people were enabled to judge of the sanctity of the new creed at its first appearance among them. And this alone, apart from their firm adherence to the faith of their fathers, was quite enough to justify them in their resistance to such a substitute.

But, above all, when they beheld how the inmates of those holy houses were treated, when they saw them cast out into the world, penniless, reduced to penury and want, persecuted, declared outcasts, hunted down, insulted by the soldiery, arrested, cruelly beaten, bound hand and foot, and hung up either before the door of their burning monastery, or even in the church itself before the altar-what wonder that they were unprepared to receive the new religion?

The barbarity displayed throughout England and Ireland toward Catholicism was specially fiendish when directed against religious of both sexes; and, as in Ireland no class of persons was more justly and dearly loved, what wonder that the Irish literally hated the religion that came to them from beyond the sea?

Without going over the other aspects of the religious question of the time, and comparing article with article of the new and old beliefs, this single feature of the case alone is sufficient. The process might be carried out with advantage, but is not

necessary.

4. The new order of things, in one word, resolved itself into rapacity and wanton bloodshed. And, despite whatever may be said of Irish outrages by those who are never tired of alluding to them, Irish nature is opposed to such excesses. If they are ever guilty of such, it is only when they have previously been outraged themselves, and in such cases they are the first to repent of their action in their cooler moments. On the other hand, the men who first set all these outrages going never find reason to accuse themselves of any thing, are even perfectly satisfied with and convinced of their own perfection; and, as from the first they acted coolly and systematically, their self-equanimity is never disturbed, they continue unshaken in the calm conviction that they have always been in the right, whatever may have been the consequences of the initiative movement and its steady continuance.

But we repeat advisedly-the Irish nature is opposed to rapacity and wanton shedding of blood, and this formed another strong reason for their opposition to the religious revolution which immersed them in so bloody a baptism.

5. Yet perhaps the most radical and real cause of their persistent refusal to embrace Protestantism lies in their traditional spirit, of which we have previously spoken. There is no rationalistic tendency in their character.

And all the points well considered, which, after all, is the better, the simply traditional or strictly rationalistic nature? What has been the result of those philosophical speculations from

which Protestantism sprang? Whither are men tending to-day in consequence of it? Would it not have been better for mankind to have stood by the time-honored traditions of former ages, independently of the strong and convincing claims which Catholicity offers to all? This is said without in the least attributing the fault to sound philosophy, without casting the slightest slur on those truly great and illustrious men who have widened the limits of the human intellect, and deserved well of mankind by the solid truths they have opened up in their works for the benefit and instruction of minds less gifted than their own.

CHAPTER XI.

THE IRISH AND THE STUARTS.-LOYALTY AND CONFISCATION.

UPON the death of Elizabeth, in 1603, the son of the unfor tunate Mary Stuart was called to the throne of England, and for the first time in their history the Irish people accepted English rule, gave their willing submission to an English dynasty, and afterward displayed as great devotedness in supporting the falling cause of their new monarchs, as in defending their religion and nationality.

This feeling of allegiance, born so suddenly and strangely in the Irish breast, cherished so ardently and at the price of so many sacrifices, finally raising the nation to the highest pitch of heroism, is worth studying and investigating its true cause.

What ought to have been the natural effect produced on the Irish people by the arrival of the news that James of Scotland had succeeded to Elizabeth? The first feeling must have been one of deep relief that the hateful tyranny of the Tudors had passed away, to be supplanted by the rule of their kinsmen the Stuarts-kinsmen, because the Scottish line of kings was directly descended from that Dal Riada colony which Ireland had sent so long ago to the shores of Albania, to a branch of which Columbkill belonged.

For those who were not sufficiently versed in antiquarian genealogy to trace his descent so far back, the thought that James was the son of Mary Stuart was sufficient. If any people could sympathize with the ill-starred Queen of Scots, that people was the Irish. It could not enter into their ideas that the son of the murdered Catholic queen should have feelings uncongenial to their own. It is easy, then, to understand how, when the news of Elizabeth's death and of the accession of James arrived, the sanguine Irish heart leaped with a new hope and joyful expectation.

As for the real disposition of that strangest of monarchs, James I., writers are at variance. Matthew O'Connor, the elder, who had in his hands the books and manuscripts of Charles O'Connor of Bellingary, is very positive in his assertions on his side of the question :

"James was a determined and implacable enemy to the Catholic religion; he alienated his professors from all attachment to his government by the virulence of his antipathy. One of his first gracious proclamations imported a general jail-delivery, except for murderers and papists.' By another proclamation he pledged himself 'never to grant any toleration to the Catholics,' and entailed a curse on his posterity if they granted any."

Turning now to Dr. Madden's "History of the Penal Laws," we shall feel disposed to modify so positive an opinion. There we read:

"It is very evident that his zeal for the Protestant Church had more to do with a hatred of the Puritans than of popery, and that he had a hankering, after all, for the old religion which his mother belonged to, and for which she had been persecuted by the fanatics of Scotland."

Hume seems to support this judgment of Dr. Madden when he says that "the principles of James would have led him to earnestly desire a unity of faith of the Churches which had been separated."

Both opinions, however, agree in the long-run, since Dr. Madden is obliged to confess that "new measures of severity, as the bigotry of the times became urgent, were wrung from the timid king. He had neither moral nor political courage."

Still, on the day of his coronation, the Irish could little imagine what was in store for them at the hands of the son of Mary Stuart; hence their great rejoicing, till the first stroke of bitter disappointment came to open their eyes, and awaken them to the hard reality. This was the flight of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, which had been brought about by treachery and low cunning. These chieftains were, as they deserved to be, the idols of the nation. They were compelled to fly because, as Dr. Anderson, a Protestant minister, says, "artful Cecil had en:ployed one St. Lawrence to entrap the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, the Lord of Devlin, and other Irish chiefs, into a sham plot which had no evidence but his."

The real cause of their flight was that adventurers and "undertakers" desired to "plant" Ulster, though the final treaty with Mountjoy had left both earls in possession of their lands. That treaty yielded not an acre of plunder, and was consequently in English eyes a failure. The long, bloody, and promising wars of Elizabeth's reign had ended, after all, in forcing coronets on the brows of O'Neill and O'Donnell, with a royal deed added, securing to them their lands, and freedom of worship to all the north.

James was met by the importunate demand for land. O'Neill, O'Donnell, and several other Irish chieftains, were sacrificed to

meet this demand; they were compelled to fly; and they had scarcely gone when millions of acres in Ulster were declared to be forfeited to the crown, and thrown open for "planting."

And here a new feature in confiscation presents itself, which was introduced by the first of the Stuart dynasty, and proved far more galling to Irishmen than any thing they had yet encountered in this shape.

In the invasion led by Strongbow, in the absorption of the Kildare estates by Henry VIII., in the annexation of King's and Queen's Counties under Philip and Mary, even in the last "plantation" of Munster by Elizabeth's myrmidons at the end of the Desmond war, the land had been immediately distributed among the chief officers of the victorious armies. The conquered knew that such would be the law of war; the great generals and courtiers who came into possession scarcely disturbed the tenants. A few of the great native and Anglo-Irish families suffered sorely from the spoliation; the people at large scarcely felt it, except by the destruction of clanship and the introduction of feudal grievances. Moreover, the new proprietors were interested in making their tenants happy, and not unfrequently identified themselves with the people-becoming in course of time true Irishmen.

But, with the accession of the first of the Stuarts to the English throne, a great alteration took place in the disposal of the land throughout Ireland.

The Tyrone war had ended five years before, and those who had taken part in the conflict had already received their portion; the vanquished, of misfortune-the conquerors, of gain. James brought in with him from Scotland a host of greedy followers; and all, from first to last, expected to rise with their king into wealth and honor. England was not wide enough to hold them, nor rich enough to satiate their appetites. The puzzled but crafty king saw a way out of his difficulties in Ireland. He no longer limited the distribution of land in that country to soldiers and officers of rank chiefly. He gave it to Scotch adventurers, to London trades companies. He settled it on Protestant colonies whose first use of their power was to evict the former tenants or clansmen, and thus effect a complete change in the social aspect of the north.

Well did they accomplish the task assigned them. Ulster became a Protestant colony, and the soil of that province has ever since remained in the hands of a people alien to the country.

Yet the Ulstermen had been led to believe that James purposed securing them in their possessions; for, according to Mr. Prendergast, in his Introduction to the "Cromwellian settle

ment:"