The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

9, in the second y

ent was convened in

is to say, to estab

dy been done in Engla

opali

unter a more determined oppositio

obility and Commons-they were all English by blood or birth-were divided in opinion about the ecclesiastical government, which caused th

al alterations which had happened in ecclesiast

th the first-fruits and tenths, maintaining the seven sac

common prayers, and the consecration of the bread and wine

cease, brought all back again to the C

-fruits to her heirs and successors. She put down the mass, and, for a general uniformity of worship in her dominions,

f the changes which had taken place in religion i

had done; in fact, they laid claim to a conscience-a thing seemingly unknown to the English members, or, if known at all, of an exceedingly elastic and slip

t the almost total extinction of the Kildare branch of the Geraldines had extended the English Pale. The other deputies were citizens and burgesses of those towns in which the royal authority predominated. "With such an assembly," says Leland, "it is little wonder that, in desp

ged to have recourse to fraud and deception, in order to carry h

"It is said that the Earl of Sussex, to calm the protests which were made in Parliament, when it was found that the law had been passed by a few members assembled privately, pledged himself solem

e pence was imposed on every person who should not attend the new service, for each offence; bishops were to be appointed only by the queen, and consecrated at her bidding. All officers and ministers, ecclesiastical or lay, were bound to take the oath of supremacy, under pain of forfeiture or incapac

ch was the rule observed. Thus, the reign of Elizabeth, which was such a cruel one for ecclesiastics, produced few martyrs among the laity in Ireland. And, for this reason, Sir James Ware is able to

uccession, the spiritual supremacy of the Pope; and, henceforth, whoever should

at it was not so easy a matter to change the religion of the Ir

with Rome save by stealth, the Irish still showed their oppressors that their consciences were free, and

sh in Ireland, and that, with the disappearance of the priests, the churches, sacraments, instruction, and open communion with Rome, would also

d it that they rose and called in foreign aid to their assistance; 2. Her church policy, one of blood and total overthrow, which priests and people, now united forever in the same great cause, resisted from the outset

achery, and sowing dissension among them; but all her efforts only served to knit them more

ught they to have given expression to the contempt they entertained for the bait held out to them that the "laws" would not be executed against them, but against Chur

Anglo-Irish chieftains would unite and combine with Continental powers in order to establish their independence. The whole policy of Elizabeth's reign would give us reason to believe that she rightly understood the deep remark of the worldly heretic. Hence, although (or, rather, because) the north, Ulster, was at that time the stronghold of Catholic feeling, and the O'Neills and O'Donnells its leaders, she flatters them, has them brought to her court, pardons several "rebellions" of Shane the Proud, and aft

family. Elizabeth chose them for the first object of her attack, because th

cherished as a dear son by the reigning Pontiff, had subsequently appeared at the Tuscan court of Cosmo de Medici; that consequently, since his return to Ireland, he might be considered the chief of the Catholic party there, although, to save himself from attainder and hold possession of his immense wealth

a sovereign prince, and would consequently have small scruple about entering into a league against her, not only with the

siest pretexts, and had them executed wholesale. In one of his dispatches to the home government, he makes complacent allusion to the countless executions which accompanied his triumphant progress through Munster: "I wrote not," he says, "the name of each particular varlet that has died since I arrived, as well by the ordinary course of the law, and the martial law, as flat fighting with them, when they would tak

is brother John, carried them prisoners to Dublin, and afterward sent them to the Tower of London. The shanachy of the family relates that then, and then only, Gerald sent a

less than for his valor and chivalry, and gladly did the people of old Desmond receive these

Geraldine League, " upon the fortunes of which,

with the King of Spain, calls for a few remarks on the right of the Irish to declare

their title to the sovereignty of Ireland, that they were continual

he Milesian race of kings. They invented a ridiculous story of a "King Gurmondus," son to the noble King Belan of Great Britain, who was lord of Bayon in Spain-they probably meant Bayonne in Fra

sily imposed upon if they imagined they could give ear to such a fabrication, at a time when each gre

ad the English ever even attempted to subject them to their laws? They had openly refused to grant their pretended benefits to those few "degenerate Irishmen" who in sheer despair had applied for them. This policy of separation was adopted by En

ns, as chiefs of the various septs, proves that the English themselves admitted the clans to be real nation-nationes-as they were called at the time by Irish chroniclers and by En

right of levying war, and making peace and alliance. Gillapatrick, of Ossory, dispatched his ambassador to Henry VIII. to announce that if he, the English king, did not prevent his deputy, Rufus Pierce, of Dublin, from annoying the clans of Ossory, Gillapatrick would, in self-defence, declare war a

up by the advent of Protestantism; and novel theories were being introduced for the government of mode

ions as supreme arbiter in international questions, and if England did possess any shadow of authority over Ireland, it was owing to former decisions of popes, who, being misinformed, had allowe

claim, and by the bull of excommunication, issued against Elizabeth, the Irish were released from

of the German Empire, and the Kings of Spain and France, always covertly and sometimes openly received the envoys of O'Neill, Des

ion of the supreme arbitration of the Popes, on the part of the new heretics, Europe lost its unity as Christendom, and naturally formed itself into two leagues, the Catholic and the Protestant. An oppressed Catholic nationality, above all a weak and powerless one, had therefore the right of appeal to the great Catholic powers for h

and army to fight against Elizabeth? The authority greatest in Catholic eyes, and most worthy of respect in the eyes of all impartial men-the Pope- thus endorsed the pat

1549, could compromise the Irish nation in nowise, inasmuch as the people, being still even in legal enjoyment of their own government, their chieftains possessed no authority to decide on such q

ssive decrees, abandoning them when they showed signs of wavering, even; but, above all, when they ranged themselves with the oppressors of the Church. The

ilures, which at first would seem to argue a lack of firmness on the part of the Irish themselves. During the Geraldine wars, and later on in what is called the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill and Hugh O'Donnell, the King of Spain sent vessels and troops to t

ouis XIV. to assist James II., and, later still, the large fleet and well-appointed

ls" against the Convention itself, received their death- blow in co

e of foreign aid is failure; but no conclusion can be deduced from that fact of lack of bravery, steadfastness, even ultimate success, on the par

where it only throws confusion into the ranks of the struggling native forces, whose plans are thus all disarranged, disconcerted, and thrown into confusion. Add to this the dangers of the sea, the possibly insufficient knowledge of

w that Elizabeth was prompted by the fear of Spain to be speedy in crushing the attempted "rebellions" in the south and north. Historians have made a computation of the troops dispatched from England by the queen, a

. But the independence of the Greeks was brought about rather by the unanimous voice of Europe coercing Turkey th

re wholly effected by the unaided forces of the insurgents. Thus, the seven cantons of Switzerland succeeded against Austria, the Venetian Republic against t

tates of America, where the French cooperation was timely and of real use, chiefly because the foreign aid was

ds suffice fo

ho, for a long time, refused openly to avow his approbation of the confederates' schemes, and even seemed at first to cooperate with the queen's forces, in opposition to them. It was only after his cousin Fitzmaurice and his brother Jo

not belong to him but to his tribe-were handed over to companies of "planters out of Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and Some

and others, was resumed, after an interval of four hundred years, to be carried

o accept, and Elizabeth too great a despiser of "the people" to notice. To Henry and Elizabeth Tudor the people was nothing; the nobility every thing. Spenser, Raleigh, and other Englishmen of note, who came into daily contact with the nation, saw very well that account should be taken of it, and thought, as Sir John Davies ha

untrymen, were for the entire destruction of the people, thinking, as did man

read down all that standeth before them on foot, and lay on the ground all the stiff-necked people of that land." He urges that the war be carried on not only in the summer but in the winter; "for then, the trees are bare and naked, which use both to hold and house the kerne; the ground is cold and wet, which useth to be his b

ter." For, "notwithstanding that the same" (Munster) "was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corne and cattle, . . . yet ere one yeare and a half they" (the Irish) "were brought to such wretchednesse as that any stony heart would have rued the same. Out of every corner of woods and glynnes, th

by the policy of England as carried out by a Gilbert, a Peter Carew, and a Cosby; an

ms the monsters employed by the queen, and his facts are

e Duke of Alva. The children in the nurseries were being inflamed to patriotic rage and madness by the tales of Spanish tyr

lock, was illustrating yet more signally the same tendency. " Nor "was Gilbert a bad man. As time went on, he passed for a brave and chivalrous gentleman, not the least distinguished in that high band of adventurers who carried the English flag into the

ried at all. The dead do not come back; and if the mothers and babies are slaughtered with the men, the race gives no further trou

it was no fault of theirs if any Irish child of that generation w

gin Queen." And it is but too evident that the English of 1598 were the fathers or grandfathers of those of 1650. Both were inaugurating a system of warfare which had never been adopted before, e

Saxon spirit of the man was displayed in his execution of Lord Grey's orders, who, after, according to all the Irish accounts, promising their lives to the Spaniards, had them executed; and Raleigh appears to have

nell from his youth was designedly exasperated by ill-treatment and imprisonment; and that as soon as O'Neill, who had been treated with the greatest apparent kindness by the queen, that he might become a queen's man,

e Catholic religion. For we must not lose sight of the well-ascertained fact that the English queen, who at the very commencement of her reign had had her spiritual supremacy acknowledged by the Irish Parliament under pain of forfeiture, praemunire, and high-t

has well remarked that, "not- withstanding the severe laws enacted by Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth, down to James I., it is a well-established truth that, during that period, the number of Irishmen who embraced the 'reformed religion' did not amount to sixty i

the case in England. Technically speaking, this statement seems correct. Yet it is undeniable that Elizabeth allowed no Catholic bishops or priests to remain in the island; permitted the Irish to have none but Protestant school-teachers for their children

bellion." The Roman emperors who persecuted the Church during the first three centuries, might have advanced the same pret

onsidering the second phase of the policy of Eli

treachery and deceit toward the nobility, toward th

tous desires of adventurers and undertakers, who wished to destroy the Irish and occupy their lands; for, as Spenser says "Sure it was a most beautiful and sweete country as any under heaven, being stored throughout with many goodly rivers, replenis

n the shores of Erin, and even during the preceding four centuries, when both races were Catholic

s in Ireland, which lasted through her whole reign, and on which she employed all the strength and resources of England,

Rome had excommunicated her; Pius V. had released her subjects from their allegiance because of her heresy, and Ireland did not reject the bull of the Pope. This in her eyes constituted the great and unpardonable offence of the Irish. And that, for her, the whole question bore a religious cha

and together, and she could not possibly maintain the one without discarding the othe

decision for a future period, nevertheless, the view of the case adopted by the Pontiff could not be mistaken. Elizabeth's legitimacy, or, as Heylin has it, "legitimation and the Pope's supremacy could not stand together." No course was left open to her, then, than to reject the pontifical authority, and establish her own in her dominions, as she did not possess faith enough to set her soul above a crown; and the success of her father, Henry VIII., and of her half-brother, Edward VI., e

ad the right to it as the nearest direct descendant in the event of Elizabeth's pretensions not being admitted by the nation. The nation at the time was in fact, though not in right, the nobles, who enriched themselves at the expense of the Church, and were therefore deeply i

m for eight hundred years, were discarded. Yet, under Mary, the Catholic Church had been declared the Church of the state; at her death, no change took place; the mass of the people was still Catholic. It took Elizabeth her whole reig

ce in all, save the suzerainty of the English monarchs, and they were at the time, without exception, Catholics. For them, therefore, the Pope was the expounder of the law of succession to the throne, as, up to that time, he had been generally recognized in Europe. Elizabeth, consequently, as an acknowledged illegitimate child, could not become a legitimate queen without a positive declaration and elect

she was called queen, can it be considered treason for an Irishman to believe in the spiritual supremacy of the Pope? Yet, unless we look upon as martyrs those wh

all, because not only those are included in the category who held aloof from politics and confined themselves to the exercise of their spiritual functions, but those also who, at the bidding of the Pope, or following the natural

content ourselves with two faithful representatives of the classes above mentioned-Richard Creagh, Archbishop of Armagh, and Dr. Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel

. Roothe's account is the longest of all and is intricate, and subject to some confusion with regard to dates; but a sketch of that life, which appeared in the

e to any conclusion respecting the sovereignty of England, and did not openly declare himself in favor of the right of Mary Stuart to the crown. The Pope, not having given any positive injunctions to Archbishop

many difficulties which surrounded him, he resolved to inculcate peace and loyalty to Elizabeth throughout Ulster, asking of Shane only one favor, that of founding colleges and schools, and thinking that, by remaining loyal to the queen, he might obtain her assis

arrested by a troop of soldiers, who conducted him before the government authorities, by whom he was sent to London and confined in the Tower on January 18,1565. He

then all-powerful with the queen, to protest beforehand that, if the Pope should order him to return to his diocese, he intended only to render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God wha

y after wrote to Sir Henry Sidney, then lord-deputy, in the very terms he had used with Leice

an, it is impossible to say. They condescended to return no answer to his more than straightforward communicat

tes of his conscience, and govern his flock in peace; but he was soon taken prisoner, in April, 1567, by

ury could not convict him. The honest Dublin jurors were therefore cast into prison and heavily fined, while th

And, in consequence of this pledge alone, was he never brought to trial, but kept a close prisoner in the

ip; the nobles would have retained possession of their estates, the gentry obtained seats in the Irish Parliament; while the common people, renouncing clanship, absurd old traditions, the memory of their ancestors, together with their obedience to the See of Rome, would not have been excluded from the benefits of education; would have been allowed to engage in trades and manufactures; would have been permitted to keep their land, or hold it by long leases; woul

ys been unreasonable enough to prefer heaven to earth. They have preferred, as the holy men of old of whom St. Paul speaks, "to be stoned, cut asunder, tempted, put to death by the sword, to wander about in sheep-skins, in oat-skins; being in want, distressed, afflicted, of whom the word w

zabeth's reign took part in Irish politics against the queen, can

proved, the suspicion of the English Government with regard to his political mission. Prelates and priests, generally speaking, were put to death under Elizabeth,

of Munster. Consecrated Archbishop of Cashel at Rome in 1550, under Gregory XIII., during the Geraldine rebellion, he was compelled to use the utmost precaution in ent

leming, who concealed him in a secret chamber in his house and treated him as a friend. But when everybody thought the danger past, and that it was no longer imprudent for him to mix in the society of the castle, he was suspected by

sing in Munster, and the Earl of Desmond was beginning that fr

surrection; and the state papers preserved in London have disclosed to us the correspondence between A

ho was promised his life if he could furnish proofs enough to convict the prelate. The value of the testimony of an "informer" under such circumstances is proverbial; yet all Barnwell could allege was, that "he was present at a conversation in Rome between Dr. Hurley

racy. Yet Loftus and Wallop were of opinion that he was a "rebel" and ought to be put to death. The only difficulty which presented itself to the "Lords Justices" of Ireland was, that there was no statute in Irelan

early dawn, on a Friday, either in May or June, 1584. He was barbarously hanged i

the Archbishop of Cashel with Fitzmaurice and Desmond, and even with the Pope and King of Spain, had been clearly proved-as it is certain that, if not in this case, at least in some others, during the reign of Elizabeth, the bishops or priest

rovocation. Under Elizabeth the case was still clearer, at least for Catholics, after the excommunication of the queen by Pius V. As we have seen, the chief title of England to Ireland rested on two pretended papal bulls: an

of England- the Irish Parliament of 1539 had no other authority than that of the queen, and represented no part of the people-had made it rebellion for the Irish to remain faithful to their religion. What could prevent the Irish from

ir right to offer armed resistance to the extension of the edicts of persecution into their territory. On the contrary, it would have been th

, particularly the leaders and chieftains who at that time ranged themselves under the banners of the Desmonds or the O'Neills, fought purely for Christ and religion. Many of them, no dou

, they fell for the sake of religion? We may even be bold enough to say that the majority of the common Irish people who lost their lives in th

s under feudal tenure. By Elizabeth, the same policy was steadily and successfully pursued, her court being always graced by the presence of young Irish lords, educated under her own eyes, and loaded with all her royal favors. All she asked of them in return was that they should become Queen's men. The repugnance once felt by Irishmen for that gilded slavery was each day becoming less marked. But

he first place on the list. The religious question, then, was becoming more and more the question, and, notwithstanding all her fine assurances that she would not infringe u

ave been weak enough to submit. Not only were the practices of their religion confined to places where no Englishman or Protestant could penetrate, but graduall

confined for weeks and months, creeping forth only at night, to breathe the fresh air at the top of the house or in the thick shrubbery of the adjoining park. All the means of evading the law used by the Christians of the first cen

y recognized it in its reality as a sheer attempt to destroy Catholicity, and as such they opposed it by every means in their power. They beheld the monks and friars treated as though they had been wild beasts; the soldiers falling on them wherever they met them, and putting them to death with every circumstance of cruelty and insu

the hut of the peasant lay open to them still. The greater the quantity of blood poured out by the executors of th

play to crush the Irish nobility during the wars of Ulster and Munster; the whole police of the same kingdom was now put in requisition for the apprehension and destruction of church

found everywhere: around the humble dwelling of the peasant and the artisan, in the streets and on the highways, inspecting every stranger who might be a friar or monk in disguise. They spread through the whole European Continent-along the coast and in the interior of France

ls of military life in other countries. If, during the most fearful commotions in France, the army has been employed for a similar purpose, it must be acknowledged that, as far as the troops were concerned, they performed their unwelcome task with reluctance, and softened down, at least, their execution, by considerate manners and respectful demeanor. But these soldiers of Elizabeth showed themselves

hful along the southwestern coast of Ireland. When the convent of Bantry was seized by the English troops, these holy men received their wished-fo

O'Hara, and Henry Layhode, under the government of Henry Wallop, Viceroy of Ireland, were

Elizabeth rushed into the village, sought refuge in the church; but in vain, for he was

into the hands of the soldiery, and, being scourged with great barbarity, was

ch, for instance, who wrote of the guards appointed to conduct him to Italy: "From Syria as far as Rome, I had to fight with wild beasts, on sea and on lan

all, the cruelty practised in her reign, and mostly under her orders, was not necessary in order to secure her throne to her, during life; and, as she could hope for no posterity of her own, it was not the desire of retaining the crown to her children which could excuse so much bloodshed and suffering. S