the other. The bulk of the nation adhering to their ancient faith, the cause of religion became the cause of the nation; and it fatally seemed, as if the English government were predetermined not only to oppress, but to irritate the people of Ireland.

* Doctor Leland informs us, that at this time John Bale, the violent and acrimonious impugner of popery, was nominated to the see of Ossory. His rigid and uncomplying spirit appeared immediately on his consecration. Even the weak among the new reformed, were terrified, and the Romish party held this spirited and turbulent enemy, in the utmost abhorrence. His learning, which was stupendous, compared with that of his Irish brethren, promised to do considerable service to the reformation in Ireland, and even the vehemence of his temper seemed well suited to the place and circumstance of his mission. But the truth is, that the business of religious reformation in Ireland, had hitherto been nothing more, than the impositions of English government, on a people vehemently addicted to their ancient worship; not sufficiently obedient to the English government, but slightly impressed with fear, and in no degree reconciled by kindness. Bale, insulted the prejudices of his flock without reserve or caution. They were provoked, and not so restrained or awed by the civil power, as to dissemble their resentments. During the short period of his residence in Ireland, he lived in a continual state of fear and persecution. On his first preaching the reformed doctrines, his clergy forsook him or opposed him; and to such violence was the populace spirited up against him, that five of his domestics were slain before his face: and his own life was saved by the interposition of the magistrate.

As a mean of establishing the tranquillity of Ireland on a more permanent basis, warm applications were made by the deputy to the English cabinet for an extension of the English law to the Irish natives, throughout the kingdom. But they were not attended to. Times and circumstances were altered. When the power and possessions of the Irish were confined within much more limited bounds, when they smarted under the various oppressions of the adventurers from Britain, they desired, they entreated, they offered to purchase the participation of the English law. Their sentiments were changed with their cir cumstances: and they had relapsed into all their innate prepossessions in favour of their ancient institutions. The late attempts to force them to renounce their ancient faith, which they had received from St. Patrick, and to adopt a new system of religion with an English ritual, naturally connected themselves with the national prejudices, against English oppression; and

* 2 Lel. 200,

co-operated in raising the insurrection of Tyrone, for the suppression of which, we must look to a later period of the Irish history. This nobleman, notwithstanding the fulness of his late submission, and his acceptance of an English title, retained all his native predilections for the greatness and regal splendour of his family. He had once pronounced a curse on those of his posterity, who should conform to the English manners, or associate with the Saxon race. With this he was often upbraided by his kinsmen and followers; and finding the Irish nation now more estranged than ever from the English government, by their recent attempt to force them out of their religion, he chose this as the most favourable moment to shake off the trammels of allegiance, and revert to the ancient consequence and independence of O'Nial.

The unexpected death of Edward VI. and the short reign of his sister Mary, gave a temporary respite to the troubled state of Ireland, as far at least, as it depended upon England. But inasmuch as all the measures of the British cabinet in the former reign which affected Ireland, related solely to the ecclesiastical system so the principal effect of the accession of Queen Mary to the throne of her ancestors was, that she first by a proclamation counteracted, and did away whatever innovations had been introduced into the ecclesiastical establishment, by the proclamation of her infant brother. She then convened a parliament, which repealed all the acts of her father touching religion, which had been passed after the twentieth year of his reign, and the civil establishment of the Catholic religion was precisely restored to the state, in which King Henry VIII. had found it on the demise of Henry VII. The Protestant bishops were deprived, and Catholic bishops substituted to their sees. The possessions of the church, which had passed into lay hands, were confirmed to the possessors, as they were in England, by the concurrent approbation of the lords, spiritual and temporal, the sovereign, and the pope. This parliament of the 3d and 4th of Phillip and Mary, began with declaring that the queen had been born in lawful wedlock, and therefore annulled and repealed all sentences of divorce, and all acts passed in the reign of Henry, by which the succession to the crown had been settled to the prejudice of Mary. They adopted the proceedings of the English parliament for ascertaining such offences against the king and queen, as should be deemed treason: and for the government and administration of the realm by their issue.

Besides the acts passed in this parliament for the restoration of the civil establishment of the Catholic religion, others were passed for the civil government of the realm.* The usual sub

* Borlase in his Reduction of Ireland, p. 117, says that the Earl of Sussex passed many acts to the benefit of the nation, and returned into England December 4, 1557.

sidy, and for the usual term, was granted to the queen for the special purpose, as the act expresses it, of enabling her Majesty to expel the Scotch islanders, who had emigrated from their own country as an avowed band of mercenaries. These adventurers having come over upon the speculation of profiting of the internal dissensions of the Irish chieftains, were open to which ever party held out the most lucrative terms. Their numbers were so considerable, and their outrages so alarming, that it was declared to be high treason to invite them into Ireland or to entertain them, and felony to intermarry with them without licence of the lord lieutenant. The advantages gained by the Earl of Sussex over the two most powerful septs of Leinster, the O'Moors, and the O'Connors, enabled the English to extend the pale, by reducing their territories of Leix and Offaly into two counties: they were by act of parliament vested in the crown and converted into shire land. Leix was denominated the queen's county, and its principal fort was styled Maryburgh: and with a like compliment to her royal consort, Offaly was called the king's county, and its fort was called Phillipstown; "which," as Sir John Davis observes, were the two first "counties, that had been made in this kingdom, since the 12th 66 year of King John." And he continues. "This noble earle "having thus extended the jurisdiction of the English into two

counties more, was not satisfied with that addition, but took a "resolution to divide all the rest of the Irish counties unreduc"ed into several shires: and to that end he caused an act * to passe in the same parliament, authorizing the lord chancel"lour from time to time to award commissions to such persons, "as the lord deputy should nominate and appoint to viewe and "perambulate those Irish territories; and thereupon to divide "and limit the same into such and so manie several counties, "as they should thinke meete; which being certified to the lord "deputie and approved by him, should bee returned and en"rolled in the Chancery, and from thenceforth be of like force "and effect, as if it were doone by act of parliament. Thus did "the Earle of Sussex lay open a passage for the civil govern"ment into the unreformed partes of this kingdome; but him"self proceeded no further than is before declared."

So confident was the English government of the tranquil and pacific disposition of the Irish in this reign, that the queen ordered the army to be reduced to 500 men; but that was not thought reasonable in Ireland. However, in order to comply as far as circumstances would allow with her majesty's orders,

To shew the precarious title of the crown out of the pale, the preamble of this act particularly recites, that as these territories were known not to be within any shire of the kingdom, no title for the king could be found, as will be seen at large in the 1st Section of 2 Chap. of 3 and 4 P. and M. App. No. VI.

the army was reduced to 600 foot, 460 horse, and some few kerns.* The turbulence, however, of the Irish chiefs, and their incessant wars with each other, and the refractory and lawless conduct of the Scottish adventurers, rendered it necessary to encrease the army with fresh reinforcements from England. Although the Irish were, in general, highly gratified by the restoration of the Catholic religion to its ancient footing in this reign, yet were they not altogether satisfied with the civil administration of the power of the crown within their kingdom. They were particularly sore at the power vested in the Lord Lieutenant, to dispose of the territories of Leix and Offaly in grants at the royal pleasure, in violence to the rights of those natives, to whom those lands had hitherto belonged. So that O'Sullivan, the Irish annalist, plainly avows, that notwithstanding her zeal for supporting and promoting the Catholic religion, yet was her administration injurious to Ireland.†

Light Infantry.

† Qua tametsi Catholicam religionem tueri et amplificare conata est, ejus tamen præfecti et conciliarii injuriam Ibernis inferre non destiterunt. Sull. Cath. Hist. p. 82.

CHAPTER II.

THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

UPON the demise of the crown in 1558, Queen Elizabeth found the Irish nation more tranquil and submissive to the English government than it had been under any of her predecessors. She prudently continued the Earl of Sussex in the Lieutenancy, who was very acceptable to most of the natives, and had, with a garrison of 320 horse and 1360 foot, kept Ireland in a peaceable and quiet condition.* Yet, notwithstanding the general disposition of the nation to be submissive to the English government, none of the provinces were altogether free from the disorders of internal dissension. It may be naturally presumed, that much of the pacific conduct of the Irish during the short reign of Mary, was attributable to the general satisfaction, which the redintegration of the civil establishment of the Catholic religion afforded to the nation at large. But no sooner had Elizabeth declared for the Reformation, than general discontent pervaded the whole nation within and without the pale. Amongst the first instructions sent to Lord Sussex, written in Cecil's own hand, were directions to make a survey of all lands, both spiritual and temporal, that no lands should be letten but upon the best survey, and that the lands of Leix and Offaly should be disposed of to tenants and their heirs male, to the best advantage of the queen and the country." He had it also (says "Borlase) in charge strictly to look to the Irish, who being a "superstitious nation, may easily be seduced to rebellion, "through the practices of the French (then at difference with "England), under pretext of religion." Every province was soon thrown into a state of commotion or disposed to insurrection. Munster was distracted by the inveterate enmities and animosities of the O'Brians, Thomond, Desmond, and Ormond. Connaught was miserably harassed by the feuds subsisting between Clanricarde and another sept of the De Burghos. In Leinster, the survivors of the old families of Leix and O'Fally considered themselves deprived of their inheritances, by an iniquitous scheme of fraud and treachery, supported by power, violence, and oppression: they were stimulated by revenge and a spirit of reprisal to rise in arms, and seize every opportunity of harassing and despoiling the grantees of their lands. The North was threatened with the most formidable insurrection

1 Borl. Red. p. 121.