The Land-War In Ireland (1870) Part 4

Next came the great Desmond Rebellion, by which Munster was desolated.

The Pope had encouraged an expedition against the heretics in Ireland, and some Spanish forces joined in the enterprise. It was organised by an English ecclesiastic, named Sanders, and an exiled Geraldine, named Fitzmaurice of Kerry, both able and energetic men. The Spaniards landed at Dingle in 1579. In a few days all Kerry and Limerick were up, and the woods between Mallow and the Shannon 'were swarming with howling kerne.' 'The rebellion,' wrote Waterhouse, 'is the most perilous that ever began in Ireland. Nothing is to be looked for but a general revolt.' Malby took the command against them, joined by one of the Burkes, Theobald, who when he saw Fitzmaurice struck by a ball and staggering in his saddle, rode at him and cut him down. The Papal standard was unfolded in this battle. Malby then burnt the Desmonds'

country, killing all the human beings he met, up to the walls of Askeaton. When opportunity offered, Desmond retaliated by sacking and burning Youghal. For two days the Geraldines revelled in plunder; they violated the women and murdered all who could not escape. At length Elizabeth was roused to the greatness of the danger, her parsimony was overcome. A larger force was drawn into Ireland than had ever been a.s.sembled there for a century. Ormond, the hereditary enemy of Desmond, was appointed commander-in-chief; and Burghley, writing to him in the name of the queen, concluded thus: 'So now I will merely say, Butler aboo, against all that cry in the new language--Papa aboo, and G.o.d send your hearts' desire to banish and vanquish those cankered Desmonds!' The war now raged, and, as usual, the innocent people, the cultivators of the soil, were the first victims. 'We pa.s.sed through the rebel countries,' wrote Pelham, 'in two companies, burning with fire _all habitations, and executing the people_ wherever we found them.' Mr. Froude says: '_Alone_ of all the English commanders he expressed remorse at the work.' Well, if the creatures they destroyed were horses, dogs, or cats, we should expect a man of ordinary human feelings to be shocked at the wholesale butchery. But the beings slaughtered were men and women and children--Christians found unarmed and defenceless in their dwellings. Let the English imagine such a war carried on in Kent or Yorks.h.i.+re, by Irish invaders, killing in the name of the Pope. The Irish Annalists say that Pelham and Ormond killed the blind and the aged, women and children, sick and idiots, sparing none.

The English, as usual, had help from an Irish chief in the work of destruction. Ormond had in his train M'Carthymore, 'who, believing Desmond's day to be done, hoped, by making himself useful, to secure a share of the plunder.' Dividing their forces, Pelham marched on to Dingle, 'destroying as he went, with Ormond parallel to him on the opposite side of the bay, the two parties watching each other's course at night across the water by the flames of the burning cottages!'

The fleet was waiting at Dingle. There was a merry meeting of the officers. 'Here,' says Sir Nicholas White, 'my lord justice and I gathered c.o.c.kles for our supper.'[1] The several hunting parties compared notes in the evening. Sometimes the sport was bad. On one occasion Pelham reported that his party had hanged a priest in the Spanish dress. 'Otherwise,' he says, 'we took small prey, and killed less people, though we reached many places in our travel!' At Killarney they found the lakes full of salmon. In one of the islands there was an abbey, in another a parish church, in another a castle, 'out of which there came to them a fair lady, the rejected wife of Lord Fitzmaurice.' Even the soldiers were struck with the singular loveliness of the scene. 'A fairer land,' one of them said, 'the sun did never s.h.i.+ne upon--pity to see it lying waste in the hands of traitors.' Mr. Froude, who deals more justly by the Irish in his last volumes, replies: 'Yet it was by those traitors that the woods whose beauty they so admired had been planted and fostered. Irish hands, unaided by English art or English wealth, had built Muckross and Innisfallen and Aghadoe, and had raised the castles on whose walls the modern poet watched the splendour of the sunset.'

[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]

Ormond was the arch-destroyer of his countrymen. In a report of his services he stated that in this one year 1580, he had put to the sword 'forty-six captains and leaders, with 800 notorious traitors and malefactors, _and above_ 4,000 other people.'[1] In that year the great Desmond wrote to Philip of Spain that he was a homeless wanderer. 'Every town, castle, village, farm-house belonging to him or his people had been destroyed. There was no longer a roof standing in Munster to shelter him.' Hunted like a wolf through the mountains, he was at last found sleeping in a hut and killed. In vain his wife pleaded with Ormond, and threw herself on his protection. Even she was not spared. Mr. Froude gives an interesting account of Desmond's last hours. He was hunted down into the mountains between Tralee and the Atlantic. M'Sweeny had sheltered him and fed him through the summer, though a large price was set on his head; and when M'Sweeny was gone, killed by an Irish dagger, the earl's turn could not be distant.

Donell M'Donell Moriarty had been received to grace by Ormond, and had promised to deserve his pardon. This man came to the captain of Castlemayne, gave information of the hiding-place, a band was sent--half-a-dozen English soldiers and a few Irish kerne, who stole in the darkness along the path which followed the stream--the door was dashed in, and the last Earl of Desmond was killed in his bed.

[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]

Ormond had recourse to a horrible device to extinguish the embers of the rebellion. It was carrying out to a diabolical extent the policy of setting one Irishman against another. If the terror-stricken wretches hoped for pardon, they must deserve it, by murdering their relations. Accordingly sacks full of the heads of reputed rebels were brought in daily. Yet concerning him Mr. Froude makes this singular remark: 'To Ormond the Irish were human beings with human rights. To the English they were _vermin, to be cleared from off the earth_ by any means that offered.'

Consequently, when it was proposed to make Ormond viceroy, the Pale was in a ferment. How could any man be fit to represent English power in Dublin Castle, who regarded the Irish as human beings! Not less curious is the testimony which the historian bears to the character of the English exterminators. He says, 'They were honourable, high-minded men, full of natural tenderness and gentleness, to every one with whom they were placed in _human relations_. The Irish, unfortunately, they looked upon as savages who had refused peace and protection when it was offered to them, and were now therefore to be _rooted out and destroyed_.' A reformer in 1583, however, suggested a milder policy.

He recommended that 'all Brehons, carraghs, bards, rhymers, friars, monks, jesuits, pardoners, nuns, and such-like should be executed by martial law, and that with this clean sweep the work of death might end, and a new era be ushered in with universities and schools, a fixed police, and agriculture, and good government.'

When the English had destroyed all the houses and churches, burnt all the corn, and driven away all the cattle, they were disgusted at the savage state in which the remnant of the peasantry lived. A gentleman named Andrew Trollope gave expression to this feeling thus: 'The common people ate flesh if they could steal it, if not they lived on shamrock and carrion. They never served G.o.d or went to church; they had no religion and no manners, but were in all things more barbarous and beast-like than any other people. No governor shall do good here,'

he said, 'except he show himself a Tamerlane. If h.e.l.l were open and all the evil spirits abroad, they could never be worse than these Irish rogues--rather dogs, and worse than dogs, for dogs do but after their kind, and they degenerate from all humanity.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.246.]

The population of Ireland was then by slaughter and famine reduced to about 600,000, one-eighth of the population of England; but far too many, in the estimation of their English rulers. Brabason succeeded Malby in Connaught, and surpa.s.sed him in cruelty. The Four Masters say: 'Neither the sanctuary of the saint, neither the wood nor the forest valley, the town nor the lawn, was a shelter from this captain and his people, till the whole territory was destroyed by him.' In the spring of 1582 St. Leger wrote from Cork: 'This country is so ruined as it is well near unpeopled by the murders and spoils done by the traitors on the one side, and by the killing and spoil done by the soldiers on the other side, together with the great mortality in town and country, which is such as the like hath never been seen. There has died by famine only not so few as 30,000 in this province in less than half a year, besides others that are hanged and killed.'

At length the world began to cry shame on England; and Lord Burghley was obliged to admit that the English in Ireland had outdone the Spaniards in ferocious and blood-thirsty persecution. Remonstrating with Sir H. Wallop, ancestor of Lord Portsmouth, he said that the 'Flemings had not such cause to rebel against the oppression of the Spaniards, as the Irish against the tyranny of England.' Wallop defended the Government; the causes of the rebellion were not to be laid at the door of England at all. They were these, 'the great affection they generally bear to the Popish religion, which agreeth with their humour, that having committed murder, incest, thefts, with all other execrable offences, by hearing a ma.s.s, confessing themselves to a priest, or obtaining the Pope's pardon, they persuade themselves that they are forgiven, and, hearing ma.s.s on Sunday or holyday, they think all the week after they may do what heinous offence soever and it is dispensed withal.' Trollope said they had no religion. Wallop said they had too much religion. But their nationality was worse than their creed. Wallop adds, 'They also much hate our nation, partly through the general mislike or disdain one nation hath to be governed by another; partly that we are contrary to them in religion; and lastly, they seek to have the government among themselves.'

The last was the worst of all. Elizabeth wished to heal the wounds of the Irish nation by appointing Ormond lord deputy. He was a n.o.bleman of Norman descent. His family had been true to England for centuries.

He had commanded her armies during this exterminating war, and, being a native of the country, he would be best fitted to carry on the work of conciliation after so much slaughter. But, says Mr. Froude, 'from every English officer serving in the country, every English settler, every bishop of the Anglo-Irish Church, there rose one chorus of remonstrance and indignation; to them it appeared as a proposal now would appear in Calcutta to make the Nizam Viceroy of India.'[1]

Wallop wrote that if he were appointed, there would be 'no dwelling in the country for any Englishman.'

[Footnote 1: Ibid. p.202.]

The fear that a merciful policy might be adopted towards Ireland sorely troubled Wallop and Archbishop Loftus; but they were comforted by a great prize--an archbishop fell into their hands. Dr. Hurley refused to give information against others. Walsingham suggested that he should be put to the torture. To him Archbishop Loftus wrote with unction. 'Not finding that easy method of examination do any good, we made command to Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. Secretary Fenton to put him to the torture, such as your honour advised us, which was to _toast his feet_ against the fire with hot boots.' He confessed something. They asked permission to execute him by martial law. The queen took a month to consider. She recommended an ordinary trial for high treason, and if the jury did not do its duty, they might take the shorter way.

She wished for no more torture, but 'for what was past her majesty accepted in good part their careful travail, and greatly commended their doings.' The Irish judges had repeatedly decided that there was no case against Archbishop Hurley; but on June 19, 1584, Loftus and Wallop wrote to Walsingham, 'We gave warrant to the knight-marshal to do execution upon him, which accordingly was performed, and thereby the realm rid of a most pestilent member.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.264.]

This was the last act of these two lords justices. Sir John Perrot, the new viceroy, made a speech which sent a ray of hope athwart the national gloom. It was simply that the people might thenceforth expect a little justice and protection. He told the natives that 'as natural-born subjects of her majesty she loved them as her own people.

He wished to be suppressed and universally abolished throughout the realm the name of a churle and the crus.h.i.+ng of a churle; affirming that, however the former barbarous times had desired it and nourished it, yet he held it tyrannous both in name and manner, and therefore would extirpate it, and use in place of it the t.i.tles used in England, namely, husbandmen, franklins or yeomen.' 'This was so plausible,'

wrote Sir G. Fenton, 'that it was carried throughout the whole realm, in less time than might be thought credible, if expressed.'

The extirpation of the Munster Geraldines, in the right line, according to the theory of the 'Undertakers' and the law of England in general, vested in the queen the 570,000 acres belonging to the late earl. Proclamation was accordingly made throughout England, inviting 'younger brothers of good families' to undertake the plantation of Desmond--each planter to obtain a certain scope of land, on condition of settling thereupon so many families--'none of the native Irish to be admitted' Under these conditions, Sir Christopher Hatton took up 10,000 acres in Waterford; Sir Walter Raleigh 12,000 acres, partly in Waterford and partly in Cork; Sir William Harbart, or Herbert, 13,000 acres in Kerry; Sir Edward Denny 6,000 in the same county; Sir Warren St. Leger, and Sir Thomas Norris, 6,000 acres each in Cork; Sir William Courtney 10,000 acres in Limerick; Sir Edward Fitton 11,500 acres in Tipperary and Waterford, and Edmund Spenser 3,000 acres in Cork, on the beautiful Blackwater. The other notable Undertakers were the Hides, Butchers, Wirths, Berkleys, Trenchards, Thorntons, Bourchers, Billingsleys, &c. Some of these grants, especially Raleigh's, fell in the next reign to Richard Boyle, the so-called '_great_ Earl of Cork '--probably the most pious hypocrite to be found in the long roll of the 'Munster Undertakers.'

CHAPTER V.

AN IRISH CRUSADE.

In 1602, the Lord Deputy Mountjoy, in obedience to instructions from the Government in London, marched to the borders of Ulster with a considerable force, to effect, if he could, the arrest of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, or to bring him to terms. Since the defeat of the Irish and Spanish confederacy at Kinsale, O'Neill comforted himself with the a.s.surance that Philip III. would send another expedition to Ireland to retrieve the honour of his flag, and avenge the humiliation it had sustained, owing to the incompetency or treachery of Don Juan d'Aquila. That the king was inclined to aid the Irish there can be no question; 'for Clement VIII., then reigning in the Vatican, pressed it upon him as a sacred duty, which he owed to his co-religionists in Ireland, whose efforts to free themselves from Elizabeth's tyranny, the pontiff p.r.o.nounced to be a _crusade_ against the most implacable heretic of the day.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell.

By the Rev. P.C. Meehan, M.R.I.A.]

If Mr. Meehan's authorities may be relied upon, Queen Elizabeth was, in intention at least, a murderer as well as a heretic. He states that while she was gasping on her cus.h.i.+ons at Richmond, gazing on the haggard features of death, and vainly striving to penetrate the opaque veil of the future, she commanded Secretary Cecil to charge Mountjoy to entrap Tyrone into a submission, on diminished rank as Baron of Dungannon, and with lessened territory; or if possible, to have his head, before engaging the royal word. It was to accomplish either of these objects, that Mountjoy marched to the frontier of the north.

'Among those employed to murder O'Neill in cold blood, were Sir Geoffry Fenton, Lord Dunsany, and _Henry Oge O'Neill._ Mountjoy bribed one Walker, an Englishman, and a ruffian calling himself Richard Combus, to make the attempt, but they all failed.'[1] Finding it impossible to procure the a.s.sa.s.sination of 'the sacred person of O'Neill, who had so many eyes of jealousy about him,' he wrote to Cecil from Drogheda, that nothing prevented Tyrone from making his submission but mistrust of his personal safety and guarantee for maintenance commensurate to his princely rank. The lords of Elizabeth's privy council empowered Mountjoy to treat with O'Neill on these terms, and to give him the required securities. Sir Garret Moore and Sir William G.o.dolphin were entrusted with a commission to effect this object. But while the lord deputy, with a brilliant retinue, was feasting at Mellifont, a monastery bestowed by Henry VIII. on an ancestor of Sir Garret Moore, by whom it was transformed into a 'fair mansion,' half palace, half fortress, a courier arrived from England, announcing the death of the queen. Nevertheless the negotiations were pressed on in her name, the fact of her decease being carefully concealed from the Irish. Tyrone had already sent his secretary, Henry O'Hagan, to announce to the lord deputy that he was about to come to his presence. Accordingly on March 29, he surrendered himself to the two commissioners at Tougher, within five miles of Dungannon. On the following evening he reached Mellifont, when, being admitted to the lord deputy's presence, 'he knelt, as was usual on such occasions;'

and made penitent submission to her majesty. Then, being invited to come nearer to the deputy, he repeated the ceremony, if we may credit Fynes Moryson, in the same humiliating att.i.tude, thus:--

'I, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, do absolutely submit myself to the queen's mercy, imploring her gracious commiseration, imploring her majesty to mitigate her just indignation against me. I do avow that the first motives of my rebellion were neither malice nor ambition; but that I was induced by fear of my life, to stand upon my guard. I do therefore most humbly sue her majesty, that she will vouchsafe to restore to me my former dignity and living. In which state of a subject, I vow to continue for ever hereafter loyal, in all true obedience to her royal person, crown, and prerogatives, and to be in all things as dutifully conformable thereunto as I or any other n.o.bleman of this realm is bound by the duty of a subject to his sovereign, utterly renouncing the name and t.i.tle of O'Neill, or any other claim which hath not been granted to me by her majesty. I abjure all foreign power, and all dependency upon any other potentate but her majesty. I renounce all manner of dependency upon the King of Spain, or treaty with him or any of his confederates, and shall be ready to serve her majesty against him or any of his forces or confederates.

I do renounce all challenge or intermeddling with the Uriaghts, or fostering with them or other neighbour lords or gentlemen outside my country, or exacting black-rents of any Uriaghts or bordering lords.

I resign all claim and t.i.tle to any lands but such as shall now be granted to me by her majesty's letters patent. Lastly, I will be content to be advised by her majesty's magistrates here, and will a.s.sist them in anything that may tend to the advancement of her service, and the peaceable government of this kingdom, the abolis.h.i.+ng of barbarous customs, the clearing of difficult pa.s.ses, wherein I will employ the labours of the people of my country in such places as I shall be directed by her majesty, or the lord deputy in her name; and I will endeavour for myself and the people of my country, to erect civil habitations such as shall be of greater effect to preserve us against thieves, and any force but the power of the state.'

[Footnote 1: See Life and Letters of Florence M'Carthy. By D.

M'Carthy, Esq.]

To this act of submission Tyrone affixed his sign manual, and handed it to the deputy, who told him he must write to Philip III. of Spain, to send home his son Henry, who had gone with Father M'Cawell to complete his studies in Salamanca. The deputy also insisted that he should reveal all his negotiations with the Spanish court, or any other foreign sovereign with whom he maintained correspondence; and when the earl a.s.sured him that all these requirements should be duly discharged, the lord deputy in the queen's name promised him her majesty's pardon to himself and followers, to himself the restoration of his earldom and blood with new letters patent of all his lands, excepting the country possessed by Henry Oge O'Neill, and the Fews belonging to Tirlough Mac Henry O'Neill, both of whom had recently taken grants of their lands, to be holden immediately from the queen.

It was further covenanted that Tyrone should give 300 acres of his land to the fort of Charlmont, and 300 more to that of Mountjoy, as long as it pleased her majesty to garrison said forts. Tyrone a.s.sented to all these conditions, and then received the accolade from the lord deputy, who, a few months before, had written to Queen Elizabeth, that he hoped to be able to send her that ghastliest of all trophies--her great rebel's head!

On April 4, the lord deputy returned to Dublin accompanied by the great va.s.sal whom he fancied he had bound in inviolable loyalty to the English throne. To make a.s.surance doubly sure, the day after James was proclaimed, Tyrone repeated the absolute submission made at Mellifont, the name of the sovereign only being changed. He also despatched a letter to the King of Spain stating that he had held out as long as he could, in the vain hope of being succoured by him, and finally when deserted by his nearest kinsmen and followers, he was enforced as in duty bound to declare his allegiance to James I., in whose service and obedience he meant to live and die.

The importance of this act of submission will appear from a manifesto issued by O'Neill three years before, dated Dungannon, November 16, 1599, and subscribed 'O'Neill.' This remarkable doc.u.ment has been published for the first time by Father Meehan.

'_To the Catholics of the towns in Ireland._

'Using hitherto more than ordinary favour towards all my countrymen, who generally by profession are Catholics, and that naturally I am inclined to affect [esteem] you, I have for these and other considerations abstained my forces from tempting to do you hindrance, and because I did expect that you would enter into consideration of the lamentable state of our poor country, most tyrannically oppressed, and of your own gentle consciences, in maintaining, relieving and helping the enemies of G.o.d and our country in wars infallibly tending to the promotion of heresy: But now seeing you are so obstinate in that which hereunto you continued of necessity, I must use severity against you (whom otherwise I most entirely love) in reclaiming you by compulsion. My tolerance and happy victories by G.o.d's particular favour doubtless obtained could work no alteration in your consciences, notwithstanding the great calamity and misery, whereunto you are most likely to fall by persevering in that d.a.m.nable state in which hereunto you have lived. Having commiseration on you I thought it good to forewarn you, requesting every of you to come and join with me against the enemies of G.o.d and our poor country. If the same you do not, I will use means to spoil you of all your goods, but according to the utmost of my power shall work what I may to dispossess you of all your lands, because you are the means whereby wars are maintained against the exaltation of the Catholic faith. Contrariwise, whosoever it shall be that shall join with me, upon my conscience, and as to the contrary I shall answer before G.o.d, I will employ myself to the utmost of my power in their defence and for the extirpation of heresy, the planting of the Catholic religion, the delivery of our country of infinite murders, wicked and detestable policies by which this kingdom was. .h.i.therto governed, nourished in obscurity and ignorance, maintained in barbarity and incivility, and consequently of infinite evils which were too lamentable to be rehea.r.s.ed. And seeing these are motives most laudable before any men of consideration, and before the Almighty most meritorious, which is chiefly to be expected, I thought myself in conscience bound, seeing G.o.d hath given me some power to use all means for the reduction of this our poor afflicted country into the Catholic faith, which can never be brought to any good pa.s.s without either your destruction or helping hand; hereby protesting that I neither seek your lands or goods, neither do I purpose to plant any in your places, if you will adjoin with me; but will extend what liberties and privileges that heretofore you have had if it shall stand in my power, giving you to understand upon my salvation that chiefly and princ.i.p.ally I fight for the Catholic faith to be planted throughout all our poor country, as well in cities as elsewhere, as manifestly might appear by that I rejected all other conditions proffered to me this not being granted. I have already by word of mouth protested, and do now hereby protest, that if I had to be King of Ireland without having the Catholic religion which before I mentioned, I would not the same accept. Take your example by that most Catholic country, France, whose subjects for defect of Catholic faith did go against their most natural king, and maintained wars till he was constrained to profess the Catholic religion, duly submitting himself to the Apostolic See of Rome, to the which doubtless we may bring our country, you putting your helping hand with me to the same.

As for myself I protest before G.o.d and upon my salvation I have been proffered oftentimes such conditions as no man seeking his own private commodity could refuse; but I seeking the public utility of my native country will prosecute these wars until that generally religion be planted throughout all Ireland. So I rest, praying the Almighty to move your flinty hearts to prefer the commodity and profit of our country, before your own private ends.'

As a crusader, the O'Neill was a worthy disciple of the King of Spain.

The Catholics of the south had no wish to engage in a religious war, but the northern chief aspiring to the sovereignty of the whole island, resolved to reclaim them by compulsion, seeing that his tolerance and happy victories had worked no change in their consciences, and they still persevered in that 'd.a.m.nable state'

in which they had lived. From his entire love and commiseration he forewarned them that if they did not come and join him against the enemies of G.o.d and 'our poor country,' he would not only despoil them of all their goods, but dispossess them of all their lands.

The extirpation of heresy, the planting of the Catholic religion, he declared could never be brought to any good pa.s.s without either the destruction or the help of the Catholics in the towns of the south and west. He did not want their lands or goods, nor did he intend to plant others in their places _if they would adjoin with him_. Pointing to the example of France, he vowed that he would prosecute those wars until the Catholic religion should be planted throughout all Ireland, praying that G.o.d would move their flinty hearts to join him in this pious and humane enterprise. In those times when religious wars had been raging on the continent, when the whole power of Spain was persistently employed to exterminate Protestants with fire and sword and every species of cruelty, it is not at all surprising that a chief like O'Neill, leading such a wild warlike life in Ulster, should persuade himself that he would be glorifying G.o.d and serving his country by destroying the Catholic inhabitants of the towns, that is all the most civilised portion of the community, because they would not join him in robbing and killing the Protestants. But it is not a little surprising that an enlightened, learned, and liberal Catholic priest, writing in Dublin in the year 1868, should give his deliberate sanction to this unchristian and barbarous policy. Yet Father Meehan writes: 'But no; not even the dint of that manifesto, _with the ring of true steel in its every line_, could strike a spark out of their hearts, for they were chalky.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Page 34.]

It was very natural that the English Government should act upon the same principle of intolerance, especially when they had the plea of state necessity. They did not yet go the length of exterminating Catholicity by the means with which the O'Neill threatened his peaceable and industrious co-religionists in the towns.

All they required was that the Catholics should cease to harbour their priests, and that they should attend the Protestant churches.

Remarking upon the proclamation of Chichester to this effect Mr.

Meehan says:--'Apart from the folly of the king, who had taken into his head that an entire nation should, at his bidding, apostatise from the creed of their forefathers, the publis.h.i.+ng such a manifesto in Dungannon, in Donegal, and elsewhere was a bitter insult to the northern chieftains, whose wars were _crusades_,--the natural consequence of faith,--stimulated by the Roman Pontiffs, a.s.sisted by Spain, then the most Catholic kingdom in the world.' Does not Mr.

Meehan see that crusading is a game at which two can play? And if wars which were crusades were the natural consequence of the Catholic faith, were stimulated by the Roman Pontiffs, and a.s.sisted by Spain, for the purpose of destroying the power of England, everywhere as well as in Ireland, and abolis.h.i.+ng the Reformation,--does it not follow as a necessary consequence that the English Government must in sheer self-defence have waged a war of extermination against the Catholic religion, and have regarded its priests as mortal enemies? No better plea for the English policy in Ireland was ever offered by any Protestant writer than this language, intended as a condemnation, by a very able priest in our own day. It was no doubt extreme folly for King James I. to expect that a nation, or a single individual, should apostatise at his bidding; but it was equal folly in the King of Spain to expect Protestants to apostatise at his bidding; and if possible still greater folly for O'Neill to expect the Catholic citizens of Munster to join him in the b.l.o.o.d.y work of persecution. It was, then, the Spanish policy stimulated by the Sovereign Pontiff that was the standing excuse of the cruel intolerance and rancorous religious animosity which have continued to distract Irish society down to our own time. Persecution is alien to the Irish race. The malignant _virus_ imported from Spain poisoned the national blood, maddened the national brain, and provoked the terrible system of retaliation that was embodied in the Penal Code, and which, surviving to our own time, still defends itself by the old plea--the intrusion of a foreign power attempting to overrule the government of the country.