has been overlooked and disregarded by historians of later times; for their heads were so occupied with religious animosity, that they referred every effect to that cause, whether it had any relation to it or not.

EDWARD VI.

THERE is scarcely a pretext for supposing that the disturbances in Ireland during the reign of Edward VI proceeded from the influence of the Roman Catholic religion. The English Lord Deputies made use of no precipitate measures of violence against the Roman Catholics; and, in consequence the Reformation proceeded without exciting any marked public discontent. Later Protestant writers could not conceive this to have been the case, and have given florid descriptions of the prejudice and terror, with which the nation surveyed the progress of heresy and innovation. But when we ask for facts, we find only one solitary instance on which all this fiction is

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founded, namely, the opposition of Archbishop Dowdal to the translation of the liturgy. Is there any wonder that an Archbishop should be found to stickle for doctrinal mystery? Is it not rather surprising that only one was found? We lead of no chieftain rebelling on account of religion, nor even making it a pretext for rebellion; we see no apprehension of any thing of the kind entertained by the government; and we must be convinced that historians are guilty of an anachronism when they attribute the fear of popery (a prodigy of much later growth) to these times. A decisive proof that the government had no reason to dread popery, and that the temper of the

times was indifferent to either side of the question, is, that the same year produced bishops of both sorts; on the 10th of May, 1550, Arthur Magennis, by provision of the Pope, constituted Bishop of Dromore, and the appointment was confirmed by the King; and on the 3d day of September, Thomas Lancaster, a Protestant, was made bishop of Kildare. In the remote provinces of Ireland all the Bishops were Catholics;

nor was the opposition of Dowdal punished by removal from his See, until he voluntarily abandoned the kingdom. So httle idea was there of rebellion on account of religion, that Cusack, in his letter to the Duke of Northumberland, mentions this as a period of the greatest tranquillity, highly favourable to the legal reformation of the kingdom.

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Yet, though government gave no general cause of discontent to the Catholics, there were many particular severities and insults which laid the grounds of religious animosity. Archbishop Brown made war against images and reliques, with more zeal than prudence. The garrison of Athlone, no very conciliating reformers, were allowed to pillage the celebrated church of Clonmaccanaise, and to violate the shrine of a great favourite of the people, St. Kieran. The valuable furniture of the churches was every where seized and exposed to sale, so that the Catholics might very well suspect that the low estimation which the Protestants entertained for the sacred uses of church decorations, arose from a keener sense of their pecuniary value.

However, the time was not yet arrived when religious bigotry had added its terrible influence to the other evils which wasted Ireland. The causes of the disturbances in the reign of Edward VI. were the same as those in Henry VIII. with the important addition of extensive confiscations.

The same policy was adopted, the same attempts to acquire a right to interfere in, and to regulate the concerns of the Irish chieftains.

We have seen that in the reign of Henry VIII. the territories and revenues of the powerful house of O'Neil, were curtailed, by ordering O'Donnel to be independent of him. This naturally produced discontent, but as the head of the sept was a man of feeble character, no war ensued: Of course another encroachment was made; and in the reign of Edward VI. Macguire, Roe, O'Neil, and several other chieftains, were declared independent of O'Neil, and the tribute (Bonnaught) paid to him, was seized on by the English government!

O'Donnel, too, who had been declared independent of O'Neil, found, like the horse who craved assistance from the man, that

a too powerful ally is not easily shaken off; for his dependants were also declared independent. The interference of the English government seemed now to be generally dreaded, as in this instance the dependants were forced into their independence, both parties being obliged to obey the order on pain of forfeiting their estates.

This system of breaking the dependencies, as it was called, of the Irish chieftains, was a very obvious means of lessening their power, and converting the nominal sovereignty, which the English held over them, into an actual one. Other means were also adopted.

Upon the death of a chieftain, the English took every opportunity of imposing their own rule of hereditary descent, in place of the Irish mode of election. By thus obtaining the power for a dependant of their own, they could either exercise an absolute dominion over him, or make him an instrument to oppose a more powerful rival.

Thus, on the death of Murrogh O'Brien, Earl of Thomond, the Baron of Ibracken, the next in succession by blood, was obliged by the sept to nominate a Tanist.