glian also, from the moment of King Henry's death,) it was resolved in his councils to make a more strenuous effort for establishing the Reformation in Ireland. In furtherance of that object, Sir Edward Bellingham was sent over, a very singular apostolic missionary, "with 600 horse and 400 foot." An "order of council" was issued, enjoining the use of a new Liturgy. And shortly after one Bale was appointed by the king to the bishopric of Ossory, a bold and uncompromising reformer, who was not content, like the king's bishops in general, to reside in Dublin, under the shelter of the castle, but proceeded at once to Kilkenny, and undertook his charge. A most remarkable" Vocacyon," as he calls it, was this episcopal visit of Dr. Bale to his diocese, and may serve as an instance of the method in which the Church of Ireland was to be reformed.

The new bishop being ignorant of Irish, and most of his clergy, with all their flocks, ignorant of English, his preaching though never so energetic, could have little effect upon such a diocese. Therefore he ordered his servants to invade the churches, to pull down the images and pictures, and to destroy the vestments and ornaments which savoured of popery. The people of Kilkenny bore the preaching very well, so long as they did not understand it; but there was no mistaking such conduct as this. They rose against him, killed five of his servants before his face, and he himself hardly escaped. As he relates the story himself: "I preached the gospel of the knowledge and right invocation of God. I maintained the political order by doctrine and moved

the commons to obey their magistrates. But when I once sought to destroy the idolatries, and dissolve the hypocrites yokes, then followed angers, slanders, conspiracies, and in the end the slaughter of men.”*

Hitherto the religious innovations had been confined within very narrow limits; and in the North the alarm of them was not yet heard. Two clergymen, indeed, named Dowdall and Goodacre, had been successively appointed the nominal (or titular) archbishops of Armagh by Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth; but they scarcely appear to have visited their diocese, and certainly attempted no reformation there. The former of these, though not appointed by the provision of the pope, was a stanch Catholic, and upon the death of Henry, zealously resisted any change of doctrine or practice in the church. Though a king's bishop, he did not shift and veer, as was expected, with the Court religion of the day; and for his contumacy in that respect, the new English pontiff, in October, 1551, issued a bull, (or, "letters patent," as it was termed,) gravely depriving Dowdall, and the see of Armagh, of the Primacy of Ireland, and conferring that dignity upon the Archbishop of Dublin and his successors;† in acknowledgment of the services of Browne, who better knew the duties of a court bishop.

But all these arrangements were unheard of or

66

sory."

'Vocacyon of John Bale to the bishopric of Os

Waræi, An. 192, folio

disregarded in Ulster. The Coarba of St. Patrick still sat upon the archiepiscopal throne of Armagh; and the sees of the North, protected by the O'Neills and O'Donnells, and ruled by the primates Cromer and Waucop, long continued free from invasion by the barbarian missionaries of England. In the words of Dr. Leland, "the people, removed beyond the sphere of English law, had not known or not regarded the ordinances lately made with respect to religion, nor considered themselves as interested or concerned in any regulations hereafter to be made."*

Shane O'Neill troubled himself little about the "Reformation" so long as it kept far from his borders. There was work enough for him to do at home. O'Rielly of Cavan dared to question the supremacy of O'Neill, and had to be brought to reason by a fierce inroad and a bloody defeat. The chief of Tyrconnell was a more formidable antagonist. The O'Donnells had long rivalled in power their kindred tribe of Tyr-owen; had reduced some of the tributary chieftains, former Uriaghts of the O'Neill, under their own sway; had wrested from the Kinel-owen their ancient territory of Innishowen for which O'Donnell paid tribute to O'Neill, though always with reluctance; and sometimes he set the prince of Ulster at defiance and denied the tribute altogether: which had in former days produced furious wars, and that famous diplomatic correspondence-emphatic protocols, breaking off with significant aposio

* Leland, "Hist. of Ireland," vol. 2, p. 194.

pesis." Send me my tribute, or else" "I owe thee no tribute, and if

Shane was not the man to suffer the rights of O'Neill to be questioned. With a large army he burst into Tyrconnell, and too recklessly pursued his enemies into the recesses of their mountainous country. In a night attack upon his camp, his troops were entirely dispersed: Shane himself narrowly escaped being surprised in his tent, amongst the galloglasses of his guard: and for that time was obliged to retreat, or even to fly; swimming the rivers, say the chroniclers of Donegal, and traversing the mountains by unknown ways. But he vowed a dire revenge, and fearfully fulfilled that vow another day.

The plunder of O'Neill's camp fell to the victorious O'Donnells: and the scene upon that battle-field might remind us of Chlodowig and his Franks, dividing their spoil upon the plains of Soissons. "A vast plenty of arms, clothing, and horses fell to the share of the victors, the prodigious quantity of which booty may be judged by this, that when they came to divide the spoil by lots, eighty horses, besides O'Neill's horse, fell to the share of Con the son of Cal vagh.*

own

The O'Donnells did not long boast of their victory, till a fresh army from Tyr-owen crossed the Foyle and carried havoc and ruin to the heart of their country. Calvagh O'Donnell was

Ware, "Antiq. of Ireland;" citing the "Annals of Donegal." (Four Masters.)

defeated in battle, his lands were wasted and plundered, and the chieftain and his wife carried off in chains by the triumphant Shane. Calvagh indeed was afterwards set free; but his wife remained as part of the spoils of war, in the halls of Benburb; became the concubine of the haughty conqueror, and bore him sons and daughters: in especial one son, whom they christened Hugh, and surnamed na Gavelock, "Of the fetters," or the Fettered-for whom it had been better if he had never been born.

A wild and turbulent career had this Shane, and few days of rest since he took the leading of that warlike sept: quelling Mac Guire of Fermanagh; bridling the marauding Scots; on all sides strengthening the friends and crushing the foes of Tyr-owen: crushing them indeed too fiercely; whereby he treasured up for himself wrath, which was to burst at a future day upon his head.

At last the impetuous energy of this chief prevailed, and carried the sway of O'Neill higher than it had reached under any of his predecessors since the race had given monarchs to Ireland. From Fanad to Dundalk, from Ballyshannon to Dundrum, was no chief able to resist his power. So that, in 1558, when Elizabeth ascended the throne of England, the O'Neill, as reason was, predominated in Ulster.

The English government seems to have determined that either by force or otherwise, the

"By all manner of means, as well by force as other. wise." Instructions to Sussex. Desid. Cur. Hibernica, p. 3.