tion was what Irish society required. This reorganisation beggared one section of the people and enslaved the other. As a solution of the Irish problem, it was neither wise, just, nor merciful.

The races whom Kilkenny statutes had previously prevented from intermixing, and between whom spoliation had erected a barrier, were now farther and for ever separated by the difference of religion. The English had after a fashion spontaneously become Protestant. The Pale in Ireland was made Protestant by compulsion; the Irish, by the effort to change their religion, were made—what before they had not been-Roman Catholic. In both countries, after the Reformation, penal laws laid their pressure on the recusants. The pressure was at once felt by those lords of the Pale who clung to the old faith; the mass of the Irish were at first beyond its reach. The vigorous policy, whose results we have just seen, soon, however, conveyed to the Irish a well-defined idea of Protestantism and its pressures. Those whom Elizabeth's generals spared, were dealt with by her propagandists. The means of conversion cannot be called peculiar, though some of the tortures were, perhaps, less refined than usual. The Catholic priests were forbidden to exercise their spiritual functions, and were hanged, burned, and so on, if they did.

So far, all was right, proper, and customary! It was improper, however, to beat their brains out with stones, although to rip open their stomachs and burn their bowels before their faces may have been permissible. The Irish may be excused if they made the most of the fine distinction. To further their conversion, a swarm of profligate parsons-the refuse of the Church of England-were established in the cures from which the priests were evicted. Whether they were so black as they have

been painted, it is needless to inquire very particularly. Ignorant of the language of the natives, they could not represent for them the Good Shepherd. The Pope's success cannot be wondered at. The people clung to the ancient faith and the native pastors, and identified Protestantism with all that was odious and intolerable.

One of the first acts of James I. was a gaol delivery, from which he excluded "murderers and Papists." The free exercise of their religion, conceded by Elizabeth in treaty to the Irish, had never been granted in fact. King James found the Catholic chapels shut; he kept them shut, and enforced attendance in the Protestant churches by fine and imprisonment. It had been rumoured that he was going to be tolerant. Such a suspicion was too horrible to be borne. He threw it off by royal proclamation, for behoof of all whom it might concern:"Whereas his Majesty is informed that his subjects of Ireland have been deceived by a false report that his Majesty had been disposed to allow them liberty of conscience and free choice of a religion; he hereby intimates to his beloved subjects of Ireland, that he will NOT admit of any such liberty of conscience as they were made to expect by such report." The ecclesiastical courts in his reign exercised the functions and powers of the inquisition. Religion was made a ground for robbing the natives of the land-to "throw it into the Protestant interest." At a sweep six great counties in Ulster were thrown into this interest, the Irish prohibited from living in them, and such Roman Catholics as were not Irish prevented by the oath of supremacy being made a condition of residence. In the next reign the Catholics were still more aggrieved under the unscrupulous Strafford. A part of Connaught was confiscated, and it was mooted that the whole was to be "thrown

into the Protestant interest." The Puritans, now become a power, talked of Catholic extermination-" the conversion of the Papists with the Bible in the one hand and the sword in the other." The Catholics of the Pale as well as the native Catholics were filled with dismay. Disaffection and terror sprang up together, and the country ripened for revolt. The example of the Scots in rebellion against Laud and Episcopacy was not thrown away on the Irish. Their exiles flocked home. Expatriated chiefs appeared once more rallying the clansmen. The septmen of Ulster, driven from their lands to live like savages in the mountains, were eager to try their chance. The Connaughtmen, with the fate of Ulster before them, were also eager. On the 23d October 1641, the insurrection broke out, and for eleven years Ireland became one great battle-field and scene of slaughter. At a blow a vast multitude of the new Protestant settlers of Ulster were slain; by the return blow, the Catholic natives in several districts, an untold multitude, were swept off the face of the earth. The sudden deluge of blood was followed by an eruption of fiery hate. No intriguing Jesuits needed henceforth to fan the flames. They still burn briskly, and seem to be inextinguishable.

Most efficiently did "religion" now perform its (always best performed) function of setting men at each other's throats. The traditions of the Pale in effect made two Catholic interests-the Catholics of the Pale and the native Irish. Protestantism, as was natural, had fallen into varieties, most of which were now represented in Ireland. The Catholic natives, the Catholics of the Pale, the Protestant Royalists, and the Parliamentarians -splitting into Presbyterians and Independents-were plotting, counterplotting, intriguing, conspiring, and

fighting with one another. Other interests, no doubt, were moving the actors, but it appeared as if religion, which had never prevented, was now the most active promoter of violence and discord.

It is unnecessary to trace with any minuteness the history of these miserable years. Two political principles and three religions, at the least, were appealing simultaneously to brute force for an adjustment of their relations. Behind all was the question of the land. There were five interests and as many armies. There were the armies of the Royalists, of the Anglo-Irish Catholics, of the Irish Catholics, of the Parliamentarians, and of the Scotch Covenanters. The Scotch army sided with the Parliamentarians; the Irish rebel army was against both the King and the Parliament; the AngloIrish army was now used this way and now that, its leaders playing fast and loose between the Royalists and the Irish rebels; the Irish Royalists, the open enemies of the Parliamentarians, were playing fast and loose between Protestantism and Catholicism-between the Anglo-Irish Catholics and the English Protestant Royalists. No land has ever been the scene of so much bad principle, impolicy, and bootless devastation. Across the Channel, the confusion had, to some extent, its counterpart, out of which, however, came results at last, and Cromwell, armed with the power of England, prayerfully hastening to his work. Sharp and bloody work it was, and fruitful to the Irish of bitter memories. First came wholesale butcheries, mercifully executed in cold blood; next there came wholesale confiscations and a settlement, aggravating every evil feature in the previous settlement of Ireland. Cromwell ended the confusion, which had seemed hopeless and unending; but there is that scattereth, and yet increaseth."

The confusion, after all, was the smaller matter. The settlement of Ireland involved the happiness in all time of a people.

In 1641 the population of Ireland, according to Sir William Petty, was 1,466,000, of whom 616,000 were destroyed in the eleven years of the war. He computes that there perished or disappeared in these years, " by the sword, famine, hardship, and banishment," no fewer than 504,000 of the native Irish, being nearly twice as many as were altogether in 1172. Figures, however, convey but a poor notion of the state to which the country was reduced. Famine, as at the end of the Elizabethan wars, stepped in to complete the havoc of the sword. A plague followed. Suicide became epidemic, as the only escape from the intolerable evils of life. Cannibalism reappeared. According to an eyewitness, whole counties were cleared of their inhabitants. "A man might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see a living creature, either man, beast, or bird.” Where survivors were found they were either old men and women or children. "I have seen these miserable creatures," says Colonel Lawrence, "plucking stinking carrion out of a ditch, black and rotten, and been credibly informed that they digged corpses out of the grave to eat." Many pitied; many reflected. The reflection which occupied some minds was, that "a few more rebellions," could they be stirred up, would see the last of the wretched race. A curse seemed to rest on them, and they were becoming a curse to their conquerors. "Some furious spirits," says Sir William Petty, writing in 1672, "have wished that the Irish would rebel again, that they might be put to the sword. But I declare that motion to be not only impious and inhuman, but withal frivolous and pernicious even to them who