perpetually quarrelling and fighting among themselves, or with the English colonists, is described by the writer of the State paper-an Englishman, be it remembered. Labour was treated as disgraceful; the strongest and fiercest of the peasant class were picked out by the chiefs and trained to fight, and the weaker men were driven to the fields like beasts of burden, wretchedly fed and few in number, "supposed to be the most wretched specimens of human nature which could be found upon the globe." The author of the State paper of 1515 asks, “What common folk in all the world is so poor, so feeble, so evil beseen in town and field, so bestial, so greatly oppressed and trodden under foot, fares so evil, with so great misery, and with so wretched life, as the common folk of Ireland? What pity is here, what ruth is to report, there is no tongue that can tell, no person that can write. It passeth far the orators and muses all to show the order of the nobles, and how cruel they entreateth the poor common people. What danger it is to the King against God to suffer his land, whereof he bears the charge and the cure temporal, to be in the said misorder so long without remedy. It were more honour to surrender his claim thereto, and to make no longer prosecution thereof, than to suffer his poor subjects always to be so oppressed, and all the nobles of the land to be at war within themselves, always shedding of Christian blood without remedy. The herd must render account for his fold, and the King for his."

This was bold speaking, but perhaps none the less on that account acceptable to the clear-headed and energetic young King, who seems to have thought that the Irish problem, as perplexing then as now, might be solved by wise government and the exercise of justice. He was not, probably, of opinion that the animosity and opposition of the Irish chiefs was absolutely insurmountable, although the writer of the report had arrived at the conclusion, "If the King were as wise as Solomon the Sage, he should never subdue the wild Irish to his obedience without dread of the sword and of the might and strength of his power. As long as they may resist and save their lives, they will not obey the King."

THE EARL OF SURREY AS DEPUTY.

27

The Earl of Kildare, and his son who succeeded him in the office of Deputy, as the representative of royalty in Ireland was then named, cared little for the well-being of the country, so long as they could add to their own wealth and influence; and in 1520, the King deprived the Earl of his office, and sent a very able man, the Earl of Surrey, to succeed him. He had direction to invite the Irish chiefs to meet him, to hear their statement of grievances, and to "declare unto them the great decay, ruin, and desolation of that commodious and fertile land, for lack of politic governance and good justice, which can never be brought in order unless the unbridled sensualities of insolent folk be brought under the rule of the laws. For realms without justice be but tyrannies and robberies, more consonant to beastly appetites than to the laudable life of reasonable creatures." If the laws were too rigorous, they should be moderated, and the Earl was to impress on the chiefs the necessity of conforming to them. But the Earl of Kildare had been beforehand, for he had addressed letters to O'Carroll (and perhaps some other Irish chiefs), inflaming him against English rule, and desiring him "when any English deputy shall come thither, do your best to make war upon Englishmen there." The Irish chiefs were not willing to come to the Earl in peace, but quite ready to come in war. O'Neile, O'Carroll, O'Connor, O'Brien, and others, broke out into simultaneous rebellion; and Surrey wrote urgently to the King, telling him that if Ireland was to be subdued, it must be in the way in which Wales was conquered, by the sword, and that afterwards it must be kept in order by the erection of strong castles in all parts of Ireland. The King was not then in a position to undertake a costly and perilous expedition; and Surrey, left to his own resources, gained a few small successes, and then asked for and obtained his recall, leaving the country to the mercy of Kildare, who had fascinated Henry VIII., as his father had fascinated Henry VII., had, like his father, been helped to a wealthy wife, and, like his father, been sent back to Ireland to govern as he chose. It was characteristic of the man that he at once prepared for revolt against the English Crown.

One of the sources of evil in Ireland clearly perceived by Henry VIII.,

and which has been active ever since his time, was "absenteeism." In England, and in the chief countries of the Continent, the feudal system bound the noble to the lands which he possessed; but in Ireland the descendants of the first invaders regarded their inheritance as a possession the management of which they might depute to agents, receiving the revenues and spending them out of the country. The peasantry on such estates, oppressed by middlemen, were willing to accept the protection of the chiefs of the old race. In some cases the land had descended to heiresses, who married into English families; and in other cases estates had been forfeited to the English Crown and granted to favourites. By an Absentee Act passed in 1536, the receiving of rents by absentees was treated as a crime, and English nobles, who either by marriage or descent had become possessed of estates on which they were unable to reside, were expected to grant such estates to other persons, able and willing to reside on them. The Act recited that "the King's land of Ireland hath principally grown into ruin, dissolution, rebellion, and decay," by reason of absenteeism; and the King, with the consent of Parliament, pronounced forfeited the estates of all absentee proprietors, and “their right and title gone."

When Henry VIII. had effected the Reformation in this country, he saw no reason why the Irish Church should not be as Protestant as the English. The Irish ecclesiastics, however, and the Irish people tooboth the Anglo-Irish and the "wild Irish”—had their own opinions on the matter. Dr. Browne, a convert to Protestantism, formerly an Augustinian friar, was appointed Archbishop of Dublin, and made. known the contents of a letter sent to him by Thomas Cromwell, in the King's name. This official document announced "the royal will and pleasure of his Majesty, that his subjects in Ireland, even as those in England, should obey his commands in spiritual matters as in temporal, and renounce their allegiance to the see of Rome." But Dr. Browne soon found, to use his own phrase, that "the common people of this isle are more zealous in their blindness than the saints and martyrs were in truth." The Archbishop of Armagh was a for

SALE OF CHURCH LANDS.

29

midable opponent, "laying a curse on the people whosoever should own his Highness's supremacy, saying that the isle as it is in the Irish chronicles, insula sacra-belongs to none but the Bishop of Rome, and that it was the Bishop of Rome who gave it to the King's ancestors."

A Parliament was summoned in 1536, and several bills were introduced. One declared the King to be supreme head of the Church in Ireland; another prohibited appeals to Rome; another ordered first-fruits and twentieth parts to be paid to the King; and another abolished the authority of the Pope. To the Parliament, however, the ecclesiastics were entitled to send proctors, and these proctors so vehemently opposed the propositions that the bills could never have become Acts if a ready expedient had not been discovered, and that was not allowing the proctors to vote. So, as far as Parliament could do it, the King was supreme, and the Anglo-Irish nobles and gentlemen—or many of them-made no objection to the supremacy, for they scented, not very far off, a confiscation of Church property. Very soon the Church lands were sold to the highest bidder, or bestowed as a reward on favourites and powerful persons who had curried favour with the King or his deputy. In 1541 a Parliament held in Dublin conferred the title of King of Ireland on Henry.

In the short reign of Edward VI. efforts to establish the royal supremacy were continued, but so far as the majority of the clergy and the mass of the people were concerned, with little success. On Easter Sunday, 1551, the liturgy was read for the first time in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin; and almost immediately afterwards the primacy of all Ireland was annexed to the see of Dublin by Act of Parliament. The Reformers had obviously reason on their side when they objected to the service of the Church being conducted in Latin, which was not "understanded of the people;" but they scarcely mended matters by insisting on the use of the English language, almost equally unintelligible to the great bulk of the Celtic and Anglo-Irish population. When Mary, a Catholic, became Queen, there was another reverse. Archbishop Browne, and Bishops Staples of Meath, Lancaster

of Kildare, and Travers of Leighlin, were removed, and two others fled beyond the seas. When the news of Edward's death reached Ireland, bells were rung, and processions of Roman Catholics paraded the streets of Kilkenny, chanting and flinging about incense and holy water. Five years afterwards Mary was in her grave, and once more the sovereign and government were Protestant. A Parliament was held in Dublin on the 12th of January, 1560, composed of seventy-six members, contributed by ten counties and towns in which the royal authority was predominant. Carefully selected as it was, however, the Parliament contained a majority who made no secret of their intention to oppose the change of religion, and the penal code which would be enacted to enforce it. The Earl of Sussex, the Deputy, had recourse to stratagem, and prorogued the House for about three weeks; then, on the first day of meeting, when few were present (travelling was very difficult and uncertain in those times), forced the Bill through, obtaining a majority by solemnly swearing that the law should never be carried into execution, having no intention, however, to observe this oath, for he had positive instructions from Elizabeth to have the law passed. A convocation of bishops was also assembled by the Queen's command, "for establishing the Protestant religion;" but as very nearly all the bishops were Catholics, having neither accepted the Reformed Prayer-book nor abjured the authority of the Pope, very little was effected.

Very soon began the persecutions. Abbots and priests were put to death-hanged and quartered-for saying the mass; monks, friars, and lay brothers were slaughtered—one at the altar of his own church; and others died from the effects of imprisonment and torture in Dublin Castle. Loftus, the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, advised that the Anglo-Irish nobles should be "sharply dealt with," and fined "in a good round sum," because they were Catholics. Sir John Perrot, one of the military commanders, killed fifty persons, and arranged their heads as a trophy in the public square of Kilmallock; and he advised the Queen that "friars, monks, Jesuits, priests, nuns, and such-like vermin, who openly upheld the Papacy, should be executed