Page images
PDF
EPUB

they could only hope to maintain their prerogatives and independence by force of arms, and their natural courage was instigated by every spur of pride and selfinterest. The assistance of Spain was hourly expected. The ablest of the English generals were cut off, and the Queen's army thought only of defending the Pale.

1

1

Lord Mountjoy was appointed Deputy in the room of Essex, and every thing was reversed; Lord Mountjoy, under an effeminate exterior, possessed all the qualities necessary for conquest; courage, promptitude, cunning, unshackled by probity; severity unalloyed by compassion. He made every means subservient to his end, and opened his way by the cruellest perfidy and the most horrible and indiscriminating havoc. His object was to take off the Irish chieftains by assassination, and to reduce the country by famine. But to make the reverse of all their fortune as bitter as possible to the Irish, a seeming certainty of success immediately preceded their complete ruin. Don Juan de Aguila landed at Kinsale with a large body of Spaniards. O'Neil and O'Donnel collected their armies,

and Lord Mountjoy, with an inferior force was hemmed in on all sides. Don Juan in· tended to attack the Lord Deputy: in vain O'Neil urged the want of discipline in his troops, and the certainty there was of reducing the Lord Deputy by cutting off his supplies. The fate of Ireland was decreed. The attack was determined, the design was betrayed, the Spaniards did not act in concert, and O'Neil and O'Donnel were entirely vanquished.

O'Donnel, and with few exceptions the whole body of Irish chieftains, disdaining to live as subjects where they had ruled as kings, passed over into Spain, where they were received with all the respect due to their rank, and all the tenderness that could alleviate misfortune. O'Neil, confident in his resources, maintained a short and fruitless struggle, and then followed their example. This is one of the most singular, and yet least noticed, revolutions that ever took place in any country.

Sixty princes, independent, and exerting kingly prerogatives from time immemorial, after a contest of five centuries, were in the course of six years swept from the face of

their country by the superior energy of an ambitious woman. They fought long and they fought bravely, and though vanquished they did not yield. This was clearly a contest of power, not of religion. We cannot refuse our sympathy to their wrongs, their courage, and their misfortunes; but it is the perversity of fanaticism, to applaud them for their piety, or to censure them for their bigotry. Religion was never appealed to by them, but as a pretext calculated to gain them money and ammunition from Spain and the Pope, and to throw an additional stigma on the name of Englishmen.

Yet, since we find the Catholic religion assuming a considerable degree of consequence, as a principle of discontent in the succeeding reign; there can be no doubt that it had gained considerable hold of men's minds during the reign of Elizabeth. It is true, that at the beginning of the war, the being a papist was no cause of suspicion; all the towns were peopled with Catholics and remained loyal; the Queen's army consisted mostly of Catholics, and was generally commanded by Catholic officers; yet latterly apprehensions were entertained

of the loyalty of the cities and towns; at the same time this is mentioned as a mat

ter of surprise. Sir R. Cox says "the very cities and towns were staggering, and so frightened by the threats of the clergy, that no trust would be reposed in them." O'Sullivan mentions it as a subject of regret, that only a few of the papists in the Queen's army revolted. Yet this shews that there

was a certain degree of disaffection con→ nected with religion. Camden also relates, that many of the papists, who had been loyal, sent to Rome for a " dispensation of this crime." When the young Earl of Desmond was sent by Elizabeth to Ireland, the people of Munster at first received him with congratulations, but deserted him on discovering that he was a Protestant.

These are the most material instances we collect of the progress of Catholic bigotry during Elizabeth's reign, which prove that it existed in no great degree, yet that it did exist and had encreased.

[ocr errors]

The reasons for this encrease appear to be these;

First. The Protestant religion having met with no persecution in Ireland, made

L

no progress. The native Irish to a man: remained Catholics, while the Protestants consisted entirely of English. Hence English and Protestant became synonimous terms, and by a natural association of ideas, the hatred entertained by the Irish to the English was continually transferring itself to the religion of the English; and, by the reverse cause, their attachment to the Roman Catholic faith encreased, from its being the badge and peculiarity of their own body.

Secondly. In the war which they were waging, the chieftains derived the most important advantages from professing and. inculcating in their followers the most devoted attachment to the see of Rome.--O'Neil, though indifferent to religion himself, was too politic to forego so favourable a pretext, and declared himself the champion of the Roman Catholic religion: in consequence, supplies of money and men were obtained from the Pope and the King of Spain. Vicars and Jesuits were sent over to Ireland, who, by the customary arts of zealots, awakened religious fanaticism; and gave effect to a bull of excom

« PreviousContinue »