the other hand, the English consigned to a like destruction every house and habitation, and every rick and stack of corn, to which they came, to injure the Geraldines, so that, between them, the country was left one levelled plain, without corn or edifices."1 "Countless and indescribable were the injuries mutually done upon each other by the English and the Geraldines during this time."2 The Irish annalists who make these statements, though Roman Catholics themselves, condemn, in the strongest terms, the proceedings of the great southern rebel. Speaking of the year in which Desmond died, they tell how, "when the long nights had set in, the insurgents and robbers of Munster began to collect about him, and prepared to rekindle the torch of war. But God," say they, "thought it time to suppress, close, and finish this war of the Geraldines . . . . Were it not that he was given to plunder and insurrection, as he really was, this fate of the Earl of Desmond would have been one of the mournful stories of Ireland . . . . It was no wonder that the vengeance of God should exterminate the Geraldines for their opposition to their sovereign." The monks who bear this testimony evidently repudiated the idea that such men as the Earl of Desmond should be celebrated as martyrs for Catholicity.

We may often demur to the conclusions of these Irish annalists when they pronounce upon the spiritual significance of particular occurrences: but, in the fate of the Earl of Desmond, we feel bound to concur with them in recognizing the judgment of heaven. This great Anglo-Irish chief was alike ignorant and vindictive, cruel and unprincipled. By the rebellions of himself and his kinsmen, Ireland was involved in unutterable misery. The poet Spenser about this time settled in the country: and there is not perhaps in all history a more terrible picture than that of the state of Munster at the period before us drawn by his graphic pen. "Notwithstanding," says he, "that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have

1 O'Donovan's Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 1579, vol. v., p. 1723.

2 Ibid. A.D. 1580, vol. v., p. 1735.

3 Ibid. vol. v., pp. 1793, 1795, 1797.

thought they should have been able to stand long; yet, ere one year and a half, they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stony heart would have rued (mourned) the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glens, they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death; they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrions--happy where they could find them—yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very carcases they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and, if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; in short space there was none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast."1 "At this period," add the Irish annalists, "it was commonly said that the lowing of a cow, or the voice of the ploughman, could scarcely be heard from Dunqueen (the most western part of Kerry) to Cashel in Munster."2 "There hath died by famine only," said a high government official, "not so few as thirty thousand in this province in less than half a year, besides others that are hanged and killed." Munster was now in the lowest state of moral and spiritual degradation; superstition and crime were united in close fellowship and a large number of the chieftains were very little better than so many leaders of banditti. As any man of Christian feeling gazed on the melancholy scenes presented in the southern province, he could scarcely fail to recognise a most awful illustration of the truth that God "turneth a fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein."4

1 View of the State of Ireland, p. 166.

2 O'Donovan's Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 1582, vol. v., p. 1785.

3 Sir Warham St. Leger to Sir John Perrot, April 22nd, 1582. Froude, xi. 249. 4 Ps. cvii. 34.

CHAPTER V.

FROM THE DEATH OF THE EARL OF DESMOND TO THE

DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. A.D. 1583 TO A.D. 1603.

THE great religious awakening of the sixteenth century was inaugurated amidst scenes of martyrdom. In Scotland, Patrick Hamilton, and others who were the heralds of the Reformation, perished in the flames. Henry VIII. consigned to the same cruel fate those who refused to believe in the existence of purgatory, or who denied the dogma of transubstantiation. In the reign of Queen Mary, Cranmer and Ridley stand at the head of crowds of victims who were burnt to death for the profession of Protestantism. When we turn our eyes to the Continent about the same period, we behold still more appalling scenes. In the Low Countries, in Italy, and elsewhere, the demon of intolerance appears in hideous form and Romish priests are ever and anon presented to us as among the keenest bloodhounds of persecution. During the reign of Elizabeth some of the most awful tragedies recorded in the annals of human suffering were enacted in France and Spain. Who has not been told of the horrors of the Bartholomew massacre? Who does not know that Pope Gregory XIII.-the same who excommunicated the Queen of England and patronized James Fitzmaurice-heard with delight of the slaughter of the good Coligni and the Huguenots, and ordered a medal to be struck to commemorate the butchery? In the reign of Philip II., the Spanish Auto da Fè-where troops of heretics were committed to the fire-was an affair of frequent occurrence. The King and his Court were sometimes present at the

execution: the Auto was kept as a grand holiday and multitudes of onlookers gloated over the agony of the burning unbelievers in Romanism. Wherever the Pope had power, the Inquisition established its enginery of terror and the spirit of religious inquiry languished and expired in its dark dungeons.

In the time of Elizabeth there was nothing of this kind in Ireland. During the whole of her long reign not a single individual was burnt here for his religious opinions. We have seen that, soon after she ascended the throne, the Irish Parliament repealed the Statutes for the punishment of heretics. The bishops, the clergy, and other officials,1 who persisted in refusing to take the oath of Supremacy were liable to severe inflictions: but this oath was seldom rigorously pressed: and the Queen was willing to accept it with explanations which modified some of its most objectionable features. A fine of a shilling, for absence from the Protestant worship on the Lord's Day without some fair excuse, was the only penalty which the mass of the community could legally suffer for nonconformity: and even this was rarely

1 Brenan absurdly asserts that " every individual in the kingdom was commanded to come forward and acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of Elizabeth.” He quotes Peter Lombard as his authority for this statement. Brenan's Ecc. Hist. of Ireland, p. 407. Dublin, 1864. Lombard says nothing of the kind. His words are :-"Ab omnibus iis, qui ad officia publica assumuntur, sacramentum exigeretur.” -Commentarius, cap. xix. p. 115. There is clear evidence that Roman Catholics acted as judges and captains in this reign. In such cases the oath of Supremacy was dispensed with. See Kelly's Dissertations, pp. 316, 325. See also State Papers, by Brady, pp. 60, 61.

2 The Queen, early in her reign, published a series of injunctions, one of which related to the oath of supremacy. "Because," says Collier, "the oath of Supremacy had been misconstrued by several persons, as if the Kings or Queens of this realm had challenged 'an authority and power of ministry of Divine service in the Church,' the Queen disclaims the supremacy in this sense; and that Her Majesty neither does nor ever will challenge such authority: and that she intends to stretch the regale no farther than it was carried by King Henry VIII. and King Edward VI., and 'was of ancient time due to the imperial crown of this realm :' and how far this reached, the admonition proceeds to explain: and that is, 'under God to have the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born within these realms, dominions, and countries, either ecclesiastical or temporal, so as no foreign power ought to have any superiority over them." "-Ecc. History of Great Britain, vol. vi., 256-7.

exacted. With such facts before us, we may well be perplexed by certain statements put forward with great confidence in the pages of some Roman Catholic writers. A few of these representations may here be noticed.

"Unheard of cruelties," says one, "were committed on the inhabitants of Munster1 by the English commanders. Great companies of these natives, men, women, and children, were often forced into castles, and other houses, which were then set on fire; and if any of them attempted to escape from the flames, they were shot or stabbed by the soldiers who guarded them. It was a diversion to these monsters of men to take up infants on the points of their spears, and whirl them about in their agony-excusing their cruelty by saying that, if they were suffered to live, they would become popish rebels. Many of the women, too, were found hanging on trees, with their children at their breasts strangled with their mothers' hair."

This thrilling passage has been lately adduced to illustrate the "persecution of the Irish Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth." It professes to be taken from a work, written in the year 1600, by Peter Lombard, afterwards Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh.3 The author was then living in Rome :

1 That the reader may see how very loose and unreliable is this translation, we shall here give the original words of Lombard with the passage immediately preceding "Ita ut Jacobus Eustachius Vice-Comes Baltinglasii coactus fuerit in externas regiones occulte fugere, ubi et brevi postea obiit: Joannes et Jacobus Geraldini fratres Comitis Desmoniae, in pugna capti, tanquam perduelles in partes sunt discerpti: Comes ipse Geraldus Geraldinus dum latebras cogeretur quaerere insidiose caesus periit. Quibus pro Anglorum voto ita succedentibus, quamvis nulli jam restarent, qui eorum potentiae resistebant, non tamen illi desierunt in istorum proceres, propinquos, familiares, subditos quosque saevire, idque tam diris ac feris modis, ut sine horrore vix audiri possint aut narrari. Nam in quibus villis, castellis, pagis, plures adhuc superesse deprehenderant, ut compendiosae mortis genere eos tollerent, coactis omnibus sine ullo respectu aetatis, sexus, conditionis, meriti, in antiqua horrea, injecto igne sic inclusos extinxerunt," &c.—Commentarius, cap. xxiii., 145-6. Dublin, 1868.

2 Moran, Archbishops of Dublin, p. 121, professing to quote from Peter Lombard. Dublin, 1864. Dr. Moran is the nephew of Cardinal Cullen.

3 Peter Lombard was born in Waterford in 1554. In 1572 he went to Louvain, where he became professor of philosophy and theology. He was a man of considerable learning, and a keen Ultramontanist. See before, p. 388, note (1).