the rebellions of this reign Romish ecclesiastics figure conspicuously. Many of the bishops spent far more time in intriguing at foreign courts than in attending to their duties at home. During the rebellion of O'Neill, Matthew De Oviedo, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, came over from Spain with an invading army. He thus only followed the example of others who had preceded him not long before.2 These men were willing to compass sea and land either to make converts or to organize revolution. Their whole course of life attested that they quite misapprehended the duties of Christ's ministers; and yet they had "a form of godliness" which imposed on a credulous and unenlightened generation. Though many of them could indulge without any compunction in drunkenness, lying, revenge, perfidy, and profane swearing, they laboured with wonderful industry to make the people acquainted with the peculiar rites and forms of Popery; they laid much stress on crossings, genuflexions, and the invocation of saints; they observed fasts; they went on pilgrimages; and they heard confessions with unwearied diligence. If the people could not see in them the beauty of holiness, they could scarcely fail to discern the zeal of fanaticism.3 Their efforts for the maintenance of their Church rebuked the apathy of the Protestant clergy. The author of the Fairy Queen now lived in the south of the kingdom; and as he contemplated the conduct of most of the ministers around him who professed his creed, he could not but deplore how sadly Protestantism was betrayed, misrepresented, and dishonoured. He had no confidence in the doctrine that, in a country like Ireland, the sword was to make way for the Gospel. The harsh treatment of the poor natives-who, in

1 In September 1601. See before, p. 387. This was at least the second occasion on which Oviedo entered the country in a hostile manner. He came over with Fitzmaurice in 1579. See Moran's Archbishops of Dublin, pp. 195, 197. See before, p. 422.

3 The people are represented by Spenser as in the lowest depths of ignorance. "They be all Papists by their profession, but in the same so blindly and brutishly informed, for the most part, that not one amongst a hundred knoweth any ground of religion, or any article of his faith, but can perhaps say his Pater Noster, or his Ave Maria, without any knowledge or understanding what one word thereof meaneth."- View of the State of Ireland, p. 137.

obedience to the exhortations of their priests and the commands of their feudal lords, adhered to their religion, and fought, as they were taught to believe, for its preservation— inspired him at once with pity and disgust. Whilst the people were left destitute of an able and devoted ministry, he saw clearly the absurdity of attempting to extinguish Romanism by excluding its professors from civil offices, by exacting fines for non-attendance on Protestant worship, and by other such political appliances. "In planting of religion thus much is needful to be observed," says he, "that it be not sought forcibly to be impressed into them with terror and sharp penalties-as now is the manner-but rather delivered and intimated with mildness and gentleness, so as it may not be hated before it be understood, and their professors despised and rejected. And therefore it is expedient that some discreet ministers of their own countrymen be sent over amongst them, which by their meek persuasions and instructions, as else by their sober lives and conversations, may draw them, first to understand, and afterwards to embrace, the doctrine of their salvation. For if the ancient godly fathers, which first converted them, when they were infidels, to the faith, were able to pull them from idolatry and paganism to the true belief in Christ-as Saint Patrick and Saint Columbhow much more easily shall godly teachers bring them to the true understanding of that which they already professed? Wherein it is great wonder to see the odds which is between the zeal of Popish priests and the ministers of the gospel; for they spare not to come out of Spain, from Rome, and from Rheims, by long toil and dangerous travelling hither, where they know peril of death awaiteth them, and no reward of riches is to be found, only to draw the people unto the Church of Rome; whereas, some of our idle ministers, having a way for credit and estimation thereby opened unto them, and having the livings of the country offered unto them, without pains and without peril, will neither for the same, nor any love of God, nor zeal of religion, nor for all the good they may do, by winning souls to God, be drawn forth from their warm nests to look out into God's harvest, which is even ready for the sickle, and all the fields yellow long ago: doubt

less those good old godly fathers will, I fear me, rise up in the day of judgment to condemn them."1

When we find such facts vouched by a pious and intelligent adherent of the Reformed faith who had the best means of information, we can well understand why Irish Protestantism so languished in the days of Queen Elizabeth.

1 View of the State of Ireland, pp. 253-5.

CHAPTER VI.

THE REIGN OF JAMES I. A.D. 1603 TO A.D. 1625.

THE accession of King James of Scotland to the English throne was hailed with cordial satisfaction by the native Irish; and, at the commencement of his reign, he stood high in their estimation. According to their views, it was no slight recommendation to him that some of his remote ancestors had flourished in their own green isle, and that he traced his descent from a long line of Hibernian monarchs.1 The Roman Catholics had been led to believe that the son of Mary Stuart-so long the hope of their Church-was not unfriendly to their religion.2 Acting under this impression, or determined at all hazards to make an effort in favour of their creed, they no sooner heard of Elizabeth's demise than they proceeded to restore their worship in all its splendour in a number of the leading towns of Leinster and Munster.3 The priests, arrayed in official costume, appeared accordingly in public, walking ostentatiously in processions: the monas

1 See Cambrensis Eversus, iii. 53-67.

2 Before his elevation to the English throne he had been coquetting with the Pope, and endeavouring to persuade the Romish party that he was not indisposed to look with favour on the religion of his mother. See An Historical and Critical Account of his Life and Writings, by William Harris. London, 1772, pp. 19, 29, 104.

3 Though the open country had been sadly desolated by the wars of Desmond aud O'Neill, many of the towns of Munster had meanwhile been enriched. Large sums of money had been sent there from England to pay the soldiers, and the inhabitants sold provisions to the belligerents at exorbitant prices. See Pacata Hibernia, Part i., p. 196.

teries, which had been converted to civil uses, were seized and re-occupied; and mass was celebrated in churches from which the legal ministers were expelled.1 But the LordDeputy Mountjoy promptly interfered, and repressed these symptoms of insubordination. Marching southwards, he found the gates of Waterford closed against him; and the inhabitants-who pleaded the provisions of a charter of King John-at first refused to admit his soldiers. His menacesto which his well-known decision of character imparted a most emphatic significance-soon induced them to give way. A strong garrison was stationed in their city; they renounced all foreign jurisdiction; and once more recognized the ascendency of Protestantism. Cork, Cashel, Clonmel, Limerick, and other towns in which Romanism had been re-established, were intimidated, and restored to submission. Immediately afterwards, an Act of oblivion and indemnity was published, announcing a free pardon to all who had committed offences against the Crown until the time of his Majesty's accession; liberating the whole of the Irish "churls," or peasantry, from the capricious tyranny of the chieftains; and admitting them, on the same terms as the other subjects of the kingdom, to the protection and benefits of the constitution.2

This Act of oblivion and indemnity was well fitted to promote social order; but the question of religion continued to create perplexity and confusion. The Irish Protestant Establishment still presented a melancholy spectacle. Al

1 Leland, ii. 413. Fynes Moryson's History of Ireland, ii. 317, 322. An account of the proceedings at Waterford and elsewhere, by James White, Vicar Apostolic of Waterford and Lismore, who himself acted a prominent part on the occasion, may be found in Duffy's Irish Catholic Magazine, vol. ii. 271-275, 296302. Dublin, 1848. White states that, after the Romanists had been obliged to give up the churches, "the priests celebrated low and solemn masses with full liberty in private houses, preached to the people, and discharged all the other functions of their holy ministry," down to the date of his departure from Ireland on the 18th of November, 1603. It appears that White at this time, when referring publicly to the demise of Elizabeth, informed the citizens that "Jezebel was dead." King, p. 851. Respecting White, see also Leland, ii. 415, note MacNevin's Confis. of Ulster, p. 14, note.

' Cox, Part ii. 8; Leland, ii. 416.