Part 36 (2/2)

The official list of the members summoned to this Parliament, has been recently published by the Irish Archaeological Society. More than two-thirds of the upper house were persons of whose devotion to the Catholic faith there has been no question; there were but few members in the lower house. No county in Ulster was allowed a representative, and only one of its borough towns, Carrickfergus, was permitted to elect a member. Munster furnished twenty members. No county members were allowed in Connaught, and it had only two boroughs, Galway and Athenry, from which it could send a voice to represent its wishes. The remaining fifty members were chosen from a part of Leinster. In fact, the Parliament was const.i.tuted on the plan before-mentioned. Those who were considered likely to agree with the Government, were allowed to vote; those of whose dissent there could be no doubt, were not allowed a voice in the affairs of the nation.

It might be supposed that, with the exception of a few members of the upper house, such a Parliament would at once comply with the Queen's wishes; but the majority made no secret of their intention to oppose the change of religion, and the penal code which should be enacted to enforce it. The Deputy was in an unpleasant Position. Elizabeth would not easily brook the slightest opposition to her wishes. The Deputy did not feel prepared to encounter her anger, and he determined to avoid the difficulty, by having recourse to a most unworthy stratagem. First, he prorogued the house from the 11th of January to the 1st of February, 1560; and then took advantage of the first day of meeting, when but few members were present, to get the Act pa.s.sed; secondly, he solemnly swore that the law should never be carried into execution, and by this false oath procured the compliance of those who still hesitated. I shall give authority for these statements.

The letter of Elizabeth, with her positive instructions to have the law pa.s.sed, was dated October 18, 1559, and may be seen _in extenso_ in the _Liber Munerum Hibernia_, vol. i. p.113. There are several authorities for the dishonest course pursued by the Lord Deputy. The author of _Cambrensis Eversus_ says: ”The Deputy is said to have used force, and the Speaker treachery. I heard that it had been previously announced in the house that Parliament would not sit on that very day on which the laws against religion were enacted; but, in the meantime, a private summons was sent to those who were well known to be favourable to the old creed.”[408] Father George Dillon, who died in 1650, a martyr to his charity in a.s.sisting the plague-stricken people of Waterford, gives the following account of the transaction: ”James Stanihurst, Lord of Corduff, who was Speaker of the lower house, by sending private summons to some, without any intimation to the more respectable Irish who had a right to attend, succeeded in carrying that law by surprise. As soon as the matter was discovered, in the next full meeting of Parliament, there was a general protest against the fraud, injustice, and _deliberate treachery_ of the proceeding; but the Lord Justice, having solemnly sworn that the law would never be carried into execution, the remonstrants were caught in the dexterous snare, and consented that the enactment should remain on the statute-book.”[409] Dr. Rothe corroborates these statements, and records the misfortunes which followed the Speaker's family from that date.[410] Dr. Moran[411] has very acutely observed, that the day appointed for the opening of Parliament was the festival of St. Brigid, which was always kept with special solemnity in Ireland; therefore, the orthodox members would probably have absented themselves, unless informed of some business which absolutely required their attendance.

The Loftus MS., in Marsh's Library, and Sir James Ware, both mention the positive opposition of the Parliament to pa.s.s this law, and the mission of the Earl of Suss.e.x to consult her Majesty as to what should be done with the refractory members. If he then proposed the treachery which he subsequently carried out, there is no reason to suppose her Majesty would have been squeamish about it, as we find she was quite willing to allow even more questionable methods to be employed on other occasions.

The Loftus MS. mentions a convocation of bishops which a.s.sembled this year, ”by the Queen's command, for establis.h.i.+ng the Protestant religion.” The convocation was, if possible, a greater failure than the Parliament. If the bishops had obeyed the royal command, there would have been some record of their proceedings; but until the last few years, when the _ipse dixit_ of certain writers was put forward as an argument--for proof it cannot be called--that the Irish Catholic bishops had conformed to the Protestant religion, so wild a theory was not even hazarded. It would be impossible here to go into details and proofs of the nonconformity of each bishop. The work has been already undertaken, with admirable success, by an Anglican clergyman.[412] I shall, however, give some of the impediments offered to the progress of the Reformation in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and of the cruel persecutions which were inflicted on those who dared to wish for liberty to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d according to their conscience.

Notwithstanding the solemn promise of the Lord Deputy, the penal statutes against Catholics were carried out. In 1563 the Earl of Ess.e.x issued a proclamation, by which all priests, secular and regular, were forbidden to officiate, or even to reside in Dublin. Fines and penalties were strictly enforced for absence from the Protestant service; before long, torture and death were inflicted. Priests and religious were, as might be expected, the first victims. They were hunted into mountains and caves; and the parish churches and few monastic chapels which had escaped the rapacity of Henry VIII., were sacrificed to the sacrilegious emissaries of Elizabeth. Curry gives some account of those who suffered for the faith in this reign. He says: ”Among many other Roman Catholic bishops and priests, there were put to death for the exercise of their function in Ireland, Globy O'Boyle, Abbot of Boyle, and Owen O'Mulkeran, Abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, hanged and quartered by Lord Grey, in 1580. John Stephens suffered the same punishment from Lord Burroughs, for saying Ma.s.s, in 1597; Thady O'Boyle was slain in his own monastery at Donegal; six friars were slain at Moynihigan; John O'Calyhor and Bryan O'Freeor were killed at their monastery in Ulster, with Felimy O'Hara, a lay brother. Eneus Penny was ma.s.sacred at the altar of his own parish church, Killagh. Fourteen other priests died in Dublin Castle, either from hard usage, or the violence of torture.”

Dr. Adam Loftus, the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, was one of the most violent persecutors of the Catholics. In his first report to the Queen, dated May 17th, 1565, he describes the n.o.bility of the Pale as all devoted to the ancient creed; and he recommends that they should be fined ”in a good round sum,” which should be paid to her Majesty's use, and ”sharply dealt withal.”[413] An original method of conversion, certainly! But it did not succeed. On the 22nd of September, 1590, after twenty-five years had been spent in the fruitless attempt to convert the Irish, he writes to Lord Burleigh, detailing the causes of the general decay of the Protestant religion in Ireland, and suggesting ”how the same may be remedied.” He advises that the ecclesiastical commission should be put in force, ”for the people are poor, and fear to be fined.”

He requests that he and such commissioners as are ”well affected in religion, may be permitted to imprison and fine all such as are obstinate and disobedient;” and he has no doubt, that ”within a short time they will be reduced to good conformity.” He concludes: ”And _this course of reformation_, the sooner it is begun the better it will prosper; and the longer it is deferred, the more dangerous it will be.”

When remember that such words were written, and such deeds were enacted, by the head of the Protestant Church in Ireland, and sanctioned by the head of the Protestant Church in England, they may surely be content to allow modern controversialists the benefit of their pleasant dream that Catholic bishops conformed. If they had conformed to such doctrines and such practice, it can scarcely be seen what advantage the Anglican Establishment could gain from their parentage.

Seven years later, when the same prelate found that the more the Church was persecuted the more she increased, he wrote to advise pacification: ”The rebels are increased, and grown insolent. I see no other cure for this cursed country but pacification, [he could not help continuing]

until, hereafter, when the fury is pa.s.sed, her Majesty may, with more convenience, correct the heads of those traitors.”[414] The prelate was ably seconded by the Lord Deputy. Even Sir John Perrot, who has the name of being one of the most humane of these Governors, could not refrain from acts of cruelty where Catholics were concerned. On one occasion he killed fifty persons, and brought their heads home in triumph to Kilmallock, where he arranged them as a trophy round the cross in the public square. In 1582 he advised her Majesty ”that friars, monks, Jesuits, priests, nuns, and such like vermin, who openly uphold the Papacy, should be executed by martial law.”[415] The English officers seem to have rivalled each other in acts of cruelty. One is said to have tied his victim to a maypole, and then punched out his eyes with his thumbs.[416] Others amused themselves with flinging up infants into the air, and catching them on the points of their swords.[417] Francis Crosby, the deputy of Leix, used to hang men, women, and children on an immense tree which grew before his door, without any crime being imputed to them except their faith, and then to watch with delight how the unhappy infants hung by the long hair of their martyred mothers.[418]

Father Dominic a Rosario, the author of _The Geraldines_, scarcely exceeded truth when he wrote these memorable words: ”This far famed English Queen has grown drunk on the blood of Christ's martyrs; and, like a tigress, she has hunted down our Irish Catholics, exceeding in ferocity and wanton cruelty the emperors of pagan Rome.” We shall conclude this painful subject for the present with an extract from O'Sullivan Beare: ”All alarm from the Irish chieftains being ceased, the persecution was renewed with all its horrors. A royal order was promulgated, that all should renounce the Catholic faith, yield up the priests, receive from the heretical minister the morality and tenets of the Gospel. Threats, penalties and force were to be employed to enforce compliance. Every effort of the Queen and her emissaries was directed to despoil the Irish Catholics of their property, and exterminate them.

More than once did they attempt this, for they knew that not otherwise could the Catholic religion be suppressed in our island, _unless by the extermination of those in whose hearts it was implanted_; nor could their heretical teachings be propagated, while the natives were alive to detest and execrate them.”[419]

In 1561 Suss.e.x returned from England with reinforcements for his army, and marched to Armagh, where he established himself in the Cathedral.

From thence he sent out a large body of troops to plunder in Tyrone, but they were intercepted by the redoubtable Shane O'Neill, and suffered so serious a defeat as to alarm the inhabitants of the Pale, and even the English nation. Fresh supplies of men and arms were hastily despatched from England, and the Earls of Desmond, Ormonde, Kildare, Th.o.m.ond, and Clanrickarde a.s.sembled round the Viceregal standard to a.s.sist in suppressing the formidable foe. And well might they fear the lion-hearted chieftain! A few years later, Sidney describes him as the only strong man in Ireland. The Queen was warned, that unless he were speedily put down, she would lose Ireland, as her sister had lost Calais. He had gained all Ulster by his sword, and ruled therein with a far stronger hand, and on a far firmer foundation, than ever any English monarch had obtained in any part of Ireland. Ulster was his _terra clausa_; and he would be a bold, or, perhaps I should rather say, a rash man, who dare intrude in these dominions. He could muster seven thousand men in the field; and though he seldom hazarded a general engagement, he ”slew in conflicts 3,500 soldiers and 300 Scots of Sidney's army.”[420]

The English chronicler, Hooker, who lived in times when the blaze and smoke of houses and haggards, set on fire by Shane, could be seen even from Dublin Castle, declares that it was feared he intended to make a conquest over the whole land.

Even his letters are signed, if not written, in royal style.[421] He dates one _Ex finibus de Tirconail_, when about to wage war with the neighbouring sept of O'Donnell; he dates another, _Ex silvis meis_, when, in pursuance of his Celtic mode of warfare, he hastened into his woods to avoid an engagement with the English soldiers; he signs himself _Misi O'Neill_--Me, the O'Neill. As this man was too clever to be captured, and too brave to be conquered, a plan was arranged, with the full concurrence of the Queen, by which he might be got rid of by poison or a.s.sa.s.sination. Had such an a.s.sertion been made by the Irish annalists, it would have been scouted as a calumny on the character of ”good Queen Bess;” but the evidence of her complicity is preserved in the records of the State Paper Office. I shall show presently that attempts at a.s.sa.s.sination were a common arrangement for the disposal of refractory Irish chieftains during this reign.

The proposal for this diabolical treachery, and the arrangements made for carrying it out, were related by Suss.e.x to the Queen. He writes thus: ”In fine, I brake with him to kill Shane, and bound myself by my oath to see him have a hundred marks of land to him and to his heirs for reward. He seemed desirous to serve your Highness, and to have the land, but fearful to do it, doubting his own escape after. I told him the ways he might do it, and how to escape after with safety; which he offered and promised to do.” The Earl adds a piece of information, which, no doubt, he communicated to the intended murderer, and which, probably, decided him on making the attempt: ”I a.s.sure your Highness he may do it without danger if he will; and if he will not do what he may in your service, there will be done to him what others may.”[422]

Her Majesty, however, had a character to support; and whatever she may have privately wished and commanded, she was obliged to disavow complicity publicly. In two despatches from court she expresses her ”displeasure at John Smith's horrible attempt to poison Shane O'Neill in his wine.” In the following spring John Smith was committed to prison, and ”closely examined by Lord Chancellor Cusake.” What became of John is not recorded, but it is recorded that ”Lord Chancellor Cusake persuaded O'Neill to forget the poisoning.” His clan, however, were not so easily persuaded, and strongly objected to his meeting the Viceroy in person, or affording him an opportunity which he might not live to forget. About this time O'Neill despatched a doc.u.ment to the Viceroy for his consideration, containing a list of ”other evill practices devised to other of the Irish nation within ix or tenn yeares past.” The first item mentions that Donill O'Breyne and Morghe O'Breyne, his son, ”required the benefit of her Majesty's laws, by which they required to be tried, and thereof was denied;”[423] and that when they came to Limerick under the protection of the Lord Deputy, they were proclaimed traitors, and their lands and possessions taken from them. Several other violations of protection are then enumerated, and several treacherous murders are recorded, particularly the murder of Art Boy Cavanagh, at Captain Hearn's house, after he had dined with him, and of Randall Boye's two sons, who were murdered, one after supper, and the other in the tower, by Brereton, ”who escaped without punishment.”

In October, 1562, Shane was invited to England, and was received by Elizabeth with marked courtesy. His appearance at court is thus described by Camden, A.D. 1562: ”From Ireland came Shane O'Neill, who had promised to come the year before, with a guard of axe-bearing gallogla.s.ses, their heads bare, their long curling hair flowing on their shoulders, their linen garments dyed with saffron, with long open sleeves, with short tunics, and furry cloaks, whom the English wondered at as much as they do now at the Chinese or American aborigines.”

Shane's visit to London was considered of such importance, that we find a memorandum in the State Paper Office, by ”Secretary Sir W. Cecil, March, 1562,” of the means to be used with Shane O'Neill, in which the first item is, that ”he be procured to change his garments, and go like an Englishman.”[424] But this was precisely what O'Neill had no idea of doing. Suss.e.x appears to have been O'Neill's declared and open enemy.

There is more than one letter extant from the northern chief to the Deputy. In one of these he says: ”I wonder very much for what purpose your Lords.h.i.+p strives to destroy me.” In another, he declares that his delay in visiting the Queen had been caused by the ”amount of obstruction which Suss.e.x had thrown in his way, by sending a force of occupation into his territory without cause; for as long as there shall be one son of a Saxon in my territory against my will, from that time forth I will not send you either settlement or message, but will send my complaint through some other medium to the Queen.” In writing to the Baron of Slane, he says that ”nothing will please him [the Deputy] but to plant himself in my lands and my native territory, as I am told every day that he desires to be styled Earl of Ulster.”

The Lord Chancellor Cusack appears, on the contrary, to have constantly befriended him. On 12th January, 1568, he writes of O'Neill's ”dutifulness and most commendable dealing with the Scots;” and soon after three English members of the Dublin Government complain that Cusack[425] had entrapped them into signing a letter to the unruly chieftain. There is one dark blot upon the escutcheon of this remarkable man. He had married the daughter of O'Donnell, Lord of one of the Hebrides. After a time he and his father-in-law quarrelled, and Shane contrived to capture O'Donnell and his second wife. He kept this lady for several years as his mistress; and his own wife is said to have died of shame and horror at his conduct, and at his cruel treatment of her father. English writers have naturally tried to blacken his character as deeply as possible, and have represented him as a drunkard and a profligate; but there appears no foundation for the former accusation.

The foundation for the latter is simply what we have mentioned, which, however evil in itself, would scarcely appear so very startling to a court over which Henry VIII. had so long presided.

After many attempts at a.s.sa.s.sination, _Shane-an-Diomais_ [John the Ambitious] fell a victim to English treachery. Sir William Piers, the Governor of Carrickfergus, invited some Scotch soldiers over to Ireland, and then persuaded them to quarrel with him, and kill him. They accomplished their purpose, by raising a disturbance at a feast, when they rushed on the northern chieftain, and despatched him with their swords. His head was sent to Dublin, and his old enemies took the poor revenge of impaling it on the Castle walls.

The Earl of Suss.e.x was recalled from Ireland in 1564, and Sir Henry Sidney was appointed Viceroy. The Earls of Ormonde and Desmond had again quarrelled, and, in 1562, both Earls were summoned to court by the Queen. Elizabeth was related to the Butlers through her mother's family, and used to boast of the loyalty of the house of Ormonde. The Geraldines adhered to the ancient faith, and suffered for it. A battle was fought at Affane, near Cappoquin, between the two parties, in which Desmond was wounded and made prisoner. The man who bore him from the field asked, tauntingly: ”Where is now the proud Earl of Desmond?” He replied, with equal pride and wit: ”Where he should be; upon the necks of the Butlers!”

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