he hangs his head, and has nothing to say to charges of faithlessness and intolerance. Yet it is as clear as the day that the Treaty of Limerick was not violated, and that no such statement was ever made in Ireland respecting it until the establishment of the first Catholic Committee in 1756, when it was put forward as a good popular cry. As for the Penal Laws, they were extorted from an unwilling Government by the numerous attacks of the Catholic powers from without, and by the support given to those attacks by a faction among the Roman Catholics at home. This is not the opinion of one individual alone, but is supported by the testimony of many wise and learned men of that persuasion. In 1601, at the end of Elizabeth's reign, the Secular priests of England issued an address to all "true and sound Catholics". In this, they declared that the Penal Laws were brought upon their community by the causes just mentioned; that some of their own calling, if they had been members of the Queen's Council, "knowing what they do know, how under pretence of religion the life of Her Majesty and the subversion of the kingdom is aimed at," would have consented to the making of similar laws, and that no one during her reign was ever vexed "for that he was either priest or Catholic". In 1604, the Roman Catholic laity, in a petition to James I., asserted that for the first twelve years of the reign of Elizabeth, i.e., up to her excommunication by Pius V., their community was undisturbed. "No prince," say they, "was for that space better beloved at home, or more honoured or respected abroad; no subjects ever lived with greater security or contentment; never was the realm more opulent or abundant; never was both in court and country such a general time of triumph, joy

1 Important Considerations, 1601.

1

and exultation." The great Bossuet, about 1700,2 stated that the Catholics in England were not punished as Catholics, but "as public enemies, as men ever disposed, when the Pope should order, to revolt against the King "3 In 1793 the Rev. Joseph Berington, the historian, and Sir John Throckmorton, both devoted sons of their Church, denied that any Roman Catholic priest had been put to death for religion during Elizabeth's reign.1 The Irish Franciscan, Father Peter Walsh, who at one time was professor of divinity at Louvain, published in 1674 a Dedicatory Address to the Catholics of England, Ireland 1 and Scotland. He thus accounts for the enactment of the Penal Laws: "The original source of all those evils, and perpetual spring of all other misfortunes and miseries whatsoever of the Roman Catholics of England, Ireland, Scotland, at any time since the first change under Henry VIII., hath been a system of doctrines and practices, not only quite other than yourselves do believe to have been either revealed in Holy Scripture, or delivered by Catholic tradition, or evidenced by natural reason or so much as defined by the Tridentine fathers, but also quite contrary to those doctrines and practices which are manifestly recommended in the letter, sense and whole design of the Gospel of Christ, in the writings of His blessed Apostles, in the commentaries of their holy successors, in the belief

1 An Apology or Petition of the Lay Catholics, p. 14. This is commonly known as the Petition Apologetical.

2 Bossuet died in 1704. His Defensio did not appear until 1730. This edition was from an imperfect copy. In 1745 it issued from the press in its present shape.

3 Prompti scilicet in regem insurgere ubi Romano pontifici placuisset (Defensio, pars 1, lib. 4, c. 23).

"They were martyrs to the deposing power, not to their religion" (Throckmorton, Letters to the Catholic Clergy of England). It was not for any tenet of the Catholic faith that they were exposed to persecution" (Berington, Mission of Panzani).

and life of the Christian Church universally for the first ten ages thereof, and moreover in the very clearest dictates of Nature itself, whether Christianity be supposed or not." Is this Roman Catholic testimony sufficient, or is it necessary to add a fact which of itself is enough to show that there was no religious persecution of Roman Catholics in the reign of Elizabeth? Every Jesuit and missionary priest condemned to death, to secure his dismissal in safety, had only to acknowledge her as the true and lawful Queen of England, notwithstanding the Papal excommunication deposing her and absolving her subjects from their allegiance.2

In England, where the Protestants were numerous, and a large proportion of the Roman Catholics were loyal, the doctrines of the Jesuits and seminary priests-that the Pope could absolve the subject from his civil allegiance, that Elizabeth was a usurper, and that it was de fide,3 that is, necessary to salvation, to deprive her of all authority-were only accepted by an active and unscrupulous minority among the Roman Catholics, which the Government was unable to distinguish from the majority.

1 Address prefixed to the History of the Irish Remonstrance.

2 When Campion and his companions were convicted, John Hart, James Bosgrave, Edward Reshton and Orton saved themselves by such an acknowledgment. Cardinal Allen admitted that those who made this acknowledgment "were to be absolved from death, though they professed the Catholic religion" (Butler, English Catholics, i., p. 428). The Rev. Joseph Berington says expressly "that none of the old clergy suffered, and none of the new, who roundly renounced the assumed prerogative of Papal despotism" (Panzani, p. 34).

"The whole of divines and canonists do hold," says Father Parsons, "that it is certain and of faith that if any Christian prince do deflect from the Catholic religion, his subjects are free from all obligation of that oath which they have taken for their allegiance, and that they may and ought, if they have forces, drive out such a man as an apostate or heretic, and an enemy to the common wealth, from all dominion over Christians, etc." (Throckmorton, Letters to the Catholic Clergy, p. 129).

3

But Ireland at this time was almost purely Papal, and the moderating influence of a body of citizens holding a different belief was absent. Its excitable people were taught that Elizabeth and her adherents had been cut off from the unity of the Body of Christ,' that she was the enemy of God and man, and that it was their duty as Catholics to fight against her, and to aid her enemies. To support these principles by active intervention Papal invasions were despatched to Ireland; plenary indulgences were distributed to stir up its inhabitants to rebellion and wars of religion; and Jesuits and missionary priests laboured incessantly to inculcate that war against the English heretics was as meritorious as one against Turks and infidels. Though at first rejected by some of the Irish ecclesiastics and nobles who adhered to Elizabeth, the poison worked its way slowly and surely through the minds of the Irish, alienating them from the English, and sowing the seeds of national enmity. A large proportion of the Irish nobles were disaffected because they had been deprived of their absolute authority, and because they perceived that Elizabeth's Government was resolved to give their dependants security of tenure, and to free them from the intolerable exactions to which they were liable. But they were well aware that the proposed changes were popular with the people. They therefore maintained a discreet silence respecting these measures, and adopted the cry of religion in danger. Under the leadership of

1 "Declaramus prædictam Elizabetham... eique adherentes a Christi corporis unitate præcisos (Bull of Pius V).

2"Quæ, Deo pariter et hominibus infesta, in Anglia et ista Hiberniæ insula superbe et impie dominatur." The words of the bull which Sander, the Pope's legate, took with him in 1579 (Ellis, Original Letters, second series, iii., p. 93. Phelan's Remains, ii., p. 204).

Bull of Gregory XIII., 13th May 1580 (O'Sullivan, Compendium Hist. Catholicæ, p. 121).

1

O'Neill and O'Donnell, and directly encouraged by the Roman Pontiff, they rose in a general insurrection, and the first religious war in Ireland was begun, only to be ended by the conquest of the whole country.

2

Even after the death of Elizabeth, the hostility of the Popes was continued to her Protestant successors. Their policy is best described in their own words: "The Holy See never can by any positive act approve of the civil allegiance of Catholic subjects to a heretical prince.' In pursuance of this policy, Paul V., in 1606, issued a bull to the Catholics of Ireland and England forbidding them to take the oath of allegiance or any similar oath. The injunction was obeyed, and the Irish refused to take an oath of obedience to their Sovereign. The rule was relaxed during the short reign of James II., but was again revived against his successors. The oath which was refused to our English kings was freely given to the descendants of James, who nominated every Roman Catholic bishop in Ireland until the death of the last Stuart.* "Would it not be more than absurd," wrote the Roman Catholic bishop of Ossory, as late as 1772, "that a Catholic priest, preaching the word of God to a Catholic people, should swear allegiance to King George as long as he is a supporter of a heterodox religion, and as long

1 Papal letter to O'Neill, 20th January 1601 (Pacata Hibernia, ii., p. 667). The Pope had sent a plenary indulgence the year before to all who should aid O'Neill "as if they were warring against the Turks, and for the recovery of the Holy Land" (Ib., p. 664).

2 Letter from the Papal secretary, Cardinal Pamphili, to the legate, Rinuccini, May, 1646; Carte, Ormond, i., p. 578; O'Conor's Historical Address, ii., p. 415; Hutton, Embassy of Rinuccini in Ireland, p. 580.

3 "Propterea admonemus vos, ut ab hoc atque similibus juramentis præstandis omnino caveatis (Bishop Burke's Hibernia Dominicana, p. 613, where the bull is given).

Evidence of Dr. Doyle, Roman Catholic bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, before a committee of the House of Commons (Digest of Evidence, etc., p. 325).