"And whereas to encourage you to engage in this service with greater `alacrity, we granted to all the contrite and confessed, who should follow the aforesaid General James and his army, the champion and defender of the Catholic faith, and who should join themselves to him, or support his cause in this expedition, by their Counsel, Countenance, Military Stores, Arms, and other necessaries of war, or in any manner whatsoever, a plenary pardon and remission of all their sins, and the same privileges which have been usually bestowed by the Popes of Rome cn persons setting out to the war with the Turks, and for the recovery of the Holy Land;

"And whereas further, tidings have been recently received by us, not without deep distress of mind on our part, that the aforesaid James in a valiant encounter with the enemy, (as it hath pleased the Lord,) hath been slain; and that our beloved son, John Geraldine, his kinsman, (of exemplary piety and heroism, which are to be attributed to God, whose cause is at issue,) hath succeeded to him in this expedition, and hath already performed many valiant deeds in his worthy struggle for the Catholic faith; We therefore, in the strongest manner of which we are capable, exhort, require, and urge you in the Lord, all and singular, to study to aid the said General John and his army, against the aforesaid heretics, by every means in your power, according to the admonitions hich we addressed to you for the regulation of your conduct toward the said James while he was yet alive.

"For We, in dependance on the mercy of Almighty God, and the authority of Blessed Peter and Paul his Apostles, do grant and by these presents bestow on all and singular of you, who having confessed and communicated, shall do the things contained in the letter aforesaid, for the said John and his army, or who, after his death, (in case it should perchance happen, which God vouchsafe to avert,) shall adhere to and favour his brother James, the same plenary indulgence and remission of your sins, as persons obtain who engage in the war against the Turks and for the recovery of the Holy Land; these privileges to continue in force so long as the said brothers John and James shall survive.

"But inasmuch as it would be difficult for these our letters to come to the notice of all who may be concerned in them, our pleasure is, that the

printed copies of them also, after having been subscribed by the hand of a Notary Public, and stamped with the seal of a Church dignitary, shall be received every where with the same full and implicit confidence as if these presents had been exhibited or shewn.

"Given at St. Peter's, Rome, under the seal of the Fisherman, May 13, 1580, in the eighth year of our Pontificate.

"CES. GLORIERIUS."

The above bull is taken from O'Sullevan's "Compendium of the [R.] Catholic History of Ireland;" (Tom. 2. Lib. iv. cap. 17.) and it may also be seen in the " 'History of Romish Treasons by Henry Foulis. B.D." London, 1681, page 306.

No. III.

SIMILAR BULL OF POPE CLEMENT VIII. EXCITING THE IRISH TO JOIN IN THE REBELLION OF HUGH O'NEILL.-A.D. 1600.

"To All and Singular, our Venerable brethren, the Archhishops, Bishops, and Prelates; also to our beloved children, the Princes, Earls, Barons, and People of the Kingdom of Ireland, Health and Apostolical Benediction.

"WHEREAS We have learned, that in pursuance of the exhortations addressed to you this sometime past, by the Popes of Rome our predecessors, and by ourselves and the Apostolic see, for the recovering of your liberty, and the defence and preservation of it against the heretics, you have with united hearts and efforts, followed, and supplied with aid and assistance, first JAMES GERALDINE, of worthy memory, (who exerted himself to the best of his power with most spirited resolution, so long as he lived, to shake off the cruel yoke of slavery imposed upon you by the English deserters from the Holy Roman Church;) after that, JOHN GERALDINE. kinsman of the said James; and most recently our beloved son, the noble Lord HUGH, PRINCE O'NEILL, styled Earl Tyrone, Baron of Dungannon, and Captain General of the Catholic army in Ireland: and Whereas further we learn that the Generals themselves and their soldiers, have in

progress of time, the hand of the Lord of Hosts assisting them, performed very many noble exploits in valiant combat with the enemy, and are still ready for the like hereafter;

"WE therefore, (to encourage you, and the General, and soldiers aforesaid, to exert yourselves with the more alacrity for the time to come likewise, to put your shoulder to this expedition against the aforesaid heretics,) desiring to bestow upon you spiritual graces and favours, after the example set us by our predecessors aforesaid, and in dependance on the mercy of Almighty God, and the authority of Blessed Peter and Paul, his Apostles, Do mercifully grant in the Lord, to all of you and singular, (if truly penitent and confessed, and likewise refreshed with the Holy Communion, if it be possible,) who shall follow the aforesaid General Hugh and his army, the asserters and champions of the Catholic faith, and who shall join yourselves to them, or give them help in this expedition by Counsel, Countenance, Military Stores, Arms, and other implements of war, or in any manner whatsoever; and also to the said General Hugh and his soldiers all and singular, we grant, a plenary pardon and remission of all their sins, and the same indulgences as have been usually allowed by the Popes of Rome to persons setting out for the war against the Turks, and for the recovery of the Holy Land: our decretals concerning the not granting of indulgences in such form, and on the occasion of receiving the Jubilee year's indulgences, and any other apostolic constitutions and ordinances to the contrary, (if this be requisite) notwithstanding.

"But inasmuch as it would be difficult for these our presents to come to the knowledge of all who may be concerned in them; our will is, that the printed copies of them also, having been subscribed by the hand of a Notary Public, and confirmed by the seal of a Church Dignitary, shall be received every where with the same reliance on their authority, as would be placed in these presents.

* Given at St. Peter's, Rome, under the seal of the Fisherman, April 18, 1600, in the ninth year of our Pontificate.

"M. VESTRIUS BARBIANUS."

The above bull is taken from Collier's Church History; see the collection of Records at the end of that work. No. 97.

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE OF THE CASE OF ELEVEN PRIESTS CONFINED IN NEWGATE FOR NOT RENOUNCING THE POPE'S PRETENDED DEPOSING POWER, AND FOR REFUSING TO TAKE THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE TO KING JAMES 1. TAKEN FROM THE WRITINGS OF DR. O'Conor, COLUMBANUS, NO. 6. [The reader will bear in mind that this author was a Roman Catholic priest.]

"Of all the transactions of the seventeenth century, that which, next to the Irish massacre, most injured our ancestors, and led to overwhelm their posterity by the penal code, was the rejection of the Irish remonstrance, and king James's test of allegiance, in compliance with the injunctions of Rome. The second order of our clergy who were not immediately under Italian influence, [i.e. in the seventeenth century, and according to Dr. O'Conor's views,] felt it their duty to subscribe these tests, and several wrote invincibly in their defence. But the sworn delegates of the Roman court issued their suspensions ordering them rather to submit to martyrdom for the Catholic faith.

King James's invincible defence of the oath of allegiance, was now overwhelmed by a religious cry. The works of the Jesuits Bellarmine and Suarez against it, were extolled as masterpieces of Catholicity, and the deposing doctrines were rammed down the throats of the English [R.] Catholics, without the least modification throughout a period of one hundred and eighty-three years.

"There is yet extant a petition to pope Paul V., signed by eleven priests, who were under sentence of death in Newgate, for refusing James's oath in 1612. Two of their companions had already suffered death for this offence. They died in resistance to legitimate authority, and by the instigation of a foreign power.

"In their petition they entreat of his Holiness by all that is sacred, to attend to their horrible situation, and they beg of him to point out to them clearly, in what the oath, for which they were condemned to die, is repugnant to Catholic faith. But yet, influenced by the courtly maxims, they declare their belief in his unlimited power, and they conclude with a solemn protest of blind submission to all his decrees, with an obedience

as implicit as if Rome were another Mecca, or as if the Vatican were the Seraglio of a Mahomet.

"My heart swells with mingled emotions of pity on one side, and horror and indignation on another, when I contemplate the dilemma in which those wretched men were thus placed, by the pride and ambition of their superiors! Before them was Tyburn, behind them stood armed with fulminating thunders and terrors, that grim disgrace, in the opinion of their flocks, by which they would be overwhelmed as apostates, if they opposed the mandates of Rome! On one side conscience stared them in the face, with St. Paul*-on another, a Vicar-Apostolic menaced refusal of the Sacrament, even on the eve of death!-This covered them with ignominy as apostates-that though frightful to humanity, was yet attended with posthumous renown.

"Religion indignantly wraps herself up in her shroud of deepest mourning, before the idol of Ecclesiastical domination, when she observes the Roman Court sacrificing to its insatiable ambition, the lives of so many heroes, who were worthy of a better fate! perverting sacraments which were instituted for the salvation of souls into engines of worldly passions, and rendering them subservient to the policy of those passions, and panders to their intrigues.

"I can fancy a haughty pontiff on receipt of this humble petition, agitated by contending difficulties: I can fancy him seated under a crimson canopy, surrounded by his sycophants, debating in a secret consistory, whether those unfortunate men shall, or shall not, have permission not be hanged! The blood of the innocent was now to be shed, or the deposing and absolving doctrines, and at the Bulls and decisions in their favour, to receive a deadly wound, which no ingenuity could parry, no force could avert, and no skill could cure.

"Barrister theologues of the Poddle! Blushing beauties of Maynooth! Do let us hear what middle course you would have devised in such existing circumstances !-In the dedication of one of your hodgepodges to Dr. Troy, you declare that whatever opinion he dictates, that opinion is yours. A fortiori your opinions would have been shaped by those of Pope Paul V., who deliberately encouraged the unfortunate priests in Newgate *Romans xiii.