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matter of deep and awful moment: when one reflects on the mighty interests, spiritual and temporal, which appear to be involved in it, the words of the Jewish lawgiver, "Behold I have set before thee a blessing and a curse," are scarcely more than applicable to the momentous alternative. "A blessing," if by excluding foreign influence, by coercing demagogues, by allowing the growth of domestic enjoyments, by instituting a sound system of national instruction, and by supporting the exertions of the established clergy, they educate the people up to the appreciation of British privileges: -“ a curse," if they sacrifice the church to a selfish liberalism; if they debase the pure and elevated principles of the old English nobility, by an infusion of the spirit of a colonial House of Assembly; if they break up the hereditary comforts of the English yeomanry, by the poverty, the squalid habits, and the ferocious combinations, which have so long been the disgrace and the calamity of Ireland,

HISTORY OF THE POLICY

OF

THE CHURCH OF ROME

IN

IRELAND.

CHAPTER I.

FROM HENRY THE SECOND, TO EDWARD THE SIXTH.

A.D. 1155.] THE Connection of Ireland with the crown of England originated in a compact between Henry Plantagenet, pope Adrian the Fourth, and the Irish prelates of the day. This treaty would be memorable, if it had no other claim to the consideration of posterity, than the hypocrisy, the injustice, and the mutual treachery of the parties: but their views and pretensions, descending regularly to their successors, and exerting a constant influence upon Irish affairs, make it an object of nearer interest. Without attention to these, it is impossible either to unravel the history of Ireland, or to judge correctly of its state at the present crisis.

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me pope. the transaction was fraught with mmingled tumph. On the one side, an artful and refractory sovereign, who had hitherto scandalized the faith or Christendom by his contumelious Hisobedience, rouched in abject submission before the mair Zerer: on the other, an island, bevonu ne sme Roman world, bowed to um is me sipreme riter of her destiny, and qetiy received 1 Fragm governor at his hands. The mums of Rome to spiritual and to temporal nuthority in Ireland, had arisen together about enty tears before. First advanced by the daring umbition of Gregory the Seventh, pressed by the why pertinacity of his successors, admitted by the simplicity of some of the hierarchy and the corrupt poverty of others,—they made slow and unnoticed progress, amidst the dissensions of a rude chieftainry, and the torpid ignorance of an enslaved population. Adrian now enjoyed the mature fruit of all these advantages, and challenged, without contradiction, the supreme dominion of Ireland. The chance of inquiry into his title or his proceedings, gave the father, probably, but little concern: it was the age of the Albigenses; all inquiry was heresy, and heresy was chastised by the sword of the crusader: at least, his dear son Henry, who was to govern the island under him, would have enough both of power and motive to maintain the royalties of the holy see.* He sent a ring of in

Digest of Evidence taken before the Parliamentary , vol. ii. chap. 2.

vestiture to the English monarch, together with the following letter.

Adrian, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his dearest son in Christ, the illustrious king of England, health and apostolical benediction.

Full laudably and profitably hath your magnificence conceived the desire of propagating your glorious renown on earth, and completing your reward of eternal happiness in heaven; while, as a catholic prince, you are intent on enlarging the

* Sir John Davis's Discovery of the true Cause why Ireland was never subdued, page 15. In a recent speech at the Roman Catholic Association in Dublin, the following account was given of the landing of Henry to take possession of his new territories. It was on the evening of the 23d of August, 1172, that the first hostile English footstep pressed the soil of Ireland. It is said to have been a sweet and mild evening, when the invading party entered the noble estuary formed by the conflux of the Suir, the Nore, and the Barrow, at the city of Waterford. Accursed be that day in the memory of all future generations of Irishmen, when the invaders first touched our shores! They came to a nation famous for its love of learning, its piety, and its heroism; they came, when internal dissensions separated her sons and wasted their energies. Internal traitors led on the invaders; her sons fell in no fight; her liberties were crushed in no battle; but domestic treason and foreign invaders doomed Ireland to seven centuries of oppression.' - Dublin Evening Mail, Friday, November 17th. With the slight mistakes of 1172 for 1171, and of August for October, Mr. O'Connell's description is as accurate as, perhaps, it could have been rendered, without injury to his eloquence. The independence of Ireland was not crushed in battle, but quietly sold in the synods of the prelates, those internal traitors to whom the orator alluded, but whom he was much too prudent to name. The professed design of Henry's expedition,' says Leland, was not to conquer, but to take possession of an island granted him by the pope.' - History of Ireland, i. 69.

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