against Waterford . 396 ment of Lord Deputy Is supplanted by Kildare with the King of France Daring Act of O'Connor, who takes Prisoner the Lord De- Feuds among the English The Duke of Norfolk's (late 1530, The Duke of Richmond ap pointed Lord-Lieutenant Triumph of Kildare Sir William Skeffington Lord Deputy Warwick escapes to Cornwall 397 1532. Removal of Skeffington and Appointment of Kildare in his Place 402 402 402 402 403 403 403 404 404 404 405 405 CHAPTER XLVI. HENRY VIII. (Continued.) Progress of the Reformation in England Henry's Differences with the Fate of Sir Thomas More is sent prisoner to England 414 1539. The act for abolishing Diver His Execution together with The Reformation in Ireland 421 421 422 423 423 423 sity of Opinions 424 414 424 his five Uncles The Destruction of O'Brian's Bridge 1536, Rumoured Return of Lord Thomas Fitz Gerald 1537. Expedition of the Lord Deputy into Offaley, and Expulsion of Brian O'Connor. Opposition of the Proctors to Bill for their Expulsion from 415 425 415 puty and O'Connor. Gerald Fitz Gerald, the Bro ther of Lord Thomas 1538. The Aid of the Scottish Monarch solicited in his favour 417 Marriage of Gerald's Aunt, Lady Eleanor, to O'Donnell 417 Lord Gray's military Progress through the Kingdom 416 Character of Archbishop Browne 426 416 417 Comparative Tranquillity of Charges against him. 417 Ireland 427 League between Desmond Two Archbishops and eight and O'Brian 417 Unworthy Submission to Des Bishops take the Oath of Supremacy 427 mond 418 Act for the Suppression of re ligious Houses 428 Urgent request of Archbishop Contest between Desmond and Fitz Maurice for Right of Inheritance Countenance afforded by Desmond to young Fitz Gerald Lord Gray suspected of favouring Gerald. Religious Differences Supposed League of the Scot tish Court with the Irish Chief Expulsion of the Scotch Refugees The Geraldine League Expedition into Munster under the Command of the Lord 418 Browne for a Share of the religious Plunder Silence of the Clergy . 428 428 Lord Gray returns to England Differences between Ormond 429 519 419 419 THE HISTORY OF IRELAND. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE IRISH PEOPLE.-EARLY NOTICES OF IRELAND. THERE appears to be no doubt that the first inhabitants of Ireland were derived from the same Celtic stock which supplied Gaul, Britain, and Spain with their original population. Her language, the numerous monuments she still retains of that most ancient superstition which the first tribes who poured from Asia into Europe are known to have carried with them wherever they went, sufficiently attest the true origin of her people. Whatever obscurity may hang round the history of the tribes that followed this first Eastern swarm, and however opinions may still vary, as to whether they were of the same, or of a different race, it seems, at least, certain, that the Celts were the first inhabitants of the western parts of Europe; and that, of the language of this most ancient people, the purest dialect now existing is the Irish. It might be concluded, from the near neighbourhood of the two islands to each other, that the fortunes of Britain and Ireland would, in those times, be similar; that, in the various changes and mixtures to which population was then subject, from the successive incursions of new tribes from the East, such vicissitudes would be shared in common by the two islands, and the same flux and reflux of population be felt on both their shores. Such an assumption, however, would, even as to earlier times, be rash; and, how little founded it is, as a general conclusion, appears from the historical fact, that the Romans continued in military possession of Britain for near four hundred years, without a single Roman, during that whole period, having been known to set foot on Irish ground. The system of Whitaker and others, who, from the proximity of the two islands, assume that the population of Ireland must have been all derived from Britain, is wholly at variance, not merely with probability, but with actual evidence. That, in the general and compulsory movement of the Celtic tribes towards the west, an island, like Ireland, within easy reach both of Spain and Gaul, should have been left unoccupied during the long interval it must have required to stock England with inhabitants, seems, to the highest degree, improbable. But there exists, independently of this consideration, strong evidence of an early intercourse between Spain and Ireland, in the historical traditions of the two countries, in the names of the different Spanish tribes assigned to the latter by Ptolemy, and, still more, in the sort of notoriety which Ireland early, as we shall see, acquired, and which could only have arisen out of her connexion with those Phoenician colonies, through whom alone a secluded island of the Atlantic could have become so well known to the world. At a later period, when the Belgic Gauls had gained such a footing in Britain, as to begin to encroach on the original Celtic inhabitants, a remove still farther to the west was, as usual, the resource of this people; and Ireland, already occupied by a race speaking a dialect of the same language, the language common, at that period, to all the |