same authority by which the religious independence of this nation had been declared in the reign of Henry VIII., and the Six Articles enacted, by the same and by no other was the old religion restored under Mary; by the same and by no other was the Legatine authority of Cardinal Pole admitted and recognized. At the very outset of her reign Mary exalted to the primacy of Ireland, not Waucop the papal nominee, but Dowdall who had submitted to the royal supremacy in the reign of Henry VIII. In the earliest act* of her agreement with the Irish chief, Eugene Magennesse, captain and principal of his nation, it is expressly stipulated, next to his being the Queen's faithful subject, that he shall admit no "provisor from the Roman court." In the communications between her Council in England and that of Ireland+ she styled herself "Queen "of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, "and on earth Supreme Head of the Churches of England "and Ireland;" and in her proclamations she assumed the same authority. She issues her congé d'élire, sends her commission to archbishops and bishops whom they are to consecrate, just as her father had done; she leases out abbey lands "with their appurtenances, both spiritual " and temporal," to laymen, without a thought of their restoration.§ In the oath of the Deputy, Sussex, this clause is inserted: "Ye shall maintain and defend the "laws of God and the Christian faith, and, as far as their "Majesties' laws do or shall permit, the usages, rites, "ceremonies, and liberties of Holy Church "|| In answer

* Dec. 6, 1553. Carew, I. 247.

† 20 July 1553. Morrin, I. 304.

After her marriage she yielded more apparently to the Papal claims or else was drawn in that direction by the influence of Philip and by other causes. See Morrin's Calendar, I. 337, 339, 340, 377.

§ Morrin, ib., 319, 321, 372.

|| Morrin, ib., 378.

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to a request from the Earl of Tyrone that a chaplain of his might be established in the priory of the Cathedral Church of Down, for which he had obtained the Pope's bulls, she desires the Deputy to inform the said Earl "that we intend to maintain our prerogative left unto us by "our progenitors in that behalf."* With all her respect for the Pope, as the spiritual head of the Church, with all her desire of securing his approbation, with all her attachment to the old religion, it is quite clear that she never intended to abate or diminish that authority in ecclesiastical matters which her father and her brother had exercised before her. As their supremacy had been employed in maintaining "the rites, ceremonies, and liberties of the Church" conformably to their own interpretation of them, and that of the nation in their time, so hers is governed by similar considerations, but with different results.

On comparing the effects of Mary's government of Ireland with those of her immediate predecessor, it will be seen that, with the exception of the changes already mentioned, the state of that kingdom remained much the same. As English authority was not impaired in her hands, so also it was not materially advanced. In the Pale there was the same conflict of interests, which had always impeded the progress of order and of good government. Deputies and Councils did not work harmoniously together. Industry was depressed by heavy imposts. Theft and insubordination terrified the farmer, and drove him to abandon his land, or to follow the bad example of those around him. The scanty supply of labor compelled him to employ the native Irish, who made common cause with their countrymen, and not unfrequently betrayed their masters. Industry, regularity, and economy have not in general been

* July 6, 1558. Hamilton's Cal., I. 147.

considered as Irish virtues. It would have been little less than a marvel if they could have flourished at all in such a state of society and under such enormous disadvantages. But yet slowly and steadily, with many relapses, and in spite of heavy discouragements, the cause of order and good government was slowly making way. If any one will take the trouble to compare the condition of Ireland in Mary's reign with its condition under Henry VII., he will, I think, have little doubt upon this subject.

The same remark applies to the country outside the Pale. Ulster, governed by a native chief, and the focus of native independence, was no less turbulent than before. The disaffection of the province was continually fanned and kept alive by the incursions of the Scotch, the implacable enemies of England. It was impossible to maintain such an effective and vigilant guard along the sea-coast as should keep out Scotch volunteers, never reluctant to offer their services to Tyrone, and to recruit his exhausted mercenaries. It was the old Border warfare transferred from Northumberland to the Irish Seas. Always formidable to the English Deputies, it might have been more formidable still, had not the two allies been quite as ready to cut each other's throats as the throats of the English or of the Anglo-Irish settlers. Here, then, there was no improvement, and there did not seem to be hope of any. O'Neill and his numerous retainers, satisfied with an unlimited command of oatmeal, whisky, and "hairy butter," did not desire any change of condition which might have imposed upon them the disagreeable necessity of a more regular life, and entailed habits of industry incompatible with the dignity of an idle Irish gentleman. Such men had never worked, and never intended to work. Harassing their neighbours' cows, especially if those neighbours were Englishmen or under English protection,-stealing their

neighbours' corn, burning their houses or their farmsteads, carrying off their wives and their children, or leaving them to perish of hunger and nakedness,-these were adventures more agreeable to the restless humors of armed and needy retainers, whose love of mischief was stimulated by their idleness and their poverty. Not indeed that they had any special hatred of English rule beyond the restraint it necessarily imposed upon these habits,—or any pious and profound preference of the old to the new religious faith. They burnt churches as they burnt houses; they plundered the most orthodox priest with as little compunction as the most heretical Protestant.*

Of course no archbishop could reside in Ulster; churches and cathedrals fell equally into ruin. Papal nominees commanded no more respect than others. Perhaps the only ecclesiastic in the whole province who possessed any real authority was the Dean of Armagh, Shane O'Neill's brother, and his political correspondent with England.t

In Connaught and Munster matters wore a better aspect. The great chiefs of these provinces had Norman blood in their veins, and traced back their descent to the earliest conquerors of Ireland. The Burkes, the FitzGeralds, the Stantons, the Barretts, the Curcies, the Butlers, the Barries, and the FitzMorrises were, as their names import, of a distinct race from the native Irish. Though from long residence in Ireland they had become in many respects Hibernicis Hiberniores, they still retained some relics of Norman usages and of Norman sympathies. Adopting, for the most part, the disorderly habits of those among whom they lived, they practised" all kinds of Irish exactions and extortions;" consequently, like

See Appendix A. † See Appendix B.

Carew Cal. I., 335.

the native Irish, they paid little regard to law and order. But they were not so unwilling as the Irish to submit to those feudal usages which had paved the way for good and regular government in England. They accepted more readily the division of their country into shires. They abandoned more easily the use of tanistry, they consented to hold their honors and their estates of the English crown. They showed themselves less resolute in their defiance of the English Deputy. For these reasons they were regarded by the O'Neills and others of unmixed Irish descent as upstarts and usurpers, only one degree more tolerable than the degenerate English settlers of the Pale.

It is not pretended that they submitted implicitly to English authority, or that they allowed English reforms to be introduced into their countries without a struggle, or that their professions of obedience could be relied upon whenever their blood was stirred by real or imaginary wrongs. The slightest spark was sufficient to fan such inflammable materials into a flame. The love of mischief and the love of strife spread with the celerity of wild-fire to the neighbouring tribes; circle succeeded to circle, wave followed wave in ceaseless agitation, until country after country and province after province caught up the same wild and maddening infection. Cause or no cause, injury or no injury, it made no difference. It is provocation enough for an Irishman, if he sees Irishmen at fisticuffs, to take part in the fray. He joins in a quarrel as he joins in a funeral procession, without knowing or caring to analyse his motives; and he is often loudest in his grief and fiercest in his pugilism in proportion as he is ignorant of the person and the cause which has excited the one or pro

"They fight for their dinner, and many of them lose their heads before they be served with their suppers." Sydney to the Privy Council, Carew Cal., II. 52.