The Irish Race in the Past and the Present Part 27

But the attempt was fated to encounter a more determined opposition in Dublin than it had in London.

Sir James Ware says, in reference to it: "At the very beginning of this Parliament, her Majestie's well-wishers found that most of the n.o.bility and Commons--they were all English by blood or birth--were divided in opinion about the ecclesiastical government, which caused the Earl of Suss.e.x (Lord Deputy) to dissolve them, and to go over to England to confer with her Majesty about the affairs of this kingdom.

"These differences were occasioned by the several alterations which had happened in ecclesiastical matters within the compa.s.s of twelve years.

"1. King Henry VIII. held the ecclesiastical supremacy with the first-fruits and tenths, maintaining the seven sacraments, with obits and ma.s.s for the living and the dead.

"2. King Edward abolished the ma.s.s, authorizing the book of common prayers, and the consecration of the bread and wine in the English tongue, and establishing only two sacraments.

"3. Queen Mary, after King Edward's decease, brought all back again to the Church of Rome, and the papal obedience.

"4. Queen Elizabeth, on her first Parliament in England, took away the Pope's supremacy, reserving the tenths and first-fruits to her heirs and successors. She put down the ma.s.s, and, for a general uniformity of worship in her dominions, as well in England as in Ireland, she established the book of common prayers, and forbade the use of popish ceremonies."

Such is the very lucid sketch furnished by Ware of the changes which had taken place in religion in England within the brief s.p.a.ce of twelve years.

The members of the Irish Parliament, although of English descent, could not so easily reconcile themselves to these rapid changes as their fellows in England had done; in fact, they laid claim to a conscience--a thing seemingly unknown to the English members, or, if known at all, of an exceedingly elastic and slippery nature. Here lay the difficulty: how was it to be overcome? The conversation between Elizabeth and Suss.e.x must have been of a very interesting character.

Returning with private instructions from the queen, the Earl of Suss.e.x again convened the Parliament, which only consisted of the so called representatives of ten counties--Dublin, Meath, West Meath, Louth, Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford, Tipperary, and Wexford. We see that the almost total extinction of the Kildare branch of the Geraldines had extended the English Pale. The other deputies were citizens and burgesses of those towns in which the royal authority predominated. "With such an a.s.sembly," says Leland, "it is little wonder that, in despite of clamor and opposition, in a session of a few weeks, the whole ecclesiastical system of Queen Mary was entirely reversed." It is needless to remark that the people had nothing whatever to do with this reversal; it merely looked on, or was already organizing for resistance.

Nevertheless, even in that a.s.sembly the queen's agents were obliged to have recourse to fraud and deception, in order to carry her measures, and it cannot be said that they obtained a majority.

"The proceedings," according to Mr. Haverty, "are involved in mystery, and the princ.i.p.al measures are believed to have been carried by means fraudulent and clandestine." And, in a note, he adds: "It is said that the Earl of Suss.e.x, to calm the protests which were made in Parliament, when it was found that the law had been pa.s.sed by a few members a.s.sembled privately, pledged himself solemnly that this statute would not be enforced generally on laymen during the reign of Elizabeth."1 (1 Dr.

Curry, in his "Civil Wars," has collected some curious facts in ill.u.s.tration of this point.)

Whatever the means adopted to introduce and carry out the new policy, it was certainly enacted that "the queen was the head of the Church of Ireland, the reformed worship was reestablished as under Edward VI., and the book of common prayers, with further alterations, was reintroduced. A fine of twelve pence was imposed on every person who should not attend the new service, for each offence; bishops were to be appointed only by the queen, and consecrated at her bidding. All officers and ministers, ecclesiastical or lay, were bound to take the oath of supremacy, under pain of forfeiture or incapacity; and any one who maintained the spiritual supremacy of the Pope was to forfeit, for his first offence, all his estates, real and personal, or be imprisoned for one year, if not worth twenty pounds; for the second offence, to be liable to praemunire; and for the third, to be guilty of high-treason."

It was understood that those laws would be strictly enforced against all priests and friars, though left generally inoperative for lay people; and, with certain exceptions, mentioned by Dr. Curry, such was the rule observed. Thus, the reign of Elizabeth, which was such a cruel one for ecclesiastics, produced few martyrs among the laity in Ireland. And, for this reason, Sir James Ware is able to boast that, in all the "rebellions" of the Irish against Elizabeth; they falsely complained that their freedom of worship was curtailed, as though they could worship without either priests or churches.

But the law was pa.s.sed which made it "high-treason" to a.s.sert, three times in succession, the spiritual supremacy of the Pope; and, henceforth, whoever should suffer in defence of that Catholic dogma, was to be a traitor and not a martyr.

The woman, seated on the English throne, speedily discovered that it was not so easy a matter to change the religion of the Irish as it had been to subvert completely that of her own people.

Deprived of religious houses and means of instruction, deprived of priests and churches, no communication with Rome save by stealth, the Irish still showed their oppressors that their consciences were free, and that no acts of Parliament or sentences of iniquitous tribunals could prevent their remaining Catholics.

By promising to deal as lightly with the laity as severely with the clergy, Elizabeth felt confident that the Catholic religion would soon perish in Ireland, and that, with the disappearance of the priests, the churches, sacraments, instruction, and open communion with Rome, would also disappear. To all seeming, her surmises were correct; but the people were silently gathering and uniting together as they had never done before.

The whole of Elizabeth's Irish policy may be comprised under two headings: 1. Her policy toward the n.o.bles, apparently one of compromise and toleration, but really one of destruction, and so rightly did they understand it that they rose and called in foreign aid to their a.s.sistance; 2. Her church policy, one of blood and total overthrow, which priests and people, now united forever in the same great cause, resisted from the outset, and finally defeated; and the decrees of high-treason, which were carried out with frightful barbarity, only served to confirm the Irish people in that unanimity which the wily dealings of Henry VIII. had originated.

I. With the n.o.bility Elizabeth hoped to succeed by flattery, cunning, deceit, finally by treachery, and sowing dissension among them; but all her efforts only served to knit them more firmly one to another, and to revive among them the true spirit of nationality and patriotism.

She did not state to them that her great object was to destroy the Catholic Church; neverthless they should have felt and resented it from the beginning; above all, ought they to have given expression to the contempt they entertained for the bait held out to them that the "laws" would not be executed against them, but against Churchmen only. Had they been truly animated by the feelings which already possessed the hearts of the people, they would have scornfuly rejected the compromise proposed.

But she appeared to allow them perfect freedom in religious matters; she subjected them to no oath, as in England; the new laws were a dead letter as far as regarded the native lords, who lived under other laws and remained silent, as with the lords of the Pale. Yet nothing was of such importance in her eyes as the enforcement of those decrees; consequently, she could only accomplish her designs by deceit. George Browne, the first Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, had predicted that the old Irish race and the Anglo-Irish chieftains would unite and combine with Continental powers in order to establish their independence. The whole policy of Elizabeth's reign would give us reason to believe that she rightly understood the deep remark of the worldly heretic. Hence, although (or, rather, because) the north, Ulster, was at that time the stronghold of Catholic feeling, and the O'Neills and O'Donnells its leaders, she flatters them, has them brought to her court, pardons several "rebellions" of Shane the Proud, and afterward loads with her favors the young Hugh of Tyrone, whom she kept at her own court.

She would dazzle them by the splendor of that court, by the royal presents she so royally lavishes upon them, and by the prospect of greater favors still to come. Meanwhile on the south she turns a stern eye, and makes up her mind to destroy what is left of the Geraldine family. This was to be the beginning of the war of extermination, and the n.o.bility which at the time was disunited became firmly consolidated shortly after.

It is needless to go into the glorious and romantic history of the Geraldine family. Elizabeth chose them for the first object of her attack, because they, as Anglo-Irish Catholics, were more odious in her eye than the pure Irish.

She knew that the then Earl of Desmond had escaped almost by miracle from the island with his younger brother John, when the rest of the n.o.ble stock had been butchered at Tyburn. She knew that Gerald, after many wanderings, had finally reached Rome, been educated under the care of his kinsman, Cardinal Pole, cherished as a dear son by the reigning Pontiff, had subsequently appeared at the Tuscan court of Cosmo de Medici; that consequently, since his return to Ireland, he might be considered the chief of the Catholic party there, although, to save himself from attainder and hold possession of his immense wealth in Munster, he displayed the greatest reserve in all his actions, appeared to respect the orders of the queen in all things, even in her external policy against the Church; so that if priests were entertained in his castles, it was always by stealth, and they were compelled to lead a life of total retirement.

But, despite all this outward show, Elizabeth knew that Gerald was really a sincere Catholic, that he considered himself a sovereign prince, and would consequently have small scruple about entering into a league against her, not only with the northern Irish chieftains, but even with the Catholic princes of the Continent. She resolved, therefore, to destroy him.

Sidney was sent to Ireland as lord-lieutenant. He travelled first through all Munster, and complained bitterly that the Irish chieftains were destroying the country by their divisions, though perfectly conscious that those divisions were secretly encouraged by England. He appeared to listen to the people, when they complained of their lords, and yet at the holding of a.s.sizes he hanged this same people on the flimsiest pretexts, and had them executed wholesale. In one of his dispatches to the home government, he makes complacent allusion to the countless executions which accompanied his triumphant progress through Munster: "I wrote not," he says, "the name of each particular varlet that has died since I arrived, as well by the ordinary course of the law, and the martial law, as flat fighting with them, when they would take food without the good-will of the giver; for I think it is no stuff worthy the loading of my letters with; but I do a.s.sure you, the number of them is great, and some of the best, and the rest tremble. For the most part they fight for their dinner, and many of them lose their heads before they are served with supper. Down they go in every corner, and down they shall go, G.o.d willing."--(Sidney's Dispatches, Br. M.)

This was the man who announced himself as the avenger of the people on their rulers. He complained chiefly of Gerald of Desmond, and, without any pretext, summoned him with his brother John, carried them prisoners to Dublin, and afterward sent them to the Tower of London. The shanachy of the family relates that then, and then only, Gerald sent a private message to his kinsmen and retainers, appointing his cousin James, son of Maurice, known as James Fitzmaurice, the head and leader in his family during his own absence.

"For James," says the shanachy, "was well known for his attachment to the ancient faith, no less than for his valor and chivalry, and gladly did the people of old Desmond receive these commands, and inviolable was their attachment to him who was now their appointed chieftain."

James began directly to organize the memorable "Geraldine League, " upon the fortunes of which, for years, the attention of Christendom was fixed.

This, the first open treaty of Irish lords with the Pope, as a sovereign prince, and with the King of Spain, calls for a few remarks on the right of the Irish to declare open war with England, and choose their own friends and allies, without being rebels.

The English were at this very time so conscious of the weakness of their t.i.tle to the sovereignty of Ireland, that they were continually striving to prop up their claims by the most absurd pretensions.

In the posthumous act of attainder against Shane O'Neill in the Irish Parliament of 1569, Elizabeth's ministers affected to trace her t.i.tle to the realm of Ireland back to a period anterior to the Milesian race of kings. They invented a ridiculous story of a "King Gurmondus," son to the n.o.ble King Belan of Great Britain, who was lord of Bayon in Spain--they probably meant Bayonne in France--as were many of his successors down to the time of Henry II., who possessed the island after the "comeing of Irishmen into the same lande."--(Haverty, Irish Statutes, 2 Eliz., sess. 3, cap. i.)

These learned men who flourished in the golden reign of Elizabeth must have thought the Irish very easily imposed upon if they imagined they could give ear to such a fabrication, at a time when each great family had its own chronicler to trace its pedigree back to the very source of the race of Miledh.

The t.i.tle of conquest, at that time a valid one in all countries, had no value with the Irish who never had been and never admitted themselves to have been conquered. Had they not preserved their own laws, customs, language, local governments?

Had the English ever even attempted to subject them to their laws? They had openly refused to grant their pretended benefits to those few "degenerate Irishmen" who in sheer despair had applied for them. This policy of separation was adopted by England with the view of "rooting out" the Irish. The English Government could therefore only accept the natural consequence of such a system--that the Irish race should be left to itself, in the full enjoyment of its own laws and local governments.

The very policy of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, as displayed in their attempt to break down the clans by favoring "well-disposed Irishmen" and setting them up, by fraudulent elections, as chiefs of the various septs, proves that the English themselves admitted the clans to be real nation--_nationes_--as they were called at the time by Irish chroniclers and by English writers even. It was an acknowledgment of the plain fact that the natives possessed and exercised their own laws of succession and election, their own government and autonomy.

The disappearance of the Ard-Righ, who had held the t.i.tular power over the whole country, is no proof that the Irish possessed no government: for they themselves had refused for several centuries to acknowledge his power. The island was split up into several small independent states, each with the right of levying war, and making peace and alliance. Gillapatrick, of Ossory, dispatched his amba.s.sador to Henry VIII. to announce that if he, the English king, did not prevent his deputy, Rufus Pierce, of Dublin, from annoying the clans of Ossory, Gillapatrick would, in self-defence, declare war against the King of England. And the imperious Henry Tudor, instead of laughing at the threat of the chieftain; was shrewd enough to recognize its significance, and prevented it being carried into execution by admitting the cause as valid, and submitting the conduct of his deputy to an investigation.

Moreover, the principles by which Christendom had been ruled for centuries, were just then being broken up by the advent of Protestantism; and novel theories were being introduced for the government of modern nations. What were the old principles, and what the new; and how stood Ireland with respect to each?

In the old organization of Christendom, the key-stone of the whole political edifice was the papacy. Up to the sixteenth century, the Sovereign Pontiff had been acknowledged by all Christian nations as supreme arbiter in international questions, and if England did possess any shadow of authority over Ireland, it was owing to former decisions of popes, who, being misinformed, had allowed the Anglo-Norman kings to establish their power in the island. Whatever may be thought of the bull of Adrian IV., this much is certain: we do not pretend to solve that vexed historical problem.

But, by rebelling against Rome, by rejecting the t.i.tle of the Pope, England threw away even that claim, and by the bull of excommunication, issued against Elizabeth, the Irish were released from their allegiance to her, supposing that such allegiance had existed, solely built upon this claim.

So well was this understood at the time, that the Roman Pontiffs, as rulers of the Papal States, the Emperors of Germany, as heads of the German Empire, and the Kings of Spain and France, always covertly and sometimes openly received the envoys of O'Neill, Desmond, and O'Donnell, and openly dispatched troops and fleets to a.s.sist the Irish in their struggle for their de facto independence.

All this was in perfect accordance, not merely with the authority which Catholic powers still recognized in the Sovereign Pontiff, but even with the new order of things which Protestantism had introduced into Western Europe, and which England, as henceforth a leading Protestant power, had accepted and eagerly embraced. By the rejection of the supreme arbitration of the Popes, on the part of the new heretics, Europe lost its unity as Christendom, and naturally formed itself into two leagues, the Catholic and the Protestant. An oppressed Catholic nationality, above all a weak and powerless one, had therefore the right of appeal to the great Catholic powers for help against oppression. And the pretension of England to the possession of Ireland was the very essence of oppression and tyranny in itself, doubly aggravated by the fact of an apostate and vicious king or queen making it treason for a people, utterly separate and distinct from theirs, to hold fast to its ancient and revered religion.

Who can say, then, that Gregory XIII. was guilty of injustice and of abetting rebellion when, in 1578, he furnished James Fitzmaurice, the great Geraldine, with a fleet and army to fight against Elizabeth? The authority greatest in Catholic eyes, and most worthy of respect in the eyes of all impartial men--the Pope-- thus endorsed the patent fact that Ireland was an independent nation, and could wage war against her oppressors.

Here we have a stand-point from which to argue the question for future times.

The rash or, perhaps, treacherous share taken by a few Irish chieftains, in the schismatical and heretical as well as unpatriotic decrees of the Parliament of 1541, and in the subsequent ones of 1549, could compromise the Irish nation in nowise, inasmuch as the people, being still even in legal enjoyment of their own government, their chieftains possessed no authority to decide on such questions without the full concurrence of their clans, and these had already p.r.o.nounced, clearly enough and unmistakably, on the return of their lords from their t.i.tle-hunting expedition in England.

All the chroniclers of the time agree that "the people" was invariably sound in faith, siding with the chieftains wherever they rose in opposition to oppressive decrees, abandoning them when they showed signs of wavering, even; but, above all, when they ranged themselves with the oppressors of the Church. The English Protestant writers of the period confirm this honorable testimony of the Irish bards, by constantly accusing the natives of a "rebellious" spirit.

The history of the Geraldine struggle is known to all readers of Irish history, and does not enter into the scope of these pages.

We have, however, to consider the foreign aid which the chieftains received, from Spain chiefly, and the causes of these failures, which at first would seem to argue a lack of firmness on the part of the Irish themselves. During the Geraldine wars, and later on in what is called the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill and Hugh O'Donnell, the King of Spain sent vessels and troops to the a.s.sistance of the Irish. All these expeditions failed, and the destruction of the natives was far greater than it might otherwise have been, in consequence of the greater number of English troops sent to Ireland to face the expected Spanish invasion.

The same ill success attended the French fleet and army dispatched to Limerick by Louis XIV. to a.s.sist James II., and, later still, the large fleet and well-appointed troops sent by the French Convention to the aid of the "United Irishmen," in 1798.

In like manner, the Vendeans, on the other side, those French "rebels" against the Convention itself, received their death- blow in consequence of the English who were sent to their succor at Quiberon.

It seems, indeed, a universal historic law that, when a nation or a party in a nation struggles against another, the almost invariable consequence of foreign aid is failure; but no conclusion can be deduced from that fact of lack of bravery, steadfastness, even ultimate success, on the part of those who rise in arms against oppression. Of the many causes which may be a.s.signed to that apparently strange law of history, the chief are: