the one or the other; I mean, they will either eat my meat and drink, or else myself: and that I may speak of it without vaunt or comparison, I feed as many continually as any bishop in England doth, and have not as yet provision towards the same; and to do otherwise I cannot, unless I should utterly discredit both myself and my doctrine, which both maketh me to have often a heavy heart and an empty purse; and to help me forward to more grief, I am presently compelled to go into the earl of Desmond's country, leaving my own business and functions behind me undone, to my great charges and some hazard, amongst so untamed a people. . . To say anything further of the state at this present I will not, only this-all things waxeth rather worse than otherwise; and as I said before, I fear me, without some speedy redress, the whole body will be so sick, as it shall with difficulty recover, so badly are men here disposed."* In one respect alone, the government enactments seem not to have been fruitless, forsooth, in the prohibition of public Catholic worship. Hatred of the holy sacrifice of the Masst was, indeed, a chief passion of the religious innovators of the period and it was assuredly a great triumph for Satan, that its public solemn celebration should be for awhile interdicted in our island. The parish churches were seized on; and, according to the unvarying reports of the lord deputy, very soon fell into decay. These sacred edifices, built by the piety and the voluntary offerings of our forefathers, were soon desecrated: sometimes taxes were imposed upon the people to keep them in repair for an alien worship, but, for the most part, roofless and pillaged, they remained scattered throughout the range of the English pale, as monuments of the violence which was offered in the name of reformation to the church of our sainted isle. * Shirley, loc. cit. pag. 187-191. +"I defy James Fitzmaurice to deny that I did not except my duty to the queen in all my dealings with him, and refused to consent to the bringing in of Spaniards, and the putting up of the Mass, which things James (Fitzmaurice) was earnest with me for."-Letter of sir Edmond Butler to the earl of Ormond, 23rd of August, 1569, from St. Paps. off., published in app. to Life and Times of Sir P. Carew, p. 226. CHAPTER III. VACANCY OF THE SEE OF DUBLIN AFTER THE APOSTACY OF CURWIN, AND HOW THE DIOCESE WAS ADMINISTERED UNTIL THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 1. Father D. Wolf, S.J.--2. Rev. T. Newman, R. J. White.-3. Donaldus Dublinensis.-4. Sketch of Irish Character and Customs. 1.-Father David Wolf, S.J. ONE of the most remarkable men who, during the first years of Elizabeth's reign, laboured in our Irish church to gather together the scattered stones of the sanctuary, was father David Wolf, a member of the order of St. Ignatius. A native of Limerick, he spent seven years in Rome imbibing the full spirit of his order, under the immediate guidance of its holy founder and St. Francis Borgia; and in August, 1560,† he was sent by the Holy See, with all the privileges of apostolic commissary, to confirm his countrymen in the faith, amidst the impending persecutions of Elizabeth. His chief care was to propose learned and zealous men to fill the vacant sees of our island; and the names of Richard Creagh of Armagh;‡ Donald M'Conghail of Raphoe, Eugene O'Hart of Achonry, Maurice M‘Bryan of Emly, to omit many others, are a sure guarantee of the fidelity with which he fulfilled this charge. Father Wolf resided, for the most part, in his native diocese; but his jurisdiction extended to the whole island, and we find him incidentally referred to in contemporary records, as visiting the district of Tyrone, and again, as travelling through various dioceses of Connaught and Ulster. The English agents were filled with alarm at the presence in the country of one who, by * The sketch of Father Wolf's life given by Dr. Oliver in his "Collections," p. 270, might serve as an admirable illustration of the utter darkness which has so long prevailed in regard of the ecclesiastical history of our Irish Church. See for these and many other particulars the examination of Dr. Creagh, archbishop of Armagh, ap. Shirley, loc. cit. p. 171, seqq. See in appendix an interesting inedited paper, presented in 1563 to the cardinal protector of Ireland, and proposing various individuals for the vacant see of Armagh. public acclamation, received the title of papal nuncio; and when in 1561, pope Pius IV. invited queen Elizabeth to send her representatives to the council of Trent, she absolutely refused, assigning as one of the chief reasons for her displeasure, that "an Irishman (father Wolf) had been sent from Rome to Ireland to excite there disaffection against her crown."* So watchful were the agents of the English government in pursuit of the Jesuit father, that he was for several years unable to enter within the limits of the pale; and we find him, when delegating his jurisdiction for Dublin and its vicinity to father Newman, in 1563, affirming that so many were the dangers which beset his journey thither, that he feared to visit that district.† Amongst the papers of the secret archives of the Vatican there is one which was presented in 1560 to the cardinal protector of Ireland, and which sketches the course to be pursued by the agents of the Holy See, whilst performing the visitation of our island. A few extracts will suffice to prove how full of responsibility and peril was the mission entrusted to the disciple of St. Ignatius. "His first care shall be to visit the Catholic leaders, and especially the four chief princes of the kingdom, to commend in the name of his holiness their unflinching constancy and zeal, and to encourage them to persevere in the defence of the Catholic faith." The bishops also were to be visited: "to see if they resided in their dioceses and instructed their flocks; if they were attentive to the due decorum of the sacred edifices, and vigilant in selecting zealous and worthy ministers for the altar." As to the clergy, he was to inquire into their manner of administering the sacraments, and to afford them every aid, especially in administering the holy sacraments of confession and communion, in preaching the word of truth, and in exhorting their Catholic flocks to lead holy and Christian lives. Should any heretical minister be found, the agent of Rome was to guard the people against the contagion of his errors, and above all, to seek in the spirit of charity, to bring him back to the paths of truth." "He must also seek to establish grammar schools, supplying them with Catholic masters, and thus remedy the great ignorance of the natives: admonishing the parents to send *Laderchi in Continuat. Annal. Baronii, ad an. 1561. their children to these schools, that thus they may be instructed in literature and morality, and at the same time acquire a meet knowledge of the saving truths of faith." If possible, some monasteries were to be established, and exact discipline maintained; hospitals, too, were to be founded, and other places of refuge and succour for the poor. For these things, and for whatsoever else might be done, no reward or recompense, even in the name of alms, was to be received; the salvation of souls alone was to be the movingspring, and the reward of every fatigue. Should the glory of God and the interests of religion require it, life itself was to be risked; but in this the laws of Christian prudence were to be observed, and all undue temerity to be shunned. In fine, the Holy See was to be made acquainted with the real state of the Irish church, the losses sustained by the Catholic faith,-the perils to which religion was exposed, and the most opportune aid and succours were to be pointed out that could be granted to sustain the faithful in the dangers to which they were exposed.* The course traced out in these "instructions" was exactly pursued by father Wolf, and before the close of this chapter, we shall have occasion to cite some of his letters, which, whilst they disclose precious details regarding the condition of our island, clearly demonstrate how indefatigable he was in his labours, and how unceasingly he struggled to restore our suffering church to its primitive comeliness and fervour. One of the chief wants of Ireland at this period was a place of untainted instruction for Catholic youth. The monastic schools had been swept away by the persecution of Henry VIII., and now, in such districts as were accessible to the English arms, no mere Irishman or Catholic could, without risking liberty or life, seek to instruct his fellow-countrymen in the rudiments of literature and religion. To meet this want, a "brief" was addressed by the Holy Father on the 31st of May, 1564, to the newly-consecrated primate, Dr. Richard Creagh, and to father David Wolf,† empowering them to erect schools wheresoever they should deem fit throughout the kingdom of Ireland, and communicating to such schools all the privileges of * See Appendix to this chapter. an university; whilst, at the same time, it was declared that these schools were necessary for the establishment of due order, and for the maintenance of the Catholic faith. Neither Dr. Creagh, however, nor father Wolf, was allowed sufficient time to carry into effect the wise designs of Rome. The history of Dr. Creagh's imprisonment is well known. Father Wolf shared in his sufferings, being loaded with chains, and thrown into the dungeons of Dublin Castle. On the 13th of March, 1568, a letter was despatched from Rome to the nuncio in Madrid, instructing him to employ all the papal influence at that court, to procure, through the mediation of the Spanish monarch, the liberation of these two ecclesiastics, whose labours in the sacred cause of religion had already won for them the applause of the whole Christian world. "We have been informed," thus writes the sainted pontiff, Pius V., "that our venerable brother, the archbishop of Armagh, who, as you are aware, is primate of Ireland, has been arrested by the English and cast into prison in the tower of London; and that our beloved son David, of the society of Jesus, is also closely confined by the same English in the city of Dublin, both of them being treated with the greatest severity. Their sufferings overwhelm us with affliction, on account of their singular merits and of their zeal for the Catholic faith. And, as it is our desire and our duty to succour them as far as is in our power, we know of no other means for doing so, than that our dearest son, his Catholic majesty, should employ his authority with the English queen in their behalf. You, therefore, will use every endeavour with his majesty to this effect, and you will urge, and request, and solicit in our name, his letters to his ambassador and to the queen, to obtain the liberation of these prisoners. Than which favour none other could be at present more acceptable to us. "Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, under the seal of the Fisherman, this 13th day of March, 1568."* The mediation of the Spanish court, however, was without effect; and father David was detained in the closest custody till 1572, when he happily made his escape from Dublin Castle and, accompanied by sir Rice Corbally and the son of James Fitzmaurice, took refuge in Spain. Sir Peter Carew, writing to the privy council in England on 6th February, 1573, characteristically remarks: "James Fitzmaurice hath sent his son with one David Wolf, an arrant traitor, into Spain, to practise his *See orig. in appendix. |