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CHAP. XII,

The catholic clergy of Ireland unjustly accused of stirring up the

Irish to this insurrection.

THE catholic clergy of Ireland, at this period, are commonly charged with filling the minds of their votaries with such pernicious maxims, civil and religious, as could not fail to incite them to the most traitorous and bloody attempts. "They had,” says a modern historian," that influence even over the gentry of their communion, with which they were invested by the tenets of their religion; the ignorant herd of papists they governed at their pleasure. They had received their education and imbibed their principles in the foreign seminaries of France and Spain; hence they returned to Ireland, bound solemnly to the pope in unlimited submission, without profession or bond of allegiance to the king. Full fraught with those absurd and pestilent doctrines, which the moderate of their own communion profess to abominate, of the universal monarchy of the pope, as well civil as spiritual, of his authority to excommunicate and depose princes, to absolve subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and to dispense with every law of God and man, to sanctify rebellion and murder, and even to change the very nature and essential difference of vice and virtue. And with this and other impious trumpery of schools and councils, these ecclesias tics filled their superstitious votaries."

Horrible indeed is this accusation, but fortunately for the kingdom wherein such a clergy is still suffered to exist, it is as erroneously stated, as it is groundless in itself. Nor is the injustice done to this clergy, by such shocking imputations, greater than that done to Walsh himself, the Irish franciscan, whose sole authority is quoted in support of them. For there is no mention made by that writer in the place referred to, of these impious tenets having been taught or maintained by any of the catholic clergy of Ireland, at or about the year 1641. All that appears there relative to these tenets, is an indirect and angry charge and inference, against such of Walsh's brethren, as had opposed his remonstrance of loyalty, which was not presented,

1 Leland's Hist. of Irel. vol. iii. p. 89.

? See the dedication to the history of the Irish remonstrance, by Peter Walsh.

nor even thought of till more than twenty years after that period. Nay even there too, Walsh confesses that these tenets3

were quite different from what the catholics of England, Scotland, and Ireland, did believe ;" and also affirms, "that many thousands of the most learned, most zealous, and most godly Roman catholic prelates, doctors and priests, besides laymen, cried down these tenets, as not only false, impious and heretical, but also as absolutely tyrannical and destructive of all govern

ment."

In order to explain this matter a little more fully, I must inform the reader, that in the year 1674, when Walsh's history of the remonstrance was first published, he had been provoked, by an excommunication newly denounced against him, to draw out this chain of blasphemous propositions, as the supposed consequences of the doctrine of the pope's deposing power; and in the bitterness of resentment, to charge them on some of his adverse catholic brethren, whom he either knew, or suspected to have been active in bringing that disgrace upon him. But that he was far from intending to charge such wicked principles upon the body of the catholic clergy of Ireland, incontestably appears, from his declaring in the very same place, (with regard to the doctrine of the pope's deposing power; and its supposed pernicious consequences)," that he did not at all doubt, but rather was certain, that there were more than five hundred priests then in Ireland, who, if they were only permitted to live quietly there, would, by a public instrument signed under all their hands, declare amply, clearly, and heartily against the aforesaid doctrine, notwithstanding any declaration, precept or censure of the pope to the contrary."

As for these seminaries of France and Spain, where this catholic clergy is said to have imbibed these pestilent doctrines, I could not discover any of them in the place cited; on the contrary, I there found the author reckoning up eight seminaries in France alone, viz, "those of Paris, Rheims, Caen, Thoulouse, Poitiers, Valance, Bourdeaux, and Bourges; together;" adds he, "with the seven remaining universities of that kingdom; which had, on different occasions, publicly condemned

3 See the dedication to the history of the Irish remonstrance, by Peter Walsin

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the pope's deposing power, as false, contrary to the word of God, seditious and detestable."

CHAP. XIII.

The same subject continued.

MR. CARTE, who was no friend to the catholic clergy, and had better means of information than any other writer on this subject either before or since his time, has candidly owned,' "that although this conspiracy was imputed to Roman catholic priests, yet not above two or three of them appeared to know any thing of it." Nay he even seemed to think, that had they all, to a man, afterwards concurred in it, they could not have been justly blamed on that account. For, not to mention the lords justices' cruel injunctions to the officers of the army, to shew no mercy to that order of men (whom therefore, these officers promiscuously murdered, wherever they met them)," "the English house of commons gave them reason to apprehend every thing that is dreadful to human nature. They had caused the laws against recusants to be put in execution all over England; eight Roman catholic priests had been taken up in London, for saying mass: and the proof failing as to one, the other seven were condemned. The king, averse to the putting

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To this his majesty seems to have alluded, when he said, "and certainly it is thought by many wise men, that the preposterous rigor and unreasonable severity, which some men carried before them in England, was not the least incentive that kindled and blew into those horrid flames the sparks of discontent, which wanted not pre-disposed fuel for rebellion in Ireland; where despair being added to their former discontents, and the fears of utter extirpation to their wonted oppressions, it was easy to provoke them to open rebellion.-Icon. Basilic.

"Besides, Richard Herst, Edmund Arrowsmith and others, put to death in 1628, merely for exercising the functions of Roman catholic priests; Thomas Bullaker, Thomas Holland, Paul Heath, Francis Bell, Rodolphus Colman, (condemned, but reprieved) Henry Morse, Morgan, Philip Powel, and Martin Woodcock, together with Reading and Whitaker, were executed in England for the same causes, between the years 1641 and 1646." "The condition of a missionary," says my author, "in the beginning of this reign was different from what it was at the latter end of it; when re

any man to death merely for religion, had reprieved them; the commons were offended at it, and made loud complaints on this subject against his majesty. Nothing would satisfy them, till the king had left them to their mercy, to order the execution whenever they saw fit. When men," proceeds Mr. Carte, « have every thing to dread in peace, and much to hope from a war, it is natural for them to chuse the latter, and use their utmost endeavors to make it successful. Nor is it any wonder that those priests, in such a situation of affairs, should have recourse to arms, for the safety of their lives and despairing of indulgence in quiet times, should seek in troublesome ones for an establishment, never to be obtained but by the prevailing force of an insurrection.”

Mr.Goodman, one of the above-mentioned condemned priests, and who seems to have been particularly obnoxious to the parliament, made a voluntary offer of his life, as a sacrifice to the quiet of the king and kingdom, on that occasion; an instance of heroic loyalty, which can hardly, I fear, be paralleled by any of his opposites of the same order; who, nevertheless, are but too apt to represent catholic priests as disloyal, through principle, to every protestant government. That extraordinary person petitioned the king to order his execution, in the following words :

"Your majesty's petitioner hath understood of a great discontent, in many of your majesty's subjects, at the gracious mercy your majesty was freely pleased to shew unto your petitioner, by suspending the execution of the sentence of death pronounced against him. These are therefore humbly to beseech your majesty, rather to remit your petitioner to their mercies that are discontented, than to let him live the subject of so great a discontent in your people against your majesty; for it has pleased God, to give me grace to desire with the prophet, "that if this storm be raised for me, I may be cast into the sea that others may avoid the tempest." This is, most sacred sovereign, the petition of him who should esteem his blood well

ligious zeal against popery was heightened and inflamed with all the rage of faction. If a Turkish dervise had then preached Mahomet in England, he would have met much better treatment than a popish priest.”—Grainger's Biograph. Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 206-7-8.

shed, to cement the breach between your majesty and your subjects.

CHAP. XIV.

Some misrepresentations concerning the beginning of the insur

rection considered.

ON the 23d of October, 1641,† the lords justices declared by proclamation,'" that a discovery had been made of a most disloyal and detestable conspiracy intended by some evil affected Irish papists, universally throughout the kingdom." This unfair representation has been either ignorantly, or maliciously adopted by all the adverse writers on this subject. Sir John Temple, out of his abundant malice to these people, has so

1 Temple's History of the Irish Rebellion.

"But he escaped," says Mr. Hume," with his life, rather because he was over-looked amidst affairs of greater consequence, than that such unrelenting severity would be softened by any consideration of his courage, or generosity."-Hist. of England.

"By an address from the English commons, all officers of the Roman catholic religion had been (in 1640) removed from the army, and application was made to the king for seizing two thirds of recusants lands; a proportion to which, by law, he was entitled, but which he had always allowed them to possess upon very easy compositions.-The severe and bloody laws against priests were insisted on."-Id. ib. vol. iv. p. 399.

This day was commonly called Macguire's day, because lord Macguire was a principal leader in the insurrection which commenced on it; and yet we find by the journals of the Irish commons, that one of the first private discoverers of it to sir William Cole, was one Bryan Macguire, (probably his lordship's relation) for which service, said Bryan's grandson, Connaght Macguire, in 1662, obtained a grant of his grandfather's estate.—See Com. Journ. vol. ii. fol. 163.

A specimen of this historian's veracity may be seen in a charge brought against him and some others of the Irish privy council of the same faction, in the year 1643, viz. “ that the said sir John Temple did, in the month of May last, write two traitorous and scandalous letters against his majesty, which letters have been since read at the close committee, and use made of them to cast false aspersions on his majesty, as fomenting and favoring the rebels in Ireland.”—Carte's Collect. of Orm. Orig. Pap. p. 207.

"It is notorious," says Dr. Nalson," that sir John Temple, in writing his history of this rebellion, was bound by confederacy, to assert the prcceedings of these lords justices; and I cannot find him highly in reputation

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