Daniel O'Brien was appointed to this dignity, but was obliged to relinquish it by the interference of the English; and Leland relates that this was the cause (not because he was a Catholic) of the sanguinary and successful war which he afterwards waged against the English.

An attempt was made by the English government to undermine the power of another dynasty by the same means.

The great Con O'Neil had been persuaded by Henry VIII. to accept an English title, the Earldom of Tirowen, which the English chose to consider as a species of enlisting, that ever after made the chieftain subject to military discipline. The title and the principality were entailed on an illegitimate son. This, of course, was a very obnoxious proceeding to the legitimate sons, and to the whole sept, and the power of the bastard, Matthew, rested entirely on the support of the English. He, feeling this, in order to pay his court, turned informer against his father, who was seized and imprisoned. Shane O'Neil, the legitimate son, invaded the bastard's territory. The latter, supported by the Lord Deputy,

took the field; the armies met, and Shane O'Neil obtained a complete victory. Yet the deep enmity which Shane ever after retained against the English, has seriously been brought as a proof of the bigotry of the Catholic religion!

It is plain that the resentment and jealousy of the Irish chieftains on account of these encroachments, must have been in exact proportion to their power and independence. The only right which the English could claim so to interfere, was either from force or from custom. That they did not possess a force adequate to the object is clear. The military strength of the English, at the beginning of the reign of Edward VI. does not appear to have exceeded 3000 men, and these were almost entirely Catholics. The extent of territory which the English possessed was contemptible, being confined to the little district of the Pale, and a few sea-port towns; for, we read, that Sir Edward Bellingham was the first man since the time of Edward III. that enlarged the English territory beyond the Pale: so that the English government, from the time of Edward III. until the

reign of Edward VI. had not even the right to the monarchy of Ireland which flows from possession, but were like the rest of the chieftains, merely Lords of a provincial district.

Neither could the English claim from custom any right of controlling the different interests of the Irish chieftains. For even these encroachments were made under indirect pretences, while apparently the Irish princes, and even the degenerate English chieftains, were left in a prescriptive enjoyment of their savage independence, and their mutual feuds. What can be a more striking proof than that they retained the right of making war, peace, and treaties, without any dread or expectation of the Lord Deputy's interference? not to go farther back than the reign we are speaking of for instances, we find that "Manus O'Donnel fought a pitched battle with Calvagh O'Donnel, in Ulster, on the 7th of February, 1547."

"In Lower Delvin, Mac Maklin and Fally, with their united forces, invaded the country of the M'Coughlans.”

"The Earl of Thomond was at open war with his uncle, notwithstanding the Lord Deputy had used his good offices to unite them."

"Richard Burke was at variance with the sons of Thomas Burke: Richard was taken prisoner, and many of his men slain.'

"Nor were the contests less violent between Richard Earl of Clanricarde, and John Burke. The Earl besieged John's castle, but Daniel O'Bryan came to John's relief, and forced the Earl to raise the siege."

From these circumstances it is plain, that the Irish chieftains in the reign of Edw. VI. could not be expected, either from motives of prudence or right, to esteem themselves subjects to the English; and Leland is guilty of a gross misapplication of modern ideas to former times, when he talks of the disloyalty of the Irish chieftains. They were not at that time subjects either de jure or de facto.

Their submission was merely feudal, and nominal: and consequently when the English wilfully perverted this nominal acknowledgement of sovereignty into an actual

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enforcement of subjection-when they proceeded to interfere with the internal arrangement of each chieftain's petty empire -to release his actual subjects from their allegiance to destroy his revenues, and alter or abrogate the laws of his nation, and particularly the laws of succession, can we not see sufficient reasons for his opposing the English (or if you will call it so, rebelling) without referring to a cause which does not appear to have existed, namely, the Catholic hatred of Protestantism?

The English practised towards the Irish chieftains exactly that species of fraud which is frequent in bargains, when one party enforces his own sense of the terms, although he is aware that the other party never understood the terms in that sense.

The Irish chieftains submitted as feudal princes; the English knew that they did so, but they chose to understand that the Irish submitted as subjects. Like all men, conscious of duplicity, they acted with. inconsistency. Though they began to cal the Irish chieftains rebels, they felt they were not so; and whenever these chief