 ciiiated. uicn havc bccu desirous of cultivating a friendly 
 relationship! — ignorant or forgetful of the fact, that the
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XXlll 
 
 inherent natiu-e and principles of Popery remain the 
 same ; — that the dogma of infallibihty precludes the 
 abnegation or renunciation of any other dogma, once 
 defined and received by her as an article of faith, 
 and, therefore, that all assimilation must take place 
 only by Protestantism renouncing its own principles, 
 and becoming more like to Romanism; forgetfid 
 also, or wishing to ignore or conceal the fact, that the 
 spiritual claims of the Chmxh of Rome do of necessity 
 include a great interference with, and oftentimes a 
 control over, temporal matters. 
 
 The power of Popery is increased by yielding to it. Rome's 
 With a subtlety peculiar to the system, it insmuates increased 
 itself where other influences might attempt to work in to ft!*^""^ 
 vain, and preying alike upon the fears and the hopes of 
 its victims, alternately alhues or frightens them to 
 courses best adapted to suit its purposes. 
 
 Striking indeed is the contrast between the position Popery in 
 
 cT-» --rtTii' 1 • p r\ England. 
 
 of Popery in England durmg the reign oi C^ueen 
 Ehzabeth, and Popery in the reign of our present 
 most gracious Sovereign, Queen Victoria. Its power 
 was then decreasing. It has been latterly increasing. 
 This dijQPerence, however, is not referrible to a changed 
 feeling on the part of the Sovereign or the people of 
 the present day, but to causes more remote, and 
 some of which have been in operation long anterior to 
 the present period. Some of these, indeed, manifested 
 themselves even in the time of the Reformers.* 
 
 * A passage fromWilberforce's "Practical View of Christianity " 
 in support of this view, is given in Appendix B, post, p. 333. 
 
 b 2
 
 ^'^IV INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 Amongst them may be mentioned, divisions between 
 
 Protestants ; the decay of vital piety. Then came the 
 
 Mischiefs civil wars and insurrections ; decline in public and 
 
 of disunion . ,. in •• i-r-iT 
 
 amongst privatc morality; growth oi scepticism and mndclity; 
 ants. * latitudinarianism of principle amongst statesmen ; and 
 the long series of continental warfare, only terminating 
 in the early part of the present century. During this 
 latter period, the Papacy was comparatively quiescent, 
 or even suffering, and eliciting sympathy and support 
 from powers who had before opposed her. 
 
 All tliis long time, however, Rome was not asleep; — 
 she " bides her time!' Though defeated for centu- 
 ries, she does not withdraw her claim. What was once 
 hers, is ever hers. No rule of prescription applies to 
 the " spiritual corporation" of Papal Rome : " Nullum 
 tempus occurrit Ecclesiae" is her motto. 
 
 Powerless when watched, and opposed by the 
 awakened skill and combined energies of a free and 
 united people, she rises into importance when hatred 
 and discord have weakened them by divisions, or a 
 false security has lulled them to repose. Thus, and 
 from some of the above-mentioned causes, has she 
 gained strength ; and it remains yet to be seen how 
 far, and after what further suffering, humiliation, and 
 disaster, we may be permitted to resume our lost 
 position ; whether, having long possessed the power 
 of opposing Popery, without the desire of doing so, 
 we may not find ourselves with the inclination to 
 oppose Popery, but without the power of doing it. 
 
 This, time will manifest. Oiu' duty, meanwhile, is
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XXV 
 
 clear. The feeling of the country at large is intensely 
 Protestant. There is a diversity in its manifestation, 
 but the spirit is deep, strong, intelligent, determined. 
 
 The very sku'mishing with Tractarian Popery — in 
 which, it may be, many have been seriously, and some 
 fatally wounded — has prepared the public mind for 
 dealing with Italian Popery, 
 
 Tractarianism has succeeded in doing much of the Tract- 
 mischief which its originators intended; and has 
 accomplished but little of the good which some of its 
 mistaken promoters, and earlier followers, hoped it 
 woidd produce. This, however, may be stated as one 
 of the results, — that the people of this country are, if 
 possible, more determined than ever to resist the 
 encroachments of the Papacy. 
 
 Churchmen and Dissenters have their points of 
 difference, but they have also their points of resem- 
 blance, and bear a decided testimony against Popery. 
 Politicians of various shades and parties have also 
 their differences, but they have also their resemblances. 
 Differing, it may be, on many points, there are others 
 on which they may be found almost unanimous. 
 Actuated by a spirit higher than party, animated by a 
 love of their country and their religion, they all, or 
 most of them, if not equally, yet to a high degree, 
 abominate Popery in the ascendancy, and will risk 
 anything — should a final contest be precipitated — 
 rather than see their religion corrupted, their liberties 
 subverted, and their native land again become the 
 patrimony of St. Peter !
 
 XXVI INTRODUCTOUY REMARKS. 
 
 The apparent absence of any sucli immediate crisis, 
 has led successive statesmen to neglect some of our 
 outposts, under the delusive hope that the nature of 
 the Papacy was changed, and therefore that we need 
 apprehend no evil. 
 Extent of Whcu the cxtcut of Papal dominion and wealth are 
 power. referred to, or when architecture, and sculpture, and 
 the fine arts are invoked, to show what Romanism 
 has done for mankind, we may point to the stately 
 cities and the ancient empires of the world, to the 
 grandeur of Nineveh and of Egypt ; the magnificence 
 and beauty of pagan Greece and Rome. Yet in them 
 there was nothing toward ofi" approaching desolation; — 
 nothing to regenerate man's corrupt nature, or to 
 repair the ruins of the Pall. Christianity was not 
 sent into the world merely to patronize the fine arts ; 
 nor wiU intellect alone ever lead to a saving knowledge 
 of Christ Jesus. The Pagan nations of antiquity 
 possessed intelligence and taste ; fragments fi:om their 
 chisel serve us as models even in the present day : yet 
 the testimony of Scripture is — " The world by wisdom 
 knew not God." * Hence the need of a revelation. 
 It was given. God appeared, in Christ, the only, but 
 all-sufiicient. Saviour of sinners, "reconciling the 
 world unto himself."! 
 
 Yet Christians too frequently seek, in religious 
 
 matters, not so much to elevate all to the level of 
 
 Christianity, as to present Christianity in some, even, 
 
 of its essentials and details, opposed as little as possible 
 
 * 1 Cor. i. 21. f 2 Cor. v. 19.
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XXVU 
 
 to existing errors and corruptions. Rome is not free 
 from this. 
 
 In some of her missionary efforts, she is open to Rome 
 the charge of having paganized Christianity, rather than paganize 
 of having Christianized pagans, and converted sinners aniryV 
 from the errors of their way to worship the true God. 
 
 The simphcity of Christianity, which places its 
 saving efficacy within the reach of all grades of 
 intellect ; all classes of men ; and of every rank in 
 society; is a stumbling-block to those who would 
 represent it in a form more captivating to the senses. 
 
 The earlier pagans were long held in subjection to 
 their dumb idols, and to the vain and superstitious 
 practices in use amongst them. 
 
 Accustomed to the gorgeous ceremonials with which 
 their own worship was accompanied, and believing them 
 to be essential ingredients of true devotion, — the 
 simplicity of a Christian assembly was not only desti- 
 tute of every charm for them, but seemed wanting in 
 respect towards the unseen object of their veneration. 
 To them a temple without an idol, and an altar 
 without a sacrifice, had no attraction ; it seemed like 
 a world without a visible semblance of Deity, or 
 worshippers without an object for their adoration. Is 
 it not too much so with regard to the worshippers 
 of papal Rome ? Endeavours have been made to 
 connect altars and sacrifices, images and pictm'es, with 
 the practice and profession of true religion ; and vast 
 multitudes have embraced this corrupted, this pagan- 
 ized form of Christianity.
 
 XXV 111 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 is^umbcrs. The iiiimbers, however, who follow Popery should 
 weigh as nothing in the scale ; for any argument 
 based upon mere numbers might be turned against 
 Kome herself; and might from the first have been 
 turned, as now, against Christianity in general, for 
 a much greater portion of the population of the 
 earth are pagan idolaters than professing Christians. 
 
 Antiquity. Any dcductiou from antiquity alone, will also be 
 unsafe as a guide, for there are superstitions of a date 
 more ancient than the Christian religion. 
 
 It is not, therefore, to numbers, or antiquity, that 
 we must look ; it is not by them that the conscience 
 must be guided. We must look to the truth, be 
 guided by the truth, and base our religion upon the 
 Divine will, as revealed to us in the Holy Scriptm'es, 
 With the light of that book for our guide, we 
 must be compelled to admit that Popery is not Christi- 
 anity, if by Christianity be understood the pure and 
 undefiled religion of Christ Jesus as contained in the 
 Holy Scriptures. Indeed, Rome does not profess her 
 religion to be such : she claims that holy book as the 
 basis of her edifice, and then erects upon it a super- 
 structure of a totally inconsistent character. She 
 gives us, if not Christianity without Christ, yet with 
 Christ placed in a subordinate position ; or impaired in 
 the fulness of the attributes and offices which are solely 
 and peculiarly his; — sharing them with creature media- 
 tors, and fancied human merits, and good works. Most 
 of the articles of her creed are more novel than the 
 New Testament. Many are not even to be found in it : 
 
 Holy 
 Scripture 
 the stand- 
 ard of 
 Christian 
 truth.
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XXIX 
 
 and hence we have the strange anomaly of a system 
 calhng itself Christian, fomiding its existence and 
 claims to authority upon a portion of the New Testa- 
 ment, and yet refusing the members of its communion 
 the right of investigating the charter of their salvation, 
 or the alleged foundation of its authority ! 
 
 Rome, however, has prospered. Endowed with How 
 much subtlety, and enriched with the fruits of long acquires 
 
 -, I /• T c • • wealth. 
 
 experience, — she makes use oi appliances tor gaining 
 wealth and power, of which Protestants cannot avail 
 themselves ; and no small portion of the property 
 enjoyed by the Papacy has been acquired by means 
 which certainly appear to Protestants of a very 
 questionable character. 
 
 Thus, much of what was done by the English settlers 
 in Ireland dates its origin from superstitious fears, or 
 an erroneous idea of making the perishable goods of 
 this world subserve the cause of promoting or securing 
 their owners' happiness in the world to come. Dr. 
 Phelan, having referred to some existing evils, during 
 the early portion of Ireland's history, proceeds — " But if 
 the clergy occasionally suffered a few of those annoy- 
 ances which were as the course of nature to less 
 fortunate men, they had a peculiar and abundant 
 recompense in that soldierly devotion which sought to 
 appease God by largesses to his ministers. The early 
 English adventurers were eminently distinguished for 
 this species of piety : one hundred and sixty religious i6o re- 
 houses, founded and endowed between the landing of iSes 
 Henry the Second and that of Edward Bruce, with count- Li^years? 
 less grants of land, and other minor benefactions, were
 
 XXX INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 the splendid monuments of tlicir remorse. In fine, 
 all the privileges, and nearly all the riches which the 
 Church then enjoyed (and it enjoyed an ample share of 
 both) had been derived from the policy or bounty of 
 Englishmen, and were still suspended upon the con- 
 tinuance of their ascendancy. From a state of some 
 hardship, and total dependance, it had been exalted 
 as the Chm^ch of a dominant party, and pampered 
 into all that florid prosperity which the envy or 
 imagination of modern agitators has ascribed to the 
 reformed establishment ; it was indulged, besides, in 
 the exercise of many branches of the Papal craft, to 
 the great oppression of the people, and to the detri- 
 ment and dishonom' of the civil authorities. The 
 spirit which could discover a motive to rebellion in 
 treatment such as this would be inconceivable, did not 
 history furnish so many examples of the insatiable 
 cravings of Popery, and the madness of disappointed 
 ambition."— P. 137. 
 Conven- Couvcntual iustitutious have, no doubt, proved very 
 tutions! ^" powerful auxiliaries to the cause of Rome. W^iether 
 established and endowed from pecuniary sacrifice 
 made by parties in their lifetime as an atonement for 
 their offences, or by money extorted from the hard 
 earnings of the poor, or wrung by death-bed terrors 
 from the rich, — they show the hold which Popery has 
 had or retains over its victims ; and are landmarks 
 denoting a country's vassalage to Rome. They operate 
 injuriously upon the interests of society, whether 
 passing under the name of religious houses of men, 
 or of convents or nunneries.
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XXXI 
 
 Protestant ministers have not the same means of ivrortmain 
 acquii'ing wealth, nor the same motive for doing so. 
 On this the Bishop of London made some very 
 vreighty and pertinent remarks, v^^hen examined before 
 a Committee of the House of Commons, on the 
 subject of the Mortmain Laws, 24th June, in the 
 year 1844. He is asked by the Chairman, Lord Evidence 
 
 •^ "^ . ofthe 
 
 John Manners {Q. 570), " Does your experience as Bishop of 
 a parish clergyman lead you to apprehend undue 
 influence Avith persons, particularly in sickness, from 
 clergymen or others, for the purpose of obtaining 
 grants or bequests for the Church ? " 
 
 " * Certainly not. There is nothing in the principles 
 of our Church which need lead any person to entertain 
 such an apprehension, even in theory, and I believe in 
 practice it is equally groundless. Lord Hardwicke, 
 indeed, said, " One of my chief reasons for laying a 
 restraint on such donations, is, lest the clergy of our 
 Established Church should be tempted and instructed 
 to watch the last moments of dying persons, as 
 insidiously as ever the monks and friars did in the 
 darkest times of Popery and superstition. The 
 opportunity is established by the laws as they stand at 
 present. They may, by so doing, increase the wealth 
 and the power of the Church ; nay, they may increase 
 the revenue of their own particular cure :" and, he, 
 concludes, " if ever we should have an ambitious 
 clergyman for a Prime Minister, it would be the only 
 way to acquire an influence at Court, or preferment 
 in the Church." I think, from the last reason, the 
 Committee may judge of the validity of the others.
 
 XXXll INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 The Such an argument could not be used in the present 
 
 Bishop of P . 1 T 1 
 
 London, daj. I think in respect to the Roman Cathohc clergy 
 Mortmain there would bc great reason to apprehend this influ- 
 ence, because the doctrine of the Roman Catholic 
 Church is this (the words in the Latin I will thus 
 translate) : — " It is confessedly taught in the writings 
 of both Testaments that there are three most convenient 
 modes of washing out the stains of sin — alms, prayers, 
 fastings ; and that it is altogether reasonable that 
 one of these fountains should flow abundantly when 
 the others fail and are dried up.' " 
 
 (571.) — " ' Have you the original words in Latin ? 
 " ' I have. Thomassinus Discipl. EccL, iii. 1 : — 
 " In confesso est sacris utriusque Testamenti literis 
 propositos esse hos abluendis scelerum maculis oppor- 
 tissimos fontes, eleemosynas, orationes, jejunia ; et 
 consentaneum omnino esse, ut unius horum fontium 
 copia abundet, ubi ceteri deficiunt, et arescunt." 
 And, therefore, if dying persons are persuaded that 
 by leaving large bequests for charitable purposes, or 
 for the purpose of having so many masses said for the 
 repose of their souls, they can wash out the stains of 
 sin, or escape a certain period of the pains of purga- 
 tory, there would be great danger of unjust disherison. 
 The danger of this is of course much less in our own 
 Church, which teaches no such doctrine, but merely 
 instructs the clergyman, when visiting a dying man, to 
 exhort him to settle his worldly affairs, and to be liberal 
 to the poor. I may add that I have been informed, on 
 authority which I believe to be credible, that an 
 eminent Roman Catholic of the present day in
 
 Laws. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XXXlll 
 
 England said that, if the Mortmain Act were The 
 repealed, he would require no other measure in London*^ 
 favour of the Roman Catholic Church.' Mortmain 
 
 (572.)—" 'Mr. Brotherton. — Is your Lordship 
 of that opinion ? ' 
 
 " ' No ; I have too much confidence in the intrinsic 
 truth and vigour of the Reformed Church to be much 
 afraid of it myself.' 
 
 (573.)—" 'Sir G. Grey.— Do you think that he 
 meant that endowments in landed property would be 
 so rapidly created ? ' 
 
 " 'Yes.' 
 
 (574.) — " 'Mr. Mtlnes. — Does not your Lordship 
 think that public opinion would act very strongly 
 at the present time against any such abuse of the 
 liberty ? ' 
 
 " ' Might I be allowed to ask how public opinion 
 would affect that ? — I think that a religious principle, a 
 principle of truth on the part of those who had 
 property to dispose of might operate : a Roman 
 Cathohc might be anxious to provide for the dissemi- 
 nation of what he considered the truth, and other 
 members of the Church might be equally anxious to 
 provide for the dissemination of what they considered 
 the truth. The one is more accessible in his dying 
 moments to the arguments which I have described 
 than the other, to whom such an argument could not 
 with consistency be used.' 
 
 (575) — " 'What I intended by the question was, 
 whether you did not think there would be the fear of 
 creating scandal, and also a feeling against the Roman
 
 XXXIV INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 Catholic Cliiirch itself; would not that, in all proba- 
 bility, be a strong check against any member of the 
 Church abusing the power which such liberty would 
 give to them ? ' 
 
 " ' But they would hold it to be anything but a 
 scandal.' 
 
 (587.) — " 'Chairman.* — Supposing, for instance, 
 such safeguards could be devised as would be agree- 
 able to the Roman Catholic laity, docs yom' Lordship 
 then think that those reasons of public policy should 
 prevent the relaxation from being extended to 
 them ? ' 
 
 " * I think the policy of this country, since the 
 Reformation, with respect to restricting the Roman 
 Catholics in matters concerning the propagation of 
 their principles, to be defensive. The difference 
 between their Chm'ch and our own is of so essential and 
 vital a kind, that I am not at present prepared to consent 
 to any measure which shall increase the facility they 
 now possess of advancing the boundaries of their 
 Church in this country.' 
 
 (588.) — " 'Mr. Shaav. — Does any possible way to 
 prevent it occur to your Lordship's mind ?' 
 
 " ' The Committee will be so good as to understand 
 
 that I am looking at the question throughout, in its 
 
 Protest- bearings upon the Chm'ch. It is only within the 
 
 slept upon last few ycafs that we have begun to think about such 
 
 rChis. matters! " — Minutes of Evidence taken before the 
 
 Select Committee on Mortmain, 24ith June, 1844. 
 
 * Lord John Manners.
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XXXV 
 
 On this it has been observed * — 
 
 " Here is the melancholy fact — a fact, however, 
 which, while it discovers to us the cause of our 
 weakness, points out also the source of our future 
 strength. 
 
 " The truth is, that till very recently the distinctive 
 marks of Popery and Protestantism have been un- 
 heeded, if not unknown, by the great proportion of 
 our fellow-countrymen. They have never, or but 
 rarely, and then superficially, formed a portion of 
 education, either in public or private seminaries, the 
 public schools, colleges, and universities of the land ; 
 nor, so prominently as they ought to have done, 
 points of examination before admission into holy orders. 
 
 " But let it not be supposed we are referring, in 
 these remarks, to the Chm-cli of England alone. No. 
 Every body of Dissenters seems to have been equally 
 asleep on these points. 
 
 " The fault of our present position is not with one 
 man, or any distinct body of men ; it seems to have 
 resulted from the apathy of all, and to require the 
 united efforts of all to obviate the evil state of things 
 at present existing. Popery was forgotten by many. 
 By others she was thought to be dead, and by more 
 to be harmless. From the extreme of hatred, we 
 
 * " Observations on the Mortmain Laws, Act of Supremacy, 
 &c., with reference to Bills now (1846) before Parliament; or. 
 Popery opposed to National Independence and Social Happi- 
 ness." By James Lord, of the Inner Temple, Esq., Barrister- 
 at-Law. London: Seeleys. 184G.
 
 XX XVI INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 seem, as a Chiu'cli and a nation, to liave leaped to the 
 opposite extreme, without halting in the happy 
 medium, where we ought permanently to have taken 
 om' position, with a Christian firmness and modera- 
 tion, alike removed from bigotry on the one hand, 
 and an unprincipled Latitudinarianism on the other." 
 
 Meanwhile the Papacy has been sending forth her 
 picked men, armed at all points, — trained at our 
 expense, — denying what has been received from 
 history against that system, and misleading alike the 
 theologian, the statesman, and the diplomatist, as to 
 its nature, pretensions, and designs. 
 
 The Mortmain Laws, however, have been declaimed 
 
 against, as harsh, unjust, and impolitic. Yet who 
 
 framed those laws ? What is the date of the earliest ? 
 
 Why, and upon what principles, were they enacted ? 
 
 Our We answer, they were framed by the Roman 
 
 Catholic Catholic monarch and nobility of this country (for 
 
 ancestors ^|jg people then were of little note). They were 
 
 Fopery. framed to check Romish rapacity, and to preserve or 
 
 rescue England from the exoteric influence of Rome. 
 
 That influence continues at work upon the broad 
 surface of the country, and in families. The laws 
 which our Roman Catholic ancestors deemed essential 
 for the preservation of their property from ecclesi- 
 astical conflscation, can hardly be thought needless 
 for us, as a Protestant people, in the present day. 
 Instead of being repealed, they should be extended. 
 Principle Pcrsoiial property, which, when the Mortmain 
 
 of the 
 
 iioi-tmain Laws Originated, was comparatively nothing, is now
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XXXVll 
 
 of enormous value ; yet we still jealously guard against Laws re- 
 tlie improper alienation of even one acre of land in t^nsforto 
 mortmain, but leave it open for any infirm, or sick, or prop^ty. 
 dying person, even in articulo mortis, at a period 
 when the vanity and transitory nature of earthly 
 things is more and more seen, and the powers of 
 superstitious dread, it may be, are at their highest, — 
 to alienate for ever from all dearest to him his entire 
 personal property, whether of hundreds or thousands 
 of pounds. 
 
 Nunneries are institutions which seem to be an Nmme- 
 almost necessary accompaniment of Roman Catholi- 
 cism. They require special notice and investigation. 
 A country jealous of the liberty of the subject should 
 forbid their existence, guard against their increase, 
 or provide for their inspection. It has done so 
 with regard to other institutions for those classes of 
 persons, whose mental or bodily infirmities may at any 
 time have required them to be submitted to restraint. 
 By parity of reasoning, it should provide for those 
 who, even when they have voluntarily entered the 
 convent's lonely shade, may, after experience there, 
 wish again to return to their relatives and friends. 
 We ought not to consign, or suff'er to be consigned, 
 the young, the confiding, — once and for ever to 
 " the deep solitudes and awful cells " of these 
 institutions, knowing too well that something besides 
 " heavenly, pensive contemplation" finds admission 
 there. History and experience tell us of the mischief 
 of so doing, and caution us against those whited
 
 XXXVlll INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 sepulchres, where not the dead, but the living 
 body, is entombed, and that for life ; yea, more, where 
 not the body only, but the soul is buried — the one 
 imprisoned in vaults of masonry and iron ; the other, 
 beneath the gloomy shades of superstition, whose 
 noxious influence deadens the moral sensibilities ; 
 perverts, where it does not destroy, natural affection ; 
 and impairs the vitality of all that comes within the 
 sphere of its fatal power. 
 Protest- On the testimony of divines, historians, and states- 
 
 tho cause nicu, — British Protestantism has been the basis of 
 prosperity. British prosperity and renown. The moral, the 
 social, the religious, the intellectual, the political, 
 the commercial, the literary reputation and interest 
 of our country, have grown with its growth. 
 
 A policy opposed to British Protestantism is, 
 therefore, subversive of those fundamental principles 
 to the influence of which are to be attributed many of 
 our national, social, and individual blessings. Such 
 policy must be unfriendly, if not dangerous, to the best, 
 the dearest, and the highest interests of Great Britain. 
 Yet for the last seventy-five, fifty, and twenty-five 
 years in particular, successive politicians have adopted 
 a course friendly to Popery, hostile to British Pro- 
 testantism, and, therefore, to the good and welfare of 
 the British Empire. 
 
 Who, that is well conversant with facts, and 
 capable of viewing them in their connected form ; — 
 alive to the portentous consequences involved, and 
 free from undue influence of party feeling, can arrive
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XXXIX 
 
 at any other conclusion than this — viz., that the 
 interests of British Protestantism have been sacrificed 
 at the shrine of party feelings, personal interests, or 
 sectarian prejudices ? 
 
 The Whig and the Tory parties, with all their Popery has 
 respective affiliations, or ramifications, have indeed vantage of 
 been contending with each other as to the prin- amongst ^ 
 ciples upon which the government of the country auts^^ " 
 should best be carried on, — but in their con- 
 troversies they have invoked the aid of a third party 
 —friendly to neither — actuated by a deadly hostility 
 to both — to aid them in their mutual struggles ; 
 and too often the price for which such aid has 
 been given has involved a sacrifice of some of the 
 best interests of the country — the only objects for 
 the guardianship or advancement of which they 
 professed to have been contending. 
 
 Is it not abundantly clear, that for a long time 
 past even the profoundest of our statesmen have 
 been playing a ruinous game with Popery? The 
 Vatican, which in reality had nothing to lose, was 
 sure to gain by any diplomatic relations, whether 
 openly or covertly carried on, between it and the 
 Court of St. James's. It takes advantage of our dis- 
 union. It makes our vain efforts at " conciHation " 
 serve to promote its designs, and to prepare the way 
 for fresh encroachments. Such ought not to be the 
 humiliating position of Great Britain. But so long as 
 politicians, for party purposes, submit to the degra- 
 dation of accepting or holding office at the will of a 
 
 c2
 
 xl INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 person or party animated by an influence centralized 
 at Rome, and hostile to the Protestant faitli and tlie 
 supremacy of British renown, it will continue to be so. 
 Those more conversant than myself with passing 
 events will, no doubt, be able to call to mind frequent 
 instances where, both at home and abroad, aggres- 
 sions have been made by Romanism greatly injurious 
 to the highest interests of this or of other countries, 
 and calculated to promote the power of the Papacy. 
 
 Taiiiti. Many years have not passed since we beheld an 
 
 independent sovereign, in the Pacific Ocean, com- 
 pelled to receive " Popery at the cannon's mouth," 
 and the territories of the Queen of Tahiti invaded 
 for the piurpose of establishing Popery therein. 
 
 In various European States, within a recent period, 
 efforts have been made to supersede the civil govern- 
 ment, and so to overawe statesmen and officials, as to 
 reduce the temporal into subjection to the spiritual 
 power. 
 
 Austria, It is yct frcsli in the memory of many, how Romish 
 
 bigotry in Austria drove the Zillerdalers from the 
 lovely valleys of their native land ; how abruptly 
 they were compelled to depart ; what suffering they 
 had endured for conscience' sake ; and how those 
 suff'erings would have been prolonged, had not the 
 King of Prussia promptly afforded them an asylum 
 in his dominions, and, in conjunction with King 
 William IV., the uncle of our own most gracious 
 sovereign, interposed in their behalf. 
 
 Prussia. Li Prussia we have seen the Archbishop of Cologne
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xU 
 
 exalt himself in prelatic power above the royal autho- 
 rity. In Prussia, too, we have yet more lately heard 
 of an edict emanating from Rome, or from Romish 
 authority, on the subject of mixed marriages — an 
 edict of such a nature, that the King of Prussia 
 has felt necessitated in self-defence to declare, that 
 any officer of his army who shall venture to obey it 
 shall be instantly dismissed from his Majesty's service. 
 
 Switzerland has witnessed the intrigues of the Switzer- 
 Jesuits, and the horrors of a disastrous internecine war, 
 fomented by their instrumentality, was only evaded by 
 the blessing of the Almighty upon the intervention of 
 the European Powers. 
 
 Holland, like England, has been the scene of a Holland. 
 " Papal aggression." Bishops who were not required 
 have been obtruded upon that country. Thus much 
 dissatisfaction has been created there, and the seed 
 sown for yet further mischief. 
 
 Belgium and Holland, once referred to as an Belgium. 
 illustration of the way in which Papal and Protestant 
 States could unite and blend harmoniously in one, 
 have since been separated. The former kingdom 
 now constitutes one of the darkest portions of those on 
 which rests the oppressive dominion of the Papacy — 
 a power which has there recently materially interfered 
 with temporal matters, elections, and affairs of State, 
 compelling the ministers and the monarch alike to 
 yield to its usurping influence. 
 
 Erance — successively monarchical, republican, con- France. 
 sular; and again monarchical and imperial, in her
 
 xlii INTRODUCTORY RE!SIARKS. 
 
 torni of government, has found the Papacy changing 
 with each change, but still holding fast the reins of 
 poAver over the people and their governors. 
 
 The arms of the monarch, the consul, the emperor, 
 have successively been approved or consecrated. 
 
 While Louis Philippe was king, then the priests 
 were for monarchy ; the people gained the day, and 
 the priesthood turned republican. They sided with 
 the people, and blessed their " trees of liberty " 
 Avhich they had planted, and watered them with their 
 blood. Change came again. The imperial dynasty is 
 restored. The " trees of liberty " are plucked up. 
 The cry of " Liberty, equality, and fraternity," is 
 heard no more, and the priesthood re-appear upon 
 the scene in their natural character, in alliance with 
 despotic power. 
 
 Sardinia. Sardinia, desirous of ameliorating the condition of 
 
 her subjects, enacted various laws for the accomplish- 
 ment of that purpose. Rome as an obstructive power 
 interferes. The vengeance of the Papal Government 
 is drawn down. The ecclesiastical authority of Rome 
 is arrayed against the civil authority of the State — 
 and the death-bed scene of Santa Rosa, a colleague 
 of Siccardi, is rendered painfully instructive by the 
 intractable spirit of Romish domination. 
 
 Tuscany. The cascs of the Madiai and of Miss Cuninghame 
 have exposed to the world the superstition and 
 cruelty of the Tuscan Government, or the power 
 said to animate its movements, and show that to 
 live in the midst of the fine arts, with galleries of
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xliii 
 
 sculpture and painting, is not enough to change the 
 heart of man, or abohsh the degrading principles and 
 practice of cruelty and superstition. 
 
 Baden, also, has been the scene of Papal daring Baden. 
 and intrigue. There, too, recently the Archbishop 
 of Freibiu-gh, in the plenitude of Papal presumption, 
 has ventured to fulminate the ban of excommuni- 
 cation, — less terrible than it once was, — but not even 
 now without effect wdien Popery is strong. 
 
 Spain, who owed her deliverance and existence to Spain. 
 Protestant England, has, under the influence of 
 Popery, refused decent bmial for om- dead, till the 
 voice of Protestantism, and the decided diplomacy 
 of Great Britain, overruled the miserable bigotry of 
 that priest-ridden and priest-ruined country. 
 
 Portugal, by various proceedings, and especially Portugal. 
 by her new code, has sought to emulate the darkness 
 of the dark ages, and has rendered Madeira notorious 
 for the efforts made by her against the cause of 
 Protestantism. Instances from Ireland, England, om* Ireland, 
 
 • 1 IP -IT England. 
 
 colonial dependencies, and America herseii, might be 
 added to the above enumeration, which would then 
 form but a small portion of what might be adduced 
 to show the almost universality of Rome's actings, 
 and the danger of acceding to her assumptions. 
 
 Yet it is abundantly clear, that if the Protestant 
 powers of the world chose to repel these aggressions 
 and interferences by armed intervention, the days of 
 Papal Rome, already numbered, would be few indeed. 
 The people of every Romish nation woidd rejoice to
 
 Xliv INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 become possessors of true liberty, and hail the day of 
 their country's emancipation from the thraldom of 
 Rome as one of the brightest that ever dawned upon 
 their land. 
 
 Even the Papal Powers of Europe, if they would, 
 and as perhaps some day, not far distant, they will, 
 might rise up and repel these aggressions on their 
 power and independence, and hurl back upon Rome 
 what she has inflicted upon them. But, however, 
 they at present, from State policy, or from other 
 causes, may find it convenient to tolerate such inter- 
 ference at the hands of Rome, so that, by her, they 
 may better govern the people ; even State policy 
 itself may ere long seem to be best served by the 
 pursuit of a different com'se. 
 
 It rarely happens that statesmen, professionally 
 
 such, i.e., official, place-holding, or place-expecting 
 
 statesmen, seek so much to amehorate the state of 
 
 society, as to make use of what they find around 
 
 them for state-craft, or state purposes, so as may best 
 
 serve to advance then- own aggrandizement. 
 
 Tiic reia- lu the present day, too, many seem devoted to 
 
 portance dctails, rathci' than to principles ; and to be ready, 
 
 pies^nd' liks children, to throw away the lasting benefits of 
 
 details. abiding by a good principle and its results, for the 
 
 sake of grasping impatiently some temporary advantage 
 
 which flits before their vain imaginations. It was not 
 
 so that our ancestors acted. Without neglecting 
 
 details, they accorded to principle the first place in 
 
 their political and intellectual temple. They based
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xlv 
 
 their polity on a rock, and it stood the tempest. Others 
 have based their poUty on the sand, and are perpetually 
 busy with details, little or great, but alike unsuccessful, 
 to obviate some of the mischiefs of building upon a 
 bad foundation. One of our Christian poets has vrell 
 described this principle of action, — that of making 
 duty paramount to expediency ; one which whenever 
 steadily pursued, in reliance on the grace of God, 
 elevates above the debasing tendency of many sur- 
 rounding influences, and is ever attended with conse- 
 quences more or less beneficial. He thus apostro- 
 phizes the Roman poet and temporizing expediency : — 
 
 " Sweet moralist ! afloat on life's rough sea. 
 The Christian has an art unknown to thee. 
 He holds no parley with unmanly fears — 
 Where duty bids, he confidently steers ; 
 Faces a thousand dangers at her call, 
 And, trusting in his God, surmounts them all." * 
 
 A cursory glance at a few of the apprehended evils, 
 which have passed away, and yet the fancied mag- 
 nitude and terror of which alarmed our statesmen, 
 may not here be out of place. Reference is made 
 to them not for the purpose of recording party tri- 
 umphs or party defeats, but to mitigate in the minds 
 of some those apprehensions of danger which often- 
 times are found to exist when they need not, and are 
 sometimes allowed to deter from the prosecution of a 
 right and consistent course. 
 
 Rebellion and disaffection in Ireland, many years 
 * Cowper.
 
 xlvi INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 ago, created alarm. " Catliolic Emancipation" Avas 
 spoken of as the panacea for the evils of that country. 
 It was granted, but the good results anticipated have 
 not followed : claims for fresh concessions have been 
 based upon those already made ; and for all that 
 politicians have done, the Papacy at this moment looks 
 not with less complacency upon Ireland, as a lever for 
 the moving of England, than it did a quarter of a 
 century ago. 
 
 To pass over the measures of Reform, and of Erce- 
 trade — so warmly advocated by some, and reprobated 
 by others — the common observer can hardly fail to 
 remark, that the supposed specifics have not realized 
 the hopes of the one party, nor the gloomy forebodings 
 of the other. 
 
 Ireland again was reported to be a difficulty ; the 
 alleged number and disaffection of the Roman Catholics 
 made it so. But was this a sufficient argument for 
 bad legislation, or for encouraging Popery ? Matters 
 in Ireland have changed since then. Fever, and 
 famine, and pestilence — scourges in the hand of the 
 Almighty — have removed, or diminished, that diffi- 
 culty ; while now, from every quarter of Ireland, we 
 hear of many glad to receive the Gospel of peace and 
 salvation, and of the ranks of Popery being thinned 
 by the dissemination and reception of the truth. 
 
 Agrarian outrages, cupidity of land, were spoken 
 of as inseparable from the nature and character of 
 the Irish, who did not always stop short of committing 
 the greatest crimes, either to possess the land, or to
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xlvil 
 
 revenge themselves upon those by whom they were 
 kept out, or thrust out from it. Owing to a myste- 
 rious agency, they now fly the land of their birth, 
 and avoid what they once coveted. The tide of 
 emigration has set in, and bears away its tens of 
 thousands a-year of the sons and the daughters of 
 Erin, — who in America, the land of their adoption, find 
 what our Government and legislature too little laboured 
 to secure for them at home — liberty of conscience and 
 of action, and an immunity from the exacting claims 
 and tyranny of Rome's priesthood. 
 
 These points are here thus briefly brought under 
 review, to show that, in the path of duty, it is not 
 even the wisest policy to shrink from dangers which 
 must be encountered, and which, if not with equal 
 certainty, will yet, in most cases, be overcome : and 
 to make clear that an anti-Protestant pohcy has not 
 achieved, even for Ireland, anything approaching to a 
 realization of the golden dreams of the fond visionaries 
 by whom it has been so strenuously applauded. 
 Ireland, it is evident, has not been regenerated. 
 Peace and happiness have not yet been secured. 
 But what statesmen could not do; what legislation iri^h 
 hitherto has failed to accomplish, we now see coming MilslUs. 
 to pass, by the silent influence of the Gospel of peace 
 and salvation.* 
 
 * Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics are etTecting 
 a great and rapid change in the feelings and conduct of the 
 population of Ireland.
 
 xlviii INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 Cliristian statesmen cannot safely ignore or despise 
 this great fact. 
 
 If Christianity be acknowledged merely as a 
 traditional system, as an historical or existing fact, 
 rather than as the divinely-appointed means for the 
 regeneration of a fallen world, — statesmen may 
 indeed be less inexcusable for not seeking to enter 
 into its spirit, or to understand its nature and its 
 claims. 
 
 But whether so recognised or not ; whether appreci- 
 ated or not, it remains the same ; not only the most 
 powerful, but the only efficient agency for accom- 
 plishing all that the most benevolent and patriotic 
 have desired. 
 
 But while private exertions and benevolence are 
 thus doing much to enlighten and ameliorate the 
 condition of the Roman Catholics in Ireland, wx are 
 supporting from the national funds an institution 
 calculated to counteract all these efforts, and whose 
 anti-social and anti-national principles are instilled 
 into the minds of those w^ho are to become the 
 instructors, the guides, and, in too many cases, the 
 despotic rulers over the people. We must not 
 continue this British Propaganda for the dissemi- 
 nation of Popery in Ireland, Great Britain, and our 
 Colonies. In the retributive providence of the 
 Almighty, the evils inflicted by one upon another 
 are often made, by a re-active influence, the cause of 
 punishment to the evil-doer. This is especially so
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xlix 
 
 with regard to nations. England planted Popery Scotland 
 in Ireland, and Ireland is sending over Popery to nooth '^ 
 England. We endow Maynootli College, ostensibly, ^^'^^^ ^' 
 for Ireland ; but the priesthood not required there 
 visit and settle down in various other portions of the 
 British empire, despising, and seeking to overtura, 
 the system under which they have been fostered and 
 endowed. 
 
 The March number of a religious periodical,* 
 published in Scotland, complains, that a Romish 
 publication, giving an account of the "ordinations 
 and appointments in 1853," gives five cases in 
 succession of students entered at Maynooth, and 
 educated there, and who in 1853 were nominated, 
 or appointed, or in some way attached to missions or 
 congregations in Scotland. 
 
 If an investigation were made, many more similar 
 instances might no doubt be traced, both at home 
 and abroad. 
 
 As regards the grant to Maynooth, one thing, jraynooth 
 however, seems abundantly clear. It is this : either ''''' 
 our ancestors were not right in separating from Rome, 
 or we are not right in seeking reunion with Rome. 
 Either we are not right in professing ourselves to be 
 Protestants, or we are not right in endowing Popery. 
 But we do both ; and, therefore, must as to one be 
 wrong, and, as to both, inconsistent. 
 
 The two, being opposite, cannot both be right. 
 They cannot consistently stand together. Nor can the 
 * The " Bulwark."
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 conduct of those who support the two be guiltless ; and 
 not being guiltless, it may, it must, expose to the 
 danger of punishment. This question is one which 
 affects the national well-being of England; for, if 
 endowment of Popery be a national sin, it must 
 involve in national guilt ; and, if unrepented of, in 
 national punishment. Individuals will have to bear 
 their punishment, or to reap their full harvest of 
 reward, hereafter. Nations must bear it now. They 
 must here reap their harvest according to the seed 
 they have sown. There is no eternity for them* 
 
 Each member of the community will do well to 
 consider and to act upon this. Individual and 
 national interests are involved in it. Statesmen, 
 too, might act a nobler and more Christian part 
 and policy were they to bear this in mind. 
 Nations are not intended for their amusement, 
 but for the glory of God. The government 
 of the world is in the hands of the Almighty. 
 Nothing can happen, but by His appointment or 
 permission. Nations, and individuals, rise or fall 
 subject to His decree. He vouchsafes His blessing, 
 and they prosper ; He withholds it, and they fall into 
 decay and ruin. 
 
 The power of evil, — restrained by His omnipotent 
 
 * National Eeligion : — " The Advantage of Religion to 
 Society." See this subject, well treated by Archbishop Tillotson, 
 vol. i., Sermon 3, fol. ed., p. 39, on the text, " Righteousness 
 exalteth a nation, but sin is the reproach of any people." An 
 extract from this discourse is given, j^ost, Appendix C, p. 335.
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 control, — rushes onward for the destruction of what 
 is good — the moment He withholds His protecting 
 providence and care. 
 
 Impressed with these convictions, and that the full 
 measm-e of Divine blessing cannot be ours while, as a 
 nation, we support, endow, and disseminate Popery, — 
 it has been my endeavour, for several years past, in 
 co-operation with others, to point out these evils, 
 with a view to their removal, that so, a remedy being 
 applied, the danger may be escaped, and the judg- 
 ment averted. 
 
 When statesmen and heroes, in common with their 
 more humble fellow-creatures, are reduced to the 
 insignificance from which they sprung ; when the 
 mere worldly and temporary interests which have 
 excited, it may be, their vain hopes or their equally 
 vain fears shall have passed away, — the great 
 principles of Christian truth will still survive, 
 unimpaired by time, untouched by any process of 
 decay ; and those, also, who have savingly embraced 
 that truth, and have been its true friends and 
 advocates, shall survive with it, partaking of its own 
 eternal nature, becoming "joint heirs with Christ,"* 
 who is " the way, and the truth, and the life"f — 
 " the blessed, and only Potentate, the King of kings, 
 and Lord of lords." | 
 
 * Rom. viii. 17. f John siv. 6. j I Tim. vi. 15.
 
 BISHOP JEBB'S BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 WILLIAM PIIELAN, D.D. 
 
 parentage. 
 
 William Phelan, D.D., was born at Clonme], in the nis birth 
 county of Tipperary, on the 29th of April, 1789. His ^^^ 
 father, Mr. John Phelan, was in narrow circumstances, 
 and of humble station ;* but with feelings and habits such 
 as, in England, are rarely to be met with, in the less 
 fortunate portion of society. It is, unhappily, matter of 
 history, that, down to the close of the seventeenth century, 
 changes of property in Ireland were great, violent, and 
 irretrievable. In the course of those changes, the ancestors 
 of young Phelan were heavy sufferers ; but they cherished 
 the remembrance of the past ; f and in this, and other 
 instances, men, not much raised above the rank of peasants, 
 were often distinguished by a conscious dignity, wholly 
 independent of, and superior to, mere outward condition. 
 
 * He was, by trade, a wool-comber. 
 
 + A long remembrance : but thus it is in Ireland. The great bulk of 
 the Phelan property was lost, I believe, so early as the twelfth century. — J. L. 
 The notes signed J. L. are by the late Bishop of Limerick ; those by the 
 present Editor are signed Ed. 
 
 B
 
 BISHOP JEBB S BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 Such was, peculiarly, the case in Clonmel. Many reduced 
 families resided there. To these was attached a kind of 
 traditional estimation, by persons, in externals, abundantly 
 more prosperous ; and their children, not unfrequcntly, 
 grew up with a sense of personal respectability, and a 
 disposition to re-assume, if they could, what they thought 
 their proper station in society.* The subject of this 
 memoir, accordingly, was never vulgarized : he was, what 
 his father had been before him, a native gentleman. There 
 ever adhered to him a self-respect, and a dignity of 
 character, which shrunk from everything ungenerous 
 and unworthy. And both the example and conversation 
 of his father were well calculated to confirm his good 
 dispositions. Filial piety, it will appear amply in the 
 sequel, was, with him, almost an instinct ; and it is 
 certain, that, thus to call it forth, there must have been 
 genuine worthiness in the parent. Nor should it be 
 omitted, that the literary aspirings of the youthful student 
 were first nourished beneath the paternal roof. The elder 
 Mr. Phelan was well versed in the Latin language ; and he 
 failed not to impart, where they might prove eventually 
 beneficial, his own classical predilections. But, what was 
 of far more serious consequence, those principles of virtue 
 and goodness were instilled, which, during his short, but 
 
 * The writer cannot help recording a curious fact, -wlucli he heard scTeral 
 years ago fi-om Dr. Phelan's own lips. His words were nearly as follows : — 
 *' When I was a very httle boy, I was invited to attend a funeral. The 
 house in wliieh the people were assembled was withui a short distance of 
 Clonmel, on the banks of the river Suii" ; and commanding an extensive 
 prospect, into the covmty of Waterford. A friar, who happened to be present, 
 drew me apart from the company (I was then a Eoman Catholic) ; he led 
 me to a bay-window, took me by the hand, and said, ' Look there, look 
 around you, my boy ; those mountains, these valleys, as far as you can see, 
 were once the territory of your ancestors ; but they were unjustly despoiled 
 of it.' I never can forget the impression. My young blood boiled in my 
 veins. For the tune I was, in sphit, a rebel. And I verily beheve, if it 
 had not been the good pleasure of Providence to lead me into other circimi- 
 stances, and fiuniish me with better instinictors, I might have terminate<l 
 piy life on a scaffold." — J. L.
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. i 
 
 exemplary life, never forsook the grateful son : he might, 
 indeed, well say, 
 
 " Non patre prtpclaro, sed vita et pectore puro : 
 Ipse mihi custos incorruptissimus."* 
 
 In the year 1796, William was sent to a daily grammar- Sent to 
 school, in his own immediate neighbourhood. The master, ^^^^ 
 
 " . , , grammar- 
 
 Mr. Michael Ryan, was an expert Latinist : pedantic, school. 
 
 amiable, and enthusiastic. Of general information, indeed, 
 
 his portion was but scanty ; and he was no Grecian ; but 
 
 the little that he knew, he imparted with steady, and 
 
 affectionate sedulity. His pupil ever felt towards him a 
 
 strong sense of obligation, and repeatedly declared, that 
 
 to him he was indebted for the correctness and facility with 
 
 which he both wrote and spoke the Latin language. There 
 
 he remained between six and seven years ; and, certainly, 
 
 his time was not misemployed. The business of the school 
 
 he made, invariably, his grand object. It seemed to be a 
 
 law of his nature, that the most important things had the 
 
 first claim on his attention. Matters of daily business, 
 
 once thoroughly mastered, then, and not till then, he felt 
 
 himself at liberty to look elsewhere for recreation : this he 
 
 found in those healthful, manly exercises which he keenly 
 
 relished ; but, especially, in those more recondite pursuits, 
 
 to which, from early youth, he was devotedly attached. f 
 
 His gaiety of heart, and buoyancy of spirits, tempered, 
 
 as they always were, by a certain meditative gravity of 
 
 mind, were no less delightful to his companions than they 
 
 were indicative of his own future eminence. 
 
 While yet a school-boy, he showed strong military 
 
 propensities ; not, indeed, a predilection for the pomp and 
 
 * Admii'ably transfused and heighteued by the greatest of our later poets : 
 " My boast is not, that I deduce my birth 
 From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth : 
 But higher far my proud pretensions rise, 
 The son of parents passed into the skies." 
 f Irish history and antiquities should, more particularly, be mentioned 
 among his favourite recreations. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 BISHOP JEBB S BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 circumstance, so much as for the science, of war. He 
 was fond of military evolutions ; and he especially noticed 
 scenery, with reference to the disposition of forces, the 
 selection of connnanding posts, and the occupation of 
 important vantage-grounds. J'rom topics of this nature 
 he was apt, in more advanced life, to borrow illustrations ; 
 but always strictly in keeping with the religious character 
 of his mind. 
 Sent to en- But that, under Mr. Ryan, his education never could 
 '^^^ 'l t ^® completed, he well knew. Therefore, both he and his 
 Clonmcl. father readily acceded to a proposal which, about this 
 time, was made to them. It happened that two of his 
 play-mates * were about to be sent to the endowed school 
 of Clonmel, then under the direction of the Rev. Richard 
 Carey. Their father good-naturedly suggested tliat it 
 would be well if they were accompanied by their young 
 comrade. To school, accordingly, the three friends pro- 
 ceeded, as day ^scholars. This occurred in 1803, when 
 William was about fourteen years of age. The date seems 
 not unworthy to be specified : for this was the great 
 jDrovidential turning-point which determined the direction 
 and character of his future life, 
 
 Never, perhaps, was master more beloved and revered 
 by his pupils, than was Mr. Carey. With extensive 
 knowledge, critical acumen, and refined taste, he united 
 the most childlike simplicity of spirit. It was almost 
 impossible to be admitted to his familiar society (and all 
 his deserving pupils became his private friends) without 
 growing " lenior ac melior," gentler in manners, and more 
 kind in heart. One who knew him well, has sketched the 
 likeness of this amiable man,j- with such just though 
 vivid colouring, that it were injurious to substitute other 
 phraseology than his own : — ' 
 
 * The Eev. Samuel, and Rev. Mortimer, O'Sullivan. 
 
 t I, too, had the gratification of meethig Mr. Carey, but it was only 
 once, — Yu'gilium tantum vidi ! But that once was enough to satisfy me 
 that all which I had heard of him was strictly true. It was in the month of
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. Q 
 
 " I have his light and graceful figure," says my corre- Theschool- 
 spondent,* " at this moment before me. His bare and "i'^*'''^>*- 
 reverend forehead, slightly sprinkled with the snows of 
 time, and his mild countenance radiant with benignity, 
 and sparkling with intelligence. The gentleness, and 
 suavity of his disposition ; the polished courtesy of his 
 manners ; his exact and discriminative judgment ; his 
 various and profound learning; these were scarcely adverted 
 to by his friends, amidst the love and veneration which 
 were inspired by the richer treasures of his moral nature ; 
 by his generous detestation of oppression ; by his noble 
 scorn of every thing mean or base ; by his fervent piety, 
 his stedfast friendship, his rare disinterestedness, and his 
 deep humility ; by the charity, which prompted him to be 
 liberal, often beyond his means ; and by the singleness of 
 nature, which almost unconsciously realized the Gospel 
 rule, * not letting his left-hand know what his right-hand 
 did,' My recollection of William's first introduction into 
 Mr. Carey's school is vivid, as though it took place but 
 yesterday. The good old man was, at that period, gradually 
 withdrawing from active life, and his attention was limited 
 to a very small number of pupils. He received, indeed, 
 those only who were recommended by his personal friends. 
 Of that number my father had the good fortune to be one ; 
 and thence it was that we were admitted to a trial. From 
 the slovenliness which, in that part of Ireland, then 
 prevailed in the elementary parts of classical education, 
 Mr. Carey had found it necessary to establish the general 
 rule, that all who came to him from other schools should, 
 however plausible their seeming proficiency, retrace their 
 
 October, 1806, at Darling Hill, in the county of Tipperary, by the invitation 
 of an old pupil of his, the present Mr. Serjeant Pennefather. It gave me 
 singular pleasiu'e to see the good man. He recalled, almost every moment, 
 the memory of my beloved college friend, John Sargint, who, in the 
 course of the years 1791 — 1798, delighted in recording anecdotes of his 
 school-boy days ; and never failed to speak of his master, Mr. Carey (who 
 long survived him), with the most affectionate veneration. — J. L. 
 * The Kev. S. O'Sulhvan.
 
 BISHOP JEBB S BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 steps through the Latin grammar. My brother and I were, 
 from our time of life (we wei'e a few years junior to our 
 friend), exempt from all mortification on this score : we 
 were mere beginners, and, of course, were well satisfied 
 to commence at the commencement. Some of the boys, 
 however, officiously told Phelan of the humiliation which 
 awaited him ; no slight one, it will be admitted, to a 
 diligent student of six or seven years' standing, who had 
 been already delighting himself with the dense eloquence 
 of Tacitus. He reddened, but said nothing. Then came 
 the trial. A book was put into his hands ; when such, at 
 once, appeared his grounded knowledge of the Latin 
 language, and so correctly classical was the diction of some 
 exercises which he produced, that, without the least 
 hesitation, Mr. Carey passed him into his highest class. 
 On being asked what he would have done, if relegated 
 to the pages of Lilly, * I should immediately have 
 walked out of the school,' said the high-minded youth, 
 * and never set my foot into it again ? ' " * 
 
 He was now placed in circumstances well fitted to unfold 
 his powers. He soon came to revere Mr. Carey, who 
 stood to him in the relation, not so much of an instructor, 
 as of a parent, and a friend. Under him, in addition to 
 his former acquirements, young Phelan gained a thorough 
 knowledge of Greek ; and, what was far better, his genius 
 was kindled, and his taste refined, by constant, familiar 
 
 * Tliis early anecdote is higlily characteristic. The wi-iter has seen Dr. 
 Phelan luider momentary bursts of fcehng, which this trait of the Clonmel 
 school-boy powerfully calls to mind. But I have heard, too, his ingenuous 
 confessions of error ; his humble and contrite submission, in cases where 
 the olfence had been purely venial. The truth is, he was intimately known 
 to very few ; few, therefore, could enter fully into his character. But it is 
 no more than justice to bear witness, that his fadings were but the infirmities 
 of a noble mind. His native temperament, indeed, was peculiarly sensitive 
 and delicate ; and while ho pd-ovo, lialiitually, to keep it under due control, 
 someallowance will be made, by every generous mind, for the natiu-al iufluenco 
 of failing health. But, after all, I never knew a human being with a more 
 placable spu-it, or a tenderer heart. This I say advisedly ; and, as I thmk, 
 with a thorough knowledge of the man. — J. L.
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 7 
 
 intercourse with a " master-spirit." A slight, but charac- 
 teristic incident, will best show the terms on which they 
 lived. One evening, as they were returning towards the Anecdote 
 school, from a country residence of Mr. Carey's, Phelan, ?[ f^"*" 
 on passing a particular street, looked up, and said, *' That 
 Sir, is the house in which I was born." " Well, my dear 
 William," the benevolent man replied, " I trust that your 
 fellow-townsmen will, one day, point out this house, with 
 a satisfaction no less lively, but far better founded, than 
 that with which they now show to the inquiring stranger 
 the birth-place of unhappy Sterne ! " Surely, not to love 
 such a man was altogether impossible. 
 
 The young student's views for the future were, at first, 
 not very definite ; certainly, they were anything but 
 hopeful. 
 
 His poor parents had made a great struggle to procure 
 him the advantages which he already enjoyed ; and to think 
 of the University seemed little less than preposterous. 
 But Mr. Carey was a vigilant and ardent friend. He 
 smoothed all difficulties, surmounted every scruple, and, 
 from his own scanty income, advanced a sufficient yearly 
 allowance to cover all ordinary college expenses. Nor was 
 this assistance discontinued, but in consequence of Phelan's 
 own earnest request, when, on his election to a scholarship, 
 it ceased to be strictly necessary. And, to bring his 
 school-boy days to a close, he was, after having remained 
 three years under Mr. Carey, admitted a sizar of Trinity 
 College, Dublin, in June, 1806, and in the eighteenth 
 year of his age. 
 
 Before his removal, however, to this wider sphere of Change in 
 
 action, an important change had taken place in his theo- ^^'^S^""^ 
 . , ^ ° ^ ^ views of 
 
 logical opinions. The commencement of this change I Dr.Phelan. 
 have the advantage of stating in the words of Dr. Phelan 
 himself, as related by him to an early friend.* " I was 
 walking home with ***** (member of a lay fraternity of 
 Roman Catholics), to translate for him some portion of 
 * The Reverend Mortimer O'Sullivan.
 
 "8 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 the Breviary, when Mr. Carey rode by on his mule, at his 
 usual quiet pace : * What a pity,' said *****, ' that that 
 good man cannot be saved!' I started: the doctrine of 
 exclusive salvation never appeared so prodigious ; and I 
 warmly denied its truth and authority. ***** w^as stubborn 
 in his defence ; and we each cited testimonies in behalf of 
 our respective opinions. I withdrew to bed, occupied by 
 thoughts which this incident awakened ; went over again 
 all the arguments, pro and con, which my memory could 
 supply ; weighed all the evidence which, in my judgment, 
 might throw light on the subject ; questioned whether any 
 evidence could induce me to acquiesce in a dogma so 
 revolting ; and fell asleep^ in no good disposition to the 
 Private creed which could pronounce Mr. Carey's reprobation. In 
 judgment. ^\^q morning, when I awoke, it appeared that I had 
 insensibly reasoned myself into the belief of the right of 
 pi-ivate judgment ; and thus, I virtually reasoned myself 
 out of the Church of Rome." 
 
 The impression thus happily made, was not suffered 
 lone: to remain dormant, or inactive. Even in his boyish 
 days he had a most sagacious, penetrating mind. AVith 
 him, religion was never a matter of compromise or con- 
 vention. He regarded it as the main concern of life, on 
 which was suspended his everlasting happiness or misery. 
 It became, therefore, the object of his very serious 
 thoughts ; and his anxious researches produced a thorough 
 conviction, that the Church of England is the soundest 
 portion of the Church of Christ. Accordingly, on enter- 
 ing college, he gave in his name as a Protestant ; * while 
 any lingering doubts (those fond misgivings of the finest 
 and the firmest minds), which might, perhaps, at first have 
 somewhat obscured his intellectual vision, were entirely 
 
 * In the University of Dublin Koman Catholics are aclmissiblo. 
 
 A fact which I have learned since writing the above paragraph should by 
 no means be omitted. Before Dr. Phelan's entrance into Ti-inity College, it 
 had been the wish of his father (a very natural one, surely) that he shoidd 
 become a student at Maynooth, with a view to the priesthood of the Cluirch 
 of Rome. He was induced, accordingly, to attend an Ciamiuatiou, held at
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 1 
 
 dissipated by a judicious course of reading, in which he 
 was accompanied and assisted by his able and affectionate 
 tutor, at that time preparing for holy orders.* Nor 
 should it be omitted, for in him it was quite character- 
 istic, that the clear convictions of his judgment were 
 unaccompanied by the least acerbity of feeling. Indeed, 
 he never ceased to bear the tenderest affection towards his 
 Roman Catholic brethren ; he continually and most ear- 
 nestly looked to their spiritual improvement ; and a very 
 short time before his death he thus writes to a confidential 
 friend : . . . " My heart yearns to go to the South : 1 
 would revive my Irish, and acquire enough of it for 
 expounding the Irish Bible." 
 
 He was now (1806), fairly launched in academic life ; Phelan 
 and his progress may be not unfitly described as an ^^^°'^^S^- 
 unbroken career of successful application. His com- 
 petitors were the most distinguished men who for many 
 years had appeared in the University. But among the 
 very foremost he honourably maintained his ground ; and 
 it is little to say, that he obtained a scholarship, and the 
 highest honours, both classical and scientific, which could 
 be conferred ; for, in truth, he rated such things at their 
 proper value : trifling in themselves, and chiefly to be 
 prized as indicating studious habits, and a healthful, 
 manly mind. One great object, indeed, he had of what 
 may be termed a holy ambition : it was that, under Pro- 
 vidence he might become the support and stay of his aged 
 parents. 
 
 It should be mentioned, that, during his undergraduate 
 course, he obtained several prizes for compositions in 
 
 Waterford, for one or more vacancies in tliat seminary. Though much 
 younger than the other candidates, liis hterary superiority was evident, and 
 a vacancy was, in consequence, placed at his option. He, however, declined 
 it. The fact is, his former opinions had been ah'eady shaken ; and he soon 
 became irrevocably attached to the Cliurch of England. — J. L. 
 * Dr. WaU.
 
 10 
 
 BISHOP JEBB S BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 Literary 
 attain- 
 ments. 
 
 English verse and Latin prose. Such, however, was his 
 fastidiousness, or his modesty, that in no single instance 
 did he keep a copy : not a line of those early 2)roductions 
 has been found amongst his papers; and there is every 
 likelihood that they have altogether perished. But the 
 recollection of them is still vivid among his contemporaries. 
 And it is worthy of being recorded, that an Englishman, 
 Dr. Hall,*" then Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, and 
 afterwards (for one short week !) Bishoj) of Dromore, one 
 of the most accomplished scholars of his day, was often 
 heard to express his admiration at the skill and power 
 evinced in the composition of Latin prose by this extra- 
 ordinary young man. One Essay, in particular, he used 
 to say was so purely classical, that whole passages might 
 have been taken from it, and, without risk of detection, 
 inserted in the works of Cicero, j- In English verse, too, 
 liis union of metaphysical and poetical expression was 
 truly remarkable. And it has been observed, by one well 
 acquainted with the early movements of his mind, that if 
 he had chosen to concentrate his powers in one great 
 poem on Mental Philosophy, he would, perhaps, have 
 been unrivalled in the art of clothing the abstractions of 
 metaphysical science in language alike elegant, perspi- 
 cuous, and familiar.]: Happily, however, his mind took 
 another direction. 
 
 Li the spring of 1810, he commenced A.B. On that 
 
 goldmedal. Qccasion, the Provost and Senior Fellows adjudged to him 
 
 the gold medal, then given — not, as at present, to the 
 
 best answerer at an examination, held expressly for the 
 
 purpose, but to that graduating student who, throughout 
 
 Obtains 
 
 * George Hall, D.D., educated at the celebrated grammar-school of 
 Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 
 
 f From the information of a contemporary. 
 
 X He was fond, though not indiscriminately so, of the Anti-Lucretius of 
 Cardinal Polignac. See pp. 298 — 319, of this volume. — J. L. — i.e. Vol. I. of 
 the "Rcmauis ;" "Essay on Scientific and Litcrarj- Pursuits." — Ed.
 
 OF WILLIAM PIIELAN, D.D. 11 
 
 the entire previous course of four years, had evinced the 
 greatest industry, diligence, and ability.* About the 
 same time he obtained the mathematical premium on 
 Bishop Law's j- foundation, the examiners being Dr. Magee, 
 Professor of Mathematics (late Archbishop of Dublin) ; 
 Dr. Brinkley, Professor of Astronomy (now Bishop of 
 Cloyne) ; and Dr. Davenport, Professor of Natural Philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 The important period had now arrived when he was to Ecads for 
 make his choice of life ; and, not without some interval of gj^f '^^^^°^' 
 suspense and deliberation, he determined to read for a 
 fellowship — an undertaking, under any circumstances, 
 arduous in the extreme, but in his case attended with 
 peculiar difficulties. Like other candidates, he had the 
 probability before him (should life be spared) of devoting 
 six or seven of the prime years of life to intense, and 
 perhaps unavailing, application. The drawbacks, too, of 
 a very delicate constitution were to be disregarded, or 
 overcome ; while the daily drudgery of private tuition 
 was to be endured, not merely for his own support, 
 but, what was a far dearer object, for the maintenance 
 and comfort of his aged parents. All this he encountered 
 with pious and persevering equanimity ; and perhaps I 
 may scarcely be credited when I state the fact, that, 
 between reading and lecturing, he was commonly occupied 
 from four o'clock in the morning till ten or eleven at 
 night, while almost his single relaxation was sought in 
 variety of labour. But at all times he evinced so collected 
 a mind, such disengagedness, animation, and serenity, that 
 it was visible only to the scrutinizing eye of friendship 
 how irreparably he was undermining his constitution. 
 
 * The writer is well aware that there are difficulties in the case. Still, 
 however, ho begs leave to express his doubts whether some modification of 
 the old pLin might not be advantageously resorted to. It seems desirable 
 to have some test, not only of comparative, but of positive merit — not 
 merely of a superiority, perhaps accidental, in one great trial, but of 
 an habitual course of continuous and weU-du-ected exertion. — J. L. 
 
 t Jolin Law, D.D., formerly Bishop of Elpbin.
 
 12 BisHor jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 As matter of duty, liis anxious friends sometimes broke 
 in upou his abstruse speculations ; but when for a sliort 
 space thus compelled to be comparatively idle, he would 
 always take the interruption in good part, and, not less to 
 the instruction than delight of his associates, would enter, 
 Avith freshness and spirit, upon some literary topic. Nor 
 was he mindful only, or chiefly, of his own mental wants 
 His alac- and feelings. Often, with a shade before his weak eyes, 
 others ^^ ^^^^ temples bathed with vinegar, and his mind engaged on 
 some difficult problem, has he cheerfully paused from his 
 labours, and with alacrity applied himself to remove the 
 scientific difficulties, not of his pupils (that was a distinct 
 duty, to be performed at stated intervals), but of some 
 junior friend or acquaintance. This was a volunteer 
 service ; the habit of aiding othei's, from pure benevolence 
 of disposition, grew into his very nature ; thus it was 
 at school, from an early period; nor in after-life was there, 
 in this respect, any perceptible difference. 
 
 Throughout the fellowship course, his kind tutor, Mr. 
 Wall, regarded him not merely as a friend, but as a 
 brother. Books, experience, literary counsel, were ever 
 ready at a call ; his purse, too, was always generously 
 open ; and he often entreated that it might be allowed to 
 supersede the necessity, which the young candidate felt 
 imposed upon him, of taking private pupils. This aid, 
 offered as it was with most scrupulous delicacy, was 
 sometimes accepted with manly freedom. One restriction, 
 however, he almost invariably imposed upon himself : he 
 would never consent (unless when himself wholly unpro- 
 vided) to employ the resources, even of his dearest friends, 
 in aiding his beloved and respected parents. It was his 
 delight — the purest, surely, which a pious son can enjoy — 
 to afford assistance, by his own independent exertions, to 
 those who, with much difficulty and self-denial, had pro- 
 cured for him the benefits and blessings of a good early 
 education. 
 
 Thus he persevered for nearly three years in a course of
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 13 
 
 well-sustained though ruinous exertion, under which 
 many a more vigorous constitution must have inevitably 
 sunk ; but he was supported by the indomitable j^rinciple 
 of filial piety. Towards the close, however, of the year 
 1812, his medical advisers were constrained to make it 
 a point that he should intermit some portion of his daily 
 labours, and should sleep out of the air of Dublin. 
 Accordingly, he took a small lodging, at a moderate 
 distance from his college chambers, Here it occurred to Writes for 
 him, that if he could obtain a prize of 50/., then offered ^9>j^^ 
 by the Royal Irish Academy for the best Essay on a Aoademy's 
 given literary subject, he might for a time relieve himself P""'^*^' 
 from the irksome task of private tuition. But, as success 
 was uncertain, he was still obliged to retain some pupils ; 
 and thus, till the period of decision, his labours were not 
 diminished, but increased. In the brief interval, then, 
 the hasty moments which he could snatch from his daily 
 toil, he penned his Essay, on the backs of letters and 
 on such scraps of paper as might be at hand. He walked 
 every evening (the only exercise he allowed himself) 
 to his college-chambers, that he might give those papers 
 to his brother for transcription ; and relied on his memory 
 alone for taking up the train of thought each day where 
 it had been laid down the day before. He did not revise, 
 or even read, the transcript ; and, as this was his first 
 efibrt in English prose, he felt so much difficulty in 
 arranging his thoughts in our language, that he actually 
 resorted to the expedient of first mentally composing in 
 Latin, so that the entire Essay may in a great measure be 
 accounted a translation. It is given in this volume 
 (pp. 260 — 320),* therefore it is needless for me to pass a 
 judgment on its merits. It will, I think, be considered 
 an extraordinary composition to have been produced 
 under such circumstances, by a young man of less than 
 four-and- twenty ; and its terseness, facility, and elegance 
 of diction, may, perhaps, best be accounted for by the 
 * Vol. I. of " Eomains of Phclan."
 
 14 
 
 BISHOP JEBB S BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 fact, that it was originally conceived in Cicero's own 
 Obtains it. language by a finished classical scholar. To this Essay 
 was adjudged the Academy's first prize, in the beginning 
 of 1813. It may here be mentioned, that in the earlier 
 part of 1814 he prepared another successful paper for the 
 Academy, " On the Force of Habit, considered in conjunc- 
 tion with the Love of Novelty." This has not been 
 published in the Transactions, having, by some unfor- 
 tunate mischance, been lost at the Academy-House. I 
 am told, however, that both by Dr. Phelan himself and 
 by others it was considered superior to the Essay of the 
 preceding year. It showed an uncommon command of 
 language, and fine metaphysical powers. 
 
 But we must return to his great and overwhelming 
 pursuit. In the year 1813, then, he offered himself 
 a candidate for one of the fellowships at that time vacant : 
 his preparation was intense, and his answering, both in 
 quality and style, was such, that it excited a very general 
 interest in his behalf. In the interval between the exami- 
 nation and the announcement of successful candidates, 
 scarcely a doubt was entertained that he would have been 
 the second fellow\ His friends had by anticipation hailed 
 the consummation of his labours ; and even his own 
 modest and retiring nature was unable wholly to with- 
 stand the popular impression. But the event was other- 
 wise.* 
 
 Candidate 
 for a Fel- 
 lowship. 
 
 * There were then three Tacaneies ; the filling up of the first was beyond 
 all question : Mr. Purdon had eight voices, those of the whole examining 
 body. Eespecting the other two Tacaneies there was more difSculty. The 
 examiners were divided ; and Mr. Phelan was thrown out by the casting 
 vote of the Provost. The statute requires, that vacant fcllowsliips shall be 
 filled up, not seriatim, but simul et semel, and no provision is made for 
 ascertaining the value of each particidar vote. The special hardship, 
 which in this instance inevitably grew out of this untoward arrangement, 
 was, that had there been but two, instead of three, vacancies, Mr. Phelan 
 must liave succeeded. These facts I have from imquestionable information. 
 It is but proper to add, that there was not the slightest shade of unfairness 
 in the whole transaction. All arose from the luihappy wording of the 
 statute, which loudly calls for alteration. — J. L.
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 15 
 
 In the almost certain prospect of success, he had set Isunsuc- 
 apart nearly the whole of that little which he possessed ^^^^ ^ ' 
 for the comfort and accommodation of his parents ; nor 
 in the moment of defeat did lie alter his pious purpose. 
 His words to his brother, when he recovered from the 
 first shock, are never to be forgotten: "Well, James, 
 send the money, nevertheless, to its proper destination ; 
 and, my dear fellow, have a good heart, and a hope fixed 
 on high ; we shall overcome even this blow." 
 
 A few days after this disappointment, he met Dr. 
 Graves,* one of his examiners, who, in his kind, sympa- 
 thizing manner, said, " Phelan, I am sony for you : but 
 I did my best — you had my vote." He bowed, smiled, 
 and instantly answered, 
 
 " Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni ; " 
 The good and benevolent man was visibly aSected. 
 
 At this trying juncture — as, indeed, throughout the Befriended 
 whole course of his varied life — Divine Providence raised z^. ,, 
 
 Chancellor 
 
 up to him many and discriminating friends : among these Plunket, 
 was the Right Honourable William Conyngham Plunket, 
 the present f Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The wi'iter 
 well remembers the ardour with which Mr. Phelan was 
 accustomed to dilate on the high intellectual attainments 
 of that eminent individual. In the family of that gentle- 
 man he had been repeatedly domesticated, having been 
 private tutor to several of his sons ; and from his familiar 
 conversation he reaped advantages which no person was 
 better able to enjoy and appreciate than Mr. Phelan 
 himself. At this season of disappointment, Lord Plunket 
 
 * The late Very E,ev. Eiobard GraTcs, D.D., Dean of Ardagh, hououi'- 
 ably known by bis various tbeological publications. May the wi-iter be 
 pei'mitted to add his h\unble but sincere tribute to the learning, piety, and 
 goodness of this exemplary man ? Towards his latter days, we had, on a 
 particular question, some trifling difference of judgment. But I never can 
 forget the impression made on my youthful mind by the mild, but powerful 
 influence of liis unaffected zeal. — J. L. 
 
 t A.D. 1832. He was afterwards raised to the peerage, and died 51 h of 
 January, 1854, in the ninetieth year of his age.
 
 16 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 came forward as an attached friend. He recommended 
 to him the study of the law ; and, till in-acticc should 
 come ill, nobly pressed on him an allowance of 300/. 
 a-year. For this princely offer he was deeply grateful ; 
 indeed, he never forgot it to his dying day ; but, after 
 mature deliberation, he most thankfully declined it. In 
 fact, he thought the kindness too great to be accepted ; 
 but what with him was far more decisive — though, like 
 most young Irishmen of talents, he had originally a pre- 
 dilection for the bar, — his more serious studies had given 
 him another relish, and he thought he might be happier, 
 as well as more useful, in the service of the Church, 
 and by Amidst his arduous labours he derived never-failing 
 
 ^f^' supplies of animation from the fresh and salient mind of 
 
 bishop ^^ 
 
 Magee. Dr. IMagee, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin. This 
 
 distinguished scholar was in the constant habit of visiting 
 
 his chambers, inquiring after his progress, and entering 
 
 into all the misgivings of his sensitive mind. With the 
 
 office of speaking, as I feel, of almost my earliest friend — of 
 
 him who guided my first youthful efforts, and encouraged 
 
 the pursuits of my maturer years, I should fear to trust 
 
 myself. Therefore it is with peculiar satisfaction that I 
 
 resort to the anonymous, but faithful testimony, of a 
 
 friend, which I know had special, though not exclusive, 
 
 reference to his affectionate kindness for Mr. Phelan : — 
 
 " The most engaging instances of his (Archbishop 
 
 Magee's) philanthropy, were undoubtedly those in which 
 
 he made it his business and found it his pleasure to direct 
 
 and animate by his advice the young men in whom he 
 
 perceived any remarkable degree of ability ; while he 
 
 literally watched over them with the affection of a father, 
 
 he entered into their views and concerned himself in their 
 
 interests with the warmth and familiarity of a friend. 
 
 Were they desponding ? they were cheered ; were they 
 
 negligent ? they were counselled ; were they straitened 
 
 by pecuniai'y difficulties ? relief was liberally afforded ; 
 
 did they experience an embarrassment in mastering the
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 17 
 
 severer sciences ? amidst all the cares and occupations of 
 his laborious station assistance never was withheld. Many 
 are the hours of despondency which hang upon the 
 spirits of that young man who, unsupported by wealth 
 or patronage, is labouring, by the path of academic 
 distinction, to attain a reputable independence. Frequent 
 are the misgivings which damp his ardour in a pursuit 
 where health is not seldom irrecoverably lost before the 
 object is accomplished ; and no one feels with more 
 poignant bitterness that 'sickness of the heart' which 
 arises from ' hope deferred.' How often has Dr. Magee 
 passed from the privacy of his own domestic circle to the 
 lonely rooms of the pale and wasted votary of science, 
 and banished, by his benignant presence and his cheerful, 
 animating conversation, the morbid melancholy which was 
 preying on him, and which otherwise might have brought 
 him to an untimely grave ! How often have the studies 
 which were abandoned in disgust or despair been resumed 
 at his instance with alacrity and diligence, and ultimately 
 rewarded with a success which must have been unattain- 
 able but for his generous and inspiriting encouragement !" 
 
 But a deeply-seated, and, as the event finally proved, 
 an immedicable wound, had been inflicted on Mr. Phelan's 
 constitution. The shock given to his bodily frame ren- 
 dered him for several months incapable of any continuous 
 exertion, and, at this season of depression, the sole fruit 
 of his labours was the second of his prize Essays, for the 
 Royal Irish Academy. 
 
 Towards the commencement of the year 1814, we find Again 
 him again devoted to severe fellowship reading. In the fellowship; 
 month of June, he sat, and was defeated by Thomas again de- 
 Romney Robinson, the most distinguished of his contem- 
 poraries, now D.D. and Astronomical Professor, on the 
 foundation of his namesake, but not his relative. Primate 
 Robinson,* at the Observatory of Armagh. 
 
 * Lord Kokeby, Archbishop of Armagh, eminent for princely muni- 
 ficence. 
 
 C
 
 18 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 And here it may not be improper to say a few words on 
 the character of Dr. Phelan's mind. 
 Character His powers of acquiring knowledge were of a peculiar 
 riu'hvu's ^^^^ very superior quality. He had the happy faculty of 
 1^1 J' instantly mastering a writer's meaning ; he could instinc- 
 
 tively seize on everything, in every possible direction, 
 which was of the least real moment. He glanced with 
 the rapidity of lightning through the most abstruse and 
 difficult volumes, and his mind seemed invested with a 
 sort of magical influence which compelled them to render 
 up their contents, and turned, so to speak, the minds 
 of authors inside out. He discerned matter, even in the 
 more abstract sciences, which could happily illustrate 
 whatever might be the immediate object of research. 
 Facts and narratives were to him that which the elemen- 
 tary forms of letters are to ordinary readers — conveying, 
 not so much the impression of themselves, as that of the 
 thought or principle towards imparting which they were 
 instrumental. History, travels, philosophy, and poetry, 
 no less than matters of strict science, he read with a 
 sagacious, comprehensive spirit, separating always eternal 
 principles from the accidents in which they were rendered 
 visible. And that which, even to advanced students, 
 is commonly the result of distinct, and often of severe 
 reflection, was in his mind the thing primarily noticed. 
 The matter professedly studied was to him merely intro- 
 ductive and subordinate. 
 
 He used to complain that his mind sufiered from 
 mathematical pursuits, that when engaged in such inves- 
 tigations his finer and more delicate powers were depressed, 
 and that he became disqualified for the pursuit of higher 
 and nobler inquiries. But this, it is humbly conceived, 
 was a mistake ; at least, he appeared to his friends always 
 ready to form a judgment, not only sound and good, but 
 exquisitely refined, on almost every subject within the 
 compass of letters ; and, indeed, his very fondness for the 
 higher branches of mathematics is in itself a sufficient
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 19 
 
 refutation of this morbid apprehension. He was eager 
 for principles, impatient of details ; but, at the same time, 
 he subjected every principle to the severest possible test, 
 and would never admit any position, within the scope of 
 ratiocination, till it was most incontrovertibly proved. 
 
 All inquiries about light and heat had for him a 
 peculiar interest ; these qualities seemed, on account of 
 their extreme tenuity, ever ready to evanesce, till they 
 became almost immaterial. This predisposition of his 
 mind may be illustrated by a little circumstance within 
 my own recollection. During one of the visits with which 
 he indulged me, when Rector of Abington, he manifested 
 the most intense gratification (even now I have a lively 
 image of it present with me) at Sir Walter Scott's beauti- 
 ful fiction of the " White Lady." " Of all apparitions," 
 he said, " this comes nearest to my conception of a pure 
 spirit." 
 
 But the pursuits in which he took unmingled pleasure, 
 were those of mental and moral philosophy. To these, 
 when fatigued and exhausted by severer study, he turned 
 with ever-new delight. On such occasions he used, with 
 our Platonic bard, to exclaim — 
 
 " How charming is Divine philosophy ! 
 Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 
 But musical, as is Apollo's lute, 
 And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns." 
 
 In the weak state of his eyes, it was his habit to read 
 with the eyes of a friend. In this manner he prepared 
 the entire logical and ethical course prescribed for fellow- 
 ships in Dublin. His friend particularly mentions the 
 enthusiasm with which he used to expatiate on some 
 parts of Cicero's Second Book, " De Legibus ; " of 
 Bishops Berkeley and Butler, too, he used to speak 
 highly ; and with complacency of Dr. Reid. He was not 
 so well satisfied with Mr. Locke. To him the design 
 
 c 2
 
 20 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 of this eminent man seemed to embrace too little or 
 too much : too little, if the understanding alone, as distin- 
 guished from the moral mind, imagination, passions, and 
 affections, was the object of his inquiry; too much, if the 
 positions for which he contended be thought in themselves 
 sufficient to account for all the moral and intellectual 
 phenomena of our nature. 
 
 While reading for fellowships his progress was unques- 
 tionably retarded by a habit in which he freely indulged, 
 which, however, contributed much to increase, not merely 
 the extent, but the accuracy of his knowledge, and to 
 repress at once and discipline that fondness for mental 
 anticipation which is so apt to beset youthful and ardent 
 minds. The habit was, " never to rest satisfied with the 
 bare demonstration of a truth." He wished, so far as 
 practicable, to know whence it came and whither it was 
 going. He would, therefore, to the utmost of his power, 
 investigate any important fact in all its bearings ; and 
 frequently has he employed half a day (a serious expense 
 of time, as all fellowship-men are perfectly aware) in 
 tracing the various deductions which might legitimately 
 be drawn from it. His competitors, on the other hand, 
 were often more prudently, if not so intellectually, em- 
 ployed. They were collecting materials less recondite, 
 indeed, but more immediately producible ; and their 
 object was, not so much to lay the foundation for future 
 researches, as to show themselves competently versed in 
 that which was already known. Mr. Phelan could never 
 endure the thought of becoming the mere carrier of 
 intellectual burthens. His wish was, so far as might law- 
 fully be, to lift the veil from nature, and get an insight 
 into the wondrous principles, both natural and moral, on 
 which all-perfect Wisdom regulates the world. Thus, 
 the very superiority of his mental powers and attainments 
 often stood in his way. He read more like a master than 
 a scholar — more as one whose own mind was to be 
 satisfied than as a person whose business it was to satisfy
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 21 
 
 the minds of others. He looked around him with the 
 ken of a philosopher; and he less assiduously cultivated 
 presence of mind and fertility of resources than those 
 subtler processes of mind which have ever formed the 
 chosen exercise of genius. Had the question been, who 
 of his contemporaries it was that possessed the seeds 
 of powers most akin to those of the great discoverers of 
 science or restorers of letters, he might, perhaps, have 
 ranked not greatly beneath the first men of our best days. 
 As it was, with a nearly exhausted constitution, broken 
 spirits, and a debilitated frame, it is little to be wondered 
 at that he was unequal to the arduous conflict, which, 
 however, he still gallantly sustained. 
 
 But, that we may pass to a more grateful topic, it can 
 be readily understood that with a mind thus stored and 
 thus disciplined he must have been a delightful companion. 
 That which I have heard from his early associates, was, in 
 the course of no slight, superficial intercourse, abundantly 
 realized to myself. I have rarely met with an individual 
 who in conversation so fairly produced his mind, — or, let 
 me add, whose mind was more worthy of production. 
 At the instant he could command all the powers of 
 thought and aids of learning to bear on any subject 
 which they might properly illustrate ; and, what was 
 more remarkable, they never failed to come at his 
 bidding. Those with whom he was in the habit of 
 familiar intercourse will not readily forget the force and 
 animation of his manner when he wished to express 
 himself pointedly upon any topic which had seriously 
 occupied his mind. His sentences followed each other 
 uninterruptedly and without effort — brief, terse, and 
 emphatic ; and if, on the spur of occasion, taken down 
 and made use of, they would have been found to possess 
 all the elements of exact and finished composition. While 
 there would occasionally burst from him the liveliest 
 sallies of wit, and not unfrequently a vein of playful 
 humour, which rendered his conversation, in its happier
 
 22 
 
 BISHOP JEBBS BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 Degree of 
 
 A.iM.,July, 
 
 1814. 
 
 Enters 
 into holy 
 orders. 
 
 hours (and they were always its quiet ones), one of the 
 richest intellectual enjoyments. Such intercourse could 
 not fail to delight, for it was ever natural, ever instruc- 
 tive ; and it is still among my chosen recreations to recal 
 the days and nights which I have passed in the society of 
 William Phclan. 
 
 His trial for fellowships was now over ; to all appearance 
 it was intenninahly closed. But he was not destitute of 
 consolation. He was conscious that he had done his best ; 
 he could not charge himself with any wilful failure of 
 duty, or any want of persevering application ; and he 
 viewed disappointment itself as a mode of providential 
 discipline, which *' He who careth for us" ever graciously 
 adapts to our peculiar exigences. 
 
 In July, 1814, he proceeded A.M. ; and, shortly after, 
 on the kind and seasonable invitation of his friend and 
 former associate on the fellowship bench, the Rev. J. H. 
 Stubbs, Master of the endowed school of Dundalk, he 
 became for a short time the guest of that gentleman. An 
 influential visit, as will afterwards appear ; which, eventu- 
 ally, occasioned a great change in the prospects and 
 circumstances of his after-life. In the month of October, 
 on the recommendation of Dr. Magee, then Dean of Cork, 
 he was appointed Second Master of the endowed school of 
 Derry.* Here he entered into holy orders, being ordained 
 deacon Dec. 4, 1814, and priest Jan. 4, 1815, by the 
 Lord Bishop of Derry ; and, soon after his first ordination, 
 
 * I cannot help mentioning, that at this school I yras educated, under 
 the Reverend Thomas Marshall, A.M. This kind and generous man was 
 the delight of his pupils : and I never shall forget the tragic impression 
 made on us all, when, about the autumn of 1790, it pleased God to remove 
 him. How much I am indebted to his fostering care, I shall never, in this 
 world, be fuUy able to appreciate. One of my earliest efforts was a boyish, 
 but sincere, tribute to his memory ; it was an imitation of the " Quia 
 desiderio," &c., of Horace. 
 
 But to Derry School, and to Horace, I have other, and far higher 
 obligations. They were the means of introducing me to the notice of 
 Alexander Knox, Esquire, who was fond of hearing me repeat my lessons
 
 OF WILLIAM PIIELAN, D.D. 23 
 
 began to officiate, in the chapel of ease of that city.* There 
 he continued for upwards of two years, applying himself 
 diligently to the duties of his humble calling, and devoting 
 every leisure hour to those sacred studies, which, even 
 then, constituted his resource and delight. He thus dis- 
 turbed the repose of a few valuable old volumes in the 
 diocesan library ; though of the time occupied in this 
 manner there is probably no written record. But his was 
 a mind which was never idle ; and, to such information as 
 he already possessed, there is a moral certainty that, at 
 this period, he added extensively. In the montli of 
 August, 1816, it should be mentioned, he was, with some 
 apparent hopes of success, a candidate for the endowed 
 school, or college, of Kilkenny. 
 
 About this period the writer had the happiness to form 
 an acquaintance with Mr. Phelan, which, at no distant 
 day, ripened into friendship. A valued contemporary of 
 his-j- had, some time previously, told me several interesting 
 anecdotes of his early life ; and put into my hands, at the 
 Rectory of Abington, his prize Essay, " On Scientific 
 and Literary Pursuits." I was, therefore, duly prepared 
 to appreciate a singularly modest, unpretending letter, 
 which he addressed to me from Derry, bearing date the 
 l^th of December, 1816. It now lies open before me; 
 and it could not fail to rekindle, were they dormant — 
 which, happily, they never have been — the liveliest feelings 
 of interest in himself, his mind, and his pursuits. Like 
 every other production of his pen which it has been my 
 fortune to see (for, in his instance, to see and to read were 
 identical), it is clothed in language alike natural, manly, 
 
 from that most felicitous of authors ; he afterwards became my guide, 
 philosopher, and friend. From him, in the course of a long intimacy, I 
 derived principles which, I trust, will never die. Obiit, eheu ! June 18, 
 1831.— J. L. 
 
 * His appointment, at the salary of £50 a-year, is dated Dec. 27, 1814 ; 
 of which salary he was never paid a single shilling ; though he served the 
 chaplaincy, without intermission, till March, 1817. 
 
 + The Eev. Richard Ryan.
 
 24 Bisiioi' jedb's biographical memoir 
 
 and independent. The object of it was to ascertain how 
 far his judgment and mine might coincide, respecting the 
 eligibility of his publishing a short treatise, which he was 
 then preparing, on the subject of the Bible Society. As 
 to the general bearings of that question, my feelings are, 
 elsewhere, briefly stated.* In conformity with opinions 
 which I had early formed, and from which I have never 
 swerved, I ventured to suggest that his mental powers 
 would be employed far more advantageously on some great 
 original work, than upon what must, after all, rank as a 
 mere temporary pamphlet. My reasons, however, failed 
 to have quite so much weight with Mr. Phelan, at the 
 time, as they may, perhaj^js, have subsequently had. He 
 accordingly published, not immediately (for a very serious 
 occupation intervened), but in the autumn of the next 
 year, his able tract ; powerful in its reasoning, though I 
 have never been able to see the practical wisdom of its 
 publication ; nravra fioi e^eariv, aW' ov iravra crvfi(j)ep€c. 
 It was entitled " The Bible, not the Bible Society." This 
 work, greatly praised, and not good-naturedly vituperated, 
 was, for a long while, the alternate mark of reprobation 
 and panegyric ; and, in its immediate, and, yet more, in 
 its remote consequences, it gave a colouring nearly to the 
 The life w hole of Mr. Phelan's apparent future life ; but, happily, 
 Clirist in ^^^ ^^^ another, and a better life, which was " hid with 
 God." Christ in God." 
 
 To the world he was chiefly known as a polemical 
 writer ; indeed, it is probable that many of his contempo- 
 raries have heard of him in that capacity alone. And 
 it must be confessed that, hitherto, from unhappy cir- 
 cumstances, there has been, in Ireland, but little oppor- 
 tunity, and, if possible, less encouragement, for theological 
 learning. While, under a proper system, and with wise 
 selection, eminent examples of it might have been multi- 
 plied, to the unspeakable advantage both of Church and 
 country. But, in fact, though some ephemeral stimulus 
 * Practical Theology, vol. ii., p. 70.
 
 OF WILLIAM PIIELAN, D.D. 25 
 
 to exertion may have occasionally been applied, it is a 
 melancholy truth that the flippant pamphlet, and slight 
 brochure (of merit very different, indeed, from the 
 slightest efforts of Mr. Phelan) have been generally thought 
 a far more marketable commodity than any solid work of 
 genius, piety, or learning. 
 
 But his was, in truth, a far loftier spirit : he predomi- 
 nately lov;ed the high and lonely walk. His most current, 
 popular productions, occupied but a small portion of his 
 time, and less of his thoughts. And they, who have 
 enjoyed his confidence the longest, and most unreservedly, 
 are best aware on themes how different from the vulgar 
 cant of the day it was his delight to expatiate. For my Edifying 
 own part, I can safely say, that in all our years of friendly ^p°'*'^^^^' 
 intercourse, he never uttered a syllable, whether grave or Phelan. 
 gay, which did not, as was said of Archbishop Leighton, 
 more or less directly tend to edification. Indeed, if I had 
 not intimately known that he was something far other, 
 and better, than an expert controversialist, I will candidly 
 own that the present memoir should not have been written. 
 This fore-dated disclosure will, I trust, exempt me from 
 all but the bare mention of his chief polemical tracts, in 
 the order of publication. They were written merely 
 e/c irapepyov, called forth by the seeming exigences of the 
 times : but he was living centrally, for eternity, 
 
 "And all his serious thoughts had rest m Heaven." 
 
 We may, now, revert to Mr. Phelan's more private con- 
 cerns. He had long been in a very delicate state of health, 
 and his physicians thought it might be expedient that he 
 should try the air of Mallow, in the county of Cork. 
 Symptoms, however, seemingly improved : and as, on 
 several accounts, such an excursion must have been incon- 
 venient, it was not, under this favourable change, at that 
 time undertaken. 
 
 Meanwhile, he was, unexpectedly, summoned to a In 1817 
 wider sphere. Towards the close of March, 1817, his ^S^^^''^^
 
 26 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 for a fel- vigilant friend, Dr. Wall, strongly urged that he should, 
 ' forthwith, come to Dublin, and again sit for a fellowship, 
 of which there were, at that time, two to be filled up. 
 All his friends, none more earnestly than Dr. Magee, 
 were, also, instant in their intreaties. Therefore, after 
 nearly three years' alienation from academical pursuits, and 
 about six weeks before the day of trial, he came to the 
 scene of action. His first visit was to the college, chambers 
 of a friend : *' Well," said he, " here I am ; and what do 
 you want with me ?" " We want you," was the reply, " to 
 get a fellowship." He looked perplexed and anxious. He 
 was almost certain that, within the space of six short 
 weeks, it was hopeless that he should regain so much lost 
 ground. Besides, a great additional weight of science 
 had been thrown into the course, especially the whole 
 system of French Analysis, to which he was nearly a total 
 stranger. To work, however, he went, and with that 
 vigour and intensity which seemed inseparable from his 
 being. And what was the consequence ? Difficulties, like 
 a " frost-work," suddenly " melted away" * before him ; 
 
 and gains and he was unanimously elected a Fellow of Trinity 
 College, Dublin. 
 
 During the short, but arduous course of immediate 
 preparation, he withdrew to the adjacent village of Dun- 
 drum ; and there he was affectionately watched, and 
 cheered, by his early and unchanging friend, the Rev. 
 Richard Ryan. 
 
 His own account of the transaction is remarkable for its 
 simplicity and candour ; it is derived from two of his 
 letters, written at the very time. Short extracts from 
 them will, probably, interest the reader. "April 12, 
 1817. I am going in again for fellowships ; not from any 
 hope, nor, indeed, from any wish, to succeed, but merely 
 because I want money [clearly to relieve his parents ; for 
 his personal expenses were small, and his prudence was 
 great] ; and I think it just possible that I may get the first 
 * Rogers : " Pleasures of Memory." 
 
 it
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 27 
 
 premium. Three weeks ago I formed this resolution ; 
 and I have now six weeks to read." Three days after the 
 termination of the conflict, he again writes : — '* June 5. 
 By a caprice of fortune, entirely unexpected, I am now a 
 fellow. The answering, you may suppose, was but in- 
 different, when, after three years' cessation, I was considered 
 the best answerer." Such was his own modest estimate, 
 ever apt to undervalue his mental attainments ; but it was 
 happily corrected by the public voice : his very friends, 
 too, the jealous guardians of his good repute, were 
 abundantly satisfied ; not by his success merely, but 
 especially at the manner of it. 
 
 He was, by the blessing of God, on his own exertions, 
 now placed in a station of permanent independence ; 
 certain of an income, moderate, indeed, but competent ; 
 and having the fair prospect of attaining, at no remote 
 period, what to him would be affluence. But his mind 
 was raised above all selfish considerations ; now, as formerly, 
 his parents were foremost in his thoughts ; and the path 
 which he marked out for himself was one of unassuming 
 privacy. During the long vacation he sought that repose 
 which his wearied mind required : he had done much in a 
 little time ; and it was not till October, 1817, that he gave 
 to the press that pamphlet which he had prepared at 
 Derry. Thenceforward, his time was chiefly divided 
 between private study and his college duties. 
 
 In November, 1818, he was elected Donnellan Lecturer, In 1818 
 and preached the first sermon of his course on Trinity jjo'j^nellan 
 Sunday, 1819. The manner, and general purpose of Lecturer, 
 these lectures will be sufficiently explained by the following 
 extract from the Registry of Trin. Coll., Dublin: — 
 
 " Fehruarij 22, 1794. 
 
 " Whereas, a legacy of l,2i3l. lias been bequeathed to 
 the College of Dublin by Mrs. Anne Donnellan, for the 
 encouragement of religion, learning, and good manners, 
 the particular mode of application being entrusted to the 
 Provost and Senior Fellows :
 
 28 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 " Resolved, 
 
 " 1. That a Divinity Lecture, to which shall be annexed 
 a salary, arising from the interest of 1,200/., shall be 
 established for ever, to be called Donnellan's Lecture. 
 
 " 2. That the Lecturer shall be forthwith elected, from 
 among the Fellows of said College ; and hereafter, annually, 
 on the 20th November. 
 
 " 3. That the subject, or subjects, of the Lecture, shall 
 be determined at the time of election by the Board; to be 
 treated in six sermons, which shall be delivered in the 
 College Chapel, immediately after morning service, on 
 certain Sundays, to be appointed on the 20th of November 
 next after the election of the Lecturer, and within a year 
 from the said appointment. 
 
 " 4. That one moiety of the interest of the said 1,200/. 
 shall be paid to the Lecturer, as soon as he shall have 
 delivered the whole number of lectures ; and the other 
 moiety as soon as he shall have published four of the said 
 lectures, one copy to be deposited in the Library of the 
 College ; one in the Library of Armagh ; one in the 
 Library of St. Sepulchre ; one to be given to the Chan- 
 cellor of the University ; and one to the Provost of the 
 College." 
 
 This foundation, unquestionably well intended, has 
 failed^ nevertheless, to render all the service which origi- 
 nally was designed. Since its establishment upwards of 
 eight-and-thirty years have elapsed : * how many volumes 
 have, in consequence, been published ? how many sermons 
 have been preached ? The fact is, an original error seems 
 to have taken place, in limiting the field of the Donnellan 
 Lectures to the narrow circle of existing Fellows, seven 
 seniors, and fifteen (afterwards increased to eighteen) 
 juniors ; three, at least, of whom are statutably laymen. 
 These able men are all fully and laboriously occupied, in 
 the government, or education, of fifteen hundred under- 
 
 * Written 1832.
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 
 
 graduates ; and the inevitable consequence has been, that 
 few candidates have proffered themselves for the office of 
 Donnellan Lecturer.* The remedy, in this case, seems 
 natural and easy. Why not throw the field of selection 
 open (as in the Bampton Lecture Sermons, at Oxford, and 
 the Hulsean Lectures, and office of Christian Advocate, 
 at Cambridge) to all persons who have taken the degree of 
 Master of Arts ? The present excellent Christian Advocate 
 of the latter University never was a Fellow. This sugges- 
 tion is thrown out in ardent, but, it is hoped, not ill- 
 regulated zeal, at once for the credit of the College, and 
 for the advancement of good letters in Ireland. The 
 University, and the country at large, ought, in various 
 respects, to be drawn more closely together ; and, from 
 a proper intercourse, and community of feeling, great 
 benefits might, at no distant day, eventually arise to both 
 of them. But we must pursue our more immediate 
 subject. 
 
 Dr. Phelan, if his health, which was always delicate, 
 be excepted, was well circumstanced for close application 
 to this additional duty. So young among the Fellows, he 
 had few pupils, for whom, indeed, neither directly, nor 
 indirectly, neither by himself, nor by his friends, did he 
 ever think it right to seek. He had full leisure, therefore, 
 for his favourite pursuits. His mind always had a predi- 
 lection for inquiries, addressed, at once, to the intellectual 
 
 * On a former occasion, the writer used language nearly similar ; which 
 he here takes the liberty of citing : — " In Ii-eland, we have, unfortunately, 
 not abounded in magnificent patrons of learning. The University of Dublin 
 was founded at a period when the zeal for thus [by foundations, benefactions, 
 &c.] promoting good letters had gone by. Accordingly we have but one 
 College, one Provost, and twenty-five Fellows, for the education of about 
 fifteen hvmdred undergraduates. These twenty-six very learned men, who 
 attained their present honourable rank, after years of intense study, and 
 tlu-ough the most arduous hterary competition in the world, have upon 
 their shoulders the instruction and government of fifteen himdi-ed young 
 men : and, thus occupied, they certainly have httle redundant time for the 
 pleasures and the pains of authorship." — Bishop of LimericVs Speech in 
 the Souse of Lords, June 10, 1824. 
 
 29
 
 30 nisiiop jebb's BioouArmcAL memoir 
 
 and moral man ; and he loved to regard the deeper, and more 
 mysterious truths of Christianity, as not merely on proof 
 given of their divine authority to be implicitly received, 
 and venerated, but, much more, as indispensable parts of 
 a divine system, provided by the comprehensive and all- 
 gracious wisdom of God, for the renewal, enlargement, 
 and purification of our spiritual being. He sought, there- 
 fore, to exhibit the Christian scheme in such a manner as 
 might best show its correspondence, in all its parts, to the 
 wants and anticipations of human nature. His lectures, 
 accordingly, may, in some sort, be regarded as an effort 
 to describe the physiology of revealed religion. Others 
 have carefully examined facts, and doctrines, and discussed 
 their evidence, according to the dictates of forensic plead- 
 ing : he, on the contrary, was more solicitous to discover, 
 what may be termed the functions of those facts and 
 Doctrine doctrines. It is one thing, for example, to establish the 
 Triu'itv doctrine of the Trinity, by alleging the various passages 
 of Holy Writ in which it is more or less distinctly 
 revealed. It is another, and perhaps a yet more important 
 office, to show that this mysterious, yet infinitely practical 
 doctrine is precisely such a revelation of the Divine 
 Nature, as could, alone, enable man to accomplish the 
 great purposes for which he was called into existence. By 
 the one line of argument, the timid believer may be per- 
 suaded that his Christianity is true ; by the other, the 
 candid sceptic may be convinced that it is reasonable and 
 just. The judgment is thus satisfied, through the previous 
 conviction of the moral sense ; and, from the congruity 
 between ends and means, between the weakness of man 
 and the sufficiency of God, the facts and doctrines which 
 may once have appeared, not merely above reason, but 
 contrary to it, will, at once, be found harmonious in their 
 operation, and, so to speak, in their nature necessary. 
 
 Such was the lofty argument which habitually occupied 
 Dr. Phclan's mind, and which he sought to embody in the 
 Donnellan Lectures. How far he may have succeeded in
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 31, 
 
 the application of these principles, and in all the resulting 
 
 details, it remains for the judgment of competent and 
 
 meditative readers to determine. But all such are, at the 
 
 same time, entreated habitually to keep in mind, that the 
 
 present publication is a posthumous one ; that, had life 
 
 and health been spared to the Author, he would have 
 
 explained and supported his theory by extensive researches, 
 
 both ancient and modern ; that a copious body of materials 
 
 even now exists, among his papers, not only unused, but, 
 
 from imperfect references, quite unusable ; and that, had 
 
 his own acute and comprehensive mind presided over a full 
 
 exhibition of that scheme, which, for many years, he had 
 
 meditated and planned, the result must have been far 
 
 different from anything which is now brought forward.* 
 
 But, especially in his later years, infirmities were gathering Infirmities 
 
 fast upon him : in one letter to a friend, he writes, " For gat|^ermg 
 ^ _ ' _ ' onPhelan, 
 
 some months back I have been hearing with one ear, and 
 
 seeing with one eye." In another, what now seems like 
 
 the language of solemn anticipation, " The abortive 
 
 Donnellans lie in my college-desk, not to be disturbed 
 
 again, at least, not by my hands." This sacred, and, he 
 
 will add, this delightful duty, has unexpectedly fallen 
 
 into other, and, the writer fears, very incompetent hands : 
 
 but this he can say, with perfect truth, that, if he were 
 
 not convinced of the value and importance of these papers, 
 
 he would never have proposed to undertake, what, to him, 
 
 has proved a source of unmingled satisfaction, the office 
 
 of their Editor. 
 
 About this time, Mr. Phelan became one of the six One of the 
 
 university preachers. He was not what is called an ^|^,""ea"h. 
 
 orator, in the popular sense of the word : but he was a ers. 
 
 much better thing ; a calm, deliberate, and singularly 
 
 impressive preacher. His voice was far from strong, or 
 
 powerful ; its volume was thin, and its compass very 
 
 * The publication of Dr. Phelan's Donnellan Lectures had been delayed, 
 in the hope that the Author might be enabled to bring them out, with the 
 advantage of extensive notes and references.
 
 32 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 limited, but its tones were clear, animated, and flexible ; 
 his enunciation was distinct and solemn ; his face, when 
 he was preaching, as when he was familiarly conversing, 
 bore the stamp of zeal, earnestness, and pure affection, 
 lie thought that the natural variations of the eye, voice, 
 and countenance, were the sole legitimate kind of action, 
 the only one suitable to the dignity of the pulpit. And 
 the combined effect of his manner, his delivery, and that 
 truth of character, which the most eloquent words, in 
 themselves, altogether fail to convey, was that, as Arch- 
 ■^ch- deacon Churton has beautifully said of Dr. Townson, — • 
 
 Cburton. " You would pledge your soul on his sincerity ; you were 
 sure there was nothing he longed for so fervently as your 
 salvation." 
 
 Ten of the discourses tlms preached are given as speci- 
 mens of Dr. Phelan's peculiar manner. They were not 
 • prepared by him for the press, and were composed in the 
 ordinary discharge of his duty as university preacher. 
 Tiieir matter, though perfectly practical and familiar, is 
 distinguished, amidst all its simplicity, by the same pro- 
 fundity of thought which characterizes his Donnellan 
 Lectures. While, in manner, they afford the happiest 
 specimen of united ease and vigour, of acute reasoning 
 and affectionate familiarity. But their great charm 
 is a certain air of reality, which everywhere pervades 
 them : they insensibly twine around our hearts ; and, 
 without the least effort at exhibition, of which, indeed, he 
 had not the remotest thought, they set us at home in the 
 very scenes and circumstances which they cause to rise 
 graphically before us. Of our Lord's general character, 
 especially as it may be " pondered"* out of the first few 
 glimpses of his early life, the young preacher had a deep 
 and strong impression ; and what he felt acutely for him- 
 self, he never failed to impress vividly on others. Of the 
 discourses, those entitled " Christ in the Temple," " Few 
 Notices of Christ's Early Life," " Jesus at Cana," and 
 * St. Luke ii. 19.
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 33 
 
 those which immediately follow, to the Seventh Discourse 
 inclusive, appear to the Editor, as, he doubts not, they 
 will do to the reader, full of just, discriminative, and 
 original observation, and, even in their present unfinished 
 form, seem entitled fairly to take their place (no common 
 praise) beside Dr. Townson's exquisite Sermon, " On our 
 Lord's Manner of Teaching." 
 
 It would be alike unjust and injudicious to forestall the 
 reader's interest by any detailed notice of this portion of 
 the " Remains." But, from amidst various passages of 
 great interest and beauty, it seems right to select one or 
 two brief specimens, which may, in some degree, illustrate 
 the style and power of Dr. Phelan's mind, and, as the 
 writer thinks, the abiding influence of early circumstances 
 upon it. 
 
 Very early in his first discourse, he has, with peculiar Extracts 
 felicity, applied his knowledge and experience of humble (jiscoui-ses. 
 life to the elucidation of our Lord's visit, in childhood, to 
 Jerusalem and its holy Temple. In treating of that 
 remarkable occurrence, to which Saint Luke (ii. 46) 
 refers, Dr. Phelan observes that " The first circumstance 
 which should be noted is, the kindly and sociable spirit of 
 the child Jesus. It is acknowledged that, in the course of 
 his public ministry, our Lord manifests a cordiality towards 
 mankind, second only to that unreserved devotement with 
 which He had surrendered Himself to the business of his 
 heavenly Father. And we may perceive, from the cir- 
 cumstances now before us, that this gracious disposition 
 was the impulse of his tenderest, as well as the habit of 
 his most mature, years. ' As they returned,' says the 
 Evangelist, * the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem ; 
 and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But, sup- 
 posing him to have been in the company, they went a day's 
 journey ; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and 
 acquaintance.' No sooner do they miss their precious 
 charge, than they conclude that he had mingled with the 
 companions of their journey. This persuasion is no less 
 
 D
 
 •34 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 firm than it was instantaneous ; they travel a whole day, 
 without faltering in their assurance. At length they go 
 in quest of Him ; and where do they search ? Not in 
 solitude, or in secrecy ; not, as they might have done for 
 the austere Baptist, in a wilderness. They seek him 
 among their kinsfolk and acquaintance, among persons 
 whose intimacy is generally more unreserved in proportion 
 to the humility of their rank in life ; and who were then, 
 as we may suppose, beguiling the fatigues of a toilsome 
 journey by the free and playful interchange of confidential 
 conversation. Now we cannot imagine that Joseph and 
 his mother were careless of the treasure committed to 
 their keeping, or that, in their search for Him, they were 
 guided by no surer principle than indiscriminating sur- 
 mise. Their conviction, that He had mingled with their 
 friends, was natural and reasonable ; but it could not 
 have been so, had it not been suggested by his ordinary 
 conduct." (Pp. 127, 128.*) 
 Our Sa- He thus beautifully touches on the poverty of the 
 
 blessed Jesus : — 
 
 " We are, generally and incidentally, given to under- 
 stand that our Lord was poor, yet no images are presented 
 to us which can excite mean and vulgar associations. 
 There are, perhaps, only two instances in which his 
 poverty is pictured distinctly to tlie mind. These are, 
 the scene of his nativity, and that mournful expression of 
 his, that He had ' not where to lay his head.' Now, in 
 the first of these cases, the associated ideas are all even of 
 unearthly magnificence ; the stable of Bethlehem is trans- 
 formed into a holy tabernacle, where the wise and great 
 come to ofier their incense, and angels themselves attend 
 in humble ministration. And, as for the pathetic exjjres- 
 sion of the Son of Man, there is a majesty in its pathos, 
 which exalts our conception of the moral sublime. We 
 hear nothing but what is fit to fall from the lips of perse- 
 cuted royalty ; we see nothing, save what a wise heathen 
 * Vol. i. of the " Eemains," &c. 
 
 VIOULT 8 
 
 poTcrty ;
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 35 
 
 lias pronounced the noblest sight, even for God to see — a 
 great and good man rising superior to adversity." (Disc, iii., 
 pp. 160, 161.) 
 
 The susceptibility of our Lord, unmingled with a single Hissuscep- 
 shade of weakness, is pictured with happy discrimination: — ^ ^' 
 
 *' In the most highly gifted among men, that tempera- 
 ment, by which the soul is softened to imbibe the influence 
 of genius or of sensibility, generally weakens the severer 
 moral powers. ■ In Christ alone, both are united in their 
 full perfection. He feels all our infirmities, yet He yields 
 to none. He, no less than John the Baptist, is inclined to 
 lonely meditation. He does not disdain to contemplate 
 even the lilies of the field, yet He can move unwearied and 
 undisturbed amidst the tumults and anxieties of public 
 life. Unlike John, He is courteous ; but his is always 
 •the courtesy of a superior being, the serene grandeur of 
 sovereign dominion. He calls, and public officers rise and 
 follow Him ; He appears, and rich young men kneel down 
 to Him, and call Him Master ; He comes into the syna- 
 gogue of his own town, and the eyes of all the congrega- 
 tion are fastened upon Him ; He is silent, and no man 
 durst question Him ; He speaks, and the people wonder 
 at the gracious words which proceed out of his mouth." 
 (Disc, iv., p. 175.) 
 
 How these passages (and in the discourses of Mr. The grace 
 Phelan there are many such) may affect the reader, it is ^phant^^" 
 impossible to predict. To the editor, it must be owned, 
 they appear the mingled growth of native temperament, 
 of indigenous habit, and, he will add, of the triumphant 
 grace of God. At an early period of this memoir, it was 
 intimated that the subject of it was *' never vulgarized," 
 that he was, in principle and manners, " a native gentle- 
 man." I will now add, from long experience and observa- 
 tion, that he became more and more a devoted but a 
 happy Christian ; and my wish, serious as though it were 
 my last one, is. Sit me anima cum Phelano ! 
 
 It now seems proper to revert to Dr. Phelan's state of Feelings on 
 
 D 2
 
 SG BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 obtaining feeling, ou the occasion of fellowship-examinations in 
 1817. From the extracts already given of his correspond- 
 ence (p. 26), it is evident that he was neither sanguine in 
 his hopes, nor elated by his success. To some, indeed, it 
 may almost appear that he had attained, or affected, the 
 tranquillity of stoical indifference. Far different, how- 
 ever, was the real case ; and, in order to place it fairly 
 before the reader, we must recur to other passages of the 
 same letters. In that of April 12, he tells his friend, " I 
 am not happy, nor can a fellowship make me so." And, 
 on June 5, three days after having apparently realized his 
 most ardent hopes, he emphatically writes, " At present, I 
 feel myself very far from happy." The fact is (and this 
 will at once explain all seeming contradictions), that, 
 during his visit to Dundalk (p. 22), his affections had been 
 irrevocably engaged to a sister of his friendly host. And- 
 although, during his continuance in Londonderry, pru- 
 dence, and principle, and voluntary devotedness to his 
 parents, allowed him not to think of an immediate mar- 
 riage, yet he was not without hopes that some settlement 
 might offer, compatible with the attainment of his dearest 
 wishes. It is not wonderful, then, that a fellowship, 
 which, so long as it should be retained, must probably 
 doom him to hopeless celibacy, was anything rather than 
 an object of complacency or self-gratulation. He literally, 
 therefore, had not wished to succeed. And when, most 
 unexpectedly, his efforts were crowned with success, his 
 great object was, if practicable, to emancipate himself by 
 a Royal dispensation. To accomplish this purpose, power- 
 ful efforts were, at different times, fruitlessly employed. 
 But the sudden death of the young lady's natural pro- 
 tector determined him, at all hazards, to resign his fellow- 
 ship, and fulfil his honourable engagement. Accordingly, 
 In 1823, he on the 18th of May, 1823, he was married, on the licence 
 mames, ^f ^^^ j^^j.^^ gigi^op of Fenis, to Miss Margaret Stubbs, 
 
 and resigns ^ ' . • 
 
 it. by her brother, the Reverend J. H. Stubbs, Vicar of 
 
 Kilmacahill, in the church of that parish. Within the
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 67 
 
 time specified by law, he subsequently resigned his fellow- 
 ship, on the 12th of August in the same year; having 
 received from the Provost and Senior Fellows a generous 
 engagement to extend to him the future privilege of option 
 to a college living. Nor should it be omitted, for it is 
 highly to their honour, that the Junior Fellows voluntarily 
 relinquished their claims to any emolument accruing from 
 his late pupils, not only for the remainder of the current 
 year, but so long as they might continue their names upon 
 the college-books.* 
 
 The connexion thus disinterestedly formed greatly 
 augmented his happiness, and probably also contributed 
 to the extension of his short but valuable life. His 
 delicate health demanded the most tender care, and this 
 Mrs. Phelan delighted to administer, with all that noise- 
 less assiduity which attends every step and movement of 
 an affectionate female. Her principles, tastes, and habits, 
 were in complete accordance with his own ; and, for years 
 before their marriage, she had been the faithful depository 
 of his inmost thoughts and feelings. But the privacy of 
 such a correspondence is too sacred a thing to be need- 
 lessly violated ; fragments of but one letter have been 
 committed to the writer, and, as these are at once beauti- 
 fully simple, and throw a vivid light upon some particulars 
 of his life and character, I shall give them without scruple. 
 They seem to have been written from his native town, or 
 its immediate vicinity; and I envy not the heart of that 
 man who can, read them without emotions that he would 
 wish to cherish for ever : — 
 
 . . . . " Have you not remarked that the religious The reli- 
 world is, after all, the world, and has the Scripture marks toomuc'hof 
 of the world about it ? It is constantly substituting things the world, 
 external and adventitious for things internal and essential. 
 A dogma, or a ceremony, or a public Meeting, or any- 
 
 * For this fact I am indebted to the information of the Rev. Dr. Wall, at 
 that time Junior Bursar. The simi thus libei-ally ceded was above 900/. — 
 J. L.
 
 BISHOP JEBB S BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 thing else that the times may countenance, is sure to take 
 tlie lead of ' Rigliteousness, and peace, and joy in the 
 Holy Ghost.' 
 
 " In the more immediate circle, at present, of the 
 Church Establishment, a dogma is the rage. Did it ever 
 occur to you, to note the opposite conduct of our Lord, in 
 regulating his family ? No less than four times, in the 
 first three chapters of St. Luke, it is said that his mother 
 and Joseph did not know the import of expressions, relat- 
 ing to Him and his kingdom. We are not told that He 
 even gave them any particular information. In general, it 
 is to be observed that the truths, facts, and persons of the 
 Gospel are revealed to us as objects of the affections: they 
 are addressed to the intellect, only so far as every object 
 of the soul must pass through the perceptive powers to the 
 heart ; when there, they are at home, no matter how they 
 effect the passage. All dogmatists pass their time in 
 examining, and, as they think, repairing the road to the 
 intellect, and getting presentiments for short cuts, &;c., &c. 
 Iilischicfs Thus, like our Irish highways, they are always a repairing, 
 never in repair. Meanwhile, the heart is cut off from all 
 valuable communication with that gracious but mysterious 
 Being, who is ' a God that hideth Himself,' indeed, 
 from ill-directed inquiries, but who deliglits to abide 
 with the humble and contrite spirit, ' full of grace and 
 truth.' 
 
 *' Such I firmly believe was his indwelling with your 
 father ; it was not manifested by any direct exhibition 
 of religion, but it was known by its effects — known as 
 a refreshing and purifying essence, which makes an 
 atmosphere of sweetness around the place where it is 
 concealed, 
 
 " Cherish, then, those feelings about your father, which 
 become you equally as a child and as a Christian. In 
 the present trying moments they will console you, and 
 through life they will serve as those auxiliary lights 
 which the gracious order of Providence kindles from time 
 
 of clo<rm 
 tism
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 39 
 
 to time for the guidance of the pure in spirit, so that they 
 count it all joy when they fall into tribulation. 
 
 '* There is one quality both of my mind and of my 
 heart to which I do not believe you have much adverted — 
 that is, their yotithf illness ; they promise to grow, to shoot 
 out blossoms and fruits for years to come. And, even in 
 that stage when nature shall indicate that we are shortly 
 to remove to another state of being, I trust that I shall 
 still retain a buoyancy of spirit. 
 
 " The most grateful moments I can enjoy are those His filial 
 in which I feel myself of value to the few whom I really ^^^^'S- 
 love. The feelings I have towards that dear old man, my 
 father, are experienced, I believe, by very few sons ; at 
 least by none that I ever knew, to the same degree. And 
 I cannot describe to you the delight I felt when I saw his 
 face tinged again with the freshness which I used to 
 observe on it in my childhood. 
 
 " I have been travelling these one-and-twenty years, 
 and never saw so rich a harvest ; it is called a war-harvest, 
 the common people having a persuasion that pre-eminently 
 good seasons introduce war, or some other calamity. Such 
 is their theory of the balancing of good and evil in this 
 wady-buccady* world. 
 
 " The character of the people in this country appears 
 to most advantage in times of calamity. When above 
 immediate want their vivacity is apt to become insolent, 
 and their proud spirit breaks into turbulence. But in 
 distress the common Irishman is meek as Moses. The 
 loss of health, wealth, friends — all, in a word, that our 
 nature deems most valuable, is met by him with the 
 
 * See-saw, up-and-down — a game in whicla two persons, seated on the 
 extreme ends of a long piece of timber, supported in the centre by a fulcrum, 
 at once balance each other, and are altci'nately elevated and depressed, by 
 that motion which they communicate.
 
 40 
 
 BISHOP JEBB S BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 ejaculation, ' Welcome be the grace of God." They see 
 the correcting hand of Providence in every visitation, and 
 receive it as an act of mercy." 
 
 He settles 
 in diocese 
 ofArinagli 
 
 On finally leaving college, in August, 1823, Mr. Phelan's 
 first settlement was at the curacy of Keady, in the diocese 
 of Armagh. This situation had for several months been 
 kept open for him by the kindness of the Lord Primate, 
 and gave promise of that literary leisure which he keenly 
 relished, but never allowed to run to waste. " Here," 
 said he to an early intimate,* " I can complete my attain- 
 ments as a scholar and divine ; all that I want is a library." 
 
 Just at this time, however, the Professorship of Astro- 
 nomy at Armagh became vacant ; for this situation Dr. 
 Phclan thought it right to apply, but he learned that two 
 days before it had been conferred on Dr. Robinson. At 
 this appointment he was far from repining; on the con- 
 trary, he was satisfied that it did the Primate much 
 honour. In that particular department Dr. Robinson's 
 reputation stood unquestionably at the very highest ; and 
 the choice has been amply accredited by the opinion of 
 scientific Europe. f 
 
 Mr. Phelan's habits had hitherto been those of a severe 
 student ; and he was better calculated for the literary and 
 perceptive than for the more active departments of his 
 calling. Plis health w'as exceedingly infirm, and he was 
 often unequal to those laborious out-of-door exertions the 
 vast importance of which he strongly felt. But his best 
 energies wei'e faithfully devoted to the spiritual improve- 
 ment of his flock. He had hitherto appeared in the 
 pulpit almost exclusively before a learned audience, and 
 his discourses had been adapted always to satisfy the 
 requirements of cultivated minds, and often to rivet the 
 
 * The Rev. Eichard Ryan. 
 
 t The Observations of Dr. Robinson have been more numerous, and have 
 excited greater attention, than those made at any other Observatory within 
 the same period.
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 41 
 
 attention of profound thinkers. It now became his duty His style 
 
 to adopt a different style of preaching. And it is an . P''®^'"'^" 
 
 encouraging fact to all persons similarly circumstanced, 
 
 that in adjusting his discourses to the capacity of his 
 
 humble congregation he was quite successful. He had 
 
 not formerly been more remarkable for the eloquence of 
 
 thought than he now became for primitive simplicity. 
 
 He seemed to preach under the habitual conviction, that 
 
 *' A pastor is the deputy of Christ for the reducing of George 
 
 man to the obedience of God." * Herbert. 
 
 On ordinary occasions it was not his habit to commit to 
 
 writing the entire of his sermons ; he used merely to note 
 
 down his principal topics ; for he felt that a northern 
 
 congregation especially would be more interested and 
 
 impressed by conceptions reduced at the moment to 
 
 words, than it could have been by any more elaborate 
 
 process of composition. But his discourses were quite 
 
 free from the usual defects of extemporaneous addresses. ■]- 
 
 The thoughts were always lucidly arranged ; for the 
 
 subject-matter had been thoroughly digested. He never 
 
 ascended the pulpit without an awful sense of ministerial 
 
 responsibility, nor willingly left it without having enforced 
 
 at least some one religious truth in a novel and interesting 
 
 manner. His learning was so attempered by suavity, that 
 
 the people delighted in him as a teacher, while his parental 
 
 concern for their welfare endeared him to them as the 
 
 tenderest of friends. 
 
 With true humility of mind he united a strong, and The Pri- 
 mate atten- 
 
 * George Herbert. Country Parson, 
 
 t "In this whole discourse" [the Sermon on the Mount], said Mr. Mr. Wcs- 
 Wesley, " we cannot but observe the most exact method that can possibly ^^• 
 be conceived. Every paragraph, every sentence, is closely connected, both 
 with that which precedes and that which follows it. And is not tliis the 
 pattern for eveiy Christian preacher ? If any, then, are able to foUow it, 
 without any premeditation, well. If not, let them not dare to preach 
 without it. No rhapsody, no incoherency [whether the things spoken be 
 true or false], comes of the spirit of Christ."
 
 42 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 tivc to the even lofty spirit of independence. He loved rather to 
 Curate. confer than to receive a benefit, and covild with difficulty 
 be induced to incur a personal obligation. This the 
 Primate well knew ; while at the same time he was appre- 
 hensive that on moving to the curacy of Keady, Mr. 
 Phelan must necessarily require some pecuniary aid. He 
 accordingly took an early opportunity of calling at the 
 curate's humble residence, and, after some general conver- 
 sation, delicately hinted at the expenses which must 
 almost inevitably beset a new-married man, expressing 
 a hope that he might be permitted to become his banker. 
 Mr. P., with very fervent acknowledgments, assured his 
 Grace that he did not at that time stand in need of such 
 assistance, but promised that should any emergency arise 
 he would, without hesitation, avail himself of it. The 
 Primate still persevered : " You cannot," said he, " be 
 aware how many demands on your purse must now be 
 answered. Mrs. Phelan, too, must want several articles 
 of comfort, which your present means may not be able to 
 supply." Mr. P. respectfully declared, " That he was 
 unconscious of any want for which he was not already 
 provided." " Come, Phelan," says the Primate, ** you 
 must want a horse." The reply was, " My Lord, I have 
 two," " Well, then," his Grace added, " you will excuse 
 my importunity — but, the remittance to your father, have 
 you thought of that ? " " My Lord," said Phelan, the 
 tears of gratitude in his eyes, " I have not forgotten him ; 
 before leaving Dublin I took care that he should not 
 want."* 
 
 These last were far from words of course. In a con- 
 fidential letter to a friend, dated August 18, 1823, he 
 thus unbosoms himself: "If I have means enough to 
 
 * Dr. riiclan related this conversation to a friend ; and the editor could 
 not suppress a circumstance so riclily biographical. He must, therefore, at 
 once throw himself upon the indulgence of the eminent individual who, 
 above most other men, " does good by stealth."
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 43 
 
 continue my usual allowance to my father, I am perfectly 
 satisfied." 
 
 " Filial piety," it has been said at the commencement Filial piety 
 of this memoir, " was with him almost an instinct." And q^^j 
 the fact is illustrated by an afifecting entry found in one of 
 his note-books, to which Mrs. Phelan says he was fond of 
 alluding. It is simply this — for it would seem never to 
 have been wrought up into regular composition, — " The 
 emotions of filial piety, perhaps the nearest approach that 
 nature gives to the love of God." Now, his own conduct 
 shows the high sense which he ever entertained of both 
 sacred ties ; and the analogy is the more beautifully 
 striking, as coming from the lips and heart of such a son 
 and such a Christian. The sentiment of natural affection 
 in him was sublimated into a feeling which had ** less of 
 earth in it than heaven." This was the animating soul of 
 all his efforts, from the first moment that such efforts 
 could availably be made, for the securing of his parent's 
 worldly comforts ; it was the most remote thing possible 
 from the callous and rigid payment of a debt involun- 
 tarily contracted ; and an indescribable emotion of mingled 
 reverence and love, from early childhood to his latest hour, 
 would seem to have been above most others the master- 
 affection of his soul. " I can never forget," says Mrs. 
 Phelan, " the manner in which, on receiving a letter or 
 other tidings from his first home, he was wont to say, 
 ' How I love and venerate that dear old man, my 
 father ! ' " 
 
 By the kindness of his family, the writer possesses 
 copies of letters addressed to that " dear father " by Dr. 
 Phelan, almost from the year of his entrance into College 
 to the year of his death : from these I now proj)ose to 
 insert extracts of a small number, not selected with any 
 very curious nicety, but evincing, as indeed all the letters 
 do, the affectionate and wholly unselfish character of his 
 nature.
 
 44 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 Letters to DiihUn, December 23, 1808. 
 
 Honoured Sir, — How dillerent is our situation this 
 Christmas from that with which we were usually blest ! It 
 is indeed a gloomy change ; but still, it is our duty to 
 receive the change as a visitation from the Almighty : for 
 " whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth." Let us learn to 
 bear our present humiliation with patience, and the Lord 
 will, no doubt, reward our perseverance in a manner 
 beyond our expectations. 
 
 Your ever-obedient Son, 
 
 William Phelan. 
 
 Jpril 28, 1809. 
 Honoured Sir, — I have just happened to receive the 
 enclosed, and I hasten to remit it to you. My endeavours 
 to do without it will be facilitated by the sweet hope of its 
 being useful to the best of parents. 
 
 Your ever-dutiful Son, 
 W. P. 
 
 Dublin, April 13, 1810. 
 
 Honoured Sir, — Enclosed I send you share of another 
 prize, which I obtained at the time I took my degree. It 
 was for English verse ; the first time I made any attempt 
 that way ; and, luckily, I have been very successful. I 
 also, on the same day, got the gold medal ; * so that, for 
 a while, I am pretty well supplied with college honours. 
 I know you, and my dear mother, will be glad to hear of 
 this : so I have told you everything that has happened 
 to me. 
 
 I hope, my dear father, that, whenever you find yourself 
 weakened by work, you will stop and indulge yourself. 
 I am young. Sir ; my work is not so hard as yours ; and 
 I should be ashamed to hear that he to whom I owe my 
 life and my education, should labour too hard, while 
 I have the means of furnishing assistance. 
 * See p. 10, ante.
 
 OF WILLIAM PIIELAN, D.D. 
 
 45 
 
 Tell my mother that I am not, nor ever shall be, Letters to 
 forgetful of her tender care of me : and believe me, 
 dear Sir, 
 
 Your ever-grateful Son, 
 W. P. 
 
 Trin. Coll., Oct. 15, 1820. 
 My dear Father, — Once more I must deny myself 
 the pleasure of taking a trip to Clonmel. My entrance 
 to-day was only two pupils ; and this is too small to allow 
 of any more travelling for the year. I wish very much 
 that you would lay out the enclosed upon yourself. This 
 day three weeks I shall send as much more, which can be 
 used for the family purposes. 
 
 I shall send the spectacles by the first opportunity. 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, 
 
 Ever your affectionate Son, 
 W. P. 
 
 Trin. Coll., Oct. 7, 1821. 
 My dear Father, — I wish very much that you would, 
 immediately, have the flannel waistcoats made. Give up 
 one pound to the purpose ; and I shall be sure to make it 
 up to you. Take care, and make yourself comfortable 
 this winter. It can make the difference of only a very 
 few pounds to me ; and I hope it is needless to say that, 
 for such a purpose, I do not value a few pounds. 
 
 Your ever-affectionate Son, 
 W. P. 
 
 Trin. Coll., Nov. 20, 1822. 
 My dear Father, — I beg you will employ the enclosed 
 in some articles of comfortable dress for yourself and my 
 mother. Do not think of my being a little embarrassed 
 for money ; my difficulty on that account will be but for a 
 short time : and my uneasiness would be, beyond com-
 
 46 BISHOP jebd's biographical memoir 
 
 Letters to parison, both heavier and longer, if you wanted anything 
 
 liis father. i • i t i i 
 
 which 1 could procure. 
 
 W. P. 
 
 Trin. Coll., Oct. 25, 1823. 
 My dear Father, — It has just occurred to me that I 
 have neglected you sadly as to money matters. To remove 
 all such inconveniences in future, I shall make it a rule, 
 please God, to pay you quarterly. You shall have, as 
 long as we all live and do well, twenty-five pounds, on 
 each of the following days, &c. 
 
 W. P. 
 
 Tuesday (1829). 
 My dear Father, — I do not know how to address 
 
 you at this afflicting time. Our darling B is gone 
 
 to a better world ; but you must feel the loss of her society 
 deeply. However, it would be selfish, as well aspresumjD- 
 tuous, to murmur at the will of Him who is the Father of 
 us all. 
 
 I send the enclosed for the purpose of buying mourning. 
 It is right that we should pay every respect to the memory 
 of that sweet creature who is gone from us. 
 Ever, my dear Father, 
 
 Your most afiectionate Son, 
 W. P. 
 
 3, Lower Merrion Street, Dublin, 
 
 March 11, 1830. 
 My dear Father, — It will grieve me excessively if 
 I should discover that you have been denying yourselves 
 anything comfortable, from reluctance to call upon me. 
 Indeed, I am never satisfied when I see, or hear, that you 
 do not take all the care you ought of yourselves, or do not 
 attend to those little supports of life which your state, 
 and that of my mother, requires. You cannot but feel
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 47 
 
 that I would count nothing within my power too much Letters to 
 o o lii8 father. 
 
 lor your use, &c. 
 
 Ever your aiFectionate Son, 
 
 W. P. 
 
 Dublin, March 25, 1830. 
 
 My dear Father, — It mortifies me more than I can 
 express, that I find it quite impossible to accompany 
 Catherine to Clonmel. Various things conspire to make it 
 necessary for us to leave Dublin very early next week, and 
 many preparations are to be made before we can set out. 
 All these causes compel me to let Catherine travel alone. 
 But I live in hopes that I shall see you before the summer 
 is over, and that I shall find you and my dear mother 
 improved by the fine weather. 
 
 You will perceive, by what Catherine brings, that I 
 am still in your debt. I trust that I shall be able to pay 
 you. With my best love to my dear mother, 
 Ever your affectionate Son, 
 
 William Phelan. 
 
 This was his last letter to his father, and gives delightful 
 evidence that something far tenderer, and more sacred, 
 than mere family affection, was triumphant, even to the 
 close. 
 
 But a touching incident yet remains. The heavy ex- 
 penses of his last illness had drained his purse ; and, for 
 some time, he had been unable to remit his father's allow- 
 ance. Unexpectedly there came in, for the renewal of a 
 lease, five-and-thirty pounds. " Let that immediately be 
 sent to my father,"* said Dr. Phelan, " I have been in his 
 debt too long." It was enclosed accordingly : and his 
 sister, observing his extreme weakness, was about to direct 
 the cover ; but he said, quickly, " Give me the pen ; if 
 he saw any other handwriting than mine, the dear old 
 
 * Here was, precisely, the same spirit which dictated the memorable 
 saying to his brother, sixteen years before. See page 15, ante. — J, L.
 
 48 
 
 BISHOP JEBB S BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 man * might think me worse tlian I am." "Within three 
 days he breathed his last ! 
 
 Next spring (1831), Miss Phelan writes, " My father is 
 pretty well, considering his infirmities : he bows with 
 submission to the will of our heavenly Father. But the 
 tears roll down his aged face whenever William is men- 
 tioned ; and sometimes, when alone, he speaks to himself, 
 in Irish, about his darling." 
 Phelan's In April, 1832, Mr. Phelan, senior, was in his eighty- 
 
 fether.aged ^j^^j^^ ^^^^ ^^^ Phelan in her sixty -ninth year. 
 
 It is, perhaps, very generally felt, that the most natural 
 and affecting letters of Pope, Warburton, and Hurd are 
 those dictated by filial piety. But, in genuine pathos and 
 simplicity, they are far excelled by several of Dr. Phelan's. 
 We are continually reminded of those exquisite lines, 
 which few sons have equally realized : — 
 
 " O friend, may each domestic bliss be tlaine : 
 Be no impleasing melancholy mine : 
 Me let the tender oiSce long engage, 
 To rock the cradle of reposing age ; 
 Explore the thought, explain the askmg eye, 
 And keep awliile both paeents from the sky ! " 
 
 From 1823 to 1829, Dr. Phelan's favourite and more 
 congenial studies, were often interrupted by various 
 political discussions of the day. To dilate on such subjects 
 is foreign from the purpose of this memoir ; and (may the 
 memorialist be allowed to add) from the habits of his 
 own life. Therefore, as has been already intimated, I shall 
 here confine myself to the simple mention of his chief 
 treatises, in the order of publication : — 
 
 1. Essay on the subject proposed by the Royal Irish 
 Academy, " Whether, and how far, the pursuits of 
 scientific and polite literature assist or obstruct each 
 other ?" 1813. Re-published in the present volume. 
 
 2. "The Bible, not the Bible Society." 1817. 
 
 * Dr. Phelan's usual phrase, when speaking of his father, amidst his o^ti 
 family. 
 
 Dr. Phe- 
 lan's publi- 
 cations.
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 49 
 
 3. A Letter to Marquis Wellesley, on '* The Case of the 
 
 Church in Ireland: by Declan." 1823. Declan 
 was the name of the first Bishop of Ardniore, in 
 Ireland: traditionally a member of the family, whence 
 Dr. Phelan was descended. Not published till after 
 the author had withdrawn from college. 
 
 4. The same. Second Edition, much enlarged. 1824. 
 
 5. A second Letter to the Marquis Wellesley, under the 
 
 same title and signature. 1824. 
 
 6. " A Letter to William Wilberforce, Esq.," suggesting 
 
 some alterations in Mr. Goulburn's Tithe Composition 
 Act. 1825. 
 
 7. " A Digest of the Evidence taken before the Com- 
 
 mittees of both Houses of Parliament, &c., in 1825." 
 Vol. II. The first volume of this work was drawn up 
 by the Rev. Mortimer O'SuUivan. Both he and Dr. 
 Phelan had been previously examined before the Com- 
 mittees, The Digest was brought out in March, 1826. 
 
 8. " History of the Policy of the Church of Rome in 
 
 Ireland," &c. 1827. This work forms the second 
 volume of the present publication.* It is given, not 
 as a controversial, but purely as an historical discus- 
 sion ; and it is hoped that, when temporary excite- 
 ment shall have subsided, it may be studied with 
 advantage by persons of every description, and, not 
 least, by members of the Church of Rome. 
 
 9. Two Letters, from a Clergyman in Ireland, to his 
 
 Friend in England. 1828. 
 
 10. " Remains," &c. 2 vols. 8vo. 1832. 
 
 On the 26th of May, 1824, he was appointed by the Presented 
 Primate to the Rectory of Killyman, in the Diocese of ^^^^ q£ 
 Armagh. His announcement of this event (to him cer- Killyman. 
 tainly an important one) bespoke a singularly well- 
 balanced mind. He had been writing on other subjects, 
 and at some length, to his friend, Mr. Ryan, when he 
 thus proceeds : — *' This morning, his Grace presented me 
 * i.e., " Tlie Eemaius." 
 E
 
 50 BISHOP jehr's biographical memoir 
 
 vvitli a very well-circuni.stanced living, and unincumbered 
 Avitli any claim for building. I have now, thank God, an 
 immediate prospect of competency, after a total demolition 
 of my affairs within the course of the year. I am deeply 
 grateful to Providence, but not elated ; on the contrary, 
 my mind is quite still and motionless." 
 
 Killyman was eligible as a residence, in several respects ; 
 in none more so than its vicinity to Armagh. Thence 
 Dr. Phelan was enabled to pass many agreeable and many 
 useful hours in communication with the Primate, whom it 
 would be impossible to say how deeply he revered. And 
 there, along with Archdeacon Stopford, and the present 
 Dean of Armagh [1832], the Primate being generally 
 present, he acted as examiner for holy orders : an 
 important office, by him most faithfully discharged, for 
 none felt more acutely its weighty responsibility. 
 Suc'ceedsto He succeeded, in virtue of the arrangement made with 
 Ardtrea ° ^^^ Provost and Senior Fellows, to the Rectory of 
 Ardtrca, in the gift of the University of Dublin, about 
 the 23d October, 1825.* His pecuniary circumstances 
 now gave promise of becoming easy ; and, had his life 
 been spared for a very few years, he might have provided 
 competently for his family. It is, however, but fair to 
 say, that his mere acquaintances were apt to think him 
 ambitious ; and it need not be concealed, that he some- 
 times seemed to view with complacency the possibility of, 
 at a future day, obtaining a more prominent place in his 
 profession. But the present writer, speaking from some 
 knowledge of facts, and after much deliberate thought on 
 the subject, does not hesitate to say that Dr. Phelan's 
 
 * The income of the two parishes has been acciu'afcely reported to mo ; it 
 appears that Killyman produced about 850/., and Ardtrca 950/. per annum. 
 From this amount is to bo deducted 100/., allowed by Dr. Phelan to his 
 curates, and at least 150/. for the expenses of collection, &c. From the 
 charges of faculty, outfit, furniture, &c., he was just beginning to emerge, 
 when it pleased God to remove him. The delicate state of his health put a 
 life-insurance out of the question. It was not even so much as attempted, 
 nor, indeed, in his circumstances, would the attempt have been honest.
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 51 
 
 ambition (no modification of which can be perfectly or 
 abstractedly right) was, at least, quite free from selfish- 
 ness ; that he regarded station in the Church not as an 
 end, but as a means of usefulness ; and that the prevailing 
 disposition of his mind was to perform faithfully his own 
 immediate duties, and leave events confidingly and unre- 
 servedly in the hands of God. 
 
 The testimony of my friend, the Rev. Charles Forstcr, 
 so perfectly accords with my own experience, that I 
 cannot allow myself to suppress it; and it is the more 
 valuable, I conceive, because it is given in his own unpre- 
 meditated words, taken down exactly as they were spoken: 
 — "In October, 1825, I saw Dr. Phelan in Dublin, imme- 
 diately after he had succeeded to the living of Ardtrea. 
 It was the last opportunity I enjoyed of his confidential 
 conversation. The sentiment uppermost in his mind was 
 a lively sense of the goodness of Providence towards him. 
 He introduced, of his own accord — the mouth manifestly 
 speaking out of the abundance of the heart — the great 
 cause he had for thankfulness ; expressed, with a look of 
 thoughtful calmness, his gratitude at finding himself in a 
 situation beyond his deserts, and fully equal to his desires; 
 and concluded by observing that he had nothing more to 
 wish for in this v/orld, but had every reason to be contented 
 and happy." 
 
 In July, 1826, he proceeded D.D. ; and immediately Degree of 
 after was appointed, by the Lord Primate of Ireland, his 
 Examiner for Faculties ; this office, however, soon virtually 
 ceased, the Primate having, greatly to his honour, declined 
 to grant any more faculties. 
 
 From the spring of 1827 [with the exception of his 
 two letters to a Clergyman, &c., and a few essays in the 
 periodicalJournals], he did not publish : he seems to have 
 resumed, for some time, his earlier pursuits with unabated 
 delight. He read Plato, and the philosophers of his 
 school ; Kant, and the chief metaphysicians ; nor was he 
 wholly inobservant of the new system in progress among 
 
 E 2 
 
 D.D.
 
 52 BISHOP J ebb's hioguapiiical memoik 
 
 The Holy men of letters in France. But the Scriptures were his 
 S(ni)tiiros j.p,j .^j^j iji-olound study. He estimated the best human 
 
 his fhicl i *' 
 
 study. productions only as, by correspondence or by contrast, 
 they served to display the surpassing excellence of God's 
 Word ; and he thought ovu* present intellectual systems, 
 therefore, incomplete and uncertain, because they are 
 formed not in accordance with, and subservience to, that 
 all-perfect rule. He soberly was of opinion that, when 
 philosophy should condescend to become the humble dis- 
 ciple of revealed religion, she would make the most rapid 
 advances, and commence a new era of metaphysical science. 
 Philosophy " If ever," he was used to say, "there arises a Newton in 
 Bible ^^^^ philosophy of intellect, he wall be a man profoundly 
 
 acquainted with the Bible." Here, he was satisfied, are 
 the principles of all knowledge that has man for its object ; 
 and, in the society of his chosen intimates, whatever might 
 be the subject of conversation, it never failed to terminate 
 in considerations drawn from the sacred writings ; or, 
 rather, he very soon proved that by the light of Scripture 
 it could best be elucidated and expanded. To his theolo- 
 gical studies, therefore, he drew all that was really interest- 
 ing in every literary pursuit ; and, as his acquaintance with 
 the Bible grew more profound, it became more and more 
 evident that from thence he was continually deriving new 
 and striking thoughts. 
 
 Meanwhile, it was manifest to his anxious friends that 
 his bodily health was rapidly on the decline. The symp- 
 toms were, perhaps, first and most distinctly observed by 
 himself. Thus, so early as the month of October, 18;?5, 
 he writes to a confidential friend : — " I am beoinninef to 
 have fears of another kind, which I do not like to detail 
 on paper, but which occupy a great portion of my secret 
 musings." Again, on the 19th of November, 1826: — 
 ** As for myself, I am certainly not well. My power of 
 enduring study is greatly reduced, and my susceptibility of 
 cold increases to a most uncomfortable extent." In the 
 summer of 1827, his feelings were yet more distressing:
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 53 
 
 July 16, he says, " I am very low, with respect to my own HisfaiLng 
 state. For the last six years I have had occasionally 
 an intermitting pulse, which at first was said to be nervous. 
 But I was given to understand that, unless it were mastered 
 by exercise and tranquillity of mind, it might ultimately 
 turn out to be organic. It was diminishing up to last 
 winter ; so much so, that I had begun to hope I had 
 mastered it ; but my long confinement then brought it on 
 to a very serious degree. Common sense agrees with the 
 physicians, that a disease which attacks so directly the 
 seat of life must be treated with very respectful attention. 
 I have been ordered, and I intend obeying the precept, to 
 give up my books and scribbling, and devote my care to 
 my health. The great difiiculty I feel is, how to avert my 
 thoughts from my own state, when I am not occupied in 
 studious thinking. I find that minute care about myself 
 increases the agitation of my pulse ; and, from the long- 
 formed habits of my life, I do not know any way of 
 diverting my thoughts effectually, but by engaging in 
 some settled scheme of mental occupation. This last, 
 however, every one agrees in condemning. I had de- 
 signed, by this time, to have commenced a series of .... ; 
 but it will not be allowed. The worst of the matter is, 
 that I really believe the irksomeness of want of settled 
 employment is as bad for me as work." His spirits, 
 towards the close of this year, appear to have been nearly 
 overwhelmed. He writes, December 1, 18)^7, "A History 
 of the ancient Church of Ireland has been one of the 
 many things upon which my thoughts have dwelt ; but 
 this, as well as all the rest, must now be postponed — perhaps 
 for ever. The state of my pulse and nerves renders 
 application to study perfectly impossible ; and as, in these 
 cases, mind and body react upon each other, I see no reason- 
 able prospect of improvement. An occasional sermon will 
 now, probably, be the measure of my labours for the rest 
 of my life. I attend to myself very carefully ; rise at six 
 o'clock, am systematically temperate, read very little, and
 
 54 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 go out whenever the weather permits. My great deside- 
 ratum is, the want of society ; the society, I mean, of men 
 with whom I might converse upon those topics which are 
 now part of myself." 
 
 The very evening of the day in which this melanclioly 
 letter was penned he had a serious attack of pleurisy, and, 
 after five weeks' close confinement, he was not able so 
 much as to reach the hall-door. The utmost exertion 
 that he could make was a gentle walk about his study ; 
 and liis friends were desirous that, when his strength 
 should be tolerably returned, he would consent to vary 
 the scene. The general feeling on the subject may be 
 collected from a letter written at the time : — " Ardtrea, 
 January 25, 1828. Most people here speak of the Cove 
 of Cork as the most desirable retreat for me ; the doctors 
 say, an excursion and idleness, without any particular 
 destination ; and, though last, not least among my advisers, 
 the Primate recommends a trip to Dublin." 
 
 To that city, therefore, he removed in the winter of 
 1828-9, medical men having concurred in ordering a 
 removal from the cold, damp climate of the north, to 
 a more genial atmosphere. While he continued in 
 Dublin he apparently grew much better, but no sooner 
 had he returned home than the affection on his lungs 
 became more distressing, and he was medically forbidden 
 to preach, or perform any part of Divine service. Shortly 
 after, he was afflicted with a violent palpitation of the 
 heart, which forced him to give up his usual exercise, 
 a short ride or walk causing him much embarrassment. 
 His scclu- Just before his return, he addressed to his brother-in- 
 law a letter, which throws some interesting light upon his 
 character :— " Dublin, Feb. 23, 1829.— My life here is 
 one of perfect seclusion, except so far as going occasionally 
 to a news-room, or to the college chapel on Sunday, may 
 be called going into society. I see **** but seldom, and 
 scarcely ever dine out. You will be surprised at all this, 
 but it is because you have mistaken my character and 
 
 sion.
 
 OF WILLIAM PIIELAN, D.D. 55 
 
 disposition ; for though I have, or rather had, somewhat 
 of a lively manner with my very few close intimates, there 
 is no one of a really more retiring turn. I dwell too 
 much among my own thoughts to have either the power 
 or the will to make myself acceptable to many of those 
 around me. There is much of this that I would not 
 change if I could ; for I am satisfied that the world is 
 a very heartless affair. In some instances, however, I am 
 quite aware that my shiness, or sullenness, or whatever 
 else it may be called, is downright infirmity." 
 
 Towards the close of 1 8:^29 he again went to reside in 
 Dublin ; not, however, with any very beneficial effect. A 
 physician of great eminence interdicted, not merely preach- 
 ing and performance of all parochial duty, but any con- 
 tinuous writing and study of whatever kind. The tone of 
 his mind was unusually depressed ; but, to me, the most 
 affecting thing of all is the rich vein of imagination which 
 was continually breaking forth, evincing, even in his most 
 morbid state, the supremacy of mind over matter. Thus 
 on the 17th of October he writes to his friend Mr. Ryan : 
 *' I am indeed very low ; and the worst of it is, that the 
 mind has sunk into a kind of lethargy, from which I have 
 no power of rousing it. My faculties are not gone, — for 
 sometimes, when I dream, I can energize as well as ever, 
 and am busy in discussions of various kinds, but, while 
 awake, they go to hide from me, and all my efforts cannot 
 bring them out of their holes. The cause, I suspect, is to 
 be found in a morbid excess of bile, which I have been 
 secreting. I remember to have seen somewhere that a 
 man's understanding is very much in his stomach ; and, 
 from my recent experience, I believe it to be true." 
 
 Yet even at this period his mind was frequently as 
 much alive as ever to his intellectual improvement and 
 pursuits ; thus, in a letter to his early associate, Mr. S. 
 O' Sullivan, dated Dec. 17, 1829, he says, with his usual 
 modest estimate of his own powers : "I opened an old
 
 5G BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 sermon of my college days yesterday, and was disappointed 
 greatly at the execution, though the thoughts are good. 
 You ought to give me a lecture in composition ; I hope to 
 be soon able to profit by it." 
 
 The extracts lately given from Dr. Phelan's corre- 
 spondence are evidently fitted to leave a far less lively 
 impression than the just one, of the habitual frame of his 
 mind and spirits. But they were for the most part 
 written at times of illness and depression, and they have 
 been selected for the express purpose of showing, that 
 even then his feelings were such as one alike qualified to 
 live and prepared to die would willingly cherish at the 
 approach of " the inevitable hour." They were chiefly 
 written to that bosom-intimate* by whose kindness I am 
 enabled to characterize them in Dr. Phelan's own words : 
 " I have laid open my reveries to you in the same 
 rambling, unreflecting manner as if I had been thinking 
 aloud, and by your fireside. To you I write of myself, 
 because I am sure that what concerns me is not uninterest- 
 ing to you. There is no one to whom I dare behave so." 
 His last letter to his chosen friend, written on the 29th of 
 May, just seventeen days before his death, has these words 
 — a characteristic close of such a correspondence — " I have 
 been greatly cheered by your last two letters, and I look 
 forward with impatient anxiety to your promised visit. 
 The circle of our friends narrows so fearfully as we 
 proceed in life, that the aflections gather, with intensity of 
 regard, round the few that remain within the little inclo- 
 sure.— W. P." 
 
 In April, 1830, his brother,t who for nineteen years 
 had with anxious fondness been watching each expressive 
 variation of his countenance, saw in it, on his return to 
 the country, the signs of fast-approaching dissolution. 
 
 * Tlie Rev. Richard Ryan. 
 
 t The Rev. James Phelan, then Cm*ate of Killyman, now Prebendary of 
 St. Audoen's, Dubhn.
 
 OF WILLIAM PHELAN, D.D. 57 
 
 On May the 24th, he went to the Chapel-in-the-woods, 
 one of the churches of Ardtrea, nine miles distant from 
 the rectory, to hold a vestry. The day was wet and 
 tempestuous ; he sat for several hours in damp clothes ; 
 and, as might have been anticipated, took a severe cold. 
 On the 28th, the injurious effects became sadly apparent: 
 a distressing cough, extreme difficulty of breathing, total 
 sleeplessness, impossibility so much as to lie down. Mrs. 
 Phelan, finding that the means prescribed wrought no 
 abatement of suffering, now proposed that he should go 
 to his brother's at Killyman ; for she had often been led 
 to remark that the society of that dear relative, in his 
 affection for whom were blended the feelings of a brother, 
 a father, and a friend, had commonly a salutary effect 
 upon his health and spirits. He went accordingly. On 
 entering the house, he first saw Mrs. James Phelan, 
 towards whom he had ever felt and showed the truest 
 brotherly affection. To her he said, with that playful 
 seriousness which in him was quite characteristic, 
 " Harriette, I am come to die with you." This was 
 on the 6th of June. For the next three days, in the 
 course of which he took two airings in an open carriage, 
 some hopes were entertained of his recovery; his cough 
 was more infrequent, his breathing less embarrassed, and 
 he had a little sleep. But, on the 10th, all the old 
 symptoms returned, with aggravation ; and a new symptom 
 appeared, which seldom fails to prove an immediate fore- 
 runner of dissolution. Still, however, on the 11th, he 
 ventured, supported by his brother, to take a short walk 
 in the garden ; and next day he was up a little while. 
 But at nine o'clock a.m., on Sunday, June the 13th, he Ilis death. 
 expired, without the slightest struggle. To the last he 
 retained full possession of his mental powers, and 
 exercised with unabated vigour the kindliest of human 
 affections. Nor is it presumptuous to hope, that through 
 the merits and mediation of a Divine Redeemer he is 
 gone to that state where the aspirings of a purified spirit
 
 58 BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 shall not be weighed down by the pressure of a mortal 
 body.* 
 
 It inay perhaps be expected that the writer of this 
 Memoir should add somewhat in the way of character. 
 But he trusts, that from almost every page may be 
 collected his estimate of this excellent and extraordinary 
 young man. And, happily, Mrs. Phelan has put into his 
 hands a paper, drawn up by herself, the faithful result of 
 fifteen years' intimacy with his whole mind and heart. 
 This I will give almost as 1 received it, and I think 
 its beautiful simplicity far more eloquent than the most 
 laboured panegyric. Here, then, I close my biographic 
 labours. And I cannot but express my fervent wish that 
 many may be induced, not merely to admire, but to 
 emulate the virtues and the spirit of Dr. Phelan. For 
 my own part, I feel that my responsibility is in no slight 
 degree increased by the long and close inspection of such 
 mature goodness. 
 
 JOHN LIMEIIICK. 
 
 East-Hill, Wandsworth, 
 Ma)/ 21, 1832. 
 
 * At four o'clock in the afternoon, of June 15, 1830, his remains were 
 deposited in a vacant space, where the old church had formerly stood, 
 in the grave-yard of Killyman. A numerous body of clergy, and a vast 
 concoui'se of people, assembled at the fimeral. His brother, the Rev. James 
 Phelan, and his brother-in-law, the Rev. J. H. Stubbs, were mourners. 
 The funeral-service was read by the Rev. Richard Homer, Rector of the 
 neighbouring parish of Driunglass, who pronounced a very instructive and 
 affecting address at the grave.
 
 OF WILLIAM I'HELAN, D.D. 59 
 
 MRS. PHELAN'S PAPER. 
 
 On looking through his earliest manuscripts, it is evident Mrs. Phe- 
 how entirely from the beginning his mind was directed i-gferrecUo' 
 towards the one great end of our being. Even in these P- 58. 
 unfinished papers it is an office of delightful interest 
 to trace the progressive history of his fine mind — to 
 see it, from tenderest youth to maturest manhood, con- 
 tinue to expand and give forth fresh promise, till at 
 length it burst forth from its earthly incumbrance, as 
 we may humbly trust, to enjoy heavenly converse in a 
 state of unalloyed purity. 
 
 His many note-books, and even the smallest shred of 
 written paper left behind him, testify the fulness of that 
 mind, and its ever-budding freshness, each beautiful 
 thought seeming to contain matter for a volume. While 
 inspecting such documents, my heart is lifted up in 
 adoration of the great Creator, who alone can give 
 such faculties to man, with the power and the will 
 to use them. 
 
 The sweetness of his domestic qualities shone in beam- 
 ing tenderness through his manly nature, rendering him 
 in all seasons, whether of labour or repose, a most 
 delightful companion. Delicacy of constitution, and 
 unintermitting devotedness to literary pursuits, enhanced 
 his natural love of home-quiet, but never for a moment 
 relaxed his ever-working powers of thought. 
 
 Except when labouring under very distressing illness, 
 he was not merely cheerful, but animated, and full of the
 
 60 , BISHOP jebb's biographical memoir 
 
 joy even of childhood. Often have I seen liim, after 
 dancing and singing with his little children, suddenly 
 throw himself into his chair, take up his note-book, 
 and write, exclaiming, " I have worked up a good thing 
 for my book." And thus frequently some of his happiest 
 and most exquisite thoughts suggested themselves to him 
 amidst the full enjoyment of his delighted little family 
 circle. 
 
 Abstractedness, therefore, so usual an accompaniment 
 of literary habits, was never to be detected in him. He 
 was present to everything, always ready to take a part in 
 conversation, and felt a lively interest in whatever was 
 going forward. Even when engaged in the closest and 
 deepest application, his intercourse with his family was 
 not suspended ; the amusements of his children did not 
 interfere with him ; their presence and enjoyment gave 
 him pleasure ; reading aloud interrupted not the train of 
 his thoughts ; music seemed almost to assist him ; and, 
 in the midst of intense study, he would pause to answer 
 the simplest question, in a manner equally full of en- 
 couragement and affection. 
 
 But whenever information of an instructive kind was 
 asked for, he delighted especially in giving it, and never 
 failed to do so in that happy style of brevity and clearness 
 for which he was remarkable, replying with readiness and 
 interest, as if the particular subject in question had 
 exclusively engaged his thoughts ; and on such occasions 
 his countenance and manner told what pleasure he felt in 
 communicating knowledge. Indeed, whenever he spoke 
 his air was animated and joyous ; and so thoroughly was 
 information, at once general and deep, diffused throughout 
 his mind, that he viewed the most ordinary subject in an 
 uncommon light, and unconsciously excited new trains of 
 thought in the minds of those around him. In his hours 
 of necessary relaxation he ever combined wit with instruc- 
 tion, and philosophy with mirth, and playfully imparted 
 those treasures which he had laboriously accumulated by
 
 OF WILLIAM PIIELAN, D.D. 61 
 
 severe study. Above most other men he possessed the 
 happy faculty of teaching, without appearing to dictate ; 
 and he continually enlightened the circle which revolved, 
 around him, unconscious that he was himself the luminary 
 in whose beams they were rejoicing. 
 
 His general manner was simple and unpretending ; he 
 never assumed the air of conscious superiority ; but, 
 " possessing that prime knowledge which consists in 
 knowing how little can be known," he was at all times too 
 deeply occupied with the beauty and tendency of the 
 idea to dwell for a moment on its mere origination. The 
 same unaffected demeanour marked him whether in the 
 pulpit, in private discussion with his friends, or in the 
 more general conversation of mixed society. I never 
 heard him speak on any subject, whatever its apparent 
 difficulty, without feeling that I could, in some degree, at 
 least, find my way through it. Such was his lucid clear- 
 ness, and concise, though beautiful method of reasoning. 
 And perhaps the best evidence of a great mind is that 
 power of simplifying food for the feeble-minded. 
 
 Devotion to his beloved studies, but too often, and in 
 many ways, affected his bodily health. At one period he 
 became subject to a distressing complaint in one of his 
 eyes. To this, however, he never yielded, till acute pain 
 made it indispensable that the organ should have rest. At 
 these times he was in the occasional habit of dictating: 
 from the stores of his mind tliat which another reduced to 
 writing. In the latter years of his life he had repeated 
 attacks of this nature, succeeding each other with so short 
 a respite between, that, but for that active energy of 
 mind which never forsook him, he must have sunk under 
 mere physical depression. When suffering in this way, he 
 has often dictated various portions of his works, arranging 
 long passages in his mind, as he walked through the room, 
 and repeating them with great accuracy and clearness, 
 while one of his family wrote them, down for his future 
 correction. And at times, whesn.abJetQiUs^e his eyes, but
 
 02 BISHOP jerr's biographical memoir 
 
 much Imrried in composition for the press, he has worked 
 double tides ; at once dictating to an amanuensis, and 
 rapidly penning some other part of the same treatise. 
 
 It has been well observed of him, that "he lived two 
 lives in one." The quickness of his apprehension enabled 
 him to acquire knowledge in a far shorter space of time 
 than most persons ; while this faculty served but to stimu- 
 late his exertion, and excite an appetite for fresh informa- 
 tion, never to be satiated in the present stage of existence. 
 In his favourite study of theology he laboured, with a 
 persevering ardour perhaps seldom excelled or even 
 equalled. And the result gives a fresh instance of tlie 
 fact, that a sincere and humble search after truth, directed 
 by a clear intellect, and aided by solid learning, is always 
 productive of a self-conviction which, generally, draws 
 others to the same belief. In fact. Dr. Phelan had read 
 more tlian enough to unsettle the minds of many acute, 
 but unballasted, unstable, half-thinkers ; while, to him, 
 inquiry never failed to produce a deeper and moi'e prin- 
 cipled conviction of the great truths of the Gospel. 
 
 No person, indeed, could be more deeply impressed 
 with a sense of man's utter helplessness, in his unassisted 
 state. Therefore the humility of his faith was of the most 
 profound character. But he felt what noble things restored 
 and re-created man is capable of, and intended for. There- 
 fore he continually aspired, through Divine grace, after 
 the renovation and improvement of his fallen nature. 
 
 His conception of our Lord's character was so perfectly 
 lovely, that, where we might have dreaded to approach, 
 we are attractively drawn forward, and gratefully behold 
 Divinity itself embodied in the Redeemer of our souls. 
 By ever keeping before him this model of perfection, he 
 was gradually becoming conformed to His image ; and he 
 truly, and habitually, " walked humbly with his God." 
 
 For two or three months previous to his final separation 
 from us in the flesh, the idea of his own approaching disso- 
 lution seems to have been familiar to him. I had an oppor-
 
 OF WILLIAM PIIELAN, D.D. 63 
 
 tunity of observing this, especially at one particular period, 
 when, from a recent confinement, and the interdiction of all 
 study, he became acutely nervous and sensitive. About 
 that time, too, he was seized with an alarming numbness 
 in one of his arms, attended by a shock similar to that of 
 paralysis. During the continuance of this attack, which 
 lasted about an hour, he appeared to undergo a great 
 mental struggle, the agonizing conflict bringing tears to 
 his eyes. At length, the power having returned of shaking 
 off this weakness by a violent eiFort, he was quite overcome 
 by the gracious relief, and immediately withdrew to his 
 own room, where he remained alone for upwards of an 
 hour. Then he rejoined his family, with more than his 
 usual cheerfulness, and with a heavenly serenity, which 
 seemed newly given to him. 
 
 The last week of his mortal being cannot, while I 
 remain after him, be severed from my thoughts ; the recol- 
 lection of it fills me with heartfelt gratitude to the Most 
 High. From the great difficulty of breathing under which 
 he laboured, it was a period of ahnost unintermitting 
 suffering ; fits, nearly of suffocation, came on continually 
 during the night, frequently, too, during the course of 
 the day. But his equanimity, patience, and reliance on 
 the Divine Mercy never for a moment forsook him. His 
 resignation to the Divine will was meek and unvaried ; his 
 whole manner showed this ; and the few consolatory words 
 which at any time he uttered, were evidently designed but 
 to relieve the agonized feelings of those who witnessed his 
 sufferings. The night before his departure, he called me 
 to his bedside ; and, in the beginning of his little address, 
 his countenance and manner bore an almost playful anima- 
 tion. I am now fully persuaded that glimmerings of the 
 glory so soon to be revealed were, at that moment, dawning 
 on his mental sight, and even giving him bodily ease, while 
 he spoke to me these comforting words : — 
 
 " I am greatly relieved by the bleeding, thanks be to 
 God ! And, though I have, indeed, had a very violent
 
 &i BISHOP JEBB's biographical MEMOIR, ETC. 
 
 attack, yet I feel as though I had still a sufficiency of 
 strengtli, with God's help, to bring me through. And 
 now go over, and lie down in your bed with a full confidence 
 in the power of the Almighty. I will call you to me, 
 when necessary. Pray for me, giving Him thanks for all 
 His mercies to me. There never was any one who had 
 more abundant cause for humble gratitude." 
 
 Then, nearly exhausted, his words gradually became 
 indistinct ; and, from mental prayer, he sunk into a calm 
 and childlike sleep. These were the last words of conse- 
 quence I ever heard him utter. But if, at any time, upon 
 its separation from the body, a spirit has been blessed with 
 a foretaste of immortal peace — and if it be not presumptuous 
 to indulge in the delightful confidence — may I be enabled 
 to rest in sure and certain hope that his soul is numbered 
 with the blessed ! M. P.
 
 65 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Sine ii'a aut studio, quorum causas procul habeo. 
 
 It is very frequently said, that the evils with which Ireland Irish 
 is unquestionably afflicted have arisen from the vicious 
 policy of her more powerful neighbour. This opinion, 
 first advanced by men who endeavoured to divert the atten- 
 tion of the public from the true causes of our distress, has 
 gradually made its way into better company. If, indeed, 
 its merits were sufficiently examined, by comparing the 
 state of the two countries, and by computing the years of 
 their political connexion, its truth would cover the 
 ignominy of its origin, and Irishmen of all parties would 
 have reason to complain. Many circumstances, however, are 
 to be taken into the account, which people of a warm and 
 generous temperament, who have read of much calamity, 
 witnessed much suffering, and perhaps, in their own persons, 
 experienced some harsh disability, are liable to overlook. 
 
 The following pages will not have been written in vain, 
 should they induce any such to consider these few but 
 important questions : — What portion of our misfortunes 
 is imputable to the crown or parliament of England ; 
 whether the local English government introduced new 
 grievances, or merely omitted to remove old abuses ; 
 whether this omission arose from culpable neglect, or, on 
 the other hand, from necessity, from principled forbear- 
 ance, and from respect, however erroneous, for the 
 supposed rights of others.
 
 66 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Not the 
 result of 
 English 
 power. 
 
 Ireland in 
 the 6th, 
 7th, and 
 8th centu- 
 
 Ancient 
 
 Without proceeding minutely into these inquiries, it 
 \vill be enough, in this place, to state one general propo- 
 sition — that the great source of Irish misei'y has been, not 
 the ponder of England, but its tcant of power. From the 
 first connexion between the islands, to their legislative 
 union, two local oligarchies, fiercely opposed to each other, 
 but waging emulous hostility against the public welfare, 
 fill a large space in our melancholy annals. Liberty and 
 good order were equally the objects of their dislike : they 
 intercepted from the sovereign the allegiance of his subjects, 
 and from the people the protecting care of their prince, 
 and the blessing of impartial laws. Thus the country was 
 exposed to a long succession of misfortunes, which its 
 nominal monarch, the remote and unheeded colleague of 
 domestic tyrants, might deplore, but was unable to prevent 
 or to remedy. Absenteeism, the freehold system, and the 
 abolition of our colonial legislature, have greatly reduced 
 the power of the more ancient of these factions,* the 
 landed aristocracy : a brief account of it will be no unsuit- 
 able introduction to the history of its triumphant rival. 
 
 There is good reason to believe that in the sixth, seventh, 
 and eighth centuries, the Irish were possessed of a respect- 
 able share of those benefits which result from industry, 
 laws, and literature ; with perhaps as much tranquillity, 
 public and private, as was enjoyed by Greece at its most 
 brilliant period. But, amidst the rapine and massacre of 
 the three following ages, their spirit and their imperfect 
 civilization sunk together, beneath the ferocity of the 
 northern Corsairs. The degenerate race which now 
 appeared inherited the mingled vices of their fathers and 
 their enemies ; the grossness and turbulence, without the 
 generosity, of barbarians ; the corruptions, without the 
 arts, of more cultivated life. 
 
 At the date of the arrival of the first English adventu- 
 
 * That is, so far as it teas a faction : it has, indeed, been reduced con- 
 siderably below its constitutional level.' 
 
 1 Written a.d. 1827.— Ed.
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 67 
 
 rers, every chieftain, from the dynast of a province, to petty sub- 
 the tiny potentate of a reahn which might be enclosed t ^jf^j ^ 
 within a modern barony, was a king. The annual claim of 
 his superior lord was settled, according to circumstances, 
 by a tribute or a battle ; but, within his own territory, he 
 exercised all the powers of barbarous royalty. By a custom 
 which seems to have at once extended from the Himalaya 
 mountains to the Atlantic, he was sole proprietor of all 
 the land in his sept : the clansmen held their portions 
 during the pleasure of their chief ; and there were some 
 national usages which added to the uncertainty of this 
 precarious tenure. All dignities were elective : vacancies 
 were made, and elections carried, most frequently by the 
 sword ; so that every change of masters, in every tribe, 
 threatened, if it did not cause, a new partition of lands. 
 No special claims to inheritance were derived from primo- 
 geniture, legitimacy, or kindred. Upon the death or 
 emigration of a vassal, his holding reverted to the common 
 stock : on the other hand, as youtlis grew to maturity, or 
 as strangers became naturalized, the older occupants con- 
 tracted their bounds, to make room for the new settlers. 
 These eternal fluctuations had their full effect upon the Effects of 
 face of the country and the character of the people ; there "^'^^ship, 
 was no motive to industry, no spirit, except for turbulent 
 adventure ; cultivation was limited to the demands of 
 nature and the landlord, and the fertility of the soil was 
 abused by a wretched system of husbandry.* A distinction 
 was acknowledged between a slave and a freeman ; but it 
 seems to have denoted no other difference than this, that 
 
 * It was one of the articles of impeachment brouglit in 1613 against tlie Ploughing 
 lord-deputy Chichester, that his officers levied a fine on the \ris\ for with horses 
 ploughing with horses hy the tail. (See Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica, vol. i.) •^ 
 In 1648, it was one of the articles of peace with the Duke of Ormond, 
 " that two Acts lately passed in tliis kingdom, the one prohibiting the 
 ploughing with horses by the tail, and the other prohibiting the buiTiing of 
 oats in the straw, be repealed." Such was Irish patriotism in the seventeenth 
 century, making a grievance of every measure that was calculated to promote 
 comfort and civilization, or to raise the character of the people : such it is in 
 the nineteenth. 
 
 F 2
 
 GS INTRODUCTORY CIIArTRR. 
 
 tlic freeman had the riglit of clioosingliis tribe : in choosing 
 tJial, he chose his master. Excliulcd from landed property, 
 by a selfish despotism, and from commercial wealth by the 
 circumstances of a country, which had no money, no trade, 
 and few manufactures, all who could not boast of princely 
 blood were condemned to a state of hopeless dependance. 
 The lords had neither the intelligence, nor the generosity, 
 to give liberal institutions ; and the Brehun Code, minute 
 in its decisions between vassal and vassal, had not ventured 
 to restrain their licentious misrule. Ireland had no towns, 
 except a few sea-ports, which were still in the hands of 
 the Danish enemy ; there were, therefore, no corporations 
 to diversify the bleak uniformity of feudal barbarism, to 
 plead a chartered exemption from servitude, or to reflect 
 the dangerous image of plebeian rights.* 
 Ilennll, Such was the system of the Irish chieftains whom Henry 
 the Second found here ; and thenceforward, until the 
 reign of James the First, by whom their power was finally 
 broken, it continued rather to degenerate than improve. 
 
 Cliaractcr- * These are the more palpable and prominent facts, as they are presented 
 istics of by history ; yet we miist not forget that, in a very great degree, things are 
 Irish &o- jjg tijgy arc felt. A. family man woiild say, that such a state of society could 
 ^ ' afford no fireside comforts ; a statesman, that it was eqvially adverse to 
 
 national greatness : both would say truly, but not the whole truth. It had 
 its own attractions for a people, as the Irish were, as they are at this day, of 
 few and simple wants ; strangers to the spirit of trade ; castle-builders 
 without forethought ; convivial with their equals ; aspiring to famiharity 
 with their superiors ; reckless of danger ; Stoics in endurance ; Cynics in 
 their wliimsical contempt of appearances ; Epicureans in their reUsh of the 
 passing liom* ; and full of avcj and buoyant spirits, which shoot up, as some 
 trees are said to do, the more vigorously, for the pressure of some uieumbent 
 weight. By the law of Tanistry, every man of noble blood was eligible to 
 the eliiefrie of his tribe. The law of Gavel-kind was equally liberal of fair 
 promises to every vassal ; it gave him the chance of the great object of an 
 Irishman's ambition, a lit of land} To be sm-e, it could be only for liis 
 
 ^ The change wrought in tliis respect would have been regarded as impos- 
 sible if predicted fifty years ago, and to some even now seems ahnost 
 miracidous. Irishmen fly from the land for possession of a portion of wliich 
 they wilhugly braved almost every possible danger, and did not always 
 hesitate at the commission of the greatest crimes. — Ed.
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Through the whole of that interval, they submitted to an 
 English monarch as they had done before to one of the 
 Milesian line, with the same readiness, the same incon- 
 stancy, and the same reservations. They acknowledged 
 him as the centre of their federal union; a theoretic 
 union, which their petty hostilities were constantly 
 violating ; as a superior, whose pre-eminence they attested 
 by a slight tribute or occasional military service ; and 
 whose reciprocal good offices they looked for in their 
 difficulties and disputes. This was the amount of his 
 sovereignty : it could not, or would not, be understood by 
 those sturdy lords, that he was to invade their precious 
 right of mutual slaughter, or to mitigate the internal 
 anarchy of their dominions. 
 
 own life, but his sons could not hope to be better men than then* father, or 
 look for better prospects than he enjoyed. In fine, in oiir Irish world, life 
 was all a lottery, an adventui'c, a spirit-stirring uncertainty, in which a 
 sanguine and elastic temper found enjoyment by snatches, and excitement 
 always. The cup of expectation went rormd to every lip, and the visions 
 which it conjured up were to be realized by the exercise of a smooth tongue 
 and a sturdy arm, gifts in which the Irish were seldom deficient, and which 
 were, in themselves, as much sources of self-complacency, as the good tilings 
 to which they ministered were objects of desu'e. Besides, it must be remem- 
 bered, that the vassals were the constituents of their chief and landlord ; a 
 connexion not the less intuuate fi-om this circiunstance, that the hustings 
 of those days were, for the most part, Hterally fields of battle. Thus, if 
 harshly treated by the actual great man, they were sure to receive fi'om the 
 asph-ant all the blandishments of a canvass ; and, whenever they covdd 
 muster a majority of battle-axes, they might proceed, without further cere- 
 mony, to a new election. 
 
 This mutual cUentslup and interdependence between sovereign and subject, 
 lord and serf, though a powerful element of commotion in the social chaos, 
 must have greatly assviaged the sense, if not the reahty, of oppression. In 
 particular, it gave rise to two domestic relations, which vmited, without 
 confomiding, the upper and lower classes ; the noble gave out his children 
 to be nursed by his retainers, and, in return, became baptismal sponsor for 
 theirs. These two very innocent and very interesting customs oi fosterage 
 and gossipred have been described by Su' John Davis in terms of rather 
 absurd reprobation : at aU events, however alannmg to a pohtician, they 
 wo\dd afibrd excellent materials for a novelist. 
 
 We ought to have a writer of national tales. The Munster Farmer, 
 Si qua fata aspera riunpat, 
 Hie Marcellus erit. 
 But he is belter employed. 
 
 69
 
 70 INTRODUCTORY CIIAPTEU. 
 
 Eiifiiish The great English lords were no less resolute than the 
 
 I veil u- ii-[^\i ii^ their opposition to the sovereign, and their oppres- 
 sion of" the people. Adventurers, of reckless and ferocious 
 habits, distinguished from the worst of the native chiefs 
 by nothing but their superior skill in the arts of predatory 
 warfare ; they had conquered without the aid of the king, 
 and were determined to govern without his interference. 
 The honorary title of lord of Ireland excited neither their 
 ambition nor their jealousy : perhaps they were pleased 
 with the existence of a claimant, whose rank, while it 
 placed him above competition, extinguished all pretensions 
 to supremacy among tliemselves, and whose residence in 
 another country left their movements uncontrolled. 
 These dutiful subjects claimed only to be the irresponsible 
 deputies of their master, to enjoy the fulness of sovereign 
 power, each within the circle which his sword had traced : 
 and, from a multitude of causes, they were able to dictate 
 the terms of their contumacious loyalty. Some of them, 
 as the two great branches of the De Burgq family, the 
 Geraldines of Kerry, and the Berminghams lords of 
 Atlienry, renounced the language, laws, and usages of 
 the mother country. They had been smitten with the 
 barbaric circumstance, and unlimited sway, of the native 
 chieftains : they became chieftains themselves ; assumed 
 Ii'ish appellations ; and moulded their motley followers 
 into the form of Irish tribes. Others, retaining the 
 English name, and something of English manners, acquired, 
 at a less price, nearly equal dominion. In the space of 
 thirty years after the first descent, eight palatinates, 
 comprehending two-thirds of the English settlements, 
 were erected in Ireland ; there was afterwards added a 
 ninth, the county of Tipperary, the splendid domain of 
 the Earls of Ormond. Within these districts, the lords 
 possessed all royal rights ; created knights, and even 
 barons ; appointed their own judges, sheriffs, seneschals, 
 and escheators ; collected their own revenues ; and held 
 their own courts for the determination of all causes : 
 without, they exercised the detestable prerogative of
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 71 
 
 waging civil war, in all quarters of the island. Armed 
 with these enormous powers, they proceeded to reduce or 
 exterminate their own countrymen of the middle class, 
 who had presumed to set an example of comfort and 
 independence. Many of these fled ; their lands were 
 seized by the lords, and parcelled out among the conquered 
 Irish, to be held on Irish tenures : many others surrendered 
 a part of their property, in the hope of being allowed the 
 quiet possession of the remainder ; but this grace was 
 refused, and they were, gradually, broken in spirit and 
 circumstances to the villenage of the native popu- 
 lation. 
 
 This was the state of things, in the aboriginal clans, in 
 the revolted septs of Anglo-Irish, and, except within a 
 few garrison towns, in the counties palatinate, from Henry 
 the Second until James the First. Whether English lords 
 or Irish chieftains obtained a temporary triumph, the mass 
 of the people suffered equally ; their tyrants might change, 
 but the tyranny was the same ; the domestic and almost 
 indigenous tyranny of their own primitive customs. A Extent of 
 level district round the capital, containing the small shires jul-^^c^c- ^ 
 of Louth, Meath, Kildare, and Dublin, limited the range tioii = 
 of the English law, the jurisdiction of the viceroy, and, 
 except on some rare occasions, the ambition of the crown. 
 Far from indulging schemes of more extended authority, 
 the conscious weakness of royalty took refuge in a ludic- 
 rous, but humiliating fiction ; all beyond this pomoerium 
 was presumed not to be in existence, and in court language 
 the land of Ireland was synonymous with the Pale. Of The Pale, 
 the Pale itself, an ample stripe, comprehending a third, 
 and sometimes half, of each county, was border land, in 
 which a mixed code of English, Brehon, and martial law, 
 and of such points of honour as are recognised among 
 freebooters, suspended, for a season, the final appeal to 
 the sword. Even between these penumbral regions and 
 the castle of Dublin there lived some little despots, who, 
 according to the turn of affairs, were counsellors, col-
 
 72 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 leagues, or opponents, of the English monarch : and, so 
 late as the reign of Henry tlie Seventh, the rebel Earl of 
 Kildare was taken from the Tower of London " to govern 
 all Ireland, because all Ireland could not govern the Earl." 
 
 Henry Many circumstances had conspired to obtain for Henry 
 
 the Eighth a general submission from the Irish aristocracy ; 
 and his vigorous common-sense knew how to appreciate 
 and improve the rare advantage. Cautiously abstaining 
 from precipitate change, he allowed them the temporaiy 
 use of whatever was most tolerable in their domestic 
 customs ; and, in the meantime, endeavoured to prepare 
 the multitude for the reception and enjoyment of more 
 liberal institutions. He founded a system of national 
 education ; the schools were to be under the direction of 
 the clergy, and, through them, of the state ; the children 
 were to be trained "to the good and virtuous obedience 
 they owe their prince and superiors, and to receive instruc- 
 tion in the laws of God, with a conformity, concordance, 
 and familiarity, in language and manners, with those that 
 be civil people, and that do profess and know Christ's 
 religion, and civil and politic laws, orders, and directions." 
 
 Queen But the haughty spirit of Elizabeth, and the scholastic 
 
 iiazabc . jjj^giig(^t of James, were equally unfavourable to this 
 temperate procedure. The former was impatient to crush 
 the power of the nobles : she succeeded, and thus removed 
 one formidable obstacle to the enfranchisement of Ireland, 
 but the rising fabric of national schools was overthrown in 
 
 James I. the concussions of thirty years of rebellion. The latter 
 overlooked, or perhaps could not estimate, another and 
 greater difficulty, which was thus left in its original force ; 
 the difficulty arising out of the character of a race, in 
 which barbarism had been ingrained by immemorial 
 oppression. James unhappily mistook manumission for 
 freedom ; he left the habits, while he abolished the usages, 
 of the Brehon Code, and transplanted, all at once, the 
 delicate and exotic blossoms of the English Constitution 
 to a sterner climate and an uncultivated soil. This teme-
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 73 
 
 rity may be traced through the rest of the century, in a 
 disastrous train of results and reactions ; in the great 
 rebellions, the bloody retribution of the regicide army, 
 the Act of Settlement, and the unnatural contest of James 
 and William. 
 
 When these horrors had cleared away, and the political 
 horizon of Ireland once more disclosed a field for extended 
 contemplation, its first appearance was sufficiently novel. 
 Clans and palatinates had vanished ; the manners and, 
 with few exceptions, the families of the old oligarchy of 
 both races had become extinct ; the surface of society had 
 been everywhere broken up, and arranged anew upon the 
 English model ; and nearly the whole proprietary of the 
 island was now a body of British Protestants, of recent 
 transplantation. At a change so striking, one is prompted 
 to imagine that the power and consequent responsibility 
 of England may be dated, at least, from this era ; but the 
 impression is weakened by a nearer survey. We can dis- Principles 
 cover, beneath these superficial changes, the original calamity. 
 principles of Irish calamity : a titular sovereign, a despotic 
 aristocracy; a population debased, and unfit for freedom, 
 if the laws had made them free. 
 
 The new race of landlords, English and Scotch adven- 
 turers of a revolutionary age, were surchaged with the 
 spirit of the times and countries which had given them 
 birth. Liberty, if not the ruling passion, was at least the 
 prevailing cry, in the greater island, during nearly the 
 whole of the seventeenth century : an undefined liberty, 
 which the peaceful were willing to limit to freedom from 
 oppression, but which the bold would interpret into free- 
 dom from responsibility. It was only natural that these 
 new men, soldiers of fortune, flushed with victory and 
 pampered with its rewards, should cherish the most licen- 
 tious signification. The liberty which animated their 
 language and their conduct was a restless, petulant, and 
 aggressive spirit ; liberty taJceji with others, as well as 
 vindicated for themselves ; an impatience of restraint, and
 
 74 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 an appetite for power. They professed, indeed, to respect 
 
 England as their model, not tlieir mistress. Though the 
 
 country of their birth, it was now a foreign state, whose 
 
 interference would be an insult to their emulous love of 
 
 freedom, and in the country of their choice they were 
 
 Norceidcnt exempt from control or competition. On the one side, 
 T iccrov 
 
 there was no resident Viceroy to offend them by his 
 
 harmless pageant of monarchy; on the other, the lon- 
 gevity of the Colonial Parliament, and the necessary 
 restrictions upon all civil franchises,* relieved them from 
 annoyances of a more popular nature. Ireland had, as 
 yet, no public opinion to shame them into circumspection ; 
 and the constitutional forms which the crown had prema- 
 turely given were a barrier against English influence, 
 behind which they could pursue their domestic schemes. 
 Thus, the circumstances from which tliey had risen, and 
 those in which they were placed, combined to give them a 
 mixed character, between the baronial insolence of their 
 predecessors in Ireland, and the levelling intolerance of 
 their more honest contemporaries, who sowed the seeds of 
 democracy on the farther shore of the Atlantic. Ireland, 
 under their government, was, in its relations with England, 
 a separate, jealous, and almost hostile power; in its in- 
 ternal economy, an abortive and anomalous lusus of 
 political nature, partly a close borough and partly a 
 plantation. 
 
 The last flight of these adventurers had scarcely alighted 
 upon the soil, when a novel species of patriotism, " a 
 graft," as it is aptly called, " of English faction upon an 
 Irish stock,"f shot out into a precocious luxuriancy of 
 
 Parliament * A Parliament lasted for the life of the sorereign.^ It was proved by 
 
 or 1 e o ^j^g evidence of Dr. Doyle and Mr. O'Conncll, before the Parliamentai'v 
 tlie feove- , . ": 
 
 reign. Conumttecs, that restrictions icere necessary. 
 
 t " Memoirs of Captain Kock." 
 
 1 This continued to be the case till the passing of the Octennial Bill, 
 post, p. 81. — Ed.
 
 INTKODUCTORY CHAPTER. 75 
 
 sedition. In the month of October, 1692, within one October, 
 year from the surrender of Limerick, the Commons of 
 Ireland rejected a money Bill, because it had not origi- 
 nated in their House. Many of the Members were the 
 well-paid followers of William ; the rest had been the 
 destined victims of the sweeping proscription of his rival ; 
 the supply was wanted, probably, to pay off the foreign 
 army whose valour had contributed to raise or to uphold 
 them ; yet the omission of a doubtful etiquette was fatal 
 to the application of their patron and deliverer. The 
 celebrated " Case of Ireland," which appeared six years 
 after, led to another and more dangerous controversy 
 between the colony and the mother country. Whatever 
 may have been the merits of these now fortunately obso- 
 lete questions, the daring and obstinate vehemence with 
 which they were maintained by the colonists is abundant 
 proof of the weakness of England. The mass of the popu- 
 lation, dissembling their fierce and recently-exasperated 
 animosities, were induced, for their own reasons, to favour 
 the intrigues of their new masters : the murmur of independ- 
 ence gradually swelled into a storm, until, in 1724, the era 
 of Wood's halfpence,* and Swift's greatest popularity, it 
 reached the uproar, if not the dignity, of a hurricane. 
 But it was far from the intention of those who had excited 
 the commotion, to brave the perils of independence : they 
 had raised a popular clamour, that they might be em- 
 ployed to put it down, and that the minister, alarmed for 
 his own or the public safety, might acquiesce in that local 
 despotism which they were labouring to establish. The 
 device succeeded. " It required," as we are told by sir Robert 
 respectable authority, " the superior good sense of Sir ^alpole. 
 Robert Walpole, his conciliating wisdom, and the result 
 of that wisdom, his pacific system, to effect what he did ; 
 
 * After all due credit is given to the factious talents of Swift, it wiU still 
 remain one of the mysteries of party, that not only Whigs and Jacobites, 
 but Protestants and Eoman Catholics, should have joined in the outci-y, of 
 ■which Wood's patent was the ostensible cause.
 
 76 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 and it is a plain proof that he well knew, and duly esti- 
 mated, the understanding and temper of those on whose 
 regards Ireland, at that time, rested." These were the 
 Whig aristocracy, whose character is described by the 
 same writer as compounded of " a love of liberty, a thirst 
 of dominion, the spirit of Cromwell's agitators, and a 
 jealous anxiety to secure their new possessions." 
 
 Walpole's pacific system was, in fact, a capitulation 
 with the heads of the party, by which he surrendered to 
 them the internal administration of Irish affairs, with 
 those emoluments of place and patronage which limit the 
 TheUnder- ambition of sordid minds. They were styled the under- 
 ^ ^^' takers of the king's business — an ominous title, but most 
 justly applied, " as, from education and from habit," said 
 the late Lord Charlemont, " they were well fitted to pre- 
 side at the funeral of the common-weal." The floors of 
 Parliament were strewed with golden favours, which the 
 chiefs distributed, in due gradation among the other lords 
 and principal proprietors. Bounties were voted for the 
 encouragement of agriculture and other local improve- 
 ments, which, by a process well known to Irish nobles 
 and their agents, returned in the shape of rent into the 
 pockets of the bountiful : magistrates were raised above 
 the laws: grand juries were invested with an indefinite 
 and irresponsible power of taxation : places were multi- 
 plied, in all the public offices, until the establishments of 
 Ireland grew to a gorgeous magnificence, which mocked 
 the poverty of the state, and the wretchedness of the 
 people. In the mean time, the Roman Catholics, left to 
 writhe under the atrocious code of the aristocracy, had 
 leisure for reflection on their own folly, and the duplicity 
 of those whom they had helped to aggrandize. 
 
 Nearly thirty years passed away, during which the 
 
 dominion of this oligarchy was unmolested. At length. 
 
 Change of in 1753, the English Ministry repented their inglorious 
 
 l°53"' abdication of the government of Ireland. They resolved 
 
 to introduce a more liberal system ; but, aware of their
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 77 
 
 own weakness, or perhaps averse to precipitate changes, 
 they at first spoke of no more than a rotation of offices 
 among the Irish gentry. The undertakers, on tlie other 
 hand, had by this time consolidated a very formidable 
 power, and were determined to defend the bulwarks of 
 their profitable monopoly. They presented to the minister 
 a firm parliamentary array, which called itself the Fixed 
 National Interest of Ireland, comprising in fact a majority 
 of the great proprietors, which had been taught, by long 
 possession and by the cravings of prodigality, to consider 
 the gains of office as a species of private right, and every 
 member of which, being himself the centre of a minor 
 sphere of corruption, was supported, in his turn, by a host 
 of retainers. A contest ensued, which, with the exception 
 of a few intervals of exhaustion on both sides, was main- 
 tained for nearly half a century. In its later stages, 
 discipline improved both the taste and the tactics of the 
 advocates of colonial tyranny ; flashes of genius gave 
 occasional brilliancy to the dispute ; popular topics were 
 adroitly pressed into the service of corruption ; and some 
 unexpected incidents arose from time to time, which, even 
 now that their importance is gone for ever, quicken the 
 throbbings in the breast of every Irishman : but the first 
 struggle of the aristocracy was one revolting exhibition of 
 insolent venality.* It ended without any decisive result. 
 Many of the minor placemen were dismissed from office ; 
 but the phalanx was too extensive, as well as too firm, to 
 
 * The pamphlets of the time and the party are preserved in two volumes, The 
 under the title of " The Patriot Miscellany," which liad reached a fourth Patriot 
 edition so early as 1756. Ireland had nothing, in those days, which could ^^^ ^^^' 
 be called a repubUc, and the local despots had succeeded in shutting out all 
 communion with the mind of England. Accordingly, there is a frankness 
 of avowal in these pieces, which more recent patriotism has found it prudent 
 to disguise. A complete scheme of pubhc profligacy may be constructed out 
 of a few sentences. Thus : — 
 
 1. Rights of the Commons. 
 
 " The recommendation to appointment is, apparently, the unalterable due 
 of the majority of the representative body of the nation." — Second Letter 
 from a Gentleman in the Country.
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTFR. 
 
 be broken at one effort, nor could persons be readily 
 found in Ii'eland to complete the projected rotation. 
 " The English Cabinet," says Mr. Hardy, " acted a wise 
 and moderate part in checking themselves in mid career : 
 they saw the difficulties with which they were surrounded ; 
 and, though perfectly convinced of the obliquity of many 
 who opposed them, they dreaded the too great success of 
 those w^ho combated on their side." Upon the whole, the 
 advantage, as well as the eclat, of victory inclined to the 
 domestic Government : an earldom, with a pension of 
 3,000/. a-year for tliirty-one years, appeased the seditious 
 zeal of the leader, and his principal associates were con- 
 tinued in their places. " Thus," continues the writer 
 
 Those who have ever seen Lord Clare's magniGcent sarcasm upon " the 
 gentlemen who call themselves the Irish nation," wiU easily understand this 
 language. To others, it may be expedient to observe that the counties, 
 cities, and respectable towns of Ireland are very fairly represented at 
 present by 100 Members ; that the Irish Commons consisted of 300 ; that, 
 of the 200 borough Members discarded at the Union, more than half were 
 the creatures of a few grandees. 
 
 2. Conduct out of place. 
 
 " WiU the liigh-bom and not less high-spirited Protestant gentry of 
 Ireland, always ready to draw their swords for, and devote their hves and 
 fortunes to, the service of his Majesty {i.e., in modem phrase, his Majesty'' s 
 Opposition) tamely look on while all employments, places, and preferments, 
 are distributed among a set of minions and — ? " — Dedication on Dedica- 
 tion. 
 
 3. Conduct in place. 
 
 " Until the new plan (the rotation of offices) was discovered, the gentlemen 
 of the House of Commons were even over-complaisant, and too cautious to 
 give the least rub to the measures of the Court." — Anstoer to Candid 
 Inquiry. 
 
 " Such incidents in business as liad the least tendency to interrupt the 
 quiet of the Session, were connived at, and passed sub silentio." — Dedication 
 on Dedication. 
 
 4. A receipt for forming a Government. 
 
 " You know that, in your country (Ireland), pubhc matters take their 
 complexion entirely from the nding interest in the House of Commons ; 
 that this interest must always have a few leaders at its head ; and that to 
 support it, so as to carry on smoothly and peaceably the public business, the 
 leaders must be invested with a power of gratifying and rewarding." — 
 Letter from a Right Honourable in England,
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 79 
 
 above quoted, " the blaze which had been excited in 1753 
 was seen no more for a time. The chiefs who had fanned 
 that flame were completely gratified by the Court, and 
 had not the least inclination to indulge the public with 
 such spectacles longer than suited their own sinister 
 ambition."* 
 
 The English Cabinet prepared for its next campaign A resident 
 upon a more extensive scale of operations. It was ."* ^'^'^' 
 resolved that Ireland should have a resident Viceroy, and 
 octennial Parliaments. Changes highly acceptable to the 
 body of the people, who had begun to look on with con- 
 siderable interest at this conflict between their masters 
 and a distant Power, which now for the flrst time was 
 beginning to make itself felt in their local concerns. 
 Both measures were justly dreaded by the oligarchy. 
 The former they had already endeavoured to pervert into 
 a grievance : — " How dangerous," cried one of their 
 champions in 1753, " to intrust too much authority to 
 any stranger, who, by constant residence amongst us, may 
 possibly in time subvert the little remains of liberty 
 we enjoy !"f But the latter was now so universall}'^ 
 acceptable among those upon whose credulity they traded, 
 that direct opposition was not to be attempted ; a system 
 of coquetry was therefore devised, which furnishes no 
 unamusing illustration of the liberality of more recent 
 times. The whole story is thus told by Mr. Hardy : — 
 
 " On the 22d of October, 1761 (the first day of the TheOcten- 
 meeting of the new Parliament), leave was given to bring i^''"!^!'^- 
 in the heads of a Bill to limit the duration of Parliament; 
 but when, on the 9th of December following, it was 
 moved that the Lord-Lieutenant would be pleased to 
 recommend the same in the most effectual manner to 
 His Majesty, the Motion was negatived by a large 
 majority. This proceeding very justly awakened the 
 suspicions of the people as to the sincerity of their 
 
 * Mr. Hardy, as before, 
 t "Answer to Candid Inquiry." — Patriot Miscellany, i. 138.
 
 80 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 representatives, and the House, perfectly conscious that 
 such suspicions were by no means vague or idle, thought 
 proper to adopt the following very undignified, disingen- 
 uous Resolution : — ' Resolved, that the suggestions con- 
 fidently propagated, that the heads of a Bill for limiting 
 the duration of Parliament, if returned from England, 
 would have been rejected by this House, are without 
 foundation.' — 26th of April, 1762. The progress of the 
 Bill through the House in the subsequent session of 1763, 
 was still more languid, and more calculated to awaken and 
 keep alive every doubt and suspicion of the people. Leave 
 was given to bring it in on the 13th of October, and it 
 was not presented till the 14th of December following, 
 nor reported till the middle of February. Nothing can 
 more evidently mark the real disposition of the House 
 towards this very constitutional Bill ; the people became 
 more importunate than before, and the House of Commons 
 once more passed the Bill, having, according to the usage 
 of those days, sent it to the Privy Council, where the aris- 
 tocratical leaders were certain it would be thrown into a 
 corner ; nor were they mistaken. If they could have so 
 long combated this measure in an assembly that had at 
 least the name and semblance of a popular one, with what 
 facility could they overthrow it in a select body issuing 
 directly from the Crown, and where some members, not 
 of one, but both Houses of Parliament, would, like 
 confluent streams, direct their united force against it, 
 with a more silent, indeed, and therefore more fatal 
 current. The Bill being thus soon overwhelmed, nothing 
 could be done till another session. Once more the people 
 petitioned, and once more the House of Commons sent 
 the Bill to their good friends the Privy Council, enjoying 
 in public the applause of the nation for having passed it, 
 and in secret the notable triumph that it would be so 
 soon destroyed. But here matters assumed a different 
 aspect : the Privy Council began to feel that this scene 
 of deception had been long enough played by the Com-
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 81 
 
 mens ; and being, with some reason, very much out of 
 humour that the plaudits of the nation should be be- 
 stowed on its representatives, whilst His Majesty's Privy 
 Council, by the artifice of some leaders, was rendered 
 odious to the country, resolved to drop the curtain at 
 once, and certified the Bill to the English Privy Council, 
 satisfied that it would encounter a much more chilling 
 reception there than it had met with even from themselves. 
 The aspect of aflfairs was again changed. The Irish Privy 
 Council had disappointed the Commons, and the English 
 Cabinet now resolved to disappoint and punish both. 
 Enraged with the House of Commons for its dissimu- 
 lation, with the aristocracy for not crushing the Bill 
 at once, and, amid all this confusion and resentment, 
 not a little elated to have it at length in their power 
 completely to humiliate that aristocracy, which, in the 
 true spirit of useful obsequious servitude, not only galled 
 the people, but sometimes mortified and controlled the 
 English Cabinet itself — afraid of popular commotions in 
 Ireland — feeling as English gentlemen, that the Irish 
 public was in the right — as statesmen, that it would 
 be wise to relinquish at once what, in fact, could be 
 but little longer tenable, — they sacrificed political leaders, 
 Privy Councillors, and Parliament, to their fears, their 
 hatred, their adoption of a new pohcy, and, though last, 
 not the least motive, it is to be hoped, their just sense of 
 the English constitution. They returned the Bill, and 
 gave orders for the calling of a new Parliament, which 
 was dissolved the day after the Lord-Lieutenant put an 
 end to the session of 1768. 
 
 " It is impossible not to mention in this place an Anecdote 
 anecdote which I heard from Lord Charlemont, as well as Qij^°jgf 
 others. He happened at this time to dine with one of mont. 
 the great Parliamentary leaders — a large company, and, 
 as Bubb Dodington says of some of his dinners with the 
 Pelhams, much drink, and much good humour. In the 
 midst of this festivity the papers and letters of the last
 
 S2 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 English packet, which had just coine in, were brought 
 into the room, and given to the master of the house. 
 Scarcely had he read one or two of them when it 
 appeared that he was extremely agitated. The company 
 was alarmed. 'What's the matter? Nothing, we hope, 
 lias happened that ' — * Happened ! ' exclaimed their 
 kind host, and swearing most piteously, ' happened ! 
 The Octennial Bill is returned.' A burst of joy from 
 Lord Charlemont, and the very few real friends of the 
 Bill who happened to be present. The majority of the 
 company, confused, and indeed almost astounded, began, 
 after the first involuntary dejection of their features, to 
 recollect that they had, session after session, openly voted 
 for this Bill — with many an internal curse, heaven knows ! 
 But still they had been its loudest advocates, and there- 
 fore it would be somewhat decorous not to appear too 
 much cast down at their own unexpected triumph. In 
 consequence of these politic reflections, they endeavoured 
 to adjust their looks to the joyous occasion as well as they 
 could. But they were soon spared the awkwardness of 
 assumed felicity. * The Bill is not only returned,' con- 
 tinued their chieftain, * but — the Parliament is dissolved ! ' 
 * Dissolved ! dissolved ! Why dissolved ? ' ' My good 
 friends, I can't tell you why, or wherefore ; but dissolved 
 it is, or will be directly.' 
 
 " Hypocrisy, far more disciplined than theirs, could 
 lend its aid no further. If the first intelligence whicli 
 they heard was tolerably doleful, this was complete dis- 
 comfiture. They sunk into taciturnity, and the leaders 
 began to look, in fact, what they had so often been 
 politically called, a company of undertakers. They had 
 assisted at the Parliamentary funeral of some opponents, 
 and now, like Charles the Fifth, though without his 
 satiety of worldly vanities, they were to assist at their 
 own. In the return of this fatal Bill was their political 
 existence completely inurned. Lord Charlemont took 
 advantage of their silent mood, and quietly withdrew
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 83 
 
 from this group of statesmen, than whom a more ridicu- 
 lous, rueful set of personages in his life, he said, he never 
 beheld." 
 
 If the passing of the Octennial Bill was calculated to Effects of 
 reduce, ultimately, the power of the aristocracy, the -^2*?^ ' 
 dissolution of Parliament enabled them, for the present, 
 to maintain a furious contest. While those rueful mal- 
 contents, who had been for ever ejected, were employed 
 out of doors in swelling the clamour against English 
 tyranny, the more wealthy, who had purchased re-admis- 
 sion, went in, resolved to avenge or to recompense their 
 losses. Of more than two hundred borough members, 
 a considerable majority were the vassals of titled chief- 
 tains, who could now, without waiting for the tardy 
 demise of the Crown, or exposing their venal retainers to 
 too long a temptation, recruit the ranks and revenues of 
 opposition. In the new Parliament the disputes which 
 had agitated the reigns of William and Anne were 
 revived, and attended with similar results. A money 
 Bill was introduced, according to the constitution, from 
 the Privy Council into the Commons ; it was rejected, in 
 conformity to the rules of that assembly ; and the Viceroy, 
 like his predecessor of 1692, entered his disregarded 
 protest upon the journals of the Upper House. Mr. 
 Grattan trod in the steps of Molyneux, with higher 
 fame and fortune than his more moderate precursor, and 
 Ireland was shaken by another storm of independence. 
 But though the chiefs affected to guide themselves by 
 precedent, the independence at which they aimed was of a 
 more refined and perilous character than any which had 
 yet stimulated the desires of the Anglo-Irish. Of separa- 
 tion, indeed, they did not think, and for the same good 
 reasons which during six centuries had deterred their 
 predecessors from refusing a nominal homage to the 
 Crown of the mother country. Like them these modern 
 lords sought the uncontrolled management of Irish affairs, 
 and the protection, without the restraint of England ; but 
 
 G 2
 
 84 INTRODUCTORY CIIArTF.R. 
 
 their views had expanded i'roiii nmiiicij^al regulations to 
 questions of external and international poliey. They 
 maintained that the Crown of Ireland was imperial, 
 reserving to themselves the powers of administration, un- 
 clogged by ministerial responsibility ; they demanded a 
 free trade, of which they were to have the sole direction ; 
 they insisted on a free Parliament, in both Houses of 
 which, by themselves or their nominees, they already 
 constituted an efficient majority. Men who could suppose 
 that an English Cabinet would acquiesce in all these pre- 
 tensions, or that, if England w'ere passive, their project 
 would not be overborne by its own innate violence, must 
 have been ignorant of human nature, as well as of the 
 commonest maxims of statesmen. But however extra- 
 vagant their scheme, the ferment which they had excited, 
 and the earlier annals of their order, suggested an expe- 
 dient which obtained for it a momentary and noisy 
 triumph. In the bold, but apposite language of an orator 
 of the time, discord sowed her dragon's teeth in the 
 country, and the furrows bristled with armed men. The 
 ancient clansmen seemed to have returned to life, in the 
 more orderly array of a hundred thousand volunteers. 
 This formidable reserve protected and invigorated the 
 Parliamentary operations ; the colony was declared a 
 nation, at the point of the bayonet — a bayonet which 
 would not have been bloodless had the chiefs dared to 
 try the liberty in vvhicli they affected to glory, or England 
 to resent the insolence of her unnatural children. 
 
 The aristocracy had now attained their objects, and 
 would gladly have arrested the progress of revolution. 
 But with the contempt observable in demagogues of all 
 classes for the common sense and feelings of mankind, 
 / they had inculcated principles which they feared to follow, 
 
 and roused tempestuous passions which they had not the 
 power either to gratify or to subdue. The reins of faction 
 dropt from their hands, to be caught by a new race of 
 patriots, whose humbler rank and bolder character made
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 85 
 
 consistency more easy, and whose headlong career filled 
 some with consternation, while it sustained the excited 
 enthusiasm of the multitude. The volunteers, from being The volun- 
 the instruments of oligarchical ambition, came to be con- 
 sidered, or to consider themselves, as " the armed majesty 
 of the people;" and the people began to infer that 
 poverty, subordination, and the payment of rents or 
 taxes, were so many species of suicidal high treason. 
 Conventionists, United Irishmen, and those to whom, Conycn- 
 bv a rather capricious distinction, custom has appropriated 
 
 1 . . ^ , 1 n n . 1 t-i i- United 
 
 the title or rebels, succeeded to the volunteers, in unpre- irishmen, 
 meditated, but not unnatural order. Everything seemed 
 to proclaim to the dismayed nobles the disastrous nature 
 of the victory they had achieved. They had left but one 
 bond of connexion between the islands — the diadem of 
 the sovereign : its weakness had been already proved by 
 the question of the regency, and were it to snap asunder, 
 their ruin was inevitable. Thus fear at length banished 
 these glittering illusions which had so long fascinated the 
 Anglo-Irish aristocracy. But powerless and almost hope- 
 less as they now were, they retained to the last moment 
 the arrogance and the corruption which had ever been the 
 ruling passions of the order ; they practised on the gene- 
 rosity of tlie English Minister, while they panted for his 
 protection ; and their Parliament was carried off by a 
 surfeit of those good things on which it had battened for 
 a century. 
 
 Davis informs us of the old Anglo-Irish nobles, " that 
 they could hardly endure that the Crown of England 
 should have any jurisdiction over them, but drew all 
 the respect and dependance of the natives unto them- 
 selves :" * in precisely the same manner, from the Revo- 
 lution to the Union, these Whig lords had obstructed all 
 salutary communication between the people of Ireland 
 and the centre of the British system. If, during that 
 * " Discoveiy," p. 100.
 
 86 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 time, the country was misgoverned — if it had darkness 
 instead of light, and perturbation instead of order, reason 
 would of itself suggest the conclusion, that the evil was 
 not to be ascribed to the central power, but to the 
 irregular influences of the interposing body. But we 
 are not without more direct evidence. From the multi- 
 tude of instances which might be adduced, two only, 
 which will show how fully this last dynasty of our nobles 
 had imbibed the spirit of its predecessors, can be inserted 
 here ; stronger could not be looked for, and weaker would 
 be superfluous. 
 English After the Revolution, the old distinction of English 
 
 and Irish: ^^^^ Irish, merged in that of Protestant and Roman 
 
 Protestant ' o i /. i- • 
 
 and Roman CathoHc. Names were altered, but the feelings, circum- 
 Cathohc. stances, and character of the two classes experienced little 
 change. One striking specimen, for each class, will illus- 
 trate tlie conduct of the aristocracy : — 
 
 1. Towards the Irish, or Roman Catholic, population. 
 
 Earlier policy. " For three hundred and fifty years at 
 
 least, after the conquest first attempted, the English laws 
 
 were not communicated to the Irish, nor the benefit and 
 
 protection thereof allowed to them, though they earnestly 
 
 desired and sought the same. They might not converse 
 
 • or commerce with any civil men, nor enter into any town 
 
 or city without peril of their lives ; they might not 
 
 purchase estates of freehold or inheritance, which might 
 
 descend to their children, according to the course of 
 
 our common law. The natives, being in the condition of 
 
 slaves and villeins, were more profitable to the lords than 
 
 if they had been the king's free subjects. Those great 
 
 English lords did, to the uttermost of their power, cross 
 
 and ivithstand the enfranchisement of the Irish for the 
 
 causes before expressed ; — wherein I must still acquit the 
 
 • Crown and State of England of negligence or ill policy, 
 
 and lay the fault upon the pride, covetousness, and ill 
 
 counsel of the English planted here, which in all ages have
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 87 
 
 been the chief impediments of the final conquest of 
 Ireland."* 
 
 Later policy. We are told by Bishop Burnet, that, Bishop 
 when the project of the atrocious penal code was sent over 
 to London, in the shape of a Bill, for the royal approba- 
 tion, " the English ministry introduced a clause which the 
 Roman Catholics hoped would hinder its being accepted 
 in Ireland. The matter was carried on so secretly, that it 
 was known to none but those who were at the Council, till 
 the news of it came from Ireland, upon its being sent 
 thither. The clause was to this purpose, that none in 
 Ireland should be capable of any employment, or of being 
 in the magistracy of any city, who did not qualify them- 
 selves by receiving the sacrament, according to the test 
 act passed in England, which before this time had never 
 been offered to the Irish nation. It was hoped, by those 
 who got this clause added to the Bill, that those in Ireland, 
 icho promoted it most, would now he the less fond of it, 
 when it had such a weight hung to it.'' \ These promoters TheWlug 
 of persecution were the Whig aristocracy, many of whom, Q^g^cj. 
 persons of great wealth and influence, were Dissenters 
 themselves, as well as extensively connected with the 
 Ulster Presbyterians. Being enabled, some, by the wearing 
 away of their prejudices, to comply with the sacramental 
 test, and the rest, by their power, to elude or to defy the 
 threatened consequences of refusal, they baffled the humane 
 device of the Cabinet, and the Bill passed into a law. 
 
 By the provisions of this nefarious Act, the Irish were 
 once more cut off " from commerce with civil men," " from 
 freeholds, inheritance, purchasing estates," or from acquiring 
 landed property in any manner whatsoever ; in a word, 
 they were brought back to that " condition of slaves and 
 villeins,"]: which the hard hearts and narrow policy of 
 
 * Davis, 84, 103, &c. 
 
 t History of His oion Times, ii. 214. This, it will be remembered, is 
 the testhnony of a Wliig. 
 
 X To complete the parallel, their muids were left in that um-eclaimed state
 
 Bock. 
 
 88 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTKK. 
 
 tlicii* old tyrants, of both races, liacl regarded as so profit- 
 able. Ill our own times, the increase of population, and 
 the struggling competition (too frequently, indeed, the 
 mortal strife) for land and employment, have secured to 
 the lords all that was profitable in the penal code, while, 
 by consenting to its repeal, they have acquired, at a cheap 
 rate, the doubtful praise of liberality ; praise which, if 
 ever the crisis shall arrive (and they seem disposed to hasten 
 it), they may discover to have had more than the bitterness 
 of " satire in disguise." 
 Captain The biographer of Captain Rock gives some valuable 
 
 collateral evidence on this subject : — 
 
 " The tithe of agistment, the least objectionable of any, 
 as falling upon that class of occupiers which could best 
 afford to pay it, was, nevertheless, considered, by the land 
 proprietors (who were of FalstafTs opinion, that * base is 
 the slave that pays,') a burden not fit for gentlemen to 
 bear. They accordingly abolished it ; at the same time 
 assuring the clergy, whom they thus despoiled of their 
 most profitable tithe, that it was all for the ' Protestant * 
 interest' they did so ; and handing them over, for their 
 support, to the ' tillers of the land,' and to those wretched 
 cottiers, the very poorest of poverty's children, upon 
 
 wliich seemed best to coiTcspond with tlieir curumstances. King William, 
 indeed, made an effort to revive tlie plan of national schools ; but, by that 
 fatality which seems to thwart every measure intended for the real welfare 
 of Ireland, his statute was never put into execution. A glorious opportunity 
 has been given to the present Commissioners of Education ; ^ of the value 
 of w'liich, to the country and their own good name, it does not appear that 
 they are yet sensible. But it is not too late : they have only to fling aside 
 sectarian prejudices, and to foUow the example of Mr. Brougham, who, 
 with the magnanimity of genius, has done a great constitutional justice to 
 the Chiu'ch of England. 
 
 * Argmnents, if such they may be termed, of a somewhat similar kind 
 were more recently put forth to justify the suppression of Protestant 
 Bishoprics in Ireland, and taking away twenty-five per cent, of the incomes 
 of the Irish clergy, — Ed. 
 
 1 A.D. 1827.— Ed.
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 89 
 
 whom the burthen of the Protestant establishment has, 
 ever since, principally lain. 
 
 ** The consequences of this vote to me and my family, 
 and the increased sphere of activity which it has opened to 
 us, may be judged from the events of the last sixty years." 
 — Memoirs, 132* 
 
 * As evidence so unsuspicious must lielp to give credibility even to the Primate 
 ■words of an Arclibishop, the following passage is subjoined from Primate ■t'Omter s 
 Boulter : — 
 
 " Without this tithe, there are whole parishes where there is no provision 
 for the minister ; yet we do not desire to be judges, but that our rights may 
 stand on the same bottom as those of other subjects, and the judges not be 
 intimidated, by votes of either Hovise of Parhament, from domg us justice, 
 if we seek for it. A great part of the gentry entered into associations, not 
 to pay for agistment to the clergy ; and to make a common purse, in each 
 county, to support any one there that should be sued for agistment ; and 
 were imderstood by the common people, everywhere, to be ready to distress 
 the clergy, all manner of ways, in their other rights, if they offered to sue 
 for agistment, I have, in vain, represented to several of them that, in the 
 south and west of Ireland, by destroying the tithe of agistment, they 
 naturally destroy tiEage ; and, thereby, lessen the number of people, and 
 raise the price of provisions, and render those provinces incapable of cari-ying 
 on the hnen manufactm'e, for which they so much envy the north of this 
 kingdom. It is certain that, by nmning into cattle, the numbers of people 
 are decreasing m those parts, and most of then* youth out of busuiess, and 
 disposed to hst in foreign service for bread, as there is no employment for 
 them at home, where two or three hands can look after some hundreds of 
 acres stocked with cattle ; by this means, too, a great part of our churches 
 are neglected, in many places five, six, or seven parishes (denominations we 
 commonly call them) bestowed on one incumbent, who perhaps, with aU 
 his tithes, scarce gets an hundred a-year. And how far, and to what other 
 piu^oses, such associations may in time extend, I do not pretend to judge ; 
 but I find, in some coimties, they already begin to form associations against 
 what they own due to the clergy, but they are encouraged by the success of 
 this first attempt to go on to further steps. The humour of clans and 
 confederacies is neither so well understood nor felt in England as it is here : 
 some gentlemen have let theii' lands so high, that without robbing the 
 clergy of then- just dues, they are satisfied their rents can hardly be paid ; 
 and others faU in with them, that they may be able to raise their lands as 
 high ; and the controversy here is, not whether the farmer shall be eased of 
 an unreasonable burthen, but whether the parson shall have his due, or the 
 landlord a greater rent. Some hope they might come in for plunder if the 
 bishops were stripped." 
 
 The emigrants, it must be observed, were neai4y aU of the Church of Protestant
 
 00 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 And the late Lord Chavlcmont, a noLlenian, whose 
 political creed docs not dinunish the vtilue of his acknow- 
 ledgment, writes : — 
 
 " At this time, 1761, when we were involved in a war 
 with Spain, the Portuguese, then esteemed the natural 
 allies of Great Britain, had warmly solicited some effectual 
 and permanent aid from the English court, and a plan was 
 formed to comply with their request, by suffering them to 
 raise, among the Catholics of Ireland, six regiments, to 
 be officered with Irish gentlemen of the same persuasion, 
 and taken into the pay of Portugal. To this cfiect a 
 motion was made in the House of Commons, by Secretary 
 Hamilton, and supported by a torrent of eloquence which 
 bore down all before it. The measure, however, was 
 warmly opposed ; the danger was alleged of suffering so 
 great a number of Catholics to be arrayed, armed, and 
 disciplined, who, though in a distant and friendly service, 
 might, at some unforeseen but possible crisis, return to 
 their native land, to the manifest danger of the Protestant 
 interest in Church and State. It was also said, that Ireland 
 could not spare so many of her inhabitants ; that the 
 south and west, where these recruits would principally be 
 raised, were thinly peopled ; and that the cultivation of 
 those counties would be checked, if not entirely annihi- 
 lated. The bigoted zeal, which evidently appeared to be 
 the basis of the opposition, undoubtedly added strength 
 to my wishes. The loss of inhcibitants was not much ; 
 the defalcation of three thousand men could scarcely be 
 
 emigrants. England. The Roman Catholics clung to the soil,' with a tenacity alarming 
 to the few who reflected on its cause, but higlily acceptable to that bhnd and 
 rapaciovis prodigality which wished for a tenantry of " slaves and villeins." 
 Thus the vote of the Irish Commons against the tithe of agistment was a 
 double persecution of Protestantism ; on the one hand, banishing the laity ; 
 on the other, shutting up the churches, and reducing the niimber of the 
 clergy : by the combined action of these two causes, the Church and the 
 State were despoiled of a most valuable population, in the south and west 
 of Ireland. 
 
 ' See note, ante, p. 68.
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Dl 
 
 supposed capable of anniliilatiiig the cultivation of two 
 great provinces ; neither did they seem well entitled to the 
 benefit of this argument, by whose oppression double the 
 number was annuall}' compelled to emigration ; and it was 
 but too evident, that a principle of the most detestable 
 nature lay hidden under this specious mode of reasoning. 
 The Protestant Bashaws of the south and west were loth 
 to resign so many of those wretches, whom they looked 
 upon, and treated, as their slaves." * 
 
 2. Towards the English or Protestant population. 
 
 Earlier policy. — Sir John Davis quotes an Irish statute lothof 
 of the 10th Henry the Seventh :— HenryVIL 
 
 " Whereas of long time there hath been used and exacted 
 by the lords and gentlemen of this land many and divers 
 damnable customs and usages, which been called 
 Coigne and Livery, and pay for their horsemen and foot- 
 men ; and besides, many ifSurders, robberies, rapes, &c.; 
 and other manifold extortions and oppressions ; by the said 
 horsemen and footmen dayly and nightly committed and 
 done ; which been the principal causes of the desolation and 
 destruction of said land, and have brought the same into 
 ruin and decay, so as the most part of the English free- 
 holders and tenants of this land been departed out thereof, 
 some into the realm of England, and other some to 
 strange lands ; whereupon the foresaid lords and gentlemen 
 have intruded into the said freeholders and tenants' inherit- 
 ances, and setten under them in the same the King's Irish 
 
 * lAfe of Charlemont, 67. Lord Charlemont passed an unnecessaiy 
 censure upon these commoners, when he accused them of bigotry : his last 
 sentence assigns an easy and adequate solution of their conduct. As every- 
 thing is of some value which tends to set men right with each other, it may 
 be useful to observe, that the earhest, the most disinterested, the only 
 perfectly unsuspicious movements in favour of the Roman Cathohcs were 
 made by men who conscientiously shrunk from imposing on them the 
 responsibihties of civil power, as persons under the distm-bing influence of 
 an external, and, possibly, hostile force. The great impulse was given by 
 our late good monarch (George III.), who regarded all his subjects with the 
 feeling of a Christian father ; the first measm-cs of relief were proposed, in 
 Ireland, by Lord Charlemont ; m England, by Sir George Savillc and 
 Mr. Dunning.
 
 92 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 enemies, to the diminishing- of holie churchc's rites, the 
 disinherison of the King and his obedient subjects, and 
 the utter ruin and desolation of the land.'^ 
 Coigneand In another passage, Davis writes thus: — " This most 
 wicked and mischievous extortion was originally Irish ; for 
 the chiefs used to lay bonaght upon their people, and 
 never gave their soldiers any other pay. But when the 
 English lords had learned it, they used it with more 
 insolency, and made it more intolerable ; for this oppres- 
 sion was not temporary, or limited either to place or time, 
 but because there was everywhere a continual war, either 
 offensive or defensive ; and every lord of a county, and 
 every marcher, made war and peace at pleasure ; it became 
 universal and perpetual, and indeed was the most heavy 
 oppression that ever was used in any Christian or heathen 
 kingdom, and therefore, vox oppressorum, this crying sin 
 did draw down as great or grejtter plagues upon Ireland, 
 than the oppression of the Israelites did draw upon the 
 land of Egypt. For the plagues of Egypt, though 
 they were grievous, were but of a short continuance. But 
 the plagues of Ireland lasted 400 years together. This 
 extortion of Coigne and Livery did produce two notorious 
 effects. First, it made the land waste ; next, it made the 
 people idle. For when the husbandman had laboured all 
 the year, the soldier, in one night, did consume the fruits 
 of his labour : had he reason, then, to manure the land 
 for the next year ? Hereupon, of necessity, came depopu- 
 lation, banishment, and extirpation of the better sort of 
 subjects; and such as remained became idle, and lookers 
 on, expecting the event of those miseries and evil times. 
 Lastly, this oppression did, of force and necessity, make 
 the Irish a crafty people ; for such as are oppressed and 
 live in slavery are ever put to their shifts ; and, therefore, 
 in the old comedies of Plautus and Terence, the bond- 
 slave doth always act the cunning and crafty part." 
 
 We have a similar testimony from Baron Finglass, in 
 the reign of Henry the Eighth : — 
 
 " Item-. In the aforesaid manner for the lack of punish-
 
 douera. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 93 
 
 ment of the great lords of Munster by ministration of 
 ■justice, they, by the extortion of Coyne and Livery, and 
 other abusions, have expelled all the English freeholders 
 and inhabitants out of Munster, so tliat, in fifty years past, 
 was none there obedient to the King's laws, except the 
 cities and walled towns ; and so this hath been the decay of 
 Munster.^' 
 
 Later Policy. — " The Londoners found the natives Tlie Lon- 
 willing to overgive, rather than to remove ; and that they 
 could not reap half the profit by the British which they do 
 by the Irish, whom they use at their jjleasure, never looking 
 into the reasons which induced the natives to give more than 
 indeed they could ivell raise, their assured hope that time 
 might, by rebellion, relieve them of their heavy landlords, 
 whom, in the meantime, they were contented to suiFer 
 under, though to their utter impoverishing and undoing. 
 Thus they slighted, for their private profit sake, the 
 planting of religion and civility (the seeds of peace and 
 plenty), which his Majesty especially sought to sow for 
 God's service, and the safety of the country. So as what 
 his Majesty intended should have been a terror to his 
 enemies for looking into that kingdom, is now become a 
 bait to invite them thither, where the chief tenants and 
 inhabitants, being Irish, are prepared to entertain them." 
 — Sir Thos. Philips s Letter to Charles the First. Harris'' s 
 Hibernica, vol. i. 
 
 Similarly in Pinner's " Survey of Ulster." 
 
 " No. 13^.— The Earl of Castlehaven hath three thou- 
 sand acres. Upon this proportion there is no building at 
 all, neither freeholders. I find some few English families, 
 but they have no estates, for since the old Earl died, the 
 tenants, as they tell me, cannot have their leases made 
 good unto them unless they will give treble the rent 
 which they paid, and yet they must have but half the 
 land which they enjoyed in the late Earl's time. All the 
 rest of the land is inhabited with Irish." 
 
 And again.:— " Nos. 133, 134, 135. — The Earl of
 
 94 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Rejection 
 ot I'rotcst- 
 ant ten- 
 ants. 
 
 Potatoes. 
 
 Castlehavcn hath six thousand acres. The agent of the 
 Earl showed me the rent-roll of all the tenants that are' 
 on these three proportions, but their estates are so weak 
 and uncertain that they are all leaving the land. There 
 were in number sixty-four, and each of them holds sixty 
 acres. The rest of the land (two thousand one hundred 
 and sixty acres), is let to twenty Irish gentlemen, con- 
 trary to the articles of plantation, and these Irish gentle- 
 men have under them about three thousand souls of all 
 sorts." 
 
 It will be remembered that the " Irish gentlemen," and 
 those English who followed their example, continued 
 to force a barbarous system of husbandry upon the 
 poverty of their wretched retainers. Thus we find in 
 Pinner :—" No. 160.— Tirlagh O'Neil hath four thousand 
 acres. He hath made no estates to his tenants, and they 
 all do plough after the Irish manner" 
 
 A century after the Great Rebellion, we find the aristo- 
 cracy pursuing the same heartless and perilous career. A 
 pamphlet, published in the year 1746, gives the following 
 account of the landlords of the day — the same men, it will 
 be observed, who plundered the clergy for the good of the 
 Church : — 
 
 " Popish tenants are daily preferred, and Protestants 
 rejected, either for the sake of swelling a rental or adding 
 some mean duties which Protestants will not submit to ; 
 but the greatest mischief in this way is done by a class of 
 men whom I will call land-jobbers. Land-jobbers have 
 introduced for farmers the lowest sort of Papists, who 
 were employed formerly as labourers, while the ]j»nds 
 were occupied by substantial Protestants ; but since 
 potatoes have grown so much in credit, and burning the 
 ground has become so fashionable (a manure so easily and 
 readily acquired), these cottagers, who set no value on 
 their labour, scorn to be servants longer, but fancy them- 
 selves in the degree of masters, as soon as they can 
 accomplish the planting an acre of potatoes. One of this
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 95 
 
 description not being able singly to occupy any consider- 
 able quantity of ground, twelve or twenty of them, and 
 sometimes more, cast their eyes on a plowland occupied 
 by many industrious Protestants, who, from a common 
 ancestor, planted there, perhaps, one hundred years 
 before, have swarmed into many stocks, built houses, 
 made various improvements, and nursed the land, in 
 expectation of being favoured by their landlord in a new 
 lease. These cottagers — seeing the flourishing condition 
 of this colony, the warm plight of the houses, but 
 especially the strong sod on the earth, made so by 
 various composts collected with much toil and care, and 
 which secures to them a long continuance of their beloved 
 destructive manure made by burning the green sward, — 
 engage some neighbour to take this plowland, and all 
 jointly bind themselves to become under-tenants to the 
 land-jobber, and to pay him an immoderate rent. This 
 encourages him to outbid the unhappy Protestants, and 
 the great advance in the rent tempts the avaricious and 
 ill-judging landlord to accept his proposal. The Pro- 
 testants, being thus driven out of their settlements, 
 transport themselves, their families, and effects, to 
 America, there to meet a more hospitable reception 
 amongst strangers to their persons, but friends to their 
 religion and civil principles." 
 
 " Notwithstanding this dismal relation of the evil con- Middle- 
 sequences of so mean a traffic (for the truth of which I 
 appeal to all who know the condition of the country), the 
 present profit is so sweet, that many proprietors grudge 
 the land-jobber his fag-rent, and are grown so cunning, 
 that they set the land originally to the mean cottagers, 
 and so take the whole price for a season, — not once 
 reflecting, that their sons will not have by this ruinous 
 practice an estate near so valuable as that they received 
 from their fathers." 
 
 " Some endeavour to excuse themselves by saying that 
 Protestant tenants cannot be had. They may thank 
 
 meu.
 
 96 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 themselves if that bo true, for they have helped to banish 
 them by not receiving them when they might. But it is 
 to be hoped we are not yet so distressed. Those who 
 have the reputation of good landlords, and eneouragers of 
 Protestants, never want them. But there is a Protestcmt 
 price and a Popish price for la7id, and he who will have 
 valuable Protestants on his estate must depart from his 
 Popish price. Here I fear the matter will stick. It will 
 be as hard to persuade a gentleman to fall from one 
 thousand pounds a-year to eight hundred, as it was to 
 prevail on the lawyer in the Gospel to sell all, and save his 
 soul." 
 Establish- It is now easy to appreciate the policy of our great 
 eel Church proprietors in the eijTliteenth century. The Established 
 
 discoun- Z-^ . 1 ^ 
 
 tcnanced. Cliurch was discountenanced for two reasons: its posses- 
 sions attracted their cupidity ; its j^^hiciples laid the 
 foundations of tlie public weal, in moderation on the part 
 of the rulers, and on the part of the people in a regulated 
 love of freedom, and a judgment exercised in the discri- 
 mination of right and wrong. Protestants had a self- 
 respect, a taste for comfort and independence, which 
 rendered them unacceptable ; many of them fled from 
 persecution, many of those who remained, deprived of 
 the consolations of their own Church, broken in spirit 
 and fortune, and attracted by those gregarious sympathies 
 which act so powerfull}' upon persons thus reduced, sunk 
 into the religion as well as the habits of their new asso- 
 Impolicyof ciates. The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, were 
 landl rds cherished as a tenantry; their lords perceived, or imagined, 
 many advantages in the encouragement of a race whose 
 desires had never been suffered to rise above the cravings 
 of animal nature. It is a curious circumstance — one, 
 indeed, which deserves to be recorded in the natural 
 history of the mind, — that, while the aristocracy were 
 thus multiplying their enemies, and banishing their pro- 
 tectors, they trembled with the fear of an insurrection, 
 which, as appears from the journals of the Irish Commons,
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 97 
 
 the priestliood was then organizing in favour of the Pre- 
 tender. The Great Rebellion had warned them, that 
 though the Irish might say with Zanga — 
 
 " Boru for yoiu' use, I live but to obey you ; " 
 
 they could, like him, treasure up the remembrance of all 
 real or fancied indignities against a day of devastating 
 retribution. Yet, in the conflict of base passions, the 
 thirst of sudden gain and barbarous authority prevailed 
 over terror, and the daily hazard of a servile war was 
 preferred to that repose which encircles the mansion of an 
 English landlord. 
 
 Instances might have been readily found which would Famineand 
 have given these remarks a more pointed application, pestilence. 
 Unhappily, the annual cry of famine and pestilential 
 disease which rises from three-fourths of our fertile 
 island, and the annual emigration from every port of 
 our Protestants to America, are facts which render it 
 unnecessary to continue the sketch to the present time, — 
 the subject shall therefore be dismissed with one further 
 observation. Deprived by various circumstances of much 
 of their local power, the great Irish proprietors have been 
 diligent in building up authority elsewhere, and are now 
 in possession of a commanding influence in the Cabinet 
 and the Legislature of the United Kingdom. 
 
 Passing events seem to render it probable that on tliem shall Ire- 
 it will mainly depend whether Ireland is at length to land ruin 
 have the benefit of English connexion, or whether orEno-laud 
 
 Spenser's mournful prediction shall be accomplished, ^^''T'^^''. „ 
 . . ^ Ireland ? 
 
 and England shall experience the disastrous consequences 
 
 of a connexion with Ireland. Which of these results 
 
 is the more likely ? Already * has a Parliamentary 
 
 Committee recorded its grave conviction, that the flood 
 
 of Irish misery is overflowing upon England — a flood 
 
 which has been caused by the system hitherto adopted, 
 
 and which will continue to pour forth its desolating 
 
 * Written in 1827.— Ed. 
 H
 
 98 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 waters, unless that system be for ever abolished. The 
 course, therefore, which may be pursued henceforward is 
 a matter of deep and awful moment. When one reflects 
 on the mighty interests, spiritual and temporal, which 
 appear to be involved in it, the words of the Jewish 
 lawgiver, " Behold I have set before thee a blessing and 
 a curse," are scarcely more thau applicable to the mo- 
 mentous alternative. " A blessing," if by excluding 
 foreign influence, by coercing demagogues, by allowing 
 the growth of domestic enjoyments, by instituting a 
 sound system of national instruction, and by supporting 
 the exertions of the established clergy, they educate the 
 people up to the appreciation of British privileges ; — 
 " a curse," if they sacrifice the Church to a selfish liberal- 
 ism ; if they debase the pure and elevated principles 
 of the old English nobility by an infusion of the spirit 
 of a colonial House of Assembly ; if they break up the 
 hereditary comforts of the English yeomanry by the 
 poverty, the squalid habits, and the ferocious combina- 
 tions, which have so long been the disgrace and the 
 calamity of Ireland.
 
 HISTORY OF THE POLICY 
 
 CHUECH OF ROME IN IRELAND, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FROM HENRY THE SECOND TO EDWARD THE SIXTH. 
 
 The connexion of Ireland with the Crown of England a.d. 1155. 
 originated in a compact l)etween Henry Plantagenet, The triple 
 Pope Adrian the Fourth, and the Irish prelates of the ''°™P''^* 
 day. This treaty would he memorahle if it had no other 
 claim to the consideration of posterity than the hypocrisy, 
 the injustice, and the mutual treachery of the parties ; 
 but their views and pretensions, descending regularly 
 to their successors, and exerting a constant influence 
 upon Irish affairs, make it an object of nearer interest. 
 Without attention to these, it is impossible either to 
 unravel the history of Ireland or to judge correctly of its 
 state at the present crisis. 
 
 To the Pope, the transaction was fraught with un- 
 mingled triumph. On the one side, an artful and refrac- 
 tory sovereign, who had hitherto scandalized the faith of 
 Christendom by his contumelious disobedience, crouched 
 
 H 2
 
 100 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. in abject submission before the cliair of Peter ; on the 
 A.D. 1171. other, an island, beyond the limits of the Roman world, 
 bowed to him as the supreme arbiter of her destiny, and 
 quietly received a foreign governor at his hands. The 
 claims of Rome to spiritual and to temporal authority in 
 Ireland had arisen together about eighty years before. 
 First advanced by the daring ambition of Gregory the 
 Seventh, pressed by the wily pertinacity of his successors, 
 admitted by the simplicity of some of the hierarchy and 
 the corrupt poverty of others — they made slow and un- 
 noticed progress, amidst the dissensions of a rude chief- 
 tainry and the torpid ignorance of an enslaved population. 
 Adrian now enjoyed the mature fruit of all these advan- 
 tages, and challenged, without contradiction, the supreme 
 dominion of Ireland. The chance of inquiry into his title 
 or his proceedings gave the father, probably, but little 
 concern. It was the age of the Albigenses ; all inquiry 
 was heresy, and heresy was chastised by the sword of the 
 crusader, — at least, his dear son Henry, who was to 
 govern the island under him, would have enough both 
 of power and motive to maintain the royalties of the 
 Holy See.* He sent a ring of investiture to the English 
 monarch, -j- together with the following letter : — 
 
 * See " A Digest of Evidence taken before the Parliamentary Committees," 
 Tol. ii., cliap. 2. 
 Speech of t " Sir John Davis's ' Discovery of the true Cause why Ireland was 
 
 the late never subdued,' page 15. In a recent speech at the Roman Catholic Asso- 
 11 ciation in Dublin, the following account was given of the landing of Henry 
 
 to take possession of his new territories : — " It was on the evening of the 
 23d of August, 1172, that tlie first hostUe EngUsli footstep pressed the sod 
 of Ireland. It is said to have been a sweet and mUd evening when the 
 invading party entered the noble estuaiy formed by the conflux of the Suir, 
 the Nore, and the Barrow, at the city of Waterford. Accursed be that day 
 in the memory of all future generations of Irishmen when the invaders first 
 touched our shores ! They came to a nation famous for its love of learning, 
 its piety, and its heroism ; they came when internal dissensions separated 
 her sons and wasted their energies. Internal traitors led on the invaders ; 
 her sons fell in no fight ; her hberties were crushed in no battle ; but 
 domestic treason and foreign invaders doomed Ireland to seven centuries of
 
 IN IRELAND. 101 
 
 " Adrian, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his chap. i. 
 
 dearest son in Christ, the illustrious King of England, a.d. 1171. 
 
 health and apostolical benediction. ^''P? , 
 
 Adrians 
 ruli laudably and profitably hath your magnificence letter to 
 
 conceived the desire of propagating your glorious renown ^'^"'T ^^• 
 on earth, and completing your reward of eternal happiness 
 in heaven, while as a Catholic prince you are intent on 
 enlarging the borders of the Church, instructing the rude 
 and ignorant in the truth of the Christian faith, extermi- 
 nating vice from the vineyard of the Lord, and, for the 
 more convenient execution of this purpose, requiring the 
 counsel and favour of the Apostolic See. In which, the 
 more mature your deliberation and more discreet your 
 conduct, so much the happier, with the assistance of the 
 Lord, will be your progress, as all things which take their 
 beginning from the ardour of faith and love of religion are 
 wont to come to a prosperous issue. 
 
 " There is, indeed, no doubt, as your Highness also 
 doth acknowledge, that Ireland, and all the islands upon 
 which Christ the sun of righteousness hath shone, do 
 belong to the patrimony of St. Peter and the holy Roman 
 Church. Therefore are we the more solicitous to propa- 
 gate in that land the godly scion of faith, as we have the 
 secret monition of conscience that such is more especially 
 our bounden duty. 
 
 " You, then, most dear son in Christ, have signified 
 unto us your desire to enter into that land of Ireland, in 
 order to reduce the people to obedience unto laws, and 
 extirpate the seeds of vice ; you have also declared, that Peter's 
 
 jJence. 
 
 oppression." — Dubliti Evening Ifail, Friday, November 17. With the 
 shght mistakes of 1172 for 1171, and of August for October, Mr. O'Connell's 
 description is as accurate as, perhaps, it coidd have been rendered without 
 injury to his eloquence. The independence of Ireland was not crushed in 
 battle, but quietly sold in the synods of the prelates, those internal traitors 
 to whom the orator alluded, but whom he was mxich too prudent to name. 
 " The professed design of Henry's expedition," says Leland, " was not to 
 conquer, but to take possession of an island granted lum by the Pope." — 
 History of Ireland, i. 69.
 
 102 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. you are willing to pay from each house a yearly pension 
 A.D. 1171. of one penny to St. Peter, and that you will preserve the 
 rights of the churches of said land whole and inviolate. 
 We, therefore, with that grace and acceptance suited to 
 your pious and praiseworthy design, and favourably assent- 
 ing to your petition, do hold it right and good, that, for 
 the extension of the borders of the Church, the restraining 
 of vice, the correction of manners, the planting of virtue, 
 and increase of religion, you enter the said island, and 
 execute therein whatever shall pertain to the honour of 
 God and the welfare of the land, and that the people 
 of said land receive you honourably, and reverence you as 
 their lord, — saving always the rights of the churches, and 
 reserving to St. Peter the annual pension of one penny 
 uj)on every house. 
 
 *' If, then, you be resolved to carry this design into 
 effectual execution, study to form the nation to virtuous 
 manners; and labour, by yourself, and by others whom 
 you may judge meet for the work, in faith, word, and 
 action, that the Church may be there exalted, the Chris- 
 tian faith planted, and all things so ordered for the honour 
 of God and the salvation of souls, that you may be entitled 
 to a fulness of reward in heaven, and, on earth, to a glo- 
 rious renown throughout all ages." 
 
 This conveyance was made to Henry in 1155, and by 
 him communicated to the Irish hierarchy. The negotia- 
 tion betvv'een them was conducted secretly for some years, 
 until circumstances had effected a lodgment for the Eng- 
 lish arms in Ireland ; the brief was then [1171] publicly 
 read at the Synod of Cashel, with this confirmatory letter 
 tory letter, from Pope Alexander the Third : — 
 
 " Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to 
 his dearly beloved son the noble King of England, health, 
 grace, and apostolical benediction : Forasmuch as things 
 given and granted upon good reason by our predecessors 
 are to be well allowed of, ratified, and confirmed, we, 
 well pondering and considering the grant and privilege for 
 
 Pope Alex 
 
 ander's 
 
 conflrma
 
 IN IRELAND. 103 
 
 and concerning the dominion of the land of Ireland, to us chap. i. 
 appertaining, and lately given by our predecessor Adrian, a.d. 1171. 
 do in like manner confirm, ratify, and allow the same ; 
 provided that there be reserved and paid to St. Peter, and England to 
 to the Church of Rome, the yearly pension of one penny pence, 
 out of every house, both in England and in Ireland : pro- 
 vided also that the barbarous people of Ireland be by your 
 means reformed, and recovered from their filthy life and 
 abominable manners, that, as in name, so in conduct and 
 conversation, they may become Christians ; provided, fur- 
 ther, that that rude and disordered Church being by you 
 reformed, the whole nation may, together with the pro- 
 fession of the faith, be in act and deed followers of the 
 same." 
 
 Four years after [1175], these two edicts were again a.d. 1175. 
 solemnly promulged by a Synod held at Waterford ; 
 Henry was formally proclaimed lord of Ireland, and the 
 severest censures of the Church were denounced against 
 all who should impeach the donation of the holy see, or 
 oppose the government of its illustrious representative.* 
 From that period to the Reformation, the English 
 monarchs, and the little Parliament of the pale, unable 
 to maintain their pretensions by the sword, appealed to 
 the sacredness of these Papal grants, and thus gave the 
 
 * O'Connor's " Historical Address," i., 65, 86. Lanigan " Ecclesiastical 
 History of Ireland," iv., 222. The Irish annalists of those days are fond of 
 styling Henry the son of the Empress, as if the gi'andeur of the name con- 
 soled them for the loss of independence. A French writer accounts for the 
 coaUtion between Adi-ian, Henry, and the Irish prelates, in a manner not 
 generally known. His solution partates somewhat of the levity of liis 
 country, yet, at least m the present day, is not altogether \inworthy of 
 grave consideration : — " Les Irlaindois, we voulant endurer leurs prestres 
 sans avoir leurs femines avec eux, furent cette anne, declares rebelles et here- 
 tiques par le Pape Adi-ian ; qui aussi donnoit charge au Roi d'Angleterre de 
 les guerrouer a toiite outrance ; en vertu de qiioy, il mena ime armee contre 
 eux, qui les subjuga, et contraignit de se sousmettre h, sa volonte." 
 Vignier, quoted by Campbell ; " Strictures on the History of Ireland," 
 231.
 
 101 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. weight of four centuries to an autliority which was 
 A.D. 1175. viltiniately to he turned against themselves.* 
 King The conduct of Henry, on this occasion, is a memorable 
 
 Henrj' and ji^gfji^ce of the meanness and inconsistency of ambition, 
 can. Cordially retvu'ning the hatred of the Vatican, and resolved 
 
 to disencumber his crown of its patronage, he yet sought 
 to entangle himself in new engagements to that artful 
 court : he declared himself the vassal of the holy see, 
 applied for permission to enter Ireland, and gave a faith- 
 less assent to those humiliating terms upon which the 
 pontiffs condescended to his desire. When he discovered 
 that St. Peter had as yet but little influence in the 
 internal affairs of Ireland, he defrauded the apostle 
 without ceremony ; delaying, diminishing, or withholding 
 altogether, the stipulated tribute, as suited his caprice or 
 parsimonious convenience. -|- The good offices of the 
 hierarchy promised to be of more permanent advantage, 
 and their demands were treated with proportionably 
 greater attention. Henry expected to find, in that order, 
 a counterpoise to the power of the nobles, whether of 
 Norman or of Irish race. The latter, possessing all the 
 powers of sovereignty within their respective districts, 
 had not paid to their native monarchs, and did not intend 
 to pay to those of a foreign dynasty, any other mark of 
 subjection than a slight and precarious tribute : and 
 should any of the various motives which are covered by 
 the name of state necessity, dictate the removal of these 
 turbulent lords, the adventurers by whom that service 
 might be effected would expect to conquer for them- 
 selves, and not for their master. These were unpromising 
 ministers for the settlement of his new province ; but it 
 
 * Leland, ii. ; Appendix, note c. 
 
 t The saint, however, or liis successor, contrived to obtain ample com- 
 pcnsatiou from the clergy, who, in their turn, drew largely on the people. 
 The Popes had a regular treasury chamber {Camera Apostolica) in Ireland, 
 into which contributions, under one name or another, were daily flowing.
 
 IN IRELAND. 105 
 
 was reasonable to suppose that a spiritual aristocracy, of crap. i. 
 which he hoped to have the exclusive appointment, would a.d. 1175. 
 furnish some less unmanageable auxiliaries. Accordingly, Tlie spin- 
 Henry made it his first care to provide a liberal establish- pracy 
 ment for the Churcli.* courted. 
 
 But the bishops did not limit their views by the conve- 
 nience of their associates in this partition alliance. They 
 had now, though at the high price of the independence of 
 their country, purchased no inconsiderable emoluments 
 for themselves. Their demesnes, which were ample, but 
 hitherto exposed to the ravages of an unscrupulous laity, 
 had at length found a protector : the claim of tithes, 
 which, for some time, they had been endeavouring -|- to 
 maintain by spiritual censures and the dogma of divine 
 right, was henceforward to be enforced by the secular 
 arm ; privileges, also, and immunities, such as, in those 
 jubilant days of the Church, were enjoyed by the ecclesi- 
 astics of the most orthodox regions, and a large share in 
 the administration of public affairs, were the immediate 
 results of their recent intrigues. A more dazzling pros- 
 pect opened to them in the distance. They considered 
 themselves rather the colleagues than the subjects of 
 Henry, both parties being, within their respective spheres, 
 the deputies of the same superior : if he wielded the 
 temporal authority, they were to bear the other and more 
 formidable of the two swords, which, at that period, 
 belonged to the sovereign Pontiff. What was still more 
 opportune, this lay governor and the supreme head would 
 be necessarily absentees : the mass of the people, sunk in 
 the stupor of feudal villenage, ;J; were incapable of taking 
 a part, or feeling an interest, in political measures : the 
 native chiefs, as it was easy to foresee, would continue to 
 waste their strength in unmeaning quarrels among them- 
 V selves, and new elements of division were now about to be 
 
 * See " The Case of the Church in Ireland," letter i. 
 t Lanigan, " Ecclesiastical History," iv., 146. 
 J See Leland's " Introduction."
 
 106 POLICY OF THE CllUIlCII OF ROME 
 
 CHAT. I. introduced, by tlie inroads of adventurers from the other 
 A.D. 1175. island : the ecclesiastics, on the contrary, had been recently 
 organized into one effective body, upon the Roman model, 
 and trained to the pursuit of a common interest.* Thus, 
 everything conspired to flatter the prelates that, by unani- 
 mity in their own counsels, and by a cautious balancing of 
 the Pope, the King of England, and the nobles, against 
 each other, the virtual sovereignty of the country might 
 devolve upon themselves. It was but natural that men, 
 whose order was their family, and who possessed so many 
 tempting facilities for the prosecution of ambitious designs, 
 should cherish these splendid hopes of its exaltation ; and, 
 had they been as temperate in the use of power, as they 
 were dexterous in its acquisition, there is little reason to 
 doubt that their hopes would have been realized. But, 
 though always bold players of their lofty game, they have 
 Eome's seldom been judicious. They have borne up against dis- 
 
 prudence appointments with a spirit which cannot be admired too 
 
 lorgottcii \^ , "^ 
 
 in pros- highly ; but prosperity has ever been a trial too severe for 
 
 P^" ^' them, the first appearance of success generally betraying 
 
 their purposes, and their arrogance never failing to defeat 
 
 their intrigues. 
 
 It would be unjust to deny that feelings of a more 
 
 generous nature than those of personal or corporate 
 
 aggrandizement might occasionally mingle with these 
 
 sj^eculations. Their regards were no longer circumscribed 
 
 within the precincts of their own island. They now stood 
 
 by the throne of the Vicar of Christ, and were admitted 
 
 peers of that mystical commonwealth, -|- which seemed 
 
 entitled, by the extent of its jurisdiction and the awful 
 
 magnitude of the interests it involved, to control all local 
 
 and merely human authorities. In the more fortunate 
 
 countries of Europe, the sentiments ;|l inspired by the 
 
 persuasion of so high a calling were a source of much 
 
 * Lanigan, iv., 18, 188. Leland, i., 10. 
 
 t See the " Digest of Evidence," vol. ii., chaps. 1, 2, 3, 4. 
 
 J See Note A. at the end of the chapter.
 
 IN IRELAND. 107 
 
 benefit during the middle ages, overawing the violent, chap. i. 
 protecting the forlorn, mitigating the prevailing ferocity a.d. 1175. 
 of manners, and supplying in various ways the defects of 
 civil institutions. But, in Ireland, the circumstances 
 which gave birth to Papal dominion were unfavourable 
 to the production of these salutary results. The ascend- 
 ancy of the Pope did not rest, as in other countries, upon 
 the obligation under which he was supposed to lie, as the 
 common father of Christendom, of enforcing the claims of 
 religion upon mankind, and of incorporating all the 
 faithful into one visible brotherhood. His pretensions 
 were those of a feudal monarch ; pretensions which had 
 an obvious tendency to secularize the minds of his eccle- 
 siastical retainers ; which were felt, by the more intelli- 
 gent among them, to be equally destitute of truth and of 
 moral influence ; and which yet were maintained, from the 
 same motives which have inspired the modern advocates of 
 the miracles of Prince Hohenlohe. 
 
 In the interval between the second and the eighth Monastic 
 Henry, though at what particular seasons it is impossible ^*'g^'^'^* 
 to tell, the Irish monasteries brought forth a strange pro- 
 geny of legends, monstrous productions in the eye of 
 reason, yet sufficiently attractive to a simple race, unlet- 
 tered, unsuspicious, and possessing, or possessed by, that 
 love of the marvellous, which still distinguishes their 
 imaginative posterity. To reclaim the people from their 
 schismatical indifference, and to impress them with devout 
 gratitude to the partial Pontiff" who, while he swayed the 
 sceptre of both worlds, took an especial interest in their 
 welfare, was the common end of all these fables ; but the 
 inventors differed widely in the explanations which they 
 gave of the origin of this peculiar connexion between 
 Ireland and the holy see. Some were content to refer to 
 a donation of the Emperor Constantine, who was said to 
 have bestowed all islands upon the successor of St. Peter; 
 but this notion, although supported by the authority of 
 several pontiffs, was displeasing to the national vanity.
 
 108 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. and never became very popular. Others, following Pope 
 A.D. 1175. Adrian the Fourth, discovered in the prophecies a divi/ie 
 riglit to islands ; but this hypothesis, like the former, 
 laboured under the disadvantage, that it did not account 
 for the parficular tenderness which the Pontiff was sup- 
 posed to feel for his Irish people. A third hypothesis was 
 therefore framed, that a King of Munster, and some other 
 chiefs had visited Rome as pilgrims, and, retiring from 
 earthly cares to the holy tranquillity of the cloister, had 
 surrendered their dominions to the apostolic see : even 
 this had an obvious defect, for the Irish principalities, 
 though hereditary in the family, were elective as to the 
 individual. The fourth and favourite solution was, that, 
 in the time of St. Patrick, the whole Irish nation, filled 
 with gratitude to the Pontiff whose pious care had thrown 
 open to them the kingdom of heaven, ceded their island, 
 in full and jjerpetual sovereignty, to his see. It was 
 maintained, by the more ardent advocates of this position, 
 ITolv that the title of Holy Island, or Island of Saints, had been 
 
 Island. prophetically applied to Ireland in Pagan times — a sure 
 presage of the high destiny which awaited it, as the chosen 
 patrimony of the holy father.* 
 
 * The second of these four opinions is espoused by the titular Primate 
 Lombard, who was private secretary to Pope Clement the Eighth : the 
 third by his contemporary, the celebrated Geoffry Keating : the fourth 
 seems to have been most popular in the times of Henry the Eighth and 
 Elizabeth ; it was adopted in the former reign by Polydore Virgil, the 
 collector of the Peter-pence, and in the latter by the Jesuit Sanders, the 
 missionary of rebellion among the Irish lords. The hint of the prophetical 
 name of " Isle of Saints" appears to have been caught from Festus 
 Avienus, who professes to copy the Phoenician annals of the voyage of 
 Himilco. His verses are — 
 
 Ast hinc duobus, in sacrum sic hisulam 
 Dixere prisci, sohbus ciu'sus rati est. 
 Hfcc inter undas cespitem midtum jacit, 
 Eamque late gens Hibemorum coht. 
 
 J. K. L. seems to allvide to this in his third letter on Ireland, " when it 
 pleased God to have an isle of saints upon the earth, he prepared Ireland 
 Jrom afar for this high destiny." I do not remember any Irish, at least
 
 IN IRELAND. 109 
 
 Some generations must have passed away before the chap. i. 
 easiest faith of the priesthood couki have believed in a a.d. 1175. 
 title v^'hieh rested only upon fictions so contemptible, and 
 there is very decisive evidence that its progress among the 
 nobles was slow and unsteady. Had the pretension been 
 accompanied by no other change than a transfer of their 
 nominal homage from a rival chief to a formidable 
 monai'ch, whose power placed him above all competition, 
 it is probable that these rude lords, who had no idea of 
 national interests, and whose sept was their country,* 
 would have continued to regard it with the same indiffer- 
 ence which marked their first reception of both the English 
 and the Papal claims. But fables and dogmas were of 
 small avail in reconciling men to invasion and to the novel 
 tyranny of ecclesiastics. Little known in the reign of 
 Edward the Second, disregarded in that of Henry the 
 Eighth, the sovereignty of the holy see became thence- Papal su- 
 forward more popular, until, in the times of the first Ireland. 
 James and the first Charles, it was at length incorporated 
 into the religious belief of the country. Some of the 
 credit of this achievement may be claimed for the industry 
 of the Jesuit missionaries : but the true solution is, that 
 the antipathy to English rule, which had hitherto opposed 
 the Papal claims, was now their advocate ; and the bull of 
 Adrian proved more powerful, as an incentive to rebellion, 
 than it had ever been as an argument for loyalty. 
 
 The clergy, however, had abundant motives to animate 
 the zeal of proselytism ; and, wherever the English arms 
 
 any Milesian, writer, who acquiesces in the donation of Constantiae. Our 
 national feelings have a natural, though not a very reasonable, soui'ce of 
 gratification in the escape of our forefathers fi'om the Koman arms ; had the 
 yoke of Imjjerial Eome fallen upon Ii'eland, the loss of hberty would 
 have been compensated by arts, letters, general civihzation, and internal 
 tranquillity. 
 
 * Down to the last moment of the feudal system in Ireland, a man's 
 triie was his nation : in the indentures of submission, executed in the reign 
 of Elizabeth, even subordinate chieftains are styled heads of their respective 
 nations.
 
 110 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. were sufRcicntly strong to protect the preacher, the tem- 
 A.D. 1175. poral and spiritual supremacy of Rome were inculcated 
 together. The pious fraud was sanctified by its utility. 
 Whatever emotions of awe and superstitious reverence 
 might be gradually associated with the mysterious name 
 of the Pope, would minister to the views, and swell the 
 power, of tlie hierarchy : the Pope was to be the new idol 
 of the popular worship ; the hierarchy were to enjoy the 
 offerings of his votaries. It was easy to raise many profit- 
 able doubts, as to the nature and extent of those functions, 
 which the secular magistrate was now to administer in 
 The dc- Ireland. The Governor appointed by the King of England 
 puty o a yf^g^ at tiig inost, the deputy of a deputy, reflecting the 
 distant splendour of royalty with a feeble and uncertain 
 lustre : the prelates were nearer the fountain of honour 
 and authority, and might, therefore, not unreasonably, 
 claim superior consideration. But the Bulls of Adrian 
 and Alexander had been framed with a provident ambiguity, 
 which left it a very debateable question (whenever circum- 
 stances might render it a prudent one) whether even so 
 much should be conceded to the lay executive. The 
 English monarch was acting under a commission, which, 
 by prescribing a sphere of duty, at once conferred and 
 limited power. He was the General of the Holy See, 
 appointed to reduce its province of Ireland to a suitable 
 state of obedience ; its Procurator, bound to secure the 
 return of a certain revenue ; and the chief officer of its 
 police, whose duty it was to aid the spiritual authorities, 
 in enforcing their temporal privileges, and punishing 
 schismatical or disorderly members. In fine, it might be 
 said, with much less of special pleading than is generally 
 used by the advocates of the Papacy, that his was an 
 adventitious and instrumental power, introduced for specific 
 purposes, and to be regarded solely with reference to their 
 Ths hier- advancement. Not so the claims of the hierarchy (or, if a 
 Ireland^ word may be invented, for which there is much occasion), 
 of the hierocracy of Ireland. Their title was similar to
 
 IN IRELAND. Ill 
 
 that of the PontifFhimself ; their office indissolubly united chap. i. 
 to his ; their exaltation an indispensable part of the end a-d. 1175. 
 of his government. They were his brethren, successors of 
 the co-apostles of St. Peter; their divine rights were of 
 the same indelible sanctity, not separated from his by any 
 essential difference of nature, or even of order ; but faintly 
 shaded off by evanescent tints, which perplexed the nicest 
 scrutiny of infallibility. Upon the whole, it could scarcely 
 be denied that, in the absence of the chief bishop, they 
 were his natural representatives, upon whom those cares 
 of government, which he had not expressly imposed on 
 others, devolved with an obvious and peremptory propriety."* Cauon 
 Accordingly, they proceeded with greater boldness than 
 the prelates of other countries to extend their claims, from 
 immunity to jurisdiction ; to establish their code of canons 
 as the law of the land ; and to coerce even the heads of 
 the civil executive with the severest penalties of interdict 
 and excommunication. f 
 
 Our records have preserved many anecdotes of those 
 early ecclesiastics. A few are inserted here, both to 
 illustrate the general view which has been given of their 
 policy, and to prepare the reader for those more ample 
 details which will become necessary as we descend from 
 the era of the Reformation. 
 
 Scarcely had Henry returned to his hereditary dominions, 
 when the Bishops, presuming on the service which they 
 had performed, began to embarrass and insult his Irish 
 Government. It had been stipulated in Adrian's Bull, 
 that the borders of the Church should be enlarged: an 
 expression which does not signify that religion should be 
 
 * The ease with which all supposed distinctions between the pontifical 
 and the ordinary episcopal authoi'ity may be explained away, whenever 
 circumstances require, is obvious from the memorable evidence of the Roman 
 CathoHc prelates. J. K. L. acknowledges even the felicity of an expression 
 of Cyi^rian, " that the episcopal character admits of no degrees, and that 
 every member of the order has the same inherent fulness of spiritual right." 
 — Defence of the Vindication, p. 81. 
 
 t Leland, ii. 56.
 
 112 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. propao'atcd, but that more broad lands should be given to 
 A.D. 1175. ecclesiastics. And these prelates, " having sold the inde- 
 pendence of their native country, and the birthright of 
 their people,"* like most agents of that description, were 
 impatient for their reward. Justly thinking that their own 
 treachery stood higher on the scale of iniquity than the 
 open aggression of strangers, they had looked for a pro- 
 portionate share of the spoil ; and now, when they found 
 or imagined their merits undervalued, they assumed airs 
 of patriotism. 
 A.D. 1179. Lawrence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, was the 
 
 Lawrence most conspicuous in this new character. After some years 
 O'Toole. „ ^. , 1 T^ • • 1 11- 
 
 ot ostentatious attachment to the xJritish monarch, this 
 
 jjrelate appeared as his accuser, at the Council of Lateran, 
 supported by a deputation of five other bishops. They 
 had all sworn allegiance at Cashel ; and the King, suspect- 
 ing their intentions, arrested their progress through 
 England, and exacted a second oath f that they would do 
 nothing at the Council prejudicial to his interests ; but the 
 ardour with which they were now inspired overcame every 
 obstacle. Some Irish writers J assert, that Lawrence 
 obtained a revocation of the papal grant to Henry ; however 
 that may be, it is certain that his complaints were loud 
 and well received : " he exerted himself," says a contem- 
 poraiy,§ " with all the zeal of his nation, for the privileges 
 King of the Church, and against the King's authority ;" and the 
 
 llenryand Popg jj^ acknowledgment of his eminent services, raised 
 
 the Legate . . . ° . . 
 
 — a hint to him to the dignity of apostolic legate. Thus armed with 
 
 statesmen "^^^ pow'ers of mischief, Lawrence set out for Ireland ; 
 
 but Henry wisely prevented his return, and the disappointed 
 
 agitator passed the remainder of his days in Normandy. 
 
 The monkish writer of his life, with that affected compas- 
 
 * The mal-a-propos, but by no means unjust, language of J. K. L. — 
 Vindication, 31. 
 + Lanigan, vol. iv., 238. 
 X O'SuUivan Beare's Catholic History, p. 62. 
 § Giraldus Cambrensis, ut infra.
 
 IN IRELAND. 113 
 
 sion for the misery of Irishmen, which the sad experience chap. i. 
 of so many centuries has not yet taught them to despise, ^•^- ^l'^^- 
 gives these as his last words : — "Ah ! foolish and senseless 
 people, what will now become of you ? Who will heal 
 your sufferings ? Who will relieve you ?" This manifold 
 traitor to his Church, his country, his native prince, and 
 the sovereign of his own election, was, in due season, 
 canonized ; and his saintly protection is still invoked by 
 our titular hierarchy, with a publicity which displays the 
 unshaken constancy of the order.* 
 
 When Henry appointed his son John to the lieutenancy, Giraldus 
 the Pope seized the opportunity of re-asserting his title to Cambreu- 
 the supreme dominion of Ireland ; and, with somewhat of 
 sarcasm upon the foppish imbecility of the youthful 
 Governor, sent him a diadem of peacock's feathers, as the 
 symbol of his investiture. In his train came the celebrated 
 Gerald Barry, usually known as Giraldus Camhrensis. 
 This writer, the creature of the monarch, and the confi- 
 dential adviser of his successor, has left us his thoughts 
 upon the condition and claims of the Irish Church : a few 
 passages deserve to be inserted. 
 
 After some remonstrances upon the mismanagement of 
 civil affairs, he proceeds thus : — " But the greatest evil is, 
 that, in this our new domain, we confer nothing neio upon 
 the Church of Christ ; that we not only withhold from it 
 due honour, and that bounty which it beseems a sovereign 
 to exercise, but even invade its rights, and reduce its 
 ancient dignity. One night, while I lay anxiously musing 
 and troubled, by reason of these insults to our Redeemer, I 
 had a vision, which I next morning imparted to the Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, deeply affecting that venerable man by 
 the recital. Methought I saw Prince John in a green 
 plain, as if preparing to lay the foundation of a church, 
 and drawing on the turf a plan of the edifice ; ample space 
 was allowed the laity, but the part assigned to the priest- 
 * See the Digest of Ecidence, vol. ii., p. 163. 
 I
 
 114 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. hood was miserably narrow, and ill-proportioned. I 
 A.D. 1179. reasoned with the Prince earnestly, but in vain, that he 
 would give this latter portion a form and dimension more 
 suited to its sacred dignity ; and, as I proceeded, I 
 was at last awakened by the vehemence of my expos- 
 tulation." Again, addressing John: — "If, therefore, 
 your Highness be minded effectually to take compas- 
 sion upon this wasted and afflicted land, and to bring it 
 into a condition useful and honourable to you and yours, 
 attend to this my counsel. Your father, when he was 
 meditating so sanguinary an attack upon a Christian people, 
 with a discreet regard to himself and his affairs, applied to 
 the supreme power on earth, and bound himself to two 
 conditions for leave to enter Ireland. One was, that he 
 would exalt the Church of God in that country ; the 
 other, that he would pay to St. Peter, a penny annually 
 for every house. 
 
 " Such are the stipulations, according to the license issued 
 by the Pontiff, and deposited faithfully in the archives of 
 Westminster. Wherefore, to release your father's soul, 
 seeing that, as Solomon says, nothing so ill becomes a 
 Prince as lying lips, and that it is especially dangerous to 
 lie unto God ; and also to release your own soul and those 
 of your successors, for you and they have no other defence 
 against the avenger of the blood which has been already shed, 
 and which may be shed hereafter; endeavour, with all 
 diligence, to fulfil that contract. So, by these hostilities, 
 may honour accrue to God ; to you and yours prosperity 
 be increased on earth ; and, in the future life, be secured 
 that happiness which surpasseth all things. Let those 
 evils, therefore, be corrected by a good Prince, to whose 
 honour it would belong (although the honour of God were 
 no way concerned) that his clergy, who are to assist in 
 his councils, and in all arduous affairs of state, should be 
 treated with due reverence. And, in order that God may, 
 in some degree, partake of the spoil, and be appeased for
 
 IN IRELAND. 1 15 
 
 this bloody conquest, let the promised tribute, which will cnAP. r. 
 redeem all, while it oppresses none, be paid henceforward a. d. 1179. 
 to St. Peter."* 
 
 These are the words of a man who had no other connexion 
 with the Irish hierarchy than his sympathies as an ecclesi- 
 astic. He was, besides, not only a practised courtier, but 
 a zealous maintainer of his master's honour : he had been 
 employed to extenuate the guilty ambition of Henry, by 
 making out, against the people of Ireland, a case of such 
 inveterate barbarism as should appear to reject all other 
 reform but the radical one of the sword ; and he executed 
 his task with an obsequious contempt of truth and of his 
 own reputation. His language may be received, therefore, 
 as a very softened picture of those gorgeous visions which 
 had, at first, seduced the prelates into treason, and now 
 tantalized their hopes, and exasperated their disappoint- 
 ment. And yet it is no faiilt colouring : " You have 
 made," says the humane Archdeacon, *' a most sanguinary 
 attack upon a Christian people ; you have shed much blood, 
 and are about to shed much more ; but do not spare, there 
 is an easy atonement for all ; only be careful to exalt the 
 Church, to extend its sacred borders, to give wealth, 
 dignity, and offices of state, to the bishops ; so will you 
 have honour amongst men, and from God, instead of 
 vengeance, an immortality of glory." When Giraldus 
 complains of the invasion of clerical rights, he is far from 
 meaning to charge the Government of his master with 
 positive harshness to the priesthood generally : on the 
 contrary, he says, in another place, *' that it was most 
 meet and suitable that Ireland should receive a better rule 
 of life from England ; that she was indebted, for what- 
 ever advantages she enjoyed in Church or State, to the 
 magnanimous King Henry ; and that the manifold abuses 
 which formerly prevailed had, since his coming, gone into 
 disuse." The species of outrage which had excited his Cause of 
 indignation was rare and accidental. Amidst the atrocious tiouf°^" 
 * Prooemlum in secundam editionem, HihernicB Uxpugnatw,
 
 IIG roLUY OF Till: cm ucu of uomr 
 
 CHAP. I. tumults of the first descent, his own uncle Fitz Stephen, 
 i..D. 1179. John De Courcy, Henry De Monte Morisco, and one or 
 two otliers of the buccaneering partisans of Henry, unable, 
 perhaps, to distinguish, or, at all events, to protect, the 
 sacred borders of the Church, had committed, or allowed, 
 some ravages upon ecclesiastical lands. They endeavoured 
 to expiate the involuntary trespass by the most superb 
 offerings : within eight years after the appearance of the 
 first English man-at-arms, splendid abbeys in Cork, 
 Limerick, Tipperary, Wexford, Meath, and Down, some 
 of the finest which Ireland ever possessed, attested their 
 desire of reconciliation to the offended majesty of the 
 prelates. But the propitiation, which would have satisfied 
 for the slaughter of myriads of the beti'aycd laity, could 
 not obtain the forgiveness of these bloodless ti'ansgres- 
 sions ; because, as we learn from the temperate pen of 
 Giraldus, they were regarded by the modest hierarchy as 
 insults to the Redeemer. Having no personal interest in 
 the quarrel, to betray him into harsh expressions, the 
 impartial Welshman contents himself with remarking that 
 neither his uncle, nor any other perpetrator of these sacri- 
 legious outrages, was judged worthy to leave behind him a 
 legitimate offspring. 
 Arch- ^\\e Archbishop mentioned by Cambrensis was John 
 
 bishop Comyn, an Englishman, successor of St. Lawrence. 
 ^ ' Amidst the public cares which had engaged Lawrence 
 during his visit to Rome, he retained sufficient presence 
 of mind to obtain from the Pope a grant — the parties 
 called it a confirmation — of most extensive possessions in 
 lands, villages, and parishes, in the neighbourhood of 
 Dublin.* Though the firmness of the English monarch 
 prevented the prelate himself from returning to enjoy this 
 splendid endowment, it was all claimed, of course, by his 
 successor. But in the meantime Hamo de Valois, Prince 
 
 * " It is surprising" says Dr. Lanigan, with much slyness or simplicity, 
 " how richly endowed the See of Dublin was at this time." — Ecclesiastical 
 History, iv. 240.
 
 IN IRELAND. ] 17 
 
 John's deputy in the government, had set up a counter- cuap. i. 
 claim for some of the lands; whether in the name of his a.d. 1179. 
 master, in his own, or in that of some ancient proprietor, 
 does not now appear. Comyn, being thus excluded from 
 possession, excommunicated De Valois, and all the other 
 members of the administration ; and, not content with 
 this vengeance upon the transgressors, laid his unoffending 
 city and diocese under an interdict. To indicate that the 
 passion of Christ had been renewed, in - the indignity 
 offered to his minister, he caused the crucifixes of the 
 cathedral to be laid prostrate on the ground, with crowns 
 of thorns on the heads of the images ; and one of the 
 figures was pointed out as the miraculous representative of 
 the suffering Redeemer, the face inflamed, the eyes drop- 
 ping tears, the body bathed in sweat, and the side pouring 
 forth blood and water. In the end the lord deputy was 
 obliged to yield ; and, as an atonement for his former 
 injuries, he made a donation of twenty plough lands to 
 the See of Dublin.* 
 
 The next archbishop of the same see, an Englishman a.d. 1220. 
 also,-|- was equally resolute. The clergy of Dublin having Eomish 
 claimed some exorbitant fees, under the specious title of ambition 
 Oblations of the Faithful, were opposed by the magistrates and i-apa- 
 and citizens, who had just before successfully resisted 
 a demand of the Crown. An interdict upon the whole 
 city, and special anathemas against the offending persons, 
 were the immediate consequences of this insubordination. 
 The people appealed to the lord deputy, and the cause 
 received a formal hearing before the Privy Council ; but 
 here the clergy were triumphant, and their adversaries 
 reduced to a very ludicrous composition. It was agreed, 
 that, in cases of open scandal, such as that of opposition 
 to the priesthood, a commutation in money should be 
 made for the first offence ; that, for the second, the 
 
 * Leland, i. 164 ; Lanigan, ir. 332. An interdict is a suspension of all 
 religious rites. 
 
 t A Londoner, if we may conjecture from his name, Heni-y de Londi'es.
 
 118 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROiME 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 A.D. 1220. 
 
 Anecdote 
 of the 
 Bishop of 
 Ferns. 
 
 culprit should be cudgelled round the parish church ; 
 for the third, the same discipline should be repeated 
 publicly at the head of a procession ; and if the obstinacy 
 proceeded farther, that he should be either disfranchised, 
 or cudgelled through the city. Such were the citizens 
 whom the King of England had thought it necessary to 
 pacify, by an apology for his conduct and a promise of 
 redress of grievances.* 
 
 The following anecdote of the contemporary Bishop of 
 Ferns is a graver instance of the zeal which animated the 
 hierarchy of those days. This prelate had excommunicated 
 the great Earl of Pembroke, on the pretence that he had 
 seized two manors belonging to his Church ; and upon the 
 death of that nobleman he appeared before the King to 
 claim restitution. Being ordered to pronounce an abso- 
 lution at the Earl's tomb, he attended the King thither, 
 and with judicial solemnity pronounced these words : 
 " Oh, William, thou that liest fast bound in the chains of 
 excommunication, if what thou hast injuriously taken 
 away be restored, by the King, or thy heir, or any of 
 thy friends, with competent satisfaction, I absolve thee. 
 Otherwise, I ratify the sentence, that, being bound in thy 
 sins, thou may est remain damned in hell for ever." The 
 heir would not surrender the disputed manors, and the 
 bishop confirmed his malediction. Some time after, the 
 male line of the family having become extinct, it was 
 carefully pointed out to the common people how the 
 curse of God had followed the imprecation of his 
 minister.f 
 
 Hitherto we have seen the bishops contending with 
 their armed associates for the spoils, and almost over the 
 bodies, of their common victims. But time had now 
 begun to mark out prescriptive limits to their estates, 
 and, accordingly, henceforward other desires are gradually 
 
 * Leland, i. 237. 
 
 t Lei. ibid. Qttccre — Could the bishop have believed in the efficacy of 
 his anathema ?
 
 IN IRELAND. 119 
 
 unfolded, and other objects engage the growing ambition chap. i. 
 of the Church. 
 
 The Archbishop of Dublin having been appointed lord a.d. 1222. 
 justice, and, about the same time, legate of the Holy See, 
 employed all the power which these offices gave him in 
 extending the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts. The 
 citizens, oppressed by these new tribunals, appealed to 
 the King, who wrote a sharp, but ineffectual letter to 
 his deputy.* The civil sword was then transferred to 
 the hands of a layman, but the clergy persevered in their 
 career of usurpation, and, after eleven years of silent 
 endurance, the monarch was compelled to issue a writ, 
 which affords a striking proof of the ascendancy which 
 they had attained : — 
 
 " The King, to his earls, barons, knights, freemen, and King 
 all others of his land of Ireland, greeting : Whereas, it is ^^^^ "^• 
 clearly known to be contrary to our crown and dignity, 
 and to the laws and customs of our kingdom of England, 
 which our father. King John of worthy memory, estab- 
 lished in said land, that pleas should be held in court 
 Christian touching the advowsons of churches and chapels, 
 or lay fee or chattels, unless such as may accrue from wills 
 or marriages ; we, therefore, straitly charge you, that you 
 by no means presume to sue such pleas aforesaid in court 
 Christian, to the manifest prejudice of our crown and 
 dignity ; and we give you to know for certain, that we 
 have enjoined our chief-justice of Ireland to enforce the 
 statutes of our courts of England against all transgressions 
 of this our mandate, and to execute whatsoever pertaineth 
 to us in this matter, "f 
 
 The King, it would seem, was afraid to provoke the 
 prelates, by opposing himself directly to their aggressions. 
 He consulted for his dignity, as well as he dared, by 
 attacking them through his nobles, knights, and freemen, 
 
 * Prin's " Aiiimadversions on the Fourth lustitute," quoted by Cox, 
 "Hiberuia Anglicana," p. 58. 
 t Cox, p. 62.
 
 120 
 
 POLICY OF THE CllUKCM OF ROME 
 
 A.D. 1266. 
 
 Prince 
 Edward 
 
 CHAP. I. who were tlius not only worried by an arrogant priest- 
 A.D.1222. liood, but upbraided by a feeble prince, for " presuming" 
 to submit to a power wliicli held the throne itself in 
 vassalage. 
 
 Towards the close of this long reign, the heir apparent, 
 who had been created Lord of Ireland by his father, had 
 the courage to confront the true authors of the evil. 
 History has not acquainted us with the effect of his 
 spirited reprimand, but the document itself is well de- 
 serving of attention : — 
 
 " Edward, first-born of the illustrious King of England, 
 to all archbishops, bishops, and other ecclesiastical judges, 
 within the land of Ireland, whether ordinary or delegate 
 from the Apostolic See, greeting : It pcrtaineth, and hath 
 of old pertained to the Royal dignity of the kingdom of 
 England, that secular persons cannot be impleaded before 
 an ecclesiastical judge, unless the suit against them be 
 matrimonial or testamentary, for the Royal power hath 
 reserved all other causes to itself. And whereas, by the 
 grant of our lord and father the King, we enjoy, touching 
 the premises, tlie same privileges in our land of Ireland 
 which our said lord enjoyeth in the kingdom of England 
 ^foresaid, we therefore strictly inliibit you, that you hold 
 no plea of debts or chattels in court Christian against our 
 citizens of Dublin, unless such debts or chattels arise out 
 of matrimonial or testamentary cases ; because pleas which 
 are not matrimonial or testamentary belong to our dignity, 
 and we accordingly prohibit any actions whatsoever con- 
 cerning lay fee to be held in court Christian. And that 
 this our prohibition may have force in future times, for 
 the benefit of our said citizens, we have caused these 
 our letters to be made patent, to continue during our 
 pleasure. 
 
 " Given at our castle of Kenilvvorth, the 27th day of 
 June, in the fiftieth year of the reign of our lord 
 and father the King." * 
 
 * Harris, " Hibernica," part ii., p. 60.
 
 IN IRELAND. 121 
 
 Even this letter, liowever amply it attests the indignant cuAr. i. 
 spirit of the prince, gives a very decisive proof of the a.d. 1266. 
 insignificance of his authority. " It pertains," he says, 
 *' to the Royal dignity, that all pleas of a certain descrip- 
 tion should be reserved to our civil courts ; we therefore 
 prohibit you from holding such pleas against our citizens 
 of Dublin.'' In the capital, where the image of royalty 
 might inspire a little respect, and where the citizens had 
 obtained a charter of special privileges, he makes an effort 
 to maintain the rights of a sovereign ; the rest of the 
 island is surrendered, without a struggle, to the misrule 
 of the hierocracy. 
 
 The annals of the following reign have preserved a a.d. 1276. 
 curious petition of a widow : — " Margaret le Blunde, of EiJiscopal 
 Cashel, petitions our lord the King's grace, that she may and 
 have her inheritance, which she recovered at Clonmel, cruelty. 
 before the king's judges, against David MacCarwell, 
 Bishop of Cashel. Item, for the imprisonment of her 
 grandfather and grandmother, whom he shut up and 
 detained in prison, until they perished by famine, because 
 they sought redress for the death of their son, father of 
 your petitioner, who had been killed by said bishop. 
 Item, for the death of her six brothers and sisters, who 
 were starved by said bishop, because he had their inherit- 
 ance in his hands at the time he killed their father. — It is 
 to be noted, that the said bishop has built an abbey in the 
 city of Cashel, which he fills with robbers, who murder 
 the English and lay waste the country ; and that when 
 our lord the King's council examine into such offences, 
 he passes sentence of excommunication upon them. Item, 
 it is to be noted, that the said Margaret has five times 
 crossed the Irish sea. Wherefore, she petitions, for 
 God's sake, that the King's grace will have compassion, 
 and that she may be permitted to take possession of her 
 inheritance. It is further to be noted, that the aforesaid 
 bishop has been guilty of the death of many other 
 Englishmen besides her father, and that the said Margaret
 
 122 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. has obtained many writs of our lord the King, but to no 
 A.D. 1276. effect, by reason of the iulluence and bribery of said 
 bishop." * 
 
 If these enormities, or any approaching to sucli a 
 description, could be committed by the prelates upon 
 Englishmen, we must not be surprised at any extent of 
 sulfering which may have fallen to the lot of the native 
 population. King John, with more of wisdom and 
 humanity than is discernible in his other actions, had 
 granted to his Irish subjects a charter of the laws and 
 usages of England, to the observance of which he bound 
 Henry III. the nobles by an oath. His son and successor, Henry 
 the Third, confirmed this charter by a patent of the first 
 year of his reign ; eleven years after, he enforced it, in a 
 mandate directed " to his archbishops, bishops, abbots, 
 2)riors, earls, barons, knights, freeholders, j- and the 
 bailiffs of his several counties." After a second interval 
 of eighteen years, the monarch again addressed the same 
 personages, but in the humble tone of supplication, that, 
 "for the sake of peace and quietness, they would permit 
 the English laws and customs to be observed in his land 
 of Ireland." But neither commands nor entreaties were 
 found availing. The lay lords of both races, from the 
 same heartless and short-sighted views which now influ- 
 ence the absentee proprietors, prefeiTed serfs to a 
 yeomanry, and resolved to continue the horrors of the 
 aboriginal system. The prelates adopted a more prudent, 
 but not a more liberal course : they allowed their own 
 vassals tlie use of the English laws in all matters which 
 they luid not reserved to their spiritual jurisdiction ; and 
 by this measure they at once pleased the Government, 
 secured to themselves a reasonable revenue, attached their 
 retainers, and displayed to all the great advaiitage of being 
 
 * Leland, i. 234. 
 
 + That is, not fortt/ sMllingers, but gentlemen who hold directly under 
 the Cromi — lihere tenentes. The several particulars mentioned in this 
 paragraph, arc given by Leland, vol, i., pp. 18U, 223, 292.
 
 IN IRELAND. 123 
 
 under the Church. But it was by no means their intention cuap. i. 
 that a benefit, whicli was thus a sort of ecclesiastical a.d. 1276. 
 privilege, should be vulgarized by indiscriminate enjoy- 
 ment ; and hence we find them as hostile as the lay nobles 
 to the general extension of the English usages. 
 
 In the reign of Edward the First, a few broken clans 
 and many smaller groups of the miserable natives, the 
 refuse of the sword and its attendant horrors, were still 
 lingering within the precincts of the English colonies : 
 they were pent in those corners of their old possessions 
 which had not yet attracted the desires of the settlers, 
 contemptuously tolerated in their ancient usages,* but 
 excluded from all the benefits of English law or govern- 
 ment. Few situations could be more forlorn. On the 
 one hand, their original polity (which was so exceedingly 
 simple, that the members of the same tribe had, perhaps, 
 no civil relation to each other, except their common attrac- 
 tion to one chief) had crumbled away, as this central 
 power was removed or weakened, and left them nearly, if 
 not entirely, in a state of nature : on the other hand, they 
 were not acknowledged as the king's subjects ; the king's 
 courts were not open to them ; and, if the blood of a 
 father or brother were shed, his assassin had only to plead 
 that the deceased was an Irishman, and he was secure 
 from all vengeance but that of the Almighty. In the 
 truce, which had naturally arisen out of their weakness 
 and the sated thirst of conquest in their invaders, they 
 every day received some new and mortifying proof of 
 their own destitution, and of the manifold advantages 
 enjoyed by Englishmen. All hope of expelling the 
 strangers had now vanished from their minds ; those 
 feelings and circumstances, which had hitherto blinded 
 them to the defects of their Brehon code, were no longer 
 in existence ; and they resolved on the experiment of an 
 
 * These were considered to be good enough for them, as some customs 
 of the modern Irish are said to have been pronounced by a great states- 
 man.
 
 124 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. unqualified submission. They made up a purse of 8,000 
 
 A.B.127G. marks, wliieh, through his Irish Governor, tliey tendered 
 
 The Irish to the king, with a request that he woukl receive them as 
 
 see pro- j j faithful liegemen, and take them under the protection 
 
 tection oi o ' A 
 
 EngUsh of the laws of England. Nothing can so well illustrate 
 ^^' their broken-hearted wretchedness as this mode of pre- 
 
 ferring the petition. A measure, so just in itself, so fair 
 in its prospects, so full of glory to the prince who might 
 condescend to adopt it, was not even to be thought of by 
 the supplicants, unless, like too many of their unhappy 
 posterity, they approached the seat of justice with a bribe. 
 King Edward's answer deserves to be given in full : — 
 A.D. 1278. " Edward, by the grace of God, King of England, 
 Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitain, to our trusty and 
 well-beloved Robert de UfFord, Lord Justice of Ireland, 
 greeting : 
 
 *' The improvement of the state and peace of our land 
 of Ireland, signified to us by your letter, gives us exceed- 
 ing joy. We entirely commend your diligence, hoping 
 that, by the Divine assistance, the things there begun so 
 happily by you, shall, as far as in you lieth, be still 
 further prosecuted with the greater vigour and success. 
 English *' And whereas the Irish commonalty have made a 
 
 tended to tender to us of 8,000 marks, on condition that we grant 
 Ireland. them the laws of England to be used in the aforesaid 
 land, we wish you to know that, inasmuch as the Irish 
 laws are hateful to God, and repugnant to justice, it 
 seems expedient to us and our council to grant them the 
 laws of England, provided always that the general consent 
 of our people, or, at least, of our prelates and nobles of 
 said land, do concur in this behalf. 
 
 " We therefore command you that, having entered into 
 treaty with this commonalty, and incjuired diligently into 
 the will of our people, prelates, and nobles, in this matter; 
 and having agreed upon the largest fine of money that you 
 can obtain to be paid to us on this account, you make, 
 with the consent of all aforesaid, or, at least, of the greater
 
 IN IRELAND. 125 
 
 and sounder part thereof, such a composition touching the chap. i. 
 
 premises, as you shall judge, in your discretion, to be a.b. 1278. 
 
 most expedient for our honour and interest. Provided, 
 
 also, that said commonalty shall hold in readiness a body 
 
 of good and stout footmen, amounting to such a number 
 
 as you shall agree upon, for one campaign only, to repair 
 
 to us as we may see fit to demand them." 
 
 In reply to this letter, Ufford stated that the time was 
 unsuitable ; that far the greater number of the barons 
 were absent from the seat of government, upon the 
 business of the State, or the defence of their lands, and 
 that many of the others were minors ; and that it would, 
 therefore, be impossible to collect an assembly sufficiently 
 numerous or respectable for so grave a deliberation. 
 
 But the Irish renewed their affecting appeal, and the Second 
 king issued a fresh mandate : — ^^^'^^\<?n 
 
 " The king to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, 
 counts, barons, knights, and other English of his land of 
 Ireland, greeting : Whereas we have been humbly suppli- 
 cated by the Irish of said land, that we would vouchsafe 
 to grant them, of our grace, that they might use and enjoy 
 the same common laws and customs within the land,* 
 which the English there do use and enjoy. Now we, not 
 thinking it expedient to make such grant without your 
 knowledge and consent, do command you that, upon 
 certain days about the festival of the Nativity of the 
 Blessed Virgin, and in some convenient place, you hold 
 diligent inquiry amongst yourselves, whether or not we can 
 make such grant, without your loss, and the prejudice of 
 your liberties and customs, and of all other circumstances 
 touching such grant aforesaid ; and that, before the next 
 Meeting of our Parliament, to be held at Westminster, 
 you distinctly and fully, xmder the seal of our Lord 
 Justice of Ireland, do advise our council what you shall 
 
 * The original has in terra. Leland has proved very clearly that the 
 pale, or English district in this country, was called the land, or the land of 
 Ireland. — See vol. i., p. 243, &c.
 
 126 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. r. determine in this matter : and you shall not be moved to 
 A.D. 1280. omit this, by reason of the absence of those peers who 
 may be detained away, or of those who are under age, or 
 in a state of wardship ; so that, after full deliberation, we 
 may take such course in this behalf as to us and our 
 council shall seem expedient. 
 
 " Given at Westminster, September 10, 1280." 
 Here was offered to the Church one of those invaluable 
 opportunities of repentance, by which the benignant 
 wisdom of Providence will sometimes extract blessing 
 from the greatest transgressions. The king had declared, 
 in his first letter, that he would be guided by the opinion 
 of his prelates and nobles ; and, in his second, that, not- 
 withstanding the inevitable absence of most of the latter, 
 the assembling of the council should by no means be 
 deferred. Thus the ecclesiastical members, bishops, 
 abbots, and priors, would have easily commanded a very 
 decisive majority.* Ireland was, therefore, once more at 
 the mercy of its prelates : they might now, by a vote, 
 have almost atoned for the original baseness of their 
 predecessors, and arrested the bloody progress of centuries 
 Canon law. of desolation. But the canon law was the only code 
 which they desired to establish generally ; and the law 
 of England was, even then, too favourable to liberty, not 
 to be viewed with alarm by men who aimed at despotic 
 power. On the one hand, they wished for a continuance 
 of the inequality between the races, because, in fact, it 
 was only a gradation of servitude, and kept the ascendancy 
 of the Church upon a higher pedestal. On the other hand, 
 they could not tolerate a measure which, by diffusing 
 through all classes a spirit of spontaneous attachment to 
 Popery the State, might diminish their own political importance : 
 thatTtniay ^^^^^ ^'^* ^^ ^^^ ^^ loyalty of which they were not the 
 govern. mediators ; and, while overt acts of rebellion were occa- 
 
 * It would seem that in those days the spiritual lords outnumbered the 
 whole hody of their lay peers. See the quotation from Spenser at Edward 
 the First.
 
 IN IRELAND. 127 
 
 sionally restrained, a spirit was to be kept alive, which chap. i. 
 would render their constant interference indispensable, ad. 1280. 
 It cannot be ascertained, from any authentic record, 
 whether this council ever met : one thing only is certain, 
 that the bishops defeated the good intentions of the king, 
 and closed their ears to the groans of their countrymen.* 
 
 As yet, the prelates had pursued their devices with 
 little disturbance of the civil peace, and the occasional 
 atrocities in which they indulged are evidences rather of 
 the character of the men, than of the system of the 
 Church. A century and a-half had passed away without 
 the realization of those ambitious hopes which had 
 allured the sanguine perfidy of St. Lawrence and his 
 contemporaries. These hopes had been transmitted, in 
 regular descent, and with increasing bitterness of disap- 
 pointment, to every new succession of the Irish clergy ; and 
 a slight, which they might have anticipated, but for 
 which it does not appear that they were at all prepared, 
 was gradually kindling a spirit of seditious discontent. 
 The Courts of Rome and England — ^justly suspicious of 
 men who, however useful as instruments for the acquisi- 
 tion of dominion, had shown that they could not be 
 intrusted with its preservation — had, from the beginning, 
 concurred in a plan for weakening the Irish ecclesiastical 
 interest : a few of the most important sees, of the richest 
 abbacies, and probably of the inferior dignities in the 
 Church, being always filled by Englishmen. Fifteen 
 years after the landing of an English Governor, the 
 jealousies occasioned by this questionable policy burst 
 out, in the Synod of Dublin, into mutual invective; and, 
 as their cause was never removed, time strengthened the 
 animosity of the Irish. In the year 1250, the native Irish pre- 
 prelates agreed to a regulation, that no clerk of the p^*"^*^ *^^ 
 English nation should be received into a canonicate in the Crown. 
 any of their churches ; the Royal authority was exerted 
 in vain to change this bold resolve ; and some time had 
 * Leland, i., 234.
 
 II., 131; 
 
 128 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. elapsed before the united influence of the crown and the 
 A.D. 1280. tiara could extort a sullen retractation. But, although 
 the vexation of the Irish ecclesiastics flamed out thus 
 from time to time, the many solid advantages which they 
 had obtained, and the continued want of English protec- 
 tion to shelter them from the vengeance of their betrayed 
 countrymen, combined to teach them the necessity of 
 dissimulation. Trusting to time and to their skill in 
 intrigue for the final accomplishment of their designs, 
 they continued to assist against the common enemy, with 
 their counsels, their anathemas, and, when induced by 
 sufficient remittances from the Exchequer, with their 
 military talents. 
 Edward At length, in the reign of Edward the Second, the 
 
 invasion and partial success of Edward Bruce revived the 
 ancient spirit of the order, and their smothered rage ex- 
 ploded in the design of a new revolution. Those evils 
 which the prelates of the last reign would not allow their 
 monarcli to remedy were now converted into arguments 
 against the government of his successor ; and Church 
 policy showed the versatility of its genius by reassuming 
 the mask of patriotism. With the usual bad faith of 
 pampered mercenaries, a multitude of ecclesiastics, both 
 prelates and inferior clergy, revolted to the insurgent 
 chieftains. They denounced the English as enemies to 
 the Church, and oppressors of the nation ; they exhorted 
 the populace to fl^ock to the banner of Bruce — a prince, 
 they said, of the ancient line of Milesian monarchs, and 
 the chosen instrument of the connnon deliverance ; and, 
 with that vain-glorious impatience of prosperity, which has 
 always frustrated their most promising attempts, they 
 formally crowned the adventurer King of Ireland.* 
 
 When the rebel priesthood had taken this irrevocable 
 step, they began to awake to the temerity of their enter- 
 
 * Leland, i., 271. The ceremony of his coronation was performed at 
 Dundalk, witliin the English pale. Spenser says he reigned for a wliole 
 year.
 
 IN IRELAND. 1 2<j 
 
 prise, and made a desperate effort to divert the approach- ciiap. i, 
 
 ing storm of Papal and Royal vengeance from their own a.d. 1315. 
 
 heads upon those of the chieftains with whom they had 
 
 united, whom, perhaps, they had seduced. The experi- Laymen 
 
 ence of our own times prepares us to find these early *°9^\°f^h,^ 
 . . . „ *^ pnesthood. 
 
 ecclesiastics putting forward laymen as the ostensible 
 
 agitators ; and, while they touch with their owni hands 
 the latent springs of sedition, slipping aside from responsi- 
 bility, and relinquishing to their confederates all dangerous 
 posts of honour. The stratagem now practised was some- 
 what of this nature, but more clumsy and ineffectual, it 
 must be confessed, than if its movements had been guided 
 by the disciplined duplicity of modern tacticians. A 
 memorial was despatched to Rome, the work of ecclesi- 
 astics, but entitled " The Complaint of the Nobles of 
 Ireland to Pope John the Twenty-second." It described, 
 in interesting though unpolished language, the tyranny of 
 the English over the Church and the people ; it showed 
 how these oppressions had driven the laity to arms, and 
 the clergy to — the feeble virtue of passive obedience. 
 Like the remonstrance of Cambrensis, this extraordinary 
 document begins with political grievances, and then pro- 
 ceeds, in the following terms, to expatiate on the wrongs 
 of the Church : — 
 
 " Let this brief account suffice, of the origin of our Wrongs of 
 ancestors, and the miserable state in which Pope Adrian n^^ , 
 has placed us. It remains that we remind you, most holy 
 father, that Henry, King of England (to whom, in the 
 manner above mentioned, an indult was granted for 
 entering Ireland), and also the four Kings his successors, 
 have broken the conditions which the pontiff's bull imposed 
 on them. For the aforesaid Henry promised that he would 
 extend the borders of the Church in Ireland, and maintain 
 its rights inviolate ; that he would eradicate vice, and 
 plant virtue ; and that he would pay to St. Peter a yearly Peter's 
 tax of a penny for every house. All these promises have ^'^°°^- 
 been wilfully, and of set purpose, broken, by the kings, 
 
 K
 
 130 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. their ministers, and the governors of Irehmd. For, in the 
 A.D. 1315. flyst place, SO far are they from extending the demesnes 
 of the Church, that they have invaded and usurped its 
 former possessions, and despoiled some cathedrals of half 
 their lands. Equal disregard has been shown for ecclesi- 
 astical liberty ; our bishops, and other dignitaries, being 
 cited, arrested, and even imprisoned, by the officers of 
 the King of England. But, so broken is their spirit by 
 the bitterness of the oppression which they endure, that 
 they fear even to lay their grievances before your holiness ; 
 and, since they are so basely silent, they do not deserve 
 that we should say anything in their favour." * 
 
 It appears, from the concluding sentence of this passage, 
 that the prelates now wished to disclaim all participation in 
 the rebellion, or in the remonstrance : but, in the first 
 particular, the voice of history proclaims the falsehood of 
 the denial ; and, in the second, the entire structure of the 
 complaint exposes its inconsistency. The technical chro- 
 
 * The whole of this appeal, ■which is styled QucBrimonia Magnatum 
 HibernicB ad Pontificem Johannem XXII. is given by Mac Geoghegan, 
 Sistoire cPIrlande, torn. ii. At the bottom of the page in which Dr. O' Conor 
 refers to this curious piece, 'he says, with his usual self-complacency : — 
 "The greatest latitude of assertion, with the least shadow of proof, is 
 observable in almost all modem writers who have meddled with Irish history ; 
 I have, therefore, been careful to give copious extracts from my originals." 
 After this floui-ishing introduction, it is amusing to find that, in what ho 
 gives as an extract from his original, the whole of the passage above quoted 
 dwindles into the following pointless antithesis : — "Nor have the persons of 
 our clergy been more respected than the property of our Church." It was 
 the pleasvire of this gentleman to misrepresent history, by assuming that 
 the Irish prelates had no share in the rebeUion ; this false assumption brought 
 with it the necessity of another, that of mamtaining that the prelates had 
 no share in the memorial ; hence it became necessary, in the third place, to 
 Dr. O'Co- misrepresent the memorial itself. There is sometliing almost whimsical in 
 nor and the degree of assurance with which the learned antiquary carries on his 
 r. ow- "jjpjjve" deception. In the same note, he charges Mr. Plowden with having 
 twice misquoted the Quserimonia, and expresses a doubt whether that gentle- 
 man had ever seen it. Mr. Plowden, in reply, acknowledges that he had 
 not seen the piece, and says that he had transcribed his quotations yro»« Dr. 
 O' Conor himself — O' Conor's Historical Address, i. 123 — 137 j Plowden's 
 Historical Letter, 236.
 
 IN IRELAND. 131 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 nology of the Irish monasteries, and the technical language 
 of papal bulls and canons, attest the professional attain- ^■°- ■'■^^^• 
 ments of the authors of this piece ; while the pathetic 
 detail of ecclesiastical grievances, treaties violated, lands 
 usurped, and privileges invaded, is a decisive evidence of 
 their professional spirit. Had the insurgent nobles been 
 indeed the framers of a memorial to the Pontiff, it is 
 probable that they would have expressed far other senti- 
 ments than those of compassion for the bishops of their 
 reci'eant Church. Originally betrayed, and, during the 
 long lapse of a hundred and fifty years, incessantly worried, 
 by their hireling shepherds, it were unfair to impute to 
 these fiery chieftains either so much weakness as to feel, 
 or so much hypocrisy as to express, any very deep sympathy 
 in episcopal discontents ; and this weakness or hypocrisy 
 would be utterly unaccountable, could we suppose, as the 
 Complaint does, that the bishops had not conspired with 
 them in their present enterprise. Had such been the case, 
 when they pleaded " the miserable state in which Pope 
 Adrian had placed them," they would not have been in a 
 mood to forget, or to forgive, the share which the hier- 
 archy had in the guilt of the partition treaty, and which 
 it hoped to have in its iniquitous profits. The reason 
 of the unfortunate lords would have united with their 
 passions, in charging upon the prelates all those sufferings 
 and indignities, by the maddening sense of which they 
 had been goaded into their hopeless insurrection. 
 
 Sufferings and indignities they unquestionably had 
 experienced ; and, in stating these, the Complaint, though 
 sketched by a rude and treacherous hand, catches a melan- 
 choly dignity from the subject, and becomes natural, 
 elevated, and affecting. When it urges on their behalf, 
 *' that, besides the sufferers by famine and disease, fifty 
 thousand of their countrymen had already perished by the 
 Saxon sword ;" and " that there is no longer a spot in 
 their native country which the arrogance of the strangers 
 will allow them to call their own ;" it makes an appeal, 
 
 K 2
 
 132 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CIIAP. I. 
 
 A.D. 1315. 
 
 Rome's 
 profanity. 
 
 Ecclesi- 
 astical 
 liberty. 
 
 the truth of which is supported by our wretched anuals, 
 and the force acknowledged by human nature. The 
 descent from this grave impeachment, to the frivolous 
 charges which the ecclesiastics adduce in aggravation, is 
 almost too great for the equanimity of contempt: placed in 
 juxta-position, the lay and the clerical grievances assort so 
 oddly as to present a contrast at once bitter and ridiculous. 
 " Fifty thousand of our brethren have been cut off by the 
 sword — and a bishop has been cited, nay, committed to 
 prison." " We are not left a spot which we can call our 
 own — and a cathedral has been despoiled of half its lands." 
 Were it true that the prelates had suffered all which they 
 assert, nothing short of that profane and heartless vanity 
 with which the Church of Rome has identified the glory 
 of God, and the worldly power of his minister, could 
 have deduced from such sufferings an argument for rebel- 
 lion. But a comparison of their circumstances, before 
 and after the introduction of the English dynasty, will 
 show that their allegations were as much unfounded in 
 fact and reason, as they were exaggerated in importance. 
 
 Ecclesiastical liberty, the violation of which by the 
 English Government forms a prominent topic of the com- 
 plaint, is a prime article in the creed, or code, of the 
 Vatican. It is founded upon the following assumptions : 
 — That the Papacy is a monarchy transcending the king- 
 doms of this world in dignity, no less than in the ends of 
 its institution; that the members of the episcopal, and 
 priestly orders, are, in their several gradations, the minis- 
 ters and functionaries of this great monarchy ; that these 
 officers could not fulfil their duties, or the commands of 
 their spiritual sovereign — duties and commands above all 
 competition or interference- — if they were left in subjection 
 to the civil authorities ; that, therefore, it became necessary 
 to exempt ecclesiastics from the cognizance of secular 
 tribunals,* and to reserve them for the jurisdiction of the 
 
 * It is this plea of ecclesiastical liberty which forms the real objection to 
 the oath of supremacy.
 
 IN IRELAND. 133 
 
 holy see. This plausible and splendid fiction was un- chap. i. 
 known in Ireland, under its ancient polity, and continued a.d. 1315. 
 to be vmknown in the remoter districts, until the joint 
 influence of Rome and England, and the contagion of 
 priestly intrigue, gradually effected a spiritual revolution. 
 
 A few facts, decisive of this question, and acknowledged Ancient 
 by the most learned Roman Catholic writers, are discernible, churgji, 
 amidst the darkness which overhangs our early history. It 
 appears — 
 
 1 . That the Irish ecclesiastics took no oaths to the Pope.* 
 
 2. That they never applied to the See of Rome for 
 bulls of nomination, institution, or exemption. f 
 
 3. That they never appealed to Rome for the decision 
 of ecclesiastical causes, f 
 
 4. That the bishop, and other prelates of a tribe, were 
 appointed by the chieftain, either directly, or with the 
 previous form of an election by the priesthood. J 
 
 5. That papal legates had no jurisdiction in Ireland 
 until the twelfth century ; and that, after that period, 
 their jurisdiction was limited to the English settlements. § 
 
 6. That, in general, the discipline of the Irish Church Not 
 had so little correspondence with the Roman, that it °^^^^- 
 received several hard names from the papal writers of the 
 twelfth century. Pope Alexander and Cambrensis call it 
 
 filthy ; Anselm and Gilbert, schismatic al ; Bernard, 
 barbarous, and almost paga}i.\\ 
 
 These instances are so many incontestible proofs that 
 the government of the Irish Church was strictly domestic ; 
 
 * Dr. O' Conor, Columhanus, 3 — 160. 
 
 t Charles O' Conor, sen. Dissertations on Irish History, 203. J. K. L. 
 Defence of Vindication of Irish Roman Catholics, 83. 
 
 X Dr. O' Conor, Columhanus, 5 — 45. It would seem that, about the 
 time of the arrival of the Enghsh, the custom of lay presentation was very 
 prevalent. The Synod of Dublin, held in 1186, made a canon, " that any 
 clerk who accepted a benefice from a layman should be excommimicated, 
 \mless he resigned it after the thu-d monition." — Lanigan, iv. 271. 
 
 § Dr. O' Conor, Historical Address, 1 — 10. 
 
 ;| Lanigan, 4. 12—218.
 
 134 
 
 POLICY OF THE CJIURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I 
 A.D. 131 
 
 ncury II. 
 
 and that the hierarchy stood apart from that great organiz- 
 ation, which, in the other nations of Christendom, sustained 
 itself in stately independence. Thus, there being no 
 external })ower to interpose between the priest and the 
 local secular authorities, it is an obvious and certain infer- 
 ence, tliat he was either subject to their ordinary jurisdic- 
 tion, or indebted, for his privileges, to their free indulgence. 
 But we are not without more direct information ; there is 
 the clearest evidence for the following additional facts : — 
 
 7. That ecclesiastics were not excused from military 
 service, until the year 799, after Ireland had been Christian 
 for more than three centuries ; * and that the immunity 
 was then granted, without reference to papal authority. 
 
 8. That, in other respects, they owed their chieftains 
 the customary duties of clansmen. f 
 
 9. That they were amenable to the ordinary Brehon 
 jurisprudence. f 
 
 Thus it appears that, under the ancient system, an 
 Irish Prince was as absolute master of the priesthood of 
 his sept, as of any other class among his followers. But 
 a new order of things was introduced by Henry the Second, 
 and thenceforward, kept regular pace with the advance of 
 the British and papal power. All the privileges of the 
 English Church, and all those vexatious pretensions, 
 which had just attained a temporary triumph in the 
 canonization of Thomas-a-Becket, were communicated to 
 the Irish clergy ; and were maintained by them with 
 increasing pertinacity, in proportion to the weakness of 
 ITeiiryllT. the civil power. It was guaranteed, by the first article of 
 tlie charter of Henry the Third, | " that the Church of 
 Ireland should be free, and have its rights and liberties 
 inviolate ;" and many subsequent acts of the state contain 
 similar provisions. To crown all, the bishops were now 
 placed above their former lords ; and, from being the serfs 
 
 * O' Conor, sen., Dissertation, 216. 
 
 t Acts of Synod of Cashel, quoted by Lanigan, iv. 209. 
 
 X Leland, i. Appendix. 
 
 Thomas-^- 
 Becket.
 
 IN IRELAND. 
 
 135 
 
 of a turbulent cliieftainry, became the first order of peers 
 under a powerful monarch. The writ of Henry the 
 Second, appointing Fitz-Adelm to the Lieutenancy,* is 
 addressed to his " archbishops, bishops, kings, earls, 
 barons, and all his liegemen of Ireland." Henry the 
 Third commences one of his writs in these terms : — 
 " Henry, by the grace of God, King of England, &c., to 
 the venerable father, Luke, by the same grace, Archbishop 
 of Dublin, and to his trusty and well-beloved Maurice 
 Fitzgerald, his lord deputy of Ireland, greeting ;" thus 
 ranking the prelate above his lieutenant, and conferring 
 on him a style of independent dignity, corresponding to 
 his own. Public instruments of a later date j- assign the 
 same stately precedence to ecclesiastics ; and, within the 
 sphere which was subject to the dominion of Rome and 
 England, not bishops only, but abbots and priors, took 
 rank above the royal lineage of O'Neil, O'Brien, or 
 O'Conor. + 
 
 Church property was on a scale of even greater magnifi- 
 cence. Among the seven decrees of the Cashel Synod 
 (the articles of union, as they may be called, between the 
 Anglo-Irish Church and State), there were four which 
 regulated the revenues of the clergy. It was enacted by 
 one of these, " that Church lands should be free from the 
 customary exactions of the chieftains, from all demands, 
 whether of money or of entertainment :" by another, " that 
 they should be likewise exempt from certain fines imposed 
 
 * Leknd, i. 113. t Hid, i. 241. 
 
 % This circumstance alone is sufficient to prove that the Complaint was 
 the fabrication of the rebel prelates. The O'Neil of the time was the lay 
 leader of this insurrection : by the old Irish law, which he was struggling 
 to mamtain, all the prelates of Ulster were his vassals ; by the law which 
 the EngUsh were labouring to introduce, they were his superiors. Some of 
 those prelates might have formed a temporai-y junction with liim for their 
 own purposes ; but, whether he rose or fell, they were labouring to cstabUsh 
 their own ascendancy. A similar observation will present itself to the 
 intelligent reader, when he peruses the next paragraph in the text ; in 
 revenue, as well as in rank, the clergy were encroaching upon the prescriptive 
 claims of the chieftains. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 A.D. 1315. 
 
 Chm'ch 
 property.
 
 136 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. by the Brelioii law:" by a third, "that all the faithful 
 A.D. 1315. should pay tithes of their cattle, fruits, and all other 
 increase ;" and this was explained, a few years after, by a 
 •sweeping commentary of the Dublin synod, as including 
 the tithe of " provisions, hay, flax, wool, the young of 
 animals, and the produce of gardens and orchards :" by 
 the fourth, " that all the faithful should pay a third of 
 their moveable goods, for a solemn burial, and for vigils 
 and masses for the repose of their souls ; and that, if they 
 were dying unmarried, or without legitimate children, the 
 bequest should be increased to one half." Such was the 
 splendid bribe of the traitorous Church of Ireland : its 
 own extensive lands protected from injury, a full tenth of 
 the produce of all other lands, and more than a third of all 
 moveable property ; besides, while it was guaranteed 
 against loss, it might accumulate for ever. 
 
 Wherever the law or the arms of England prevailed, all 
 these privileges were respected ; while in the other parts 
 of the island, the Magnates followed their old usages,* 
 refusing tithesj levying contributions, and overw^helming 
 their clergy with the honour of their unceremonious 
 visits, — regardless alike of King and Pontiff. It is 
 possible, indeed, that the English Government was some- 
 times roused from its forbearance by those prelates, who, 
 like the archbishop in the widow's petition,-]- exchanged 
 their sacred character for that of a leader of banditti ; but 
 this is only conjecture. So far as appears from history, 
 that personage was unmolested in the enjoyment of a 
 degree of freedom, which, after all reasonable allowance 
 for the eloquence of the fair plaintiff, and the licentious 
 barbarism of the times, must have brought an unprivileged 
 marauder to the gallows. It may be allowed also, that 
 even within the English districts the estates of the Church 
 did not always escape those ravages by which all other 
 
 * Lanigan, iv. 219. — Cambrensis reckons it among the spvrcilia of the 
 Irish lords of his day, that they would not pay tithes, 
 t Ante, p. 121.
 
 IN IRELAND. 137 
 
 lands were periodically laid waste ; in the circumstances of ciiAr. i. 
 the time and country, total exemption would have been a.u. 1315. 
 almost miraculous. But if the clergy occasionally suffered 
 a few of those annoyances which were as the course of 
 nature to less fortunate men, they had a peculiar and. 
 abundant recompence in that soldierly devotion which 
 sought to appease God by largesses to his ministers. 
 The early English adventurers were eminently distin- 160 rcli- 
 guished for this species of piety : one hundred and sixty houses 
 religious houses, founded and endowed between the founded m 
 landing of Henry the Second and that of Edward Bruce, 
 with countless grants of land and other minor bene- 
 factions, were the splendid monuments of their remorse.* 
 In fine, all the privileges and nearly all the riches which 
 the Church then enjoyed (and it enjoyed an ample share 
 of both), had been derived from the policy or bounty of 
 Englishmen, and were still suspended upon the con- 
 tinuance of their ascendancy. From a state of some 
 hardship and total dependance, it had been exalted as the 
 church of a dominant party, and pampered into all that 
 florid prosperity which the envy or imagination of modern 
 agitators has ascribed to the reformed establishment ; 
 it was indulged, besides, in the exercise of many branches 
 of the Papal craft, to the great oppression of the people, 
 and to the detriment and dishonour of the civil authorities. 
 The spirit which could discover a motive to rebellion in 
 treatment such as this would be inconceivable, did not 
 history furnish so many examples of the insatiable 
 cravings of Popery, and the madness of disappointed 
 ambition. 
 
 But whatever might have been the merits of this com- 
 plaint, Rome was too nearly interested to give it an 
 
 * As may be seen in a very cursory glance over Archdale's " Monasticon 
 Hibernicuni." There is, besides, a great munber of houses of which Archdale 
 does not assign either the date or the founder ; a considerable proportion of 
 these ought, in strict reason, to be added to the hundred and sixty iu the 
 text ; but the case is abundantly strong without them.
 
 138 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CUAP. I. 
 A.i>. 1318. 
 
 impartial hearing. It would appear, indeed, as if the 
 Pope were at first undecided, whether he would not give 
 a new dynasty to liis island of saints. He had commanded 
 a truce for two years between the English Government 
 and its opponents ;* a proof that he did not then regard 
 the Irish insurgents as rebels ; but Bruce, distressed, it is 
 said, for want of provisions, violated the injunction, and 
 ended the doubts of the Sovereign Pontiff. In addition 
 to this, the revolted priesthood had shown, much too 
 clearly to be easily forgiven, how cheap they were 
 disposed to hold his supremacy, except so far as it 
 contributed to their own views. They had expressly 
 declared that Adrian's grant was unjust; they had pre- 
 sumed to remedy this newly-discovered injustice, by 
 electing and crowning a king for themselves ; thus they 
 had shifted the question from the nial-administration of 
 England to the sovereignty of the Vatican, and left but 
 one answer to its indignant majesty. The whole weight 
 of Papal influence was employed in favour of the Govern- 
 ment ; f and the custom of filling the principal sees with 
 Englishmen, proved of some use in quelling a disturbance 
 which it had previously contributed to raise. The leading 
 prelates of Armagh, Dublin, and Cashel, were English 
 by birth and extraction ; however, therefore, they might 
 be disposed to bring the civil government into subjection 
 to the Church, they could not concur in a scheme which, 
 by separating the countries, must have ended in their own 
 
 * Cox, p. 98, quoting Camden. 
 Pope John. t Pope John, however, did not omit the opportunity of reminding the 
 English prince of his duty to the Holy See. He transmitted to Edward 
 the Irish appeal, and a copy of Adrian's bull, desiring his serious attention 
 to their contents. Lcland calls liis letter " An earnest exhortation to redress 
 Irish grievances ; " O'Conor, much better acquamted with Roman poHtics, 
 pronounces it a piece of affected commiseration. " Wliile on one hand," he 
 says, " Jolm was writing in the language of gentle complamt, with the 
 other he was employed in issuing ex('oinniunications against the aggrieved, 
 for daring, without his leave, to confer the crown of Ireland on Bruce, and 
 attempting to vuidicate thoir liberties." — Historical Address, i. 134.
 
 IN IRELAND. IS9 
 
 ruin. While the first of these three followed the move- chap. i. 
 ments of the army, distributing blessings and proclaiming ai>- 1318. 
 indulgences to those who might fall in the righteous cause 
 of Pope and King, the other two were successively 
 intrusted with the conduct of the civil sword. Papal 
 excommunications were fulminated against King Bruce, 
 against his brother Robert, the celebrated Scottish 
 monarch, and against the Irish prelates and clergy who 
 had supported the insurrection, and these formidable 
 sentences were read at every mass within the English 
 quarters. 
 
 Checked by this severe admonition, the Irish members 
 of the hierarchy made no attempt henceforward, until the 
 reign of Elizabeth, to separate their cause from that of 
 their English brethren. The common interests of the 
 order presented a multitude of objects upon which the 
 two parties might exercise an emulous zeal ; and, before 
 the lapse of three years, they had an opportunity of 
 displaying the vigour, if not the cordiality, of their 
 co-operation. 
 
 Bruce's career having terminated at the decisive battle Bruce, 
 of Dundalk, it was now the turn of the English prince to a.d. 1322. 
 ravage the dominions of his northern neighbour. Scot- 
 land, hitherto protected by her poverty, and attracting 
 but languidly the desires of the Holy See, had not yet 
 acknowledged its temporal supremacy ; and besides, the 
 reigning monarch was now under an anathema : thus the 
 expedition had so much the character of a religious war 
 as recommended it to the zealous support of the Papacy. 
 The Pontiff issued an edict (whether as supreme lord of 
 Ireland, or in his spiritual capacity as head of the Church, 
 it is not easy to determine), granting to Edward a subsidy 
 of a tenth of the revenues of his Anglo-Irish subjects for 
 two years. The laity submissively obeyed the mandate, 
 paying the required contributions, and leading their troops 
 into Scotland ; but the clergy, with the thunder of St. 
 Peter still ringing in their ears, proved refractory. They
 
 craft 
 
 A D, 132 1. 
 
 140 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 cnAP. I. demanded a sif^lit of the orij^nnal bull, and as, for some 
 A.D. 1322. reason which history has not recorded, this could not or 
 would not be allowed them, they persisted in their refusal, 
 and eluded the tax.* Such were the subdued and spirit- 
 broken priests, who dared not lift a voice against the 
 oppressors of their order. 
 Witch- About the same time there occurred an incident of a 
 
 different character from any of the preceding, but equally 
 illustrative of that daring spirit with which the prelates 
 tried their power upon the highest orders in the State. 
 The Bishop of Ossory summoned Dame Alice Ketler, 
 a woman of some rank, with her family and dependents, 
 before his spiritual court, to answer to a charge of witch- 
 craft. She was accused of going through Kilkenny every 
 evening between complin and curfew, sweeping the refuse 
 of the streets towards her son's door, and muttering this 
 incantation as she went — 
 
 " To the house of William my son, 
 Hie all the wealth of Kilkemiy town." 
 
 It was also said that she made assignations, near a certain 
 cross-road, with an evil spirit, whose name the bishop 
 discovered to be Robin Artysson, and that on these occa- 
 sions she feasted her paramour upon nine red cocks', and 
 some unknown number of peacocks', eyes. The last 
 allegation against her was, that various implements of 
 sorcery had been found in her house, particularly a sacra- 
 mental wafer having the name of the devil imprinted 
 on it, and a staff, upon which, when duly oiled for 
 an expedition, she and her accomplices were accustomed 
 to ride all the world over. Such things would be ridi- 
 culous, were they not made the pretext for atrocities at 
 which nature shudders. One of her domestics was con- 
 demned and executed ; her son thrown into prison ; the 
 lady herself, happening to escape on the charge of witch- 
 craft, was put to trial a second time, upon an accusation 
 * Leland, i. 282.
 
 IN IRELAND. 141 
 
 of heresy, found guilty, and sentenced to the flames ; and cnAr. i. 
 Adam Duff, a gentleman of considerable family in Leinstcr, a.d. 1324. 
 was seized at the same time, and burned as a hei'etic. 
 The Lord Arnold De la Poer, seneschal of the palatinate 
 to which Kilkenny then belonged, having interested him- 
 self in favour of these unhappy persons, was involved by 
 the bishop in the same accusation ; and upon his appealing 
 to the lord deputy, the undaunted prelate extended his 
 charge to that personage himself. 
 
 The head of the civil government was now formally 
 arraigned of heresy before the bishops ; and the business 
 of the State (not of the executive department only, but of 
 the Parliament, which was then sitting, and of the law 
 courts, for the lieutenancy was at this time filled by the 
 chancellor,) was interrupted, until the majesty of the 
 Church should announce its awful decision. The inves- 
 tigation was long and solemn ; the lord justice made it 
 appear that his accuser was actuated by personal resent- 
 ment against De la Poer ; and that, as to himself, he had 
 given no other ground of offence or suspicion than his 
 interference on behalf of an injured man. He was 
 acquitted, and pronounced a true son of the Church ; 
 and, sacrificing the vanity of station to a natural impulse 
 of joy, he celebrated his narrow escape with an entertain- 
 ment open to all who chose to be his guests. But, in the Power of 
 
 meantime, the unfortunate nobleman who had besought ^°'"'' °^'^^' 
 
 . . . . laymen. 
 
 his protection experienced the bitterness of Episcopal 
 
 vengeance. It was the law in those days, that when a 
 
 bishop gave a certificate, under his sign manual, of the 
 
 excommunication of a layman, the civil authorities were 
 
 obliged to act upon it ; the writ de excommunicato 
 
 capiendo was issued in the King's name, and the offender 
 
 seized and thrown into prison. This had been done in 
 
 the case of De la Poer : the King's lieutenant was satisfied 
 
 of the man's innocence, yet he could not withhold the 
 
 writ for his apprehension ; and instead of affording 
 
 effectual assistance, was himself in the same danger.
 
 U2 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 A.D. 1324. 
 
 Edward 
 III. 
 
 A.D. 1316. 
 
 While the powerless patron was engaged in his own 
 defence, the client had perished in a dungeon ; and, 
 as he died unabsolved, the persecution was extended to 
 his remains : the bishop, inaccessible to the weakness of 
 humanity, condemned the body to exposure, until the 
 progress of decay had rendered interment indispensable. 
 Much was still to be done and suffered before the zeal of 
 the prelate could be appeased. Disappointed in bis hope 
 of burning the lord deputy, he resolved to degrade him 
 into an instrument of his vengeance upon others. He 
 represented the case at the Court of Rome, in such terms 
 as best accorded with his malice or fanaticism, and a 
 Papal brief was dispatched to the King, desiring that he 
 would issue an order to his chief governor and other 
 officers of state in Ireland, to assist the Bishop of 
 Ossory and his brother prelates in the extirpation of 
 heresy.* 
 
 " King Edward the Third," says Spencer, *' being 
 greatly crossed and bearded by the lords of the clergy in 
 Ireland ; they being there, by reason of the lords abbots 
 and others, too many for him, so that for their frowardness 
 he could not order and reform things as he desired, was 
 advised to direct out his writs to certain gentlemen of the 
 best abilities and trust, entitling them therein barons, to 
 sit and serve as barons in the next Parliament ; by which 
 means he had so many barons in Parliament, that he was 
 able to weigh down the clergy and their friends." f Thus 
 reinforced, the King obtained a vote for a subsidy, which 
 was to be levied on cliurch lands as well as those of the 
 laity ; but the prelates, though defeated within the House, 
 resolved to renew the contest outside. The Archbishop of 
 Cashel, supported by his suffragans of Limerick, Emly, 
 and Lismore, published an edict, that all beneficed priests 
 w^ho presumed to pay their allotted portion of the subsidy 
 should be deprived of their livings, and declared incapable 
 
 * Cox, p. 108. Camden, p. 182. Leland, i. 284. 
 t View of the State of Ireland, p. 216.
 
 IN IRELAND. 1 iS 
 
 of future preferment ; and that, for the like offence, the chap. i. 
 vassals of the Church should be excommunicated, and a.d. 1316. 
 their descendants to the third generation excluded from 
 holy orders. Not satisfied with this severity, the Arch- 
 bishop proceeded to the county town, in the habit of his 
 order, and with the attendance suited to the most solemn 
 exercise of his functions, and there publicly pronounced 
 an excommunication upon the King's Commissioner of 
 Revenue, and upon all otliers who should procure, pay, or 
 in any manner contribute to, the levying of the said 
 subsidy from lands or persons belonging to the Church. 
 Informations were exhibited against the prelates for those 
 outrages. They pleaded Magjia Charta,* by which, they Magna 
 said, it was provided that the Church should be free ; or, ^' 
 
 as they endeavoured to explain the phrase, that it should 
 be exempt from the laws and imposts of the civil power ; 
 and that all who violated this immunity, should be punished 
 with excommunication. Their plea being rejected, and 
 the cause given against them, these froward lords appear 
 in arrest of judgment, and the timidity of government 
 suffered the controversy to die away. Thus the Church 
 triumphed in its very defeats ; and one of the greatest of 
 the English monarchs, a conqueror, who had routed the 
 warlike clans of Scotland, and dispersed the chivalry and 
 the fleets of France, was " crossed and bearded" without 
 
 * The champions of the present Roman Catholic hierarchy are fond of 
 referring to Magna Charta, as a proof that the order is not inimical to 
 hborty. It would be well if, in the intervals of what may almost be called 
 their professional laboui's, they were to examine that celebrated compact ; 
 they would then learn, that it gives to the clergy enormous power ; to the 
 barons and knights, a monopoly of those privileges which the modesty of 
 the Church decUned ; and to the mass of the people, nothing. The only 
 article of the great charter which notices the serfs, or villeins of the sod, at 
 that time the most numerous body of men in England, has an obvious 
 reference to the interest of their masters. A serf could not forfeit his 
 plough, cart, or other implements of husbandry ; because, if deprived of 
 these, he could no longer minister to the barbarous plenty of the lord to 
 whose estate he belonged. — See Hume, ii. 88.
 
 144' POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 cuAP, I. resistance or redress, by the termagant ecclesiastics of 
 
 Ireland.* 
 A.D. 1367. There were two methods, each having its own recom- 
 mendations, by which all the inhabitants of Ireland might 
 have been made to coalesce into one people. The ancient 
 race might havebeen compensated for much actual suffering, 
 and for the wound inllicted upon their honest national 
 pride, by admittance to the superior comforts and privi- 
 leges of Englishmen : or, on the other hand, the colonists 
 might have been allowed to blend with the great mass of 
 their new neighbours, and to adopt the land in which fortune 
 had placed them as their own country. The first method 
 would have been the more acceptable to the multitude ; 
 the second, the more conciliatory to the nobles ; a policy 
 judiciously attempered of both might have moulded the 
 social state of Ireland into something bettei', perhaps, 
 than anything which now exists in either island. But, 
 unhappily, the course pursued only added new stimulants 
 to that mutual antipathy with which their relative circum- 
 stances had inspired the races, and left little to be effected 
 by religious rancour. It has been already seen, that the 
 first of these modes of union had been prevented by the 
 bishops of one generation ; the second was now opposed 
 by those of another, and with the same fatal success. In 
 the Lieutenancy of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, a Parlia- 
 ment was held at Kilkenny, which passed an Act memorable 
 above all others in the sad annals of Irish legislation, and 
 Statute of very generally known as The Statute of Kilkenny. It 
 Kilkenny. ^,^^ decreed by this statute that marriage, nurture of 
 infants, or gossipred with the Irish, or submission to the 
 Irish law, should be considered and punished as high 
 treason. Again, if any man of English race should use 
 the Irish dress or language, or take an Irish name, or 
 observe any rule or custom of the Irish, he was to forfeit 
 lands and tenements, until he had given security in the 
 * Leland, i. 311.
 
 IN IRELAND. 145 
 
 Court of Chancery, that he would conform in every par- chap. i. 
 ticular to the English manners. Further, it was made a.d. 1367. 
 highly penal to present a mere Irishman * to an ecclesi- 
 astical benefice, or receive him into a monastery or other 
 religious house ; to entertain an Irish bard, minstrel, or 
 story-teller ; or — to admit an Irish horse to graze on the 
 pasture of an Englishman ! 
 
 It appears to have been from the same circumstances Parliament 
 that this Parliament was convened so far south as Kilkenny, ^ ^^ ' 
 
 * That is, not simply an Irishman by birth and descent, for a vast 
 majority of the estabhshed clergy were of that description, but one who had 
 not purchased a charter of denization, and conformed to the English usages, 
 civH and ) eliffious. It had been enacted at Cashel that the Irish Church 
 should be assimilated in its rites and discipline to that of England : but we 
 are informed by the decisive testimony of Dr. Lanigan, that, wherever the 
 natives mamtained their independence, " clergy and people followed their 
 own ecclesiastical rules, as if the Synod of Cashel had never been hold." 
 Many wUl be scandalized at this information : it is, however, unquestionable, 
 that in those distant times, as well as the present, there were two Churches 
 in Ireland ; the one, the Church of the Parhament and the ascendant party; 
 its preachers correspondmg exactly to that description which J. K. L. has 
 given of the first Protestant ministers, following the camp of the invaders 
 " in the name of Christ, to watch the baggage, and collect the spoUs ;" the 
 other, the Church of "the Irish clergy and people." The former, though a 
 plant of foreign growth, had certaLa facilities for striking root, and over- 
 whelming a rival in the night shade of its branches, which the genius of 
 Protestantism does not allow to its successor ; yet, under every disadvantage, 
 the native Chm-ch lingered for tlu-ee centuries, and discovered some languishing 
 symptoms of hfe so late as the reign of Henry the Seventh. There is stUL 
 extant a bull of Pope Innocent the Eighth, dated the 8th of February, 1484, 
 for the erection of a coUegiate church at Galway. It recites, " that the 
 people of the parish of St. Nicholas were civihzed men, living in a walled 
 town, and observing the decency, rite, and custom of the Church of England; 
 and that their customs differed from those of the wild Higlilandmen of that 
 nation, who harassed them so, that they could not hear the offices, or receive 
 the sacraments of the Church, according to the form which theg and their 
 ancestors of ' old time were accustomed to follotoy Then follows the 
 enactment, that " the college shall consist of one warden and eight presby- 
 ters, all civilized men, and duly holding the rites and order of the Church 
 of England in the celebration of Divine service." It is obvious from this 
 document (which is given at large by Dr. Burke, in his Hibernia Domini- 
 cana) that those loild Irish Highlanders, as the Pontiff rather uncourteously 
 styles them, stUl adhered to their own religious ceremonies, or, at least, had 
 
 L
 
 11(5 POLICY OF TIIK CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. and that no bishops but those of the southern dioceses 
 A.D. 1367. assisted in its deliberations. During the invasion of 
 Edward Bruce, the English inhabitants had been nearly 
 extirpated from Ulster and the adjacent partsof Connaught; 
 and thenceforward, until the great plantation under James 
 the First, the country north of Dundalk, with the excep- 
 tion of a few insignificant garrisons, remained in the hands 
 of the original possessors. The English interest lay in 
 the southern towns, and in various colonies of settlers, 
 distributed over a triangular space, of which Cork, Dun- 
 dalk, and Galway were the extreme points, and Kilkenny 
 might almost be considered as the centre. At Kilkenny, 
 accordingly, the Parliament assembled, as if shrinking on 
 every side from the vengeance which it was about to 
 provoke ; and the diocesans of the surrounding territory, 
 three archbishops and five bishops, leaving their brethren 
 of the other districts to conciliate, as they might, the 
 exasperated natives, gave their sanction to its proscribing 
 decrees. 
 
 Had they been content with the civil penalties of the 
 Act, it might be supposed that they had drifted, in passive 
 servility, with the general tide of colonial politics ; but, 
 when they are found throwing the weight of their spiritual 
 power into the scale of national hatred, we are no longer 
 at liberty to award them this comparative praise. Whether 
 the appetite for persecution had become importunate ; 
 whether they felt that they had an especial interest in the 
 perpetuation of discord ; or whether we ought rather to 
 
 not yet conformed to the Roman ritual. Even in the next reign, we discover 
 a circumstance which proves that their conversion was still very incomplete. 
 Soon after Wolsey had been created the Pope's Legate a Latere, he manu- 
 factured a supply of bulls and dispensations for the Irish market ; but his 
 supercargo, Allen, wrote him a complaining account that the commodities 
 went off but slowly. " The Irish," he said, " had so little sense of religion, 
 that they married within the prohibited degrees, without dispensations ; 
 they also questioned his Grace's authority in Ireland-, especially outside the 
 pale." — Cox, p. 210, quoting from Lib. ccc, Lambeth.
 
 IN IRELAND. 1 1 ■< 
 
 say, of communities as of individuals, that men seldom chap, i. 
 forgive those whom they have greatly injured, — it is cer- ^-d. 13G7. 
 tain that they published a formal anathema against all 
 transgressors of the statute of Kilkenny. Thus, as if 
 oppression were not sufficient, the most taunting insult 
 was offered to the noblest sentiments of a people who 
 were at once devoted to the usages of their fathers, and 
 deeply susceptible of religious impressions ; everything 
 Irish was denounced as an object of abhorrence both to 
 God and man ; and the bitterness of civil strife was 
 impregnated with the deadly poison of fanaticism. There 
 was a cold and exquisite malevolence in this measure, 
 attainable only by a class of beings which had abjured, or 
 had never known, tlie kindly sympathies of humanity, and 
 the event proved that it was no less imprudent than 
 unnatural. Placed under the double ban of the Church 
 and of the lay authorities, all the English whom policy, 
 good feeling, the natural influence of neighbourhood, or 
 the social qualities of the natives, had taught to lay aside 
 the arrogance of conquest, were now drawn into closer 
 alliance with their new and only remaining connexions. 
 Rebellions increased in strength and frequency ; from 
 Cork and Galway, the ju.risdiction of Government was 
 gradually narrowed to Carlovv ; and in the next century 
 it became a proverb, that " they who lived west of the 
 Barrow, lived west of the English law." It deserves to 
 be noticed that, of the eight prelates who attended this 
 Parliament, three were apostate Irish,* and no less than 
 
 * These were O'CairoIl, of Cashel ; O' Grady, of Tuain ; and O'Cormocan, 
 of Killaloe. — See Ware's " Bishops." " The statute of Kilkenny," says Lord 
 Clare, " has been miich extolled by Sir Jolin Davies, as eminently quahfied to 
 reform the degenerate Enghsh, as he calls them ; it seems diiScidt, however, 
 to reconcile it to any principle of sound pohcy. It was a declaration of 
 perpetual war, not only against the native Irish, but against every person 
 of Enghsh blood, who had settled beyond the limits of the pale, and, from 
 motives of personal interest or convenience, had formed connexions with, the 
 natives, or adopted their laws and customs : and it had the fidl effect which 
 might have been expected ; it drew closer the confederacy it was meant to 
 
 L 2
 
 148 
 
 POLICY OF Tin; CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 A.D. 1367. 
 
 Pseudo- 
 patriotism. 
 
 A.D. 1376. 
 
 The King 
 and Par- 
 liament. 
 
 seven of Papal appointment ; their spiteful anathema is, 
 therefore, to be asci'ibed, not to English insolence or 
 English policy, but to the spirit of the order. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable in the history of this body, 
 than its early proficiency in an art which is cultivated in 
 our own times with rival assiduity, but by no means pro- 
 portionate success — the art of uniting the most hard- 
 hearted oppression of the people to a factious contempt 
 of the authority of the State, and a swaggering affecta- 
 tion of public spirit. Nine years after the passing of 
 the statute of Kilkenny, we find the character of lawless 
 violence (the proverbial reproach of the country and the 
 time) branded alike upon the prelates and the lay lords, 
 by the impartiality of a harassed Government. In the 
 patent issued to the Earl of Ormond, upon his appoint- 
 ment to the lieutenancy, he had been granted a general 
 power of pardon ; but, in a subsequent writ, this power 
 was explained as not extending to the pardon of " any 
 prelate or carl, for an offence punishable by loss of life, 
 member, lands, or goods." * Justice, conscious weakness, 
 and the obvious policy of dividing the oppressive weight 
 of the temporal and spiritual grandees, would have pre- 
 vented the executive from including the latter in this 
 opprobrious reservation, had not the habitual outrages of 
 the two orders displayed equal insolence, and attained 
 equal notoriety. 
 
 In the same year a transaction took place, so far beyond 
 the licentiousness of modern opposition, that it seems to 
 require a particular detail. The revenue being greatly 
 reduced, and the English Commons growing uneasy under 
 the burden of supporting the Irish Government, the King 
 resolved to assemble another Parliament for the purpose 
 
 dissolve, and implicated the colony of the pale in ceaseless warfare and 
 contention with each other, and with the inhabitants of the adjacent 
 district." — Speech on the Union, p. 5. The accoimt of the state of Ulster, 
 after Bruce's invasion, is taken from the incomparable Spencer. 
 * Cox, 132.
 
 IN IRELAND. 149 
 
 of obtaining a subsidy. Parliament met accordingly, but chap. i. 
 pleaded poverty, and refused a supply. The King, pro- a.d. 1376. 
 voked at this denial, despatched writs to all the counties, 
 cities, and dioceses in his Irish dominions, requiring that 
 two representatives from each should be sent to attend 
 him in England, to confer with his council concerning a 
 subsidy and other matters of State. The returns of the 
 bishops are good evidences of the spirit which then 
 animated the Irish Church. The Archbishop of Armagh 
 wrote thus : — 
 
 " In pursuance of this writ, having called before us the The Pri- 
 clergy of our diocese, we make answer of our common ^^^^ 
 opinion and assent, that, according to the liberties, 
 privileges, rights, laws, and customs of the Church and 
 land of Ireland, we are not bound to elect any of our 
 clergy to be sent into England, for the purpose of holding 
 councils or parliaments therein ; yet, because of our 
 reverence for our illustrious lord the King of England, 
 and the imminent and most urgent necessity of this land, 
 we do for the present, saving to ourselves, and to the lords 
 and commons of said land, all liberties, privileges, rights, 
 •laws, and customs aforesaid, grant unto Masters John 
 Cusack and William Fitz-Adelm, clerks, full power to go 
 into England and appear before our lord the King, in 
 order to treat, consult, and agree, touching the safety, 
 defence, and good government of the said land. Except- 
 ing, however, that we do not grant to our said delegates 
 any power of voting subsidies or other burdens upon us 
 and our clergy," &c. 
 
 There is something in this language which, were not 
 the subject so grave, and the writer an archbishop, might 
 almost be called broad irony. That " imminent and most 
 urgent necessity," by which, next to their reverence for 
 the crown, the prelate and his clergy were moved to waive 
 their privileges, was nothing else but the extreme poverty 
 of the State, the Irish revenue being now short of 10,000/. 
 a-year. It was to remedy this evil that the King had
 
 150 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF HOME 
 
 CHAP. I. issued his summons ; and, upon every subject hut this, 
 A.D. 1376. the submissive ecclesiastics give their deputies full powers. 
 The other returns are to the same effect ; thus : — 
 
 The Archbishop and clergy of Cashel sent one deputy, 
 " to treat, consult, and agree, saviny the liberties of the 
 Church, and the free customs of the land of Ireland.'' 
 It has already appeared that the liberties of the Church, 
 as they were undei'stood by Churchmen, included exemp- 
 tion from all secular imposts, so that this return is in 
 substance the same with the former. 
 
 The Archbishop of Tuam made no return. 
 
 The Bishop and clergy of Meath sent one deputy, 
 " with full power to inform and advise their lord the 
 King concerning the state and government of the land of 
 Ireland, saving the liberties and customs of said land and 
 of the Churches thereof .'' 
 
 The Bishop and clergy of Kildare sent two deputies, 
 " with full power to treat, inform, consult, and agree, 
 concerning the state, preservation, and good government 
 of the land of Ireland : but as to loading the clergy with 
 subsidies, or any other burdens than those which they 
 already bear, they can in no wise give them any jwwer.'' 
 
 The Bishop and clergy of Leighlin unanimously de- 
 clared " that they w^ei'e too poor to send over any deputy 
 to their lord the King." 
 
 The Bishop and clergy of Ossory sent two deputies, 
 '* to do as the writ required, saviiig the liberties of the 
 Church and land of Ireland." 
 
 The Bishop and clergy of Ferns sent two deputies, 
 " with full power to do as the writ required, saving the 
 liberties of the Church and land of Ireland." 
 
 The Bishop and clergy ' of Lismore protested that, 
 " from their great and notorious poverty, they were 
 unable to. send any deputies to England." * 
 A.D. 1117. The inhabitants of Ireland, in those days, were usually 
 
 * Returns, vrithout any saving clauses, or pleas of poverty, were received 
 from Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Cloyne, and Keny.
 
 IN IRELAND. 151 
 
 classed under three denominations : liegemen, or good chat. i. 
 subjects ; Irish enemies, those who had never submitted a.d. 1417. 
 to the Government, and who, indeed, were in a state of <^assifica- 
 almost constant warfare with it ; and, rebels, those who, Irish 
 being subjects by birth, or having become so by voluntary ^"'^J^*^- 
 submission, took up arms against the State, or at least 
 renounced the English laws and institutions.* In the 
 reign of Henry the Fifth, so many of the prelates were of 
 this third class, and they had so intimidated the local 
 legislature, that the English Parliament found it necessary 
 to interpose its supreme authority. An Act was passed, 
 in England, " that all archbishops, bishops, abbots, and 
 priors, of the Irish nation, rebels to the King, that shall 
 make any collation or presentment to benefices in the land 
 of Ireland, or that shall bring with them any Irish rebels 
 among the Englishmen, to the ParKament, councils, or 
 other assemblies within the said land, to learn the secrets 
 or condition of the English subjects, their temporalities 
 shall be seized until they fine to the King." -j- It is 
 evident, from the terms of this statute, that these " rebels 
 to the King " were too strong, not merely for the colonial 
 Government, but for the Parliament and the power of 
 England herself: the most rebellious among them had 
 only to pay a fine to the crown, and he was restored to his 
 temporalities and to all the rights of a liegeman. 
 
 The same weakness of the crown, and the same intract- Weakness 
 able spirit of the hierarchy, appear in an Irish statute of 9f ^"^^ 
 the reign of Edward the Fourth. In the infancy of the 
 English colony, the civil authorities, weak, unsettled, and 
 distracted by frequent and sudden assaults, had sought the 
 assistance of their spiritual ally. Judging of the Irish by 
 themselves, the governors ascribed much mystical virtue 
 to the sanction of an anathema : they occasionally tried 
 
 * So Ricliarcl the Second, in his despatches from Ireland to the Duke of 
 York. — See Leland, 1. Appendix, No. 2. 
 
 t Lib. MS. M. Lamheth, quoted by Cox, p. 151. The Act, as far as Cox 
 has quoted it, does not mention the amount of the fine.
 
 id2 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. its force upon some refractory chieftain ; and, upon the 
 A.D.1417. submission of others, bound them to articles which con- 
 tained a provision that the censures of the Church should 
 be denounced against them in case of future revolt. But 
 it was soon discovered that excommunication had few 
 terrors for an Irish lord. The thunder of the Church 
 was sufiercd to sleep, except when the prelates, in pur- 
 suance of their own objects, chose to draw it down upon 
 the Government itself; and on these occasions it did 
 some execution, the English having brought with them 
 that full-grown awe of Papal censures which it took some 
 centuries to mature in the minds of their ruder neigh- 
 Excommu- bours. Centuries, however, had now rolled away : 
 formidable excommunication had become formidable among the 
 Irish, and, by its spiritual terrors, combined wdth those 
 more tangible penalties which were attached to it by 
 the civil law, it might have rendered important, though 
 humiliating, assistance ; but the bishops contrived to 
 frustrate the hopes of the State, by declining to issue 
 the necessary anathemas. An Act was passed to compel 
 them to do their duty: "Whereas," it decreed, "our 
 holy father Adrian, Pope of Rome, was seised of all 
 the seigniory of Ireland in right of his Church ; and 
 whereas, for a certain rent, he alienated said seigniory 
 to the King of England and his heirs for ever ; * by 
 which grant the subjects of Ireland owe their obedience 
 to the King of England, as their sovereign lord ; it is 
 therefore ordained that all archbishops and bishops of 
 Ireland shall, upon the monition of forty days, proceed 
 to the excommunication of all disobedient subjects ; and 
 if such archbishops or bishops be remiss in doing their 
 
 * This is strenuously denied by the Irish writers, who maintain, and with 
 perfect truth, that the Pope reseiTed the seigniory paramount to his see. — 
 See Digest of Evidence, part ii., chap. 2. O'SuUivan goes so far as to say 
 that the King of England was no more than a sort of chief commissioner of 
 revenue to the Pope, having the care of collecting the Peter's pence and 
 other dues.
 
 VII. 
 A.D. 1486. 
 
 IN IRELAND. 153 
 
 duties ill the premises, they shall forfeit 100/." * The chap. i. 
 miserable effort at vigour, in this enactment, only renders a.d. 1117. 
 more manifest the subjection of the civil power to the 
 caprices of a restive priesthood ; yet the partizans of the 
 Lord Deputy affected to exult in it, as a proof of a 
 resolute and effective Administration. 
 
 In the next reign (Henry VII.), the divided state of Hcmy 
 public opinion between the rival houses of York and 
 Lancaster revived the restless ambition of the hierarchy, 
 and encouraged them to appear once more in open rebel- 
 lion against the united authority of Pope and King. The 
 title of the reigning prince had been confirmed by the 
 Pontiff, with the severest denunciations against all gain- 
 sayers ; his Irish government had been conducted in a 
 moderate and conciliating spirit ; f yet, all the bishops 
 except four, English and Irish indiscriminately, with a 
 proportionate number of the clergy, joined in the conspi- 
 racy which was formed to depose him, and to place a boy 
 of mean extraction upon the throne of the Plantagenets. 
 The stripling Simnel, the creature of an obscure Oxford 
 ecclesiastic, was received by these prelates with an extra- 
 vagant affectation of loyal zeal. Upon his arrival in 
 Dublin, he was conducted in state to the cathedral of 
 Christ Church ; the Bishop of Meath, in a bold discourse 
 from the pulpit, explained and enforced his right to the 
 throne ; and a crown, taken from a statue of the Virgin in 
 the church of St. Mary les Dames, was placed upon his 
 head, amidst the acclamations of a deluded populace. 
 When the bishops had thus carried their treason to the 
 last extremity, they began to be visited with the same 
 misgivings which had disturbed their predecessors in the 
 time of Edward Bruce. To influence the counsels, or at 
 least to soften the resentment of the Vatican, they 
 assembled a convocation, and caused a subsidy to be 
 
 * Leland, ii. 56. 
 
 t Approaching even to remissness. — See Leland's and Ware's accounts of 
 this reign.
 
 151 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 A.D. 14SG. 
 
 Feudal 
 oath. 
 
 voted to the holy father. Whether the grant was intended 
 as the purchase of an absolution from the impending 
 censures, or as a substantial proof, that however they 
 might have erred in the choice of a subordinate ruler, 
 they had not swerved from their fealty to the supreme 
 lord of their order and their country, it is now impossible 
 to determine : but, whatever might have been its purpose, 
 Rome stood firm to her own dignity, and to the claims of 
 her faithful vassal, A bull was directed to the four 
 prelates who had not leagued in the rebellion, command- 
 ing them to excommunicate their offending brethren ; 
 and the delinquents would have experienced the utmost 
 severity of Papal vengeance, had not the monarch declared 
 his willingness to admit them to pardon, upon the easy 
 terms of acknowledging their fault and renewing their 
 oaths of allegiance. Sir Richard Edgecombe, the officer 
 sent over by the King to receive the submission of the 
 lords and prelates of the pale, has left us copies of the 
 oaths which were taken on the occasion ; they were 
 " devised by himself, as sure as he could," and cost him 
 the labour of many days, in the discussion of the several 
 articles with these refractory penitents. The oath for the 
 lay lords is on the model of the old oath of a feudal 
 vassal; with a clause at the end, that the party " will not 
 let, ne cause to be letted, the execution and declaration of 
 the great censures of holy church to be done agenst any 
 person of what estate, degree, or condition he be, by any 
 archbushopp, bushopp, &c., according to the authority of 
 our most holy father. Pope Innocent the Eighth, that 
 now is, agenst all theme of the King's subgets that lett or 
 trouble our sayd sovereign lord, King Henry the Seventh." 
 The same pledges were exacted of the bishops, with an 
 additional dechiration, that *' as oft as they should be 
 required, they would execute the censures of the Church, 
 on behalf of their sovereig-n lord, a^^enst all those of his 
 subgets, of what dignity, degree, state, or condition he be, 
 tliat letteth or troubleth their seyd sovereign lord."
 
 IN IRELAND. 15.5 
 
 The attempt made to elude the force of these oaths is a chap. i. 
 strong instance of that detestable casuistry by which the a.d. 14S6. 
 schoolmen of the Church of Rome have seared the natural 
 susceptibility of conscience. When at length every 
 difficulty appeared to be adjusted, it was demanded by 
 Kildare, the leader of the rebellion, that the host on 
 which they were to be sworn should be consecrated by 
 one of his own chaplains. This demand involved, literally, 
 a mystery of iniquity, which the rude proposer could never 
 have fathomed for himself, and which few Roman Catholic 
 laymen of the present day will be able to comprehend 
 without a particular explanation.* It has long been a Doctrine of 
 doctrine of the Papal Church, republished at Trent under Int*^°tion. 
 the sanction of a curse upon all who deny it, that the 
 intention of the officiating priest is necessary for the 
 validity of a religious rite. The conspirators were assured 
 that the intention of Kildare's chaplain would be cordially 
 in their favour : thus the form of consecration would be 
 the juggling illusion of a mountebank, the wafer would 
 be no host, and the protestation made upon it, " so help 
 me this holy sacrament of God's body, in form of bread 
 here present, to my salvation or damnation," however 
 awful in its terms, would have no meaning, and conse- 
 quently no terrors, to those whom the prelates should 
 initiate into so comfortable a secret. -j- But Edgecombe 
 was aware of the perfidy of the demand ; he insisted that 
 
 * See the " Digest of Evidence," vol. ii., cliap. 1. 
 
 t On sucli an occasion as that mentioned above, the dogma will encourage 
 the unprincipled villain, but to the honestly superstitious it abounds with 
 consequences the most alarming. A priest cannot know whether he is law- 
 fully called to the ministry ; his people are equally ignorant whether his 
 ministerial acts are valid ; the want of intention in himself, or in the bishop 
 who ordained him, is sufficient to invalidate that he does. Thus, a matron 
 can never be sure that she is married, or a devotee that he has received any 
 one of those sacraments, which at the same time he believes to be indispensable 
 for his salvation. All this is unaccountable in a Church which maintains 
 her own infallibihty in order to save her votaries from doubt — or, rather, it 
 would be unaccountable, did it not teach the necessity of being always on 
 good terms with the priesthood. The words of the Trent decree are these :
 
 156 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 cHAr. I. the mass should be celebrated by his own chaplain ; and 
 A.D. I486, has left us a description of the whole ceremony, which 
 shows the appalling character of the meditated prevarica- 
 tion. " This done," he says, " the seyd erle went into a 
 chambir where the seyd Sir Richard's chaphiin was at 
 masse, and in the masse time, the said erle was shriven, 
 and assoiled from the curse that he stood in by the virtue 
 of the Pope's bull ; and before the agnus of the seyd 
 masse, the host being divided into three parts, the priest 
 turned him from the altar, holding the said three parts of 
 the host upon the patten ; and there, in the presence of 
 many persons, the seyd erle, holding his right hand over 
 the holy host, made his solemn oath of ligeance unto our 
 soverain lord. King Henry the Seventh, in souch forme as 
 was afore devised ; and in likeivise the bushopj^s and lordes 
 made like oath; and that done, and the masse ended, the 
 seyd erle, with the seyd Sir Richard, bushopps, and 
 lordes, went into the church of the seyd monastery, and 
 in the choir thereof the Archbushopp of Dublyn began 
 Te Deum, and the choir with the organs sung it up 
 solemply, and all the bells in the church rung."* But 
 the bishops, though frustrated in this first device, had 
 another evasion in reserve, the benefits of which did not 
 extend to their lay associates. The oath of the latter was 
 absolute, concluding in the manner already quoted, " so 
 help me this holy sacrament," &c. ; but in that of the 
 prelates, these words were followed by a sweeping clause 
 of exceptions, " salvo ordine episcopali" saving the privi- 
 leges of their order — privileges of which themselves were 
 the only judges, and before the sacred inviolability of 
 which all secular rights and secular obligations were 
 required to give way. 
 
 This review of the conduct of the Irish hierarchy has 
 
 The 
 
 Eomish 
 hierarcliy 
 in Ireland. 
 
 " If any one shall say that there is not required in ministers, when they 
 consecrate and administer the sacraments, an intention of doing what the 
 Church docs, LET UIM BE ANATHEMA." — Sess. 6, ccition ix. 
 
 * Sir Eichard Edgecombe's voyage, Harris's " Ilibcniica," i. 78.
 
 IN IRELAND. 157 
 
 now been brought clown to the eve of the Reformation, chap. i. 
 It has appeared, that, so far from making amends for the a.d. 1186. 
 great treason of their predecessors, few generations of 
 prelates passed away without adding some new grievance 
 to the accumulation of national suffering. For the tur- 
 bulence which they thus uniformly evinced, they had as 
 little aggression to plead in excuse as perhaps ever was 
 experienced by any community in so long a lapse of 
 years. The sovereign, besides endowing them splendidly, 
 had placed them next, and scarcely below, himself; the 
 aristocracy had added many and noble benefactions ; and, 
 if we are to believe their own writers, the people were 
 distinguished for submissiveness to the Church, and un- 
 blemished by a stain of heresy.* Those jealousies which 
 arose from time to time between the English and Irish 
 
 * Thus, the well-known writer under the signature of J. K. L. : " When 
 it pleased God to have an island of saints upon the earth, He prepared 
 Ireland from afar for this high destiny. Her attachment to the faith once 
 delivered to her was produced by many concmTent causes, as far as natural 
 means are employed by Providence to produce effects of a higher kind. 
 These causes have had their influence, but there was another and a stronger 
 power labouring in Ireland for the faith of the Gospel, — there was the 
 natural disposition of the people suited to a religion which satisfied the 
 mind and gratified the affections. Hence the aboriginal Irish are all 
 Catholics ; and to these are joined great numbers who have descended from 
 the ancient settlers, and who in process of time have become more Irish 
 than the Irish themselves." — Letters on Ireland, p. 58. This is not the 
 bombast of an individual, but the uniform and established language of a 
 school. Full two centuries before J. K. L., the world was informed by 
 another titular prelate, " that the soil of Ireland was holy, congenial to true 
 rehgion, fertile in Catholics, and reclaiming even foreigners after they have 
 been settled here a few generations;" and again, " Gc, then, ye heretics, 
 destitute of the truth, and acknowledge the wonderful providence of God, 
 and liis secret counsels towards the natives of Ireland, — cease to reproach 
 the tenets of the children of Israel, whom God has chosen for his peculiar 
 people." — RoutKs Analecta Sacra, pp. 67 — 74. Dr. Burke, in his 
 " Hibemia Dominicana," has several passages in nearly the same terms. 
 This good prelate, indeed, seems half inclined to insinuate, that the instinct 
 of orthodoxy extends to Irish horses. He tells an anecdote of James the 
 First, with great complacency : — It seems that Sir Arthur Chichester, when 
 lord-lieutenant of Ireland, sent over a very fine horse to Ms master ; but the 
 King (who, by the bye, as we learn from the best of historians, the " Author
 
 1.5S 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CUAP. I. 
 A.D. 1486. 
 
 Seeks the 
 domestic 
 govern- 
 ment of the 
 country. 
 
 members of the body bad scarcely any efFect upon its 
 general policy. All bad been Irisb wben Ireland was 
 sacrificed to tbcir tbirst of aggrandizement ; and, after 
 English and Irisb were joined in the bierarcbyj tbe latter 
 were always as ready to afflict tbe people, as tbe former 
 to insult and embarrass tbe prince. Enemies alike to 
 freedom and to government, botb were engaged in all 
 tbose measures, wbicb entailed permanent misfortune on 
 tbe country, and left a stigma upon tbe cbaracter of its 
 inbabitants* — witbbolding tbe promised blessings of civi- 
 lization — bligbting tbe fair blossom of national union with 
 a curse — maintaining an odious ascendancy for one race, 
 while they subjected it, in its turn, to their own despotic 
 misrule — setting an example of that rapacious violence 
 which was tbe prevailing vice of the times — fomenting 
 disaffection, braving the executive government, stripping 
 tbe laws of their authority, and spurning even the 
 mediation of him whom they affected to venerate as 
 the vicegerent of tbe Almighty, whenever it happened 
 to be exerted in favour of public tranquillity. Upon the 
 whole, during a period of more than three centuries, 
 amidst much indiscretion and wonderful versatility, one 
 purpose appears to have animated tbe order, — that of 
 drawing to itself the domestic government of the country, 
 and of establishing this dominion upon tbe trampled rights 
 and pretensions of all other classes of men. 
 
 of Waverley," was an indifferent horseman) eyed the present with very con- 
 siderable distrust: "I doubt the knave's a Papist," said the cautious 
 monarch, and refused to mount. 
 
 * J. K. L. thus describes the mass of the people of Ireland : — " The 
 nation which was thus enslaved put on all the habits which had been formed 
 for them ; they became ferocious, individually brave, but cowards when 
 collected together ; cunning, astute, cruel, strangers to honesty and truth." — 
 Vindication, p. 7. This humiliating description, thank Grod, is exaggerated ; 
 but, at all events, the national character, however barbarous he may be 
 pleased to consider it, had been fully formed before the Reformation. How 
 will he exculpate his own hierarchy from the charge of having contributed 
 — chiefly contributed — to the corruption of a people whose capabilities are 
 acknowledged to be of the very highest order ?
 
 IN IRELAND. 15.9 
 
 It is not to be supposed that, as soon as the civil chap. i. 
 government had acquired competent strength, some effort a.u. 1486. 
 would not be made to repress this extravagant ambition of 
 the hierarchy, and to provide for the sober exercise of its 
 legitimate powers. The lay aristocracy, however little in- 
 clined, in other instances, either to co-operate with the State, 
 or to give the people a chance of liberty, were too much 
 interested in such a measure to refuse it their active con- 
 currence. The lords of English descent, irritated by a 
 too successful rivalry ; the Irish, still brooding over the 
 original treachery of the Church and its many bitter con- 
 sequences to themselves ; and both turbulent, eager for 
 ascendancy, and accustomed to refer everything to the 
 arbitration of the sword, would naturally rejoice in the 
 downfall of this arrogant order. Accordingly, when Henry iienry 
 the Eighth asserted his claim to the complete sovereignty 
 of the island, all the nobles arrayed themselves on the side 
 of the crown ; they abolished the subordinate title of 
 lord, the only one wliich the Pope had permitted to be 
 assumed, and proclaimed him King of Ireland, and Supreme 
 Head of the Church.* This unanimity was not confined 
 to that body of the nobility, which conformed to the 
 English customs, and which usually took a share in the 
 administration of public affairs. Those powerful and 
 refractory chieftains who had hitherto maintained a dubious 
 struggle against the vitmost force of the State, came 
 forward on this occasion with rival zeal for the honour of 
 royalty, and with the strongest professions of their un- 
 divided allegiance. Desmond was the first who presented 
 himself: on the 16th of January, 1540, he executed a 
 written indenture, in which he " utterly denied, and 
 promised to forsake, the usurped primacy and authority 
 of the Bishop of Rome ; and engaged to resist and repress 
 the same, and all that should by any means uphold or 
 maintain it." Shortly after, O'Connor and O'Dunne gave 
 * See Note B., at the end of the chapter.
 
 IGO POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. similar pledges. O'Donel, in his indenture bearing date 
 A.D. 1540. the ()th of August, 1542, declares that " he will renounce, 
 relinquish, and to the best of his power, annihilate, the 
 usurped power of the Roman Pontiff; that he will by no 
 means harbour, or allow in his country, those who adhere 
 to the said Pontiff; but will, with all diligence, expel, 
 eject, and eradicate them, or bring them into subjection 
 to our said lord the King." His example was followed, 
 in a week after, by Mac Mahon. In the January following, 
 O'Neil, the acknowledged leader of the northern Irish, 
 met the King's Commissioners at Maynooth, and entered 
 into similar engagements; and, in the course of that year, 
 the same was done by O'Brien, the first chieftain of 
 Munster ; by O'More, O'Rourke, Mac Donel, and by the 
 head of the De Burgos, who was now known by the Irish 
 title of Mac William. This conduct of the great lords was 
 emulously imitated by those of inferior rank. From 
 Connaught, from Meath, from the remotest regions of the 
 south and north, all the most turbulent heads of the Irish 
 tribes, all those of the old English race who had adopted 
 Irish manners, and had lived, for ages, in rude indepen- 
 dence, vied with each other in declarations of fidelity to 
 the King, and executed their indentures in the amplest 
 forms of submission.* 
 
 * Leland, ii., 178—182 ; Cox, 268—271 ; O' Conor, « Historical Address," 
 ii., 279. Roman Catholic writers of tlie Popish class are exceedingly puzzled 
 to account for this conduct of the Irish lords : the following explanation by 
 Dr. Burke is absurd enough ; yet it is the only direct attempt at a solution 
 which I have been able to discover : — " Ireland continued in this anomalous 
 state until the reign of Ilenry the Eighth ; but this Prince, in consequence 
 of the title of ' Defeiider of the Faith^ which he received from the Holy 
 See, so captivated the affections of the Irish, that he enjoyed a greater 
 power over them than any of his predecessors. Hence, even after the schism, 
 he was pronounced King of Ireland, by the Parliament held at Dublin in 
 1511." — Hibernia Uominicana, p. 30. That is to say, they were so 
 delighted with his orthodoxy, that, after he became a heretic, they decreed 
 him a heretical title of honour : it was inconvenient to the good Bishop tc 
 recollect, that they styled Henry not only King, but Head of the Church.
 
 IN IRELAND. 161 
 
 As these deeds are objects of considerable interest, and chap. i. 
 as they are all drawn up in nearly the same terms, a copy a.d. 1540. 
 of one of them is inserted here : — Inden- 
 
 . 1 tares ot 
 
 " This indenture, made on the 26tli day of September, submis- 
 34 Henry the Eighth, between the Right Honourable J^'^ to the 
 Anthony St. Leger, &c., on the one part, and the Lord 
 Barry, alias Barrymore or the great Barry ; Mac Carty 
 More ; the Lord Roche ; Mac Carty Reagh ; Thadeus 
 M'Cormick, lord of Muskery ; Bany Oge, alias the 
 young Barry ; O'Sullivan Beare, captain of his nation ; 
 Donald O'Sullivan, first of his house ; Barry Roe, alias 
 the red Barry ; Mac Donough of Allow, head of his 
 nation ; Donald O'Callaghan, first of his house ; and 
 Gerald Fitz John, knight, on the other part ; doth witness, 
 that the said Lord Barry, &c., do agree, consent, and 
 engage, jointly and separately, for themselves, their 
 heirs, successors, assigns, tenants, and followers, that 
 they will hold and perform all and singular articles, 
 pledges, and conditions, which are contained on their 
 part in said indenture. 
 
 " Imprimis. They, and each of them do, and doth 
 acknowledge the King's majesty aforesaid, to be their 
 natural and liege lord, and will honour, obey, and serve 
 him, and the kings his successors, against all creatures of 
 the universe. And they will accept and hold his said 
 Majesty, and the kings his successors, as the supreme head on 
 earth, immediately under Christ, of the Church of England 
 and Ireland ; and they will obey and serve his Lieutenant, 
 or deputy, in this kingdom of Ireland, in all things con- 
 cerning the service of his said Majesty, or of the kings 
 his successors. And, as far as lieth in their power, jointly 
 or separately, they will annihilate the usurped primacy and 
 authority of the Bishop of Rome, and will expel and 
 eradicate all his favourers, abettors, and partizans ; and 
 will maintain, support, and defend all persons, spiritual 
 and temporal, who shall be promoted to church benefices 
 or dignities by the King's majesty, or other rightful 
 
 M
 
 162 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. patron; and will apprehend and bring to justice, to be 
 A.D. 1540. tried according to the laws made, or to be made, in such 
 behalf, all who apply for provision to the Bishop of Rome, 
 or who betake themselves to Rome in quest of pro- 
 motion," &:c.* 
 
 The sense in which the papal supremacy was thus quietly 
 set aside, to make way for that of the King, is naturally 
 an object of some curiosity. Of theology these Irish 
 lords knew nothing ; they were unaccustomed to any 
 general reasoning ; and, if the whole truth must be told, 
 some of them had not advanced so far in literary acquire- 
 ments as to be able to write their names. Yet the early 
 annals of the country, and the more recent usages of 
 those districts, which had struggled to maintain their 
 internal economy against the encroachments of Rome and 
 England, taught them to arrive at a just decision, without 
 descending into those polemical labyrinths which they 
 were so little qualified to explore. They had learned 
 from these sources that almost every principality in Ireland 
 had, for many centuries, its own mode of celebrating 
 divine service ; that their chieftains had been invested 
 with the patronage and government of the ecclesiastics of 
 their respective territories ; and that the pretended right 
 Novelty of of the Popes to nominate to church dignities, to demand 
 Do\ver°m ^ first fruits and other taxes, to exempt churchmen from 
 Ireland. secular tribunals, to hold separate courts, to enforce 
 canons, independent of, and sometimes contrary to, the 
 law of the country, had been unknown in Ireland, until 
 they claimed it as a province of the royalties of their sce.f 
 From such facts, the inference was easy ; every inde- 
 pendent state was competent to regulate for itself, the 
 forms of its public worship, the government and succession 
 of its hierarchy, and other branches of ecclesiastical 
 discipline. In these respects, the Irish princes of former 
 times had been, virtually, heads of the churches in their 
 
 * Cox, 272, quoting from the Council Book at Dublin Castle. 
 t See above, p. 138.
 
 IN IRELAND. 1G3 
 
 respective districts ; altliough the general simplicity of chap. i. 
 manners had prevented the formal assumption of the title. ^•^- ^^^^' 
 The subscribers to the indentures were, therefore, prepared 
 to regard them as the just prerogatives of royalty, and to 
 transfer them, accordingly, with the other attributes of 
 temporal dominion, from the successor of St. Peter, to 
 the King of England.* 
 
 These reasonings of the chieftains were quickened not 
 a little by personal considerations. It was their great 
 object, as well as that of the prelates, that, whoever 
 might enjoy the nominal sovereignty, the internal and 
 efficient administration of Irish affairs should be possessed 
 by themselves : they had been outstripped in this career 
 of factious ambition by the superior address and persever- 
 ance of their clerical rivals, and they now gladly embraced 
 the opportunity of a triumph. They saw that the only 
 way of effectually putting down this formidable comj)etition 
 was by cutting off altogether that papal jurisdiction, of 
 which even the delegated exercise had given the prelates 
 a mortifying and oppressive ascendancy: nor is it probable 
 that they were blind to other advantages, which the present 
 turn of affairs had thrown open to their contemplation. 
 Unless the Government became much stronger (and it 
 
 * "It is very well known," says Dr. 0' Conor, "that when Henry the Temporal 
 Eighth renounced the Pope's supremacy, our chiefs, believmg that he meant jurisdic- 
 only to renounce the temporal supremacy, joined him in that renunciation. 
 In their fourth general submission, which was made in the 33d of Henry 
 the Eighth, they unanimously acknowledged by indenture, that he was their 
 sovereign lord and king ; confessing his supremacy in all causes, and utterly 
 renouncing the Pope's jurisdiction in all manner of temporals, both in 
 Church and State." — Historical Address, Introduction, xxxviii. I have 
 made this extract from a Roman Catholic writer, cliiefly because it inculcates 
 an important truth, which is overlooked by too many Protestants. Juris- 
 diction over a Church is, in a great measure, temporal jurisdiction ; par- 
 ticularly if the Church be one which, like the Roman Catholic, spreads its 
 rules and its organization both deeply and widely among the mass of its lay 
 members and the concerns of ordinary Hfe. The priests are men, they are 
 also magistrates ; they are governed, and in their turn they govern others, 
 by human motives ; yet the Govebnment, as it is called, has no control in 
 the business. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 cuAP. I. would be always in their power to obviate such a result), 
 A.D. 15-10. that control over ecclesiastics which they were now 
 apparently conferring on the crown, would, in a great 
 measure, devolve upon themselves. It was evident, too, 
 from the conduct of the King in England, that a great 
 share of the property of the Church was destined to fall 
 into their hands ; and occasions could not fail to arise, for 
 securing a portion, if not a monopoly, of the patronage 
 of the remainder. 
 
 This good humour of the aristocracy, at the humiliation 
 of a rival order, and their own brightening prospects, 
 banished for a while those feelings and pretensions, which 
 had hitherto given most uneasiness to the Government. 
 O'Neil, whose progenitors had always affected the dignity 
 of sovereign princes, waited on the King at Greenwich ; 
 and, after the amplest protestations of fidelity, conde- 
 scended to accept the title of Earl of Tyrone. O'Brien, 
 in like manner, sunk the pomp of his feudal name in the 
 earldom of Thomond ; De Burgo, whose family for many 
 generations had laid aside the English manners, submitted 
 to be known henceforward as Earl of Clanrickarde ; the 
 haughty chieftains O'Donel and Mac Carthy became Earls 
 respectively of Tyrconnel and Glencar ; and the humility 
 of some inferior potentates was content with the title of 
 Baron. Desmond renounced that fantastic privilege, on 
 which his house, in imitation of the native lords, and the 
 ancient warriors of Gaul and Germany, had so long 
 insisted, of exemption from appearance within a walled 
 town ; he promised to attend Parliament, and even to pay 
 taxes ; ay, as liberally as Ormond himself ; * he resumed 
 his long unoccupied seat at the Council Board, and assisted 
 the Lord Deputy in receiving submissions. Others gave 
 still more unequivocal proofs of loyalty. The chief- 
 
 * The house of Ormond was the great rival of the Desmonds, or rather, 
 indeed, their natural enemy ; being as generally on the side of the crown, 
 as the others were in opposition. The Whigs and Tories of those days held 
 their debates in the field.
 
 IN IRELAND. 165 
 
 tain of Tyrconnel, whose family was well known both chap. i. 
 at Rome and Paris, resisted the artifices by which a.d. 1540. 
 Francis the First endeavoured to seduce him into a revolt ; 
 and, when the son of that Fitzpatrick, whose ambassador 
 had formerly amused the King with his threats of war, 
 was detected in some treasonable practices, he was delivered 
 up to public justice by the hands of his own father. In Peace in 
 fine, for the first time recorded in her annals, Ireland was • 
 
 now at peace under one acknowledged sovereign. So 
 universal was the tranquillity, that a considerable body of 
 troops was spared for the King's service before Boulogne, 
 where an Irishman had the honour of defeating the French 
 champion ; and another force of three thousand men was 
 sent into Scotland to the aid of the Lord Lenox.* Even 
 the great feud between the two races was forgotten for a 
 season ; and, while English and Irish crowded together 
 from all quarters of the island to receive law from the 
 throne, the loyal impulse with which they were animated 
 seemed already to have borne its most appropriate fruits, 
 in the feeling of a common country and the kindly affec- 
 tions of neighbourhood. 
 
 This unanimity is the more remarkable, as being in a.d. 1543. 
 
 defiance of the denunciations of the Vatican. Eight . . 
 
 ° against 
 
 years had now elapsed since Paul the Third passed Henry 
 final sentence upon Henry: "that terrible thundering 
 bull," as it is called by a Roman Catholic, f in which he 
 not only dethroned the sturdy monarch, but pronounced 
 him infamous, cut him off" from Christian burial, and 
 doomed him " to eternal curse and damnation." The 
 interval had been employed, with all the vigilance and 
 skill of the Papacy, in endeavouring to prepare a formid- 
 able opposition to the tardy movements of the Irish 
 Government. Chronicles had been discovered or in- 
 vented, in which Ireland was called the Holy Island ; and 
 thence was drawn a convincing argument that the country 
 belonged to the Holy See. Instructions had been issued 
 
 * Leland, ii. 182—186. 
 
 f Father Peter Walsh. — Rlstory of Irish Remonstrance, Introduction, xi.
 
 1G6 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 A.D. 1543. 
 
 Alleged 
 discovery 
 of ancient 
 prophecy. 
 
 to the bishops in the Roman interest, that an oath of 
 allegiance to the Pope, " in all things, spiritual and 
 temporal," should be administered to the people at the 
 time of confession : curses had been denounced against 
 all who should acknowledge the impious claims of Henry, 
 and indulgences offered to the faithful followers of the 
 Pontiff.* The inexhaustible store-house of prophecy, 
 which Rome possesses among her other spiritual trea- 
 sures, was opened on this great occasion, and an effort 
 was made to stimulate the warlike propensities of the 
 chieftains by placing them in the Thermopylae of the 
 Catholic cause. f But all these appeals, whether to super- 
 stition or to enthusiasm, proved unsuccessful ; it was too 
 obvious that the opposition of Rome and its partizans was 
 nothing more than a struggle for temporal dominion, 
 and not a sword was drawn in the quarrel of the 
 ecclesiastics. J 
 
 There is good reason to believe, that had Ireland been 
 in any other stage of its social progress, the Papal party 
 
 * Cox, 257. 
 
 t The following letter was -wTitten to O'jVeil by the Bishop of Metz, in 
 the name of the Council of Cardinals : — 
 
 " Mt Son O'jS^eil, — Thou and thy fathers were ever faithful to the 
 mother Church of Rome. His Holiness Paid, the present Pope, and his 
 council of holy fathers, have lately found an ancient prophecy of one Saint 
 Lazerianus, an Irish archbishop of Cashel. It saith, that the Cliurch of 
 Rome shall surely fall when the Catholic faith is once ovcrtlirown in Ireland. 
 Therefore, for the gloi"y of the mother Church, the honour of Saint Peter, 
 and yoiu* own security, suppress heresy, and oppose the enemies of his 
 Holiness. You see, that when the Roman faith perisheth in Ireland, the 
 See of Rome is fated to utter destruction. The Council of Cardinals have, 
 therefore, thought it necessary to animate the people of the holy island in 
 this pious cause, being assured, that while the mother Church hath sons of 
 such worth as you, and those who shall unite with yoti, slie shall not fall, 
 but prevail for ever, in some degree at least, iu Britain. 
 
 " Having thus obeyed the order of the sacred council, we recommend 
 your princely person to the protection of the holy Trinity, of the blessed 
 Virgin, of Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and all the host of heaven. Amen." — 
 Lelancl, ii. 172. 
 
 X O'Conor has fully proved, in opposition to Lcland, that CNeil's insur- 
 rection, which was terminated by the battle of Bellahoe, was a predatory 
 adventure, not a religious war. — Historical Address, i. 23.
 
 IN IRELAND. 1G7 
 
 would have been easily overthrown. Few affect to deny, chap. i. 
 that, if the great mass of the people had been somewhat ^■^- 1513. 
 more elevated above their ancient habits and prejudices, 
 the Reformation would have made more considerable 
 advances ; perhaps it is equally probable, that had their 
 feudal attachments remained unimpaired, they would 
 have followed, without inquiry, the example of their 
 lords, and passed on insensibly, in course of time, from 
 political to religious Protestantism. But, unhappily, the TheEefor- 
 Reformation was introduced precisely at the juncture °^''* ^'^"* 
 when the old system of clanship was beginning to 
 moulder away — a system for which it is so difficult to 
 find a substitute among a half-employed and half-civilized 
 population. The dissolution of it, however necessary to 
 the perfect settlement of the country, and to the final 
 triumph of liberty and law, was unseasonably urged, at a 
 time when another most important measure was giving 
 full employment to the utmost energies of the State. 
 Two evils arose from this precipitancy. One was, that 
 the nobles became distrustful at the very crisis when their 
 cordial co-operation was most necessary; — scarcely had 
 they testified their unanimous satisfaction at the reduction 
 of a rival power, when they discovered the intention of 
 the Government to complete its work of conquest by the 
 demolition of their own.* It was another, and a greater The Irish 
 misfortune, that the multitude, left to themselves, while tj^^*^^ 
 
 ' ^ ' _ _ themselves 
 
 as yet they were incapable of self-direction, were now in into the 
 a state of destitution, not of liberty. The sense of their l^^^^ 
 own helplessness, awakened by this new condition, was priests. 
 a kindred consciousness to that panic alarm with which 
 superstition haunts its victims ; and, under the combined 
 
 * I am glad to find that my view of the subject concurs with that of Dr. 
 O' Conor : — " Down to the accession of the house of Stuart," he says, " there 
 was yet remaining amongst the common Irish a spirit of clanship, wliicli 
 operated most powerfully to suboi-dination. This was gradually eradicated, 
 and no adequate principle substituted in its stead." — Historical Address, 
 Introduction, xxviii.
 
 168 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME IN IRELAND. 
 
 CHAP. I. influence of these two feelings, it is no wonder that they 
 A.D. 1543. threw themselves into the hands of their priests — the only 
 hands which were extended to receive them. There they 
 have remained to this day ; and the power which wields 
 them has ever since been enabled to re-act upon the higher 
 classes of their communion, upon Ireland, and upon the 
 empire.
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I. 
 
 Note A., page 106. 
 
 These feelings are well expressed in a clever pamphlet of the year Yindica- 
 
 1804, entitled " A Vindication of Dr. Troy." In reply to some tion of Dr. 
 
 slighting expression which had been used towards that prelate, the ^^^J- 
 
 anonymous author, who is supposed to have been Dr. Troy himself, 
 
 writes thus : " He is a bishop, Sir, and as such is acknowledged by 
 
 eighty-seven millions of men in Europe : he has colleagues apostles, 
 
 and colleagues princes ; and kings, and the successor of Charlemagne, 
 
 would incline to his blessing, and style him Most Heverend, to whom 
 
 you refuse the protection of an alien, in his native land." This spirited 
 
 sentence contains ample proof of a Roman Catholic bishop's title to 
 
 respect from all men : it contains also, in the same words, the grounds 
 
 of that jealousy with which, at least, under a Protestant Government, 
 
 his order should be regarded. He who thus claims the homage of 
 
 foreign kings, and is sustained by that conscious dignity which belongs 
 
 to a leader of eighty-seven millions, to a colleague of princes, to a 
 
 colleague of apostles — such as they are now, seated, perhaps, on 
 
 thrones of judgment — cannot be contemplated without uneasiness by 
 
 a sovereign who protests against these high pretensions, and declines 
 
 the stately benediction. There are three points in this high-toned 
 
 vindication which require particular notice ; the majesty of the office, 
 
 its antiquity, and the extent of that mighty confederacy in which it 
 
 occupies so conspicuous a station. 
 
 A Papal bishop is a colleague of princes. The Church of Rome is Definition 
 a state, a spiritual monarchy ; and the sovereign Pontiff, the Vicar of of Papal 
 Christ on earth, is entitled, in this lower world, to the same place and "ishops. 
 station which the glorified Messiah holds in heaven. There, the 
 various orders of intelligences are formed into one Church, or one 
 kingdom ; and the rulers of these orders, " thrones, dominions, princi- 
 palities, and powers," bow down before one Supreme Head." Here, 
 in like manner, the representative of Christ is supreme over the typical
 
 no 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 APP. TO 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 Papal 
 bishops 
 
 Their oath 
 to the 
 Papacy. 
 
 AUens in 
 their native 
 land. 
 
 Church ; and all other potentates are rightfully subject to his authority, 
 And as, in this probationary state, the complex nature of men requires 
 two kinds of government, the one to provide for his temporal interests, 
 the other for his eternal, there is a corresponding diversity in the 
 nature of the powers which emanate from the sovereign. He is the 
 fountain both of kingly and of priestly honour ; bishops and princes 
 are colleagues under him, deriving from him their consecration and 
 office, and exercising jurisdictions, ■nhich, in respect of each other, are 
 co-ordinate and indejjendent. 
 
 A Papal bishop is a colleague of the apostles. The Papacy supports 
 the doctrine of apostolic succession, not only as conservative of Church 
 unity and ministerial power, but as inspiring lofty human feelings. 
 By the ceremony of consecration, a bishop is, as it were, adopted into 
 a family of more than earthly nobility, and is taught to discern, in 
 spirit, the venerable forms of his fathers, ascending, in long procession 
 from this probationary scene, until, with the apostles, they encircle the 
 mystical throne of the Messiah. He mingles ■with men who gave laws 
 to the fiercest tribes, and who lowered the sword of the conqueror, 
 and the sceptre of the monarch, in homage to the milder glory of the 
 mitre : he is their descendant ; the remoter his descent, the more 
 exalted is his honour ; and, when he looks for the obeisance of an 
 earthly potentate, he expects no more than what the tradition of his 
 house pronounces to be a hereditary right. 
 
 A Papal bishop is a peer of that stupendous empire which extends 
 over the globe, and which comprises a majority of the Christian world. 
 As such, he is naturally a politician : he has a certain theory, peculiar 
 to his order and its retainers, of civil rights and duties, of liberty, of 
 sovereignty, and jurisprudence. No public event can occur which 
 may not affect the temporal fortune of the Church : a spirit of action 
 and intrigue is, therefore, infused into all the members of the 
 hierarchy, and every bishop has a sort of official interest in the affairs 
 and relations of the most distant countries. Bound to the Papacy by 
 an oath without a parallel in the annals of despotism, and by the more 
 attractive obligation of a common interest, he mingles in all trans- 
 actions, and takes a part in all revolutions and intrigues, with a view 
 to the extension and consolidation of its power. Like the envoy or 
 minister of any foreign government, he observes the laws of the state 
 in which his master may have placed him, and respects, for the time, 
 the authority of the local magistrate ; but his order is his country, the 
 Pontiff is his natural sovereign, and their welfare and their honour 
 are the appropriate objects of his public cares. 
 
 So far, then, as the prelates of the Roman Church in Ireland can be 
 justly styled " aliens in their native land," their estrangement arises 
 from the spirit of the order, both as it cherishes claims inconsistent 
 with the laws, and as it merges the charities of patriotism in a diffusive
 
 IN IRELAND. 171 
 
 policy, flhich embraces so many millions of strangers, perhaps of note a. 
 enemies. But as proofs are not so striking as illustrations, it may 
 be useful to annex an example of its evil influence in each of these 
 respects. 
 
 Had Dr. Troy been writing his name and title in the Irish language, 
 he would have styled himself Successor of Laurence O' Toole ; * and, 
 in the same manner, his brother prelates Avould denominate themselves 
 after the founders or most eminent bishops of their respective sees. 
 These titles, if they do not inspire feelings of elevated piety, are 
 calculated, at least, to suggest lofty aspirations after secular honours, 
 and to prolong the contest for power. Combined with the form of an 
 Estahlished Church, which is punctiliously maintained, they keep the 
 thoughts fixed on the apostasy and breach of faith of the English 
 Government, and on the splendour, the political importance, and the 
 projects of the early bishops : thus animosity is perpetuated, dignity 
 given to intrigue, and ambition invested with somewhat of the sacred- 
 ness of duty. Seqiii Jinemque tueri, was the armorial legend of the 
 exiled house of Stuart— a motto admirably expressive of pretensions 
 •which were to terminate only with the race : the Stuart Church is The Stuart 
 equally tenacious of its claims, and not so perishable as the family. Church. 
 
 The potentate distinguished from ordinary kings by the sounding 
 title of " successor of Charlemagne," was no other than Buonaparte, 
 He was crowned the same year in which the pamphlet was written ; 
 and, as the coronation did not take place until the 2d of December, 
 Dr. Troy, or his vindicator, must have been among the first to recog- 
 nise the new Emperor. For several years before, the known Infidelity 
 of the French had been the great sedative of Popish f insurrection in 
 Ireland, and the ingenuity of the rebel leaders appears to have been 
 much exercised in endeavours to counteract its lethargic influence. Dr. 
 M'Nevin declared, in the confession which procured his pardon, that, 
 in the year 1797, information had been transmitted to the French 
 Directory, " that the priests had ceased to be alarmed at the calumnies 
 which had been published of French irreligion, and that they were 
 rendering great service by the zeal and discretion with which they 
 propagated the system of the United Irishmen." Whatever may be 
 doubtful, perhaps we might say, false, in this story, it proves, at least, 
 
 * The Irish word is Comorhan, pronounced Corhan : — its exact meaning, 
 which gave Archbishop Usher a great deal of trouble, is rendered in Latin 
 by Vicarius cum jure successionis. I have seen the arms of Dr. Carpenter, 
 Dr. Ti'oy's predecessor, with an Irish scroll imdemeath, in wliich that prelate 
 is styled " Comorhan of Lorcan O'Tuathal." The anns were precisely the 
 same as those of the Protestant archbishop. Dr. Troy surmounted his with 
 a cardinal's hat m the place of a mitre. 
 
 t The reader must never forget the distinction between Popish and 
 Eoman CathoHc.
 
 172 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Arr. TO 
 
 CUAP. I. 
 
 A.D. 1801. 
 
 The Pope 
 absolves 
 tlic French 
 from their 
 allegiance. 
 
 The 
 Romish 
 bishops in 
 Ireland 
 approve. 
 
 the strength of the harrier wliich religious feelings interposed at that 
 time between the great mass of our common people and French over- 
 tures of fraternization. But, by the events of 1804, things assumed a 
 very difl'erent aspect. France was once more a Catholic country ; the 
 arch-apostate himself had been " consecrated by the Vicar of Christ 
 with holy and solemn rites ; " * and now, in his high station, as 
 successor of Charlemagne and presumptive founder of a new dynasty, 
 was ready to incline to the blessing of Dr. Troy. At the same time, a 
 French armament was in preparation for the invasion of Ireland. — See 
 A Letter to Dr. Troy, on the Coronation of Iitio7iaparte hy Pius the 
 Seventh. Third Edition, Dublin, 1805. 
 
 As the Papal prelates, both in England and Ireland, took a con- 
 siderable interest in these transactions between Buonaparte and their 
 master, a few further particulars may, perhaps, not be unacceptable in 
 this jdace. Up to 1800, the Koman Government had opposed the 
 Revolution with all its energy ; and in the March of that year, when Pius 
 the Seventh was elected to the tiara, he announced his accession to Louis 
 the Eighteenth, as the legitimate sovereign of France. In 1801, how- 
 ever, that Pontifl' absolved the French from their allegiance to the Bour- 
 bons, and executed a concordat with Buonaparte ; in 1804, he raised the 
 First Consul to the Imperial dignity; in 1805, crowned him King of Italy; 
 and, to complete the settlement of the new order of things, he con- 
 firmed to the actual occupiers, " in opposition," says Mr. Butler, " to 
 the crying claims of the lawful owners," the property which had been 
 confiscated by the Revolutionary Governments. These proceedings of 
 the Vatican were opposed very warmly, and very naturally, by the 
 exiles : a remonstrance to the Pope was published by thirty-eight 
 archbishops and bishops, and a vigorous controversy maintained for 
 some years. The chief writers were, on the side of the emigrants, the 
 Abbe Blanchard, Avho received the thanks of the ejected bishops, both 
 in England and Germany ; and, on that of the Pope and Buonaparte, 
 the late Dr. Milncr, the Vicar Apostolic of the middle district in 
 England. After the interchange of some pamphlets between these 
 disputants, Dr. Gibson, the Vicar Apostolic of the London district, 
 where Blanchard then resided, came officially to the aid of his brother, 
 and issued a censure, accompanied by a sentence of suspension from 
 the sacraments, against the Frenchman. Blanchard, not yet subdued, 
 published a fresh defence, in which he appealed to the judgment of 
 the Irish hierarchy. A formal synod was accordingly held by that body, 
 in June, 1809. The prelates pronounced, " that Pope Pius the Seventh, 
 had validly, and fif/reeahly to the spirit of the sacred cano)is, exerted 
 the 2}owers helonginy to the AjMstolical See, — and that they accepted, 
 approved, and concurred with, the said acts of Pius the Seventh, 
 
 * Sacra solennique ritu consecratio peracta est, are the Pontiff's own 
 words in his bulletin, upon the occasion, to the College of Cardinals.
 
 IN IRELAND. 17t 
 
 as good, rightful, authentic, and necessary." They also declared, that note a. 
 the opinions of Blanchard, " inasmuch as they regarded the restoration 
 and settlement of the churches in France, wei'e false, calumnious, and 
 scandalous, manifestly tending to schism, most dangerous to the peace 
 and unity of the Church, exciting and inviting to sch'sm, usurping 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and subversive of Church authority T* 
 
 That this conduct of the titular prelacy, considering the matter 
 simply as a problem in ethics, was perfectly irreproachable, will be 
 readily granted by every ingenuous man who considers the nature of 
 their obligations. Their first duty was to the Church ; and there was 
 every reason to believe that the interests of the Church would be 
 materially promoted were its sanction extended to the new establish- 
 ments of France, civil and ecclesiastical.f It is probable, that they 
 would have felt themselves relieved from a very irksome burden had 
 they been able so to attemper the discharge of this duty as to separate 
 effectually the spiritual and the temporal question. But so intimate 
 had been the union between the Church and the State under the old 
 regime, and so connected the inroads of the Revolution upon both, 
 that the prelates were obliged, however reluctantly, to involve the two 
 interests in one common decision. The evil would have been more 
 tolerable had their interference been limited to a foreign country, but, 
 unfortunately, they could not fulfil their paramount obligations without 
 endangering the safety of their " native land," and of the prince who 
 considered them as his natural subjects. The United Kingdom was 
 then engaged in a desperate contest with France — a contest which, by 
 whatever name some eminent men may now choose to entitle it, was 
 generally pronounced by the loyal to be a war of "principle, the 
 principle of legitimacy. At least, it must have been the desire of the 
 British Government to avail itself of all the assistance which at that 
 critical season it could honourably derive from the prepossessions of 
 the French in favour of the Bourbons, or the attachment of Europe 
 generally to hereditary monarchy. This desire was thwarted by the 
 solemn judicial decision of the titular bishops. The vanity of legiti- 
 
 * Will it be pretended by any one who reads these two unanimous decrees 
 of the Irish hierarchy, that no more information is requisite than has been 
 given in " The Evidence," with respect to the sacred canons, the poioers of 
 the Apostolic See, and Church authority in general ? The facts stated, and 
 documents referred to, in the text, are given upon the concurrent authority 
 of two adverse writers, one a Jansenist, the other a Jesuit. See Dr. O'Conor, 
 " Columbanus," 6, and Mr. Plowden's " Historical Letter to Columbanus." 
 
 t The Pope has no concern with the principle of legitimacy, or with any 
 other merely temporal principle ; but it is his concern, anything to the 
 contrary in those principles notioithstanding, to provide that the Church 
 shall be exalted. (See the " Digest of Evidence," vol. ii., chap. 3.) The 
 same ride appUes to the bishops, or any body of them.
 
 174 POLICY 01' THE CHURCH 01' HOME 
 
 APP. TO macy, when opposed to the sacred interests of the Church, was 
 CHAP. I. displayed to all Roman Catholics at home and abroad ; everything 
 was done which the prelates could do (and more, doubtless, than they 
 M'ould have chosen had the sternness of duty allowed them a choice) 
 to cripple the moral resources of England, and to recruit and consoli- 
 date the strength of her greatest enemy. 
 
 To resume the subject Avith which this note commences. The 
 writer who had called forth the vindication of Dr. Troy underrated 
 the dangers of the Papal system, because he disparaged the spirit and 
 views of the prelacy. The associations which connect a bishop with 
 princes and apostles, and prompt him to look for the homage of kings, 
 elevate the tone, and give energy and expansion to the powers, of the 
 mind. Their influence is increased by a discipline, calculated, perhaps 
 above all others that ever were devised, to accomplish mighty changes 
 — a discipline which extracts aliment from hopes that are never to be 
 realized by the individual, which teaches him to lose himself in his 
 order, and which diverts even the current of his natural afi'ections 
 upon those who have adventured in the same enterprise. All 
 this is too refined for the apprehension of persons whose cares and 
 duties are limited to the concerns of the moment, who coalesce for- 
 tuitously, upon a particular question, without any of the better 
 sympathies of party, and who, though " born for the universe," as 
 some of them certainly were, " narrow their minds " to objects of 
 vulgar ambition. It is placed still further above their reach by that 
 low and economical character which infects the philosophy and litera- 
 ture, as well as the policy, of the times, and by the general spirit 
 of the age, which concentrates its attention upon palpable and present 
 objects, and excludes sentiment and imagination from its estimate 
 of human nature. Thus it has happened, that many of those who 
 have lately been engaged in negotiating with the titular hierarchy, 
 were insensible within themselves to those generous workings of mind 
 which sustain men in the prosecution of a great public cause : they 
 were accordingly unprepared to appreciate them in others, and much 
 more, to counteract them by suitable provisions. 
 
 Note B,, page 159. 
 
 Oath of I HAD intended to insert here those observations on the oath of 
 
 supremacy, supremacy, which Carte * has collected from the professional learning 
 
 of Sir John Davies, and from his own scarcely less erudite researches. 
 
 But their extreme length deterred me, or, at least, would have been 
 
 likely to deter my readers; and their denseness seemed to preclude 
 
 * In his " Life of Onnond," Introduction.
 
 IN IRELAND. 
 
 Father 
 
 Peter 
 
 Walsh. 
 
 Dr. 
 
 O' Conor. 
 
 abridgement. I have, therefore, resolved to substitute some shorter, 
 but more cogent testimonies, from three very eminent Roman Catholic 
 divines. 
 
 Father Peter Walsh, the celebrated Irish Franciscan, says, with less 
 prolixity, but not less strength, than is usual with him : " By the oath 
 of supremacy, no other authority or power is attributed to the King, 
 save only civil, or that of the sword ; nor is any spiritual or ecclesias- 
 tical power denied therein to the Pope, save only that which the 
 General Council of Ephesus, under Theodosius the Younger, in the 
 case of the Cyprian bishops ; and the next General Council of Chal- 
 cedon, under the good Emperor Marcian, in the case of Anatolius, 
 patriarch of Constantinople, and the two hundred and seventeen 
 bishops of Africa (whereof St. Augustin was one), both in their canons 
 and letters, in the case of Apiarius ; — all denied unto the Roman 
 bishops of their time." * 
 
 Dr. O'Conor writes thus : " The act of supremacy was really nothing 
 more, as to its intent, than the act of Prcemimire. Its object was to 
 restrain the exercise of illegal jurisdiction, and to confine within due 
 limits the arbitrary proceedings of men who, xmder pretence of religion, 
 claimed a power of exclusively deciding on all matters, whether mixed 
 or unmixed, relating to the Church — men who claimed exemptions 
 from the law courts, pretending that they could be judged only 
 by the Pope, who frequently made the sacraments subservient to their 
 passions, forbidding divine service, and interdicting the benefits of 
 Christianity, to all those who refused to comply with their arbitrary 
 injunctions and decrees." f 
 
 And Mr. Berrington : " The notions of all men were indistinct upon 
 the subject ; for, so universal and undefined had the power of Rome 
 been— call it ecclesiastical or spiritual, — so much had it absorbed 
 within its cognizance all the concerns of life, that the primitive rights 
 of a first bishop could with difficulty be traced, and the whole fabric of 
 his jurisdiction seemed rather to be the contrivance of human ambition, 
 on the one side, and weak concession on the other. How, then, 
 should a state proceed, now convinced that such a paramount jurisdic- 
 tion was incompatible with its sovereignty, except by at once breaking 
 down the whole mass, and committing any ambiguity of expression to 
 the interpretation of the law, should an interpi-etation be afterwards 
 deemed necessary.'' J 
 
 " Were it quite clear," says Mr. Butler, § "that the interpretation Mr. Butler, 
 contended for is the true interpretation of the oath, and quite clear 
 also, that the oath was and is thus universally interpreted by the 
 
 Mr. Ber- 
 rington. 
 
 * " History of Remonstrance," Introduction, xviii. 
 
 f " Historical Address," ii., 272. 
 
 X " Memoirs of Panzani," Introduction, 8. 
 
 § " History of Catholics," i., 183.
 
 17G 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 APP. TO nation, tlien there might be strong ground to contend that it was con- 
 CHAP. I. sistent with Catholic principles to take cither the oath of supremacy 
 which was prescribed by Elizabeth, or that which is used at present." 
 
 Now, it is remarkable, that as to the first and most important point, 
 namely, the true interpretation of the oath, Mr. Butler himself has 
 quoted some authorities in elucidation of it, which would probably 
 satisfy any moderate man but the too-cautious compiler. 
 
 The first, is the Admonition of the Queen herself, " forbidding her 
 loving subjects to give ear to perverse and malicious persons," who 
 explained the oath as claiming a spiritual power for the crown. She 
 then proceeds to say, according to Mr. Butler's quotation : " Her 
 Majesty neither doth, nor ever will, challenge any other authority 
 than what was challenged and lately used by the said noble kings of 
 famous memory, Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth, which 
 is, and was of ancient time, due to the imperial crown of the 
 realm ; that is, under God, to have the sovereignty and rule over 
 all manner of persons born within her realms and dominions, so 
 as no foreign Power shall or ought to have any superiority over 
 them." But the Queen says 7nore ; and Mr. Butler, having 
 undertaken, as he did, to sum iqi so important a case for the judgment 
 of the public, acted rather according to his habits than his professions, 
 Avhen he suppressed the next sentence. It is given by the more 
 ingenuous Berrington, as follows : — " And if any person that hath 
 conceived any other sense of the form of said oath, shall accept the 
 same oath, icith this interpretation, sense, or meanvirj. Her Majestif is 
 well 2ileased to accept ei-ery such, in that behalf, as her good and obedient 
 subjects, and shall acquit tliem of all manner of penalties contained in 
 the said Act." 
 
 Secondly, " in the next Parliament," says Mr. Butler, " this expla- 
 nation of the oath of supremacy received the sanction of the legisla- 
 ture." The words of the Act are given by Mr. Berrington. " Provided 
 also, that the oath expressed in the Act made in the first year of Her 
 Majesty the Queen, shall be taken and expounded in such form as is 
 set forth in the admonition annexed to the Queen's majesty 'sinjunctions." 
 
 Thirdly, Mr. Butler confesses, " that the thirty-seventh Article of 
 the Church of England is in unison with this exposition of the regal 
 supremacy." The words of the Article are : — " The King's majesty 
 hath the chief power in the realm of England, and other his dominions; 
 unto whom the chief government of all estates in this realm, whether 
 they be ecclesiastical or civil, in all cases doth appertain, and is not, 
 nor ought to be, subject to any foreign jui'isdiction. When we 
 attribute to the King's majesty the chief government (by which titles 
 we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended), we 
 give not to our princes the ministering, either of God's word, or of the 
 sacraments (the which thing the injunctions, also, lately set forth by
 
 IN IRELAND. 177 
 
 Elizabeth, our Queen, do most plainly testify), but ^/(«^ on ^/^;re)-o//a- note b. 
 tive which we see to have been given always to all godly princes, in 
 holy scripture, by God himself; that is, that they should govern all 
 estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they 
 be ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain, with the civil sword, the 
 stubborn and evil-doers." 
 
 Fourthly, it is acknowledged by Mr. Butler, that the same descrip- 
 tion of the nature and extent of the spiritual supremacy of the Crown 
 was repeatedly given by King James. 
 
 Here we have the Sovereign, who imposed the oath, solemnly 
 explaining the sense in which alone she understood it, and declaring 
 that she would accept, as good subjects, all who should take it in the 
 sense so explained. We have the same declarations from lier successor, 
 and from the Parliament, that is, in fine, from all ivlio had authority 
 to explain the sense intended : and, corresponding to these, we have 
 the declaration of the Church, the party taking the oath, that the 
 sense thus explained is the only one she acknowledges. Now, if oaths 
 are not to be interpreted in doubtful cases, either by the party which 
 imposes, or by that which accepts them, or by both together, there is 
 no criterion of their sense ; there is no standard for the interpi-etation 
 of them, more accurate or more honest, than the casuists of the Papal 
 schools. 
 
 Yet Mr. Butler is not satisfied. The causes of his scepticism are, as 
 he says, one loose expression of Mr. Hume, in his History of England, 
 and certain arguments of Mr. Neale, in his History of the Puritans. 
 Weighty authorities, certainly, against the solemn decisions of the 
 Crown, the legislature, and the Church. As to the other point, the 
 sense generally given to it by the nation, Mr. Butler is pleased to 
 " consider it quite undeniable," that the objectionable sense is that 
 " at this time understood, both by the general body of Catholics and 
 the general body of Protestants." That those who persist in rejecting 
 the oath, should devise some pretext for justifying their refusal, is, of 
 course, to be expected : if Mr. Butler had therefore said, that the 
 interpretation above given was not received generally, either by Roman 
 Catholics, or by Protestant Dissenters, he might have asserted what 
 was true, or, at least, what was probable. As to the members of the 
 Church of England, the Bishop of Chester * has sufficiently corrected 
 Mr. Butler's assumption, that the Articles do not continue to speak 
 their sentiments. 
 
 There have been, however, many eminent Roman Catholics, from 
 time to time, who accepted the authorized interpretation of the oath. 
 We are informed by the candid Berrington that, in the reign of 
 Charles the Second, some took the oath, and others wrote treatises to 
 prove its lawfulness. Those writers undertook to show " that the oath 
 
 * Now Bishop of London, i.e., 1827. — Ed. 
 
 N
 
 178 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 APP. TO 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 Romish 
 laity need 
 legislative 
 protection. 
 
 neither did, nor could mean, to attribute any power purely spiritual to 
 the Prince, or to take it away from the Pope ; but only meant external 
 and coercive jurisdiction in external courts, in the same sense as we call 
 Doctors' Commons the spiritual court, all which spiritual power, it is 
 manifest, the King of Spain claims and exercises in Sicily." The 
 names of Winter, Hutchinson, Cressy, Fisher, and Serjeant, all 
 English Roman Catholics, are mentioned among the advocates of this 
 interpretation. A priest, named Andrew Bromwich, took the oath, 
 and explained it thus : — " I am satisfied in my conscience that, under 
 God, belongs to his sacred Majesty Charles the Second, the supreme 
 coactive jurisdiction, sovereignty, and rule over the persons of all his 
 subjects, within any of his dominions, of what state or condition 
 soever they be. I have professed that neither the Pope, nor any foreign 
 person, hath right to exercise any external power or coercion, by civil 
 or corporal punishment, without his Majesty's authority, upon his 
 subjects, Avithin his dominions. I do not mean that the King can 
 exercise any power of the keys, or any act of jurisdiction purely 
 spiritual or internal ; as to preach, minister the sacraments, consecrate 
 to holy orders, absolve, define, or excommunicate ; because all these 
 things, being merely and purely spiritual, belong only to those whom 
 the Holy Ghost hath placed to rule the Church of God." 
 
 It is not, then, without reason that Mr. Berrington proceeds to ask 
 his English lay brethren, " Why should we importune Government for 
 a further redi-ess of grievances, or complain that we are aggrieved, if 
 the remedy be in our own hands ? One bold man, by taking the oath, 
 may dissipate the whole charm of prejudice, and restore us to the 
 most valuable privileges of British citizens." It would appear that 
 such bold men would not be wanting among the Roman Catholic laity, 
 either in England or in Ireland, if the State would but avail itself of 
 their rising spirit, and reduce the Jurisdiction of the priesthood within 
 those modest limits which are sufficient for all other classes of Christian 
 ministers. At the late election for Preston, many of the Roman 
 Catholic inhabitants took the oath, to qualify themselves for the exercise 
 of the elective franchise ; and shortly after there appeared in the 
 Dublin Freeman's Journal, a Roman Catholic paper, an able article, 
 maintaining that the oath might be taken by every member of that 
 communion. There is, indeed, good reason to believe that the oath 
 would be taken by a majority of the laity, were the legislature to 
 extend to them that protection to which they are entitled, against the 
 tyranny of their priesthood. As the case stands at present, they 
 cannot have the consolations of their religion, unless they yield to the 
 great and growing usurpations of its ministers, upon their temporal 
 rights and comforts. The law, or, at least, the local executive, allows 
 these usurpations : thus the industrious and unobtrusive citizens in 
 middle life, those who have not enough of wealth, or of factitious 
 consequence, to secure them from the terrors of excommunication;
 
 IN IRELAND. 
 
 179 
 
 those, in fine, whom a generous Government ought to protect with the note b. 
 greatest vigilance, are left at the mercy of an order which has 
 renounced all natural charities. They may, indeed, declare themselves 
 Protestants; but this is an alternative which may be rejected from 
 various motives; from conscience, from a spurious yet not dishonourable 
 pride, from a natural wish to decline the unenvied honours of martyr- 
 dom; and to which, at all events, no Government has a right to 
 compel any of its subjects. 
 
 This oath would have been a proper test to separate Papists from 
 Eoman Catholics, had not the duplicity of Rome, constantly growing 
 with its necessities, devised an exj^edient for evading its force. While 
 the mass of its followers was prohibited, under the severest denuncia- 
 tions, from giving this, or any other pledge of loyalty, the general 
 rule was dispensed with, from time to time, in favour of those persons 
 whom the Papal government was employing upon some special mission, 
 and of whose skill and fidelity it was well assured. To countenance Faith v. 
 this perfidious policy, equivocation was wrought up into a system in opmions- 
 the Papal schools; distinctions were made between the popular 
 and the scholastic meaning of words ; it was taught that, although 
 articles of faith were never to be denied, a greater latitude was allow- 
 able with respect to ojnnions ; and that, when the good of the Church 
 required, a man might lawfully speak and act, ujjon the opinion of 
 any eminent authority, although it differed from his oAvn. 
 
 Thus trained to dissimulation, the Papal emissaries began to make 
 smooth professions of loyalty, and to work their M'ay into Parliament, 
 and the closet of the prince. A criterion between Papists and Roman 
 Catholics had now become, if not impossible, at least full of diflicul- 
 ties, which a Protestant Government, harassed by a century and a 
 half of intrigue, may well be excused if it judged insurmountable. 
 On the one hand, it was necessary to select a test from Avhich Rome 
 could not absolve ; on the other, the system of licensed perjury System of 
 extended, or appeared to extend, to all tests, except those which the licensed 
 Church had ratified under the sanction of an anathema : one of these P^'*J^"7- 
 was accordingly adopted. Such is the account given by Father Walsh,* 
 a contemporary writer: — "If any shall object," he says, "those penal 
 statutes, which may be thought by some to bend all their force against 
 some doctrines and practices of our religion, as for example, against 
 the doctrine of transubstantiation, which this present Parliament at 
 Westminster maybe thought to make their principal mark, the answer 
 is clear and consequential. The law-makers persuaded themselves, 
 first, that the Roman Catholics in general had always declined to 
 disown by any sufficient public instrument, the Pope's pretences to 
 supreme dominion ; secondly, that their missionaries labour to infuse 
 into as many of them as they think Jit all then- own principles of 
 
 * " Historv of Irish Remonstrance," Introduction, xvi. 
 N 2
 
 180 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME IN IRELAND. 
 
 Arp. TO equivocation and mental reservation, and of forsivearwg amj doctrine, 
 CHAi'. I. except only those articles which, by the indispensable condition of their 
 communion, they may not dissemble upon oath ; thirdly, that the tenet 
 of transubstantiation is one of those articles. Therefore, to discover 
 by this (however otherwise, in itself, a very harmless criterion) the 
 mischief which they conceived to go along with it, they made it the 
 test ; which they would not have done, if the Romanists had, by any 
 sufficient test, distinyuished among themselves,"
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 The short reign of Edward presents nothing worthy of King Ed- 
 particular notice. ^^^'^ills 
 That of Mary is equally void of interest, with the q„ 
 
 iSueen 
 
 exception of the negotiation between her and the Pope. ^I^'7' 
 
 T T ^ 1 \ • .1 • • 11 A.D. 1553. 
 
 Immediately upon her accession, this princess had 
 announced her design of restoring the ancient worship, 
 but a year and a half were consumed in arranging the 
 ceremonial of reconciliation. At length, however, the 
 humiliating preliminaries seemed to draw to a close, and 
 the Pontiff declared his willingness to receive an English 
 embassy, as soon as one great difficulty, which still 
 remained, was adjusted to his satisfaction. Mary had 
 retained the Royal style assumed by her father and 
 brother for their Irish dominions : perhaps this was done 
 accidentally, perhaps in the hope of surprising the Vatican 
 into some unguarded admission of her temporal independ- 
 ence ; but neither cunning nor inadvertency could escape 
 the keen eye of the holy father. Before her ambassador 
 could be presented, she was obliged to despatch a private 
 memorial, in which she apologized for her indiscretion, 
 and prayed to be confirmed in the title of her predecessors : 
 after a suitable delay her prayer was granted ; and a bull, 
 under the ring of the mystical fisherman, raised his obe- 
 dient daughter to the dignity of Queen of Ireland. Thus 
 the civil governor became once more a feudatory of the 
 holy see ; " and a difficulty," says an eminent Roman
 
 182 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. n. Catholic writer,* " which might otherwise have arisen, 
 A.D. 1553. .^as dextei'ously, but dishonourably, eluded." This ex- 
 cellent man has left his readers to conjecture at which 
 side the loss of honour lay. 
 
 In the Act which was passed upon this occasion by the 
 Parliament of the Pale, we discover an attempt, more 
 instrvictive than effectual, to save the honour of both 
 sovereigns. This important statute opens with an account 
 of Cardinal Pole's mission to Mary and her consort, " as 
 unto persons undefiled by the common infection of heresy, 
 that he might call the people home again to the right 
 way." It acknowledges the condescension with which 
 " the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons, had 
 been excused fi'om repairing to the presence of the said 
 most reverend father, there to make their humble submis- 
 sion." After this it recites the cardinal's bull of absolu- 
 tion, which, it states, " was right reverently delivered by 
 the lord deputy to the lord chancellor, who read it upon 
 his knees, while the lords spiritual and temporal, and the 
 commons, right reverently and humbly kneeling for decla- 
 ration of their repentance, did embrace the same." In the 
 instrument, received in this lowly attitude, and submissively 
 incorporated into the law of the land, the cardinal declares 
 '* that the Parliaments of Henry and Edward had, for 
 themselves and the whole nation, damnably incurred those 
 penalties, as well temporal as ecclesiastical, which the 
 Church has decreed against heresy and schism." " But," 
 he proceeds, " as representing the vicar of Him whose 
 property it is to have mercy and to spare, we absolve the 
 island, and all its provinces, domains, cities, towns, lands, 
 and places whatsoever, from the aforesaid heresy and 
 schism, and from all censures and penalties, whether 
 temporal or ecclesiastical, which they may have incurred 
 in consequence. We absolve in the forum of conscience, 
 we absolve in the forum of external law ; we remove 
 every disability, and every spot or stain of infamy, how- 
 * Mr. Butler. " Ilislorical Memoirs," i. 137.
 
 IN IRELAND. 183 
 
 soever contracted by the transgressions aforesaid ; we chap. ii. 
 restore all honours, dignities, fame, any goods, with all a.d. 1553. 
 'privileges and favours, whether granted by the Roman 
 Pontiffs, or by others, to be possessed and enjoyed, as the . 
 other faithful subjects of Christ do possess and enjoy the 
 same." This plenary absolution, as it is most justly 
 styled, by the very profusion with which it lavishes its 
 benefits, exposes the native poverty of the temporal power. 
 The supposed guilt, its penalties, and the act of grace by 
 which both are remitted, are national and federal, as well 
 as personal, things ; and the submission of the prostrate 
 Parliament is not only a retraction of speculative error, 
 but a return to the allegiance against which they had 
 rebelled. That allegiance is the tenure by which they, 
 and " the whole body of the realm by them represented," 
 hold honour and dignity, property and privilege ; by 
 which they enjoy exemption from infamy, and a title to 
 the benefits of civil society. What then, it may be asked, 
 do the monarch and the nation possess in their own right 9 
 The Act answers as follows : " We, your majesties' humble 
 and obedient subjects, the lords spiritual and temporal, 
 and commons, in this present Parliament assembled, 
 neither by the making or delivering of any of the suppli- 
 cations aforesaid, nor by any clause, article, or sentence 
 thereof, by any manner of interpretation, construction, 
 implication, or otherwise, intended to derogate, impair, or 
 diminish any of the prerogatives, liberties, franchises, 
 pre-eminences, or jurisdictions of your crown imperial of 
 the realms of England and Ireland." Such is the device 
 of this Roman Catholic Parliament for ]naintaining the 
 independence of the civil government. The prerogatives 
 of the monarch are acknowledged in the vague obscurity 
 of general language : tvhat seems the head, is allowed the 
 idle privilege of wearing the shadowy likeness of a 
 crown ; while certain specific powers, constituting a mass 
 of authority, such as no other despotism has ever aspired 
 to, are " right reverently " surrendered to a foreign prelate.
 
 184 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. n. If those declarations of undivided allegiance, which have 
 A.D. 1553. been recently made by Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, are 
 
 to be similarly understood, little has been gained for the 
 
 cause of public tranquillity.* 
 
 * Much has been said of the forbearance of the Irish hierarchy in 
 abstaining from persecution during this reign ; and, if it were even probable 
 that they had the power to injui-e, one would be inclined to reUeve himselt 
 from the clamour, by giving the order fidl credit for a single instance ot 
 moderation. But it is cei-tain that tlie Irish Protestants did not owe much 
 to the lenity either of the Queen or of the bishops. In the thii'd year of her 
 reign, the Lord Deputy St. Leger was removed from his office, because it 
 was suggested by his enemies at court that lie had formerly made some 
 verses in ridicide of transubstantiation. It was the first article of the 
 instructions to the new lord deputy and his council, " that they should, by 
 all good means possible, advance the honour of God and of the Cathohc 
 Church ; that they shovdd set forth the honour and dignity of the Pope's 
 Holiness, and the see apostohc of Eome ; and, from time to time, he ready 
 with their aid and secular force, at tlie request of all spiritual ministers and 
 ordinaries, to punish and repress all heretics and Lollards, and their 
 damnable sects, opinions and errors." The better to caiTy these instruc- 
 tions into effect, an Act was passed in the following year, reviving three 
 statutes for the punishment of heresy ; the preamble inins as follows : — 
 " For the eschuyng and avoiding of errours and heresies, which of late have 
 risen, growen, and mouehe increased within this realme ; for that the ordi- 
 naries have wanted authoritie to procede against those that were infected 
 therewith ; be it, therefore, ordayned and enacted, by the authoritie of this 
 present Parliament, that the statute made," &c. It appears, therefore, that 
 the Queen was too impartial a fanatic to make a distinction of places or 
 persons ; and that the prelates looked, with the same eagerness as their 
 brethren in England, for the aid of the secular arm : but the local executive 
 could not second these charitable intentions, without disregarding common 
 sense, and the ordinai-y maxims of Enghsh policy. The great contest in 
 Ireland was still between the races, not the Churches ; the usual animosities 
 raged between the Government and the natives ; so that O' Sullivan, over- 
 Catholic, as he is justly, but somewhat ominously, called by an existing 
 poetical historian, is obhged to give this character of Mary's reign : " that, 
 though she endeavoured to extend the Catholic reign, yet her governors and 
 covmsellors did not cease to injure and insidt the Irish." The Protestants 
 then in Ireland were English, many of them by birth, and nearly all by 
 descent : in allowing the bishops to bum them, the crown would deprive 
 itself of some of its best subjects ; would alarm and mortify the nobles, by 
 furnishing their old rivals with such tremendous powers j and would offend 
 the English generally, while it encouraged the Irish. Thus, the flames 
 that consumed the heretics might have kindled a civil war, in which the old
 
 IN IRELAND. 185 
 
 Elizabeth had conducted herself with much quiet cir- chap. ii. 
 
 cumspection during the reign of her sister ; and, although a.d. 1558. 
 
 decided in her views of relifdon, showed the same modera- Q"<^" 
 
 , • 11 r., . . , , Elizabeth, 
 
 tion upon her commg to the throne. She invited the 
 
 English bishops to assist at her coronation ; all except 
 one refused, and she suifered their insolence to pass un- 
 punished. In the same conciliating spirit, she caused her 
 accession to be notified at Rome, in the form usually 
 observed between friendly courts ; and in this instance 
 also her condescension was rudely repulsed. The Pope, Pope Paid 
 Paul the Fourth, reminded her ambassador,* " that the 
 British dominions were fiefs of the holy see ; " he said 
 that " it was a great boldness in her to assume the 
 government without his permission ; that she could not 
 succeed, being illegitimate ; that she deserved not to be 
 heard in anything, yet, as he was desirous to show a 
 fatherly affection, he would do whatsoever might be done, 
 with the honour of the apostolic see, if she renounced her 
 pretensions, and referred herself wholly to his free favour." 
 But the Queen, says Father Paul, understanding the 
 Pope's answer, and wondering at the man's hasty disposi- 
 tion, thought it not profitable, either for herself, or for 
 her kingdom, to treat any more with him.-j- His successor. Proposed 
 
 more subtle and less precipitate, endeavoured to repair ^''-P.^^ '^°^' 
 ^ ^ ■■■ cessions. 
 
 enemies of English connexion woidd have been aided by some who had 
 hitherto been its most zealous supporters. But it woidd seem that, as the 
 Queen's bigotry grew with the dechne of her health and imderstanding, even 
 this danger ceased to be regarded in any other hght than as enhancing the 
 merit of her orthodox zeal. A commission was actually signed for com- 
 mencing the persecution of the Protestants in Ireland, but it miscarried on 
 the way, and, before another could be issued, the Queen was summoned to 
 her great account. — Ware's Reign of Mary. 
 
 * I have adopted here, with very little change. Brent's translation of 
 Father Paul. 
 
 f " If," says a truly respectable Roman Catholic bishojJ, " in high and 
 indignant resentment, she then made her choice, and if that choice proved 
 subversive of a religion, the professors of which coidd suffer their fh'st pastor 
 to think or speak thus, I may be soiTy, but I cannot be surprised." — 
 Ben'ington, " Memoirs of Gregorio Panzaui," Introduction.
 
 186 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 A.D. 1558. 
 
 Eomisli 
 laity fre- 
 quent the 
 churches. 
 
 the mischief hy soothing overtures : he proposed a plan 
 of reconcihation, founded on mutual concessions ; the 
 Queen was invited to send an ambassador and some 
 bishops to the approaching Council of Trent ; the delicate 
 question of her legitimacy should be settled, he said, to 
 her satisfaction ; the reformed liturgy should be sanc- 
 tioned ; tlie cup allowed to the laity, and the priesthood 
 })ermitted to marry. All this, and more, the complying 
 PontiiF was willing to grant, if Elizabeth would return to 
 the unity of the Church : power and revenue were his 
 objects ; and, could these be attained, theological differ- 
 ences would have created little difficulty. But the Queen 
 understood him as well as his predecessor ; " she resolved," 
 says a Papal bishop * with vuiintentional felicity, " to 
 shake off the yoke of the Roman see, and proceeded to 
 arrange the establishment of a National Church. 
 
 For eleven years her measures were unmolested by the 
 Papal Government, and received without opposition by 
 the great body of the Roman Catholics. The laity every- 
 where frequented the churches ; multitudes of the priests 
 adopted the prescribed changes, and continued to officiate in 
 their former cures; j- and the majority of the prelates, lead- 
 ing or following the popular opinion, retained their sees, and 
 exercised their functions according to the reformed ritual. J 
 
 * MoniancB Ecdesice jugum excutere, is the apposite phrase of Dr. Biu'ke, 
 in his " Hibemia Dominicana." 
 
 t It appears, from the report of the Lord Deputy Sydney to the Queen 
 (in Leland, ii.), that, in the diocese of Meath, "the best-peopled and best- 
 governed country of the realm," upon 105 impropriate benefices, there were 
 only eighteen curates who could speak English, — all the rest were Irish 
 priests. The number of conforming priests in the other districts may, 
 perhaps, be inferred from this instance. Mr. Butler, following Dodd's 
 " Church History," says of the English priests, " that many of them con- 
 formed Jvr a lohile, in hopes the Queen wonld relent, and things come round 
 againP (Memoirs, ii., p. 280.) He may be right in complimentLng their 
 orthodoxy at the expense of their truth, yet it is a curious circumstance that 
 their hypocrisy, while it deceived a vigilant and justly-suspicious Protestant 
 Government, should be disclosed by the tardy candour of their own 
 historians. 
 
 X Cox, 311. Ware's " L-ish Bishops," 27, 58, 128.
 
 excommu- 
 nicated. 
 
 IN IRELAND. 187 
 
 At length [1568], the patience of Rome was exhausted, chap. ii. 
 and that spiritual sword * unsheathed against these a.d. 1568. 
 
 countries, w^hich, as it would appear, is never to he ^^^'^<^^ , 
 , . 1 1 1 -Til- 1 1 • Elizabeth 
 
 returned into the scabbard, iiilizabeth was excommuni- 
 cated, and her subjects absolved from their allegiance, 
 by four successive Popes : her life was assailed by nume- 
 rous conspiracies ; her kingdoms given up to the ven- 
 geance of Spain, at that time the greatest power of the 
 Continent, and to the more mischievous intrigues of the 
 new order of Jesuits.f Consecrated plumes and banners, 
 men, money, arms, and ammunition, were poured into 
 Ireland : special indulgences, and pledges of absolution to 
 the third generation, were granted to all who should rise 
 in rebellion ; and, to mark it more decisively as a religious 
 war, similar graces were conferred on the pious for pray- 
 ing, according to a form which is enjoined in Ireland to 
 this day, " for the extirpation of heresy, the union of 
 Catholic princes, and the exaltation of holy Church." 
 
 By this time, the nobles, both within and without the 
 pale, were generally discontented. The former, though 
 few in number, and of no great consideration for wealth 
 or connexions, had risen into importance, in proportion as 
 their compeers in the more distant parts seceded from the 
 Government, and adopted the aboriginal manners. Tliey 
 were thus left without competitors, as leaders of the 
 colonial Parliament, and assessors at the Council Board : 
 they generally held some of the offices of State; and, on 
 a few occasions, the vice-regal sword itself had been com- 
 mitted into the hands of one of their body. These 
 distinctions brought with them substantial benefits of 
 power and patronage, to which, after some time, the 
 
 * See tlie " Digest of Evidence," t. ii., chaps. 3 and 4. 
 
 t The Jesuits were brought into Ireland by Robert Wauchop, a Scotch- 
 man. Besides tliis eminent service, thi-ee tilings conspired to give celebrity 
 to Robert Wauchop : he was bluid from his bu-th ; he rode post better than 
 any man of his time ; and he was one of three contemporary Archbishops of 
 Armagh. The Pope nominated Wauchop; the dean and chapter, Dowdall j 
 and the crown, Goodacre.
 
 188 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. possessors began to look as a portion, and no trifling one, 
 A.D. 1568. of their inheritance : thus the Pale had become a sort of 
 corporation, and its principal fLimilies had acquired that 
 corrupt and illiberal spirit which too often belongs to a 
 small privileged community. They were, in fine, the lay 
 leaders of the ascendancy party, the genuine archetypes 
 of that repulsive character which has been drawn for the 
 Protestant Orangemen of later times ; selfish, arrogant, 
 rapacious men, holding the Crown in the trammels of a 
 venal and factious loyalty, while they breathed a malignant 
 rancour against the whole Irish name, and against those of 
 the English race who had made Ireland their country. It 
 was one of these, the Lord Gormanstown, who, when 
 O'Neil and other chieftains had aided the English of the 
 Pale to gain the great victory of Knocknow over the 
 degenerate'^ English of Connaught, in the first insolence 
 of success turned round to Kildare, on the field of battle, 
 and said, " We have slaughtered the enemy ; but, to 
 complete our triumph, we must cut the throats of the 
 Irish of our own party. "-j- Upon the general submission 
 of the aristocracy to Henry, the jealousy of these person- 
 ages became alarmed ; they saw something in that event 
 which threatened to lower the price of a good subject, and 
 to break down their snug enclosure of the Pale. The 
 soreness of their mortification may be conjectured from 
 the following letter : it was written in the subsequent 
 reign, when the Parliament of the colony was about to be 
 enlarged into a Parliament of the nation ; but, as the 
 language is that of cherished and habitual feeling, the 
 anachronism is of no importance: — 
 TheEng- " Most renowned and dread Soveraigne, 
 
 lish Pale. << TYie respective care of your Highness's honour, with 
 * The only epithet which the fastidiousness of this puny aristocracy 
 •would allow the English who conformed to the national manners. 
 
 t So the biographer of Captain Rock, quoting from Leland. He follows 
 up the anecdote with this very natm-al question : — " WTio can wonder that 
 the Rock fanuly were very active in those times ?" — the times immediately 
 antecedent to the Reformation.
 
 IN IRELAND. 189 
 
 the obligation that our bounden duty requireth from us, chap. ii. 
 doth not permit that we, your nobility of this part of a.d. 1568. 
 your realme of Ireland, commonly termed the English 
 Pale, should suppress and be silent in ought which, in the 
 least measure, might ymport the honour of your Majesty's 
 most royal person, the reputation of your happy govern- 
 ment, or the good and quiet of your estates and countreys. 
 And, therefore, we are humbly bold to address these our 
 submissive lynes to your Highness, and so much the rather, 
 that, till of late years, it hath been a duty especially 
 required the nobility of this kingdom, to advertise their 
 princes, your Majesty's most noble progenitors, of all 
 matters tending to their service, and to the utility of the 
 commonwealth. 
 
 " Your Majesty's pleasure for calling a Parliament in 
 this kingdom hath been lately divulged, but the matters 
 therein to he propounded not made knoivn unto us, and others 
 of the nobility ; ice beifig, notwithstanding, of the Grand 
 Councell of the realme, and 7nay ivell he co?iceived to he 
 the Councell meant in the statute made in King Henry the 
 Seventh's time, who should join with the Governour of 
 this kingdom in certifying thither what Acts should pass 
 here in Parliament ; especially, it heing hard to exclude 
 those that, in respect of their estates and residence, should, 
 next your Majesty, most likely understand ivhat were fittest 
 to he enacted and ordeined for the good of their prince 
 and country. 
 
 *•' Yet are we, for our own parts, well persuaded they 
 should be such as will comfort with the good and reliefe 
 of your Majesty's subjects, and give hopeful expectation 
 of restauration of this lately torn and rended estate, if 
 your Majesty have been rightly enformed. But the 
 extreme and public course held, hath generally bred so 
 grievous an apprehension as is not in our power to expresse, 
 arising from a fearful suspicion that the project of erecting 
 so many corporations, in places that can scantly passe the 
 rank of the poorest villages, doth tend to nought else, at
 
 190 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II, 
 A.D. 1568. 
 
 Malcon- 
 tents con- 
 verted to 
 patriots. 
 
 this time, but that, by the voice of a few, selected for 
 the purpose under the name of burgesses, extreme penal 
 laws should be ymposed on your subjects here. Your 
 Majesty's subjects in generall, do likewise very much 
 distaste, and here exclaime against, the deposing of so 
 many magistrates in the cities and boroughs of this king- 
 dom, for not swearing th' oath of supremacy in spiritual 
 and ecclesiastical causes, they protesting a firm profession 
 of loyalty, and an acknowledgment of all kingly jurisdic- 
 tion and authority in your Highnesse And so, 
 
 upon the knees of our loyal hearts, we do humbly pray 
 that your Highnesse will be graciously pleased not to give 
 way to courses, in the generall opinion of your subjects 
 here, so hard and exorbitant, as to erect towns and corpo- 
 rations of places consisting of some few poor and beggarly 
 cottages, but that your Highnesse will give direction that 
 there be no more erected, till time, or traffick and com- 
 merce, do make places, in the remote and unsettled countries 
 here, fit to be incorporated, and that your Majesty will 
 benignly content yourself with the service of understanding 
 men, to come, as knights of the shires, out of the chief 
 countries to the Parliament. 
 
 " Your Majesty's 
 " Most humble and dutiful subjects, 
 
 " gormanston. 
 
 " Chr. Slane. 
 
 " KiLLEEN. 
 
 " RoBT. Trimblestown. 
 
 " Pat. Dunsany. 
 
 " Mat. Lowth."* 
 Their monopoly being now at an end, they became 
 malcontents, and, in due course, patriots ; and, with 
 their accustomed arrogance, these lordlings of a district 
 which extended not quite* thirty miles to the north and 
 north-west of Dublin, affected to be considered as the 
 country imrty. Their opposition was constant, harassing, 
 * Leland, ii., 444 ; also, Hid., 297.
 
 IN IRELAND. 191 
 
 but unarmed ; the first unarmed opposition in our history : chap. ii. 
 their cooler temperament shunned the perils of the field, a.d. 1568. 
 and their legal subtlety eluded the scaffold: the chief 
 danger which threatened them was that of being trampled 
 in the rout of their Irish associates, whom they treacher- 
 ously goaded on to stand the shock of the English arms. 
 But, while they thus abused the reckless valour of one 
 faction, they were themselves ensnared by the deeper 
 artifices of another. Led to a coalition with the ex- 
 bishops, by similarity of circumstances, and by the sympa- 
 thies of discontent, they sunk gradually, from allies to 
 instruments ; and their descendants, to this day, continue, 
 for the most part, to endure the hereditary bondage, and 
 to swell the triumphal cavalcade, of an insolent hierarchy.* 
 The nobles of the remoter districts were equally dis- 
 satisfied, and were turbulent in proportion to their superior 
 power, and to the greater rudeness of their manners. 
 They had begun to discover that, in acknowledging a 
 King of Ireland, they were understood by the Government 
 as making concessions, which it was by no means their 
 intention to grant ; while, galled by the taunting triumph 
 of an adverse faction, they were quite willing that the 
 civil authorities should have jurisdiction over churchmen : 
 with this view, they had taken the oath of supremacy 
 under Henry ; and, at the beginning of the present reign, 
 they repeated it with the same alacrity if but for them- 
 selves, they were still enamoured of the barbarous power 
 
 * There is only one noble Roman Catholic family in Ix-eland which is not 
 descended from these lords. Tlie first Yalentine Brown in our anuals was an 
 English Protestant, employed by Queen Elizabeth as a Commissioner of 
 Forfeited Estates ; and, in the cutting up of the great Desmond property, a 
 portion feU to the lot of the carver. " This Brown," says Cox, " wrote a 
 notable tract for the reformation of Ireland, wherein there is nothing blame- 
 worthy, saving that he advises the extirpation of the Irish Papists ; and, 
 therefore, did not foresee that his oion heir would degenerate into an IrisJi 
 Papist, and ungratefidly oppose that English interest upon tvhich his estate 
 is founded." P. 302. 
 
 t Leland, ii., 381.
 
 192 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. and circumstance of feudalism. Those great lords, in 
 A.D. 1568. particular, who had accepted English titles, and agreed to 
 attend Parliament, affected not to perceive how such acts 
 of condescension implied a surrender of substantial au- 
 thority, or a consent to admit the interference of the 
 Crown in the internal regulationof their princely domains.* 
 But no simplicity or self-importance could blind them any 
 longer to the designs of Government ; and they saw, with 
 much vexation, that they were expected to lay aside their 
 old usages, to submit to equal laws, and to associate with 
 their former vassals on the footing of fellow-subjects. 
 
 Measures to this effect had been making silent progress 
 during the latter years of Henry ; and, somewhat more 
 openly, in the two succeeding reigns ; but the high spirit 
 of Elizabeth dictated an uncompromising and adventurous 
 policy. Resolved to monopolize the glory of the settlement of 
 a barbarous country, and, as yet, a stranger to those parsi- 
 monious suggestions which too much influenced her later 
 policy towards Ireland, the new Queen urged forward, 
 together, the two measures of ecclesiastical and civil 
 reform, and thus doubled and consolidated opposition. 
 TheCrown From time to time, Elizabeth sent instructions to her 
 nobles. Irish Government to proceed with vigour, in breaking the 
 power of the nobles ; deep and general discontent among 
 them was the natural consequence ; and from discontent it 
 was, in those days, an easy transition to insurrection. 
 Having determined to rebel, they wisely made religion 
 their ostensible grievance : the pretext was plausible ; it 
 would strengthen their confederacy, engage the simple 
 and superstitious in their cause, and help to conceal from 
 all the true sources of Irish calamity ; accordingly, they 
 became the champions of religion. Formerly, " when 
 they had once resolved to obey the King, they made no 
 scruple to renounce the Pope,"f knowing that, thereby, 
 they would lower the tone of a domineering priesthood : 
 
 * Leland, ii., 185. 
 t Sir Joliu Davies.
 
 IN IRELAND. 193 
 
 now, on tlie other hand, they had resolved to oppose the chap. n. 
 Crown, and, therefore, affected a zeal for the Papacy. a.d. 1568. 
 
 "The common opinion received," says Sir George Carew,* Ambiiion 
 *' and by the rebels published, to be the principal motive ^"'^j'^,'.''^ 
 of their late and former rebellions, since Her Majesty's religion, 
 reign, is supposed to be religion. But therein let no man 
 be deceived ; for ambition only is the true and undoubted 
 cause that moves the rebels, and others of this realm, to 
 take arms ; though the English race and the Irish have 
 different ends. The English, to recover again the supreme 
 government, in bearing Her Majesty's sword by one of 
 themselves, as, for many years and ages, they have done, 
 and generally striving to have the captainries of their 
 countries, like the Palatines, in their own hands, not 
 admitting of sheriffs, or other officers of justice, to over- 
 look them, or restrain their barbarous extortions. Thus 
 far only the ambition of the English reacheth ; for, to be 
 subjects to any other prince than Her Majesty or her 
 successors, no man can think them so sottish as to desire 
 it ; and to be in any other quality than the state of a 
 subject, they cannot be so foolish as to propound any 
 hope. But the Irish rebels aim at a higher mark ; still, 
 retaining in memory that their ancestors have been 
 monarchs and provincial kings of this land ; and, therefore, 
 to recover their former greatness, they kick at the Govern- 
 ment, and enter into rebellion, losing no times of advantage, 
 nor refusing the least foreign aid, that, by troubling the 
 State, may advance their desires, hoping, in time, by 
 strong hand, to regain the Crown of Ireland to themselves. 
 These several ambitious swellings in the hearts of the 
 English and Irish rebels are the true grounds of their 
 continual rebellions ; and to draw multitudes of the meaner 
 sort of this kingdom unto them, they mask their ambition 
 with religion, making the same their stalking-horse, to 
 allure the vulgar to crown their fortunes." 
 
 The object of the hierarchy was similar to that which The 
 * " Letter to Secretary Cecil," Desiderata Curiosa Hihernica, i., 6.
 
 VJl 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 A.D. 1568. 
 
 hierarchy 
 
 anti- 
 
 iiational. 
 
 Carew has here ascribed to the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. 
 Convinced, like their predecessors, that the dcpendance of 
 Ireland upon some foreign country would forward their 
 ambitious projects, because the absence of the sovereign 
 would naturally increase their own importance at home, 
 they had now acquired an attachment to England, from 
 the events of four hundred years, and from the associa- 
 tions of their order ; and they were not as yet led, 
 by repeated disappointments, and by the progress of 
 intrigue, to think seriously of a connexion with France or 
 Spain. They were, therefore, willing that the titular 
 sovereignty of the country should still be vested in 
 the English crown, provided that the substantial powers 
 of government were committed to their own order, to be 
 administered according to their canons or their caprice, 
 and without responsibility to any higher tribunal.* But, 
 though their purpose was the same, which had inspired 
 the cabals of Lawrence and his contemporaries, they saw 
 the necessity of devising some pretexts, more suited to 
 the fallen fortunes of their body. Hitherto, prosperity 
 had in a great measure saved them from dissimulation, 
 and their struggle had been openly for civil ascendancy ; 
 but they had recently learned, from the universal defec- 
 tion, both of the nobles and of the multitude, that in such 
 a contest the popular feeling would be in favour of the 
 State. " The Irish," says a virulent partizan of Rome,-|- 
 " had been strangely imposed upon in Henry the Eighth's 
 
 * See the extract from Dr. Routli's " Analecta Sacra," in chap. 3. 
 
 t Author of " Ireland's Case briefly stated," printed in the year 1720. 
 His concession of the fact, that the Irish did then believe the quarrel to be 
 about civil affairs, is strengthened by his endeavours to explain it away. 
 " They were confirmed," he says, " in this opinion, because the King himself, 
 and his EngUsh Parliament too, who had declared for hun against the Pope, 
 were at the same time all professed Roman Catholics ; for which reason the 
 Irish Parliament made no scruple to pass several extravagant Acts against 
 the Papal jurisdiction, tlie same in effect that had passed before in the 
 Parliament of England. Yet, having had time to consider of what they had 
 done, and finding that all the Catholics of JEurope exclaimed against their 
 proceedings, they no sooner met agam in Parliament, in the third of Philip
 
 IN IRELAND. 195 
 
 time, and made to believe, that the chief quarrel this chap. ii. 
 King had with the Pope was purely about civil affairs, or ^d- 1568. 
 matters of temporal government." To efface, or at least 
 to weaken, an impression so ruinous to their designs, the 
 hierarchy resolved to separate, for the present, the spiritual 
 and temporal claims of the Papal See ; and while they 
 upheld the former as the cardinal doctrine of Christianity, 
 to withdraw the other from vulgar notice, and reserve 
 it for those chosen followers who were qualified by zeal 
 and prudence to employ the secret to advantage. 
 
 The contest of which Ireland now became the theatre is The Sore- 
 one of painful but instructive interest. On the one side ^^^^^' 
 was the sovereign endeavouring to achieve the emancipa- 
 tion of a noble, but as yet unprepared people, from their 
 old vassalage of mind and body ; on the other, a coalition 
 of three despotic factions,* which had always opposed, 
 and still hated each other, but which found for the 
 present a common principle of union in their equal 
 antipathy to all good government, and a common instru- 
 ment in the honest credulity of the multitude. But the 
 prelates were the strongest party, and they resolved to 
 show their new associates, that the Church, although 
 it accepted support, could not tolerate competition. The 
 first rebellion was led by John O'Neil, a man of the most 
 besotted habits, but possessing address, subtlety, enter- 
 prize, and perseverance, to a degree scarcely ever found 
 in one of that character. This chieftain had already 
 bafiled the English governor both in arms and diplomacy ; 
 he had overreached the law officers of the Crown ; and, 
 paying a visit to London, he not only removed the 
 suspicions of the Queen, but insinuated himself very 
 effectually into her good opinion. Upon his return, he 
 prosecuted his intrigues with renewed vigour and astonish- 
 
 and Mary, than they repealed and abolished all the said statutes." The 
 Irish did not discover their error until they were enlightened by the emis- 
 saries from Italy, France, and Spaia. 
 
 * The bishops, the native chieftains, and the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. 
 
 o 2
 
 ICG 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 A.v. 1568. 
 
 Priesthood 
 require 
 submis- 
 sion. 
 
 O'Ncil ex- 
 communi- 
 cated. 
 
 ing success. By force or treaty lie made himself master 
 of nearly all Ulster ; the lords of Munster and Connaught 
 promised him their support ; the common people through- 
 out the island were charmed by his representations of the 
 ancient grandeur and independence of their country ; and 
 his agents were received at the Papal and Imperial Courts 
 as the ambassadors of a sovereign prince, negotiating for 
 assistance against the common enemy. But O'Neil failed 
 in one quality essential to the leader of a religious war — 
 submissiveness to the priesthood ; his negligence in this 
 particular had early drawn on him the displeasure of some 
 of the prelates, and by one act of indiscreet zeal he con- 
 summated their anger and his own destruction. In an 
 incursion into the English quarters, he seized the Cathe- 
 dral of Armagh ; and as it had been recently profaned by 
 the celebration of Divine service according to the Pro- 
 testant ritual, he resolved to show his detestation of 
 heresy by setting fire to the building. The titular 
 primate, Richard Creagh, who probably thought that 
 a less destructive element would have been a sufficient 
 purifier of an edifice which he wished to retain for his 
 own use, fiercely resented this awkward burst of ortho- 
 doxy, and resolved to maintain, at all hazards, the thorny 
 prerogatives of his order. This ecclesiastic was, according 
 to his biographer and ardent panegyrist, " an uncompro- 
 mising asserter of ecclesiastical liberty ; he had grieved at 
 the many injuries which, in their persons, property, and 
 privileges, his clergy received from O'Neil ; and now, the 
 insolence of the dynast had proceeded to such a length 
 that the father found it necessary to exert his pastoral 
 authority, and pronounce the sentence of excommunica- 
 tio?i.''* O'Neil's dream of conquest was now over; the 
 
 * Routh, as quoted post, p. 197. The extent of the unfortunate dynast's 
 offences may be estimated by this last and fatal one. It may be observed, 
 for the satisfaction of certain persons, that it was not loyalty which roused 
 this touchy prelate against the rebel general ; his intrigues with Rome and 
 Spain at length brought him to the Tower of London, where he died.
 
 IN IRELAND. 197 
 
 promised succours never arrived to his aid ; liis confederates chap. ii. 
 abandoued him; his own followers one by one dropt away a.d. 1568. 
 from his accursed banner ; those in whom he had reposed 
 his chief confidence went over to the English ; and he was 
 hunted about from place to place, deserted by all, except 
 his mistress and a troop of about fifty clansmen. In the 
 first agony of destitution, the unhappy chief debated 
 whether he should not steal into the English quarters, 
 and, with a halter about his neck, throw himself upon the 
 mercy of the lord deputy ; but he was dissuaded by his 
 secretary, and given up to the dirks of some Scottish 
 freebooters, who dispatched him in a brawling carousal, to 
 which he had been treacherously invited. Thus ended 
 John O'Neil and the first religious rebellion in Ireland.* 
 
 It was during the pause occasioned by this catastrophe, a.d. 1570. 
 that Pope Gregory the Thirteenth published his edict, ex- 
 j)laining the more warlike manifesto of his predecessor. The 
 bull of Pius had been mandatory : not only were the people 
 freed from their allegiance, but " all and every, nobles, 
 subjects, and others, were enjoined, that they be not so bold 
 as to obey the heretical Queen, or her proclamations, com- 
 mandments, or laws; and whosoever did otherwise, was 
 bound with the sentence of anathema." f But the new 
 Pope had the coolness to perceive, that so peremptory an 
 order would only endanger his authority. He declared, that 
 this language should be so understood, " as that the same 
 should always hind the Queen and the heretics, but that it 
 should by no means bind the Catholics, as matters then 
 stood or were ; only thereafter it should bind them when 
 the public execution of that hull may he had or madeJ"X 
 
 In the meantime, to accelerate the arrival of so desirable Jesuits 
 a period, the Jesuits from the continental seminaries were ^^^^ *^^^'** 
 dispersed everywhere through the country, rekindling the 
 
 * Routli's " Analecta Sacra," ii. 35 ; Ware, " Eeigu of Elizabeth ; " 
 Leland, ii., 237. 
 
 t Mr. Butler. " Historical Memoirs," i., 122. 
 + Ibid., 196.
 
 198 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. embers of disaffection, and practising on the generous 
 A.D. 1570. weaknesses of the people. As the arrogance of the 
 liierarchical priesthood now threatened to promote the 
 English interest, no less than its venality had done 
 before, all the arts of these subtle emissaries were neces- 
 sary to restore the hopes of the Vatican, and to manage 
 the nice machinery of rebellion. In the plots and insur- 
 rections which agitated the remainder of this long reign, 
 the Jesuits were the confidential agents of Rome ; and 
 one of them, the celebrated Saunders, was invested with 
 the dignity of apostolic legate — an office which rose above 
 all ordinary jurisdiction, and which enabled him to repress 
 the extravagance of the prelates. 
 
 A cautious and intelligent* living writer f has given 
 it as his opinion, that this explanatory bull of Gregory is 
 scarcely less objectionable than the ferocious edict which 
 it professes to mitigate. It would be foreign to the 
 purpose of these pages to compare their degrees of moral 
 delinquency, but if we measure them by the effects which 
 they were intended, and are still calculated, to produce, 
 the comment is as much more important than the text, as 
 treachery is more dangerous than open violence. If 
 Roman Catholics would weigh the lesson which this 
 comment inculcates, they would soon learn to respect the 
 prejudices of their Protestant neighbours, and, of course, 
 would be animated by a new desire to remove them. 
 They expect — ^justly expect — that all who undertake to 
 judge of their language or their conduct will make allow- 
 ance for their irritated feelings ; they ought, in their turn, 
 to examine the grounds of those suspicions which Pro- 
 testants find it is so difficult to banish, and which no 
 honourable mind can ivilUnyly entertain. 
 
 * Written a.b. 1827.— Ed. 
 
 t Mr. Butler, as above. This gentleman, in his "Vindication of the 
 Book of the Roman Cathohc Clim-ch," transcribes several passages from the 
 late Dr. Milncr, defending and exdogising the character of Gregoiy. See 
 pages 115—130.
 
 IN IRELAND. 19!> 
 
 In an ingenuous Roman Catholic, who enlarged his chap. ii. 
 views beyond the immediate objects of his party, this a.d. 1570. 
 bull of Gregory might awaken reflections such as the 
 following : — It is true, that a considerable time has 
 elapsed since any attempt was made to enforce the pre- 
 tensions of the Holy See to the dominion of Ireland ; 
 it is equally true, that they have never been formally 
 disavowed: Protestants are therefore left to conjecture 
 whether they are indebted for their present quiet to the 
 moderation or to the conscious weakness of the Papal 
 Government. To determine this question to the favour- 
 able side, they have the evidence of a prelate, — the same 
 prelate who a short time before had solemnly attested the 
 supposed miracles of Prince Hohenlohe, — that these pre- 
 tensions are obsolete^ — an ambiguous expression, which Want of 
 may signify indifferently the want of will, or merely the ^'^^^^^ '^°*' 
 want of power to revive them. But were the language of 
 this prelate as unequivocal as his character, it would 
 convey only the judgment of an individual ; it would not 
 bind other bishops, future or contemporary, still less 
 would it bind the head of the Church. Such is the 
 security which the Papacy offers for its pacific intentions 
 towards Irish Protestants ; some eminent public men have 
 undoubtedly appeared disposed to accept it, but were 
 they to act upon similar assurances in the concerns of 
 private life, none would commend their prudence, and 
 many might doubt their generosity. On the other side, 
 there are the annual curse of the Pontiff upon all the 
 usurpers of his royalties ; and the oath of the bishops — 
 the strongest pledge, perhaps, which despotism could 
 exact or servility give — that they will maintain these 
 royalties against all men ; and in perfect consistency with 
 this oath, their deliberate avowal that, " were a rebellion England's 
 raging from the Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear," not ^oy^e-g^^ . 
 one of them would interfere to assuage its horrors ; a7id portunity. 
 
 * The well-selected term by which Dr. Doyle designated them in his 
 evidence.
 
 200 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. the similar declaration of the lay leaders, that they will 
 A.D. 1570. not, indeed, attack England until her right hand is 
 occupied by a continental war, — hut then; — and, finally, 
 as if to combine all these into a system, the maxim of 
 Gregory, " that a sentence once passed will always bind 
 the heretics, whenever the Catholics may be able to carry 
 it into execution." This, if not a system, is at least 
 a very startling coincidence : should it induce a Protestant 
 to hesitate before he accepts a peaceable demeanour as 
 conclusive evidence of cordial good-will, his doubts may 
 be unfounded in the actual state of affairs, but they ought 
 not at once to be condemned as illiberal. 
 
 It would, indeed, be illiberal to extend these doubts to 
 the whole, or to the majority, of the upper and middle 
 classes of the laity in communion with the Church of 
 Rome. They are Roman Catholics, not Papists; they 
 would surely not be accomplices in any policy so detest- 
 able ; but were the policy now at work, they might be 
 made its instruments, and, if occasion should so require, 
 its victims. Such, from the twelfth to the eighteenth 
 century, was the fate of many generations of their ances- 
 tors; it is therefore their interest, no less than that of 
 Protestants, to pursue the meditations which the bull of 
 Gregory suggests. 
 
 We are informed by the authority above quoted, that, 
 in the instructions issued by Gregory to the seminary 
 priests in England, " he required their civil obedience to 
 the Queen, and their public acknowledgment of her 
 sovereignty." It suited the purpose of that sagacious 
 writer to separate the contemporary intrigues of the 
 Papacy in the two islands ; and, were his plan correct, 
 his present statement might be dismissed with this brief 
 observation, — that, although Elizabeth was the ostensible 
 object of the allegiance of these priests, Gregory was its 
 true and ultimate destination ; they were ordered by him 
 to acknowledge her as Queen, and they obeyed, not her, 
 but him ; her rights and the duties of her subjects were
 
 IN IRELAND. ^01 
 
 meted out and regulated by his sovereign will. But, as chap. ii. 
 the professions of the English priests, and the more active a.d. 1570. 
 demonstrations of their Irish brethren, were parts of the 
 same system, and diiferent manifestations of the same 
 spirit, the subject demands a more extended considera- 
 tion. 
 
 If we give the Pontiff credit for common sense — a very 
 moderate allowance to one who claims infallibility, — we 
 must suppose his instructions consistent with each other, 
 and, on that supposition, their obvious meaning will be, 
 that the Queen should be acknowledged until there was a 
 reasonable prospect of deposing her, and no longer. It 
 was prudently resolved by the Vatican, that the strength 
 of its partizans should not be consumed in a hopeless 
 effort ; and, in the meantime, the cause would gain in 
 popular favour, and the enemy would be lulled into 
 security by smooth assertions of inoffensiveness and warm 
 complaints of calumny. The correctness of this interpre- 
 tation is acknowledged by Mr. Butler, in one passage, 
 and is more palpably evident from some others, in which 
 he appears to suggest the contrary. He says, that *' the 
 Roman Catholics in general strongly condemned those 
 who advocated the justice of the bull of Pius the Fifth ; " 
 and in proof of this position, he gives the following para- 
 graph : — " Mr. Hart's answer particularly justifies this Sovereign 
 observation. It shows, that, notwithstanding the bull of the Pope. 
 Pius the Fifth, the condemned priests acknowledged 
 Elizabeth to be, in the acttial state of things, their lawful 
 Queen, though they refused going the length of declaring 
 upon oath that there was not a possible case in which 
 a sovereign might be lawfully deposed by the Pope. 
 * Her Majestie,' says John Hart, ' is lawful Queen, and 
 ought to be obeyed,' notwithstanding the bull supposed 
 to be published by Pius the Fifth. But whether she 
 ought to be obeyed and taken for lawful Queen, notwith- 
 standing any bull or sentence the Pope can give — ' this,' 
 he savs, ' he cannot answer.' Consonant with this answer
 
 202 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. of John Hart, are the dying dechirations of all the priests 
 
 A.D. 1570. that were executed. Though they refused to disclaim the 
 
 Pope's dispensing power in the extent expressed in the 
 
 six questions, they explicitly acknowledged Elizabeth to 
 
 be their true and lawful Queen."* 
 
 This acute writer had said already, more fully and 
 accuratel}^, in the preceding part of the paragraph, that 
 they acknowledged hei", m the actual state of things ; he 
 might, indeed, have used the very words of Gregory, " as 
 things then stood or were." Now, this was an acknow- 
 ledgment, not of the injustice, but of the impolicy, of 
 proceeding against her immediately. The Irish insurrec- 
 tion had been unexpectedly marred by the insolence of 
 the hierarchy ; the armada, upon which the Roman 
 government chiefly depended for the enforcement of the 
 bull of Pius, was not yet equipped ; and, in the mean 
 time, domestic treason would have been easily crushed in 
 England. The Queen was, therefore, reprieved, until the 
 instruments of death should be ready for her execution; 
 and, to give additional solemnity to tlie sacrifice, the 
 intended victim was decorated in the trappings of royalty. 
 Her ministry, not satisfied with these ominous honours, 
 demanded an unequivocal recognition of her title, from 
 the most suspected of the Papal emissaries. Those who 
 frankly denied the deposing power were acquitted ; and 
 Mr. Butler adds, " their pardon seems to show, that a 
 general and explicit disclaimer of that power by the 
 English Catholics would have both lessened, and abridged, 
 the term of their suflerings." Such a disclaimer was looked 
 for by the Government, anxiously and repeatedly, but in 
 vain. " Few of the priests," says another gentleman, 
 himself an English priest,t " answered as became English- 
 men and faithful citizens ; they seemed rather to consider 
 themselves as the subjects of a foreign master, whose 
 
 * " History of British Catliolics," i., 234. 
 
 t Berrington, " Memoirs of Gregoiio Panzani," Introduction, xxxlv.
 
 IN IRELAND. 
 
 203 
 
 sovereignty was paramount, and whose will was supreme." chap. ii. 
 They would give no assurance that they regarded Elizabeth ^•^- 1570. 
 in any other light than that of an usurper ; of one whom 
 God and his vicar had reserved for some signal judgment, 
 and who was allowed, for a while, to retain a lofty station, 
 that the anger of heaven, and the inexpiable guilt of 
 heresy, might be the more manifest in her fall. At first, 'r^j^'^^^^^* 
 they waited for the Spanish invasion. When the armada mada. 
 was ready for sea, a third bull was issued, restoring that 
 of Pius to its full force ; the formidable expedition failed, 
 and, by its failure, their principles were rescued from the 
 application of too strict a test. This great temptation 
 being removed, it was presumed by the humanity of 
 Government that sobriety would return, and teach them 
 a better course : a fresh experiment was accordingly made, 
 and the result proved that disappointment is no less un- 
 favourable than hope to the loyalty of a papal clergy. 
 
 The Queen issued a special, or, as it is termed, a 
 singular proclamation, addressed to the English priests. 
 She noticed in it that there were two parties among them ; 
 that, on the one side, stood the majority of the secular 
 clergy, and on the other, the remainder of the seculars, 
 with the whole body of the regular or seminary priest- 
 hood ; that the former of these parties was more reprehen- 
 sible than the latter, in its political conduct ; or, as we 
 might now express the difference, that one was Popish 
 and the other Roman Catholic. She then proceeded to 
 order that all should depart the realm, " except such as, 
 before a member of the Privy Council, or a Bishop, or 
 the President of Wales, should acknowledge allegiance 
 and duty to her ;" with these latter she declared that 
 "she would then take such further order as should be 
 thought most fit and convenient." Of the entire number Kumberof 
 then in England, which may be moderately fixed at seven priests. 
 hundred ecclesiastics of all classes, thirteen availed them- 
 selves of this proclamation. They presented to the Privy 
 Council a paper entitled, " A Protestation of Allegiance;"
 
 20i POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. it was well received by that body, approved by the Queen, 
 A.D. 1570. discussed generally among the members of their commu- 
 nion, clergy and laity, but not adopted or imitated by any. 
 While the question concerning it was still in agitation, the 
 University of Louvain was consulted upon its merits : an 
 opinion was returned, but so very circumspect, that, of 
 two eminent authorities who have undertaken to interpret 
 it, one calls it a gentle censure, and the other, an appro- 
 bation.* This protestation, with the opinion annexed to 
 each article, is inserted here in full. 
 Their pro- Protestation, Article 1. "We acknowledge and confess 
 allegiance '^^ Queen's majesty to have as full authority, power, and 
 sovereignty over us and all the subjects of the realm, as 
 any her Highness's predecessors ever had ; and further, we 
 protest that we are most willing and ready to obey her, in 
 all cases and respects, as far forth as ever Christian priest 
 within this realm, or in any other Christian country, were 
 l)()und by the law of God and Christian religion to obey 
 their temporal prince ; as to pay tribute, and all other 
 regal duties, unto her Highness, to obey her law^s and 
 magistrates in all civil causes, to pray to God for her 
 prosperous and peaceful reign in this life, and according 
 to his blessed will, and that she may hereafter attain 
 everlasting bliss in the life to come. And this our acknow- 
 ledgment we think to be so grounded upon the word of 
 God, that no authority, no cause or pretence, can or 
 ought, upon any occasion, to be a sufficient warrant more 
 unto us than to any Protestant, to disobey Her Majesty in 
 civil or temporal matters." 
 University Opinion. " This article contains true doctrine. For where 
 
 of Louvain ^.j^gy ^.^y ( ^^jg q^j. acknowledgment we think to be grounded 
 consulted. j j ' o o 
 
 upon the word of God, so that no authority, no cause or 
 
 pretence, can, or ought to be, a sufficient warrant to 
 
 disobey,' they are to be understood according to the pre- 
 
 * Father Eedmond Cai'ond, a learned Irish Franciscan, in the reign of 
 Charles the Second, found it convenient to call the opinion an approbation. 
 Mr. Butler is for a censure, a veri/ gentle censure.
 
 IN IRELAND. 205 
 
 ceding limitation, ' as far forth as ever Christian priests chap. ir. 
 were bound to obey their temporal prince.' For if, hij a a.d. 1570. 
 superior authority, and for legitimate causes, the secular 
 pi'ince should lose his sovereignty, and his subjects be 
 discharged from the duty of allegiance, they, no less than 
 other Christian priests, are free of all obedience to said 
 prince." 
 
 Protestation, Article 2 contains nothing particular, and 
 is not especially noticed by the doctors. 
 
 Protestation. Article 3. " If upon any excommunica- 
 tions denounced, or to be denounced, against Her Majesty, 
 upon any such conspiracies, invasions, or forcible attempts 
 to be made as before expressed, the Pope should also 
 excommunicate every one born within Her Majesty's 
 dominions that would not forsake the foresaid defence of 
 Her Majesty and her realms, and take part with such 
 conspirators or invaders ; in these and all other such like 
 cases, we do think ourselves and all the lay Catholics, born 
 within Her Majesty's dominions, bound in conscience not 
 to obey this or any such like censure, but will defend our 
 prince and country ; accounting it our duty so to do ; and, 
 notwithstanding any authority or excommunication whatso- 
 ever, either denounced or to be denounced, as is before 
 said, to yield unto Her Majesty all obedience in temporal 
 causes." 
 
 Opinion. " This article contains a difficulty where it 
 says, in case of excommunication, we think ourselves 
 bound in conscience not to obey such censure." 
 
 Protestation. Article 4. " In this our recognizing and 
 yielding Ccesars due unto her, we may also by her gracious 
 leave be permitted, for avoiding obloquies and calumnies, 
 to make known, by like public act, that, by yielding her 
 rights unto her, we depart from no bond of that Christian 
 duty which we owe unto our supreme spiritual pastor. 
 And, therefore, we acknowledge and confess the Bishop of 
 Rome to be the successor of St. Peter in that See, and to „,, 
 have as ample, and no more, authority or jurisdiction over spiritual
 
 206 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 A.D. 1570. 
 
 and tem- 
 poral 
 power. 
 
 Bcllar- 
 miue. 
 
 US, and other Christians, than had that Apostle, by the 
 commission and gift of Christ our Saviour ; and that we 
 will obey him, so far forth as we are bound by the laws of 
 God to do ; which we doubt not but will stand well with 
 the performance of our duty to our temporal prince, in 
 such sort as we have before professed. For as we are most 
 ready to spend our blood in the defence of Her Majesty 
 and our country, so we will rather lose our lives, than 
 infringe the lawful authority of Christ's Catholic Church." 
 
 Opinion. " This article contains a difficulty where it 
 says, * We doubt not but that this obedience to the Bishop 
 of Rome will stand well wdth our duty to our temporal 
 prince,' but contains sound doctrine in saying, * we will 
 obey his Holiness, so far forth as we are bound by the laws 
 of God to do ;' for these latter words of the protesta- 
 tion appear to have been studiously balanced, lest, in 
 gi\dng to Cassar that which is Caesar's, that which is God's 
 should be denied to God, or prejudice done to the power 
 of the Church." 
 
 These observations premised, the faculty proceeds to a 
 more minute examination of the case. 
 
 " In these two propositions (the 3d and 4th articles) lies 
 the whole difficulty of the protestation, both as to fact 
 and as to opinion. They appear to suppose that the Pope 
 has not, at least, an indirect power in temporals ; and that 
 a prince cannot be deposed, or his subjects absolved of 
 their oaths, by any power of the Church. Now this is, 
 doubtless, a false doctrine, yet not contrary to the faith. 
 
 " That it is not contrary to the faith, is manifest from 
 Cardinal Bellarmine, who only calls the doctrine of the 
 deposing power, ' an opinion common to all divines ;' and 
 from Cardinal Perron, who says that ' it is not proposed 
 by the Pontiff as of Divine faith, seeing he tolerates many 
 of the French, who maintain the contrary.' Likewise, 
 some of the principal fathers of the Society of Jesus, being 
 examined by the Parliament of Paris concerning the 
 deposing power of the Pope, protested not only that they
 
 IN IRELAND. 207 
 
 did not maintain it, but that they were ready to refute it chap. ir. 
 in writing. This having led to a closer examination, they -i-D-iS^O. 
 declared that their opinion was entirely contrary to that of 
 the father-general of their order, who had supported the 
 deposing power ; but they added, if they were at Rome, Do as 
 they would do as tJwse ivho are at Rome* What more, ^f"^®' ^ 
 
 •^ ' when at 
 
 then, was the amount of the declaration of those fathers, Eome. 
 than, that the question was a problematical disputation, 
 of which either side might be maintained according to 
 circumstances ? In which, although they departed too far 
 from the truth (for the doctrine is certain) ; yet it is clearer 
 than noon-day, both from the assertions and actions of 
 these fathers, and from the judgment of the Pontiff who 
 receives them among the faithful, that it is not to be 
 regarded as an article of faith. For our Saviour has 
 taught us that iohat is of faith, instead of being suppressed 
 or dissembled, should always he openly avowed, uihich, as 
 they have not done, with respect to this tenet, it is manifest 
 that they do not consider it to be of faith. And, surely, 
 neither reason nor equity will permit that a protestation 
 made in England, in the hope of appeasing a prince who 
 thirsted for Catholic blood, should be judged more severely 
 than that of both laity and clergy under the most Christian 
 King, who has never persecuted any for the profession of 
 the Catholic faith. 
 
 " Thus far of the abstract proposition, that kings cannot 
 be deposed, or their subjects freed from their oaths, by 
 the power of the Pope. But it is not so much the general 
 thesis, as the peculiar case of these priests, which is to be 
 considered. Their meaning, therefore, is not that the 
 decree of the Pontiff was to be treated with disrespect, 
 but that, by reason of the particular circumstances of time 
 and place, circumstances better known to themselves than 
 to the Pontiff, they did not believe themselves so far 
 bound by his sentence as to depart from their allegiance 
 
 * This application of the proverb is not so well known as it deserves : the 
 French Parliament knew, it seems, how to cross-examine Jesuits.
 
 208 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 ism< 
 
 CHAP. II. to their temporal prince. Thus, our censure of the 
 A.D. 1570. Jact is still milder than that of the doctrine.* For it may 
 Plowden * Amoug the signatui'03 to this Louvain decision, we find the celebrated 
 
 on J ansen- name of CorncUus ' Jansen ; and it appears from tliis distinction between 
 fact and doctrine, that he had already communicated his principles to the 
 University. We have here, therefore, a specimen of Jansenism, which 
 proves that its professors, however unhke the Jesuits in other respects, may 
 be no unworthy rivals of those fathers in subtlety, equivocation, and lurkhig 
 enmity to Protestants. Mr. Charles Plowden, who had been trained by the 
 Jesuits, and whose brother was an eminent member of the order, speaks thus 
 of British Jansenists, and especially of Mr. Butler and Dr. O'Conor, whom 
 he represents as the Icadhig authorities of the school : — " I was impelled to 
 the study of Jansenism by something like invincible grace ; from an almost 
 innate reprobation of its principles, execration of its spirit, and abhorrence 
 of its practices. Under these impressions, I am sensible of the aivful and 
 double duty I have to perform, both to Church and State. I submit to the 
 indispensable obligation under which God's ordinances place me to both, 
 and have resolved to put in print and circulate as widely as I can the 
 source, principles, spirit, doctrines, designs, practices, connexions, means, 
 power, influence, and conduct, of a description of persons wholly imknown 
 to the laws. For the infonnation of the civil magistrate, tvhom, without any 
 disrespect, I assume to he in great ignorance upon the subject, I state their 
 leading doctrines, their spirit and modes of proselytizing, their persevering 
 energies, their numbers, their influence, their trust-funds or stock-purse, 
 their emissaries, their disciples, theu' teachers, their use and abuse of tests 
 and formularies, their secret engagements and intrigues, their overt and 
 covert connexions^ their opposition to the estabUshed religion of the State, 
 whatever it be." And again, in an ardent apostrophe : " Irishmen, Eng- 
 lishmen, governors of the Church, and rulers of the State, ' Beware of false 
 prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are 
 ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather 
 grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? ' Jansenism, from the beginning to 
 this hour, has never boldly, manfully, and exphcitly avowed its tenets : it 
 has fed on deception, it has thriven by prevarication^^ What follows is 
 stiU stronger : " I lament that I cannot strengthen my feeble efforts to 
 extinguish the fire concealed under the treacherous embers, ere it burst forth 
 
 1 There were two eminent divines ■ of this name at Louvain. The 
 Cornelius Jansen, who signed the opinions in 1570, was born 1510, and 
 died 1576. 
 
 The Cornelius Jansen, from whom the Jansenists have their name, was not 
 bom tiU 1585 (fifteen years after the opinions were signed), and he died 
 1638 : consequently he could not have signed the opinions referred to, and 
 the earUer portion of the above note, seems therefore inapplicable. (" Bio- 
 graphic Universelle, Ancienne et Moderne," tome xxi., pp. 395, 396 ; and 
 " Biograpliieal Dictionary," vol. xviii., pp. 468, 469.) — Ed.
 
 IN IRELAND. 209 
 
 well happen that a case should occur, in which they might chap. ii. 
 suppose, and not without reason, that they ought not to a.d. 1570. 
 obey the sentence of the Pope, until they had fully 
 informed his Holiness of the posture of affairs. There 
 might be urgent reasons for suspending, for a season, their 
 obedience to the see apostolic ; — if, for instance, they 
 discovered that, by such a profession of civil duty, the 
 sovereign might be more easily appeased. For, in order Deposing 
 that princes may be deposed by the Church, it does not 
 suffice that there resides in the Pontiff the naked right of 
 deposal ; it is requisite that this right be exercised pru- 
 dently and with good effect. For, if the potver of the 
 temporal prince be such that he cannot he deposed, or, at 
 best, not without much bloodshed and commotion of war 
 — difficulties which probably these priests apprehended — 
 and if, on the other hand, there be a great hope of obtain- 
 ing peace for the Catholic religion, what other fruit would 
 violence have, than that the faith should be exposed to 
 still greater hazards ? Thus, authors note that neither 
 Constantius, nor Valens, nor Julian were deposed, notwith- 
 standing their ill deserts, and the numbers and zeal of the 
 Catholics in those days, lest a greater ruin to the Catholic 
 cause should result from the endeavour. Hence St. Thomas, 
 when he had said that ' Infidels, by reason of their 
 Infidelity, deserve to be deprived of their power over the 
 faithful,' adds, ' but this is sometimes done by the Church, 
 sometimes not done.' Because, on some occasions, it 
 would be not only useless, but mischievous, to do so ; for 
 
 into aflame that may reduce the hetter part of the empire to annihilation ; 
 I publish, to make Icnown the danger both to Church and State." — Letter to 
 Columbanus, Appendix, 29, 33, 37. On the other side, had not the 
 character of Jesuitism acquired a notoriety which rejects all further illustra- 
 tion, it would be easy to extract from Dr. O' Conor equally vehement 
 appeals to the State against Mr. Plowden, the College of Maynooth, and the 
 whole body of the titidar prelates in England and Ireland. Would it be 
 beneath the wisdom of ministers, whQe they made allowance for the mxitual 
 spite of these disputants, to pay some little attention to the substance of the 
 charges which they have brought against each other ? 
 
 P
 
 210 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 A.D. 1570. 
 
 Komish ex- 
 pediency. 
 
 Faith V. 
 opinion. 
 
 Louvain 
 casuistry. 
 
 Cases of 
 conscience, 
 
 the tares are not to be rooted up, hut tolerated, when there 
 is danger, lest, together with them, the tvheat also may be 
 destroyed.'' * 
 
 In this memorable decision, two positions are inci- 
 dentally laid down, as maxims which required no formal 
 proof, and which were generally understood in schools of 
 theology. One is, the suspensive principle of the Bull of 
 Gregory, that the sentence of the Church is always valid 
 against heretics ; but that the time and manner of its 
 execution will be regulated by views of expediency. The 
 other, the esoteric explanation of the difference between 
 faith and opinion ; what is of faith, of divine faith, must 
 never be denied or qualified ; what is merely of opinion, 
 however certain in the judgment of the party, admits of 
 compromise, of dispute, of positive denial, according to 
 the exigencies of a controversy, or the signs in the 
 political horizon. 
 
 At this distance of time, it is very difficult to assign the 
 reasons which withheld the English Romanists, clergy and 
 people, froin subscribing the protestation of the thirteen 
 
 * A few words may be necessary to explain the Roman Cathohc practice 
 of consulting divines upon cases of conscience. Everybody knows that, 
 under the second temple, the glosses of the Pharisaic scribes and doctors 
 superseded both the words of Moses and the natural suggestions of con- 
 science. Many are also aware that the few and intelhgible principles of our 
 civil and criminal jurisprudence have, by the technicalities of courts and 
 the ingenuity wyers,of la been refracted into myriads of new shapes and 
 directions. The school-divines were the scribes and lawyers of the middle 
 ages, and then* subtlety was exercised in distorting rules, multiplying prece- 
 dents, and extinguishing the lights of reason and Scripture, that the path o^ 
 duty might not be discovered without guidance. When a moral question 
 occm-red, out of the beaten track of every-day life, it was referred to a 
 divine ; it corresponded, even in name, to the case now submitted upon a 
 point of our statute law ; the cUent as unfeignedly thought it beyond the 
 proper sphere of his judgment, and acted with the same deference, whenever 
 he foimd it convenient, upon the opinion of his lawyer. Such, it is to be 
 apprehended, is the state of a large proportion of the Irish people, except so 
 far as the reflection of Protestantism has thrown a sort of moral twihght 
 around them : this, unconscious of it though they be, is their great 
 presei-vative ; it keeps them from being precipitated into the darkness of 
 Spain.
 
 IN IRELAND. 211 
 
 priests. Whether they abhorred the casuistry of Louvain ; chap. ii. 
 whether they held the deposing doctrine as an article of a.d. 1570. 
 faith, and therefore not to be denied ; whether they sur- 
 rendered the whole case, fact as well as opinion, to the 
 infallible care of the holy see ; whether they imagined Deposing 
 that subscription would be attended with none of those po^^*"' 
 advantages to which their learned counsel had alluded ; 
 or, finally, whether they hoped that, by the expected 
 death of the Queen, and the possible accession of a prince 
 of their own conamunion, their fortunes and their con- 
 sciences might be secured together : — any one or more of 
 these considerations may have influenced their conduct, 
 nor is it easy to decide which of all the solutions would 
 be most agreeable to their modern advocates. But, 
 amidst much that is doubtful, there is one strong and 
 undeniable fact, that, neither on this nor on any other 
 occasion during the long reign of Elizabeth, did they 
 make a declaration of attachment to the throne. 
 
 To us these occurrences are matters of interest or of 
 unconcern, according to the degree in which they may be 
 found connected or unconnected with the spirit and senti- 
 ments of modern Roman Catholics. For our information 
 in this particular, we have the recorded opinions of two 
 eminent Englishmen of that persuasion ; one of them only 
 a few years deceased, the other still among the living* 
 lights of his age and party. Those Roman Catholics who 
 wish for discreet and modern statements of their political 
 principles can have no reason to be displeased if Mr. 
 Berrington and Mr. Butler are made their representatives. 
 The former writes thus : — 
 
 " Had the priests continued the practice of their religion Mr. Ser- 
 in retirement, the rigour of the legislature would have ^"^o*'°'^' 
 soon relaxed ; no jealousy would have been excited, and 
 no penal statutes, we may now pronounce, would have 
 entailed misfortunes upon them and their successors. . . . 
 But it will not be denied that, from associating too inti- 
 * Written a.d. 1827.— Ed. 
 
 p 2
 
 212 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. mately witli the divines of the Roman Court, and adopting 
 A.D. 3570. the maxims of its schools, our foreign houses soon imbibed 
 an ultramontane spirit, which, as it flattered, and, by flat- 
 tering, secured, the favour of Rome, so did it offend, and, 
 by offending, draw down the vengeance of the British 
 Government. The doctrine of deposing princes, and dis- 
 posing of their crowns, with other concomitant maxims of 
 a like tendency, were the pabulum on which that ultra- 
 montane spirit fed ; and we may too easily discover, in 
 reading their works, that the divines of our English semi- 
 naries had, tvith a culpable ifiattention to circumstances, 
 espoused these dangerous tenets." * The tenets were 
 dangerous — to themselves, and their successors ; and 
 therefore these priests showed a culpable inattention, 
 not to truth, or to honour, or to loyalty, but to circum- 
 stances. 
 Mr.Butler. Mr. Butler concludes his account of the Louvain deci- 
 sion in these words : " The moderation of the censure 
 shows the progress of reason " -|- — not of that phlegmatic 
 and waylaying treachery which, as its strength declined, 
 the Papacy was now substituting for its former honest 
 attacks, but of reason. In a passage formerly quoted, he 
 asserts that the priests condemned the injustice of the Bull 
 of Pius, and he proves this assertion by showing that they 
 held its inexpedie7icy . Again, he says in another place : 
 " The only treasons for w^hich the priests suffered were 
 those which the statutes of Elizabeth had made treason- 
 able, denying her spiritual supremacy, not quitting, or 
 returning to England, or exercising sacerdotal functions." 
 There is little fallacy in this, provided we remember that 
 the spiritual supremacy which these priests ascribed to the 
 Pope included the deposing power. Still further: " Surely, 
 when he peruses the treatment of the Catholics, the reader 
 must feel some indignation. But will he not himself 
 
 * " iIemoir3 of Panzani, "^Introduction, 20, 26. 
 
 t The passages referred to in this paragraph will be found in pages 268, 
 244, 260, of Mr. Butler's first volume of " History of the Catholics."
 
 IN IRELAND. 213 
 
 excite someAvhat of the like indignation, if, after seeing chap. ii. 
 the loyalty of the Catholics so severely tried and thus a.d. 1570. 
 found so eminently pure, he returns to his former preju- 
 dices, and allows himself to entertain, even for a moment, 
 a suspicion of their perfect loyalty to their sovereign ? " 
 This language will be regarded by Mr. Butler's readers as 
 irony or as rant, according as they suppose that gentleman 
 to be more distinguished for the coolness of his intellect, 
 or the singleness of his heart ; and, where both qualities 
 are so well known, it might be an invidious task to decide 
 between them. 
 
 There is an inaccuracy in the language of the two Romish 
 writers now quoted, which, with persons of less probity or ^^^^^^ ^' 
 of inferior skill, might easily have degenerated, on the one 
 hand, into very palpable equivocation, or, on the other, 
 into the avowal of the most repulsive dogmas. Thet/ could 
 say unjust j when they only meant i7iconvenient ; they could 
 consider the diffusion of treacherous duplicity, as synony- 
 mous with the growth of reason ; they could pronounce 
 that the adherence to a principle of deadly hostility was 
 no more than a culpable inattention to circumstances ; they 
 could call it pure and perfect loyalty in Roman Catholics 
 to acknowledge a Protestant sovereign, in the actual state 
 of things ; they could dilute the maintenance of a right to 
 depose into a simple denial of spiritual supremacy : — all 
 these strange misapplications they could fall into, perhaps, 
 without injury to their moral perfections. But, if the 
 same confusion prevails among the violent and the vulgar, it 
 is certain that the time has not yet arrived when the Bulls 
 of Pius and Gregory may be safely pronounced obsolete. 
 It is now time to return to the age of Elizabeth and the 
 affairs of Ireland. 
 
 While the Fathers Parsons and Campian, with their Jesuit 
 associates, were making smooth protestations and working ^'^tl^^^'S' 
 secret treason in England, Saunders and Allen had been 
 dispatched into the weaker island, at the head of another 
 party of Jesuits, by the same Pope, from the same semi-
 
 214 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. naries, yet in open rebellion 
 A.D. 1570, 
 
 tion being 
 
 The materials for insurrec- 
 ready and ample, dissimulation was found to 
 be only an ineumbrance, and the cause of God and the 
 Holy See was committed to the swords of the noble 
 house of Desmond. The head of that family, the great 
 Earl, as he is called by the Irish annalists, had promised 
 the Government, upon his withdrawing from O'Neil's 
 confederacy, that " as he had no knowledge in learning, 
 and was ignorant what should be done for the furtherance 
 of religion in Munster, he would aid and maintain what- 
 ever might be appointed by commissioners nominated for 
 that purpose:"* but the old quarrel with the Butlers, 
 the sophistry of the Jesuits, and, above all, the novel and 
 galling restraints of law, soon awakened sentiments in the 
 turbulent nobleman, which he was resolved to mistake for 
 zeal and illumination. Released by the Queen from the 
 Tower of London, and from a recognizance of twenty 
 thousand pounds, which he acknowledged that he had 
 justly forfeited, f he re-appeared in Ireland as the avowed 
 partizan of the Holy See ; and his brother James, a man 
 of desperate character and fortunes, was declared the 
 commander of the Catholic army. Saunders and his 
 agents busily distributed the following proclamation — 
 a document which demonstrates the perfidy of Pope 
 Gregory, and the unsuspecting temper of his panegy- 
 rists : — 
 
 Proclama- 
 tion of 
 Gregory 
 XIII. 
 
 A.D. 1575. 
 
 " Gregory the Thirteenth, Pope, 
 
 " To all prelates, princes, counts, barons, and the 
 entire clergy, nobility, and people of the kingdom of 
 Ireland, health and apostolical benediction. 
 
 " Among the other provinces of the Christian world, 
 the Apostolic See has always embraced the Irish nation 
 with singular love and charity, for the constancy of its 
 fervent devotion and inviolable attachment to the Catholic 
 religion and Church of Rome. For this cause, we are 
 * Leland, ii., 239. t Cox, 236.
 
 IN IRELAND. 215 
 
 the more moved by the afflictions and calamities of the chap. ii. 
 kingdom of Ireland; and, as far as in us lies, study to a.d.1575. 
 preserve the people in liberty and ease of body, and 
 in safety of soul. Whereupon, as with great grief of 
 heart we have lately learned from that noble and excellent 
 man, James Geraldine, Lord of Kiericouthi, and Governor- 
 general of Desmond in the absence of the Earl of Desmond, 
 how many and great evils the worthy men of that country 
 suffer for the love of the orthodox faith and true religion, 
 through the persecution of Elizabetli, who, hateful alike Queen 
 to God and man, domineers proudly and impiously both ^atefid 
 in England and Ireland ; and as the said James, impelled alike to 
 by the zeal of God's house and the desire of restoring the man.^'^ 
 true religion, by his love of country and the innate great- 
 ness of his mind, labours, with the help of the Lord, to 
 shake off from your necks that intolerable yoke of slavery, 
 and hopes to find many assistants in so pious an endeavour ; 
 we, therefore, exhort all and singular of you, by the bowels 
 of the compassion of God, that discerning the seasonahle- 
 ness of this opfoy-tunity , you will, each according to his 
 power, aid the piety and valour of this noble general, 
 and fear not a woman, who, being long since bound by 
 the chain of an anathema, and growing more and more 
 vile every day, has departed from the Lord, and the Lord 
 from her, and many disasters will deservedly come upon 
 her. And that you may do this with the greater alacrity^ 
 we grant to all and singular of you, who, being contrite^ 
 and confessing, or having the purpose of confessing, shall 
 follow the said general, and join themselves to his army in 
 maintaining and defending the Catholic faith, or shall 
 forward his holy purpose by counsel, arms, provisions, or 
 any other means, a plenary indulgence and remission of 
 air their sins, according to the form which is accustomed 
 to be used for those who war against the Turks for the 
 recovery of the Holy Land, &:c.* 
 
 * Evidence of his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, " Lords' Eeport," 
 776.
 
 216 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. ir. " Given at St. Peter's, under the signet of the 
 
 A.D.1575. Fisherman, the 25th of February, 1575." 
 
 A.D. 1580. On the death of this James Geraldine, or Fitz-Maurice, 
 as he is called in the Irish annals, the Pope transferred 
 
 Sir John the conduct of the holy war to his cousin. Sir John 
 
 Desmond, ta j 
 
 Desmond. 
 
 The following is a copy of the hull issued on tlie 
 occasion : — " Gregory the Thirteenth, to all and singular 
 archbishops, &c. Whereas, by our letters of former 
 years we exhorted you, that, for the purpose of recover- 
 ing your liberty, and maintaining it against the heretics, 
 you would join with James Geraldine of happy memory, 
 who strove zealously to shake off from you the yoke of 
 the English, the deserters from the holy Roman Church ; 
 and whereas, that you might the more vigorously second 
 him in his efforts against your enemies and the enemies 
 of God, we granted unto all who, confessing and being 
 contrite, should join his arni}^, or in any way aid him with 
 counsel, arms, provisions, or in any manner soever, the 
 plenary remission of all their sins, and the same indul- 
 gences which are accustomed to be granted by the Roman 
 Pontiffs unto those who war against the Turks for the 
 recovery of the Holy Land ; and whereas, we have lately 
 learned with much affliction, that the aforesaid James has 
 fallen bravely fighting against the enemy,* and that our 
 beloved son, John, his cousin, a man of eminent piety and 
 valour, has been moved by God to undertake the same 
 
 Death of * -^^ ^^^ ^^ ^ scuffle with some of his own kinsmen about a couple of 
 
 Geraldine. plough-horses, which he had seized to mount two of his kerns. Cox has 
 preserved in tolerable keeping the usual laconic prelude to an Irish conflict. 
 " Cousin," says Fitz-Morris, " it is not a pair of garrons that will make a 
 breach between jou and me ; I hope you will do as I do." " I have had 
 too much of rebelhon already," answers Burke, " and am now on my oath 
 against it ; so I must have my horses back again." Fitz-Morris thought it 
 dishonom'ablc to part with what he had seized, and so to skinnish they go, 
 which was brisk enough, and ended in the slaughter of both of them." — 
 359.
 
 IN IRELAND. 217 
 
 cause, and has achieved many noble actions in defence of chap. ii. 
 the Catholic faith; we, therefore, do exhort, require, and a.d. 1580, 
 urge all and singular of you, in the Lord, that you do 
 unto the same John and his army as unto James afore- 
 said ; and trusting in the mercy of Almighty God, and 
 the authority of his holy apostles Peter and Paul, we 
 renew to you the indulgences contained in our letters 
 to the said James, provided you afford any of the aids 
 therein mentioned to the said John and his army, or after 
 his death (if, which God avert, he should he cut off), to his 
 brother James, and those who shall adhere to him, Sec, &c. 
 . " Given from St. Peter's at Rome, under the ring of 
 the Fisherman, the 13th day of May, 1580."* 
 
 When a minister of religion surrenders himself to an}^ Deadening 
 habitual vice, his professional familiarity with sacred ®°*^''* ''*. 
 things serves only to deaden the sensibility of conscience, ungodli- 
 and the natural emotions of awe and remorse subside into 
 the contemptuous composure of Infidelity. The attentive 
 reader of these two bulls will perceive in them a veteran 
 disregard of all that is holy or humane, to which, however 
 versed in the records of untonsured villany, he will find 
 it difficult to discover a parallel. This Gregory had a 
 natural son, whom, in defiance of his contract with the 
 Spanish monarch, f he was now labouring to make King 
 of Ireland. In England, where the superior comforts of 
 the people gave them a distaste for civil war, he enjoins 
 specious professions of loyalty, — that the sovereign might 
 appear a capricious tyrant, and the traitors dutiful and 
 long-suffering subjects: in the same breath he urges all 
 classes of the more inflammable Irish to seize or to make 
 opportunities of merciless insurrection. He entails the 
 curse of his cause upon all the members of a noble family, 
 he makes provision for the immolation of successive holo- 
 
 * This bull is given by MacG-eoghegan, " Histoire d'lrlande," torn. 2. 
 t Leland, ii. 267. — He had promised to confer all the British dominions 
 upon the King of Spain — provided that prince could conquer them.
 
 218 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. causts to his ambition, and unkennels, in the name of 
 A.D. 1580. God and with the stimuhiting promise of plenary indul- 
 gence, the passions of a brutal and infuriated rabble. 
 Jesuit At the battle of Monaster Neva (Irish annalists must 
 
 ^•ouch be permitted to call it a battle, since it engaged the whole 
 the ranks, disposable force of the Government), the Jesuit Allen 
 formally displayed the Papal standard, the keys of St. 
 Peter, and the sword of St. Paul. Before the action 
 began, he rode busily through the ranks, distributing his 
 benedictions and assurances of victory ; during the vicis- 
 situdes of a well-fought day he officiated strenuously in 
 the threefold capacity of priest, general, and soldier ; 
 and his body was found by the conquerors among a heap 
 of slain.* Saunders did not finish his less honourable 
 career until he had efiected the extinction of the 
 Sir John Desmonds. The Sir John mentioned in the second 
 iJesmoii 8 i^^jj j^^^ been at first suspected by this artful emissary 
 sacrifice." of a want of cordiality in the cause of the Church, and 
 upon his arrival in the rebel camp, was told that no confi- 
 dence could be placed in him until he had given some 
 unequivocal pledge that he never would be reconciled to 
 the heretical Govern ment.-j- The savage swallowed the 
 bait which a more wily fiend had thus thrown out, and 
 resolved to attest his fidelity by an exploit which it 
 should be impossible for either party to mistake or to 
 forget. Among the civil officers of the Government was 
 Henry Davers, a gentleman of Devon, who had long 
 resided in Ireland, and whose discreet and benevolent 
 carriage amidst scenes of atrocious warfare had conciliated 
 the regards of both races. The Desmond family had 
 frequently experienced his good offices ; Sir John, in 
 
 * Leland, ii. 274. — The Queen's army consisted of 900 foot and 150 
 horse. The parsimony of Government in fitting out expeditions Avas then, 
 as at many a later period, the cause of much unnecessary bloodshed. 
 
 t " Johanni rero se fidem non habituinom, priusquam facinus ahquod 
 dignum committat, quo hsereticorum iram atque indignationem provocet, 
 sibique ilium fidum fore iuteUigat." — 0' Sullivan, Hist. Cath., p. 95, quoted 
 by Leland, ii. 271.
 
 IN IRELAND. 219 
 
 particular, had been relieved in various necessities to chap. ir. 
 which his extravagance had reduced him, and repeatedly ^.d. 1580. 
 released from prison. The acknowledgments of the pro- 
 digal were warm and tender ; he commonly addressed his 
 benefactor as his father, and was greeted in turn with the 
 endearing appellation of son. The lord deputy, knowing 
 this intimacy of Davers and the Desmonds, had employed 
 him in a friendly but unsuccessful negotiation with them ; 
 and the Englishman, upon his return to Dublin, was to 
 take up his quarters the first night in the town of Tralee. 
 His adopted son, with a band of those followers who were 
 always ready to repay the coarse hospitality of a chieftain 
 with the unlimited service of their dirks, as well as their 
 battle-axes, secretly pursued him, surrounded the house 
 where he was lodged, and bribed the porter to leave the 
 gate unbarred. In the dead of night the assassins entered 
 the chamber of their victim. Davers feeling somewhat 
 assured when he saw Desmond, said quietly, " What, my 
 son, what is the meaning of this brawl ? " and received for 
 answer the sword of the miscreant in his body. The 
 other assassins dispersed themselves through the rooms, 
 and massacred indiscriminately ; none of the attendants of 
 Davers escaped, except one faithful lacquey, an Irishman, 
 who had thrown himself upon his master in the hope of 
 intercepting some of the murderous blows. Sir John was 
 now fully qualified to lead a Papal army ; he fiew to the 
 rebel camp, proclaiming the achievement which had for 
 ever sealed his attachment to orthodoxy, and was joyfully 
 received by Saunders, who complimented him upon the 
 siveet sacrifice which he had offered to heaven,^ The blind 
 caprice of fortune conferred upon this rufiian the honour 
 
 * Leland and Cox concur in giving us this atrocious expression, upon the 
 authority of Hooker, an Enghsliman, but Member for the borough of 
 Athenry, in Elizabeth's Irish Parhament. O'SiiHivan says generally, that 
 Desmond was praised for his exploit, quo facto laud af us, &c. It is consola- 
 tory to find, that, even among the professional adherents of Saunders, the 
 spirit of sect did not universally prevail over the natural feelings of huma- 
 nity : Davers received a decent burial from an Irish friar.
 
 220 
 
 POLICY OF TIIK CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 A.D. 1580. 
 
 Slaughter 
 
 and 
 
 famine. 
 
 of a soldier's death ; his less guilty brother, and intended 
 successor in the command of the rebels, perished by the 
 hand of the executioner. 
 
 Of the male line of Desmond there now survived none 
 but its head, the great Eai'l. This weak nobleman had 
 pursued a double and indecisive policy, which exposed him 
 to the suspicion and hatred of every party. Sometimes 
 fomenting the aimless* turbulence of the ruder chieftains, 
 frequently cringing to the Government, and occasionally 
 standing aloof from all, in the inflated consciousness of 
 his own power, he was invariably drawn back into the one 
 fatal path, by the influence of a few priests, who never 
 quitted, until they betrayed, their deluded benefactor. 
 His intrigues were numerous ; his exploits in the field few 
 and inconsiderable ; the greatest achievement of his arms 
 was the surprise of the town of Youghal ; and by this, 
 although accomplished chiefly through the treachery of 
 the Mayor, he was so intoxicated, that he summoned the 
 Lord Deputy " to join him in the glorious cause which he 
 and his brethren were maintaining, under the auspices of 
 the Pope and the King of Spain." f But he had none of 
 the qualities of a general ; and his dependents few of the 
 resources of an army : his enterprises were soon reduced 
 to nightly irruptions out of his woods and fastnesses against 
 some inconsiderable post or single detachment. These 
 assaults brought on a terrible retaliation, vindictive 
 slaughter, and the more appalling visitation of famine, 
 incessantly consumed his miserable vassals : all the opera- 
 tions of agriculture having been suspended, their cattle 
 were now their only support, and when these were carried 
 away, men whose lives had been spared would follow the 
 English foragers, begging for themselves, for their wives 
 
 * The great ostensible grievance was the overthrow of the Church ; the 
 next in popularity with those jolly malcontents was a tax upon wine, which 
 had been lately imposed by the Irish Parliament. Cox, p. 330. 
 
 t Leland, ii., 277. The titiilar bishops of Cashel and Emly were Des- 
 mond's agents at the Papal and Spanish courts. — Ware, "Annals of Eliza- 
 heth," p. 12.
 
 IN IRELAND. 221 
 
 and children, the mercy of a speedy destruction by the chap. ii. 
 sword.* By these means the quiet of desolation began to a-d- 1580. 
 be established in the ample domains of Desmond, and the 
 chieftain became a fugitive. 
 
 As he wandered, accompanied by only three clansmen 
 and a priest, he was espied and pursued by some of the 
 Lord Roche's retainers ; all escaped but the ecclesiastic, 
 who revealed the forlorn condition and the haunts of his Earl of 
 patron. Thenceforward, the unfortunate nobleman had destUute ^ 
 no rest. Disguised in the garb of a churl, he passed his condition, 
 solitary days in caverns or morasses ; and at night was 
 joined by a few devoted galloglasses, who shifted his 
 wretched quarters, according to their hopes of finding for 
 him sustenance and concealment. One day, when the 
 remnant of these faithful men had ventured to seize a few 
 cows, the owner raised thesoldiersof a neighbouring fort, who 
 pursued the depredators. Tracking the cattle into aglen, they 
 followed its windings, until, about midnight, they arrived at 
 a spot where the defile expanded into a valley, which 
 
 * Spenser's account of this famine is, perhaps, the most appalling de- Spenser's 
 scription to be found in any language of the horrors of an exterminating account ot 
 invasion : — "Notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful * 
 
 country, yet, ere one year and a half, they were brought to euch wretched- 
 ness as that any stony heart would rue the same. Out of every corner of 
 the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their 
 legs could not bear them : they looked like anatomies of death ; they spake 
 like ghosts crying out of then* graves ; they did eat the dead carrions, happy 
 where they could find them, yea, and one another soon after ; insomuch as 
 the very carcases they spared not to scrape out of their graves ; and if they 
 found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast 
 for the time, yet not able to continue there withal : so that, in short space, 
 there was none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country sud- 
 denly left void of man or beast." God in his mercy grant that this heart- 
 rending picture may not again be realized. Eveiy artifice has long been 
 used to familiarize our fieiy peasantry to the contemplation of the most 
 atrocious deeds ; insurrection is acted over weekly, almost daily, in the 
 imaginations of those multitudes who are swayed by the speeches of a few 
 cool incendiaries. On the other hand, there are some who resolve all the 
 evils of Ireland into its imperfect conquest ; and inflamed as the animosities 
 of all parties now are, there is little doubt that, if another rebellion arise, 
 this imperfection will be effectually remedied.
 
 222 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 A.D. 1580. 
 
 His death. 
 
 A.D. 1583. 
 
 His six 
 hundred 
 thousand 
 acres con- 
 fiscated. 
 
 His son's 
 reception 
 at Kilmal- 
 lock. 
 
 terminated in a wood. The officer had just ordered his 
 men to halt and rest themselves, when a light was per- 
 ceived among the trees: they advanced, discovered a 
 cabin, and an old man of dignified aspect stretched 
 languidly before the fire. The officer striking him rudely 
 with his sword, the unhappy prisoner cried, " Spare me, 
 I am the Earl of Desmond." His head was cut off",* and 
 sent to the Lord Deputy, who transmitted it to England 
 to be impaled on London bridge : and his princely terri- 
 tories, which amounted to six hundred thousand acres, 
 and had afforded ample estates to three hundred gentlemen 
 besides his own immediate kindred, were given up to the 
 just vengeance of the Crown, and the rapacity of the 
 undertakers.! 
 
 * If we are to believe O'SulHvan, the spot which reccired the blood of 
 the earl continued to exhibit the stains at the time of his writing, some forty 
 years after. We are assured by the graver testimony of Cox, that, in his 
 time, about a centuiy and a half after the transaction, the family of the 
 person to whom the cattle had belonged, were still in disgrace among the 
 people of "Kerry. 
 
 t Shortly after the death of the earl, his envoy, the titular Bishop of 
 Killaloe, arrived from Spain with a reinforcement of men, money, and arms. 
 — Carte, "Life of Ormond" Introduction, 57. Desmond left an only child, 
 a boy ; he was educated, by the Queen's orders, in a manner suited to his 
 birth, and after some years sent over to Munster, as a rival to the titular 
 earl who had been set up by O'Neil. The account of his reception is thus 
 given by Leland, from Sir G-eorge Carew in Ms Pacata Hibernia : — The earl 
 came to Kilmallock, of a Saturday in the evening ; and by the way, and at 
 the entrance into the town, there was a mighty concoui'se of people, insomuch 
 that all the streets, doors, and windows, yea, the very gutters, and tops of 
 houses, were filled with them ; and they welcomed him with all expressions 
 and signs of joy ; everyone throwing upon him wheat and salt, according to 
 the ancient ceremony used in that province. That night the earl was invited 
 to sup with Sir George Thornton ; and although he had a guard of soldiers, 
 who made a lane from his lodgings to Sir George's house, yet the confluence 
 of people was so great, that he could not, in half an hour, make liis passage 
 through the crowd. After supper, he had the same encounters in his return 
 to his lodgings. Tlie next day being Sunday, the earl went to church to 
 hear divine service ; and all the way his countrymen used loud and rude 
 dehortations to keep him from church, unto which he lent a deaf ear ; but, 
 .after service and sermon were ended, the earl, coming forth of the church, 
 was railed at, and spit upon, by those that, before his going to church,
 
 IN IRELAND. 
 
 The ruin of this noble house, with its long series of chap. ii. 
 disastrous accompaniments, was an impressive, but in- a.d. 1583. 
 effectual warning, to those who were yet spared. Some 
 Jesuit had discovered the sagacious argument, that a 
 woman, being inadmissible to holy orders, should not be 
 allowed to style herself Head of a Church ; and this 
 contemptible quibble proved a sufficient pretext for new 
 commotions.* Several men of family, vain, boisterous, 
 and ambitious spirits, who had been trained to turbulent 
 misrule, and who considered the monotony of good order as 
 a reproach at once to their rank and their manhood, yielded 
 to the solicitations of the Papal emissaries ; and the abused 
 and miserable multitude knew nothing more of duty, 
 than to obey the priest ; or of honour, than to shout in the 
 train of some selfish and factious leader. These insurgents 
 formed no less than four different parties ; one, affecting 
 to support the Pope's son, as King of Ireland by the 
 grant of his father ; another, maintaining a similar claim 
 for the Spanish monarch ; a third, not averse from English 
 connexion, provided they were allowed to dictate the 
 terms ; and a fourth, seeking after complete independence ; 
 all of them having for their ultimate aim the restoration of 
 their barbarous feudal tyranny, yet professing a zeal for 
 religion, and overruled by the superior subtlety of the 
 priesthood. t One victory gained by Hugh O'Neil increased 
 
 were so desirous to see and salute him ; insomuch as, after that public pro- Deserted 
 fession of his religion, the town was cleared of the multitude of strangers, for going 
 This young earl, seeing how much he was deceived in his hopes, embarked cnurcn. 
 for England, and so to Court." 
 
 * The Vicomte de Chateaubriand, in his " Monarchy according to the 
 Charter," calls the King of France " The Head or Visible Prelate of the 
 Galilean Church, and the Chief of all that constitutes a nation, its religion^ 
 morals, pohtics," &c. It will be remembered that this eloquent writer is a 
 professed Constitutionalist, accused by his opponents of loivering the legiti- 
 mate claims of royalty. He was obliged to devote a chapter of his book to 
 prove that lie was not a democrat. — See the Quarterly Sevieiv for July, 1816. 
 
 t It is remarkable that whea any of these insurgent chiefs submitted to 
 the Government, they made no objection to the oath of supremacy : their 
 idea of Popery included temporal dominion, so that their recusancy and 
 their rebellion lived and died together. — See Leland, ii., 234.
 
 224 POLICY OF THE CHURCH of rome 
 
 GHAP. 11. and consolidated the strength of these factions ; so that, 
 A.D. 1583. when Essex landed to assume the lieutenancy, he found 
 insurrection more extensive and better organized than ever. 
 Tn-one. Hugh O'Neil had all the ambition and duplicity of his 
 
 uncle John, with greater caution, more specious manners, 
 and a more cultivated mind ; advantages for which he was 
 indebted to his English education. Slighted at home on 
 account of his illegitimate descent, he resolved that his 
 first step to the greatness at which he aimed should be the 
 favour of the Government: he entered early into its 
 service, made many friends among the officers ; and, 
 during the Desmond insurrection, was distinguished for 
 his military talents, and his zeal in the royal cause. The 
 hasty gratitude of the Irish Parliament rewarded his 
 exertions with the forfeited title of Tyrone ; and the 
 Queen, to whom he paid assiduous court, and upon whom 
 his insinuating address and plausible representations of 
 Irish affairs had made a great impression, added the whole 
 of the splendid inheritance which had belonged to that 
 earldom, but was then vested in the Crown. He returned 
 in triumph to Ireland, magnified the graces he had received, 
 courted popularity, distributed favours, and gradually 
 attracted to himself all those various regards which may be 
 imagined to attend a man who was at once the prime 
 favourite of the English Queen and the first of Irish 
 Prepares chieftains. Government soon found it necessary to solicit 
 for rebel- |^-g assistance against the disaffected of his province ; he 
 was ready, he answered, with his best services ; he would 
 raise and maintain, if permitted, a force of six companies, 
 wliicli should be always prepared against the enemies of 
 his mistress. The offer was accepted, the companies formed, 
 the men quietly dismissed according as they became expert 
 in the use of arms, and fresh recruits continually supplied, 
 until, by degrees, the whole of his followers were trained 
 in the discipline of an English army. In the meantime, 
 he had conveyed to Dungannon a vast quantity of lead, to 
 cover, as he pretended, the battlements of a mansion-
 
 IN IRELAND. 225 
 
 house, which he was going to build after the English chap. ir. 
 
 fashion ; the lead, however, had a different destination.* a.d.1583. 
 
 The suspicions of the State were now awakened, and 
 
 the aspiring Earl began to be sensible that he had almost 
 
 attained the utmost height to which a subject could be 
 
 permitted to climb. On the other side, the accomplices 
 
 or instruments of his designs, tired of inaction, and unable 
 
 to comprehend his refined policy, were inclined to ascribe 
 
 his reserve to want of courage or of cordiality. O'Donel, Diplomacy 
 
 ,•1 , 1 • • xi_ i of rebellion 
 
 in particular, sent him an angry message, announcing that conducted 
 
 he was resolved to prosecute the war without, and, if by the 
 
 necessary, against, the wavering chief of Tyrone, and that bishops. 
 
 he had despatched a bishop -f- to solicit assistance from the 
 
 Spanish monarch. O'Neil made this fiery tributary his 
 
 son-in-law ; he sent a younger brother, with some troops, 
 
 to aid the insurgents, among whom the titular primate 
 
 Magauran had already fallen bravely by the side of the 
 
 chieftain Mac Guire ; J and, contrary to his former 
 
 stipulations with Government, he availed himself openly 
 
 of the good offices of the priesthood. While he was thus 
 
 keeping his compatriots in good humour, he forwarded to 
 
 the Queen, upon whose favour he seems to have presumed 
 
 extravagantly, the strongest protestations of his unshaken 
 
 loyalty. For this purpose he employed an English officer, 
 
 named Lee, who had been his comrade when he served in 
 
 the Royal army, and who was still flattered by such marks 
 
 of his confidence as the wily chieftain judged it prudent 
 
 to show. Under the instruction of the Earl, this officer 
 
 drew up " A brief declaration of Ireland ; opening many a.d. 1594. 
 
 corruptions in the same, the discontents of the Irish, and 
 
 the causes of the troubles ; and showing the means how to 
 
 establish quietness in that kingdom, honourably, and to her 
 
 Majesty's profit." The matter of the memorial is sufficiently 
 
 miscellaneous; its object, single — to represent O'Neil as the 
 
 * Leland, ii., 308. 
 
 t The diplomacy of rebellion was generally conducted by the bishops. 
 
 t Leland, ii., 329. 
 
 Q
 
 226 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. n. person best qualified to direct the administration of Irish 
 A.D. I59i. affairs. The topics are selected with some skill; O'Neil 
 is a man from whom everything may be feared, or every- 
 thing expected, according as the Queen shall be pleased 
 to treat him. " Neither the Desmond wars, nor those of 
 O'Conor and O'Moore, are comparable to that which is 
 now apprehended, if it prove a war. All Ulster is the - 
 Earl's already ; O'Donel and O'Doherty, who were always 
 faithful in John O'Neil's wars, are now linked to him, so 
 that no place of succour is left to your Majesty's force in 
 all the north : in Counaught there are divers who watch 
 an opportunity ; and in Leinster many who now stir not, 
 but will then arise in arms. If he were so bad as his 
 enemies would fain enforce, those who know him and the 
 strength of his country will witness thus much with me, 
 that he might very easily cut off many of your Majesty's 
 forces, which are laid in garrison, in small troops, border- 
 ing vipon his country ; yea, and overrun all your English 
 pale, to the utter ruin thereof; yea, and camp, as long as 
 should please him, even under the walls of Dublin, for 
 any strength your Majesty hath in that kingdom to remove 
 him." " These things being considered, the foundation of 
 hope must be laid upon the Earl of Tyrone, to draw him, 
 by any reasonable conditions, unto your Majesty ; and as 
 he is made a great man there, so he may be also a special 
 good member of the commonwealth, to redress and remedy 
 many great disorders, which, no doubt, he would faith- 
 fully do, if he were trusted." * Some of these reasonable 
 conditions are amusing enough. One is, that the Earl 
 should have the power of executing by martial law in his 
 own territory ; " and I dare say he may, every year, hang 
 
 A false * He was a wise man who said, " There is nothing new under the sun." 
 
 principle This instrument of treason has anticipated, by ahnost two centuries and 
 
 ^ " a half, the very best arguments of certain orators. " You have given so 
 
 much ah'eady," he says, " that it is neither worth your while, nor in your 
 
 power, to withhold the remainder." The folly of the past is urged as a 
 
 reason for the insanity of the present and future.
 
 IN IRELAND. 227 
 
 500 false knaves, and yet reserve a great stock to himself ; chap. ii. 
 lie cannot hang amiss there, so he hang somebody." This a.d. 1594. 
 condition is followed up by another of the same tendenc}'; 
 that certain persons, nominated in the memorial, be em- 
 ployed in places of trust, civil and military, in the remoter 
 districts of the island. *' I know," says the writer, 
 " there will be great exceptions against them, because 
 they are thought to be too near friernds to the Earl ; but 
 I will prove that none can ever do your Majesty such 
 good service there as they who are best acquainted with 
 the Earl and the other lords of those countries. And 
 what is it to your Majesty to lay upon the Earl the trust 
 and credit of settling your Majesty's forces in those parts ? 
 And if it shall, at any time, happen that he should so 
 offend as to deserve punishment, then your Majesty is to 
 prepare your princely forces, and make royal war upon 
 him, letting him sharply taste what it is to offend so 
 gracious and great a prince." Interspersed with these 
 threatening demands, are many vehement, and some 
 abject, protestations of fidelity. Lee proposes that the 
 quarrel between the Earl and his chief accuser shall be 
 decided by combat ; " and because it is no conquest for 
 him to overthrow a man ever held in the world to be of 
 the most cowardly behaviour, he will, in defence of his 
 innocency, allow his adversary to come armed against him 
 naked, to encourage him the rather to accept of his chal- 
 lenge." " Being often his bed-fellow," continues this 
 warm advocate, " he hath divers times bemoaned himself 
 unto me with tears in his eyes, saying, that if he knew 
 any way in the world to behave himself otherwise than he 
 hath done, to procure your Majesty's good opinion of him, 
 he would not spare to offer himself to serve your Highness 
 in any part of the world, though he were sure to lose his 
 life. And as he hath in pi'ivate thus bemoaned himself 
 unto me, so there are many eye-witnesses here in your 
 Highnesses Court, who have seen him do the same no less 
 openly ; which tears have neither proceeded from dissimu- 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. lation, nor from a childish disposition, but of mere zeal 
 A.D. 159-1'. unto your Highness." * 
 
 Tyrone Elizabeth, although habitually indulgent to Tyrone, 
 
 the throne, '^^^^f ^J this time, weary of Irish broils, did not accede to 
 these modest overtures ; and the Earl perceived that 
 henceforward force should combine with subtlety to clear 
 his passage to a throne. Disappointed in his hopes of 
 quietly hanging his enemies, and filling the Government 
 and the army with his friends, and now at length assured 
 of immediate succour from Spain, he renounced his 
 English title and connexions, assumed the appellation of 
 O'Neil, and became the defender of his Church and 
 country. Hitherto he had been a liberal Roman Catholic, 
 and had even given a hint that entire conformity to the 
 Established Church might be expected in time. " Your 
 Majesty has heard," says Lee, " that he and his lady are 
 Papists, and foster seminarists. True it is, he is affected 
 that way, but less hurtfuUy and dangerously than some of 
 the greatest in the English pale : for, when he is with the 
 State, he will accompany the Lord Deputy to the church 
 and home again, and will stay to hear service and sermon; 
 they, as soon as they have brought the Lord Deputy to 
 
 * It will probably appear to some of my readers that too much notice has 
 been taken of this contemptible piece : such of them, however, as remember 
 to have seen Mr. O'Driscoll's pretty volumes of "Views of Ireland," may 
 observe that I have had a motive, though I am by no means sure that it 
 win be considered a sufficient one. That gentleman is pleased to think Lee's 
 memorial an important State paper, illustrative of the tyranny of the 
 English Government ; and, as he writes for statesmen, he has taken the 
 trouble of copyuig it, without the omission of a syllable, into six and thirty 
 closely printed pages. The research of the learned winter is almost as rare 
 as his sagacity. Passing by the " Desiderata Curiosa Ilibernica," which is, 
 or may be, in everybody's hands, he quotes directly from the oi-iginal in the 
 manuscript library of Dublin College- — a room closed against all but such 
 eminent persons as Mr. O'Driscoll ; and, with the same disdain of vulgar 
 soiu-ces of information, he turns aside from Leland, who would have told 
 liira that tliis Captain Henry Lee was the creatui-e of a perfidious rebel. 
 The playful biographer of Captain Eoek, who, as he can extract pleasantry 
 from a massacre, may be excused the little froHc of exposing a friend, has 
 happily caricatured his graver fellow-labourer, by quoting the same authority.
 
 IN IRELAND. 220 
 
 the church-door, depart as if they were wild cats ; but chap. ii. 
 
 he, in my conscience, with good conference, ivould be a.d. 1594. 
 
 reformed; for he hath only one little cub of an English 
 
 priest, by whom he is seduced, for want of his friends' 
 
 access unto him, who might otherwise uphold him." But 
 
 recent circumstances had confirmed his wavering faith, 
 
 and the prelates were ready to embrace the illustrious 
 
 penitent. At the battle of Blackwater, where he con- Battle of 
 
 fronted his brother-in-law and deadly enemy, Sir Henry ^^^^^' 
 
 •',*'' •' •water. 
 
 Bagnal, the spirit of his soldiers was raised to a frenzy of 
 fanaticism by the exhortations of their priests, who 
 assured them, upon the faith of ancient prophecies, that 
 the events of that great day would be fatal to heresy. 
 The adverse forces were almost perfectly equal : on the 
 Royal side stood 4,500 foot and 500 horse, many of them 
 veterans who had served under Norris both in France and 
 Ireland ; 4,500 foot and (iOO horse formed the array of 
 the rebel, or the Catholic, army. Of the latter there fell 
 200, with 600 wounded — a trifling loss, which was amply 
 avenged by the slaughter, on the field, of the general, 
 thirteen gallant officers, and 1,500 men of their opponents. 
 The vanquished abandoned their fort of Blackwater, fled 
 to Armagh, and thence farther southward ; and their 
 ammunition and provisions, thirty-four ensigns and other 
 honours of war, all their artillery and a quantity of 
 smaller arms, remained to support the credit of Papal 
 vaticination.* 
 
 A victory so complete changed the character of Eliza- 
 beth's councils. The contemptuous disgust with which 
 the disturbances in Ireland had been lately regarded, was 
 now banished by the fear of losing the country ; and a 
 force was equipped such as had never been seen by the 
 Irish, and had very seldom left the shores of England. 
 But the spirit of the insurgents kept pace with these 
 preparations : O'Neil was extolled as the deliverer of his 
 country ; and the disaffected leaders in all quarters of the 
 * Lelaud, ii., 349.
 
 230 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. island condemned their own inactivity, which had deprived 
 A.D. 1594. them of similar glory. Fifty-two heads of clans, English 
 as well as Irish, with twenty-seven captains, equal to the 
 former in courage and nobility, though not the chiefs of 
 their respective houses, are enumerated by O'Sullivan as 
 crowding into the field with rival zeal, *' in maintenance 
 of liberty and the Catholic faith." Driving the loyalists 
 into the towns, they kept possession of the open country ; 
 their followers in the different provinces outnumbered 
 the troops of the Viceroy, were of abler bodies, more 
 patient of the fatigues and privations of war, abundantly 
 supplied with arms from Spain, and trained in. the use 
 of them by long exercise, and by the combined advan- 
 tages of Spanish and English discipline. The first place 
 in authority, as in fame, was unanimously assigned to 
 O'Neil ; the voice of the Sovereign Pontiff ratified and 
 consecrated the judgment of his votaries ; and the general 
 fulfilled the expectations of all. Aware that Essex, 
 though inferior in gross numbers, had a greater disposable 
 force than the jealous pride of his own associates would 
 allow him to concentrate, he declined the hazard of 
 general engagements : he adopted that species of warfare 
 which the character of his troops and the natural strength 
 of the country combined to recommend, — directing a 
 system of small offensive operations, which, as if by a 
 signal, blazed out at once or died away, over the whole 
 sui'face of the island. Confounded at a service so full 
 of peril and so barren of renown, the confidence of the 
 Viceroy first grew impatient, and from impatience col- 
 lapsed into disheartened mortification : O'Neil seized the 
 opportunity ; proposed, and was admitted to, a private 
 conference. The night before the intended meeting. Zee, 
 the trusty emissary of the rebel chief, was busily employed 
 in passing between the camps, and holding secret inter- 
 views with the generals. The parley of the following day 
 lasted a considerable time : the Englishman was stately, 
 vain, and ingenuous ; his adversary, or, as he now became.
 
 IN IRELAND, 231 
 
 his adviser, supple, persuasive, and impenetraLle. Wliil chap. ii. 
 Essex drew up proudly on the bank of the river which a.d.1596. 
 divided the armies, O'Neil was seen plunging up to his 
 saddle in the water, as if impatient to throw himself at 
 the feet of so great a man. Shortly after the unfortunate 
 Viceroy divulged the subject to which the dexterity of 
 O'Neil had directed their conversation : *' Tyrone," he 
 said, " had told him, that if he followed his direction, he 
 might easily be the greatest lord in England ; '* " troubles 
 were about to arise in England, which would render his 
 return thither indispensable." He had intended to bring 
 with him the best troops on the Irish service, and make 
 his way at their head to the presence of his mistress ; but 
 the discovery of his frantic scheme precipitated his journey, 
 which terminated on the scaffold. He left the royalists 
 so dejected, that, at the expiration of a truce of six weeks 
 which he had made with O'Neil, they expostulated with 
 the rebel general upon his abrupt resumption of hosti- 
 lities. 
 
 It is probable that the connexion of these islands would 
 have been now dissolved, had not the rebel lords of 
 English descent begun to be alarmed at the extent of 
 their own success. Whether Ireland was to become 
 an independent kingdom under O'Neil, or (as was more 
 likely, and more agreeable to the views of Rome and the 
 prelates) to be annexed to the Spanish monarchyj the 
 revolution threatened to bring with it the extirpation 
 of the English colonists. The apprehension of such a 
 result had moved the wary lords of the Pale, though 
 in opposition to the Government^ to abstain from rebel- 
 lion : conscience had made cowards of them ; they dreaded 
 lest the heartless policy which they had formerly pursued 
 towards the Irish might suggest the terrible lesson, " that 
 their triumph was incomplete until they had cut the 
 throats of their allies;"* and they were therefore content 
 
 * Lord Gormanstown's advice to Kildare upon a former oceasioni
 
 232 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. to seek the accomplishment of their ends by a system of 
 A.D.1598. bloodless hostihties. Their bolder and more thoughtless 
 brethren began now to discover the prudence of this 
 course. They saw that the great national quarrel had 
 been compromised, not forgotten ; and that, although 
 while the struggle lasted their Milesian associates might 
 find them useful, yet, when the separation was once made, 
 prosperity would awaken all dormant claims, and fear 
 would revive and strengthen old animosities. The wisdom 
 of Government, in offering easy terms of reconciliation, 
 encouraged and extended these reflections ; and by 
 degrees they were diffused among the priests of English 
 race, in whom alarm for their own safety, and the natural 
 yearnings for kindred and the mother-country, at length 
 overcame professional feelings. The dispute among the 
 clergy arose almost to a schism, and the more daring of 
 the loyal party announced a doctrine unknown until then 
 in the ecclesiastical world, that Catholics might lawfully 
 bear arms against their brethren in defence of a heretical 
 sovereign. " Oh! ignorant, foolish, and abandoned men," 
 exclaims the indignant O'Sullivan, " ye Anglo-Irish priests 
 of the English faction, how will you ever expiate this 
 atrocious guilt ? Can you be of a spirit purely and 
 entirely Catholic? Let the wise reader judge. As for 
 myself, I cannot hold for sound or Catholic doctrine 
 a notion so fatal to the salvation of souls and the pro- 
 pagation of the faith, as that Catholics may fight against 
 Catholics in the cause of heresy."* 
 
 O'Neil himself — or the 2jri?ice, as he was now called — 
 condescended to discuss this case of conscience in an 
 English proclamation ; he argued it as became the general 
 of a crusade, according both to martial and ecclesiastical 
 law. 
 
 * "Hist. Cath.," 233. See O'Conor, " Columbanus," iv., 114. On this 
 occasion it appears to have been, for the fii'st time since the Keformation, 
 that the Irish priesthood separated into the two sects or schools, tlie Popish 
 and the Koman Catholic. 
 
 Prince 
 O'Ncil's 
 proclama 
 tion.
 
 IN IRELAND. 223 
 
 " Using hitherto more than ordinary favour towards all chap. ii. 
 my countrymen, both for that you are generally by your a.d. 1598, 
 professions Catholicks, and that naturally I am inclined 
 to affect you, I have, for these and other considerations, 
 abstained my forces from attempting to do you hindrance ; 
 and the rather, for that I did expect, in processe of time, 
 you would enter into consideration of the lamentable 
 estate of your poor country, most tyrannically oppressed, 
 and of your own gentle consciences, in maintaining, 
 relieving, and helping the enemies of God and our 
 country, in wars infallibly tending to the promotion of 
 heresie. 
 
 " But now, seeing you are so obstinate in that in which 
 you have hitherto continued, of necessitie I must use 
 severity against you, whom otherwise I most entirely 
 loved, in reclayming you by compulsion, when my long 
 tollerance and happy victories, by God's particular favour 
 doubtlessly obtained, could work no alteration in your 
 consciences. 
 
 " Considering, notwithstanding, the great calamitie and 
 miserie whereunto you are most likely to fall by persever- 
 ing in that damnable state in which hitherto ye have 
 lived, having thereof commiseration, hereby I thought 
 good and convenient to forewarn you, requesting everie 
 of you to come and join with me against the enemies of 
 God and our poor country. If the same ye do not, I will 
 use means, not only to spoil you of all your goods, but, 
 according to the utmost of my power, shall work what I 
 can to dispossess you of all your lands ; because you are 
 the means whereby warres are maintained against the 
 exaltation of the Catholick faith. Contrarywise, whoso- 
 ever you shall be that shall joine wdth me, upon my 
 conscience, and as to the contrary I shall answer before 
 God, I w'ill imploy myself, to the utmost of my power, 
 in their defence, and for the extirpation of heresie, the 
 planting of the Catholick religion, the delivery of our 
 country of infinite murders, wicked and detestable poll-
 
 234 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. 11. cies, by which this kingdom was hitherto governed, 
 A.D.1598. nourished in obscurity and ignorance, maintained in 
 barbarity and incivility, and, consequently, of infinite 
 evils which are too lamentable to be rehearsed. 
 
 " And seeing these are motives most laudable before 
 any man of consideration, and before the Almighty most 
 meritorious, which is chiefly to be respected, I thought 
 myself in conscience bound, seeing God hath given me 
 some power, to use all means for the reduction of this our 
 poor afflicted country unto the Catholick faith, which can 
 never be brought to any good pass without either your 
 destruction or helping hands. 
 Eoman " Which, notwithstanding, some Catholicks doe think 
 
 Catholics themselves bound to obey the Queen as their lawful 
 not to obey •' i • i 
 
 Queen prince — which is denied, in respect that she was deprived 
 Elizabeth. ^£ ^|^ ^^^^j^ kingdoms, dominions, and possessions, which 
 otherwise perhaps should have been due unto her, and, 
 consequently, of all subjection, insomuch as she is left 
 a private person, and no man bound to give her obedience, 
 — and beyond all this, such as were sworn to be faithful 
 unto her were by his Holiness absolved from performance 
 thereof, seeing she is by a declaration of excommunication 
 pronounced a heretic, — neither is there any revocation of 
 the excommunication, as some Catholicks do most falsely, 
 for particular affection surmise ; for the sentence was in 
 the beginning given for heresie, and for continued heresie 
 the same tvas continued. It is a thing void of all reason 
 that his Holiness should revoke the sentence, she per- 
 severing in heresie, yea, in mischiefing and persecuting 
 the Catholicks. 
 
 " But it may be there was a mitigation made in favour 
 of Catholicks, b}^ which they might be licensed in civil 
 matters precisely to give her, during their unability, 
 obedience, but not in any matter tending to the pro- 
 motion of heresie. Wherefore, I earnestly beseech you 
 all, Catholicks, and good, loving countrymen, as you 
 tender the exaltation of the Catholick faith, and the
 
 IN IRELAND. 23o 
 
 utter extirpation of heresie, in this our poor distressed [chap. ii. 
 country, to consider the lamentable and most distressed a.d. 1599. 
 state thereof. And now let us join altogether to deliver 
 this poor kingdom from that infection of heresie with 
 which it is, and shall be, if God do not specially favour 
 us, most miserably infected, taking example by that 
 most Christian and Catholick country of France, whose 
 subjects, for defence of the Catholick faith, yea, against 
 their most natural King, maintained warres so long as by 
 their means he was constrained to profess the Catholick 
 religion, duely submitting himself to the Apostolick See of 
 Rome, — to which, doubtless, we may bring our country, 
 you putting your helping hands to the same. 
 
 " So I rest, praying the Almighty to move your flinted 
 hearts to prefer the commodity and profit of our country 
 before your own private ease. 
 
 " Duneveag, the fifteenth day of November, 1599. 
 
 " O'Neale."* 
 
 For some time before the appearance of this proclama- 
 tion, an opinion had been gaining ground that O'Neil* was 
 aiming at the sovereignty of Ireland. Among other acts 
 of indiscretion, he had conferred the title of Earl of 
 Desmond upon a distant relative of the late unfortunate 
 nobleman, and had undertaken to recover for him the 
 splendid patrimony of his predecessors ; in return, he 
 exacted homage, and a promise of tribute from the titular 
 grandee. This conduct had given very general offence ; 
 and the Irish of all parties, with that keen sense of 
 the ridiculous which is still an element of the national 
 character, annexed an epithet of contempt to the honorary 
 title of the new Desmond, calling him on all occasions the 
 Earl of Straw. In the manifesto, although framed with 
 considerable art, some expressions escaped the ambitious 
 general which confirmed these rising jealousies, and has- 
 
 * Dr. Phelan seems to hare preferred the more common mode of spelling 
 this name.— Ed.
 
 236 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. tened the dissolution of the triple* confederacy. While 
 A.D. 1599. he disclaims, with suspicious vehemence, all present views 
 of personal aggrandizement, he is inconsistent enough to 
 acknowledge that such had been his original motive for 
 taking arms against England. He dwells, with a com- 
 placency which has as much of pomp as piety, on the 
 power which God had given him ; affects an air of 
 patronage, " of more than ordinary favour," towards all 
 his countrymen ; speaks of the possibility of his being 
 king of Ireland, and avows designs of national improve- 
 ment, which could be effected by nothing short of 
 sovereign authority. Had he reached the eminence to 
 which he so obviously aspired, his great talents render 
 it probable that he would have made no inglorious effort 
 to fulfil his promise, of banishing " the obscurity and 
 ignorance, the barbarity and incivility," in which it was 
 unquestionable that, from whatsoever causes, the kingdom 
 had been hitherto buried. But the scheme was not 
 acceptable to any class of his associates. The Anglo- 
 Irish chiefs dreaded the consequences of separation ; the 
 Milesians were too proud to submit to a man whose 
 equals they called themselves, Avhile they envied his 
 superiority ; and both, still clinging to their barbarous 
 power, recoiled from his projects of reformation. The 
 policy of Rome and the hierarchy presented obstacles 
 equally insviperable : the former had already given away 
 Ireland to Spain ; the latter could not prosecute their 
 own designs without some foreign connexion — they knew 
 and feared the enlightened mind of O'Neil, and could not 
 forgive his recent leaning to heresy. 
 Clement The new Pope, Clement the Eighth, while he compli- 
 
 the Eighth rented and encouraged the prince's exertions in the 
 
 sends . , . ,. , 
 
 phameof Catholic cause, took an indirect, but intelligible mode 
 
 fe tlT'^ of repressing his expectations. He sent him a plume, 
 
 O'Neil. hallowed by his own apostolical benediction, and (as the 
 
 * That is, between the hierarchy, the Milesian chiefs, and Angb-Irish 
 lords.
 
 IN IRELAND. 237 
 
 Pontiff gravely declared, and his word was not questioned chap. n. 
 by the discreet aspirant), formed of the feathers of a a.b.1600. 
 genuine phoenix, the apt symbol of a reviving Church 
 and State ; but the present was conveyed by a Spanish 
 ecclesiastic, upon whom, as a pledge of the destiny which 
 awaited the regenerated country, his Holiness had con- 
 ferred the archbishopric of Dublin.* O'Neil replied to O'Neil'g 
 the ominous enigma in an artful and submissive letter, ^^P^y- 
 well calculated, as he hoped, to elicit a response less 
 unfavourable to his designs. Adopting that style of 
 blasphemous adulation which the Papal oracle requires 
 of its clients, he " prostrated himself before the Father of 
 spirits on earth, praying his compassion upon his spiritual 
 sons, who were engaged in a conflict with the enemies of 
 their Sion, the opposers of their building up of the walls 
 of their Jerusalem." He solicits the holy Father to 
 appoint, in future, pastors of his nomination to the 
 afflicted Church ; and, in order that the faithful Irish 
 subjects of his Holiness may act with the greater success 
 in the defence of his kingdom, he beseeches him to renew 
 the excommunication against Elizabeth. The Pontiff 
 sent the following answer : — 
 
 *' To our beloved son, the illustrious Prince Hugh The Pope's 
 
 O'Neil, Captain-General of the Catholic army in ^''pV *» 
 -_ , , •' O'Neil. 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 " Health and apostolical benediction : 
 
 " We have been informed by your letter, and by the 
 
 report of our dear son, Peter Lombard, Principal of 
 
 Cambray, that the holy alliance, which you and many 
 
 other princes and nobles of Ireland have formed, is, by 
 
 the mercy of God, maintained and strengthened, and 
 
 that, by the aid of the same Lord of hosts, you have 
 
 often combated successfully against the English, the 
 
 apostates from the Church and faith. We have derived 
 
 * Leland, ii., 368.
 
 238 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. great joy from these tidings, and have given thanlcs to 
 A.D. 1600. God, the Father of mercies, who has still left in Ireland 
 many thousands of men who have not bowed the knee to 
 Baal. For these have not gone after impious heresies, or 
 profane novelties, but have fought manfully in detestation 
 of them, for the inheritance of their fathers, for the pre- 
 servation of the faith, for the maintenance of unity with 
 the one Catholic and apostolic Church, out of which 
 there is no salvation. We commend, dear son, your 
 pious magnanimity, and also that of the princes and 
 all others who, in league with you, decline no dangers 
 for the glory of God, and prove themselves worthy 
 • successors of their ancestors — men renowned for martial 
 exploits and for zeal in the Catholic cause. Preserve, 
 children, this excellent spirit ; preserve your mutual 
 concord ; and the God of peace will be with you, and will 
 prostrate your enemies before your face. 
 
 " As for us, we love and cherish in the bowels of Jesus 
 Christ your highness and all the other imitators of the 
 faith and valour of their forefathers ,- we do not cease to 
 pray God for your safety and happiness ; and, when 
 opportunity offers, we shall write to our children, the 
 Catholic kings and princes, that they give you and your 
 cause all possible assistance. It is also our intention to 
 send to you speedily some special and trusty nuntio, a 
 man of piety and prudence, inflamed with zeal towards 
 God, and devotion to your interests, who may aid you in 
 maintaining unity, in propagating the faith, and forwarding 
 all other measures for the advancement of God's honour 
 and worship. In the meantime we send you these presents, 
 as pledges of our love to you and your country, and for 
 your consolation as our beloved children in Christ. We 
 have heard with pleasure, and shall continue to hear, Peter 
 Lombard, whom you have sent to us as your ambassador. 
 And so we impart to you, and to those who join with you 
 in the propagation of the faith, our apostolical benediction ;
 
 IN IRELAND. 239 
 
 and we pray God that he will send out his angels about chap. ii. 
 your paths, that He will guide you by his grace, and ^•^- 1601. 
 protect you by the power of his outstretched arm. 
 
 "Given from St. Peter's, &c. 20th January, 1601."* 
 
 The letter affords another instance of that unrelenting 
 composure with which, in the most sacred of names, and, 
 if habit did not neutralize the power of language, under 
 the impression of the most awful ideas, Rome can devote 
 its followers to destruction. Four hundred years before, 
 it had employed the English arms in bringing Ireland 
 under its dominion ; and, for three centuries and a half, 
 supported the aggressors, at whatever sacrifice of justice 
 or humanity. At the end of that time, England shook off 
 from herself the yoke which she had imposed on her 
 weaker neighbour ; and then the Irish, whose ances- 
 tors had been cursed for their insubordination, were 
 blessed for their unconquerable love of liberty, and the 
 imitation of their forefathers in combating the English. 
 While England was an invading power, and, by the laws 
 of nature and of nations, might be honourably resisted, 
 the Pontiff and his priests denounced resistance as impiety. 
 Now that its ascendancy had settled down into a regular 
 government, that it had been acknowledged in solemn and 
 repeated covenants, and could not be opposed without 
 treason, the infallible Church applies her strongest provo- 
 catives to the languishing spirit of insurrection. But, 
 after all, were the Irish to enjoy the liberty and the The Pope 
 inheritance of their fathers, if their sanguinary piety had 
 proved successful ? The Vicar of Christ had determined Spain. 
 otherwise. He had seen, and seen through, the affected 
 
 intends 
 Ireland for 
 
 * Mac Geoghegan, " Histoire d'Irlande," ii. The Peter Lombard Ireland a 
 mentioned in this letter was afterwards titular Archbishop of Armagh, fief of the 
 This man wrote a history of Ireland (Louvain, 1632), in which he main- P^JP^^}'- 
 tabled that Ireland was an ancient fief of the Papacy, and that, although the 
 Kings of England were for the present in possession, the island belonged to 
 Rome by divine right, for which he quotes the prophet Isaiah.
 
 240 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. 11. devotion of O'Neil and his associated chieftains : he knew 
 i.D. 1601. that the re-establishment of the Papal sovereignty was not 
 the motive of their exertions, and, most probably, would 
 not be a consequence of their triumph. He had, there- 
 fore, made his own arrangements for that consummation. 
 When the best blood of the sons, and the step-sons, of 
 Ireland had been drained in mutual carnage, Spain was to 
 seize upon the defenceless prize ; new forfeitures were to 
 make provision for a new race of armed colonists ; and the 
 Inquisition was to exercise its holy office, in vindicating 
 the island of saints from the imputation of heresy. 
 Spanish In addition to a Spanish archbishop, Ireland had now a 
 
 K^f^' d Spanish general,* who waged independent war " in the 
 General. name of Christ and the King of Spain," and maintained a 
 stately reserve towards the native belligerents. This 
 officer, in jealous imitation of O'Neil, issued a manifesto, 
 containing nearly the same topics and arguments which had 
 been urged by that chieftain. " We do not wish," he said, 
 " to persuade any man that he should deny to his prince 
 that obedience which is due % the law of God. But ye 
 know well that, for many years since, Elizabeth was 
 deprived of her kingdoms by the Pope ; unto whom He 
 that reigneth in the heavens hath committed all power, 
 that he should root up and destroy, plant and build, in 
 such sort that he may punish temporal kings, if it should 
 be good for the spiritual kingdom, even to their deposing." 
 After lavishing the fairest promises on the Irish leaders, 
 if they will abandon the pretended Queen, he concludes 
 by declaring " that those who persist in supporting an 
 excommunicated heretic, must themselves be treated as 
 heretics, and persecuted even to death." At the same 
 time, Eugene M'Egan, the titular Bishop of Ross, and 
 
 * O'Conor, " Historical Address," i., 12. Moryson says that " no Irish 
 of account joined the Spanish general, except some dependents of Florence 
 Mac Carthy." The chiefs knew his designs ; and the rest, though he offered 
 the enormous pay of six shillings a day to every trooper, could not be 
 estranged from their natural leaders. Ibid. 16.
 
 IN IRELAND. 
 
 24>l 
 
 Vicar Apostolic of Munster, supported by his episcopal chap. ii. 
 brethren of Clonfert and Killaloe, and by other leading a.d.1601. 
 ecclesiastics, thundered out an anathema against all who 
 should take up arms in the cause of heresy, or give quarter 
 to the prisoners of the heretical army. The course he 
 pursued towards such offenders, when any of them fell 
 into his hands, displayed, at once, the vengeance, and the 
 tender mercies, of the Papacy ; they were first restored, 
 by absolution, to the peace of the Church, and then, 
 instantly executed in his presence. At length this sturdy 
 fanatic, while he led on his troop of a hundred horse 
 against a party of loyalists, with his sword in one hand, 
 and his breviary and beads in the other, met his own fate 
 as coolly as he had witnessed the death of his prisoners.* 
 
 To prolong, if possible, the mutual slaughter of both Judgment 
 classes of their enemies, the Spanish faction obtained a p^j ^'^^^ 
 decision from the Universities of Valladolid and Salamanca, ties, 
 interpreting and enforcing the Pope's letter to O'Neil. 
 This document has a deeper interest than that of mere 
 curiosity to recommend it to the consideration of modern 
 readers. 
 
 *' The judgment of the Universities of Salamanca and 
 Valladolid, concerning the present war in Ireland, and 
 their explanation of the letter of our most holy lord 
 Pope Clement the Eighth respecting the same. 
 
 " Case. The illustrious Prince Hugh O'Neil makes CasepuU 
 war with the Queen of England for the defence of the ™^**^'^- 
 Catholic religion : two questions arise concerning it ; — the 
 one, whether the Irish Catholics may assist said prince, by 
 arms, or other means ; the other, whether they may, 
 without mortal sin, fight against said prince, or favour 
 the English. The second question is of the greater 
 moment, seeing that, if they refuse, they expose them- 
 selves to manifest danger of life or property ; besides, as 
 the Pontiff" has permitted the Irish Catholics to obey the 
 * Leland, ii., 484. Walsh, " Histoiy of Remonstrance," Introduction. 
 
 R
 
 21i3 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. 11. 
 A.D. 1601. 
 
 Tho 
 answer. 
 
 said queen, and acknoivledge her as lawful sovereign, by 
 paying taxes to her, it would seem, that they might also 
 perform another duty of subjects, namely, fight against 
 her enemies. 
 
 ^'Answer. In order to solve these questions, it must, 
 in the first place, be laid down, as certain, that the Roman 
 Pontiff may coerce and punish apostates from the faith, 
 and inipugners of the Catholic religion, even by force of 
 arms, when other means fail to correct so great an enormity. 
 It is, besides, to be held for certain, that Elizabeth 
 impugns the Catholic faith, and does not allow the Irish 
 the public exercise of their religion ; and that, for this 
 cause, the prince aforesaid has undertaken a war against 
 her. These matters being premised : 
 
 *' The first question is easily answered. It is beyond 
 doubt that the said Catholics may assist said prince, with 
 great merit, and assured hope of eternal reward. For, as 
 said prince makes war for religion, hy the authority and ex- 
 hortation of the sovereign Pontiff, and as indulgences and 
 graces are conferred for engaging in it, there can be no 
 question that the war is just and of great merit. 
 
 *' Touching the second question, it is also certain, that 
 those Catholics do sin mortally who follow the camp of the 
 English against said prince, and that they cannot be 
 absolved by any priest, until they repent, and desert from 
 the English army. The same judgment is to be passed on 
 all who supply the English with arms or provisions, or 
 with anything beyond those customary taxes which, by 
 the indult and permission of the sovereign Pontiff, it is 
 lawful to pay the Queen of England, or her officers. It 
 is permitted to the Catholics to pay to the heretical queen 
 that kind and degree of allegiance which may not injure the 
 Catholic religion. But it was not, neither could it be, the 
 intention of the Pontiff, to allow them to perform such 
 acts of allegiance as would be plainly inconsistent with 
 that end and purpose which the Pontiff himself has in view.
 
 IN IRELAND. 243 
 
 for the advancement of the Catholic faith and religion in chap. ii. 
 Ireland." * a.d. 1601. 
 
 It appears from this remarkable document that there Rome's 
 may be members of the Church of Rome who, however hermem- 
 freely they seem to obey a Protestant government, are bers. 
 held in check by an invisible chain, which binds them to 
 the footstool of the sovereign PontiiF. Under certain 
 circumstances, and to a certain extent, their allegiance 
 looks like that of other men, spontaneous and unreserved. 
 But the Church allows all to go this length ; she claims the 
 right of determining the allowable limits, according as the 
 interests of the faith may require : within these, obedience 
 is lawful ; to go beyond them would be, in her estimation, 
 and in the estimation of those f whose civil conduct she 
 directs, a mortal sin. Thus, after the promulgation of 
 the bull of Gregory, all the Irish were allowed to perform 
 those civil duties which had no immediate influence upon 
 the issue of the contest ; and had not the contest been 
 religious, that is, one in which the temporal triumph of 
 religion was involved, the Papist, as well as the Roman 
 Catholic, might have fought in the Queen's armies. Since Policy of 
 the Revolution, England has not been engaged in any 
 war which the Vatican could pronounce to be against 
 religion ; on the contrary, during the last and most tre- 
 mendous of her conflicts, the Pontiffs had very conclusive 
 reasons for opposing no obstacle to her prodigal exertions. 
 Hitherto, therefore, parallel cases of conscience have been 
 excluded by circumstances ; how much longer they may be 
 so it is impossible to tell ; but similar cases have occurred 
 very recently, and have been similarly decided. 
 
 Before the Spanish decision arrived in Ireland, the 
 rebellion was already over. O'Neil, who had never acted 
 vigorously with, or under, his continental allies, and who, 
 
 * O'Sullivan, " Historia Catliolica. " Mac Geoghegau, " Histoii-e 
 d'lrlande," 3. 
 
 t That is, of Papists, not Roman Catholics. 
 
 R 2 
 
 the Vati- 
 can.
 
 244 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. on one occasion,* had been roundly charged with treachery 
 A.D. 1601. by their discomfited general, had at length made his peace 
 by an insincere submission. The greater part of his 
 associates had preceded him in this course, and the others 
 End of hastened to follow his example. Thirty years of atrocious 
 years' hostilities, in which the customary horrors of rebellion 
 
 hostilities, were aggravated by the continual ravages of famine and 
 disease, were sufficient to abate the ardour of the most 
 warlike. The scrupulous provided for their spiritual and 
 temporal safety by purchasing an absolution from the 
 guilt of yielding to the heretical arms : the more subtle 
 perceived that the Papal casuistry could be turned against 
 itself, and that, as they might lawfully perform all the 
 peaceful duties of subjects, the anathema against military 
 service would be disarmed of its thunder, if all joined in 
 capitulating with the Government. Those who had any- 
 thing to lose preferred English law to the unknown perils 
 of a Spanish conquest, and all knew the hollowness of 
 those pretences under which so many calamities had been 
 brought upon their country. Henceforward, to the Great 
 Rebellion, the disaffected of all classes adopted the patient 
 tactics of the lords of the Pale, waiting until the distresses 
 of England might afford them an easy triumph, and, in 
 the mean time, employing every safe device for inflaming 
 religious bigotry, and exciting a spirit of factious opposi- 
 tion. The impatience of an enfeebled Government to 
 restore tranquillity upon any terms, gave them unexpected 
 facilities in the prosecution of this artifice. Contrary to 
 
 * The extraordinary defeat hefore Kinsale, which was followed hy the 
 surrender of the town and the Spanish troops. O'Neil's veterans dispersed, 
 almost without sti-iking a blow, upon the appearance of a few troopers of 
 the English army. Don Juan ascribed their sudden rout to treachery ; the 
 ecclesiastics to the judgment of God, because the Irish soldiers had plimdered 
 some monasteries. Sir George Carew and Morysson hare given several curious 
 particulars of the continual feuds between the Irish and Spaniards. O'Neil's 
 ambition, and Emmet's enthusiasm, made them equally averse to the over- 
 whelming assistance of a foreign power.
 
 IN IRELAND. 24)5 
 
 the former practice, the rebel lords were admitted to chap. ii. 
 pardon without taking the oath of supremacy; and thus a.d. 1601^ 
 that unequal division of allegiance, which *' gives the soul 
 to the Pope, while it affects to leave the body to the 
 King," * received indirectly the sanction of the civil 
 power. 
 
 Thus terminated, abruptly, and, in a great degree, Termina- 
 through the mutual jealousies of the leaders, the last ^.j^^gg 
 three rebellions, which had foiled the ablest generals, rebelliona. 
 and consumed myriads of the bravest troops, of England. 
 We shall form a very inadequate estimate of the power 
 of the Papal system, unless we consider the obstacles 
 which the hierarchy surmounted during this period, as 
 well as the positive effects which they produced. Their 
 first labour was a conflict with themselves. Stunned, in 
 the beginning, by the unanimity with which the chieftains 
 had thrown off their yoke, and acknowledged the more 
 moderate pretensions of the crown, they had sunk for 
 some years into obscurity and inaction. But, in the fret- 
 fulness and solitude of disappointment, the ancient spirit 
 of their order was exasperated, not subdued ; and, when 
 the first rebellion replaced them in a public character, a 
 rash anathema dissipated their own hopes, and those of 
 their adherents. It is to the credit of their discernment, 
 that, after this imprudent exercise of authority, they sub- 
 mitted to learn a less repulsive bearing, under the disci- 
 pline of Jesuits, and the control of legates and vicars 
 apostolic. Their probation being over, they had next to 
 bend the nobles to their purposes ; for, as yet, they had 
 little, comparatively little, influence with the mass of the 
 inhabitants, except in subordination to a jealous and 
 despotic chieftainry. Seventy years after, when old con- 
 nexions and old manners had almost passed away, it was 
 
 * The quaint but not altogether unfounded language of James the First. 
 Altogether unfounded it cannot be called, until some proof is given that 
 alleoiance to the Pope and allegiance to the King run in strictly parallel 
 lines.
 
 246 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. observed by a viceroy,* who had studied Ireland carefully, 
 A.D. 1601. *' that no people in the world were more disposed than 
 the Irish to follow the religion of their lords : " in the 
 reign of Elizabeth, the power of the lord, and the 
 attachment of the vassal were still unimpaired. Nego- 
 tiation with the grandees was, therefore, indispensable ; 
 but the attempt was beset with most discouraging diffi- 
 culties. The prelates knew that the old discord between 
 their order and the nobles would still burn beneath the 
 ashes which mutual convenience might strew over it ; and 
 that, were the common enemy removed, the moment of 
 triumph would most probably change their allies into 
 antagonists. No feelings of bigotry or enthusiasm had 
 arisen to allay this inveterate feud : the older chiefs had 
 all taken the oath of supremacy ; their example had been 
 followed by most of the younger ; and both paid to the 
 English worship the respect of their occasional, if not 
 habitual, conformity. Of the three principal commanders 
 in these rebellions, the first, though without sufficient 
 refinement to be a speculative unbeliever, was, in his life, 
 even below the decent hypocrisies of Infidelity ; the 
 second had avowed his contented ignorance of religious 
 matters ; and the third was a very punctilious conformist, 
 whenever the warfare of conciliation appeared better 
 calculated than open hostility to advance his deep designs. 
 From these prominent instances, some conjecture may be 
 formed of the general standard of religious zeal among 
 the rebel leaders. We should not be warranted by the 
 voluminous recoi'ds of the times in complimenting any of 
 them with the title of fanatic ; f John of Desmond himself 
 was a reckless profligate, who, while he received the con- 
 gratulations of Saunders upon " the sweet sacrifice he had 
 offered to heaven," probably scoffed at the familiar that 
 was leading him on to destruction. 
 
 * Lord Stafford ; see Carte, " Life of Ormond," i., 79. 
 
 t Except, perhaps, Lord Baltinglass, who appears to have been smitten 
 with the argument, that a female, being incapable of holy orders, could not 
 be head of the Church.
 
 IN IRELAND. 247 
 
 The clansmen, while they devoutly adopted the quarrel chap. ii. 
 of their lords, partook, in a great degree, of their freedom a.d. 1601. 
 from religious scruples. When Desmond took possession Desmond 
 of Youghal, he indulged his followers in sacrilegious 
 excesses, which, according to a Roman Catholic writer, 
 brought down the signal vengeance of God upon the Earl 
 and his family. *' Even the churches," he says, " and 
 whatsoever was sacred, were polluted and defiled by the 
 soldiers, who brought everything to desolation, making 
 havoc of sacred vestments, and chalices, as well as of 
 other chattel. Certain Spaniards, who were with them 
 at that wicked exploit, perceiving, by the furniture and 
 ornaments of the churches, that the townsmen were all 
 Catholics, and containing their hands from plunder, were 
 reproved by some of that wicked company, for that they 
 took no part of the spoil." The same author accounts 
 similarly for the disasters of Hugh O'Neil, whose soldiers, 
 on their march from the north, " robbed and spoiled the 
 monasteries of Timnalague and Kilcrea, and profaned 
 other churches." * Whether they still cherished some 
 traditional remembrance of a simpler worship than the 
 Roman, or whether they had been hardened by those 
 habits of rapine which were far from disreputable among 
 the Irish tribes, it is now impossible to decide. But, 
 whatever may have been the cause, so far were the rebels 
 of those days from that reverential obedience which Rome 
 requires in her votaries, that their allies could not refrain 
 from expressions of abhorrence. " The contempt and Spanish 
 scorn," said Lord Mountjoy, "in which the Spaniards ?°l'^!r 
 held the Irish, and the distaste which the Irish had of Irish, 
 them, were not to be believed by any but those who were 
 present to see their behaviours, and hear their speeches ; " 
 and, on one occasion, a Spanish officer awowed his convic- 
 tion, " that Christ did not die for the Irish." f 
 
 Upon the whole, there is no pei'iod in our Irish annals 
 
 * " Theatre of CathoUc and Protestant" E.eUgion." 
 
 f Morysson, 187. " Pacata Hibernia," 176. See Appendix.
 
 24S 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. at which bigotry had less influence upon the Roman 
 A.D. 1601. Catholic body than the reign of Elizabeth. Noblemen 
 of that persuasion attended the Viceroy to Christ Church ; 
 those of inferior rank frequented the parish churches ; * 
 Roman Catholic officers, civil, military, and municipal, 
 took the oath of supremacy ; Roman Catholic soldiers, 
 regardless of the spiritual thunder that was every moment 
 bursting over their heads, fought gallantly against men of 
 their own communion, in defence of a woman whom the 
 Vicar of Christ had devoted to perdition. All this was in 
 a tone — it matters not whether of liberality or of irreligion 
 — to which the Church of Rome has nothing similar at 
 the present day. Yet, trifling as was then the compara- 
 tive strength of Popery, its absolute power must be 
 measured on a scale sufficiently formidable ; for a moral 
 force, like a force in chemistry or mechanics, is known by 
 the resistance which it overcomes, and by the inert mass 
 which it sets in motion. 
 
 These rebellions were religious wars ; -j- the name alone 
 might suffice to show the influence of religion. There 
 was enough of the spirit of sect to make a religious cry 
 the most effectual appeal to popular sympathy ; to induce 
 many of the Queen's soldiers to desert her heretical 
 standard ; ;}: to prompt the Desmond vassals to spit upon 
 the youthful heir of their favourite Earl, because he had 
 been bred a Protestant. Hypocrisy, said somebody, is the 
 
 * See Appendix. 
 
 t The rebellion of 1798 wa8, in like manner, a religions war, though all 
 the leaders m council and in the field were Protestants or Infidels. The 
 fanaticism of the populace is an instrument ready for the head of any 
 dexterous malcontent ; and, whatever may be the causes in wliich Irish 
 turbulence originates, it ultimately assiunes a religious character. Tliis will 
 always be the case as long as the multitude continues in ignorance, and the 
 priests retain their power ; yet it seems that no system of national education 
 will be adopted which has not the sanction of the titular hierarchy. 
 
 t O'Sullivan says that, before the battle of Kinsale, the Roman Catholics 
 in the Queen's army had promised to desert, and that many of them kept 
 their word, going over two, three, and even ten at a time. — Hist. Cath., 
 177. 
 
 These re^ 
 belliona 
 reUgious 
 waxs.
 
 IN IRELAND. 249 
 
 homage which vice offers to virtue : the hypocrisy of the chap. n. 
 rebel leaders was the homage which sedition offered to the a.d. 1601. 
 favourite prejudice of the time. The prelates knew that 
 the offering was indispensable : this was their only advan- 
 tage ; and, by a dexterous use of it, they prevailed over the 
 hereditary hatred, the personal aversion, the unbelief, the 
 oaths, and the jealous power, of their compatriots. Con- 
 descending, at first, to the humbler offices of treason, they 
 affected to aspire only to that secondary influence, which 
 the most arrogant cannot withhold from the conductors of 
 their intrigues. But, as the path of sedition became more 
 entangled, their profession afforded facilities, which they 
 did not fail to improve, for obtaining an ascendancy over 
 the lay conspirators. The secrets of every house — the 
 projects, the passions, the ruling weakness of every breast 
 — lay open to their inspection ; and the excited fanaticism 
 of the multitude gave them, for the first time, power 
 founded upon feeling and opinion: — thus, they were 
 enabled to overawe their haughty accomplices, and enforce 
 their growing demands to a share in the prosecution of the 
 common cause. 
 
 " Time," said a great man, " is perpetually changing "Time," an 
 human affairs ; it is wisdom to watch his progress, and ^^o'^'^to^- 
 adapt the institutions of the State to his changes ; and, 
 without attention to these, history is but an almanack, 
 and experience a cheat." It was a just and pregnant 
 apophthegm, with not the less either of force or of beauty 
 from that unaffectedness of expression, which distinguishes 
 the eloquence of the right honourable orator. We can Conse- 
 discover, without recurring to the voice of revelation, that T^'^J^^e ^" 
 there is some mighty confluence of destinies to which the statesmen, 
 whole human race is incessantly on its way : in the most 
 permanent societies, and most tranquil seasons, a process 
 is carried on, which tends to separate man from his insti- 
 tutions, as, in the lapse of ages, the fixed stars themselves 
 have deserted their primeval signs. To look, therefore, to 
 the past alone, is the error of a schoolman, who renounces
 
 250 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 A.D. 1601. 
 
 Policy of 
 principle, 
 as opposed 
 to one 
 merely of 
 details. 
 
 the world of living realities, and sojourns in the shadowy 
 region of his own abstractions. To watch, and to provide 
 for, those silent influences which time is continually shed- 
 ding ; to correct irregularities, some as they arise, others 
 in their causes ; to make every new measure a liberal 
 analogy from the past, and a safe precedent for the 
 future ; and thus, while the parts are in unceasing flow, 
 to secure the continued stability of the system ; these are 
 the noblest cares of a statesman, the cares which approach 
 nearest to the plastic energy of Providence, " reaching 
 mightily from one end to the other, and sweetly ordering 
 all things." 
 
 The statesmen of the present day have departed, in 
 many respects, from the practice of their predecessors. 
 It was not the vanity of empiricism — turning aside from 
 the admonitions of history, to throw the public weal into 
 a crucible, or to invoke some idol ivithin the breast* for a 
 response upon the fate of empires, — which dictated this 
 conduct ; it was a grave conviction, that new objects and 
 events, as they successively arose, acted upon the pre- 
 existing mass, and induced a variety of new relations. 
 To maintain the State in a wholesome correspondence 
 with this order of nature was obviously the design of that 
 alterative course which our public men have been lately 
 pursuing. Conscious, then, as they must be, that every 
 notable occurrence and every material change in the 
 posture of affairs would furnish a new element in their 
 own calculations, they will not insist upon a tame identity 
 of details as necessary for the proof of a uniform policy 
 in others. In proportion as they give men credit for 
 a spirit and integrity similar to their own, they will be 
 prepared to find in them a system of adaptation to the 
 mutability of earthly things, and to regard it as the best 
 evidence of a wise consistency. 
 
 Now, the Church of Rome, whether it be considered 
 locally in these islands, or diff'usively throughout Chris- 
 * " Idolum Speciis." — Bacon.
 
 IN IRELAND. 251 
 
 tendom, is pre-eminently marked by this continuity of chap, ii, 
 principle, " What is a century in the history of a a.d. 1601. 
 nation ? " asked the most brilliant of our statesmen, when 
 he would extort an argument from the supposed* recency 
 
 * Many penal laws, and these the best aimed of the whole code, are some Precau- 
 centxiries earher than the Reformation ; they relate to the correspondence tions of our 
 between ecclesiastics and the Court of Rome. Henry the Eighth did no p*^.'?^'*!^ 
 more than follow up the principles of his predecessors in opposing a foreign nncestors 
 jurisdiction, and upon all speculative points was a furious Roman CathoUc. against 
 Of late years a mistaken tenderness for religious hberty has protected the Papal in- 
 prelates in all their intrigues ; but, as every sober man saw that restraint terierences. 
 must be laid somewhere, the gentry have continued to suffer for the Ucentiou3 
 freedom of their giudes. 
 
 As it may be desu-able to show that our earlier statutes did provide for 
 the coercion of the clergy, the following mstance is quoted fi-om a Roman 
 Cathohc writer. " It may be objected," says Dr. O'Connor, " that Lalor, 
 vicar-general of DubHn, was persecuted for exercising his functions in 1606.' 
 Countrymen, beware, — these are loose assertions. Inquire into facts, and 
 you will find that Lalor was justly prosecuted, not ^persecuted, on the 
 Catholic statute of Prsemunire, enacted in the Cathohc reign of Richard the 
 Second, for the security of a Catholic State. He was prosecuted on that 
 Act, for exercising foreign jurisdiction within the realm of Ireland, in order 
 to convince the Irish, says Sir John Davies, that even Popish kings and 
 parliaments deemed the Pope an usurper of those exorbitant jurisdictions 
 which he claimed, and thought them inconsistent with the loyalty of the 
 subject and the independence of the State. 
 
 " He was convicted, and sentenced accordingly. But though this occurred 
 the very next year after the discoveiy of the Grimpowder Plot, yet, such was 
 James's moderation, that the sentence was never executed ; and, to show the 
 Irish that no persecution of their rehgion was meant, the king issued, in 
 the course of that very year, a commission of several graces, one of which 
 was to secure aU Irish estates by new patents against all the claims of the 
 Crown. 
 
 " Aye, — but Lalor was first prosecuted on the Act of Supremacy. 
 Granted ; and therefore he hiunbled himself to the Coiu-t, and made a 
 recognition that he was not lawfid vicar-general in the diocese of Dublin, 
 luldare, and Ferns. Upon this recognition he would have been enlarged ; 
 
 ' This celebrated and important case was repubhshed, with an introduction 
 by Mr. Lord, on the occasion of the Papal aggression, 1851, The title of 
 the book was, " The Yatican and St. James ; or, England independent of 
 Rome." London : Seeleys. 8vo. — Ed.
 
 252 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. 11. 
 A.D. 1601. 
 
 Dr. 
 
 Robertson. 
 
 The spirit 
 of the 
 Papacy. 
 
 Rome 
 
 outwits 
 
 statesmen. 
 
 of the penal laws ; " what is a century in the history of 
 the Papacy ?" is a question which might have been pro- 
 posed with much more reason. Twelve centuries have 
 passed over its head ; during that astonishing period its 
 plans, like its ecclesiastical discipline, have been modified 
 to suit the place or the occasion, but its purpose has 
 retained that unshaken firmness which is ascribed to its 
 faith. " The hands," says Dr. Robertson, " which held 
 the reins of administration might change, but the spirit 
 which conducted them was always the same. While the 
 measures of other Governments fluctuated, and the objects 
 at which they aimed varied, the Church kept one end in 
 view ; and to this unrelaxing constancy of pursuit it was 
 indebted for its success in the boldest attempts ever made 
 by human ambition." Time has changed, and is changing, 
 the form of everything around it, new-modelling constitu- 
 tions, shifting the balance of power, creating or destroying 
 states and empires, — his heavy hand falls weakly upon the 
 Papacy. This singular monarchy bears up mysteriously 
 against the rush of events ; opposing innovation, while 
 opposition is prudent ; and, when it bends to the force of 
 circumstances, preparing to recover its lost ascendancy 
 with unabated alacrity and inexhaustible resources. 
 
 In the narrower sphere of Ireland it is easy to trace the 
 same unbroken spirit, with the same pliancy of external 
 accommodation. For the last fifty years,* the Roman 
 Catholic bishops have been engaged, with little inter- 
 mission, in treating with various members of the Govern- 
 but finding an outcry raised against liim that he had renounced the Pope's 
 supremacy, he declared that he meant only to acknowledge the King's 
 authority iu mere temporals, without any reference to the Church. A reli- 
 gious cry was now raised against the Government ; Lalor was extolled as a 
 confessor who was persecuted for religion ; and, therefore, to satisfy the Irish 
 how grossly their credidity was imposed upon, the prosecution on the statute 
 2d of Ehzabeth was quashed, and a new prosecution was instituted, on the 
 Cathohc Act of PrcBmimire. Never did man incur the penalty of the law 
 more deservedly than Lalor." — Historical Address^ ii. 
 
 * Written a.d. 1827.— Ed.
 
 IN IRELAND. 253 
 
 ment, both in England and Ireland ; in every instance chap. ii. 
 they have over-reached or eluded them, and held on their a.d. 1601. 
 sinuous course of aggrandizement w^ithout sustaining one 
 decisive defeat. They have received with equal freedom, 
 and treated with equal dexterity, the overtures which 
 were made to them, from time to time, by aspirants 
 after place, and declaimers upon patriotism. They have 
 intrigued with all parties ; they have cajoled and vilified, 
 used and abused them, as suited their purposes, yet never 
 given their confidence to any. It was a more difficult 
 achievement to counterplot the upper classes of their 
 own communion ; they attempted it, and have succeeded. 
 In 1 793, availing themselves of the bhnd strength of the 
 Irish Legislature, they crushed the rising spirit of their 
 gentry beneath a mass of nominally enfranchished paupers; 
 on several occasions since they have rebuked that " over- 
 weening anxiety for emancipation " which would postpone 
 the sacred claims of the hierarchy ; and at some critical 
 moments, when a schism appeared inevitable, have re- 
 stored subordination in the seditious ranks, and soothed 
 or terrified the ringleaders into obedience. Men who can Popery- 
 do all this should be respected as adversaries. Friends they j^^?® **^® 
 
 . . . '^ dishonour 
 
 never can he; they have a spirit which scoffs at conci- ofEng- 
 
 liation ; they have a separate interest — an interest in ' 
 the disquiet and dishonour of England, which cannot he 
 purchased up hy any consideration within the reach of 
 a Minister. Those who would oppose them must never 
 forget the maxim, which the most accomplished man of 
 antiquity has not scrupled to dignify with the title of 
 Divine Wisdom : " H^c etenim est praeclara ilia et divina 
 sapientia, perspectas penitus et pertractatas res humanas 
 habere, nil admirari cum evenerit ; nil, antequam evenerit, 
 evenire posse non arbitrari." 
 
 It is true, indeed, that various causes conspire to 
 prevent the repetition of those desolating scenes which 
 afflicted Ireland during the reign of Elizabeth. Among
 
 254 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. n. these, it is not our least assurance of quiet, that a prospect 
 A.D. 1601. seems to open to ecclesiastical ambition of attaining its 
 objects by the peaceful arts of negotiation. Time has 
 changed the form of things, and the prelates of the 
 present day* have shaped their measures accordingly. 
 No longer menaced by proclamations, or looking for 
 protection to some malcontent lords, who insulted the 
 men, while they used the instruments, Roman Catholic 
 bishops are now recognized by the committees of both 
 Houses, and take their right reverend station round the 
 person of the sovereign. Forfeitures and the Reforma- 
 tion have cut down the ranks of their ancient rivals, 
 aud the few men of quality who remain in their com- 
 munion have just enough of consideration to give point 
 to the sarcasm,"!" and brilliancy to the cavalcade, of the 
 jubilant ecclesiastics. By the fall of the nobility the 
 bishops are now left without any competition ; absolute 
 masters of the ignorant, the fanatical, and the disaffected, 
 they can afford to treat the timid restiveness of the more 
 educated with a contemptuous and taunting composure. J 
 
 * Written 1827.— Ed. 
 
 •f" " The Catholic aristocracy, as they a/re called, since the penal laws were 
 relaxed, have gradually withdrawn themselves from the people ; they have 
 shown on some occasions an overweening anxiety for emancipation, at the 
 expense of what the priesthood and the other classes deemed the interests, if 
 not the principles of their rehgion ; hence they are looked upon with sus- 
 picion, and can no longer wield the public mind." — Dr. Doyle to Mr. 
 Rohertson. 
 Mr.O'Con- % Some time after the investigation of 1825, Mr. O'ConneU was repre- 
 lell. sented by all the Dubhn newspapers as having declared, in a public speech, 
 
 that he had been supported by Dr. Doyle, in his celebrated project of tlio 
 
 Whigs. He was con-ected by , Dr. Doyle's secretary ; and published 
 
 an apology, in which he used these among other expressions : — " I have at 
 length felt with sensitiveness all the bitterness of reproach, and in the spirit, 
 perhaps, of humiliated pride and mortified vanity I sit down to reply." " If 
 it be any pleasure to IVIr. KinseUa to know that he has grieved and humbled 
 me, I give him the advantage of knowmg the fact." If an increase of 
 political privileges woidd raise the Roman Cathohc gentry above language 
 such as this, or above the dependence in which it originates, the public
 
 the hiero- 
 cracy. 
 
 IN IRELAND. 255 
 
 In the fullest sense of the term, they are a Hierocracy, chap. it. 
 swaying a compact mass of five millions of people, with a a.d. 1601. 
 plenitude of dominion which might be envied at Constan- Power of 
 tinople, and breaking down all distinctions among their 
 vassals into the same abject prostration before their 
 insolent supremacy. This power within their domestic 
 sphere naturally gives them an influence beyond it ; the 
 opposite extremes of despotism and of a liberty almost 
 anarchical combine to swell their authority ; and, while 
 they rule at home with a rod of iron, they attack England 
 with her oivn free institutions. They govern the strongest 
 political interest in the empire ; they manage everywhere 
 the puppets of legislation, from the hovel of the resident 
 freeholder, to the chateau of the absentee ; and the local 
 minister confesses, that the tranquillity of Ireland and his 
 own titular dignity are suspended upon their irresponsible 
 good pleasure. Industrious in occupying and securing 
 those positions, which, from a thousand motives, are 
 successively relinquished to them, they establish every 
 day a precedent for some new pretension. In the mean- 
 time, they make partial exhibitions of their spiritual 
 strength : the " artillery of popular excitation " is occa- 
 sionally brought out for sportive but imposing exercise ; 
 
 would have a good argument for such a measure. TJnfortimately, the Pro- 
 testant candidates for priestly favour are no less submissive, no less in need 
 of emancipation. 
 
 Dr. Doyle found another, and an able vindicator, on the occasion above Mr. Cob- 
 mentioned. "If Mr. O'Connell," said Mr. Cobbett, "had shown any bett. 
 respect for the feelings of anybody, and, in particular, if he had not made an 
 attempt to blast the character of the Cathohc bishops, and annihilate for ever 
 the just hopes of the Cathohcs, this anecdote, and all the other facts that I 
 have stated, might have remained for me in everlasting oblivion. Cathohcs 
 of Ireland, trust solely to your clergy,— ^^ey will never deceive you. Again, 
 I say, believe in the sincerity of no leaders, whose ambition can be gratified 
 by the Government. Obey the laws, whatever they may be, rely upon your 
 clergy for obtaining you redress, as far as that depends upon man, and 
 patiently wait for circimistances and events." Qucere, What were those Just 
 hopes which Mr. O'Connell attempted to annihilate ? Surely not the hopes 
 of political redress.
 
 25G 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME IN IRELAND. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 A.D. 1601. 
 
 Lord 
 Bacon. 
 
 and the crozier of a skilful prelate, like the wand of 
 Prospero, raises a whirlwind of contentious elements, 
 " roarers that care not for the name of king," yet contri- 
 bute, it seems, to the honour and security of royalty. 
 *' Shepherds of people," says Bacon, " have need to know 
 the calendars of tempests in the State, which are com- 
 monly greatest when things grow to equality, as natural 
 tempests are greatest about the equinoxes."
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II. 
 
 Carte. 
 
 Note A., page 248. note a. 
 
 That the Roman Catholics generally, both in England and in Ireland, That Ro- 
 
 attended the reformed worship at this time, is attested by all our most manists 
 
 dispassionate writers. attended 
 
 ^ reiormed 
 
 Thus Carte:- ^°^'^P- 
 
 " In the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the Roman Catholics 
 universally throughout England observed the Act of Uniformity, and 
 went to their parish churches, where the English Liturgy was con- 
 stantly used. They continued doing so for eleven years, till Pope 
 Pius V. (who had before, in a letter to the Queen, offered to allow 
 this Liturgj', as not contrary to truth) issued out his famous Bull, by 
 which he excommunicated her, and absolved her subjects from their 
 allegiance. Upon this extravagant act of the Papal power, some few 
 of the leading men withdrew from the public churches ; but still the 
 Roman Catholics in general continued to repair to them until after the 
 twentieth year of the Queen, when Campian and other Jesuits, being 
 sent into England, laboured all they could to engage them not to 
 resort thither for worship. Pope Gregory XIII., following his prede- 
 cessor's steps, renewed his Bull, and excommunicated the Queen 
 again ; and Father Parsons published a treatise, entitled De sacris 
 aliem's non acleundis, endeavouring to prove it unlawful to go to a 
 schismatical worship, and to join in the use of a lawful Liturgy, with 
 persons that were not of the Papal communion. This doctrine was 
 not immediately received : the Jesuit's book was answered by some of 
 the secular priests of the Church of Rome ; and the matter was argued 
 pro and con in various tracts till the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign. 
 King James, incensed at Pope Clement the Ninth's Bull, which 
 enjoined the Roman Catholics to keep out the Scotch heretic, unless 
 he would reconcile himself to Rome, and hold his croion of the Papacy, 
 and alarmed by the discovery of the Gunpowder Treason, enacting 
 
 s
 
 2.xS 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 Arp. TO 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 Bcrring- 
 ton. 
 
 severer laws against recusants, and the Jesuits, by the support of the 
 Court of Rome, getting the better of the secular priests, the Papists 
 universally withdrew from the parish churches in England. The case 
 ■was much the same in Ireland, where the bishops complied with the 
 Reformation, and the Roman Catholics in general resorted to the 
 parish churches, in which the English service was used, until the end 
 of Queen Elizabeth's reign. But swarms of Jesuits and priests, 
 educated in the seminaries founded by King Philip II. in Spain and 
 the Netherlands, and by the Cardinal of Lon-aine in Champagne 
 (where, pursuant to the views of the founders, they sucked in as well 
 the principles of rebellion as of what they call Catholicity), coming over 
 into that kingdom, as full of secular as of religious views, they soon 
 prevailed with an ignorant and credulous people to withdraw from the 
 public service of the Church." — Life of Ormond, i., 32. 
 
 And the Roman Catholic Berrington : 
 
 " For some time, the great body of the clergy conformed exteriorly 
 
 to the law It was, afterwards, more than once, publicly 
 
 declared by Sir Edward Coke, when Attorney-General (which the 
 Queen herself confirmed in a letter to Sir Francis Walsingham), that, 
 for the first ten years of her reign, the Catholics, without doubt or 
 scruple, repaired to the parish churches. The assertion is true, if not 
 too generally applied. ' I deny not,' says Father Parsons, in reply 
 to Coke, " but that many throughout the realm, though otherwise 
 Catholics in heart (as most of them were), did at that time, and after, 
 as also now {i.e., in 1606), either upon fear, or lack of better instruc- 
 tion, or both, repair to Protestant churches.' " — Memoirs of Gregorio 
 Panzcini, Introduction, 15 — 19. 
 
 Xeland. And Leland : 
 
 " In Ireland, the remonstrants of 1644 contended that the act of 
 uniformity was not at all executed in the reign of Elizabeth. Their 
 answerers assigned a reason, because there were no recusants ; as all of 
 the Roman communion resorted to the established churches. But, though 
 the allegation on either side be not strictly true, yet the law, though 
 not entirely donnant, was generally relaxed." 
 
 Carte and Leland concur in stating, that the legal fine of a shilling 
 a-week {i.e., a shilling Irish, equal to ninepence English) on those 
 who absented themselves from the reformed worship, was levied in no 
 part of Ireland but the county of Dublin. That county was selected 
 for a more rigorous execution of the statute, " because the eyes of the 
 whole kingdom were upon it, waiting to see what course the inhabitants 
 would take. And yet, all that was levied in that county did not 
 amount to above fourteen or fifteen pounds a-year." I,eland, who
 
 IN IRELAND. 259 
 
 states fully and feelingly whatever has been said on the Roman note a. 
 
 Catholic side, gives the general result in these words : — " However 
 
 the foreign clergy and Popish emissaries might have encouraged the 
 
 people to repine at the penal laws, yet it is certain, and acknowledged 
 
 by writers of the Roman communion, when it serves the purposes of 
 
 their argument, that these laws were not executed with rigour, in the 
 
 reign of Elizabeth." — ii., 381. 
 
 Mr. Butler, however, wishes to make a contrary impression. "What Butler, 
 language," he asks, " can adequately describe the barbarity of Eliza- 
 beth's religious legislation, in respect to Catholic Ireland, immediately 
 upon her coming to the throne ? Her spiritual supremacy was required 
 to be professed by all the nation (a nation which consisted wholly of 
 Roman Catholics), under the successive penalties of all the party's 
 real or personal estate, of praemunire, and the punishment of traitors 
 by death, and embowelment alive. Absence from the Protestant 
 service was punishable by a forfeiture of twelvepence for each offence, 
 equal, at that time, in Ireland, to ten shillings of our present money. 
 The service was to be read in the English language, then wholly 
 unintelligible to the Irish people, but with liberty to the clergyman, if 
 he should think jDroper, to read it in Latin, a language equally unin- 
 telligible to all but the clergy. Is this the legislation of a princess, 
 whose tolerating principles and mildness, and of counsellors whose 
 wisdom and justice you so highly eulogize ? Does histoiy record an 
 instance of intolerance equally savage ?" — Vindication of Book of the 
 Ro7nan Catholic Church, 104. 
 
 Mr. Butler knows that confused expressions are regarded by critics 
 as proofs of impassioned sincerity ; perhaps it was this knowledge that 
 suggested the blundering vehemence of the accusation, that the Irish 
 recusants were first to be put to death, and theii emboweled alive. 
 But whether this cool writer was, or was not, " affecting to be 
 unaffected," his opening charge would not be absurd if he had made 
 any attempt to prove these three particulars : that the supremacy 
 claimed by Elizabeth loas spiritual, in the sense to which he chooses 
 to pervert the ambiguity of that term ; that the oath of supremacy inas 
 proposed to all the Irish Roman Catholics ; and that even one of those 
 who refused was treated in the manner he seems willing to describe. Mr. 
 Butler has not made the attempt, and the reasons which dictated, or 
 might have dictated, this forbearance, will be deemed unexceptionable 
 by every sober man. For the first of the three particulars, Mr. 
 Butler had before him the solemn and concurrent declarations of the 
 Queen herself, of the Parliament, and of the Church, that no other 
 supremacy was claimed for the Crown than " the right of ruling all 
 estates and degrees of men within the realm, and of restraining evil 
 doers with the civil sword ; " for the second, he had the voice of 
 history, supported by contemporary state papers, Acts of Parliament, 
 
 s2
 
 2G0 POLICY OF THE eilURCII OF ROME IN IRELAND. 
 
 App. TO and other records, that the oath of supremacy was administered only 
 OHAP. II. to the principal mariistratcs and officers of the executive ; and for the 
 tliird, he had the same testimony, that the penalty upon refusal was 
 generally suspension from office ; that suspension was not always 
 followed by dismissal; that sometimes the recusant was allowed to 
 retii'e upon a pension ; and at the worst, in a case of the most aggra- 
 vated contumely, was imprisoned for a few days. Finally, Mr. Butler 
 knew, from the acknowledgment of modern associations, if more 
 respectable authority was not to his taste, that these recusant magis- 
 trates, whether i-emoved or suspended, pensioned or imprisoned, were 
 admitted into both Houses of the Irish Parliament. Such is the 
 amount of the barbarity which Mr. Butler would have related had he 
 been the historian of the Roman Catholics. 
 
 But Mr. Butler does not wish that his charges should be received 
 too seriously. Had he been asked Horace's question — 
 
 " Amphora coepit 
 Institui ; currente rota cxir urceus exit ? " 
 
 he doubtless would have pleaded his veracity or his good nature. 
 The alleged cruelties of Elizabeth and her ministers, " fine by degrees 
 and beautifully less," dwindle delicately, from embowelment alive, to 
 the infliction of — prayers in an unknown tongue ! The Irish Roman 
 Catholics were condemned, it seems, either to make up amongst them 
 the enormous fine of fifteen pounds a-year (in persecuting years), or to 
 hear a service, which the Pope had pronounced to be unobjectionable ; 
 which their happy ignorance of either Latin or English rendered 
 almost as harmless as their old Liturgy, which was to be read, if they 
 pleased, in the former language, and for nine-tenths of it, in the very 
 words of the missal or the vulgate, — and this is what Mr. Butler calls 
 " such an instance of savage intolerance as is not recorded in history." 
 His readers must be very morose if they do not part in good humour 
 from a man who, at his venerable years, gambols thus lightly for their 
 entertainment.
 
 261 
 
 A.D. 1601. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES THE FIRST TO THE 
 GREAT REBELLION. 
 
 Clement the liighth had declared that " the Scotchman King 
 should never ascend the throne of England unless he sub- ''^™^® • 
 mitted to the chair of Peter, and consented to hold the 
 three kingdoms as fiefs of the holy see." To support this 
 menace, the Pontiff had exerted the usual arts of his 
 court in negotiating with the French and Spanish govern- 
 ments, and in soliciting the Roman Catholics of the two 
 islands.* The talents of Cardinal Allen, and Father 
 Parsons, had been combined to produce the Conference 
 about the Succession ; and the equal zeal of less eminent 
 agents had been employed in giving publicity to its 
 doctrines. But France, from humanity, and Spain, from 
 vexation,f refused to countenance the schemes of the 
 Vatican ; in England the Protestant interest, already pre- 
 dominant, was now supported by the strength of the 
 Scottish monarchy ; and, after thirty years of exterminating 
 
 * Mr. Biitler, « History of Catholics," i., 269, et seq. 
 
 f The French monarch said, that " the design of his Holiness woidd only 
 make the Catholics more miserable than ever, by engaging them in an 
 attempt against the laws and the lawful succession :" so much more tender- 
 ness had a foreign prhice than the Soly Father for the welfare of the Koman 
 Catholics. The Spaniard was irritated at the perfidy of the Vatican, which, 
 after repeated promises, now refused to sanction his pretensions to England. 
 Clement's plan was to confer the tliree kingdoms upon the Lady Arabella 
 Stuart, and the lady upon Cardinal Farncse : the cardinal was, of course, 
 to be absolved from his rehgious oaths. — Mr. Butler, as before.
 
 262 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 A.D. IGOl. 
 
 Line of 
 Milesian 
 monarchs 
 restored. 
 
 warfare, some little respite was necessary for Ireland. 
 Thus Clement was compelled to abandon his project ; and, 
 on the demise of Elizabeth, the Scotchman had no com- 
 petitor for the S2)lendid inheritance. A few zealots, 
 indeed, in Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and other places,* 
 seemed willing to hazard a fresh insurrection in support of 
 the Infanta and the Catholic cause ; but the vigour and 
 address of the deputy Mountjoy soon removed these trifling 
 exceptions to the general tranquillity. 
 
 It was not, however, the quiet of mere exhaustion in 
 which Ireland now lay. Expectation (just and natural, if 
 it could have been restrained within sober limits ; but 
 dangerous, from the ardent temper of the people, and the 
 mischievous industry with which their hopes were inflamed,) 
 had its share in producing the unwonted calm. The old 
 Irish regarded James as a kinsman ; f and were taught to 
 expect great favours from a prince who, after an oppres- 
 sive interregnum of four hundred and fifty years, had 
 restored the legitimate line of their Milesian sovereigns. 
 The monarch, on his part, gladly admitted the plea of 
 consanguinity, and displayed a kindly interest in the welfare 
 of his Irish peoj)le. To mark his accession as the auspicious 
 opening of a new era, he commenced his reign with an 
 act of indemnity and oblivion for all past offences ; and, as 
 a pledge of the indulgence to be shown to minor culprits, 
 received O'Neil, and his son-in-law, O'Donel, with dis- 
 tinguished attention. This sweeping amnesty was followed 
 by a commission of grace, for the settlement of landed 
 property ; by which the great proprietors were secured 
 against the claims of the Crown ; inferior holders were, in 
 their turn, protected from the exactions of the nobles ; 
 and all estates made descendible according to the law of 
 
 * These riots are described by Cox with absurd exaggeration : this writer's 
 prejudices render him almost as unsafe a guide on one side, as Curry, 
 Plow den, and the elder O' Conor are iipon the other. 
 
 t Several Irish writers, O'Flaherty, Lynch, O'Halloran, &<;., dwell with 
 much complacency upon the genealogy of the house of Stuart.
 
 IN IRELAND. 26-3 
 
 England. Lastly, the whole body of the common people, chap. iir. 
 Milesians, and those Anglo-Irish who had fallen into the a.d. 1601. 
 native customs, were emancipated for ever from the 
 dominion of their lords : Ulster, with parts of Leinster 
 and Connaught, for the first time, and Munster, after an 
 interval of two centuries, saw j udges taking their circuits of 
 assize, and dispensing the comforts of English juris- 
 prudence. Benevolent, but ineffectual measures : it was 
 beyond the reach of a proclamation to abolish the memory 
 of old grievances ; to make an Irish landlord contented 
 with equal laws and a reasonable rent ; to appease the 
 hungry and contentious expectancies, which, by the usages 
 of tanistry and gavelkind, were collected round an Irish 
 property ; or to qualify those who had been brutalized by 
 the tyranny of ages, for the immediate enjoyment of 
 British freedom. 
 
 While James was thus endeavouring to conciliate his 
 Irish subjects, the hierarchy had prepared another, and 
 more insidious ground, for their wild hopes and conditional 
 loyalty. *' The son of a Catholic martyr," * as these prelates 
 loved to style the new monarch, inherited, it was saidj 
 the orthodox principles of his parent, and waited only for 
 an opportunity of declaring himself. In the meantimcj 
 they resolved to act as if assured of his favour ; his acqui- 
 escence might lead to their peaceful re-establishment ; his 
 resistance might stimulate the prodigal valour of their 
 votaries to another desperate struggle. The regular priests, 
 who had been banished in the preceding reign, now 
 returned in troops ; and, disdaining to perform their rites 
 in unmolested privacy, braved the law by their ostentatious 
 exhibitions : they were seen in all the towns, marching in 
 processions, clothed in the habits of their respective 
 orders, and unfurling all the pageantry of their gaudy 
 ceremonial* As revenues are never wanting to the titular 
 hierarchy, when it is thought expedient to display the 
 
 * He is so styled by a contemporary titular bishop, Dr. Routh, Analecta 
 Sacra.
 
 264 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. magnificence of the Church, means were found to restore 
 A.D. 1603. the Roman Catholic worship in considerable splendour ; 
 cro.sses were erected in conspicuous places, chapels were 
 built, monasteries repaired, and, in several instances, the 
 reformed clergy were ejected from the parish churches. 
 The times were no longer considered to require any com- 
 promise. Those of the laity who had hitherto frequented 
 the Protestant service, and who were distinguished from the 
 recusant party by the title of Church Papists,* relaxed, 
 Ecclesias- and ultimately discontinued, their attendance. The eccle- 
 p£^Q siastics began to revive their old claim of superiority over 
 
 power. the civil power : they reviewed causes which had been 
 determined in the King's Courts ; and they enjoined the 
 populace, under pain of mortal sin, to renounce the laws 
 for the sacred authority of the canons. Could they have 
 been satisfied with an actual toleration, James was not 
 indisposed to overlook these bold proceedings ; but when 
 their agents petitioned the throne for a. formal recognitionf 
 of the Papal system, the extravagance of the request, the 
 fear of some new conspiracy, the confidence avowed by 
 the recusants, that they could command what they had 
 chosen to solicit ; and that sterner spirit of Protestantism, 
 which was now spreading rapidly through the two islands, 
 all united to arrest the progress of concession. The 
 appearance of vigour, however, which the monarch was 
 compelled to assume, did not accord either with the easiness 
 of his temper, or with the respedt which he felt and 
 acknowledged for the " mother Church" of Christendom. 
 
 * In the same sph'it, the agitators of tlie present day call the moderate 
 Roman CathoUcs Orange Papists. 
 
 t Such a recognition has not been yet obtained. It is now universally 
 known, that a correspondence with Rome, which, according to the modem 
 discipline, is necessary for the maintenance of communion with the Church, 
 subjects the party to very heavy legal penalties. The residence of Papal 
 ecclesiastics in the British dorainious is, therefore, only connived at, not 
 legally tolerated.^ 
 
 ' Written in 1827.— Ed,
 
 IN IRELAND. 265 
 
 The Papists soon learned to despise his timid moderation ; chap hi. 
 and to the Puritans, while he laboured to miti^^ate their a.d. 1603. 
 asperities, he became himself an object of suspicion and 
 disgust.* 
 
 It is remarkable that, though the hierarchy thus affected The Grim- 
 to rely on his entire devotedness to their cause, they P°^'^|^'^ 
 would not suffer their followers to take an oath of allegi- ^ ^ 2.605. 
 ance. The discovery of the gunpowder treason had been 
 so far from rufSing the benevolence of the King, or 
 thwarting his schemes of conciliation, that his naturally 
 undignified character rose with the emergency into a 
 clemency and magnanimity truly royal. In his speech to 
 the Parliament he observed, " that though religion had 
 engaged the conspirators in so criminal an attempt, yet 
 ought we not to include all the Romanists in the same 
 guilt, or suppose them equally disposed to commit such 
 enormous barbarities. The wrath of heaven is denounced 
 against crimes, but innocent error may obtain its favour ; 
 and many holy men, our ancestors among the rest, had 
 concurred with the Church of Rome in her scholastic 
 doctrines, who yet had never admitted her seditious 
 principles concerning the Pope's power of dethroning 
 kings. For his part, the conspiracy, however atrocious, 
 should never alter in the least his plan of government : 
 while, with one hand, he punished guilt, with the other 
 he would support and protect innocence." -|- To discrimi- Oath to be 
 nate those whose loyalty was thus to recommend them to t^*^™ ^ 
 
 '' -^ ^ Koman 
 
 his favour, the acute, but somewhat pedantic monarch, Catholics. 
 bestowed much pains upon the preparation of a test-oath. 
 As, notwithstanding the explanations of the Church and 
 legislature, the " spiritual supremacy" of Elizabeth con- 
 tinued to be misinterpreted, he considerately relinquished 
 the invidious claim : on the other hand, the skill with 
 
 * The particulars mentioned in this paragraph are detailed by Carte, 
 •' Life of Ormond," Introduction ; by Leland, vol. ii., 416 ; by Burke, 
 " Hibemia Dotninicana," 610 ; and by Cox, "Hibernia Anglicana," vol. ii., 10. 
 
 t Hume, ri., 38.
 
 2(16 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 A.D. 1605. 
 
 Deposing 
 
 doctrine 
 
 heretical. 
 
 Pope Paul 
 T. pro- 
 nouuces 
 oath im- 
 lawfuL 
 
 wliich he insisted on civil fidelity was calculated to secure 
 a fair equivalent. His oath differs from the present one 
 in some curious particulars : it opens with a declaration 
 that James was rightful King ; it says, " notwithstanding 
 any excommunication, passed or to he passed, I will bear 
 true allegiance ;" above all, it pronounces the deposing 
 doctrine heretical. 
 
 Upon the first publication of this celebrated formulary, 
 it almost had the effect which was intended by the royal 
 framer. "Various were the opinions concerning it," says 
 a titular Bishop of the last century, " and much dissension 
 arose among the lay leaders of the Catholics, the priest- 
 hood, and the professors of scholastic theology. Some 
 opposed it strenuously ; others took it without hesitation, 
 pleading the necessity of relieving themselves from the 
 penal laws, and their intention of promising only civil 
 obedience. But the controversy was ended by the Pontiff 
 Paul v., who, in a brief addressed to the Catholics of 
 England and Ireland, pronounced the oath unlawful." * 
 The following is a copy of this memorable edict : — 
 
 " To the Catholics of England and Ireland : 
 
 " Beloved children, health and apostolical bene- 
 diction. 
 His brief. " The tribulations which you have borne for the Catholic 
 faith have always deeply afflicted us ; but now that we 
 have heard of the increase of your*sufferings, our grief 
 has been imbittered to a most painful degree. For we 
 have learned that you are compelled, under severe penal- 
 ties, to frequent the temples of the heretics and listen to 
 their preachings. Truly we believe that those who have 
 hitherto so firmly endured the most atrocious persecutions, 
 that they might walk without spot in the law of the Lord, 
 will not now permit themselves to be contaminated by any 
 communion with apostates. Nevertheless, being impelled 
 by the zeal of our pastoral office, and by that paternal 
 * Dr. Burke, " Hibemia Dominicana."
 
 IN IRELAND. 267 
 
 solicitude which we feel for the safety of your souls, we chap. in. 
 are moved to warn and adjure you, that you, on no a.d. 1605. 
 account, enter the temples of the heretics, or participate 
 in their religious rites, lest you incur the wrath of God. 
 Furthermore, you cannot, without the most grievous injury 
 to the Divine honour, bind yourselves by an oath which, 
 with much sorrow of heart, we understand to be proposed 
 to you." The oath is recited here ; then the Pontiff pro- 
 ceeds : — " It must be clear to you, from the very words, 
 that this oath cannot be taken with safety to the Catholic 
 faith, and your own souls. We admonish you, therefore, 
 that you abstain from this, and all such oaths ; and we 
 require this the more urgently, because that, having 
 experienced the constancy of your faith, which has been 
 tried by persecution as gold in the furnace, we hold it as 
 certain that you will cheerfully submit to all tortures, even 
 to death itself, rather than offend in any wise against the 
 majesty of God. And our assurance is strengthened by 
 those actions which shine forth now in your martyrs, with 
 no less splendour than the achievements of the first ages of 
 the Church. Stand, therefore, having your loins girded 
 with truth, and putting on the breast-plate of righteous- 
 ness, and taking the shield of faith : be strong in the 
 Lord and in the power of his might, and let nothing 
 restrain you. He who beholds your contest from the 
 heavens, and is ready to crown you with glory, will himself 
 accomplish the good work in you : He has promised never 
 to leave you as orphans, and you know that his promises 
 are sure. Adhere, therefore, to his discipline, being rooted 
 and grounded in love, for by this shall all men know that 
 you are his disciples, if you love one another. Which 
 love, as it is much to be desired by all faithful Christians, 
 so, my beloved children, is it especially necessary for you. 
 For thus will be broken that power of the devil which 
 now rises against you, and which is chiefly supported by 
 the mutual discord of my children."
 
 268 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CUAP. III. 
 
 A.D. 1G05. 
 
 Enforced 
 by a second 
 brief ; 
 and a third 
 of Pope 
 Urban. 
 
 Oath of 
 
 allegiance 
 
 framed. 
 
 The authenticity of this decree having been questioned 
 by the loyal party, it was confirmed the year following, in 
 a second brief of the same Pontiff. Some time after, it 
 was again enforced by the succeeding Pope, Urban, who 
 pronounced, " that the Catholics ought to lose their lives, 
 rather than take the condemned oath." " It was," he said, 
 " pernicious and unlawful, designed not only to maintain 
 the fidelity due to the King, but to wrest the sceptre 
 of the universal Church from the Vicar of Almighty God." 
 
 By these means the controversy was soon terminated in 
 Ireland ; but, in the other island, where the Roman 
 Catholics bore a greater proportion to the faction of the 
 Pope, the spirit of loyalty was not subdued so easily. 
 A very interesting account of the origin, progress, and 
 final rejection of the oath in England, has been given by 
 a Roman Catholic bishop of that country. The following 
 are extracts : — 
 
 " Had the Catholics, in a body, upon the accession of 
 James, waited on him with the Protestation of Allegiance, 
 as containing their true and loyal sentiments, it is probable 
 that we should have heard no more of recusancy, or of 
 penal prosecutions. His good will to the professors of 
 that religion was, from the earliest impressions, deeply 
 marked on his heart; but in the creed of the majority, at 
 least of a majority of their ministers, he knew there was a 
 principle admitted, that of the Papal prerogative over the 
 crowns of princes, which could ill accord with tlie exalted 
 opinion he entertained of his Royal dignity and independ- 
 ence. Both Parliament and King, aware that some 
 Catholics, from conscientious scruples, objected to the 
 oath of supremacy, and still that there were many whose 
 civil principles were sound and loyal, seriously desired to 
 offer them a political test, which should establish a just 
 discrimination ; that is, should show them who might 
 be safely trusted. With this view, the oath of allegiance 
 was framed, to which it was thought every Catholic would
 
 IN IRELAND. 269 
 
 cheerfully submit, who did not believe the Bishop of chap. iir. 
 Rome to have power to depose kings, and give away their ^■^- 1G05. 
 dominions. The oath, accordingly, was taken by many 
 Catholics, both laity and clergy ; and a ray of returning 
 happiness gleamed around them. But a cloud soon 
 gathered on the seven hills ; for it could not be that a 
 test, the main object of which was an explicit rejection of 
 the deposing iwwer, should not raise vapours there. The 
 Catholics were thrown into the utmost confusion ; new 
 dissensions arose ; controversies were renewed ; while the 
 King, the Government, and the nation, strengthened in 
 their first prejudices, were now authorized to declare, that 
 men ivhose civil conduct was subject to the control of a 
 foreign Court, could loith no justice claim the common right 
 of citizens. The laws of the preceding reign were ordered 
 to be executed, and new ones, additionally severe, were 
 enacted. With what face, then, can it be asserted that 
 the Roman bishop or his Court have constantly promoted 
 the best interests of the English Catholics, when their 
 religion itself was exposed to danger, and themselves and 
 their posterity involved in much misery, that an ambitious 
 prerogative might not be curtailed ? " " The priests who 
 took the oath of allegiance were harassed by a Papal 
 decree, whereby they were deprived of all their jurisdic- 
 tion, and consigned to penury and ignominy. Of these, 
 many surrendered themselves into the hands of justice, to 
 obtain a scanty maintenance — an act of direful necessity, 
 which the men of their own faith could represent as a 
 sinful apostasy from religion. Others retracted, and, 
 among them, two of the thirteen who had signed the 
 protestation of allegiance ; but the Bulls of Paul, it 
 seems, had extinguished all consistency of reason, and 
 inspired them with a love of martyrdom. They died, 
 because, when called upon by the legal authority of their 
 country, they would not declare that the Roman bishop 
 had no right to dethrone princes." * 
 
 * Berrington, " Memoirs of Pauzani," Introduction, G8 — 78. Mr.
 
 270 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 A.D. 1605. 
 
 Appeal of 
 priests to 
 the Pojie. 
 
 Appeal 
 \mheeded. 
 
 Some priests, fellow-prisoners of the two who had been 
 executed, addressed an affecting petition to the Pope, 
 praying that he would explain in what particulars the 
 oath was unlawful. " Immured," said they, " in a dun- 
 geon, surrounded by all that is pernicious and revolting, 
 bereft of the solace of friendly communion and the society 
 of all good men, we live in darkness. From this place, in 
 which thirteen of us had been confined for our rejection 
 of the* oath, two of our number went forth last year to 
 suffer as invincible martyrs, and exhibited a sight of sub- 
 lime interest to God, to angels, and to men. By the blood 
 of these martyrs, by our own toils and sufferings, by our 
 chains and tortures and all-enduring patience, and, if these 
 things do not move you, by the bowels of the Divine com- 
 passion, we implore you, turn a portion of your considera- 
 tion to the afflictions of the English Catholics. There 
 are some who fluctuate between you * and Caesar ; in 
 order, therefore, that the truth may be made manifest, 
 we pray that your Holiness would vouchsafe to point out 
 those propositions in the oath of allegiance which are 
 opposed to faith and salvation." 
 
 The Vicar of Christ would not condescend to explain : 
 " he could sit " — it is a Papal bishop who thus vents his 
 indignation — " he could sit undisturbed in the Vatican, 
 hearing that men were imprisoned, and that blood was 
 poured out, in support of a claim which had no better 
 origin than the ambition of his predecessors, and the weak 
 concessions of mortals ; he could sit and view the scene, 
 and not, in pity at least, wish to redress their sufferings, 
 by releasing them from the injunctions of his decree." 
 
 The Irish priesthood gave, as usual, more serious provo- 
 cation, and, as usual, escaped with lighter penalties. The 
 growing confidence of their faction, the weakness of the 
 
 Butler mentions the execution of these priests, but with his customary 
 reserve, leaves his readers to conjecture the cause. 
 
 * The word in the Gospel, it will be remembered, is God. The passage 
 above given is quoted by Dr. O' Conor fi'om Dodd's " Chiu-ch History," 
 vol. iii., 524.
 
 IN IRELAND. 271 
 
 Government, the predilection of the landlords for a Roman chap. hi. 
 Catholic tenantry, and the execration in which all classes a.d. 1605. 
 held the character of an informer, contributed to encourage 
 and protect their intrigues. Far from being exposed to 
 too severe a scrutiny, that speculative treason which con- 
 tented itself with refusing a pledge of allegiance seemed, 
 from its rarity and the strong relief of contrast, as if 
 almost elevated to the merit of loyalty. It would, indeed, 
 be strange if, in a country where the spirit of the order, 
 and the arts of the Roman Court, were producing their 
 annual fruits of sedition, these ecclesiastics had enjoyed, 
 in every case, an unclouded and tranquil impunity. A 
 statute, passed in the second year of Elizabeth, had armed 
 the executive with considerable powers against them ; and, 
 from time to time, at seasons of peculiar alarm, a procla- 
 mation from Dublin Castle was discharged over their 
 heads, to announce the probability of its enforcement : but 
 their admirable discipline at first, and afterwards experi- 
 ence of the slightness of the danger, taught them to stand 
 the ineffectual fire. From Henry the Eighth to George 
 the Third, a period of two troubled and eventful centu- 
 ries, in which, with the exception of a few Franciscans, 
 not one of the priesthood was found trustworthy, the 
 diligence of faction has not been rewarded with the 
 discovery of half a dozen instances of vindictive animad- 
 version. 
 
 It is said, by modern writers of the Church of Rome, 
 by Dr. O 'Conor, on the Roman Catholic side, by Mr. 
 Plowden, in the opposite extreme, and by Mr. Butler, 
 who wishes to mediate between these conflicting parties, 
 that the oath of James is substantially the same with that 
 which has been taken for the last fifty years. If their 
 agreement could be clearly shown, and if it were also 
 certain that the present is an adequate test,* there would 
 remain little reason for doubting that Popery is extinct in 
 the British islands. But those who reflect on the refined 
 * See, however, the " Digest of Evidence," part ii., chap. 8.
 
 272 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. and systematic equivocation of tlie Papal schools, will be 
 A.D. 1605. slow to admit an identity of import, without a precise 
 correspondence in the terms. The truth is, that these 
 gentlemen, from different hut equally efficacious motives, 
 have been unjust to the learned sagacity of James, and 
 too lenient to the presumptuous ignorance of the late 
 Irish legislature. They felt, also, a common anxiety that 
 an important change should appear to have taken place in 
 the political principles of the body to which, in common, 
 they belonged ; and they were thus prompted to maintain 
 that a pledge, which had been refused at an earlier period, 
 was substantially given in their own times. But, when 
 they descend to particulars, and they were too discreet to 
 penetrate very deeply, the hopes raised by this confident 
 but vague asseveration are immediately dispersed. Dr. 
 O'Conor, pursuing the steps of some Gallican divines, and 
 a few loyal Irishmen of the seventeenth century, is quite 
 willing to call the deposing doctrine heretical.* Mr. 
 Plowden, on the contrary, while he contends that, by 
 taking the present oath he has equivalently taken that of 
 James, objects to this epithet, " because," as he says, 
 " there never was a heresy of such a tendency." j- The 
 expression is obscure, but the meaning seems to be that, 
 though many have held the doctrine, yet they were not 
 heretics ; their error, if it were one, did not amount to 
 heresy, or exclude them from the fellowship of an 
 Dr. Milner infallible Church. To the same effect is the Theological 
 de osine Judgment of Dr. Milner and the priesthood of his midland 
 power. district : — " Although we have for ourselves abjured the 
 deposing doctrine, yet, following the example of our prede- 
 cessors, who, chiefly on account of the extravagant and 
 false terms therein contained, refused King James's oath 
 of allegiance, ive declare that it is utterly unlawful, and 
 contrary to the doctrine of our Church, for a Catholic to 
 
 * Father Walsh calls it the Hildebrandine Heresy, from Pope Hilde- 
 brand, i.e., Saint Gregory the Seventh. 
 
 t " Historical Letter to Colvunbanus," 153. Appendix, 6.
 
 IN IRELAND. 273 
 
 condemn upon oath the mere deposing doctrine as damnable cnAr. iii. 
 and heretical." * This language is instructive : the divines a.d. 1605. 
 abjure the alarming tenet ; but they confess that, if they 
 were to call it heretical, they would be contradicting the 
 doctrine of the Church, or, in other words, incurring 
 themselves that guilt of heresy which they imputed to 
 others : they declare inferentially that the Church, or 
 some authority which they receive as that of the Church, 
 has a doctrine upon the subject — a doctrine which must 
 be unerringly true, yet is of too sacred and delicate a 
 character to be exposed to the gaze of Protestants, or of 
 the vulgar of their own communion. 
 
 Finally, when from these adverse statements, we turn to Mr.Butler. 
 the guarded moderation of Mr. Butler, he informs us that 
 " the Church tolerates both parties," both that which 
 holds, and that which renounces, the deposing doctrine^ 
 This gentleman, the advocate of the measures which were 
 opposed by Dr. Milner and his clerical associates, could 
 not speak unfavourably of the oath of James ; but it is 
 interesting to observe the steadiness with which, as a 
 historian, he poises the nice balance of impartiality. He 
 acknowledges his persuasion " that nothing could be wiser 
 or more humane than James's purpose in framing the 
 oath ; " " that his views were kind, salutary, and most 
 benign." But this praise of good intentions on the part 
 of the monarch is qualified by an attempt to show that 
 other views were attributed, and not without reason, to his 
 ministers and advisers. The sinister purposes thus im- 
 puted were, " first, to divide the Catholics about the 
 lawfulness of the oath ; secondly, to expose them to daily 
 persecution in case of refusal, and, in consequence of this, 
 to represent them as disaffected persons, and of unsound 
 principles." f Now, if this were wickedness, James him- 
 self must be involved in the accusation ; for he avowed 
 his anxiety to distinguish the well-disposed from those 
 
 * " Evidence of his Grace the Ai-chhishop of Diibhiij" Lords' Report, 752. 
 t See " History of Cathohcs," i., 307, 308, &c. 
 
 T
 
 274 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 AD. 1605. 
 
 Papal 
 policy to 
 make 
 statesmen 
 govern 
 through 
 the priest- 
 hood. 
 
 whom, in his homely hut appropriate language, he called 
 Gunpowder Papists. It was an anxiety which, one would 
 suppose, might be very consistently shared by the most 
 liberal minister — to protect and cherish men of approved 
 loyalty, without reference to their creeds ; to watch, and, 
 if necessary, to coerce, others, whom disaffection, not 
 dissent, had rendered obnoxious. Yet Mr. Butler calls it 
 a persecutioji : had he said tliat treason was part of his 
 religion, the abuse of words would not have been greater, 
 tliough it might have required a more serious correction. 
 And why should an endeavour " to divide the Catholics " 
 be so heinous an offence in the judgment of this able and 
 temperate writer ? The Church, he says, tolerates both 
 parties, and probably he wishes to imitate her neutrality. 
 
 There is not, however, that perfect equality of regard 
 which the historian imagines : the conduct of the Church 
 betrays the quarter to which her affection inclines, while 
 her silence proves, if not her infallibility, at least the 
 profoundness of her worldly wisdom. The devoted 
 fidelity of the Papist is favoured; the timid and 
 respectful doubts of the Roman Catholic are tolerated : 
 the former class constitutes the effective strength of the 
 Papacy ; the latter serves, not only to magnify its osten- 
 sible numbers, but to recruit the disposable force with 
 continual supplies. It is, therefore, not without good 
 reason that the court of Rome and the local hierarchy 
 oppose every effort to separate these classes. Their policy 
 has always been, and is at the present moment, directed 
 to this point, that the civil government should accept 
 their interference, as the only security fur the good 
 citizenship of their followers. They know the import- 
 ance of presenting an imposing front, and negotiating 
 at the head of an unbroken phalanx. Nothing will be 
 endured which threatens to thin their ranks, or to 
 enervate their discipline ; no test will be sanctioned, 
 no conditions will be allowed, to which they are not 
 contracting parties. Honour is called in to the aid of
 
 IN IRELAND. 275 
 
 faith ; the generous are taught to forget private opinion chap. m. 
 and to forego private interest in devotion to the common a.d. 1603. 
 cause ; when the honesty of instinct recoils from expres- 
 sions of approbation, the venial duplicity of acquiescence 
 is adroitly recommended ; and selfishness is cheered in its 
 reluctant abstinence by a seasonable announcement of that 
 glorious time when all may rush in together, and riot in 
 the enjoyment of unconditional emancipation. Thus it 
 happens, that by some suitable appliance to every variety 
 of temperament, a spirit of political union is diffused 
 among the members of the Papal Church ; mutual 
 strangers are attracted by some sympathetic regards ; 
 and even disputants are conscious of a secret good 
 understanding, which often renders their differences more 
 friendly than their concord with other men. 
 
 Mr. Butler himself appears to have been swayed by 
 some influence of this nature. The controversy in which 
 this gentleman and Dr. Milner were arranged on opposite 
 sides is thus described by an eminent and active contem- 
 porary : — "The oath of 1778 was not found to be 
 effectual in removing the prejudices of Protestants; and 
 many of the Roman Catholics, who were anxious to be 
 thought worthy of admission to the whole constitution, 
 desired to give a further pledge of their civil principles. 
 Accordingly, the English committee drew up a protes- 
 tation, which was very generally signed by the body ; 
 the favourable effect which it produced was sudden and 
 extensive, — so much so, that some persons in power 
 thought it advisable to introduce a new oath, founded on 
 the protestation, into a bill for further relief. But some 
 of those who had signed the protestation had by this time 
 reflected on their conduct, and they viewed it with horror, 
 as reprobating certain principles which they had ever been 
 taught to venerate ; others, men of punctilious and sophistic 
 minds, had leisure to examine their store of quirks and 
 quibbles for perplexing the ignorant and disturbing the 
 timid, while they claimed for themselves the credit of 
 
 T 2
 
 27G POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. saving religion and shielding the integrity of the Catholic 
 A. D. 1605. faith. The controversy that now took place was acrimo- 
 nious and stubborn, in every point most minutely resembling 
 that which had been excited by the oath of James. It even 
 seemed that, after the lapse of almost two hundred years, 
 the same men existed to combat, and that their generation 
 had not passed away. To persons of reflection, however, 
 the thought was melancholy, that, wnth the tenets of our 
 faith, our opinions also had been stationary, — that is, our 
 reason had not been progressive, and that we too nearly 
 approached to that class of beings, which naturalists, from 
 their unvarying character, have defined to be imperfect- 
 ible. The vicars apostolic condemned the oath ; their 
 censure had the concurrence of the bishops in Ireland 
 and Scotland, and finally received its ratification from the 
 Pope." 
 
 " I am informed," proceeds this respectable man, " that 
 many priests, with the Vicars Walmsley and Douglas at 
 their head, have recently withdrawn their names from the 
 protestation, and that their act is recorded in an authentic 
 instrument, termed a counter-protestation. Are we there- 
 fore sure that there may not also be a counter-oath ? when 
 our enemies, as I thought them, used to proclaim that no 
 form of words could bind us, I indignantly repelled the 
 charge. In future, / and others must be silent, hang our 
 heads, and blush."* One priest persevered in his advo- 
 cacy of the oath and protestation ; he was censured by 
 his bishop. Dr. Walmsley, to whom the special thanks of 
 the Congi'egation de Propaganda Fide was conveyed in the 
 following letter : — 
 
 Cardinal " Most Illustrious and Rev. Lord, our Brother, 
 
 ^[iTef]' "Your Lordship's despatches of the 18th of October 
 
 afforded singular satisfaction to their eminences, the 
 
 fathers of the congregation. They were gratified, not 
 
 only by your report of the present prosperous state of 
 
 * Berrington, " Memoirs of Gregorio Panzani."
 
 IN IRELAND. 277 
 
 religion in England, but by the zeal with which you had chap. hi. 
 subdued the boldness of the missionary Joseph Wilks, who, a.d. 1605. 
 in conjunction with others, had opposed the encyclical 
 letters of the vicars apostolic against the oath proposed to 
 the Catholics. Your conduct, in compelling that person, 
 by ecclesiastical censures, to return to his duty, and 
 make the necessary recantation, was so approved by their 
 eminences, that they judged it suitable to decree your 
 Lordship their distinguished thanks. 
 " I am, 
 
 "Your Lordship's brother, 
 ** L. Cardinal Antonelli, President. 
 " Home, March 10, 1792." 
 
 To those who wish to enjoy the fruits of history, this Historic 
 suspension of the narrative, for the purpose of comparing narrative 
 the present with the past, is not unimportant, and should 
 not be unacceptable* It proves that the coincidence is 
 much more exact than Roman Catholics have represented 
 or Protestants hopedj that James's oath is not taken, 
 either in substance or in terms, and that the Legislature 
 has made no progress towards the establishment of a safe 
 distinction between the loyal and the disaffected members 
 of the Church of Rome. We may now return into the 
 regular course of events. 
 
 " From the time of proposing the oath," says a contem- 
 porary titular bishop, " the measures of the Catholics 
 were conducted in secresy, until the assembling of a 
 Parliament gave them a fresh opportunity of displaying 
 the ardour of their faith and zeal."* In the interval, 
 both the surface and the internal structure of the social 
 fabric in Irelandj had undergone considerable changes. 
 The clans were entirely broken ; the ancient jurisdiction, 
 whether of the Brehon code, or of the more powerful will 
 of the chieftains, was abolished ; and the pale, the region 
 * Eouth, " Analeta Sacra." 
 
 A.D. 1613.
 
 278 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. of English law, was at length co-extensive with the whole 
 A.D. 1613. island. The people of the Milesian race, the old English, 
 and the new settlers, were held together in solution for a 
 season of precarious and delusive tranquillity ; they met 
 in ordinary life, and were now to meet in Parliament, 
 upon the common footing of British subjects. This 
 policy of James, much as it has been extolled both by 
 early and recent authorities, and wise as in other circum- 
 stances it would doubtless have been, swelled the power 
 of the prelates to a degree, which soon after proved 
 nearly fatal to all good government and rational freedom. 
 Sir John " The Irisliry," says Sir John Davies, " who in former 
 ?Ti"!*" times were left under the tyranny of their lords and 
 Iiisbry." chiefs, were received into His Majesty's immediate pro- 
 tection. Our visitation of the shires, however distasteful 
 to the Irish lords, was sweet and most welcome to the 
 common people ; they were now taught that they were 
 free subjects to the King, and not slaves and vassals 
 to their pretended lords, whose extortions were unlawful, 
 and that they should not any more submit thereunto. 
 They gave a willing ear unto these lessons ; and so the 
 greatness and power of these Irish lords over the people 
 suddenly fell and vanished." It was very true, that, 
 under the ancient system, the lords had been tyrants, and 
 the people slaves ; and in proportion as it was true, in the 
 same degree were the slaves unqualified for immediate 
 emancipation. Had James been, as he is sometimes 
 most absurdly called, the lawgiver of Ireland, he would 
 have seen the folly of imposing all the responsibilities of 
 freedom upon a race which long oppression had almost 
 degraded from the rank of moral agents. The lords fell ; 
 and when the first pleasure of the change was over, their 
 former vassals, the helpless inhabitants of nineteen * 
 counties, laid down their irksome liberties at the feet of 
 
 * Mary had made two. the King's and Queen's counties ; James created 
 seventeen.
 
 IN IRELAND. 279 
 
 tlie hierarchy. Thus, the prelates, in their adversity, chap. hi. 
 were suddenly invested with a dominion over the popu- a.d. 1613. 
 lace, for which, during the more showy ages of its Tower of 
 connexion with the State, their order had struggled prelacy 
 incessantly, but in vain. A subordinate share of this augmented. 
 power was prudently given to the lawyers — a body which 
 the same precipitancy of Government had just brought 
 out into political existence, and which has ever- since 
 repaid the patronage of the Church by a vigorous and 
 submissive co-operation. By the abrupt introduction of 
 English law, the advice of these men had beconie a matter 
 of almost daily necessity to multitudes of the natives, who 
 were utterly ignorant of their new rule of life : from 
 advice it was no difficult step to authority ; and authority 
 acquired somewhat of a sacred character from the sanction 
 of the ecclesiastics. Such was the origin of that domestic 
 government which surviving the agitations of two stormy 
 centuries, continues to attest, at the present moment,* 
 the malignant sagacity of its founders. At every stage, 
 and in every form of its existence, it has produced the 
 same fruits : disaffection among Roman Catholics, disgust 
 and alarm among Protestants, contempt and ignominy to 
 the civil power, and calamity to the cause which it pro- 
 fessed to maintain. 
 
 The commanding relation in which the prelates now 
 stood to the mass of the people, aided them in the accom- 
 plishment of another object — the delicate and important 
 task of conciliation. In the more flourishing days of the 
 Church, the hierarchy, proud of its station at the head of 
 an ascendancy party, had fomented the animosity between 
 the colonists and the natives; adversity taught the pru- 
 dence of a blander policy ; and the evils which had been 
 experienced from the feud during the latter years of 
 Elizabeth, gave double force to the admonition. The 
 influence of the lawyers, who were all of the English 
 * A.D. 1827.— Ed.
 
 280 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. in. pale, and who, from being the contemptuous enemies of 
 A.D. 1613. the Irish,* now affected the character of their guides and 
 protectors, had some effect in appeasing this hereditary 
 discord; — complete success was reserved for a higlier 
 power. Many of the bishops and heads of religious 
 orders, men of talents for intrigue, and entirely devoted 
 to the Papal interest, were themselves Anglo-Irish of 
 respectable family ; their advancement was disagreeable 
 to some Milesian zealots, but Rome knew how to appre- 
 ciate the value of the argument to be derived from their 
 implicit and edifying obedience.-f* It was the peculiar 
 office of these persons to neutralize old antipathies by the 
 more powerful agency of a counter-passion. A spirit of 
 fanaticism, which has but one parallel in our history — the 
 fury of the present |: awful times — was diffused through the 
 whole country, animating equally the populace of both 
 races, and carrying away all other impulses in the head- 
 long vehemence of its career. Factions, upon whose 
 mutual and unmitigated hatred the suns of four centuries 
 and a-half had gone down, forgetting their quarrels, 
 found in heresy an object for their consenting execration, 
 and were content to derive their rights from the Divwe 
 right of their common Father. Miracles, prophecies, and 
 
 mi "Puo-. * " -"-t i^ evident," says an observer of these transactions, " that until of 
 
 Hsh pale late the old Engli9h pale despised the mere Irish, accounting them to be a 
 and the barbarous people, void of civility and religion, and each of them held the 
 Irish. other as a hereditary enemy ; and so it would have continued many years to 
 
 come, had not these latter times produced a change." — Discourse of Ireland, 
 Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i. 
 
 t " It is known by experience," says Father Walsh, a contemporary, 
 " that one prelate or churclimau of the old English stock hath been hereto- 
 fore, and is at present, more able to work the laity of the same extraction to 
 traitorous designs, than a whole hundi-ed of the other." By them was 
 implanted that imphcit devotion to Rome of which J. K. L. has so much 
 reason to boast, as stiU pervading the descendants of the early colonists, 
 and which has given a proverbial currency to the character, Hibernis ipsis 
 Hiherniores. 
 
 1 Written a.d. 1827.— Ed.
 
 IN IRELAND. 281 
 
 pastoral addresses, supplied their faith with its spiritual chap. hi. 
 aliment; while the cry of " O'Neil is coming," gave the a.d. 1613. 
 exhilarating assurance that they were not to be left 
 without human aid. The irreclaimable treachery of that 
 chieftain had consigned him to exile some years before — 
 a pensioner at the Court of Spain, advancing age and 
 habits of dependance had broken his ambitious spirit ; 
 and now it was rumoured that he was preparing to invade 
 his native country, as the ally of a priesthood which he 
 had formerly despised,* and the creature of a foreign 
 power of which he had been the haughty and respectable 
 competitor. 
 
 The higher classes, having opposite interests and little 
 superstition, were not so easily united as the lower : but 
 their mutual jealousies, far from embarrassing the Church, 
 multiplied its instruments, and secured the advantages of 
 a division of labour. The Irish, born to turbulence and 
 the exj^ectatioti of land (an expectation which had been 
 disappointed, partly by the recent forfeitures, but much 
 more by the introduction of the English laws of inherit- 
 ance), were ruined and reckless men, who disdained all 
 occupation but that of the sword, and whose only hope 
 was in some effort of desperate adventure. The dreams 
 by which some of them were still visited, that Ireland 
 might be erected into a separate kingdom, were unaccept- 
 able to the prelates, but gave no serious apprehension : 
 the majority would follow^ the fortunes of O'Neil ; and 
 the valour of these fiercer spirits, without strength or 
 guidance for a separate enterprise, might be safely em- 
 ployed in fatiguing the common enemy. While the Irish 
 
 * Dm'ing the whole of this, aud part of the following reign, the priesthood Spanish 
 of both islands were in the interest, and many of them in the pay, of the interfer- 
 Spanish monarchy. The titulars of Dublin and Cashel are particularly ^^ce. 
 mentioned as pensioners of Spain ; the general memorial of the Irish 
 hierarchy in 1617 was addressed to the Spanish Court ; and we are told by 
 Mr. Berrington, that the English Jesiuts, thi'ee hunch'ed in number, were all 
 " of the Spanish faction."
 
 282 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. were thus in readiness for some daring exertion, the 
 A.D. 1613. Roman Catholic gentry of English extraction occupied 
 the foreground of this troubled scene, agitating their 
 minor and preliminary grievances. Their property, wliich 
 was very considerable, was the fruit of conquest or confis- 
 cation, and one portion of it, the spoil of the monastic 
 houses, lay under the heavier opprobrium of sacrilege ; 
 circumstances which may be admitted as sufficient evidence 
 that, in entering upon their factious career, they had not 
 looked to a rebellion, or to the triumph of their associates. 
 Their designs were more limited, and more pacific : 
 deprived of their old monopoly of office, and mortified at the 
 growing prosperity of the later settlers,* they had gone 
 into opposition ; and they practised the customai-y devices 
 of party, thwarting, to enhance the value of their venal 
 co-operation. But, in leaguing with the hierarchy, they 
 had committed themselves to those from whom few have 
 ever escaped with impunity : services of continually in- 
 creasing danger, which the honour of consistency could 
 not decline, were pointed out by their spiritual guides, 
 until they were drawn insensibly within the vortex of 
 treason ; and the necessity of maintaining their seditious 
 consequence, made them slaves of those passions which 
 they had contributed to excite. When they made profes- 
 sions of disaffection or fanaticism, the fears of the Govern- 
 ment, and the over-apt simplicity of the mob, conspired 
 with the cunning of an interested priesthood, in giving 
 them credit for sincerity ; a credit which, at first, they by 
 no means deserved, but wliich had a tendency to realise its 
 most ample anticipations. 
 
 As a body, the Roman Catholics had little to look for ; 
 nothing which those among them who observed a 
 
 * One of the gricTances in " the Civil Government of Ireland," of which 
 the CathoUc Association in 1613 complained to the Crown, was, that the 
 new nobility had obtauied larger estates, and enjoyed more of the confidence 
 of Government, than the lords of the pale. This memorial is preserved in 
 the Desiderata Curiosa Hilernica, vol. i.
 
 IN IRELAND. 283 
 
 respectful demeanour towards the Government were not chap. hi. 
 obtaining every day, from its prudence or liberality. They a.d. 1613. 
 were fully in possession of that great object, which, at 
 present,* excites so much turbulent desire : the doors of 
 both houses of the legislature lay wide open ; nor had the 
 more aspiring been driven to purchase admissibility, by 
 betraying the rights of their humbler compatriots. By a 
 tenure which was more precarious, only because it depended 
 more upon themselves, they were sheriffs of cities and 
 counties, justices of the peace, mayors and aldermen of 
 corporations ; they practised at the bar, held commissions 
 in the army and places about the court, were occasionally 
 admitted to the Privy Council ; and, in the next reign, 
 without any change in the law, we find some generals, and 
 even a lord deputy, among the Roman Catholics of Ireland. A Roman 
 A statute, enacted in the second year of Elizabeth, had j^^^,^° ^^ 
 made the oath of supremacy a qualification for these Deputy. 
 offices ; and for some years the love of place, or the natural 
 impulse of loyalty, checked the growth of polemical 
 scruples. The test was taken by persons who, in all other 
 respects, were members of the Church of Rome ; nor 
 does it appear that their compliance was ever visited with 
 spiritual censures. At length, as the consciences of the 
 recusants became more delicate, or their policy more 
 mature, the oath was universally declined : Government 
 respected the questionable prejudice ; and the dispensing 
 power of the sovereign (offensive in England to the growing 
 spirit of liberty, and in the end fatal to its possessor) was 
 in Ireland always exercised on the side of indulgence. 
 The oath was committed to the discretion of the local 
 ministry, as an instrument for the removal of a seditious 
 magistrate ; perhaps as a criterion of the wavering or 
 suspected ; but as an unnecessary and invidious trial of 
 those whose conduct already attested the integrity of their 
 allegiance. Upon the whole, the condition of the Irish 
 recusants was, at least, not inferior to that in which, after 
 
 * Written a.d. 1827.— Ed.
 
 284 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 A.D. 1613. 
 
 National 
 Parlia- 
 ment sum- 
 moned. 
 
 Difference 
 between a 
 Protestant 
 and Rom- 
 ish clergy. 
 
 the lapse of two centuries of illumination, Protestants 
 are now placed by the most liberal governments of the 
 Roman Catholic communion.* Their civil privileges were 
 ample, and it was always in their power, by a conciliating 
 conduct, to I'aise themselves to an equality with the most 
 favoured class of subjects ; and the whole nation enjoyed 
 the undisturbed exercise of their religion, -j- as long as its 
 ministers abstained from political intrigue, and from that 
 obtrusive pomp of celebration, which, if not offensive to 
 Protestant conscience, was at least an unseemly rivalry 
 with the Established Church. 
 
 Things were in this state, or in rapid progress towards 
 it, when James resolved to summon the first national 
 Parliament in Ireland. Activity corresponding to that 
 phrenzied excitement which had banished all sobriety 
 from the minds of the Roman Catholics, was displayed in 
 preparing for the election. The aristocracy of the pale, 
 long exercised in civil intrigues, and now the professed 
 leaders of a rancorous opposition, had their agents in all 
 parts, soliciting the freeholders of better rank ; while the 
 priests and lawyers were indefatigable in their exertions 
 
 * In making such comparisons, two important diiFerences must always be 
 kept in mind. First, a Protestant clergy contracts no obUgations to a 
 foreign power : if Protestant ministers in France or Germany took oaths of 
 allegiance, and were otherwise in subjection, to the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, we should probably hear but httle of Roman Catholic liberality. 
 Secondly, the Roman ritual has an aggressive publicity, the free exercise of 
 whicli would be an invasion of the freedom of other religions : Protestants 
 have no processions of a host, or a crucifix, or a statue of the Virgin ; 
 neither do they comjiel meu to a cessation from business, on the festival of 
 saints, or reputed saints. 
 
 f The words of Lord Clarendon. "Even in Dubhn," he continues, 
 " they went as publicly and uninterruptedly to their devotions as he went to 
 his. The bishops, priests, and all degi ees and orders of secidar and regular 
 clergy, were known to be, and to exercise their functions, among them ; and 
 though there were some laws against them stUl in force, which necessity, and 
 the wisdom of former ages, had caused to be enacted, and the pohcy of the 
 present times kept unrepealed ; yet their edge was so totally rebated, that 
 no man could say he had suffered prejudice or distm-bance in, or for, his 
 religion." — Historical View, 6.
 
 IN IRELAND. 2S5 
 
 among the lower classes. Oaths of association ; promises chap. hi. 
 and threats ; blessings and anathemas ; hints of some a.d. 1613. 
 undefined but imminent danger ; and, at the same time, 
 assurances from ancient prophecies, that, if true to the 
 Church, they should speedily be relieved from the yoke of 
 heresy ; — all these were employed with an industry which 
 has served as a model for the emulous labours of later 
 times. The cause of their party was declared to be the 
 cause of God ; and the support of a Protestant, or of a 
 Roman Catholic who attended the reformed worship " to 
 hear the devil's words," * was denounced as a mortal sin. 
 Ecclesiastical students and priests of all orders, who were 
 then dispersed in great numbers over the Continent, with 
 the cavaliers engaged in the service of Roman Catholic 
 powers, crowded eagerly home on this important occasion, 
 to animate the hopes, and share the labours, of their 
 brethren. 
 
 The struggle which ensued was fierce and dubious ; the The 
 boroughs newly enfranchised by James were almost ex- constitu- 
 clusively in the hands of the Protestants, and the numerous encies. 
 forfeitures of the last reign, with the recent plantation of 
 Ulster, had given them a respectable, but subordinate 
 landed interest ; in the counties, cities, and older corpora- 
 tions, the recusants had generally a preponderating weight. 
 From the less showy character of their constituency, the 
 return of the Protestant candidates was neither preceded, 
 nor accompanied, by much popular sensation ; on the 
 contrary, the strength of the others lay in those places 
 where feeling was most excited by the contest, and 
 expectation proportionably raised by the event. The 
 quality of the vanquished Protestants, many of whom 
 were privy councillors, and supported by all the influence 
 
 * Such was the phrase of the time, according to O'SulUvan, in liis 
 " Cathohc History," and the deposition taken before Sir Toby Caulfield, 
 " Desiderata Curiosa," vol. i. Forty years before, the hberahty of Pius 
 would have sanctioned the Liturgy ; and it is not improbable that an opinion 
 equally favourable may be expressed in our own times.
 
 286 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 A.D. 1613. 
 
 New Par- 
 liament : 
 125 Pro- 
 testants ; 
 101 Eo- 
 man 
 Catholics. 
 
 of the Crown and their party, while their opponents were 
 young barristers, whose chief recommendations were some 
 factious notoriety and the favour of the priesthood, gave 
 somewhat of mystical import to their defeat : it seemed as 
 if the Church had been struggling against the utmost 
 human power which her great adversary could array against 
 her ; the strength of her cause was displayed in the feeble- 
 ness of her weapons ; and the issue was hailed by the 
 exulting multitude as ominous of the approaching downfal 
 of heresy. Elated by their victories, the recusant members 
 set out, in triumphant procession, from the scenes of their 
 respective contests to the seat of Government : the rustic 
 populace, men, women, and even children, received them 
 with shouts of tumultuous greeting, and with admonitions 
 to take care of the Catholic faith : as they passed along, 
 the contagion of enthusiasm added incessantly to their 
 cavalcades, and they made their entry into the capital at 
 the head of troops of armed retainers. Priests crowded to 
 Dublin, from all quarters of the country, to animate and 
 direct the exertions of their representatives ; numbers 
 also of private men, whose turbulence laid eager claim to 
 the title of religious zeal, were attracted by these indica- 
 tions of a coming storm, and hastened to a spot which 
 promised to find excitement for their lawless indolence, 
 and to alleviate the irksomeness of peace.* 
 
 Parliament met on the 18th of May. In the upper 
 house, the transfer of the episcopal peerages, the extinc- 
 tion of the order of mitred abbots, f and the absence of 
 Tyrone and other disaffected Lords, had left the recusants 
 in a hopeless minority : in the lower, the parties were 
 nearly equal ; of two hundred and thirty-two members 
 who composed that assembly, there being in attendance 
 one hundred and twenty -five Protestants, and one hundred 
 
 * The matter of this paragraph will be found in the titular Bishop's 
 Routh and Burke, the " Desiderata Curiosa Hibemica," vol. i., and Cox, 
 " Hibemia Anglicana." 
 
 t These particulars are feelingly mentioned by the titular Bishop Burke.
 
 IN IRELAND. 287 
 
 and one Roman Catholics. The first business of the chap. hi. 
 Commons was to choose a Speaker ; an affair which involved a.d. 1613. 
 the opposing sects in abrupt and indecent hostilities. On Choosing a 
 the one side, Sir John Davies, the Attorney-General, was ^^^'^ ^^' 
 put in nomination ; and on the other, Sir John Everard, 
 a recusant knight and lawyer, who had been a judge, but 
 to avoid the oath of supremacy, which, for some reason 
 now unknown, was pressed upon him, had retired on a 
 moderate pension. It was the custom of those days that a Parlia- 
 division should be effected, by the retiring of one of the ^""!j^^if 
 parties to an ante-chamber : this movement was now 
 unguardedly made by the Protestants ; who, on their 
 rettu'n into the House, with an ascertained majority of 
 twenty voices, were astonished to find Everard in the A Parlia- 
 Speaker's chair. We are informed by Roman Catholic ^^kk^^"^ 
 writers,* that when the Protestants had left the room, a 
 zealous member of the other party addressed his brethren 
 as follows : — • 
 
 " They are gone, ill betide them ; and they have left 
 us, as it is our right to be, in possession of this house. 
 Wherefore, seeing that we have prospered thus far, we ought 
 thankfully to pursue the course which God seems to have 
 pointed out, by setting up here that holy faith, for which, 
 if necessary, we should be ready to die. We are encouraged 
 to this by the example of our fathers and kinsmen, who, 
 fighting for the Catholic faith, obtained an honourable 
 death, and a glorious immortality. Should it be our lot 
 so to perish, we shall be at least their equals in renown ; 
 but, if we avoid their indiscretions, higher fame and 
 happier fortune will attend us. Nor is there reason to 
 apprehend that, in so doing, we shall trespass aught 
 against the King^s majesty; seeing that the same should 
 be his especial care, and that nothing is more necessary, 
 either for his soul's salvation, or the righteous ruling of 
 
 * Burke, " Hibemia Dominicana," who quotes from Eouth and Dominic 
 O'Daly (the Dominicus de Rosario of the Quarterly Eeview).
 
 288 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. in. his kingdoms. Come, then, let us maintain that religion, 
 A.D. 1613. for which it is honourable to fight, and seemly to die, and 
 which to exalt is the highest glory of man. First of all, 
 let us choose for ourselves a speaker and leader." * 
 
 This address was well received, and Everard was installed 
 as Speaker. When the Protestants re-entered the room, 
 they insisted vehemently that he should leave the chair ; 
 the others retorted with equal ardour that he had been 
 legitimately chosen, that a Speaker could only be elected 
 within the House, and that those- who retired had forfeited 
 their right of suffrage. Stung by the trick thus practised 
 on them, the proposer and seconder of Sir John Davies 
 led him up to the chair, and placed him on Everard's lap : 
 a violent tumult ensued ; and had not the Viceroy estab- 
 lished the precautionary etiquette that the members should 
 leave their swords at the outer door, the senate-house 
 would have been polluted with the mutual slaughter of 
 its factions. In the end the recusants were Avorsted ; the 
 chair was left to Davies, and the house to his supporters. 
 "Catholic The proceedings of this day led to the establishment of 
 Associa- ^^^^ institutions, which, on several occasions since, and 
 
 tion, and ' _ ' _ 
 
 " Catholic particularly in our own times, have attracted much notice ; 
 — a Catholic Association, and a Catholic Rent. The 
 recusant members, discovering that they had overrated 
 their strength, and that the ordinary tactics of parlia- 
 mentary opposition would be insufficient for their purposes, 
 deliberated on the expediency of a formal secession. 
 Many motives induced the prelates to urge the adoption of 
 this violent measure : it would divert the attention of the 
 Viceroy from their more secret intrigues ; it would give 
 brilliancy and somewhat of a constitutional form to the 
 interior government they were labouring to organize ; it 
 would accustom the Roman Catholics to consider them- 
 selves as a distinct society, in political, as well as religious 
 
 * This is a hteral translation of Burke's Latin : it gives, if not the lan- 
 guage of the orator, at least the sentiments of the titular Bishop.
 
 IN IRELAND. 289 
 
 concerns ; * and, by the ferment it could not fail to excite, chap. hi. 
 prepare them to receive O'Neil, whose arrival, in the a.d. 1613. 
 course of a very few months, was now confidently expected 
 by the Spanish faction. f A full meeting of both houses, 
 for the purpose of hearing the speech from the throne, 
 had been fixed for the Friday after the election of a 
 Speaker : the call had been notified by a special message 
 to each of the recusant peers : the commoners were sum- 
 moned by a privy counsellor, who waited on them at the 
 place where they were assembled for consultation. In the 
 name of the whole party, Everard acquainted this gentle- 
 man that, as Parliament sat in the castle, where the free- 
 dom of debate and action was overawed by an armed guard, 
 the Catholics would not make their appearance : that, for 
 himself, he had been duly elected Speaker ; and that he 
 could not attend his Excellency except in that capacity, 
 
 * The occasion suggests to Bm-ke the use of language which has ever 
 been appropriated to poUtics : Respuhlica nostra is the term by which 
 he describes the Roman Catholic community, organized imder its separate 
 government. 
 
 t " Tyrone is said to have a design for Ireland ; the same intelligence 
 reports, that he hath found means to raise a competent force to put the kingdom 
 in a flame ; and, to move us to be jealous that the intelligence is in part or in 
 all true, there is the late coming of the Pope's Archbishop of Dubhn into 
 
 Ireland, who hath a pension of three hundred ducats per , of the 
 
 Spanish King, and was sent from Lovaine into Spain to negociate for 
 Tyrone's support. This his repair into Ireland, agreeing with the intelU- 
 gence, gives no less cause of suspicion than the sight of a sea-bird, called a 
 petrel, of a storm ensuing. Tyrone's council aims no farther, than to try 
 his own fortune by stolen forces brought with him, although it must be 
 confessed, that the slightest occasion, countenanced by his presence, and 
 fomented by the priests, is sufScient to disturb the peace of the realm, and 
 to set a fire in every part thereof, which will cost the hves of many of his 
 Majesty's subjects, and the exhaustm-e of great masses of treasm-e, before 
 it be pacified. It wUl not move the cities, nor the gentlemen of the English 
 pale, or men of great possessions, although their hearts are with him, to 
 set up their rests upon so weak a foundation ; but, as in former times, they 
 win be lookers-on, to see how the game is played," — Discourse of Ireland 
 (wi-itten in 1613), Desiderata Curiosa. 
 
 U
 
 290 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 cnAP. III. 
 A.D. 1613. 
 
 Threaten- 
 ed insur- 
 rection. 
 
 accompanied by his memLers, and preceded by the mace." 
 The day following, the connnoners were joined by the 
 lords of the pale, and some other noblemen, and all 
 coalesced into one association, for the prosecution of the 
 common cause. Rising gradually in their complaints, 
 these malcontents protested — against the place chosen for 
 the sitting of the Parliament, against the Lord Deputy's 
 guard of a hundred foot, against the election of the 
 Speaker, against the return of some of the members, 
 against the creation of some of the new shires, and, more 
 particularly, of the new boroughs, and against the authority 
 of the Viceroy to call a Parliament. These proceedings 
 they described as "strange and grievous courses;" "ex- 
 tremities such as had never been heard of, and could not 
 be believed ;" they styled their displeasure, " a just and 
 pious indignation," and refused to give the name of a 
 Parliament to the assemblies which might be held during 
 their secession. They declared that, if any laws were 
 made without their concurrence, the people would reject 
 them ; hinted the possibility of an armed resistance, and, 
 in a spirit of candour which seems to have reanimated a 
 modern convention, almost disclosed the measures by 
 which it might be effected. Intimations were thrown out, 
 that they w'ere stronger than the Government ; that, if 
 disturbed in their plans, they might rise in arms, cut the 
 throats of the Protestants, besiege the Lord Deputy in 
 his castle, and, by force or famine, compel him to sue for 
 peace with the Catholics. Circumstances, sufficient to 
 make an impression on the firmest executive, added to the 
 weight of these menaces. One thousand nine hundred 
 and seventy men, cavalry and infantry, composed at this 
 time the royal army of Ireland : the recusant senators, 
 with the friends and retainers who followed them from the 
 country, had provided themselves with arms ; and the 
 Roman Catholics of the city, men, youths, and boys, had 
 caught the military, as well as the religious, ardour of
 
 IN IRELAND. 291 
 
 their compatriots.* Everything in Dublin threatened an chap. m. 
 immediate conflict ; and, throvigh the industry of the a.d. 1613. 
 priests, and the natural influence of faction in attracting 
 to itself all the loose discontents of an agitated country, 
 the whole island was ready to follow the example of the 
 capital. To allay this commotion hy removing its apparent 
 cause, or, at least, to gain time for consultation with the 
 English Cabinet, the disconcerted Viceroy prorogued the 
 Parliament. 
 
 The mutineersjf having thus routed the rival Legis- 
 lature, and encountering no further pretext for insurrec- 
 tion, were content with the bloodless prosecvition of their 
 intrigues. Upon the first assembling of Parliament they 
 had petitioned the King, that they might be permitted to 
 lay their grievances before His Majesty in person ; per- 
 mission had been given, in the more cogent shape of a 
 command to come and answer for the desertion of their 
 parliamentary duties ; and a modest deputation of two 
 peers and four commoners appointed to proceed to 
 London. But as the views of the association were now 
 extended to the impeachment of the Viceroy, and the 
 formation of a liberal party in the Cabinet and Legislature 
 of the other island, the occasion seemed to call for a 
 greater pomp of delegation : thus, the corps of deputies 
 was gradually enlarged to eight peers, about twice as 
 many members of the Lower House, and a train of legal 
 advisers. J It was soon discovered that the support of 
 
 * To save the trouble of continual references, it may be as well to state, Authori- 
 once for aU, that the narrative in the text is no more than an abridgment of ties, 
 what may be found in the Papal writers, O'Sulliyan, Kouth, Porter, Burke, 
 &c. : nothing is stated upon the unsupported authority of a Protestant. 
 
 t This epithet is common to Cox, a somewhat intemperate Protestant, 
 and Carte, an anxious concihator. 
 
 J The Lords Gormanstown, Slane, Killeen, Buttevant, Eoche, Dehin, 
 Dunboyne, Trimblestown ; Sir Walter Butler, Su' Daniel O'Brien, Sir 
 Christopher Nugent, Sir William Bm-ke, Su* Thomas Burke, Sir Patrick 
 Barnwell, Sir James Gough, Sir John Eyerard ; WiUiam Talbot, Edward 
 Fitzharris, Andrew Barrett, Richard Wadding, James Galway, Thomas 
 
 U 2
 
 292 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. in. 
 A.D. 1613. 
 
 Scale of 
 " Catholic 
 Ecnt." 
 
 this mission, and the furtherance of other and less osten- 
 sible objects, would require a public revenue ; accordingly, 
 the first Catholic rent was imposed, and the collection of 
 it entrusted to the priests and lawyers. The scale of 
 obli<j^atory assessment, to be enforced, if necessary, by 
 spiritual censures, included three rates — five shillings for 
 a gentleman, two shillings for a yeoman, and fourpence 
 for a peasant.* No limits were assigned to the voluntary 
 
 Luttrell, Patrick Ilusscy, and M'Donough, chief of his name. In the 
 whole party there were only two Milesians ; the rest were persons whose 
 fathers had cherished the most contemptuous malevolence towards the 
 Irish, and the chief cause of whose discontent was the endeavour of the 
 Crown to abohsh their oppressive monopoly. 
 
 * The higher rates are given by Cox, fi-om some MS. depositions preserved 
 in Lambeth hbrary ; the lowest is taken from the following article, in the 
 " Desiderata Curiosa : " — 
 
 •' Upon a Sunday, about the end of May last, he was at mass at the Glynn, 
 where Tirlough M'Croddcn, a fryer there, lately come from beyond seas, said 
 the mass, and was preaching most part of the same day ; and in his sermon 
 he declared that he was sent from the Pope, to persuade them that they 
 should never alter their rehgion, but take the Pope to be their true head, 
 and rather go into rebelUon than change their religion ; and that the English 
 service pi'oceeded from the seducement of the devil. Upon these speeches 
 uttered by the fryer, Neal M'Tm'lough spake aloud, saying, ' God be thanked 
 that we heard this mass ; God be blessed that such a one as you came among 
 us to give this counsel ; for our parts, we will go into rebelhon, and be 
 eaten with dogs and cats, rather than go to the Enghsh service, to hear the 
 devil's words.' And Shane Roe O'Quin said the very same words after him. 
 And the fryer had, at that day, given him at least two hundred cows and 
 garrons. The fryer further told them, that the Parliament was coming, and 
 that it was a thing invented on purpose to cozen them, and bring them from 
 their rehgion. He said, that there was certain money imposed for the 
 expenses of men gone into England for the cause of religion, and for the 
 charges of the knights of the shire, fourpence on every couple. He exliorted 
 them to pay it wilhngly and speedily ; it was God's business they went 
 about. He told them, that the cattle they had given him was for the main- 
 tainance of fryers beyond seas, and that the Pope would be highly pleased 
 with the gifts they bestowed for godly purposes. He vehemently exhorted 
 them not to be afraid, for that Tyrone was coming ; therefore, he willed 
 them to be merry and of good courage ; and for the Enghsh, they were to 
 have no rule nor power over them but for two years. And further said, 
 that he found by his reading in books at Eome, a prophecy, that the English 
 should cease their rule in Ireland when a bridge was built over the river at
 
 IN IRELAND. 293 
 
 offerings of tlie wealthy or the devout ; and such was the chap. hi. 
 munificent zeal of the time, that a stock of two hundred a-b. 1613. 
 cows and horses was obtained by a friar, in one day, from 
 one rustic congregation. The Viceroy at first expected 
 that gentle measures and the private influence of Govern- 
 ment would be sufficient, in concurrence with the poverty 
 of the people, to abolish this novel impost : he then tried 
 a proclamation, and was more successful. At the present 
 day, the document will be read with some interest : — 
 
 A Proclamation by the Lord Deputy and Council. Lord 
 
 Arthur Chichester, procW 
 
 Whereas, we have been advised from many places in this *i<^'^- 
 kingdom, that by the device and diligence of sundry Jesuits 
 and Popish priests, and by the authority of certain recusant 
 members of Parliament, there hath been a general levying 
 of money among the Popish recusant subjects of the King's 
 Majesty ; and that divers persons have been api^ointed for 
 the collection of the same : and whereas, this burthen hath 
 been laid upon His Majesty's faithful people, under the 
 pretext of paying the charges of certain nobles and men 
 of quality lately gone into England, which persons are 
 falsely reported by the said priests and collectors to liave 
 gone to supplicate the grace of our sovereign lord the 
 King for a greater freedom of religion, seeing that they 
 have been sent for by the command of our said lord, to 
 answer for their departure from the court of Parliament : 
 and whereas, the said priests and collectors have spread 
 this false report that they might extort from the people a 
 larger sum, the most part whereof it appeareth that they 
 will convert to their own uses : and whereas, it is an 
 
 Liffer ; and that the King of Spain had eighteen thousand men in arms 
 ready to come over, and that Tyrone should be their chief; and that he 
 would come within a year and a quarter, and overthrow the English, and 
 have Ireland to himself." — O' Donnellifs Deposition. Dr. Eurke contents 
 himself with a general acknowledgment, that tlie priests collected a siiffi- 
 ciently large sura, {Satis amplam.)
 
 294 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. in. unheard of and intolerable arrogance in subjects to 
 A.D.1613. impose any tax upon His Majesty's people, seeing that 
 even His Majesty's self doth not collect a tax without the 
 free consent of the Parliament of the realm : and whereas, 
 the King's Majesty hath long since, by various proclama- 
 tions, taken upon himself the protection of all his subjects 
 in this kingdom : We, His Majesty's Deputy and Council, 
 are bound by our place and office to protect his said 
 subjects, and to free them from this most heavy and 
 unjust tribute, by which it seemeth that their poverty 
 will be much increased. Wherefore, in the name of His 
 Most Excellent Majesty, we declare to all his faithful 
 people, that all such exaction, extortion, or collection, is 
 altogether unjust, and we forbid them to consent to the 
 same, or to pay any sum or sums upon such pretences 
 aforesaid. Likewise, in His Majesty's name, we strictly 
 enjoin all persons, appointed, or to be appointed, collectors 
 or receivers of said tax, that they do not presume to collect 
 or receive the same ; and that, within ten days after the 
 date of this proclamation they pay back, without fraud or 
 deceit, all such sum or sums unto the persons from whom 
 they have collected them. Otherwise, if any of His 
 Majesty's subjects shall complain of such collectors or 
 receivers unto us, the Lord Deputy or Council, or unto 
 the judges of assize within their several circuits, instant 
 means shall be taken for the restoration of said money, 
 and the punishment of the persons so offending. Lastly, 
 in the name, and by the authority of His Majesty, we 
 strictly enjoin all mayors, deputy mayors, justices of the 
 peace, and all other officers of His Majesty, that they 
 cause diligent inquiry to be made concerning all persons 
 who have been, or shall be, collectors or receivers of said 
 tax, and concerning the sums which they may respectively 
 collect or receive ; and that they may inform us of the 
 same with all convenient speed, to the end that all such 
 collectors and receivers may answer at their proper peril. 
 Given at His Majesty's Castle of Dublin, July 9, 1613."
 
 IN IRELAND. 295 
 
 In the meantime, the delegates had been received by chap, m. 
 the King with his usual good nature, and more than his a-d. 1613. 
 usual address. In the most courtly phrase of the day, The dele- 
 they informed their constituents, that " in presenting §^^^^ ""'^ 
 their expostulations to his princely audience, His Majesty James, 
 was benignly pleased to deliver, that their humble appeal 
 to his sacred person was satisfaction sufficient to expiate 
 the offence that might be proved against them, and that 
 his mercy should qualify the rigour of his justice." 
 Passing over the parliamentary questions, they presented 
 a memorial containing eighteen charges against the civil 
 government, and prayed that a commission might be 
 appointed under the Great Seal to examine into the 
 alleged abuses. Their prayer was heard ; four persons 
 with whom they declared themselves perfectly satisfied 
 " as most worthy selected gentlemen, of great trust, 
 integrity, and wisdom,"* were joined in a commission 
 with the Lord Deputy. While the King waited for the 
 report of these commissioners, he admitted the delegates 
 to several conferences, some of them private, others before 
 the Council : his intellectual vanity, and the extreme 
 familiarity of his language and manners, made this con- 
 descension rather dangerous to the greatness of royalty ; 
 on the other hand, his shrewdness and information enabled 
 him to improve those advantages which a monarch must 
 possess, at least in the opening of a conversation with a 
 subject. James was a polemic ; he had written a book, James a 
 and a defence of it, against the deposing power of the P'^^^^^"'^' 
 Pope — a topic which, both as a sovereign and an author, 
 
 * There is some reason to believe, that they had a well-grounded assur- 
 ance of the favourable dispositions of these gentlemen. The commissioners 
 reported their inability to discover any evidence, that the reciisant members 
 had made their entry into Dublin at the head of armed retainers ; though 
 the fact is avovred by Bishop Routh, an eye-witness of these transactions, 
 and secretary to the " Catholic Hierarchy" of the day. To abstain as far as 
 possible from giving a triumph to either party in Ireland, has been much too 
 frequently the feeble poUcy of the English Cabinet.
 
 296 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. in. 
 
 A.D. 1613, 
 
 Vigorous 
 and pro- 
 tective 
 legislation 
 
 he naturally regarded with some interest, and of which it 
 was scarcely possible to avoid the introduction in speaking 
 with men who had rejected his oiv7i oath of allegiance. 
 One day, by insinuating question after question, he im- 
 perceptibly drew them on to the great difficulty, Whether 
 the heresy of a prince, otherwise sovereign and absolute, 
 forfeited his title, and justified the Pope's interference 
 against him. Some answered that it did, and among 
 them Talbot and Luttrell were remarked as the most 
 peremptory. Luttrell was sent to the Fleet Prison ; 
 Talbot, whose language had been particularly offensive, 
 was committed to close confinement in the Tower, and 
 sentenced by the Star Chamber to pay a fine of ten 
 thousand pounds. At the same time, some intercepted 
 letters of Sir Patrick Barnwell having been laid before 
 the Privy Council, that gentleman was compelled to make 
 a written apology, which was dictated by the Council, 
 and contained a renunciation of the deposing doctrine. 
 These vigorous measures lowered the tone of the dele- 
 gates ; and the Report of the Commission, which was just 
 received,* and which the moderation of its language and 
 the confessed " wisdom and integrity " of the framers 
 conspired to render invulnerable, was a new source of 
 mortification. Confounded by these mischances, and now 
 fully sensible of their indiscretion in choosing London 
 as the theatre of their operations, the subdued agitators 
 presented a memorial, expressing their abhorrence of 
 the obnoxious tenets, soliciting the release of Talbot, 
 and praying, " that, as their means were altogether sjjent, 
 and the supply of their wants obstructed by His Majesty's 
 deputy in Ireland,-]- they might be permitted to return 
 
 * It is given in the first volume of the " Desiderata Ciu-iosa," together 
 with some other valuable papers, with which Leland does not apjiear to have 
 been acquainted. 
 
 t Recent transactions have prepared us for the meanness of these early 
 delegates, but unhappily the importance of a little vigour on the part of the 
 executive is without a corresponding illustration. The Bent and the Asso-
 
 IN IRELAND. 297 
 
 home." This last entreaty completed their exposure and chap, iir, 
 the triumph of the Government ; they now stood self- a.d. 1613. 
 convicted, not only of treasonable principles and dishonest Traders in 
 intrigues, but of that sordid thirst of pecuniary emolument 
 which the traders in patriotism can never acknowledge 
 with impunity, until they have extinguished public virtue 
 or corrupted the fountains of public opinion. Enough 
 had been done for their humiliation ; and as that flippancy 
 of retractation which is so common in modern times was 
 as yet but little known, enough seemed to have been done 
 for securing their good behaviour ; they were, therefore, 
 dismissed with undisguised contempt, and a characteristic 
 reprimand from the monarch. Their refuted accusations 
 obtained for the deputy a peerage, a grant of land, and 
 the personal thanks of his master ; and the Government, 
 advancing upon the disordered ranks of recusancy, re- 
 assembled the Irish Parliament. 
 
 The hierarchy was now thrown into one of those critical Eomish 
 positions which exhibit the characters and call out all the ^"^^^^ ^' 
 powers of experienced public men. Shame had abated 
 the ardour of the discomfited delegates ; the prompt sup- 
 pression of the Catholic Rent had unnerved the industry 
 of the lawyers ; the populace, it was obvious, notwith- 
 standing the arts which had been practised against them, 
 might still be withdrawn from the domestic government, 
 if they were protected by the State, and disabused of 
 their dread of persecution ; and, what was a still severer The agita- 
 blow, the fears of Spain, and the remorse or growing 
 inactivity of Tyrone, had postponed, perhaps abandoned, tors. 
 the projected invasion. Admonished, but not embar- 
 rassed, by this turn in their afiairs, the prelates saw the 
 unseasonableness of open hostility ; and accordingly, with 
 an alertness than which nothing is more admirable in the 
 evolutions of party, they veered round into a course of 
 
 ciation v^ere put down two centuries ago, by showing those who were willuig and ^o- 
 to resist, if they dared, that they would be protected against their priests vernment. 
 and demagogues. 
 
 tors turn 
 concilia-
 
 298 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. conciliation. The known intention of Government to 
 A.D. 1613. bring in a bill for the attainder of O'Neil and his fellow- 
 exiles, presented to the recusant senators a triple alterna- 
 tive : to continue in secession ; to resume their seats, 
 with the certainty of making a popular and powerful 
 opposition ; or to pass at once to the extreme of 
 obsequious concurrence. The question being referred, 
 as its spiritual nature demanded, to the judgment of the 
 bishops, they announced the stern expediency of sacri- 
 ficing the champions of the Catholic cause : they were 
 obeyed ; the bill was brought in by Everard, and passed 
 quietly into a law.* 
 
 So rude a shock to the prejudices which they had 
 excited, such a profanation of those sanctities of religion 
 and country with which, during a period of nearly thirty 
 years, they had industriously associated the name of 
 O'Neil, could not have been risked by any but men who 
 bad w^atched the tides of popular passion, and who placed 
 an unbounded reliance in the devices of their own order, 
 as well as in the proverbial credulity of their countrymen. 
 Thus assured, they threw out their seeds of evil upon the 
 wide field of futurity, with a firmness which, in a better 
 cause, might almost be entitled the fulness of faith ; yet, 
 with all their grounds for confidence, it was one of those 
 daring steps which, in persons who stood (as the prelates 
 did) upon public feeling, are rescued from the charge of 
 temerity, chiefly by the knowledge that they have been 
 successful. The success of this measure was indeed com- 
 plete. It was just such a disclaimer of traitorous 
 designs, as a feeble and worried Government was unwill- 
 ing to question : and, by allaying the apprehensions of 
 the Protestant landlords, it removed the already yielding 
 barriers from their avarice, and seduced them into the 
 encouragement of a' wretched race, which sufiers long, 
 but remembers for ever. While their concurrence was 
 
 * Wc are told by O' Sullivan, that one prelate, tlie titular of Tuam, 
 dissented on this occasion from his more wily brethren.
 
 IN IRELAND. 299 
 
 thus calculated to lull the security of those who were chap. iii. 
 afraid to discover danger, the measure itself, they well a.d.IGIS. 
 knew, would lay up a store of fresh disaster ; supplying 
 many with motives to atrocity, more with pretexts, and 
 the apologists * of all times with a theme for declamation. 
 In a few years after, when the hierarchy was again laying 
 a train for insurrection, one of its two incentives -f was 
 derived from those very attainders to which it now gave 
 the support of its ;|; hundred senators ; and when, at 
 length, after many procrastinations, the Great Rebellion 
 did burst forth, the first havoc was made by those men, 
 or their sons, to whom outlawry and confiscation had left 
 nothing but despair. 
 
 When the account of these occurrences reached the 
 capital of the Christian world, the sovereign Pontiff 
 judged it a suitable occasion for addressing a third Bull 
 to his faithful people of Ireland. The chief topics were, 
 as before, unanimity among themselves, and the imitation 
 of their ancestors in an unbending resolution to maintain 
 the Catholic faith : but thanks now mingled with the 
 exhortations of the holy father, and indulgences with 
 his prayers — indulgences, of which the Roman Catholic 
 writers, § while they acknowledge their liberality, dis- 
 creetly abstain from a particular description. So inter- Ecclcsi- 
 
 woven, in the Papal system, are ecclesiastical discipline ^^ticaldis- 
 
 ' , _ . . . cipliue and 
 
 and pohtical chicane ; so great is the temerity of those political 
 
 chicane. 
 
 * That which, -with the bishops of 1614, was the conyictecl treason of 
 O'Neil, has been, with succeeding bishops, fi'om the titular M'Mahon, in 
 1634, to the titular J. K. L., nearly two centuries after, the tyranny of the 
 English crown, or the sagacity of its officers in devising a profitable 
 rebellion. 
 
 t The other was the danger of persecution from the Puritans — those 
 Puritans with whom the hierarchy was conspiring to OTertum the 
 monarchy. 
 
 J Dr. Burke docs not forget to use this possessive pronoun ; he says 
 that the priests came up to Dubhn, that they might be on the spot to 
 advise their senators — (Senatores sues). 
 
 § The titular bishops Routh and Burke.
 
 300 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. public men who undertake, upon the word of a sworn 
 A.D. 1613. bondsman of the Roman Court, to fix that ever-fluctu- 
 ating line which is supposed to divide spiritual from 
 temporal allegiance. 
 
 Thenceforward, until 1640, the country enjoyed unin- 
 terrupted prosperity, if prosperity may be measured by 
 increasing wealth and superficial repose. Security of 
 property, exemption from personal violence and arbitrary 
 exactions, and the wholesome supremacy of law, had at 
 length given a motive to Irish industry ; the unimpaired 
 resources of a fertile island presented to every individual 
 of a moderate population, an ample choice of profitable 
 • employments ; and Ireland, so long fettered and so long 
 uncivilized, beheld, for the first time, the diff"usion of 
 peaceful arts, and shot up with the rapidity of a new 
 country. The value of land increased, husbandry was 
 improved, and buildings were erected in the English 
 manner : the flattering calm invited English capital, 
 manufactures were introduced, and the linen trade was 
 revived and cherished into luxuriancy. * Commerce 
 began to look into the harbours of this unexplored 
 region ; the customs were multiplied almost fourfold, 
 the shipping a hundredfold ; and, if modern science will 
 admit the inference which would have been suggested in 
 the days of more homely reasoning, the exports were 
 double the amount of the imports. f There were even 
 a few appearances, which the sanguine explained into 
 promises of blessings of a higher nature ; it seemed as 
 if old animosities were melting into objects of unimpas- 
 
 j^Qj.^ * Lord Strafford expended 30,000Z. of his own money in encouraging the 
 
 Strafford, luien manufacture. When the Papists and Puritans of the Irish Parhament 
 conspired against the life of this great man, they denounced his exertions in 
 favour of the Mnen trade as grievances. 
 
 t Were such a comparison to he insisted on, with respect to the present 
 trade of Ireland, so much should be deducted from the amount of the 
 exports as would cover the rental of the absentees. For this portion of 
 its produce Ireland, notwithstanding the assurances of Dr. M'Culloch, 
 receives no commercial equivalent.
 
 IN IRELAND. 301 
 
 sioned reminiscence, and that, by tlie assimilative influ- chap. in. 
 ence of common laws, neighbourly habits, and an inter- a.d. 1613. 
 change of domestic relations, the three races which now 
 occupied the soil were quietly coalescing into one people.* 
 
 The few political incidents which broke upon the 
 stillness of this period were neither interesting in them- 
 selves, nor, with the exception of the marriage of Charles 
 to a Roman Catholic princess, of any considerable influ- 
 ence upon the great catastrophe. Their chief title to a 
 passing notice is derived from their ominous analogy to 
 recent transactions. 
 
 In the administration of St. John, the successor to a.d. 1618. 
 Chichester, the lure held out by the prelates to the 
 Protestant oligarchy was already beginning to prove 
 attractive. A few of the nobles, men of recent name, 
 but formidable power, having been withstood by this 
 Governor in an attempt to seize upon some Church 
 lands, joined the recusants in a petition to the throne, 
 complaining of viceregal intolei'ance, and praying for an 
 inquiry into the state of Ireland. -j- The charge was 
 partly founded upon some proceedings against the Cor- 
 poration of Waterford, a body which, relying on its 
 ancient charter, maintained a contumelious opposition to 
 the laws ; t a second and more specious pretext was 
 afforded by a proclamation against the Jesuits and other p , 
 regulars. Had the Deputy been able or willing to enforce tionagaiiist 
 a mandate, which he issued in the idle hope of alarming, ^^^ ^* 
 
 * Clarendon, "Irish Eebellion," vi. O'Conor, "Historical Adch-ess," 
 i., 2.55. 
 
 t Leland, ii., 462. 
 
 % At the accession of James, the recusant citizens of Waterford had 
 indulged in great excesses, pidhng down their recorder from the market- 
 cross as he read the proclamation ; forcing into the cathedral and other 
 churches, and causing priests to say mass, and preach seditious sermons ; 
 pleading conscience agamst the acknowledgment of a heretical prince ; and 
 refusing to admit the Lord Deputy within their waUs. A similar spirit 
 marked their subsequent conduct : they would not allow the administration 
 of the oath of supremacy, or admit any but recusants to their municipal 
 offices. St. John threatened to disfranchise the Corporation.
 
 302 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. lie would have lightened the burdens of a miserable 
 A.D. 1618. people, delivered the country from a nuisance which most 
 Roman Catholic States liave felt to be intolerable, and 
 perhaps even conciliated the secular priests, by the re- 
 moval of rivals whom they have always feared : — as it 
 was, he only ministered to the purposes of faction. The 
 fears of the Protestant nobles having been once allayed, 
 policy and even sectarian feeling made but a feeble 
 struggle against the pride of manorial despotism, and the 
 tempting difference between an English and an Irish rent. 
 Regardless of the modest wants of the natives, they were 
 more attentive to those imaginary grievances which might 
 be commiserated without expense, and which, being 
 boundless as the facidty in which they resided, were an 
 inexhaustible armoury against obnoxious ministers. Nor 
 is it improbable that, from the same motives which che- 
 rished the people as an inferior race,* they were induced 
 to look with mitigated abhorrence upon the priesthood — 
 an order, which was admirably qualified to be an instru- 
 ment of oppression (if it could be brought down to the 
 rank of an instrument), and whose discipline made abun- 
 dant provision that the dark mind and abject spirit should 
 preserve a due accordance with the bondage of the body. 
 The priests, on their side, while they availed themselves 
 of the assistance f which the blind rapacity of the heretics 
 
 * " I have heard many of the Irish say," says the Lord-Depxity Chichester, 
 in his " Eules for the Government of Ii-eland," " that, if they became Pro- 
 testants, they dare not live any longer among their own people ; for that 
 tlie great lords and the priests combine against those that are converted." 
 Another passage in the " Rules " explains the reason of the prejudice which 
 these great lords entertained against proselytism : — " The common people of 
 this country have no property in land, not even for a year. The great lords 
 give no leases or deeds to their tenants, but have them removeable at will ; 
 so that their condition is little better than that of the villeins formerly was 
 in England ; nor can there be any reason why, being such, they should have 
 a desire to build houses, or embrace a more civihzed mode of hving." 
 
 + It was the first coalition (and no unsuitable archetype of all the 
 others) between the Protestant landed interest and the Papal faction. 
 Equal in insincerity, the parties were iU-mated in all other respects : the
 
 IN IRELAND. 303 
 
 was thus affording, did not omit to solicit more congenial chap. hi. 
 patronage, to which the timidity of the monarch, and his a.d, 1G18. 
 growing anxiety for a Roman Catholic alliance, conspired 
 to give importance. The cry of persecution, at home 
 feeble and little regarded, was echoed abroad more loudly 
 and with more effect ; and extravagant legends * of suf- 
 ferings which had never been endured, and fines which 
 had never been exacted, awakened the sympathies of the 
 continental powers. With the Spanish Court, in parti- rj^Q Span- 
 cular, the hierarchy could not omit so favourable an ish Court. 
 opportunity of renewing its correspondence. " Oppressed 
 
 foretliouglit of the priests was more discerning, their duplicity more pro- 
 found, their aim more lofty, their spirit more patient ; on the side of the 
 aristocracy, rapacity was at once the present impulse and the predisposing 
 cause. 
 
 * Dr. O'Conor, a Eoman Cathohc divine, gives the following specimens Various 
 of the stories which were circulated on the Continent in those days : — idle stories, 
 
 " Eouth says that the Irish magistrates of this period employed their 
 time in running from street to street, from town to town, from field to field, 
 to find out Papists. And yet this silly scribbler asserts that, at the same 
 time, immense sums were levied in fines, for refusing to attend chm'ch, upon 
 those very persons whom it was so difficult to discover. Thus he states 
 that the fines in one term amounted, in the small county of Cavan alone, to 
 eight thousand guineas.^'' 
 
 " O'Sidhvan declares that St. John levied six hundred thousand pounds, 
 in hard cash, from Irish priests, as fines for not attending on Sundays in the 
 Protestant churches ; and yet six hundred thousand pounds exceeded the 
 annual income of the whole kingdom. He also says that the same Viceroy 
 imprisoned ninety citizens of Dublin yb)* denying the King's supremacy." 
 
 " Biu-ke and Porter relate how one of the Privy Council, whose name 
 they do not mention, boasted that all his plate was composed of chaUces. 
 They gravely add that a Protestant bishop converted a priest's vestment 
 into a pair of breeches, ' bvit, behold, he had scarcely put on these breeches, 
 when they caught fire, and he was biumed to death.' Such were the stories 
 by which the Irish rabble were excited to the rebellion of 1641." — SistoHcal 
 Address, i., 261. 
 
 O'Conor, however, does not select the most atrocious falsehoods. For 
 instance, he does not quote what Burke and O'Daly teU of Sir Arthur 
 Chichester, " that he poisoned the Earl of Kildare, a Cathohc in heart, 
 though an outward conformist, at his own table at Dublin Castle, in revenge 
 for the freedom with which the Earl pleaded the cause of his coxmtry."
 
 304 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. though we be, and full of disquiet," said the prelates in 
 A.D. 1618. their memorial, "we are yet raised to some hope of 
 comfort and protection, when we look to that glorious 
 diadem, from which both we and our fathers have derived 
 solace in affliction, and shelter in the storm. For our- 
 selves, we could suffer in silence ; but we fear to fall 
 under the rebuke of the prophet, if we cry not aloud for 
 the danger which threateneth our flock. Considering, 
 therefore, that pastoral care and office with which we are 
 charged, we announce to the pious, propitious, and most 
 Catholic King of the Spains, that the Catholic people and 
 religion in this kingdom of Ireland do suflTer grievous 
 persecution." * 
 A.D. 1622. St. John, yielding to domestic and foreign intrigue, 
 was replaced by Falkland. This amiable nobleman, the 
 husband of a Roman Catholic lady, and a man of mild 
 manners, and benevolent temper, ill qualified to struggle 
 against the bias of those around him, was, for nine years, 
 condemned to deprecate the insolence of a faction, which 
 conciliation has always pampered, and which nothing but 
 terror has been able to restrain. f The recusant Lords of 
 the pale were admitted to the Privy Council ; a body 
 which, according to the Irish constitution, as fixed by 
 Poyning's law, was virtually invested with the legislative 
 authority. The lawyers and wards in Chancery]; were 
 formally exempted from the oath of supremacy ; and a 
 new test, from which all that offended the Pope, or gave a 
 
 * Burke, Hib. Dom., 636. 
 
 + Cox has discovered somewhere a curious Leonine verse : — 
 
 Ungentem pungit, pungentem Hibemicus ungit. 
 Applied to the nation at large, the rhyme is a sUly Ubel ; Hmited to those 
 who have, from time to time, usurped the management of " Cathohc affairs," 
 it deserves particular attention. 
 
 X The statute of 2 Elizabeth required the oath of supremacy from wards 
 upon being admitted to their estates ; but it was either imiversaUy dispensed 
 with, or universally taken ; for, in a period of more than sixty years, we 
 do not read of one case of forfeiture.
 
 IN IRELAND. 305 
 
 reasonable pledge of fidelity to the Crown, had been chap. hi. 
 carefully excluded,* was appointed by proclamation. The ■*^-°- 1622. 
 priests, flushed with the triumph of their party, and 
 basking in the unwonted sunshine of a court, betrayed 
 
 * This formulary may be seen in Cox. Insignificant as it was, the Pope Formu- 
 made some difficulty about allowing it in England, as we learn from Bishop laryof oath 
 Berrington, in the following account of a conference between secretary ° suprem- 
 Windebank and the Papal nuncio, Panzani. " First, he acquaints the 
 secretary with the occasion of his coming over, namely, to pay a compliment 
 to the Queen from the Roman See ; and incidentally, as occasion served, he 
 was at hberty to regulate the concerns of an oath of allegiance ; but, having 
 no express commission on this latter point, he would be directed as his 
 Holiness and the King of Great Britain should agree. He further assured 
 the secretary that both the Pope and Cardinal Barberini were disposed to 
 give his Majesty all the content imaginable, as they omitted not to signify 
 on every occasion ; adding, that if his Catholic subjects did not behave 
 themselves with the utmost respect to his Majesty, in all civil matters, it 
 was contrary to the knowledge and desire of his Holiness ; and that, on 
 failure of their di;ty, they ought to be made sensible of it as the law directed. 
 Windebank expressed himself well pleased with tliis discourse, and said, 
 that his Majesty had always expressed the great respect he had for Urban 
 the Eighth ; he added, by way of advice, that he thought it would be the 
 part of prudence in his Hohness, to recal or moderate the briefs that had 
 been issued against such as had taken King James's oath of allegiance. To 
 this Panzani rephed, that he had no authority to pronounce upon that 
 affair ; but it was his opinion that nothing would be altered in the bi'ief, 
 unless the Government would agree to make the oath more agreeable to the 
 See of Rome. Windebank insisted that several Roman Catholics admitted 
 the oath might be taken with the King's comment, wloieh restrained the 
 sense to civil allegiance. ' This,' said Panzani, ' may be the opinion of 
 some of the party ; but, in things of tliis nature, men are apt to act in 
 concert, and govern themselves by a uniform practice. All I can say is, 
 that I know it is the Pope's pleasm-e that the Cathohcs shall answer all the 
 demands of civU allegiance.' On this Windebank replied, 'Then let the 
 Pope draw up a form of oath, and send it hither.' Panzani jiromised to 
 write to Rome about the matter, and gave the secretary some encourage- 
 ment that the design might have its desu-ed effect, for that very lately an 
 affair of the same nature was carrying on in Ireland. The Irish Catholics 
 having refused King James's oath. King Charles proposed to them another 
 of a softer natm-e ; but this was also quarrelled witla, as bearing still too 
 hard upon the Pope's spiritual power. However, Panzani judged it proper 
 to send the form of the Irish oath to Rome, as a model for England. He 
 was much blamed for his officiousness : Barberini told him that he had 
 exceeded his commission, and that the oath was too tender a subject to be 
 
 X
 
 306 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 cnAP. III. their impatience of heretical ascendancy ; and the reformed 
 hierarchy, supposing itself " deserted by its natural pro- 
 tectors," * began to lose its dignity in its fears. 
 
 Went- The powerful mind of Wentworth made a great, and 
 
 * „„ almost successful eifort, for the salvation of the country. 
 A.D. 1632. ... . . 
 
 With a deep insight into the causes of Irish calamity, 
 
 with considerable address, and undaunted resolution; with 
 a spirit inaccessible to all factious or fiinatical impulses, 
 and an impartiality, the result at once of native benevo- 
 lence and principled austerity ; this great man, while he 
 opposed himself to the wishes of every party, laboured 
 indefatigably for the common welfare. Devotion to a 
 master, who was not worthy of such a servant ; compas- 
 sionate mercy towards the mass of the people ; and severity 
 to the local despots, whether Protestant or Roman 
 Catholic, who had not yet learned to acknowledge either 
 authority above them, or liberty below, — these were the 
 uniform characters of his arduous administration. His 
 lofty vindication of royal prerogative, uncalled for and 
 unconstitutional as it would have been in other circum- 
 stances, was necessary to confront the arrogance of colonial 
 despotism. Having before him the alternative of being 
 despised if he yielded, and being hated if he withstood, 
 he chose the latter ; and although, when his reverses 
 came, the rival factions suspended their mutual animosities 
 
 treated at tliat time." — Memoirs of Panzani, 143. If this account, con- 
 curring as it does, with so many others, be a fair representation of the 
 Papal poHcy, it forces our attention to the following points : — 1. That when 
 political cu'cumstances shall render it expedient, ii is the Pope's pleasure 
 that Roman Cathohcs shall answer, to a certain extent, the demands of 
 civil allegiance to a Protestant prince. 2. That the Pope himself is the 
 judge of the expediency, as to time, place, and circumstances, of the 
 extent of allegiance due, and of the line which separates things spiritual 
 and things temporal. 3. That no test can he taken without the Pope's per- 
 mission. 4. That whatever opinions Roman Cathohcs may privately enter- 
 tain, they are to act in concert, and govena themselves by a uniform practice, 
 not following their own sense of what is right, but the decree of the pontiff. 
 * The exaggerated terms in which J. K. L. describes the condition of the 
 objects of his impatience.
 
 IN IRELAND. 307 
 
 to conspire for his destruction, while he stood, they were chap. hi. 
 overawed by his superior genius. With the priests alone, ^-d. 1632. 
 Strafford was compelled to adopt a temporizing policy. 
 His penetration had sounded their character, his vigilant 
 activity discovered their devices ; but they were now under 
 the protection of a superior power ; he might punish 
 outrage, hut he could not prevent intrigue. His unfortu- 
 nate master, with a Papal envoy at his court, a Popish 
 minister in his Cabinet, a Popish wife in his bosom, and 
 that fatal passion for diplomatic finesse which was con- 
 tinually luring him within the meshes of the Vatican, 
 could not tolerate active measures against the workers of 
 his ruin. Strafibrd was therefore limited to expedients, 
 of which he saw the futility, and felt the humiliation ; 
 the vigorous and even imperious Governor, who had 
 broken a haughty Senate to the language of adulation, 
 was obliged to solicit the Pope's agent that he would be 
 " pleased to restrain his monks for the present,'' or, if that 
 was too much, that he would induce the Continental 
 courts " to give a deafer ear to their clamours." * 
 
 The views of the hierarchy at this period, and the 
 principles inculcated upon the inferior priesthood, have 
 been detailed for us by two eminent members of those 
 orders, both deeply engaged in the transactions which they 
 describe, the one, warm in his approbation, the other, reluc- 
 tant and unsteady in his censure. Father Peter Walsh, the Father 
 very learned and candid Franciscan, has diffused his ^Jgj^ 
 account of the received school divinity over so many folio 
 pages,-]- that abridgment is indispensable. The sum of 
 his statement is briefly as follows : — That the advancement 
 of Christ's kingdom, that is, of the Papal Church, being 
 the great consummation of the Divine will, and the end 
 of human existence, all particular laws of God, of nature, 
 or of civil society, must be regulated by it : that, there- 
 fore, actions otherwise criminal, such as perjury, treason, 
 
 * Strafford's Letters, toI. ii., p. 111. 
 
 t Of Ms " History of the Irish Remonstrance." 
 
 X 2
 
 308 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. or murder, may, by a new relation to this supreme law, 
 A.D. 1632. change their moral character: that heresy, being directly 
 subversive of Christ's kingdom, is an infamous crime, 
 which annihilates all rights, and is sufficient to exclude 
 men from all civilized communion : that the Pope is the 
 supreme authority, both in spiritual and temporal things, 
 having the power of both swords, particularly in countries 
 where the civil sovereignty has lapsed by heresy : that the 
 clergy, being the immediate servants of the Pope, are 
 exempt, both in person and property, from the jurisdiction 
 of secular tribunals. These, and similar dogmas, " con- 
 trary," says Walsh, " to the letter, sense, and design of 
 the Gospel, to the writings of the Apostles, and the 
 commentaries of their successors, to the belief of the 
 Church for ten ages, and, moreover, to the clearest 
 dictates of nature," were universally taught in those 
 seminaries at which the Irish ecclesiastics then received their 
 education. In their transmission from the priests to a 
 generous, excitable, and fondly national people, they 
 acquired fresh cogency, from the assurance that the 
 sovereign Pontiff had a peculiar tenderness for Ireland, 
 the island of saints, a country selected by a special provi- 
 dence to be the ark of the true religion. 
 
 David Routh, titular Bishop of Ossory, was perhaps 
 the most learned, as well as the most temperate, prelate 
 whom the Irish branch of the Papacy has ever produced. 
 A great Protestant contemporary has made honourable 
 mention of his erudition : * his moderation is proved by 
 the fact, that, in the great rebellion, he braved the 
 anathemas of Rinuccini, and wrote strenuously against 
 the violation of the peace with Ormond ; nor is it a trifling 
 testimony in his favour, that a divine,j- whose sober 
 opinions have been visited with Episcopal censure, both in 
 England and Ireland, proposes Routh as a model for the 
 
 * Archbishop Ussher, in his " Primordia Ecclesiarum Britannicarum." 
 t Dr. O'Conor, in several passages of his " Historical Address," and 
 " Letters of Colimjbanus."
 
 IN iRELANJt). 309 
 
 hierarchy of the present day. His work may, therefore, chap.ii i. 
 be regarded as a very mitigated exposition of the senti- a. t>. 1632. 
 ments of his order : it is entitled Analecta Sacra Hibernice; 
 and its curious apparatus of two dedications, the one, 
 specious and respectful, to Charles the Firsts then Prince 
 of Wales, the other, an appeal, or counter address, to the 
 Emperor, and the Catholic kings and princes of Christen- 
 dom, is a lively and intelligible symbol of double policy. 
 The following are extracts : — 
 
 1. PAPAL ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF THE REFOR- 
 MATION. 
 
 *' From the time that this island became subject unto Papal 
 Christ, its commonweal consisted of two parts, the one fr'^°^"f 
 spiritual, the other carnal, even as man himself is composed maiion. 
 of soul and body. But, ever sitice the introduction of the 
 English arms, there hath been an inveterate altercation 
 between these two ; so that, as it were by some stern decree 
 of fate, strife and enmity have always subsisted between 
 the civil governors and those holy men the bishops and 
 pastors of the Church. The conquerors, although they 
 had obtained admission under a solemn covenant that they 
 would exalt the Church, oppressed it, even from the very 
 commencement, and invaded its sacred discipline, to the 
 grief and indignation of Saint Lawrence O'Toole, and of 
 his venerable successor, John Cummin. Of the former, 
 it is set forth by Gerald Barry, * how he was hateful to 
 the King, and obedient to the holy chair, and how he 
 complained to the Pontiff of the injuries done to a faithful 
 people, tributary and devoted to the See of Rome ;' and 
 of the latter, 'how through the zeal of his justice, and 
 according to the duty of his office and ministry, he would 
 have highly exalted the Church in Ireland, had not sword 
 been opposed by sword, the priesthood by the Crown, 
 virtue by envy ; for, as the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, 
 so do those who are carnal afflict those who are spiritual, 
 and the ministers of Caesar, make unceasing war upon the
 
 310 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. soldiers of Christ.' Furthermore, we are told, by the 
 A.D. 1632. same Sylvester,* * how he saw, in a vision, the King's son 
 John marking out upon a green plain the plan of a church, 
 and assigning to tlie laity an ample and commodious space, 
 but to the priesthood something mean, narrow, and un- 
 seemly.' Thus far he, an eye-witness, to whose words I 
 shall add nothing, as they sufficiently declare the evils of 
 those days. But, as years revolved, they brought con- 
 tinually some new aggravation to the wrongs of the 
 Church. Hence it was, that, in the reign of Edward II., 
 the Irish people complained bitterly to the chair of Peter ; 
 and so, accordingly, did Pope John XXII. reprove that 
 prince sharply, as appeareth from his apostolical letter, in 
 which these w'ords are contained : — ' Whereas, our prede- 
 cessor, Adrian IV., of holy memory, did, by his letters 
 apostolic, confer the dominion of Ireland upon your 
 progenitor, Henry II., of renowned memory, in a certain 
 manner and form ; and whereas, neither that King nor his 
 successors, unto this time, have observed that manner and 
 form, but have oppressed the people with great and 
 unheard-of afflictions ; therefore, being unable to endure 
 such injuries, they have been constrained to withdraw 
 themselves from your dominion, and invite another to 
 have authority over them.' Now it provoked the English 
 princes, that complaints of such grievances should be 
 multiplied to the See of Peter; although from that See 
 their power in Ireland was at first derived, and thence 
 made to descend in hereditary succession, resting ever 
 upon the same conditions, upon which the donation had 
 been made at the beginning. Many were the struggles, 
 bitter the covjlicts, great the strife and contention, hetiveen 
 the tii'o poivers ; and many a politic device was used, in 
 labouring to effect a reconciliation. But it apjjeared 
 to them impossible to preserve peace, so long as an appeallay 
 open to the Apostolic See; and this, indeed, is sufficiently 
 
 * i.e., Barrh. Eouth translates the Norman name of his authoi-ity into 
 tlie language in which he was writing.
 
 IN IRELAND. 311 
 
 apparent from the covenant with Henry and his son John, chap. hi. 
 and from the letters to Edward, and to other kings, who a.d.1632. 
 had many quarrels with the clergy, for the settlement of 
 which it was necessary to have recourse to the sovereign 
 Pontiff. At length, hy a new invention, a new remedy 
 was applied ; and a barrier was raised for the keeping in 
 of those petitions which were wont to make their way to 
 Rome. It was resolved to unite the tiara of ecclesi- 
 astical power with the secular diadem ; so that all authority, 
 sacred and profane, divine and human, being centered in 
 one person, there should, in future, be no variance 
 between the two members of the body politic. From this 
 portentous and obscene advice did proceed that anarchy of 
 lay supremacy which, from the schism until this time, 
 hath kept in bondage the realms of the Britannic Isles : 
 its seminal principle was the oppression of the clergy, 
 which, swelling gradually through many ages, at the last 
 produced that monster, of which we now experience the 
 misgovernment, as we behold its deformity.* Thus, the 
 mystery of iniquity hath prevailed in the holy place ; and, 
 in this island of the saints, the man of sin, whom the 
 Apostle hath described in his second epistle to the Thessa- 
 lonians, hath usurped the holy symbols of spiritual juris- 
 diction." 
 
 2. FORFEITURE OF THE KING's TITLE BY THE SCHISM. 
 
 " I appeal to the faith pledged by Henry II., when he The King's 
 received authority from the Pontiff Adrian to occupy this ^^4^/^"*' 
 island. It was then provided by a solemn treaty, that the schism, 
 rights of the Church should remain inviolate, that a yearly 
 tribute should be paid to the See Apostolic, and, above 
 all, that the Catholic faith and discipline should be propa- 
 gated. It was the design of the Pontiff of the Supreme 
 See, when, by a solemn contract, and upon certain 
 
 * The original is stronger : — Seniinalis ratio, per tot saeeula ex iujusta 
 cleri oppressione protuberans et suscepta in ntero Junonise Ubidinis, pre 
 creavit tandem hoc immane monstrum, &c.
 
 312 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. stipulations, he gave up the dominion of this island to a 
 A.D. 1632. prince of his own faith, that the seeds of all the virtues, 
 and more especially of religion and the true worship of 
 God, should be cherished here. In transferring the 
 sovereignty of a country, which piety had at the first 
 made tributary to his chair, and of which constant alle- 
 giance had ratified the subjection, he required such terms 
 as corresponded to this design ; and the prince who 
 received the government lived and died obedient to the 
 see and faith of Rome. By such convention, upon clear 
 and covenanted conditions, was the authority over Ireland 
 solemnly conferred. If, then, the successors of him who 
 received that authority, either beguiled by fraud, or 
 perverted by malice, or forgetful of their contract, or 
 ungrateful to the Holy See, depart from their plighted 
 faith, and violate the sacredness of a royal promise ; if 
 such be the case — it is not my part to say that they have 
 forfeited the right they had acquired, for that province 
 pertaineth more unto lawyers, but the fact is known to 
 all Christian people. If, under the second Henry, this 
 our island was given over to temporal bondage, under the 
 eighth of that name it was subjected to a more degrading 
 slavery, and hath groaned for these many years under the 
 yoke of iniquity. As the former took away human liberty, 
 so hath the latter bereft us of divine : the one rendered us 
 the slaves of men ; the other, of devils — as far as could be 
 effected by the devices of man and by the rulers of this 
 world, who endeavour to bring us into bondage to the 
 powers of darkness." 
 
 3. HOPES OF RE-ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 Papal The bishop, obtruding, as is the custom of his order, 
 
 hopes of ^vith irreverent familiarity into the most mysterious thing's, 
 re-estab- _ __ -^ •' ° ' 
 
 lishment. compares himself to Elijah : " when the Lord came to him 
 and said, 'What dost thou here, Elijah?' and he said, 
 * I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts, for 
 the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, and
 
 IN iRELANt). 313 
 
 thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the chap. hi. 
 sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life a.d. 1632. 
 to take it away.' " He then relates the vision of the 
 prophet, and applies it to the condition and prospects of 
 his Church. The vision : '* ' Behold, the Lord passed by ; 
 first, a great and strong whirlwind rent the mountains, 
 and brake in pieces the rocks, but the Lord was not in 
 the whirlwind ; after the whirlwind came an earthquake, 
 but the Lord was not in the earthquake ; and after the 
 earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire ; 
 and after the fire a small still voice ;— and it was so, that 
 when Elijah heard the voice, he wrapped his face in his 
 mantle.' The application : * First, in the beginning of 
 the days of Elizabeth, there went before the Lord God a 
 great and mighty wind, in the person of that famous 
 chief, John O'Neil, who, like a raging storm, laid waste 
 all things, sparing neither rocks nor mountains. He, 
 though he had joined unto himself captains from Munster 
 and from Connaught, and desired to be esteemed as the 
 restorer of the liberty of his country and the religion of 
 his fathers, yet did he fail in reverence for the clergy. 
 Having destroyed a part of the cathedral of Armagh, and 
 thereby incurred the indignation of the archbishop, Richard 
 Creagh, a zealous assertor of ecclesiastical privileges, he 
 ceased to be of the number of those by whom salvation 
 should be wrought unto Israel ; and, as he sowed the 
 wind, so he reaped the whirlwind. Secondly, there came 
 the earthquake — the great commotion which the Geral- 
 dines raised in Munster, and which was aided in Leinster 
 by the Cavanaghs, the Lord of Baltinglass, and other 
 nobles of that province. To the pious princes of foreign 
 countries this appeared to be the cause of God ; and, as 
 they considered it to be a war for the faith, they sent over 
 aids of men and arms. But their endeavours were in vain, 
 because of the transgression of the time, — God having 
 decreed not to give that good effect to the arms of warriors 
 which he had reserved for another season, to be accom-
 
 314 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 cuAP. III. plished by other means and instruments. To this earth- 
 A.D. 1632. quake of the Geraldines, succeeded the fire of Tyrone's 
 insurrection, destroying far and wide for the space of ten 
 years. The hihours of this general appeared to prosper : 
 he was victorious in several engagements ; he maintained 
 the righteous cause of restoring religion ; and would not 
 make peace with the English unless the orthodox faith 
 were publicly established through the entire kingdom. 
 But this mighty power was not exercised according to the 
 effectual purpose of God, whose counsels are impenetrable 
 and his judgments as the great abyss ; therefore was the 
 strength of man put forth in vain ; and so this illustrious 
 Earl hath departed to answer to God for the deeds done 
 in the body, and to receive his deserved reward. Since, 
 therefore, neither in the whirlwind, nor in the earthquake, 
 nor yet in the fire, hath the Lord come to the refreshment 
 and consolatipn of this land, and, as we cannot doubt 
 that at length it will have rest from its tribulations, it 
 remains that we consider what is that still small voice, for 
 whose soft and auspicious breathings we are to wait. 
 There is spread around us on every side a joyous rumour 
 of a marriage between the heir of Britain, and a daughter 
 of France or Spain, Who, that hath meditated on the 
 blessings which arose from the union of Philip and Mary, 
 can doubt, that if this marriage be now celebrated, on 
 meet conditions, and with the consent of the Apostolic 
 See, we should receive the sure and stable redress of our 
 grievances, and every other benefit in addition. Thou 
 Almighty Ruler of the world, from whom all power and 
 dominion do proceed, of whose Church kings are ordained 
 to be the nursing fathers, and queens the nursing mothers, 
 who dost order the light to shine forth out of darkness, — 
 arise, thou bright and morning star, enlighten the hearts of 
 the King and his family, inspire them with wise and salutary 
 counsel, that they may see the true and only faith which 
 Christ hath delivered to us.' "
 
 IN IRELAND. 315 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 A.D. 1632. 
 4. CLAIMS TO THE EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT OF 
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 " Thus, in this most afflicted kingdom of Ireland hath Claims to 
 
 God preserved the seeds of that pure and divine religion gf^hg*^^" 
 
 M'hich it received from the ministry of the Roman Church, people. 
 
 so that all may perceive how it might flourish in earthly 
 
 peace and prosperity, if the sons of God (i.e., the priests) 
 
 were permitted so to instruct the children of men [i.e., the 
 
 people), that while they especially loved the tents of Israel, 
 
 they yet should not despise the tabernacles of Jacob. And 
 
 since the authority of the teachers is the great attraction 
 
 to learning and good discipline, it appeareth that no more 
 
 effective education can be devised for bringing this people 
 
 unto all civil duties and the rules of government and 
 
 society, than to place them, according to their own choice 
 
 and affection, in the hands of the Catholic priesthood. 
 
 No more expedient course can be devised, for subduing 
 
 this nation, and keeping it firmly in due allegiance, than 
 
 to have the people instructed by those teachers whose 
 
 good-will to them is beyond suspicion, whose devotion 
 
 to God and fidelity to the King are also well known. By 
 
 such a mode of government they will be more inclined to 
 
 obedience than by armed soldiers, or sanguinary edicts of 
 
 Parliament. Our rustics themselves declare, that they 
 
 are deterred from murder, revenge, robbery, or other 
 
 violence, more by the censures of the priest than the 
 
 sentence of the secular judge — that they are more afraid Ecclesias- 
 
 of an ecclesiastical interdict than a royal proclamation; ticalmter- 
 • r 1 • (• 1 r^^ i i /- dicttJ.royal 
 
 of suspension from the rites of the Church, than of proclama- 
 
 imprisonment or hanging. If, then, we were allowed to ^^°^- 
 
 exercise those powers which the sacred councils and 
 
 canons * do grant us against rebellious and seditious folk, 
 
 * The bishop refers to the canons, as well for the prerogatives and immu- 
 nities of his own order, as for the means of coercing the people. Thus, in 
 his account of a bishop, who was apprehended and brought to trial for 
 having aided in O'NeLl's rebeUion, he says : — " A son of Belial appeared
 
 316 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. in. we should use all diligence that they were vigorously 
 A.D. 1632. executed ; if notj we will permit that the offender be 
 punished by the civil magistrate." 
 
 These passages, it will be observed, appear in an 
 address to the heir-apparent, from the Secretary, and 
 most moderate member, of the Papal hierarchy. For 
 the first time since the Reformation, the bishops were 
 now making advances which they intended to be con- 
 ciliatory ; they had almost become candidates for the 
 praise of loyalty, and endeavoured to soften down their 
 habitual defiance into the soothing tones of courtly gratu- 
 lation. Their language, in such circumstances, must be 
 regarded with some interest ; to those, in particular, who 
 see nothing in Popery but celibacy, a wafer, and the use 
 of the Latin language, it is calculated to afford useful, 
 though perplexing information. It appears, then, that 
 the prelates of the most fanatical period which has ever 
 convulsed this unhappy country, did not condescend to 
 mention ritual or dogmatical innovations* amongst the 
 
 against the anointed of the Lord, and charged him with having been in a 
 certain castie with Hugh O'lf eil. I cannot now enlarge upon the diiTerence 
 between a secvilar court and a court ecclesiastical ; upon the privileges of the 
 person accused and the incompetency of his judge; upon the decrees of 
 Pontiffs and the authority of the sacred canons ; upon rights wliich the 
 martyr of Canterbury maintained even unto death, against the mimicipal 
 law of England and the constitutions of Clarendon ; for now, law hath con- 
 spired with iniquity, and the weakness of man hath yielded to unjust statutes, 
 so that things of holy institution are submitted to the sentence of a profane 
 judge." 
 
 * If we may judge from English history, the comparative value which 
 Rome's Kome sets upon power and upon religious unity can be easily ascertained, 
 
 preterence ijjjg great quarrel with Henry was a contest for jurisdiction, — the rival 
 to unitv parties being fully agreed iipon aU doctrinal and ritual questions. Pius the 
 Fifth, a canonized authority, offered Elizabeth her own terms as to a hturgy 
 and the internal discipline of the Cliurch, provided she acknowledged liis 
 accommodating supremacy. Fifty years after, a similar temptation was held 
 out, by the resident Nuncio Panzani, to Laud and his unfortunate master ; 
 and Father Davenport undertook to show how a man might be a true son 
 of the Church of Rome though he subscribed the articles of the Church of 
 England. In the reign of James the Second, the stratagem was tried again : 
 Bossuet, Gother, and others, drew their portraits of Popery, and public men 
 amused themselves in tracing femUy likenesses— ^actV*, qtiales decet esse 
 
 to unity.
 
 IN IRELAND. 317 
 
 grounds of their discontent, or the questions at issue chap. m. 
 between their order and the civil government. Popery, a.d. 1632. 
 in their estimation, was a Gordian knot, which fastened 
 the State to the footstool of the Church ; Henry the 
 Eighth had cut asunder what his more timid predecessors 
 had sought to loosen or untie ; and the avowed grievance 
 of Routh and his brethren was the failure of those 
 schemes of secular dominion to which the forms and 
 fictions of their religious system were but subservient and 
 instrumental. From the heginning, say these churchmen, 
 in their arrogant candour, sword contended against sword ; 
 the " soldiers of Christ " maintained their spiritual warfare 
 against the " ministers of Caesar," and the tardy change of 
 doctrines and ceremonies only gave a new name to the 
 inveterate altercation. The political constitution, to which 
 alone they can give the title of legitimate, must be foi-med 
 upon the model of regenerated human nature : the Jlesh 
 subdued to the Spirit ; the grosser element of the civil 
 power, restrained to a subordinate sphere of action ; and 
 the pure essence of their own order, invested with an 
 imperial ascendancy, suited to its native dignity, and 
 necessary for the accomplishment of the sublime ends of 
 
 sororum. Tlius, we 8ee, that it did not require all the intrepidity which 
 Dr. Doyle possesses to declare, as he did in his letter to Mr. Robertson, that 
 the questions at issue between the Churches were little more than verbal 
 disputes, which might be easily explained away if England would consent to 
 a re-union. These matters, contemptible in themselves, are interesting from 
 their pohtical coincidences ; all the great manifestations of liberahty on the 
 Papal side have, except the last, been followed by some national convulsion. 
 The amicable overtures of Pius introduced the more vigorous measures of 
 the Desmonds and the O'Neils ; the negotiations of Panzani led the way to 
 the Great Rebellion, and the bland exposition of Bossuet was the precursor 
 of those aggressions which drove Protestants to the fearful redress of a 
 revolution. It is a fact, too, however unconnected with the foregoing, that 
 the memorable scenes of 1798 had been preceded by some hberal symptoms 
 from Dr. Troy. Whether a storm is, or is not, destined to follow those 
 gleams of concihation which have lately dazzled so many, is a question to 
 be answered only by time — the sure, though tardy, interpreter of aU omens.* 
 
 I Written in 1827.— Ed,
 
 318 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. m. its institution. The holy island, to be truly emancipated, 
 A.D. 1632. niust repose under the tutelage of the Sovereign Pontiff; 
 the people, devoted above all things to the Church, would 
 then, at her command, pay a cheerful respect to the 
 secular magistrate ; and the prince, absolved from curse, 
 and restored to the affections of a generous nation, would 
 shine forth in the placid lustre of reflected sovereignty. 
 Of the means by which this consummation was to be 
 achieved, the prelates judged with unscrupulous libera- 
 lity : an earthquake, a conflagration, or a gentle voice ; 
 rebellion or invasion, parliamentary intrigue, or the softer 
 arts of female blandishment, — all were entitled to their 
 impartial benediction, in proportion as they might contri- 
 bute to the exaltation of the Church. Such were the 
 views of Routh and his contemporaries. Unaffected by 
 the varieties of private character, and the vicissitudes of 
 four hundred and fifty years, the spirit of Laurence had 
 descended with his office, informing and assimilating the 
 successive members of the order, imparting a singleness 
 and intensity of purpose which almost arrested the course 
 of nature, and consolidated the fleeting train into one 
 permanent body. 
 
 Experience having soon dissipated the hopes which 
 had been raised by the marriage of Charles, the bishops 
 returned to their former devices. They had now, to the 
 exclusion of all but their dependants, the lawyers, effec- 
 tually occupied the vacant tyranny over the multitude ; 
 and, among those of better quality, their two classes of 
 instruments were daily becoming more tractable in their 
 skilful hands. Those of the ancient race, fiery, vindic- 
 tive, and unreflecting, prodigal of life, having nothing 
 else to lose, and brooding over grievances, of which it was 
 idle to expect the redress by political intrigue, waited, 
 with a patience which discipline only could inspire, for 
 the signal that was to send them upon their sanguinary 
 course. The more crafty genius of the gentry of the 
 Pale, and the proverbial coolness of the legal profession,
 
 IN IRELAND. 319 
 
 of which many of them were raembersj served at once to chap. in. 
 temper the impetuosity of the Irish, and to prepare for a.d. 1632. 
 the successful exercise of their valour. Unwarlike them- 
 selves, these persons were, perhaps, the most effectual in 
 promoting the ruthless designs of the hierarchy : their 
 discontent had gradually soured into disaffection ; and 
 the skill and boldness of their inveterate opposition con- 
 founded the loyal, while it inflamed the turbulent to the 
 requisite degree of fever. The influence of time, of con- 
 fidential intercourse, and of common objects of detesta- 
 tion,* in allaying the mutual jealousies of the two races, 
 was judiciously aided by other expedients. Their sons 
 were sent to the continental colleges, to be educated 
 under the inspection of prudent ecclesiastics : -j- the youths 
 met as countrymen ; all irritating associations being dis- 
 pelled or mellowed by distance, the feelings which belong 
 to early years had their full natural effect, and friendship 
 was consecrated by an infusion of religious zeal. Thus 
 trained, they were prepared, on their return, to be intro- 
 duced to the " Irish Union," a secret society which had 
 been instituted by Routh, himself a member of an Anglo- 
 Irish family, for the purpose of abolishing the distinction 
 of blood, and difiusing the charities of a seditious patriot- 
 
 * The recent colonists. " The first and principal cause," says the author 
 of " The present State of Ireland," anno 1614, " of the late union between 
 the Irish and the old Enghsh of the Pale, is the plantation of new English 
 and Scotch in all parts of the kingdom, whom with an unanimous consent, 
 the natives repute as a common enemy. For this cause, though they 
 endeavour to disguise it, covering the same under the pretext of religion, 
 the slaughters and rivers of blood between them are forgotten, and the 
 intrusions made by themselves or their ancestors, on both sides, for title of 
 land, are remitted." As the Milesians had lost their acres, so the Anglo- 
 Irish had lost their cherished title of Englishmen, and the monopoly of 
 place and power with which it was accompanied, to the new adventurers. 
 
 t This practice was of recent origin. We are told by a writer of the year 
 1614 (in the "Desiderata Curiosa," i., 418), that Sir Patrick BarnwaU, who 
 had just risen to a seditious notoriety, was the " first person of quaUty that 
 had ever been sent out of Ireland to be brought \ip in learning beyond the
 
 3^0 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. ni. 
 A.D. 1632. 
 
 United 
 Irishmen. 
 
 ism. Branches of this society were propagated abroad 
 among the Irish of the dispersion, to whose ruin the 
 provident prelates had actively contributed, and who main- 
 tained, through the priesthood, a continual correspondence 
 with their kinsmen at home.* Spain, though severed 
 from the empire, and wasted by decay and dissension in 
 all her provinces, had her favourite motives — bigotry and 
 preposterous pretension — for encoui-aging this conspiracy: 
 the Pope, while he cajoled the uxorious Charles with 
 assurances of his great affection, fomented the intrigue 
 with unabated vigour : and the French Cabinet was too 
 full of ambitious projects, and the fear of a natural 
 enemy, to respect the accidental alliance of the crowns. 
 
 The agents of Cardinal Richelieu co-operated with the 
 prelates in cementing the new brotherhood of United 
 Irishmen ; f and that wily minister himself told the Irish 
 at Paris, that " their countrymen would be only a rope of 
 sand," unless, in imitation of the confederacy of the 
 Guises, they formed a Holy League against the Hugue- 
 nots of England. The mine was now prepared ; it 
 remained only for the master artists to choose the season 
 for an explosion — an explosion that was to shake Ireland 
 for half a century. We are informed by Heber M'Mahon,;}: 
 a sturdy ecclesiastic, active in the preparations, and after- 
 wards in the work, of death, that the year 1628 was first 
 determined on, and that a general rising of the rebels at 
 home was to be supported by a joint invasion of the emi- 
 grants and the French. But the unexpected protraction 
 of the war in Italy engrossed the attention of Richelieu ; 
 
 * " It is certain," \mtes Strafford, in ] 637, " that the Irish abroad do 
 hold, by means of the Pope's clei-gy, continual intelhgence with the mere 
 Irish at home." 
 
 f A curious anticipation of the negotiations of 1792. Wolfe Tone 
 maintained a simultaneous correspondence with the French Directory, the. 
 titular bishops of Munster, and the Libcralists of Belfast. 
 
 J Or rather by Lord Mac Guire, upon the authority of Mac Mahon. See 
 Mac Guire's " Confession in the Tower." Borlase, " History of RebeUion," 
 35.
 
 IN IRELAND. 321 
 
 the conspirators drew back into vigilant quiescence, and chap. iir. 
 those whom heaven had made responsible for the safety of 
 Ireland slept on in fatal security. In 1634 the design a.d. 1634. 
 was revived, and again defeated by some accidental occur- 
 rence.* After this second adjournment of the enterprise, 
 M'Mahon, hoping, perhaps, to purchase the confidence of 
 Strafford by a show of loyal contrition, revealed the 
 abortive plot, with many expressions of penitence, to a 
 member of the Privy Council, f To us, judging at the 
 distance of two centuries, and by the imperfect light which 
 history throws upon Irish affairs, this tardy disclosure may 
 appear a weak refinement of duplicity ; but the Vatican, 
 seldom deceived in its estimate of character, raised 
 M'Mahon to the bishopric of Clogher, a station of great 
 trust and almost absolute authority, in the centre of the 
 most desperate and daring malcontents. 
 
 Since the accession of the house of Stuart, six incipient a.d. 1637. 
 or meditated rebellions J had now been frustrated, chiefly Six rebel- 
 by the failure of promised succours from the Conti- tj^ted. 
 nent. A generation of conspirators had passed away, 
 
 * Borlase, 2. 
 
 t Strafford was not imposed on ; but a much more palpable artifice has The Pre- 
 been tried with great success at a later period. The " Morning Chronicle " tender 
 of May 2, 1825, quotes the following article from the " Etoile : "—"Among ^^^^^^g 
 the answers which the Bishop of Kildare, Dr. Doyle, has given, with so ^^ Romish 
 much candour and frankness, to the questions of the Committee, is foimd a gees in 
 historical exposition of the liighest interest. It was not known before that, Ireland, 
 until the death of the last of the Stuarts, the Pretender had always nomi- 
 nated to the vacant sees in Ireland. The Enghsh Government, with all its 
 gold, had never been able to get at this secret ; and when we reflect that it 
 was in the keeping of, perhaps, ten thousand individuals, so admirable an 
 example of guarded fidehty towards the legitimate sovereign recalls to 
 recollection, that the only general of Maria Theresa, whom the King of 
 Prussia despaired of corrupting, was an Ii'ishman." As long as the secret 
 coidd be of any use to England, all her gold could not obtain possession of 
 it ; when it had sunk into a matter of antiquarian curiosity, it was laid out, 
 to advantage, in the purchase of " golden opinions." Were the admirable 
 secresy of the ten thousand, and the equally admirable frankness of the one, 
 opposite quahties, or merely opposite aspects of the same principled fidehty 
 to a common cause ? 
 
 t In 1605, 1607, 1613, 1615, 1628, and 1634. 
 
 Y
 
 322 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. and the sons * had succeeded to the baffled hopes and 
 A.D. 1637. undrawn swords of their fathers; but the hierarchy had 
 imparted to the Holy League a portion of its own un- 
 changing spirit, and the unrelaxed purpose and undecayed 
 organization exhibited no vestiges of the progress of time. 
 At length, the growing discontents in England, the storm 
 which was evidently gathering among the Scotch, and the 
 divisions which Puritanism and the selfishness of the 
 aristocracy had sown among the Irish Protestants, attracted 
 the observation of the prelates and the other leaders. 
 Justly concluding that internal discord would be as 
 effectual an auxiliary as a foreign force, they began, in 
 their several departments, to prepare for active measures. 
 The military chiefs, no longer in want of men, solicited 
 their continental friends for a supply of arms ; f the 
 senators, about equal in number to those who had sat in 
 James's Parliament, ;{: cultivated an understanding with 
 their puritanical brethren ; and the bishops obtained from 
 Rome the deadly prerogative of secret excommunication. 
 According to strict ecclesiastical rule, the denunciation of 
 an anathema has the solemn publicity of a judicial sen- 
 tence: the spirited vigilance of Strafford, the most arbi- 
 trary governor whom Ireland has ever had, was just able 
 to prevent the observance of these outward formalities ; 
 and the prelates, on their part, had the address and reso- 
 
 * The emigrants were to have been led, in 1628, and again in 1634, by 
 the son of Hugh O'NeU. — Mac Qidre^s " Confession." 
 
 f " The Irish beheve themselves so strong, that they desire notliing 
 of Spain but to furnish them with arms for 12,000 men ; all the rest they 
 will be able to do of themselves." — Strafford^s Letters, ii.. 111. 
 Popery and t '^^® general election in 1634 was marked by a repetition of those 
 elections. scenes which had been exhibited in 1613. " Popish Jesuits," says Strafford, 
 " arc very busy in the election of knights and burgesses ; they call the 
 people to their masses, and there charge them, on pain of excommunication, 
 to give their votes to no Pi-otestant. I therefore purpose to question some 
 of them ; it being, indeed, a very insufferable thing for them thus to inter- 
 fere in causes purely civU, and it is of passing ill consequence, in warming 
 and inflaming his Majesty's subjects one against another, and, in the last 
 resort, to bring it to a direct party of Papist and Protestant."
 
 commmu- 
 
 IN IRELAND. S23 
 
 lution to obtain an increase of the substantial power, chap. iii. 
 " If," says the decree of the Congregation De Propaganda ^•^- 1637. 
 Fide, " there be danger of a prosecution before the secular 
 magistrate, the bishop may pass sentence, without a written 
 form, and in the presence of any two witnesses." * This 
 ample dispensation provided at once for the tyranny and 
 the security of the Church : the culprit, ignorant of his 
 danger, and, perhaps, unconscious of guilt, was despatched 
 by a species of spiritual assassination ; the intelligence of 
 his fate was disseminated in whispers ; while the absence 
 of written evidence, and the fidelity of the chosen wit- 
 nesses, enabled the perpetrator to defy the civil authori- 
 ties. If ever there was a weapon in the hands of men Secret ex- 
 that deserved to be called Satanic, it is this Papal sword gaticm!! 
 of secret excommunication, which, by one invisible and 
 inevitable stroke, cuts off its victims from the charities of 
 the present life, and the hopes of the life to come. 
 Wielded at such a crisis, and by beings who had little in 
 common with humanity (but that gloomy ambition, which 
 yet seems to be less a natural vice than an infusion from 
 the author of the first rebellion on record), its mysterious 
 terrors may exercise our conjectures, but they elude cal- 
 culation. Of this, however, we may be sure, that it 
 assisted powerfully in subduing the timid ; in controlling 
 
 * The brevity and importance of ttis decree justify its insertion in full. 
 It is given by Bishop Burke in the following words and form : — 
 
 " DECKETUM 
 
 " SacrcB Congregationis De Propaganda Fide. 
 
 " HahitcB 30 Januarii, 1638. 
 
 " Eefeeente Eminentissimo Cardinale Pampliilio, Sacra Congregatio 
 censuit, si Sauctissimo placuerit, concedendam esse Facidtatem archiepiscopis 
 et episcopis Hibemise, ut possint, sine scriptis, coram tamen duobus testibus, 
 proferre sententiam excommunicationis contra contumaces et inobedientes, 
 si periculiun sit, ne ab eis apud magistratus sseculares accusentur. 
 
 " EoDEM die, Sanctissimus Dominus noster Decretum Sacrae Congrega- 
 tionis approbavit, cum hac conditione, ut prsedicti Prgelati probationes 
 contra Keos pen^s se retineant, et conservent. 
 
 "AlfTONIUS CaedinALIS BAEBEEINtrS Pe^fectus.-' 
 Y 2
 
 324 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. in. the more resolute ; in reducing those conscientious Roman 
 A.D. 1637. Catholics who eudeavoured to separate religion from the 
 schemes of its ministers, to a silent neutrality, suspicious 
 in the eyes of Government, and humiliating in their own ; 
 and in driving the awe-stricken multitude to propitiate, 
 by any sacrifice, that evil principle, from which their 
 better instincts recoiled with abhorrence. 
 Strafford's The talents of Strafford could be of little avail in 
 royalty fathoming the depth of these spiritual intrigues ; but he 
 applauded, was fully qualified to detect, and to counterwork, the 
 devices of the lay conspirators. The haughty energy of 
 his character, which, in yielding times, might have pressed 
 with a dangerous vehemence against the other orders of 
 the State, presented to their seditious excitement a suitable 
 antagonist power ; and, had his master been endued 
 with the same vigorous decisiveness, the turbulence of 
 both islands would, probably, have been overruled. In 
 the month of March, 1640, the Irish Commons unani- 
 mously decreed him the highest panegyric, which, perhaps, 
 has ever been passed upon the governor of an agitated 
 country. Having voted a very liberal subsidy to the 
 Crown, they inserted in the preamble of their Bill of 
 Supply an encomium on the King's goodness to his Irish 
 subjects : " Especially," said they, " in placing over us 
 so just, wise, vigilant, and profitable a Viceroy as the 
 Earl of Strafford, who has endeared himself to us by his 
 great care and travail of body and mind ; by his sincere 
 and upright administration of justice, without partiality ; 
 by his increase of your Majesty's revenue, without the 
 least hurt or grievance of the subject ; by his diligence, in 
 obtaining for us the large and ample benefits we have 
 received, and hope to receive, from the commission of 
 graces ; by his great pains in the restoration of the Church ; 
 by his reinforcement of the army, and his ordering of the 
 same with singular good discipline, that it is now become 
 a great stay and comfort to your whole kingdom ; by his 
 support of your Majesty's laws here established, his
 
 IN IRELAND. S25 
 
 necessary and just strictness in the execution thereof, his chap. in. 
 countenance and encouragement of the judges, and other a.d. 1640. 
 good officers, and his care to reheve the poor, and redress 
 the oppressed." The King having expressed his fears that, 
 unless the Scotch submitted, a further supply would be 
 necessary, the obsequious house assented with the same 
 unanimity. " If," proceeded the preamble, " his Majesty 
 be enforced to vindicate his just authority, this house, for 
 themselves, and for the Commons of this kingdom, do 
 profess that their zeal and duty shall not stop here ; but 
 they do humbly offer and promise, that they will be ready, 
 with their persons and estates, to the uttermost of their 
 abilities, for his Majesty's further supply, as his Majesty's 
 future occasions shall require. And they pray that it may 
 be represented to his saered Majesty by the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, that this their vote may be recorded as an ordinance 
 of Parliament, and as a testimony to all the world, and 
 to succeeding ages, that, as this kingdom has the happiness 
 to be governed by the best of kings, so they are desirous 
 to give his Majesty just cause to account this people 
 among the best of his subjects." The Lords having passed 
 a vote of thanks to the Commons, for their cheerful and 
 ample supplies to the Crown, proceeded to pronounce an 
 emulous eulogy upon the administration of the Viceroy. 
 Loud and repeated cheers accompanied these unanimous 
 resolutions of the two Houses ; and the profound tran- 
 quillity which prevailed all over the island, seemed to 
 ratify the loyal acclamations of the Senate, So placidly Calmpre- 
 did the current of public affairs glide on ; so little reason g^^^^ ^ 
 was there, apparently, for apprehending that Ireland had 
 already approached the cataract of rebellion. Protestants 
 began to be ashamed of their fears ; uninitiated Roman 
 Catholics took a pleasure in recollecting, how the experi- 
 ence of forty years had continued to refute the prophecies 
 of a bloody triumph over heresy ; and the well-affected 
 of all parties reflected on the rumours of danger, so often
 
 S2G POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. raised, so invariably unattended by any ostensible verifi- 
 
 A.D. IGIO. cation. 
 
 Strafford Strafford was recalled from tlie Government, in the 
 
 recalled. following month of April ; and in June, upon the 
 re-assembling of Parliament, the first symptom of the 
 impending horrors was unequivocally betrayed. Of the 
 three parties which composed the House of Commons, the 
 royalists had been weakened by the departure of several 
 members, who held military commissions, to join the army 
 intended for an expedition into Scotland : the Papal 
 recusants were now the most numerous ; and the Puritans, 
 who occupied the opposite form of dissent, compensated 
 their want of strength by an active spirit, and by the 
 support of their English brethren. The two extremes, 
 congenial in temper, however opposed in interest and 
 opinion, had been gradually drawing to a co-operation 
 against the intermediate body, which was offensive, alike 
 from its temporal ascendancy, and its religious moderation. 
 They had been restrained from a formal union by the reso- 
 lute address of Strafford ; but the supineness of the new 
 Government left them free from all control, and they 
 coalesced, with an eagerness inflamed by the delay, and 
 by a desire to wreak upon their late ruler those vindictive 
 resentments which faction generally mingles with political 
 hostility. In this portentous confederacy, the balance of 
 cunning was very evenly poised between the temporary 
 allies : the difference of power, both in the House and in 
 the country, preponderated overwhelmingly in favour of 
 the Roman Catholics. Everything that had been done 
 in the former session was now undone, with a flagitious 
 alacrity which extorts the remark from a temperate, but 
 discerning writer,* " that, though shame has a powerful 
 influence in restraining individuals, it never enters into 
 bodies of men." Those who, three months before, had 
 declared " that their hearts contained mines of subsidies, 
 
 * Carte.
 
 IN IRELAND. 327 
 
 for the best of kings," now denounced the intolerable chap. m. 
 pressure of that supply, which they had voted as an earnest a.d. 1640. 
 of their loyal munificence ; and, by the meanest artifices, 
 reduced it to less than one-half of the promised amount. 
 Their unbounded applause of Strafford's government was Strafford's 
 succeeded by condemnation equally unqualified : a formal S^'^^^^' 
 protestation was drawn up, in both houses, against their demned. 
 late splendid and unanimous encomium ; they pronounced 
 it false, they alleged that it had been extorted from their 
 fears by the tyrannical arts of the Viceroy, and prayed the 
 King for permission to erase the scandalous record from 
 their journals. Thus, solemnly self-convicted of those 
 kinds of baseness to which the concurrent sense of mankind 
 has affixed the greatest infamy, the two branches of the 
 colonial legislature aspired, in due course, to the character 
 of Irish patriotism. In a long catalogue of grievances, 
 contradicting, in every article, the Acts they had passed, 
 and the resolutions which they had inserted in the money 
 Bill, they proclaimed the wrongs of their province to the 
 English Parliament ; at the same time that, with blind 
 inconsistency, they protested against its imperial juris- 
 diction. Some of these charges — false, or at least exag- 
 gerated, as we must suppose them, if we allow any truth 
 to their unmeasured panegyric — seem to show an anxiety 
 to establish a plausible case, and a sense of the value of 
 poj)ular opinion. " Trade," they said, "had been injured 
 by illegal impositions ; merchants had been condemned to 
 extreme hardships ; monopolies multiplied ; the promised 
 graces refused ; proceedings in civil causes managed con- 
 trary to law and to the great charter; Parliament deprived 
 of its legitimate freedom ; exorbitant fees exacted by the 
 ecclesiastical and civil courts." Others there were which 
 reveal the secret of their public spirit ; the domestic 
 tyranny of those days had too fierce an appetite for 
 misrule to separate insult from impolicy, or suffer its 
 victims to approach the confines of civilization. " Straf- 
 ford," proceeded they, " has oppressed the nobles and
 
 328 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 A.D. 1640. 
 
 Prosecu- 
 tion of 
 Strafford. 
 
 gentry, by overrating them in the assessment of the 
 Parliamentary grants ; * he has aggrieved the people, by 
 enforcing the laws enacted against the use of the Irish 
 apparel, against ploughing hy the tail, against burning corn 
 in the straio, a?id against tearing the wool from living sheep." 
 Armed with such complaints, a paid deputation, of five 
 Puritans and eight Roman Catholics, was dispatched by 
 the Commons, to assist in the prosecution of the devoted 
 Earl ; the spontaneous zeal of four Roman Catholic peers, 
 afterwards authorized by a vote of their own house, and 
 remunerated by the liberality of the lower, prompted 
 them to engage in the same cause. The intrigues of these 
 committees, having already received a large share of the 
 ignominy they deserve, -f- may be dismissed with the greater 
 brevity. Negotiations, faithless on both sides, and effectual 
 only for the common ruin, were spread among all those in 
 the greater island, whom the calamities of the times had 
 invested with the character of public men. The agitation 
 of the impeachment covered the operations of the more 
 
 * Tlio old system of supply by suisidy was a species of income or 
 property-tax ; but, in Ireland, tlie aristocracy generally contrived that their 
 portion of the charge should devolve upon their retainers ; in fine, the 
 demand of a contribution from an Irish senator vras considered as almost a 
 breach of privilege. Upon the arrival of Strafford, they endeavoured to 
 sccui-e, by an artifice, the continuance of that immunity, which, under his 
 vigorous government, they despaired of obtaining by the simjjler process of 
 intimidation. It was gravely proposed at the Coimcil Board that the fine 
 upon recusancy, which had never been regarded in any other light than as a 
 possible penalty, restraining the Roman Cathohc body by its susjoended 
 terrors, but alighting only upon obnoxious individuals, should be universally 
 exacted, and applied to the alleviation of Protestant burdens. The prompt 
 and scornful refusal of Strafford hurt the pride of the satraps ; the uncere- 
 monious rigour with which he enforced the assessment, and, in one insolent 
 instance, compelled the payment of all arrears, was an inexpiable offence 
 against their avarice. He was prepared for the hostility of Loftus, Boyle, 
 and Parsons ; but how coidd he have suspected that the men whom he had 
 rescued from their taunting tyranny would aid them in working his rain ? 
 
 t The same trite publicity of the volumes of Lcland, Carte, Warner, 
 O' Conor, &c., which removes the necessity of continual reference, suggests 
 the propriety of abridgment, even at tlie hazard of weakening the effect of 
 the narrative.
 
 IN IRELAND. 
 
 daring party at home : its issue brought contempt upon chap. hi. 
 the Crown, terror to the local executive, and to the Irish a.d.1641. 
 generally, whose notions of government have always been 
 strongly associated with the person of the magistrate, the 
 hope or fear of the approach of a season when the civil 
 fabric should be utterly dissolved. Their success in this 
 first experiment was a stimulus to the discovery of new 
 wrongs, and the advancement of new pretensions, of little 
 consequence except as they ministered to the great cause 
 of sedition ; and the monarch, who had already surrendered 
 to them the life and reputation of the ablest of his 
 servants, was ill able to vindicate what remained of his 
 dignity. On the 28th of August, 1641, the deputations August 28, 
 returned with Bills for the redress of all the grievances, ■'^^^■'■• 
 and the concession of all the graces : they were to be 
 passed in form upon the opening of the new session in 
 November ; and, in the meantime, it was carefully 
 announced through the kingdom that the royal assent had 
 been given by anticipation. 
 
 There is no sufficient evidence that the great body of 
 the Roman Catholic aristocracy had formed, even now, 
 a settled purpose of insurrection ; and it is certain that 
 none of them were animated by the genius or by the 
 aspiring views which had dignified the treason of Hugh 
 O'Neil. They wished for a commotion ; they knew that 
 one was at hand ; but it seems to have been the sum 
 of their ambition to contemplate at a safe distance the 
 first shock of civil war, and, by reserving their strength 
 for arbitration or the prevailing party, to obtain, as the 
 price of their services, some petty increase of influence 
 and emolument. It is no disparagement of their subtlety 
 that they were over-reached by men who, besides the 
 advantages which they derived from a veteran policy, and 
 from the command of the multitude, were raised above 
 sordid intrigue by devotion to their order, and found an 
 adequate object for all their powers of evil in the magni- 
 tude of the prize for which they contended. While all
 
 330 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 
 
 CHAP. in. eyes were fixed upon the transactions in the greater 
 A.D. 1641. island, the prelates, aware that when blood was once 
 shed, these selfish lords would be driven from their 
 neutrality, had made their dispositions for the great 
 experiment. A few men of family, whose authority 
 over their hereditary vassals had survived the ruin of 
 their feudal dignity, and who depended on the reckless 
 fidelity of these retainers to follow them, as they said, 
 ** to the gates of hell," undertook to direct the barbarities 
 of the assault. Their tumultuous onset was to be sup- 
 ported by the more regular operations of a disciplined 
 force, which the treachery of the Irish Commons, and the 
 wayward insolence of the English, had conspired to place 
 at the disposal of the Church. Seven thousand Roman 
 Catholic soldiers had been raised for service in Scotland ; 
 and when the treaty of Rippon seemed to render their aid 
 unnecessary, and the fears of the British Puritans, real or 
 pretended, had perverted it into a grievance, Charles had 
 found occupation for them in the French and Spanish 
 armies; but, by this interposition of the Parliaments, 
 they were detained at home, their arrears of pay were 
 undischarged, their turbulence was excited, they were 
 released from the restraints of discipline, and ready for 
 innovation. The eloquence of the preaching friars, and 
 the hopes, temporal and eternal, which the Papacy has 
 in store for the pious valour of crusaders, soon gave a 
 direction to their aimless energies : and experienced 
 ofiicers, dropping in silently, but incessantly, from the 
 Continent, were in readiness to marshal them for the 
 approaching eSbrt. Before the close of the year 1640, 
 the King sent information to the lords justices,* " that 
 an unspeakable number of Irish churchmen, with some 
 good old soldiers, had passed over from the Continent, 
 and that the Irish friars abroad were in expectation of a 
 rebellion ; " but the fate of Strafford, the devices of the 
 malcontents, the honest imbecility of one deputy, and the 
 * Borlase and Parsons,
 
 IN IRELAND. 
 
 331 
 
 designing passiveness of the otlier, contributed to render chap. ni. 
 the warning ineiffectual. ■*-^- ^^*-'^' 
 
 When diplomacy had done its work, and the moment 
 for action drew nigh, the fanaticism of the multitude was 
 maddened by a rumour, that the Puritans had resolved 
 to exterminate the Catholic faith ; priests and cavaliers Papal, 
 arrived more openly, and in greater numbers, bringing .^^^^ g ' . 
 assurances of succour from the Pope and Cardinal Riche- ish inter- 
 lieu ; the Spanish Court, too, it was said, the ancient 
 patron of the Church and people of Ireland, would not 
 withhold its support in this great emergency. In the 
 meantime, the leading ecclesiastics, and the few lay chiefs 
 to whom it was judged expedient to communicate counsels 
 of such critical importance, continued to meet and concert 
 their measures. Their favourite resort was an old Fran- 
 ciscan abbey in the county of Westmeath — a place which, 
 from its retired yet central situation, and from the hand- 
 some accommodation which it afforded to clerical visitors, 
 was judiciously chosen as the seat of conference. At the 
 dissolution of the monasteries, this edifice had been pur- 
 chased by a recusant alderman of Dublin, who restored it 
 to the original owners; and, by the industry of these 
 fathers, it was refitted with a splendour of which Ireland 
 had in those days very few examples. A chapel in 
 perfect repair, an altar graced with a respectable supply 
 of pictures, images, and reliques, and a choir provided 
 with singers and an organ, at once recalled the memory of 
 better days, and gave assurance of their return ; and what 
 was more to the present purpose of the hierarchy, there 
 were several spare apartments, with suitable stores and 
 offices, for the entertainment of strangers, both horse and 
 foot.* As the season advanced, the visits to the abbey 
 became so frequent as to attract observation ; and some of 
 the more timid or obnoxious of the neighbouring Pro- 
 
 * The abbey of Mutifernam is mentioned by all our writers ; it is 
 described by Sir Henry Piers, who wrote in 1682. See Vallancey's 
 " Collectanea," i. 69.
 
 332 
 
 POLICY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME IN IRELAND. 
 
 CHAP. iir. 
 A.D. 164,1. 
 
 Deceitful 
 tranquil- 
 lity. 
 
 Sicilian 
 vespers. 
 
 testants had quitted the country before the summer was 
 over. 
 
 Through the rest of the island not one note of fear or 
 of preparation interrupted the awful tranquillity of that 
 summer. Twent3^-seven years before, it had been de- 
 clared, by one* who had studied the aspect of the times, 
 that, " whenever a favourable accident should happen, 
 the Sicilian vespers would be acted in Ireland ; and ere a 
 cloud of mischief appeared, the swords of the natives 
 would be in the throats of the Scotch and new English, 
 through every part of the realm." With the exception 
 of one particular,-)- the prediction was literally fulfilled. 
 On the 23d of October the carnage began ; on the 30th, 
 the order for a general massacre was issued from the camp 
 of Sir Phelim O'Neil ; and, shortly after, the manifesto of 
 the Bishop Mac Mahon proclaimed the commencement of 
 a War of Religion. 
 
 * The author of the " Discourse of Ireland," in the " Desiderata Curiosa," 
 i. 435. 
 
 f The insurgents were ordered to sjiare the Scotch settlers.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 " An angry Opposition in Parliament have constantly imputed the Sir Richd. 
 disturbances and insurrections in Ireland to a wrong source, and have Musgrave. 
 severely and unjustly arraigned the wisest measures of Government 
 for their suppression. Thus truth has been perverted through the medium 
 of faction, as the rays of light, refi'acted through the prism, present 
 various false lights and colours. Englishmen, who visited Ireland for a 
 few days or weeks, have imbibed the prejudices of factious and design- 
 ing men, with whom they fortuitously associated, as we are told the 
 cameleon assimilates to the colour of whatever body he approaches ; 
 and such men have taken upon them to write on the religious, moral, 
 and political state of Ireland. The Jacobins, both in England and 
 Ireland, in order to feed the flame of rebellion, have insinuated, both 
 orally and through the press, that the rebellion arose from the oppres- 
 sion of the Roman Catholics — an assertion as false as it is iniquitous." 
 — Memoirs of the Different Rehellions in Ireland, by Sir Richard 
 Musgrave, Bart. Dedication, p. iv. 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 The following from Wilberforce's " Practical View of Christianity," Mr. Wil- 
 17th edition, 8vo., pp. 293 — 6, is corroborative of the views expressed berforce. 
 by the Editor of the present edition : — 
 
 " Christianity, in its best days (for the credit of our representations 
 we wish this to be remembered by all who object to our statement as 
 austere and contracted), was such as it has been delineated in the
 
 334 APPENDIX. 
 
 present work. This was the religion of the most eminent Reformers, 
 of those bright ornaments of our country who suffered martyrdom 
 under Queen Mary ; of their successors in the times of Elizabeth ; in 
 short, of all the pillars of our Protestant Church ; of many of its 
 highest dignitaries ; of Davenant, of Jewell, of Hall, of Reynolds, of 
 Beveridge, of Hooker, of Andrews, of Smith, of Leighton, of Usher, 
 of Hopkins, of Baxter, and of many others of scarcely inferior note. 
 In their pages the peculiar doctrines of Christianity were everywhere 
 visible, and on the deep and solid basis of these doctrinal truths were 
 laid the foundations of a superstructure of morals proportionably 
 broad and exalted. 
 
 " Of this fact, their writings, still extant, are a decisive proof; and 
 they who may want leisure, or opportunity, or inclination for the 
 perusal of these valuable records, may satisfy themselves of the truth 
 of the assertion, that such as we have stated it was the Christianity of 
 those times, by consulting our Ailicles and Homilies, or even by care- 
 fully examining our excellent Liturgy. But, from that tendency to 
 deterioration lately noticed, these great fundamental truths began to 
 be somewhat less prominent in the compositions of many of the leading 
 divines before the time of the civil wars. During that period, however, 
 the peculiar doctrines of Christianity were grievously abused by many of 
 the sectaries, who were foremost in the commotions of those unhappy 
 days ; who, while they talked copiously of the free grace of Christ, 
 and the operations of the Holy Spirit, were, by their lives, an open 
 scandal to the name of Christian. 
 
 " Towards the close* of the last century, the divines of the Established 
 Church (whether it arose from the obscurity of their own views, or 
 from a strong impression of former abuses, and of the evils which had 
 resulted from them) began to run into a different error. 
 
 " They professed to make it their chief object to inculcate the moral 
 and practical precepts of Christianity, which they conceived to have 
 been before too much neglected ; but without sufficiently maintaining, 
 often even without justly laying, the grand foundation of a sinner's 
 acceptance with God, or pointing out how the practical precepts of 
 Christianity grow out of her peculiar doctrines, and are inseparably 
 connected with them. 
 
 " By this fatal error, the very genius and essential nature of Christi- 
 anity was imperceptibly changed. She no longer retained her peculiar 
 character, or produced that appropriate frame of spirit by which her 
 followers had been characterized. Facilis descensus ! 
 
 * Wilberforce wrote his celebrated work towards the close of the 
 eighteenth century. From an entiy in his Diary, we learn that the first 
 edition appeared April 12, 1797.
 
 APPENDIX. 335 
 
 " The example thus set was followed during the present * century, 
 and its effect was aided by various causes already pointed out. 
 
 " In addition to these, it may be proper to mention, as a cause of 
 powerful operation, that for the last fifty years the press has teemed 
 with moral essays, many of them published periodically, and most 
 extensively circulated, which, being considered either as works of 
 mere entertainment, or in which at least entertainment was to be 
 blended with instruction, rather than as religious pieces, were kept 
 free from whatever might give them the air of sermons, or cause them 
 to wear an appearance of seriousness inconsistent with the idea of 
 relaxation. But in this way the fatal habit of considering Christian 
 morals as distinct from Christian doctrines, insensibly gained strength. 
 Thus, the peculiar doctrines of Christianity went more and more out of 
 sight ; and, as might natui-ally have been expected, the moral system 
 itself also, being robbed of that which should have supplied it with 
 life and nutriment, began to wither and decay. At length, in our own 
 days, these peculiar doctrines have almost altogether vanished from 
 the view. Even in the greater number of our sermons scarely any 
 traces of them are to be found." — Chap, vi., '^^ Brief Inquiry into the 
 Present State of Christianity" 
 
 Tillotson. 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 NATIONAL RELIGION. — NATIONAL JUDGMENTS. 
 
 Arguments. — " 1 . From the Justice of the Divine Providence. 
 
 " Indeed, as to particular persons, the providences of God are many Arch- 
 times promiscuously administered in this world, so that no man can bishop 
 certainly conclude God's love or hatred to any person by anything that 
 befals him in this life. But God does not deal thus with nations, 
 because publick bodies and communities of men, as such, can only be 
 rewarded and punished in this world. For, in the next, all those 
 publick societies and combinations, wherein men are now linked 
 together under several governments, shall be dissolved. God will not 
 then reward or punish nations, as nations ; but every man shall then 
 give an account of himself to God, and receive his own reward, and 
 bear his own burthen. For, although God account it no disparage- 
 ment to his justice to let particular good men suffer in this world, and 
 pass through many tribulations into the kingdom of God, because there 
 is another day a coming, which will be a more proper season of 
 * Written a.d. 1797.
 
 336 - APPENDIX. 
 
 reward, yet, in the usual course of his providence, He recorapenseth 
 religious and virtuous nations with temporal blessings and prosperity. 
 For which reason, St. Austin tells us that the mighty success and 
 long prosperity of the Romans was a reward given them by God for 
 thcii- eminent justice, and temperance, and other virtues. And, on the 
 other hand, God many times suffers the most grievous sins of parti- 
 cular persons to go unpunished in this Avorld, because He knows that 
 his justice will have another and better opportunity to meet and reckon 
 Avith them. But the general and crying sins of a nation cannot hope to 
 escape public judgments, unless they be prevented by a general repent- 
 ance. God may defer his judgments for a time, and give a people a 
 Jonger space of repentance ; He may stay till the iniquities of a nation 
 be full ; but, sooner or later, they have reason to expect his vengeance. 
 And usually, the longer punishment is delayed, it is the heavier when 
 it comes. 
 
 " Now all this is very reasonable, because this world is the only 
 season for national punishments. And, indeed, they are in a great 
 degree necessary for the present vindication of the honour and majesty 
 of the Divine laws, and to give some check to the overflowing of 
 wickedness. Publick judgments are the banks and shores upon which 
 God breaks the insolency of sinners, and stays their proud waves. 
 And though, among men, the multitude of offenders be many times a 
 cause of impunity, because of the weakness of human Governments, 
 which are glad to spare where they are not strong enough to punish, 
 yet in the government of God things are quite otherwise : no combi- 
 nation of sinners is too hard for Him, and the greater and more 
 numerous the ofi"enders ai% the more His justice is concerned to vindi- 
 cate the affront. However God may pass by single sinners in this 
 world, yet, when a nation combines against Him ; when hand joins in 
 hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished. This the Scripture declares 
 to be the settled course of God's providence; that a righteous nation 
 shall be happy ; the work of rigliteousness shall he peace ; and the effects 
 of 7-ighteoiisness, quietness and assurance for ever. And, on the other 
 hand, that He useth to shower down his judgments upon a wicked 
 people : He turneth a fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness 
 of them that dwell therein. 
 
 " And the experience of all ages hath made this good. All along 
 the history of the Old Testament we find the interchangeable provi- 
 dences of God towards the people of Israel always suited to their 
 manners. They were constantly pi'osperous or afflicted according as 
 piety and virtue floui-ished or declined amongst them. And God did 
 not only exercise his providence towards his own people, but He dealt 
 thus also with other nations. The Eoman Empire, whilst the vii'tuc
 
 APPENDIX. 337 
 
 of that people remained firm, was strong as iroti, as 'tis represented in 
 the prophecy of Daniel. But upon the dissolution of their manners 
 the i7'on began to he rnizt with miry clay, and the feet upon which that 
 empire stood, to he hroken. And though God, in the administration 
 of his justice, be not tied to precedents, and we cannot argue from 
 Scripture examples that the providences of God towards other nations 
 shall in all circumstances be conformable to his dealings with the people 
 of Israel, yet thus much may with great probability be collected from 
 them, that as God always blessed that people while they were obedient 
 to Him, and followed them with his judgments when they rebelled 
 against Him, so He will also deal with other nations. Because the 
 reason of those dispensations, as to the main and substance of them, 
 seems to be perpetual, and founded in that which can never change — 
 the justice of the Divine providence." — From Archhishoj) Tillotson's 
 Sermon, " The Advantages of Religion to Societies," pp. 35, 36, sermon 
 iii. Vol. i., folio. London, 1728 ; and p. 40 in edition of 1720.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abject submission required by priesthood of the laity, 196 
 
 Accession of King James I., 261 
 
 Adrian's, Pope, letter to King Henry II., 1171, Peter's pence, &c., 101 
 
 Agitators, the, turn conciliators, 297 
 
 Alleged discovery of ancient prophecy by the Pope, that the Church of 
 
 Kome shall fall when the Catholic faith is once overthrown in 
 
 Ireland, 166 
 Allegiance, oath of, framed, 1605, 268 
 
 „ the Pope in 1801 absolves the French from, 172 
 
 Alexander's, Pope, confirmatory letter, Peter's pence, &c., 103 
 Aliens in their native land, Papal bishops described as, 170 
 Allen, the Jesuit, rides through the rebel ranks displaying the Papal 
 
 standard, 218 
 Ambition masked under religion, 193 
 Ancestors, our, precautions of, against Popery, 201 
 
 „ our Roman Catholic, how they dealt with Popery, xxxvi 
 Ancient Irish Church not Romish, 133 
 
 „ subdivisions of Ireland, 66 
 Anecdote of Lord Charlemont, 81 
 
 „ of the Bishop of Ferns — excommunication, 118 
 Answer to case submitted to Spanish Universities, 242 
 Antiquity of Romish error, of no avail, xxix 
 Antoneili, Cardinal, his letter of 1791 as oath proposed, 276 
 Appeal of priests to the Pope, 270 
 
 ,, unheeded, ib. 
 Appendix A to Chapter I., 169 
 
 „ A to Chapter II., 258 
 Archbishop Magee and the Curate Phelan, 41, 42 
 Aristocracy, the spiritual, courted by Henry II,, 105 
 Armada, the Spanish, waited for by Roman Catholics, 203 
 Armagh, Archbishop of, reply to the King's writ, 1376, 149 
 " Association, Catholic," 288 
 Augmented power of Romish Prelacy, 279 
 Austria, referred to, xl 
 Authorities referred to by Phelan, 291 
 
 Bacon, Lord, quoted, 256 
 Baden, referred to, xliii
 
 340 INDEX. 
 
 Battle of Blackwater, 229 
 Belgium referred to, xli 
 Bellarmine, as to Pope's power, 20G 
 Berrington, Mr., as to power of Rome, 175 
 
 ,, ,, as to deposing power, 211,212 
 
 „ ,, states that Romanists attended Reformed worship, 258 
 
 ,, ,, as to Jesuits of the Spanish faction, 281 
 
 Bible, the, and j)hilosophy, 52 
 Bill, the Octennial, 79 
 
 Bishops, Papal, aliens in their native land, 170 
 „ „ definition of, 109 
 
 „ ,, their oath to the Papacy, 170 
 
 Blackwater, battle of, 229 
 Borough constituencies in Ireland, 1613, 285 
 Boulter, Primate, quoted, 89 
 
 British prosperity, referrible to British Protestantism, xxxvi 
 Brotherton, Mr., M.P., and the Mortmain Laws, xxxiii 
 Bruce, 139 
 
 Bull, against King Henry VIII., 1543, 165 
 " Bulwark," the, referred to, xlix 
 Burnet, Bishop, 87 
 
 Butler, Mr., and the Louvain decisions, 212 
 „ „ as to interpretation of oath, 176 
 ,, ,, as to the Queen's supremacy, 259 
 ,, „ Church tolerates those who hold, and those who renounce, 
 
 the deposing doctrine, 273 
 
 Calamity, principles of Irish, 73 
 
 Calm preceding the storm of 1641, 325 
 
 Canon law enforced as law of the land, 111, 126 
 
 Captain Rock, 88 
 
 Carte, quoted as to Romanists attending Reformed worship, 257 
 
 Case submitted to Spanish Universities, 241 
 
 Cases of conscience, 210 
 
 Casuistry of Rome, 213 
 
 "Catholic Association," 288 
 
 Catholic Rent, 288 ; scale of, 292 
 
 Characteristics of Irish Society, 68 
 
 Charlemont, Lord, anecdote of, 81 
 
 Choosing a Speaker, 287 
 
 Church of the Stuarts, 171 
 
 ,, property, 1315, magnificent scale of, 135 
 Civil and ecclesiastical power, 264 
 
 Claims to the education and the Government and the people, 315 
 Clanship, effects of, 67 
 Classification of Irish subjects, 1417, 151 
 Clement VIII. sends a plume of Phoenix feathers to O'Neil, 1599, 236 
 
 „ O'Neil's reply to, 237 
 
 Clement's reply, ib. 
 
 Clergy and Primate of Ireland, 1379, 149 
 
 1 ,, Protestant and Roman Catholic, difference between, 28 1 and xv 
 Clerical ambition and rapacity, 117 
 Cobbett, Mr., vindicates Dr. Uoyle, 255 
 Coigne and livery, 92
 
 INDEX. 341 
 
 Comyn, Archbishop, 116 
 
 Conduct of" Holy War " in Ireland intrusted to Sir John Desmond, 216 
 
 Conscience, cases of, 210 
 
 Conspiracy, the Papacy one, xx 
 
 Conventionists, 85 
 
 Conventual institutions, xxx 
 
 Cowper, the poet, quoted, xlv 
 
 Crown and the nobles, 1568, 192 
 
 „ of the King forfeited by schism, 311 
 
 „ the, the Pope, and the prelates, 127 
 
 Davies, Sir John, quoted, 91 
 
 „ „ „ as to " the Irishry," 1613, 278 
 
 Deadening effects of ministerial ungodliness, 217 
 Deceitful tranquillity, 332 
 Dedication, v 
 
 Definition of Papal Bishops, 169 
 Delegates, the, and King James, 295 
 Deposing doctrine to be declared heretical, 266 
 „ power of the Pope, 209, 211 
 „ „ Dr. Milner as to it, 272 
 
 Deputy, the Lord, a Roman Catholic, 283 
 Desmond, Earl of, his destitute condition, 221 
 „ death, 222 
 
 „ ,, „ 600,000 acres confiscated, ib. 
 
 „ „ ,, son's reception at Kilmallock, ib. 
 
 „ „ deserted for going to church, 223 
 
 „ Sir John, conducts the " Holy War " in Ireland, 216 
 
 „ „ his " sweet " sacrifice, 218 
 
 Details, though important, inferior to principle, xlii, 250 
 Diadem of peacock's feathers sent by the Pope to Prince John, 113 
 Difl^erence between Romish and Protestant clergy, 284 
 Diplomacy of rebellion generally conducted by the bishops, 225 
 Dishonour of England sought by Popery, 253 
 Do as Rome, when at Rome, 207 
 Doctrine of intention, 155 
 Dogmatism, mischiefs of, 38 
 Doyle, Dr., vindicated by Mr. Cobbett, 255 
 
 Ecclesiastical and civil power, 264 
 
 „ discipline and political chicane interwoven in the Papal 
 
 system, 299 
 „ interdict v. Royal proclamation, 315 
 
 ,, liberty, a prime article in the creed or code of the Vatican, 
 
 132 
 Edgecombe, Sir Richard, and oath, 155 
 Edward, King, II., 128 
 
 „ III., 142 
 Elections and Popery, 322 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 72, 181 
 
 „ ,, proposed concessions to Popery, 185 
 
 „ „ excommunicated, 187 
 
 Emigrants, Protestant, 89 
 End of thirty years' hostilities, 1601, 244
 
 INDEX. 
 
 England and Ireland, shall they ruin or benefit each other? — 97 
 „ extent of her ancient jurisdiction, 71 
 ,, to pay Peter's pence for Ireland, lOl, 103 
 England's dishonour sought by Popery, 253 
 
 „ power, not the cause of Irish misery, 65 
 „ weakness Rome's opportunity, 199 
 English adventurers, 70 
 
 ,, and Irish, Protestant and Roman Catholic, 86 
 „ law extended to Ireland, 124 
 „ Pale, the, x, 71, 280 
 Episcopal avarice and cruelty, 121 
 Established Church discountenanced, 96 
 Excommunication of Queen EUzabeth, 187 
 „ the Bishop of Ferns, 118 
 
 „ secret, 323 
 
 „ very formidable, 152 
 
 Exoteric influence of Rome, xi 
 Extracts from Phelan's sermons, 33, 34, 35 
 
 Famine and pestilence, frequency of, in Ireland, 97 
 Faith V. Opinion, 179—210 
 Father Peter Walsh, referred to, 175 
 Fires of purgatory in hands of Rome's priesthood, xxi 
 Formulary of Oath of Supremacy, 305 
 France, referred to, xli 
 
 French, the, in 1801, absolved by the Pope from their allegiance, 172 
 „ Papal and Spanish interference, 331 
 
 Geraldine, succeeded by Sir John Desmond, 216 
 
 George Herbert quoted, 41 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, 113 
 
 Governor appointed by King Henry II., regarded as the deputy of a 
 
 deputy, 110 
 Gregory XIII. ; his proclamation against Queen Elizabeth, 215 
 Grey, the Right Hon. Sir George, and the Mortmain Laws, xxxiii 
 Gunpowder treason, the, 265 
 
 Henry II. King and Papal Legate — a hint to statesmen of the present 
 
 day, 112 
 Henry III., 119 ; ordains the Church of Ireland shall be free, 134 
 Henry VII., Irish Statute, 10th of, 91 
 Henry VIII., 72 
 Herbert, George, quoted, 41 
 
 Hierocracy of Ireland, united to the Pope, 110, 111 
 Hold of Rome on her members, 243 
 Holy Island, 108 
 
 ,, Scripture, the standard of Christian truth, xxviii 
 Holland, referred to, xli 
 
 Imperium in imperio, evils of, xiii 
 
 Impolicy of Irish landlords, 96 
 
 Insurrection threatened in Ireland, 1613, 290 
 
 Interdict ecclesiastical v. Royal proclamation, 315 
 
 Introductory remarks, by J. Lord, Esq., ix
 
 INDEX. 343 
 
 Introductory chapter of Dr. Plielan, 65 
 
 Indentures of submission between King Henry VIII. and the Irish, 161 
 Intention, doctrine of, 155 
 
 Ireland gradually brought under yoke of Papal Supremacy, 109 
 „ in the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries, 66 
 „ and England, shall they benefit or ruin one another ? — 97 
 ,, intended by the Pope for Spain, 239 
 „ a fief of the Papacy, 239 , 
 „ Church of, the ancient, not Romish, 133 
 Irish misery not a result of England's power, 65 
 „ the, seek the protection of the English laws, 124 
 ,, ,, prelates, the Pope, and the Crown (1280), 127 
 „ „ throw themselves into the hands of their priests, 167 
 „ „ hated by the Spanish soldiers (1601), 247 
 „ „ Church Missions to Roman Catholics, xlvii 
 Island of Saints, applied to Ireland, 108 
 
 James I., Ireland in time of, 71, 72 
 „ a polemic, 295 
 
 „ resolves to summon in Ireland " the first national Parliament," 
 
 284 
 Jansens referred to, 208, 209 
 Jebb, Bishop, his biographical memoir, 1 
 Jesuits, sent over to rekindle embers of disaffection, 197, 198 
 
 ,, fathers Parsons and Campian, working secret treason in 
 
 England, 213 
 „ Saunders and Allen dispatched to Ireland, 213 
 „ Allen rides through the rebel ranks, displaying the Papal standard, 
 
 218 
 „ proclamation against, 301 
 Judgment of Spanish Universities (1601), 241 
 Case submitted to them, ib. 
 
 Kilkenny, statute of, 144 
 
 „ Parliament at, 145 
 
 King, the, and his Parliament (a.d. 1376), 148, 149 
 
 Landlords, Irish, their impolicy, 96 
 Lawi-ence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, 112 
 Laymen, tools of the Romish priesthood, 129, 254 
 Legate, the Pope's, forbidden by Henry II. to return to England, 112 
 Legends, monastic, 107 
 
 Leland, quoted as to Romanists attending reformed worship, 258 
 Line of Slilesian monarchs restored in James I., 262 
 " Londoners," their policy in Ireland, 93 
 
 London, the Bishop of, his evidence as to the Mortmain Laws, xxxi 
 Lord Deputy's proclamation (1613), 293 
 Louvain, University of, consulted, 204 
 „ casuistry, 210 
 
 Malcontents converted to patriots, 190 
 
 Manners, Lord John, and the Mortmain Laws, xxxiv 
 
 Mary, Queen, 181 
 
 Maynooth, grant to, must not be continued, xlix
 
 S44 INDEX. 
 
 Mediation of Popery leads to government by Popery, 126 
 
 Middlemen, pernicious consequences of the system, 95 
 
 Milesian monarchs, line of, restored in James I., 262 
 
 Milner, Dr., as to the deposing power, 272 
 
 Milnes, Mr., M.P., and the Mortmain Laws, xxxiii 
 
 Ministerial ungodliness, deadening effects of, 217 
 
 Missions to Roman Catholics, xlvii 
 
 Monastic legends, 107 
 
 Mortmain Laws, evidence of the Bishop of London, xxx, xxxi 
 
 ,, principle of, requires to be extended to personal 
 
 property, xxxvii 
 Musgrave, Sir Richard, quoted, xiii 
 
 Nations sometimes affected by spiritual terrors of Papacy, xxi 
 
 " National Parliament" summoned by King James I. in Ireland, 284 
 
 Neutral ground diminished between Popery and Protestantism, xv 
 
 New Parliament of King James I. (1613), 286 
 
 Nobles, the, and the Crown, in time of Queen Elizabeth, 192 
 
 Novelty of the Pope's power in Ireland, 162 
 
 Number of Romish priests in England in 1570 was 700, 203 
 
 „ Roman Catholics does not prove Popery to be true, xxviii 
 
 Nunneries, if allowed, should be inspected, xxxvii 
 
 Oath of Papal Bishops to the Papacy, 170 
 ,, supremacy, referred to, 174 
 „ to be taken by Roman Catholics to the King, 265 
 O'Connell, quotation from speech of, 100 
 
 ,, obliged to succumb to the Romish priesthood, 254 
 
 O'Conor, Dr., quoted, 130 
 
 ,, ,, as to supremacy, 175 
 
 Octennial Bill, the, 79 
 
 ,, effects of, 83 
 
 Odium theologicum, had no hold on Phelan's mind, ix 
 O'Neil's proclamation, 232 
 O'Neil excommunicated, 196 
 
 „ result of it, 196, 197 
 
 Opinion v. faith, 1 79 
 Optics of party disregarded by Phelan, x 
 
 Papacy, the, a conspiracy against the rights and interests of mankind, xx 
 ' „ its extent and activity, ib. 
 
 ,, ,, unhallowed intrusion into the world of spirits, ib. 
 ,, the spirit of, 252 
 Papal account of the Reformation, 309 
 
 ,, Bishops withstand Ireland's welfare, 195 
 
 „ hopes of re-establishment, 313 
 
 „ French and Spanish interference, 331 
 
 ,, policy, to make statesmen govern through the priesthood, 274 
 
 ,, power, extent of, xxvi 
 
 „ supremacy in Ireland gradually introduced, 109 
 Parliament for life of the Sovereign, 74 
 
 ,, at Kilkenny, 145 
 
 Parliamentary division, ancient mode of (1613), 287 
 Pale, the English, 71, 189, 280
 
 INDEX. 345 
 
 Patriot Miscellany, 77 
 
 Peace in Ireland recorded for the first time (1540), 165 
 
 Penal laws affecting Ireland, 145 
 
 Perjury licensed, 179 
 
 Peter's pence, to be paid to the Pope, 101, 129 
 
 Phelan, Dr., his birth and parentage, ix 
 
 ,, an Irishman and a Roman Catholic, ib. 
 
 Phelan's, Dr., school-boy days at Clonmel, 4, 5, 6, 7 
 Phelan, Dr., by private judgment reasons himself out of Popery, 7, 8 
 ,, goes to college, 9 
 
 „ obtains gold medal, 10 
 
 „ reads for a fellowship, 11 
 
 „ befriended by late Lord Chancellor Plunket, 15 
 
 „ ,, Archbishop Magee, 16 
 
 ,, characteristic features of his mind, 18 
 
 „ enters into holy orders, 22 
 
 „ his better life, " which was hid with Christ in God," 24 
 
 „ his edifying conversation, 25 
 
 ,, in 1817, sits a third time for fellowship, and gains it, 25,26 
 
 „ elected Donnellan Lecturer, 1818, 27 
 
 „ one of the six University preachers, 31 
 
 „ extracts from his discourses, 33, 34, 35 
 
 „ feelings on gaining fellowship, 35, 36 
 
 „ in 1823 he marries, 36 
 
 „ settles in the diocese of Armagh, 40 
 
 „ his filial piety, 39, 43 
 
 „ letters to his father, 44, 45, 46, 47 
 
 „ his various publications, 48, 49 
 
 ,, is presented to the Rectory of Killyman, 49 
 
 „ his profound study of the Scriptures, 52 
 
 ,, his failing health, 53 
 
 „ his seclusion, 54 
 
 ,, his death, 57 
 
 Phelan's, Mrs., sketch of her late husband, 59 — 64 
 Phillips's, Sir Thomas, letter to King Charles I., 93 
 Philosophy and the Bible, 52 
 Pinner's " Survey of Ulster," 93 
 Ploughing with horses by the tail, 67 
 Plowden, Mr., quoted, 130, 208 
 Policy of the Vatican, 243 
 
 Pope Adrian the Fourth, a.d. 1155, the triple compact, 99 
 Pope Adrian's letter to Henry II., a.d. 1171, 101 
 Pope, the, and the Crown, a.d. 1280, 127 
 „ his deposing power, 209 
 ,, intends Ireland for Spain, 239 
 
 „ absolves in 1 801 the French from their allegiance, 1 72 
 Pope Paul V. pronounces unlawful the oath proposed to be taken, 
 A.D. 1605, 260 
 „ his brief, ib. 
 
 „ „ enforced by a second brief, 268 
 
 „ „ and by a third of Pope Urban, ib. 
 
 Popery and Protestantism irreconcilable systems, xvi 
 „ mediating that it may govern, 126 
 „ has taken advantage of party feuds amongst Protestants, xxxix
 
 346 INDEX. 
 
 Popery a politico-religious system, xv 
 Portugal, referred to, xliii 
 Potatoes grown common, effects of, 91 
 Power of Rome over laymen, 141 
 
 „ preferred to unity by the Papacy, 316 
 Priests appeal to the Pope, 270 ; in vain, ib. 
 Primate Boulter quoted, 89 
 Prince Edward, A. D. 1266, 120 
 Principle and details, their relative importance, xliv 
 Private judgment overturns Popery, 8 
 
 Pretender, the, used to nominate to Romish Sees in Ireland, 321 
 Proclamation against the Jesuits, 301 
 Protestant and Roman Catholic, 86 
 Protestant emigrants, 89 
 
 Protestants have slept upon their rights, xxxiv 
 Protestantism no mere negative, xiv 
 
 ,, the cause of British prosperity, xxxviii 
 
 Protestation of allegiance by Romish priests, a.d. 1570, 204 
 Prussia, referred to, xl 
 
 Pseudo-patriotism of Papal prelates, a.d. 1367, 146 
 Purgatorial tires, fear of, xxi 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, 72 
 
 „ denounced by Pope Gregory XIII., as hateful alike 
 
 to God and man, 215 
 
 Rebellions, the Irish, religious wars, 248 
 
 ,, six, frustrated, from accession of the Stuarts to a.d. 1684, 321 
 Re-establishment, hopes of, by Popery, 312 
 Reformed worship attended by Romanists, 258 
 Reformation, Papal account of, 309 
 Rejection of Protestant tenants, 94 
 Religious houses, a.d. 1315, 160 founded in 143 years, 137 
 
 „ world, the, too much of the world, 37 
 "Rent, Catholic," 288; scale of, 292 
 
 Richelieu, Cardinal, and the United Irishmen, a.d. 1632, 320 
 Robertson, Dr., as to the spirit of Popery, &c., &c., 252 
 Rock, Captain, 88 
 
 Romanists attended reformed worship, 257 
 Roman Catholic, a, the Lord Deputy, 283 
 
 ,, Catholics not to obey Queen Elizabeth, 234 
 Rome, the Church of, xiv 
 „ , Court of, ib. 
 „ , not to be conciliated, xxii 
 „ , its power augmented by yielding to, ib. 
 „ would Paganize Christianity, xxvii 
 Rome's opportunity in England's weakness, 199 
 
 „ hold on her members, 243 
 
 „ means for acquiring wealth, xxix 
 
 „ prudence forgotten in prosperity, 106 
 
 ,, levity and profanity, 132 
 
 ,, craft outwits statesmen, 252 
 
 „ casuistry, 213 
 
 „ expediency illustrated, 210
 
 INDEX. 347 
 
 Rome's power over laymen, 129, 141, 254 
 
 Romish clerical ambition and rapacity, 117 
 
 „ and Protestant clergy, difference between, 284 
 
 „ hierarchy in Ireland, their evasiveness, 156, 157 
 
 „ ,, seek entire domestic government of the coimtry, 158 
 
 ,, „ anti-national, 194 
 
 „ laity need legislative protection, 178 
 
 „ „ frequent the Church in time of Elizabeth, 186 
 
 Santa Rosa, rite of extreme unction withheld from, xxii 
 
 Sardinia, referred to, xlii 
 
 School divinity ; summary of Father Peter Walsh, 307 
 
 Scotland, Maynooth priests located there, xlix 
 
 Sees in Ireland nominated to, by the Pretender, 321 
 
 Secret excommunication, Satanic weapon, 323 
 
 Shaw, Mr., and the Mortmain Laws, xxxiv 
 
 Siccardi laws, referred to, xxi 
 
 Sicilian vespers, 332 
 
 Slaughter and famine consequent on the rebellion, 220 
 
 Sovereign deposed by the Pope, 201 
 
 Spain, Ireland intended for, by the Pope, 239 
 
 „ , recent intolerance of, xliii 
 Spanish archbishop and general sent over to Ireland, 240 
 „ interference, 281 
 
 „ officer avows his opinion that Christ did not die for the Irish, 247 
 ,, soldiers hate the Irish, ib. 
 Speaiier, choosing the, a trick as to, a.d. 1613, 287 
 Spencer's account of the famine, a.d. 1580, 221 
 Spirit of the Papacy, 252 
 
 ,, which animated the Irish Church, a.d. 1376, 149 
 Spiritual aristocracy courted by Henry II., 105 
 
 „ and temporal power, 205, 206 
 Statesmen outwitted by Rome, 252 
 Strafford, Lord, encourages manufactures, 300 
 
 ,, , his Viceroyalty applauded, 324 
 
 „ , recalled, 326 
 
 „ , his government condemned, 327 
 
 „ , prosecuted, 328 
 
 Study of Irish history important, xii 
 
 Submission to priesthood required in religious warfare, 196 
 Subsidy voted to the Pope, 153 
 Supremacy, Papal, gradually introduced into Ireland, 109 
 
 „ formulary of Oath of, 305 
 
 Switzerland, referred to, xli 
 System of licensed perjury, referred to, 179 
 
 Tactics of Rome change with change of times, xii 
 
 Tahiti, referred to, xl 
 
 Temporal jurisdiction of the Pope renounced by the Irish, 163 
 
 ,, and spiritual power, 205, 206 
 Theology and policy of Rome dangerous, xxii 
 Three rebellions, termination of, 245 
 Time an innovator, duties consequent thereon, 249 
 Tractarianism, referred to, xxv
 
 348 INDEX. 
 
 Traders in patriotism, 297 
 
 Triple compact between Henry Plantagenet, Pope Adrian the Fourth, 
 
 and the Irish prelates, 99 
 Troy, Dr., vindication of, 169 
 Tuscany, referred to, xlii 
 Tyrone prepares for rebellion, 224 
 ,, aspires to the throne, 228 
 
 Undertakers, the, 76 
 
 United Irishmen, 85 ; and Cardinal Richelieu, .320 
 Unity sacrificed to power by Popery, 316 
 University of Louvain consulted, 204 
 
 Vatican, the, and King Henry the Second, 104 
 
 „ policy of, 243 
 
 Viceroy, none resident in Ireland, 74 — 79 
 Vigorous and protective legislation to put down Papal rebellion, 296 — 
 
 note 
 Vindication of Dr. Troy, 169 
 Volunteers, the, 85 
 
 Walpole's pacific system, 76 
 
 Walsh, Father Peter, referred to, 175 
 
 ,, ,, as to the school divinity, 307 
 
 Weakness of the Crown, a.d. 1417, taken advantage of by the Papal 
 hierarchy, 151 
 
 Wentworth, his efforts in a.d. 1632, 306 
 
 Wesley quoted, on extempore preaching, 41 
 
 Whig aristocracy, the, 87 
 
 Will, not wanting, where there is power, to revive the obsolete preten- 
 sions of the Romish Church, 199 
 
 Witchcraft, 140 
 
 World, the religious, too much of the world, 37 
 
 Wrongs of the Church, 129 
 
 Youghal, Desmond in, 247
 
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