ancient image of the Virgin, in the church of that town, was now mockingly styled,—and hearing "three or four masses" in succession.*

Though, under other circumstances, a league so general as that now formed among the chiefs, might have proved perilous to the English power, there was much in the present state of the public mind, depressed and disheartened as all had been by the crushing results of the late conflict, that afforded, for a time, sufficient security against any very serious infraction of the peace. It appears that there were few, even of the inhabitants of the Pale, who had not, at some period or other of the last rebellion, supplied lord Thomas with aid, in men, money, or victuals; and the consciousness that their lands and goods were thereby placed at the king's mercy, kept them in continual alarm.

Towards the latter end of this year, the numbers and strength of the Geraldine league had considerably increased; and, in addition to those who had hitherto been its chief leaders,-O'Donnell, O'Neill, O'Brian, and the earl of Desmond-the confederacy was now farther strengthened by the accession of O'Neill of Claneboy, O'Rourke, Mac Loughlin, Mac Dermot, and many other Irish captains, besides a great host of Scots, both of the "out isles" and the main land of Scotland. In this critical juncture, it was singularly fortunate for the government that the mutual hostility so long subsisting between the lord deputy and the house of Butler, should have been, on both sides, generously abandoned; and that lord James Butler, now earl of Ormond,+-through the recent death of his father, and the king's restoration of the ancient title,―co-operated cordially with lord Leonard Gray in all those measures which the present crisis required.

The danger that now more immediately threatened the Pale arose from the coalition formed between the great O'Brian, as he was specially styled, and the earl of Desmond,— the two most daring and powerful of the national champions; and as it was accounted, doubtless, the more prudent as well as more vigorous policy, to anticipate whatever blow might be intended, and thus prevent at once the aggression and the perilous infection of its example, a force, under the joint command of the lord deputy and the earl of Ormond, was marched, at the close of this year, into Munster. The principal object of this expe. dition, as stated in a despatch from Ormond himself, was, "by policy and strength to pluck from O'Brian all his forces and wings on this side the Shannon;" and its leading events shall here be as briefly narrated as the copious details on the subject, furnished by official records, will permit.

Regaining possession, in some treacherous manner, of the castle of Roscrea, which belonged to Ormond by inheritance, but had been seized by the Mac Meaghers of Ikerin, the commanders proceeded from thence to Modren, a castle belonging to the O'Carrols, where the chief of that sept came in, on safe-conduct, and surrendered himself and his wife, as hostages to the lord deputy. Thither were sent to him also the hostages of Mac Brian of Arra, Regan of Owney, O'Dwyer of Kilnamanna, and a number of other chiefs of the neigbouring districts, pledging each of them to preserve allegiance, and pay to the king a certain yearly tribute. Continuing his march into Munster, lord Leonard succeeded in reducing to allegiance Gerald Mac Shane, the White Knight, the lord Barry,the latter nobleman not having.come near any lord deputy for years,-Mac Carthy Reagh, the Red Barry, and other adherents of the earl of Desmond; all of whom came in person to the earl of Ormond's house at Thurles, and there bound themselves, by oaths and hostages, to preserve allegiance to the crown.

At Imokilly, the deputy delivered up to James Fitz Maurice-the rightful claimant of the earldom of Desmond, who appears to have accompanied the expedition-all the castles and lands in that barony which had been usurped by James Fitz John, together with all other castles between Youghall and Cork, excepting those only which belonged to lord Barry, who had just given in his submission. In like manner, the lands of Kerricurriky, and others belonging to his grandfather, were now put into the hands of James Fitz Maurice.||

In O'Callaghan's country the deputy remained encamped for four days and nights, intending to have passed the river Avonmore, now the Blackwater, and from thence to have

"They thre wold not come in the chapell, where the Idoll of Trym stode, to thintent they wold not occasion the people; notwithstanding my lord deputie, veray devoutely kneleng befor Hir, hard thre or fower masses."-T. Alen to Cromwell, State Papers, CCLVII.

This statue was burnt soon after; and the gifts of the pilgrims, in the same church, taken away. Among other cherished relics destroyed, at this time, was the ancient staff of St. Patrick.

†The title of Ormond had been restored to this lord's father, on the death of Thomas Boleyn, earl of Ormond, without issue male, in the year 1537.

"This unytie that is nowe knit hetwixt him and me, shall not, God willing, dissever for my parte."-Ormond to Cromwell, S. P. CCLXXXII.

§ Ormond to Crumwell, S. P. CCLXXXII.

| Ibid.

proceeded to the county of Limerick. But the river was then so much swollen, that the army was unable to pass; and, in the mean time, the earl of Desmond made his appearance on the opposite bank,-whether attended by any armed force does not appear, and from thence signified to them that he had taken part with O'Brian against the earl of Ormond; that he would continue still to stand by that chief; and that, moreover, O'Brian would have, on his side, "all the Irishry of Ireland." The lord deputy, it is added, "being sore moved by these words,” immediately drew off his army, and marched back to Cork; with little hope, it is clear, either on his part, or that of Ormond, that a single one of those lords and chiefs, who had so lately given in their submission, would, with such strong inducements to revolt, remain long true to their forced engagements. It is worth remarking, that the force thus employed to strike awe into the whole kingdom consisted but of 400 men under lord Leonard Gray, and about the same number of horsemen, kern and galloglasses, under the command of the earl of Ormond.*

It was in the course, probably, of this "hosting" of the lord deputy, that the battle took place between him and the chiefs O'Neill and O'Donnell, which became so memorable in the Irish annals, under the name of "the Battle of Belahoe;" but of which, in contemporary English records, there occurs not the slightest mention. The two chiefs, it appears, had combined in a predatory inroad into Meath,-attracted far less, however, by the glories of Tara, than by the plunder and havoc expected from their foray; and, having destroyed the towns of Ardee and Navan, were returning loaded with spoil, when, being pursued by lord Leonard, they were overtaken, near the Ford of Belahoe, and, after a weak attempt at resistance, were all confusedly put to flight, leaving their booty in the hends of the pursuers.

However meager were the immediate results of the lord deputy's circuit, its general effect, as manifesting watchfulness, and, still more, union, among the ruling powers, was by no means unuseful nor speedily forgotton. The hope of aid from foreign powers, which the northern chiefs had been led to indulge, was recently revived by the meeting, at Paris, between the emperor and the French king. But at no period does there appear to have been much ground for this hope; and an event which occurred at the commencement of the present year, the escape of young Gerald into France,-dissolved at once the sole bond which had held the leaders of so many factions, for a time, together, and awakened in the Irish a spirit of concert no less formidable than, luckily for their masters, it was rare.

The safe removal of Gerald to the continent had been contrived by his tutor, Levrous, and the chief O'Donnell, who had him secretly conveyed, at night, in a small cockboat, on board a ship bound for St. Malo. Besides other precautions employed to conceal his person and rank, he “had on him," we are told, “only a saffron shirt, and was bareheaded, like one of the wild Irish." The account given of this youth's adventures, after his departure from Ireland, is garnished with much of that dull and circumstantial fiction, in which the chronicler, who is our sole authority for most of these stories, delights to indulge. That efforts were made by the English king, through his agents abroad, to obtain possession of Gerald, either by stratagem or negotiation, is sufficiently proved by existing documents; and such were the notions of his rank and importance which this eager pursuit after him excited abroad, that, wherever he went, the idea prevailed that he was really king of Ireland, and that the English monarch had cruelly disinherited him of his right. Notwithstanding, however, the plans devised by Henry to have him seized, the youth succeeded in reaching his kinsman, cardinal Pole, at Rome, and remained in Italy, under his protection, several years. Through the munificence of this illustrious man, as well as the patronage of Cosmo I., grand duke of Tuscany, he was enabled to

* Ormond to Crumwell, S. P. CCLXXXII.

"That prosperous fight," says sir John Davies, " at Belahoo, on the borders of Meath, the memory whereof is yet famous." He cites, as his authority, an Irish MS., the Book of Howth. There is also an account of the leading events of the conflict in the Annals of the Four Masters, ad ann. 1539. The pretended particu lars of this battle given by Cox, Leland, and others, out of Holinshed, are all from the suspicious mint of Stanihurst; who, although he lived, as we have seen, near enough to the time of these events, to have conversed with Gerald after he was restored to his title, is little to be trusted in any of his details; and, in this instance, has evidently eked out whatever he may have found in the Irish annals with flat and peurile fig. ments of his own.

"Remembrances to my Lord Pryve Scall," S P. CCLXXXVIII.

"The sayd Fytzgarethe was convayed aborde the ship in the nyght, in a small cocke, havyng on, but a saffronyd shurtt and barheaddyd, lyke one of the wyllde Yreshe, and with him 3 persons."-Warner to the English Ambassador, S. P. CCCVI.

Stanihurst, ap. Holinshed.

"And, in all this countre, wher he passyd, he was, and is to this day, namyd to be king of Yrland, and that the king our master hathe disheretyd him of hys ryght."-Warner to the English Ambassador, S. P. CCCVI.

acquire such learning and accomplishments as befitted the high rank to which he was born. This rank he partially recovered in the course of the following reign, when he was taken into favour by Edward VI.; and, as soon as queen Mary came to the throne, the honours and estates of his ancestors were, by letters patent, restored to him.

Course of the Reformation in England-principal events that marked its progress-first steps towards its introduction into Ireland-opposed by Achbishop Cromer-supported by Archbishop Browne.-Act of supremacy-strongly opposed by the spiritual Proctors.-This and other measures defeated by them.-Parliament frequently prorogued.-Bill for the exclu sion of Proctors from parliament.-Grant to the king of the twentieth part of the church revenues.-Character of Archbishop Browne-is rebuked by the king-his differences with the Bishop of Meath-Few of the persons in authority adopt the new creed.-Oath of supremacy taken by two Archbishops and eight Bishops.-Commission for the suppression of religious houses.-Numerous applications for a share of the spoil.-Urgent requests of Archbishop Browne.-Mild form of the change in Ireland.-No instance of severe punishment on account of opinion.-Prevalence of peace throughout the kingdom.-Recall of Lord Leonard Gray.-Peace concluded with O'Neill.-Assemblage of Irish at Fowre.-Liberal policy of the king-conciliates the Irish chiefs.-Desmond disposed to submit-efforts of Ormond to win him over.-Loyal disposition of most of the Irish lords.-O'Connor refractory. This chief also submits.-Chivalrous conduct of Tirlogh O'Toole.-Submission of Desmond-amicable arrangement between him and Ormond.-Parley with O'Brian.-Execution of Lord Leonard Gray.-Parliament attended for the first time by the Irish chiefs.— Title of King of Ireland bestowed upon Henry.-Proclamation of a general pardon.-Great rejoicings. Kindness of the king to Desmond and other lords.-O'Neill and O'Donnell make their submission.-Titles and honours bestowed on O'Neill, the O'Brians, and Mac William.-Praise of the king's policy-Much of the credit due to Sentleger.-Irish troops employed in France-their distinguished bravery.-Great expedition under Lennox and Ormond against Scotland.

A FEW years before the period we have now reached, that great religious revolution of which Germany had been the birth-place, extended its influence to the shores of England, and was now working a signal change in the spiritual condition of that kingdom. In Germany, from an early date, the struggles of the emperors with the popes had conduced to engender a feeling of ill-will towards Rome, which required but little excitement to rouse it into hostility. In the German, too, as well as in the English reformation, finance may be said to have gone hand in hand with faith: as it was the abuse of his spiritual privileges by the pope, for the purpose of fiscal exaction, that gave to Luther his first advantage-ground in attacking the Roman see.

Nor was England wholly unprepared, by previous experience, for the assaults now made, not only on the property, but the ancient doctrines of her church; as the sect of the Lollards may be said to have anticipated the leading principles of the Reformation; while the suppression and spoliation of the alien priories, in the reign of Henry V., and a similar plunder committed by Edward II., on the rich order of the Knights Templars, had furnished precedents, though on a comparatively small scale, for the predatory achievements of the present monarch. A brief account of the leading events that marked the progress of the reformed faith in England, from about the time of Fitz Gerald's outbreak to the period where we are now arrived, will not be unuseful towards a clear exposition of the course and effects of that great religious change in Ireland.

The first decisive step taken in the difference between Henry VIII. and the see of Rome, was in the year 1534, when the pope, by declaring the validity of the king's marriage with Catherine of Arragon, pronounced sentence against the union, so much desired

by him, with Anne Boleyn. As this sentence was only enforced by a mere threat of excommunication, in case the king should persist in his project of a divorce, an opening was left through which some compromise, it is thought, might have been effected. But the hasty act of Clement's successor, Paul III., precluded finally any such chance of reconciliation. From that moment, the boundaries of spiritual and temporal power began, on both sides, to be violently transgressed. Not content with declaring Henry himself excommunicated, and laying his whole kingdom under an interdict,-measures which, whatever might have been their prudence, were within the scope of his spiritual powers,Paul, by this bull, deprived the English king of his crown; dissolved all leagues of catholic princes with him; released his subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and delivered his kingdom up a prey to any invader.

While the pontiff was thus rashly outrunning the bounds of his spiritual dominion, the English monarch, on the other hand, self-invested with the supreme headship of the church, was bringing the terrors of temporal punishment to enforce the new powers he had assumed, and show how expeditiously a people may be schooled into reformation by a free use of the rack, the halter, and the stake.

However injudicious, indeed, as regarded mere policy, was the anathema hurled at Henry by the Roman pontiff, it is to be recollected, that intelligence had shortly before reached Rome of the trial and execution of the venerable Fisher, archbishop of Rochester, a crime which, deepened, as it was, by the insults cast on the aged victim, was heard on the continent, we are told, with indignation and tears.* Soon after followed the sentence on the illustrious sir Thomas More, who, because he refused to acknowledge that the king was supreme head of the church,-a proposition which, three years earlier, it would have been heresy to assert,-was sentenced to die the death of a traitor; nor could all his genius and knowledge, his views extending beyond the horizon of his own times, or the playful philosophy that graced both his life and his writings obtain from the tyrant any farther mark of mercy than the mere substitution, in the mode of executing him, of the axe for the halter.

Having achieved thus his double object, supreme sovereignty over the church, as well as the state,-Henry's next step, to which the former had been but preparatory, was the spoliation of the clergy; and whatever wrong and ruin followed in the wake of his predatory course, no compassion is, at all events, due to the higher clergy and spiritual peers, who were themselves the obsequious abettors of all the tyrant's worst measures. Whether, like Gardiner, adhering still to the creed of Rome, or, like Cranmer and others, secretly reformers, the prelates of both the religious parties were equally tools of the throne; and alike servilely lent their aid to every aggression on the rights and property of the church.

The proceedings, as unmanly as they were merciless, against the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, whom the king, having first branded without scruple, then butchered without remorse, have no farther relation to Ireland than as showing how rapidly scenes of pageantry and bloodshed succeeded each other in this frightful reign. By a parliament convened at Dublin, an act was passed, pronouncing the marriage of the king with Catherine of Arragon to be null and void, declaring the inheritance of the crown to be in the king and his heirs by queen Anne, and pronouncing it high treason to oppose this succession. Scarcely, however, had this act passed, when intelligence arrived of the trial and execution of Anne Boleyn, and the marriage of the king to lady Jane Seymour. As the Irish legislature, like that of England, at this period, was a body employed but to register edicts, the same parliament that had just passed this act, no less readily repealed it, and pronounced, by another law, sentence of attainder upon the late queen and all who had been condemned as her supposed accomplices.†

It is not a little curious to observe how slow in ripening were the evil qualitics of Henry's nature, and how long dormant in him was that love of cruelty which the boundless power he afterwards attained enabled him so monstrously to indulge. For no less than five and twenty years after his accession, we find recorded of him but two instances of severity, and one of them a case admitting of justification. It was not till he pretended to sovereignty over the thoughts, the inward consciences of his subjects, and assumed a right to dispose of their souls, as well as their bodies,-it was not, in short, till he had tasted blood, as a bigot, that his true nature, as brute and tyrant fully broke out. Having now assumed to himself a sort of spiritual dictatorship, and usurped, in his

Pole de Unitat,-quoted by Turner, Hist. of Henry VIII. chap. xxvii.

† Leland,-who refers to Ir. Stat. 28th Hen. VIII., not printed.

The only persons who, during that period, had suffered for crimes against the state, were Pole, carl of Suffolk, and Stafford, duke of Buckingham.

own person, that privilege of infallibility against which he had rebelled, as claimed by the pope, Henry proceeded to frame and promulgate a formulary of faith for his whole kingdom, which, instead of being submitted to the boasted tribunal of private judgment, was ordered to be adopted by all implicitly, under pain of tortures and death.

The king's position, in thus holding supremacy over two rival creeds, from both of which he himself materially dissented, and such as entirely suited his tastes, both as disputant and persecutor; and even enabled him, as in the case of the wretched Lambert,— with whom he condescended to hold a public disputation,-first, to browbeat his trembling antagonist in argument, and then to complete the triumph by casting him into the flames. The penal power was, indeed, in his hands, a double-edged sword, for whose frightful sweep his complaisant legislators had provided victims from both religions. For, as all who denied the king's supremacy were declared traitors, and all who rejected the papal creed were pronounced heretics, the freest scope was afforded to cruelty for the alternate indulgence of its tastes, whether in hanging conscientious catholics for treason, or sending protestants to perish in the flames for heresy. On one occasion, singled out of many, the horrible fruits of this policy were strikingly exhibited. In the same cart were conveyed to execution three catholics and three protestants; the former, for denying the king's supremacy, the latter, for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation. The catholics were hanged, drawn and quartered, the protestants burned.

In the year 1539, the last of those spiritual ordinances by which Henry sought to coerce the very consciences of his subjects, made its appearance, in the form of an Act for abolishing diversity of opinions; or, as it was called,-from the savage cruelty with which its enactments were enjoined, the bloody Statute of the Six Articles. This violent law, by which almost all the principal catholic doctrines were enjoined peremptorily, under pain of death and forfeiture, was aimed, with ominous malignity, against those of the king's own ministers, who, while appearing to adopt so obsequiously all his views, were, he knew, secretly pledged disciples of the new German school of faith. Most amply, however, has this duplicity been avenged, by the lasting stain brought upon the memories of those spiritual peers-Cranmer himself among the number-who, affecting to be convinced by a speech which the king had delivered in the course of the debate, gave their assent to this arbitrary statute and the barbarous penalties by which it was enforced. There were only two among the prelates, Latimer and Shaxton, who had the courage to refuse their sanction to this sanguinary act.t

While such, in ecclesiastical affairs, was the odious policy of this monarch's reign, the spirit of its civil administration was no less subversive of all popular right and freedom. By an act, unparalleled in servility, the parliament gave to the king's proclamation the same force as to a statute enacted by their own body; thus basely surrendering into the hands of the monarch the only stronghold of the nation's liberties.

Such, briefly sketched, were the leading events that marked the progress of the reformed faith in England, during a few years preceding the period to which I have brought down the civil history of Ireland; and I have been induced thus far to wander beyond the bounds of my prescribed task, in order, by bringing before the reader both pictures in juxta-position, to show how different was the course and character of the Reformation in the two countries.

In articles entered into by the earl of Ossory, on receiving a grant from the crown in the year 1534, of the counties of Kilkenny, Waterford, and Tipperary, as well as of the territories of Ossory and Ormond, we find the first step taken by the king towards the enforcement of the reformed faith, in Ireland; one of the engagements then entered into by this earl having been to resist the usurped jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome. In less than a fortnight from the date of these articles, the violent rebellion under lord Thomas Fitz Gerald broke out; and amidst the general strife and confusion which then prevailed, little was thought of or done for the advancement of the new doctrines. It does not appear, indeed, that any strong measures for that object had been resorted to before the spring of the following year, when a writ was issued for the apprehension of Cromer, archbishop of Armagh, on a charge of treason; that prelate having vehemently resisted the king's claim of spiritual supremacy, and laid a solemn curse upon all who should give their assent to the proposed change.

"Notwithstanding my lord of Canterbury, my lord of Ely, my lord of Salisbury, my lords of Worcester, Rochester, and St. Davyes, defended the contrary a long time, yet finally his highness confounded them all with goodlie learning."-MS. cited by Lingard.

† Hume.

"Grant of the government of Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford, Ossory, and Ormond, to Ossory, who engages to assist Skeffyngton and the king's deputy for the time being, to reduce Desmond and to resist the pope.-State Paper, LXXII.