of a Roman catholic priest, he,* in order to remove all suspicion of his maintaining, or teaching any seditious doctrines, made the following confession, before the lord deputy and council, and afterwards confirmed it on oath, viz. "That he did acknowledge his sovereign king James to be his lawful chief, and supreme governor, in causes as well ecclesiastical as civil; that he was bound in conscience to obey him, in all said causes; and that neither the pope, nor any other foreign prelate, or potentate, had power to control the king in any causes ecclesiastical, or civil, within that kingdom, or in any other of his majesty's dominions." Yet this extreme condescension could not, it seems, prevent his condemnation. The only pretence for this severity was, his having denied privately to some of his friends, who visited him in prison, that he had ever made such confession as was derogatory to the spiritual authority of the Roman pontiff; for, he told them, "that he had not acknowledged that the king was supreme governor in spiritual causes, but in ecclesiastical." Whether this distinction, calculated for the private satisfaction of his friends, was well or ill founded, I shall not take upon me to determine; but certain it is, that it cancelled all the merit of his public confession.

"Cnohor O'Duana, bishop of Down and Connor, was apprehended in July, 1612, and committed to the castle of Dublin, wherein he

*Sir J. Davis's Reports in fine.

lived in continual restraint many years; but having at last escaped out of prison, and having been afterwards taken, he was hanged, drawn and quartered, on the 1st of February. His chaplain, Bryan Carrulan, John O'Onan, Donoghow M'Reddy, and John Luneas, priests, suffered also, in Ireland in this reign."*

The dissection of property in the north, and religious persecution, having failed of their desired effect, an insurrection and confiscation, rapacity and religious intolerance seized on the old expedient of plot-making. A fac simile of the discovery of the powder-plot, most probably contrived by the same artist,† was acted upon in Dublin. An anonymous letter was dropt in the castle, giving notice of an intended insurrection in the North, by O'Neil and O'Donnel, in substance as follows: "That he was called into company by some popish gentlemen, who, after administering an oath of secrecy, declared their purpose to murder or poison the deputy, to cut off Sir Oliver Lambert, to pick up one by one the rest of the officers of state, to oblige the small dispersed garrisons by hunger to submit, or to

* Theatre of Cath. and Prot. Religion.

+"Cecil was an adept in framing fictitious plots, and has left instructions behind him to succeeding ministers, when and how to make use of them against catholics. The original of these instructions, in Cecil's own hand-writing, was formerly in the keeping of the infamous judge Bradshaw, by whom it was shewn to Sir William Percival, who communi. cated it to a gentleman of great worth, who died anno 1697, aud left it among other papers of remarks upon the times." Dodd's Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. iii. fol. 196.

penn them up as sheep to their shambles. That the castle of Dublin, being neither manned nor victualled, they held as their own, that the towns were for them, the country with them, the great ones abroad and in the North prepared to answer the first alarm, that the powerful men in the West are assured by their agents to be ready as soon as the state is in disorder. That the catholic king had promised, and the Jesuits from the pope had warranted men and means to second the first stirs, and royally to protect all their actions. That as soon as the state is dissolved, and the king's sword in their hands, they will elect a governor, chancellor and council, dispatch letters to king (James I.) trusting to his unwillingness to embark in such a war, and to his facility to pardon, would grant their own conditions of peace and government, with toleration of religion that if the king listen not to their motions, then that the many days spent in England in debates and preparations would give them time enough to breathe, fortify and furnish the maritime coasts; and at leisure call to their aid the Spanish forces from all parts." The writer of the letter declares, "That he interposed some doubts on them, which they readily answered, and he pretended to them to consent to further their projects, and that he took the method of this letter, to give notice of their designs, though he refused to betray his friends, in the mean time he would use his best endeavours to hinder any further practices." And he concludes, "That if they did not desist, though he reverenced the

mass and catholic religion equal to the devoutest of them, yet he would make the leaders of that dance know, that he preferred his country's good, before their busy and ambitious humours."

No proofs of such conspiracy have ever appeared, notwithstanding king James boasted in a proclamation, that he and his deputy were possessed of such documents as would make it as clear as the sun. The circumstances of the times, and the state of parties, strip the fiction of all credibility. The north was utterly wasted and depopulated, by famine, fire and sword, and by charitable transportations. It could not be, that in the short interval of four years, from the peace to the confiscation, the remnant would be able to repair the mortal breaches, made on the population, agriculture, and manufactures of the province, or recover spirits enough to meditate a new war. Mountjoy, who, by methods not human, brought them to that abject state, must be a competent judge of the natural and moral effects of his exterminating discipline, refutes the idea. He declared, that he would bring the province of Ulster to be the most obedient part of Ireland; and that if the Spaniards should land, after he brought them to subjection, they would not join, but resist the invaders. For this opinion he assigns a very strong physical reason, "that the invaders cannot raise the dead;" meaning,

* This proclamation will be found in the succeeding pages. + After the treaty of 1603, numbers of the northerns were removed into the Pale from the wasted countries, and great numbers conveyed to the Low countries.

that he would exterminate the great majority of the people, with fire, sword and famine: for the performance of which charitable operation, he demanded less than twelve months, and he had two years and a half to complete it; consequently, it was the opinion of that general, with which every impartial examiner will agree, that the broken and dispirited remains of the once powerful North, would most gladly enjoy repose, and not madly risque, under every disadvantage, the loss of all. The treaty of 1603 was more favourable than they could expect, from their forlorn situation in the last winter of the war, owing to the death of queen Elizabeth, and the eagerness of Mountjoy to have the honour of finishing the war. The survivors were, in fact, possessed of more lands than they held before; more than they had hands to cultivate. O'Neil was old, and wearied of war. He did not want penetration, to observe the vast alteration in the relative situation of the contending parties. When at war with Elizabeth, he was at war only with England. In Ireland he had respectable allies: from Spain and the pope he had big promises, and some actual supplies: from Scotland he had secret encouragement, and some succours in men and ammunition. All was now reversed. Spain and the pope dropt the connexion; the two kingdoms of Great Britain were now united under one monarch; and Ireland was so completely subjected, that the viceroy could, by its internal resources, crush the enfeebled Northerns, had they madly attempted an impotent rising. No traces