rebellion for the Irish to remain faithful to their religion. What could prevent the Irish from resisting such pretension, even at the cost of effusion of blood? The early Christians, under the Roman Empire, it is true, never rose in arms against the bloody edicts of the Caesars or the Antonines; but the cases are not parallel.

Suppose that Greece or Asia Minor had never succumbed to the Roman power, and had become entirely Christian: no one would refuse to admit their right to offer armed resistance to the extension of the edicts of persecution into their territory On the contrary, it would have been their duty to do so and every one of their inhabitants, who was taken and executed as a rebel, would have been crowned with the martyr's crown.

At this point, indeed, comes in the consideration of the special motive which animated each belligerent, even when fighting on the right side. We are far from saying that all the Irishmen, particularly the leaders and chieftains who at that time ranged themselves under the banners of the Desmonds or the O'Neills, fought purely for Christ and religion. Many of them, no doubt, engaged in the contest from mere worldly motives, perhaps even for purposes unworthy of Christians; and in this case, those who fell in the struggle were in no sense sol

diers of Christ.

But how many such are to be found among the bishops, priests, or monks, who perished under Elizabeth? May it not be said of them that, to a man, they fell for the sake of religion? We may even be bold enough to say that the majority of the common Irish people who lost their lives in those wars may be placed in the same category as their spiritual rulers, being in reality the upholders of right and the champions of Catholicity.

Let it be remembered that, at the period of which we speak, the only real question involved in the contest was gradually assuming more and more a religious character. Henry VIII. and his deputy, St. Leger, had struck a fatal blow at clanship and Irish institutions in general, by bestowing on and compelling the chieftains to accept English titles, and by investing them with new deeds of their lands under feudal tenure. By Elizabeth, the same policy was steadily and successfully pursued, her court being always graced by the presence of young Irish lords, educated under her own eyes, and loaded with all her royal favors. All she asked of them in return was that they should become Queen's men. The repugnance once felt by Irishmen for that gilded slavery was each day becoming less marked. But, while every thing was seemingly working so well for the attainment of Elizabeth's object at the commencement of her reign, a new feature suddenly shows itself, and grows rapidly into prominence -the attachment of the Irish to their religion, and the violent

opposition to the change always kept foremost in view by the queen, namely the substitution of her spiritual supremacy for that of the Pope.

Thus we find the Irish leaders, when proclaiming their griev ances, either on the eve of war, or the signing of a treaty of peace, always giving their religious convictions the first place on the list. The religious question, then, was becoming more and more the question, and, notwithstanding all her fine assurances that she would not infringe upon the religious predilections of the laity, Elizabeth's great purpose, in Ireland and in England, was to destroy Catholicity, by destroying the priesthood, root

and branch.

The nobles showed how fully convinced they were of this, when they came to adopt a system of concealment, even of duplicity, to which Irishmen ought never to have been weak enough to submit. Not only were the practices of their religion confined to places where no Englishman or Protestant could penetrate, but gradually they allowed their houses-those sanctuaries of freedom-to be invaded by the pursuivants of the queen, searching for priests or monks "lately arrived from Rome."

Secret apartments were constructed by skilful architects in noblemen's manors; recesses were artfully contrived under the roofs, in roomy staircases, or even in basements and cellars. There the unfortunate minister of religion was confined for weeks and months, creeping forth only at night, to breathe the fresh air at the top of the house or in the thick shrubbery of the adjoining park. All the means of evading the law used by the Christians of the first centuries were reproduced and resorted to in Catholic Ireland by chieftains who possessed the "secret promise" of the queen that their religion should not be interfered with, and that her supremacy should not be enforced against them.

Not thus did the people act: their keen sense of injustice took in at once all the circumstances of the case. It was a religious persecution, nothing else; and this the nobles also felt in their inmost souls. The people saw the ministers of religion hunted down, seized, dragged to prison, tried, convicted, barbarously executed; they recognized it in its reality as a sheer attempt to destroy Catholicity, and as such they opposed it by every means in their power. They beheld the monks and friars treated as though they had been wild beasts; the soldiers falling on them wherever they met them, and putting them to death with every circumstance of cruelty and insult, without trial, without even the identification required for outlaws. Mr. Miles O'Reilly's book, "Irish Martyrs," is full of cases of this kind. Hence the people frequently offered open resistance to the execution of the law; the soldiers had to disperse the mob; but the real mob was the very troop commanded by English officers.

When at length the Irish lords no longer dared offer asylum to the outlawed priesthood in their manors and castles, the hut of the peasant lay open to them still. The greater the quantity of blood poured out by the executors of the barbarous laws, the greater the determination of the people to protect the oppressed and save the Lord's anointed.

Then opened a scene which had never been witnessed, even under the most cruel persecutions of the tyrants of old Rome. The whole strength of the English kingdom had been called into play to crush the Irish nobility during the wars of Ulster and Munster; the whole police of the same kingdom was now put in requisition for the apprehension and destruction of churchmen. Nay, from this very occupation, the great police system which since that time has flourished in most European states, arose, being invented or at least perfected for the purpose.

Then, for the first time in modern history, numbers of "spies" and "informers" were paid for the service of English ministers of state. Not only did the cities of England and Ireland, harbor cities chiefly, swarm with them, but they covered the whole country; they were to be found everywhere: around the humble dwelling of the peasant and the artisan, in the streets and on the highways, inspecting every stranger who might be a friar or monk in disguise. They spread through the whole European Continent-along the coast and in the interior of France and Belgium, Italy and Spain, in the churches, convents, and colleges, even in the courts of princes, and, as we have seen in the case of Dr. Hurley, in the very halls of the Vatican. The English state papers have disclosed their secret, and the whole history is now before us.

To support this army of spies and informers, the soldiers of that other army of England, who were employed either in keeping England under the yoke or in crushing freedom and religion out of Ireland, did not disdain to execute the orders which converted them into policemen and sbirri. And it may be said, to their credit, that they executed those orders with a ferocious alacrity unequalled in the annals of military life in other countries. If, during the most fearful commotions in France, the army has been employed for a similar purpose, it must be acknowledged that, as far as the troops were concerned, they performed their unwelcome task with reluctance, and softened down, at least, their execution, by considerate manners and respectful demeanor. But these soldiers of Elizabeth showed themselves, from first to last, full of ferocity. They generally went far beyond the letter of their orders; they took an inhuman delight in adding insult to injury, uniting in their persons the double character of preservers of public order and ruffianly executioners of innocent victims. Many and many a record of

their barbarity is kept to this day. We add a few, only to justify our necessarily severe language:

"The Rev. Thaddeus Donald and John Hanly received their martyr's crown on the 10th of August, 1580. They had long labored among the suffering faithful along the southwestern coast of Ireland. When the convent of Bantry was seized by the English troops, these holy men received their wished-for crown of martyrdom. Being conducted to a high rock impending over the sea, they were tied back to back, and precipitated into the waves beneath."

"In the convent of Enniscorthy, Thaddeus O'Meran, fatherguardian of the convent, Felix O'Hara, and Henry Layhode, under the government of Henry Wallop, Viceroy of Ireland, were taken prisoners by the soldiers, for five days tortured in various ways, and then slain."

"Rev. Donatus O'Riedy, of Connaught, and parish priest of Coolrah, when the soldiers of Elizabeth rushed into the village, sought refuge in the church; but in vain, for he was there hanged near the high altar, and afterward pierced with swords, 12th of June, 1582."

"While Drury was lord-deputy, about 1577, Fergal Ward, a Franciscan, . . . fell into the hands of the soldiery, and, being Scourged with great barbarity, was hanged from the branches of a tree with the cincture of his own religious habit."

In order to find a parallel to atrocities such as these, we must go back to the record of some of the sufferings of the early martyrs-St. Ignatius of Antioch, for instance, who wrote of the guards appointed to conduct him to Italy: "From Syria as far as Rome, I had to fight with wild beasts, on sea and on land, tied night and day to a pack of ten leopards, that is to say, ten soldiers who kept me, and were the more ferocious the more I tried to be kind to them."

Instances of such extreme cruelty are rare, even in the Acts of the early martyrs, but they meet us every moment in the memoirs of the days of Elizabeth. Both the police-spies and the soldier-police were animated with the rage and fury which must have possessed the soul of the queen herself; for, after all, the cruelty practised in her reign, and mostly under her orders, was not necessary in order to secure her throne to her, during life; and, as she could hope for no posterity of her own, it was not the desire of retaining the crown to her children which could excuse so much bloodshed and suffering. She evidently followed the promptings of a cruel heart in those atrocious measures which constitute the feature of the home policy of her reign. The persecution which raged incessantly throughout her long carcer, in Ireland and England, is surely one of the most bloody in the annals of the Catholic Church.

CHAPTER X.

ENGLAND PREPARED FOR THE RECEPTION OF PROTESTANTISMIRELAND NOT.

IT cost Elizabeth the greater part of her reign in time, and all the growing resources of a united England in material, to establish her spiritual supremacy in Ireland; and yet, when, at her death, Mountjoy received orders to conclude peace on honorable terms with the Ulster chieftains, her darling policy was abandoned, and failure, in fact, confessed.

On the 30th of March, 1603, Hugh O'Neill and Mountjoy met by appointment at Mellifont Abbey, where the terms of peace were exchanged. O'Neill, having declared his submission, was granted amnesty for the past, restored to his rank, notwithstanding his attainder and outlawry, and reinstated in his dignity of Earl of Tyrone. Himself and his people were to enjoy the "full and free exercise of their religion;" new letters-patent were issued restoring to him and other northern chieftains almost the whole of the lands occupied by their respective clans. O'Neill, on his part, was to renounce forever his title of "O'Neill," and allow English law to prevail in his territory.

How this last condition could agree with the full and free exercise of the Catholic religion, the treaty did not explain; but it is evident that the new acts of Parliament respecting religion were not to be included in the English law admitted by the Ulster

chiefs.

Meanwhile, the descendants of Strongbow's companions had been completely subdued in the south, Munster having been devastated, and the Geraldines utterly destroyed. Yet, even there, Protestantism was not acknowledged by such of the inhab itants as were left.

It may be well to compare here the different results which attended the declaration of the queen's supremacy in England and Ireland:

At the commencement of Elizabeth's reign, England was still, outwardly at least, as Catholic as Ireland. Henry VIII. had