BOOK II. CHAP. I. The state of the Irish under king James I. "SOME few years before queen Elizabeth's death, kingJames was at the utmost pains' to gain the friendship of Roman catholic princes, as a necessary precaution to facilitate his accession to the English throne. Lord Home, who was himself a Roman catholic, was entrusted with a secret com mission to the Pope; the archbishop of Glascow, another Roman catholic, was very active with those of his own religion. Sir James Lindsay made great progress in gaining the English papists." And as it seems to have been part of that king's policy, in order to pave the way to his succession," to waste the vigor of the state of England by some insensible, yet powerful means," he had his agents in Ireland fomenting Tirone's war,* ("the Scots daily carrying munition to the rebels in Ulster.") So that the queen was driven to an almost incredible expence in carrying it on,† and her enemies still encouraged by James's secret assistance and promises. 1 Robertson's Hist. of Scotland, &c. 2 Secret Correspondence between king James and Sir Robert Cecil, p. 75. And this wicked policy had its full effect; for we find that in the year 1602," the queen had a sharp encounter with secretary Cecil, about the poverty of the state. She was made to fear all kinds of distress, that want in the subject, and excess of charges to the state, was likely to bring her to: they (Cecil's enemies) sought to make those suspected who persuaded the Irish war, and those either negligent or corrupt, who conducted it; putting a firm conceit, and not improbable, as it is set out in colors, that the Irish war, being the chiefest drain of her consumption, is fortified, and fed for other men's particulars."-Secret Correspondence, &c. p. 75. "After Tirone's return from rebellion, he told sir Thomas Philips and many others, that if his submission had not been accepted, he had contracted with the Spaniards to fortify two or three places in the north, where his allies and friends in the Scottish Isles should, and might with ease, relieve and supply him.”—Harris Hibernic. part i. fol. 130. "The queen's charge for Ireland," says Morrisson, " from the 1st of April 1600, to the 29th of March 1602, was two hundred and eighty-three thousand, six hundred and seventy-three pounds, nineteen shillings and four-pence halfpenny."-Hist. of Ireland, fol. 197. G "It is certain," says Mr. Osburne, "that the promise king James made to Roman catholics, was registered and amounted so high at least, as a toleration of their religion." "Of these intrigues, queen Elizabeth received obscure hints from several quarters." Her majesty in a letter to the king himself in 1599, gave him to understand, "that there were many letters from Rome and elsewhere, which told the names of men, authorised by him (tho' she hoped falsely) to assure his conformity as time might serve, to establish the dangerous party, and fail his own." The catholics, in the different provinces of Ireland, were, on James's accession, so much elated with the hopes of the abovementioned toleration, and had taken up such an opinion that the king himself was a catholic, that they ran into some excesses, which have been since unfairly represented by adverse historians, as so many overt acts of treason and rebellion. For, on that mistaken notion, they exercised their religion publicly, and even seized on some churches for their own use.* The mayors 3 Osburne's works. 4 Robertson ubi supra. 5 Saunderson's king James. * There never were more glaring instances of royal hypocrisy exhibited by any prince, than frequently appeared in James I. through the whole course of his reign. His seeming favor towards, or enmity against, his Roman catholic subjects, was always regulated by some present interest in view. In the year 1616, in compliance with the request of his puritanical parliament, he thus ridiculously expresses his sentiments, with respect to the punishment he would have inflicted on popish priests: "I confess," says he, "I am loath to hang a priest only for religion sake, and saying mass : but if he refuses to take the oath of allegiance (which, let the pope and all the devils in hell say what they will, yet as you find by my book, is merely civil) those that so refuse the oath, and are polypragmatic, I leave them to the law: to them I join those that break prison; for such priests as the prison will not hold, 'tis a plain sign nothing will hold them but the halter." -Speech in the Star Chamber. Yet in the year 1622, when he had a favorite point to carry (the marriage of prince Charles) at a popish court, he told his council in a public speech," that the Roman catholics of England had sustained great and intolerable surcharges, imposed on their goods, bodies and consciences, during queen Elizabeth's reign, of which they hoped to be relieved in his: that now he had maturely considered their penury and calamities, that they were in the number of his faithful subjects, and that he was resolved to relieve them.-Sir Peter Pett. Oblig, of the Oath of Supremacy, fol. 398. In king James I.'s reign, even chief justice Coke maintained publicly at the trial of Mr. Turner, that popery was one of the seven deadly sins. And of Cork and Waterford are said to have refused to proclaim the king, because they did not proclaim him precisely at the time Bacon on the same occasion, then attorney-general, and afterwards chancellor, took care to observe, that poisoning was a popish trick. Stowe tells us, that when this king came to Newcastle, on his first entry into England, he gave liberty to all the prisoners, except those confined for treason, murder and papistry. Such, says my author, were the bigotted prejudices which prevailed in this age.”—See Hume's Hist. of England, vol. iv. p. 84. Lord Mountjoy, in a letter to the sovereign of Wexford, acquaints him, "that whereas they excused their erecting of popish rites, by the report they had heard of his majesty's being a Roman catholic, he could not but marvel at their simplicity." Morris. Hist. fol. 287.—And in a letter to the mayor of Cork, he says, "I am given to understand that you have suffered the public celebration of the mass to be set up in your city, of your own fancies; and I assure you, contrary to the religion which his majesty zealously professeth.-Morris. ib. fol. 288. Indeed his majesty's notions in that respect, seem to have been, on some occasions, perfectly wild and romantic: for in one of his public speeches we find the following strange declaration addressed to the papists: "ye are intolerably silly," said he, " for thinking that the government of your souls was committed by God to the pope. For my part, I swear, and call God to witness, that if I had found out now, after all my deep study, daily reading, frequent conferences and disputations with learned men, and my most intense meditation on all I have read and heard, that the pope was Christ's vicar on earth, and that the same authority which Christ delegated to Peter, descended to him, I would not only turn papist, but would also kill any king, whose subject I was, that persecuted or opposed the popish religion, if the pope commanded me to do so." Porter, p. 270.-Had his majesty been sincere in this speech, is it credible that he would have suffered any person to live in his dominions, who really believed the pope to be Christ's vicar on earth, (as all Roman catholics do) and who consequently must be supposed capable and ready to execute that, by the pope's command, which he himself thus solemnly declares he would do, in consequence of such belief. In the eleventh year of this king's reign" John Boys, D.D. dean of Canterbury, gained great applause by turning the Lord's prayer into the following execration, when he preached at Paul's cross on the fifth of November. "Our pope, which art in Rome, cursed be thy name, perish may thy kingdom, hindered may thy will be, as it is in heaven, so in earth. Give us this day our cup in the Lord's supper, and remit our monies, which we have given for thy indulgences, as we send them back unto thee, and lead us not into heresy, but free us from misery; for thine is the infernal pitch and sulphur, for ever and ever. Amen."-Grainger's Biograph. Hist. Eng. vol. i. p. 356. Such was then, the almost incredible malignity and rancor against popery, that so prophane and ridiculous a travesty should be celebrated, as a performance of singular merit, in a dignified protestant divine. appointed by the deputy; and the citizens of Cork would not, it seems, suffer the king's munition and artillery, which was entrusted to their keeping, to be conveyed to a new fort, built within their franchises, but against their consent. But we can easily make it appear, that these passages admit of a much more favorable interpretation, than that which has been given them. For it is not surely probable, that men who had preserved their allegiance under a severe persecution of their religion, during all the time of queen Elizabeth's reign, would, without any new cause, all at once become rebels to a prince, from whom they hourly expected a toleration of it; and whom they generally believed to be privately of their own way of thinking in that respect. They excused their delay in proclaiming the king, by assuring his excellency, that it was occasioned," "only by their desire of doing it with the greater solemnity;" which excuse appears to have been accepted; for when they had, soon after, proclaimed his majesty, in the solemn manner they intended, lord Mountjoy told them," that in regard of their joyful and solemn way of doing it, he was willing to interpret their actions to the best, and took their good performance for an excuse." And as to the hindering the munition and artillery to be carried to the fort, they alleged,s" that the fort was commanded by a person, who had, on several occasions, shewn great contempt and enmity to their city; and that the soldiers there had offered them many abuses, shooting at their fishermen and at the boats sent out for provision; and using them at their pleasure." And they made it their request to his excellency, that, as the fort was built within their franchises, they might have the keeping of it for his majesty, which they would do to their utmost peril. They had, besides, another excuse, which was not altogether disapproved of by his lordship; they knew that the deputy's power had determined with the queen's life; but they did not know it was renewed by her successor.9." It may be," says his excellency, in his letter to them on this occasion, "that you have rashly and unadvisedly done this, upon some opinion of the ceasing of authority in the public government, upon the death of our late sovereign, which is somewhat more, though no way in true and severe judgment, excusable; 6 Morrisson's Hist. 7 Id ib. 8 Id. ib. 9 Id. ib. fol. 288. and, I think otherwise, you never would have been so foolish.” And it was then only that he first undeceived them as to that matter, by telling them," "That his authority, as lord deputy, was renewed, and confirmed by his then majesty's royal letters patent, under his seal; requiring them upon their allegiance, to pay obedience to it ;" and adding, " that if he should find they did so, he would be glad to have occasion to interpret all things past in the better part, and take as little notice as he could thereof." 66 But his lordship seems not to have waited for the effects of this letter, which is dated April the 27th; for on the first of the following month, he marched out with an army towards Munster, and on the 4th entered a place called Gracedieu, near the eity of Waterford; the citizens of which, refused at first, to receive his army into the town, being authorised thereunto by their charter; but they offered to give free and prompt admittance to his lordship, and his retinue, the chief of them having, for that purpose, come forth, and attended him in his camp. What lord Mountjoy seemed principally to resent in these people, to such a degree as thus suddenly to draw down the army upon them, was the boldness of several of the towns, and corporations," in setting up, of their own heads, the public exercise of the popish worship." For, in all his letters to the magistrates of that province, he takes particular notice of that boldness; frequently assuring them," "that his majesty was a good protestant; and even threatening one of these towns,13 "that if they did not desist from the public breach of his majesty's laws, in the celebration of the mass, he would think them fit to be prosecuted with the revenging sword of his majesty's forces." 12 Id. ib. 10 Morrisson, ib. fol. 288. 11 Id. ib. 13 Id. ib * About the beginning of this reign, "one Hewson, an English minister of Swords, fell violently on one Horish of that place, and took from him a crucifix, and hung the same upon a gallows, with these words under it, "help all strangers, for the God of the papists is in danger." Upon Horish's complaining to the state, and producing the mangled and defaced crucifix, sir Geoffry Fenton, secretary, insulted the poor man, snatched the crucifix from him, and cast it on the ground under his feet, and Horish, for offering to complain of that abuse, was thrown into prison.-Theatre of Catholic and Protestant Religion, p. 117. The same sir Geoffry Fenton did set a poor fellow on the pillory in Dub |