There were, in fact, no ministers in many places to conduct any other service. So far from complying with the Oath of Supremacy, the Irish-speaking cities and towns, throughout the whole of Elizabeth's reign, retained the old Romish oath, and required it from those elected to the magistracy and other offices.1

Though the Book of Common Prayer was to be used in Ireland according to the Act of Uniformity, a Confession of Faith was still wanting-as the Thirty-nine Articles had obtained no legal sanction in Great Britain when the Parliament met in Dublin in the beginning of 1560. It was, however, soon found necessary to provide a creed for the Irish Church; and early in 1567,2 what was called "A brief Declaration of certain principal Articles of Religion" was issued by the Viceroy, Sir Henry Sidney, and a board of ecclesiastical commissioners. These articles, which are twelve in number,3 were to be read publicly by the clergy when inducted into office, and twice every year afterwards. They exhibit the leading doctrines of Christianity, recognize the royal supremacy, and protest against the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice. For nearly half a century they continued to be the acknowledged creed-of the Protestant establishment.

When Wolf was sent from Rome in 1560, he received private instructions from the Cardinal Protector of Ireland to pay special attention to four of the great Hibernian chieftains. Of these, O'Neill in the North was the most formidable to the English Government. The Nuncio adhered faithfully to his orders, and encouraged this powerful dynast to maintain that attitude of hostility by which the whole of Ulster was for years kept in disturbance.5 Shane O'Neill, or as

1 Peter Lombard, De Regno Hiberniae, cap. xx. p. 124.

"It is dated 20th January, 1566, that is, 1567, according to our reckoning.

* They were not long since brought to light by Dr. Elrington, in his Life of Ussher, appendix, iii. They are the same as were adopted in England in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth. See Collier's Ecc. Hist. of Great Britain, vol. vi., p. 309. They possess a special interest as forming the earliest creed of the Protestant Church in Ireland, and they have therefore been appended to this volume. See appendix, i. 4 Moran's Archbishops of Dublin, p. 78.

5 In

rch 1565, Creagh, the R.C. Primate of Armagh, admitted on his exami

he has been sometimes designated John the Proud, is described by many writers as an earnest Romanist.1 His prejudices were no doubt all in favour of the old ritual; and he is said to have applied to the Pope, as well as to the King of Spain, for aid in his struggles against Elizabeth; but he was a most miserable representative of any form of Christianity. He possessed much activity and energy, great boldness, ingenuity, and diplomatic skill; and he did not want address, military talent, and rude eloquence; but he was thoroughly unprincipled and brutishly sensual. His ambition was to be King of Ulster, if not King of Ireland; and for this grand object he was willing to sacrifice everything besides. In 1567 he was killed at Cushendun, in a drunken carousal, by the Mac Donnels. Two years afterwards the Irish Parliament passed an Act for the attainder of himself and his associates in rebellion; and thus more than half of Ulster was vested in the Queen, to be disposed of as might be deemed most conducive to the stability of her Government.

3

nation in London, that the Nuncio had been the summer before with Shane O'Neill in Ulster. Shirley's Original Letters, p. 173.

1. Thus Macgeoghegan (Hist. of Ireland, p. 461) speaks of him as “the support of Catholicity."

2 Leland, ii. 234.

3 The 11th of Elizabeth, Sess. 3, chap. i.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM THE DEATH OF SHANE O'NEILL TO THE DEATH OF THE EARL OF DESMOND. A.D. 1567 TO 1583.

AT the beginning of the sixteenth century Ireland had sunk lower in the scale of crime than perhaps any other country in Europe. An Irishman and a devout Romanist, writing in 1515, gives a most melancholy account of its moral condition. "There is," says he, "no land in this world of so long-continual war within itself, nor of so great shedding of Christian blood, nor of so great robbing, spoiling, preying, and burning, nor of so great wrongful extortion continually, as Ireland."1 As the century advances we can recognize few indications of improvement. Sir Henry Sidney-who was Lord Deputy when Shane O'Neill was killed, and who was one of the best and wisest statesmen of his age-has left behind him a harrowing description of the state of the island at that period. "As touching the estate of the whole country," says he, in a letter to Elizabeth, "for so much as I saw of it, having travelled from Youghall to Cork, from Cork to Kinsale, and from thence to the uttermost bounds of it towards Limerick, like as I never was in a more pleasant country in all my life, so never saw I a more waste and desolate land-no, not in the confines of other countries where actual war hath continually been kept by the greatest princes in Christendom; and there heard I such lamentable. cries and doleful complaints made by that small remain of poor people which yet are left, who (hardly escaping the

1 Carew MSS., 1575-1588. Introd. xvi.

fury of the sword and fire of their outrageous neighbours, or the famine which the same, or their extortious lords, hath driven them into, either by taking their goods from them or by spending the same, by their extort taking of coyne and livery) made demonstration of the miserable estate of that country. Besides this, such horrible and lamentable spectacles there are to behold as the burning of villages, the ruin of churches, the wasting of such as have been good towns and castles-yea, the view of the bones and skulls of your dead subjects, who, partly by murder, partly by famine, have died in the fields, as in troth hardly any Christian with dry eyes could behold. . . . Surely there was never a people that lived in more misery than they do, nor as it should seem of worse minds, for matrimony amongst them is no more regarded in effect than conjunction between unreasonable beasts; perjury, robbery, and murder, counted allowable. Finally, I cannot find that they make any conscience of sin, and doubtless I doubt whether they christen their children or no, for neither find I a place where it should be done, nor any person able to instruct them in the rules of a Christian, or if they were taught I see no grace in them to follow it; and when they die, I cannot see they make any account of the world to come.”1

The state of Ireland at this time proves conclusively that the true unity of the Church does not consist in the recognition of one ecclesiastical ruler. For upwards of thirty years at the beginning of the sixteenth century the whole country acknowledged the Pope, and yet meanwhile the people were living "in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another;" and the sword scarcely ever rested in its scabbard.2 For generations the business of religious instruction had devolved almost entirely on the begging friars. The multitude flocked to their services, because they preached, as well as celebrated

1 Sir Henry Sidney to Elizabeth, April 20th, 1567. Carew MSS., 1589-1600. Introd. lviii. lix.

2 Mr. Kichey has remarked that, though the Annals of the Four Masters pass by without notice many of the transactions in Leinster and Munster, yet, from 1500 to 1534, they record no less than 116 battles and depredations, not reckoning the wars in which the English Government was engaged. Lectures, Second series, p. 11.

mass.

Their discourses were not, however, fitted either to sanctify or civilize. "The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul," and wherever it is promulgated it exerts a holy and happy influence. But the friars taught "for doctrines the commandments of men," and their sermons only nourished superstition. In the beginning of the sixteenth century a large portion of the property of the Irish Church-including advowsons and tithes-belonged to the monasteries." In all but the poorest parishes the ordinary service on the Lord's Day was performed by a vicar, appointed by one or other of these ecclesiastical corporations, and miserably remunerated. As the people preferred the ministrations of the monks, the cathedrals and churches in which the secular clergy officiated were often permitted to become dilapidated. But at the Reformation-when the lands belonging to the monasteries were distributed among the nobility and gentrythe poor vicars were continued; for the new lords of the soil were bound by their title-deeds to provide for the celebration of divine worship; and they endeavoured, in the most economical manner, to fulfil the stipulation. If, as often happened, the bishop neglected the care of his diocese, and if the vicar and the new landlord acted in collusion, "they contrived between them to dismantle the church of its lead, its windows, its stonework, and all that was valuable. In a few years, church, vicar, and congregation, all disappeared; and the small tithes, equally as the great tithes, fell into the hands of the patron." Thus it was that in the reign of Elizabeth so much ecclesiastical property was alienated, and that so many parish churches were in ruins. But the begging friars still prowled about the country, preached as before, denounced the change in religion, and fostered the discontent of the people.” 5

Ps. xix. 7.

2 Calendar of Carew MSS., 1589-1600. Introd. xxxiv.

3 See before, pp. 335-7.

4 Calendar of Carew MSS., 1589-1600. Introd. xxxv.

5 In Burke's Hibernia Dominicana, p. 102, there is a Bull of Pope Pius V., issued in 1567, in which that Pontiff confirms certain privileges previously granted to the Irish Dominicans. This Bull supplies evidence that these friars were still influential in the country. Mr. Froude states that, at this time, half the so-called religious houses in Ulster, Connaught, and Munster, were still occupied by the friars.-History of England, xi. 191.