Chapter IX (3)

Nor is it strange that the new religion had made such little progress in Ireland. Apart from the fact that the Irish people were thoroughly Catholic at heart, the means adopted to bring about their apostasy was not of such a kind as to ensure success. The English sovereigns, their officials in Dublin, and a section of the Anglo-Irish nobles aimed at getting possession of the ecclesiastical property and patronage, and once they had attained their object they had but scant regard for the claims of religion. Englishmen were sent over as archbishops or bishops, who could not preach in a language that the people could understand, and who had no other desire than to enrich themselves, their children, and their relatives. Archbishop Browne had set an example in this direction, which example was not lost on his successor, Adam Loftus, who was so greedy in petitioning for appointments that his chapter was forced to demand from him a pledge that he would look for nothing more. Archbishop Long of Armagh (1584- 89) wasted the property of the diocese to such an extent that his successor had barely an income of £120 a year and not a house to give him shelter. Miler Magrath enriched himself out of Cashel, Emly, Waterford and Lismore, Killala, and Achonry. Twenty of the parishes of Emly were held by himself; twenty-six by his sons, daughters, and near relations; nineteen were left vacant; men "fitter to keep hogs than to serve in church" were appointed to some livings, and "in the two dioceses (Cashel and Emly) there was not one preacher or good minister to teach the subjects their duties to God and His Majesty." Craik of Kildare, Cavenagh of Ossory, and Allen of Ferns were accused of alienating the diocesan property of their respective Sees. With the single exception of Brady, the Protestant Bishop of Meath, against whom Loftus declared he could bring such charges as he would be loath to utter, hardly one of the men appointed by Elizabeth to Irish bishoprics was worthy of his position. Loftus was an impecunious courtier; Magrath had no religion except to make money and indulge his passion for strong drink; Knight the Scotchman, who was sent to Cashel to watch him, was removed on account of public drunkenness; Devereux was appointed to Ferns, although, according to Loftus, he had been deprived of his deanship on account of confessed immorality; Richard Dixon was deprived of his See within one year after his appointment by the queen for manifest adultery, and Marmaduke Middleton of Waterford having been translated to St. David's was accused of "grave misdemeanours," the most serious of which was the publication of a forged will, and was degraded by the High Commission Court. With such men in charge of the work of "reforming" the clergy and people of Ireland, it is no wonder that the Reformation made so little progress.[100]

The men into whose hands the property and patronage of the Church had passed took no steps to look after the repair of the church buildings or to provide clergy to preach the new religion. In some cases their neglect was due to the fact that they themselves were Catholic in their sympathies, and in other cases because they did not want to incur any expenses. As a consequence, the churches were in ruins and roofless, and no religious service of any kind was provided. Few English ministers of good standing in their own country cared to come to Ireland except possibly in the hope of securing a bishopric in the Pale districts, and as a consequence, the men who came were "of some bad note," on account of which they were obliged to leave their own country. Hence, in order to provide ministers to spread the new gospel it was necessary to ordain those who were willing to receive orders as a means of making their living. It is no wonder, therefore, that Edmund Spenser described the Irish Protestant clergy of the period as "bad, licentious, and most disordered." "Whatever disorders," he writes, "you see in the Church of England, you may find in Ireland, and many more, namely, gross simony, greedy covetousness, incontinence, careless sloth, and generally all disordered life in the common clergyman. And, besides all these, they have their particular enormities; for all Irish ministers that now enjoy church livings are in a manner mere laymen, saving that they have taken holy orders, but otherwise they go and live like laymen, follow all kinds of husbandry, and other worldly affairs as other Irishmen do. They neither read the Scriptures, nor preach to the people, nor administer the communion." A good account of the motley crowd who had been enlisted to carry out the work of reform is given by Andrew Trollope, himself an English lawyer and a Protestant. Although he referred particularly to Munster his account may be taken as substantially correct for the rest of Ireland. "In truth," he wrote, "such they [the clergy] are as deserve not living or to live. For they will not be accounted ministers but priests. They will have no wives. If they would stay there it were well; but they will have harlots . . . And with long experience and some extraordinary trail of those fellows, I cannot find whether the most of them love lewd women, cards, dice, or drink best. And when they must of necessity go to church, they carry with them a book of Latin of the Common Prayer set forth and allowed by her Majesty. But they read little or nothing of it, or can well read it, but they tell the people a tale of Our Lady or St. Patrick, or some other saint, horrible to be spoken or heard, and intolerable to be suffered, and do all they may to allure the people from God and their prince, and their due obedience to them both, and persuade them to the devil and the Pope." The Lord Deputy sent a report to England in 1576 "on the lamentable state of the Church" in Ireland. "There are," he wrote, "within this diocese [Meath] two hundred and twenty-four parish churches, of which number one hundred and five are impropriated to sundry possessions; no parson or vicar resident upon any of them, and a very simple or sorry curate for the most part appointed to serve them; among which number of curates only eighteen were found able to speak English, the rest being Irish ministers, or rather Irish rogues, having very little Latin, and less learning and civility. . . . In many places the very walls of the churches are thrown down; very few chancels covered; windows or doors ruined or spoiled. . . . If this be the state of the church in the best-peopled diocese, and best governed country of this your realm, as in truth it is, easy is it for your Majesty to conjecture in what case the rest is, where little or no reformation either of religion or manners hath yet been planted and continued among them. . . . If I should write unto your Majesty what spoil hath been, and is of the archbishoprics, of which there are four, and of the bishoprics, whereof there are above thirty, partly by the prelates themselves, partly by the potentates, their noisome neighbours, I should make too long a libel of this my letter. But your Majesty may believe it, upon the face of the earth where Christ is professed, there is not a Church in so miserable a case."

Spenser drew a sharp contrast between the Catholic clergy and the ministers of the new gospel. "It is great wonder," he wrote, "to see the odds which are between the zeal of the Popish priests and the ministers of the gospel. For they spare not to come out of Spain, from Rome, and from Rheims, by long toil and dangerous travelling hither, where they know peril of death awaiteth them, and no reward or riches are to be found, only to draw the people unto the Church of Rome; whereas some of our idle ministers, having a way for credit and estimation thereby opened unto them, and having the livings of the country offered unto them without pains and without peril, will neither for the same, nor any love of God, nor zeal of religion, nor for all the good they may do by winning souls to God, be drawn forth from their warm nests to look out into God's harvest."[101]

But though the attempts to seduce Ireland from the Catholic faith had failed to produce any substantial results, yet there could be no denying the fact that Elizabeth had gone further to reduce the country to subjection than had any of her predecessors. The overthrow of the Geraldines and their allies in the South, the plantation of English Undertakers in the lands of the Earl of Desmond, the seizure of MacMahon's country, and the attempted plantation of Clandeboy, the appointments of presidents of Munster and Connaught, the reduction of several counties to shire-lands, the nomination of sheriffs to enforce English law, and the establishment of garrisons in several parts of the country, made it clear to any thoughtful Irishman that unless some steps were taken at once, the complete reduction of their country was only a matter of a few years. In the North Hugh O'Neill, son of Matthew O'Neill, was looked upon as the most powerful nobleman of the province. Like his father he had been in his youth an English O'Neill, and for that reason he was created Earl of Tyrone (1585), and was granted most of the territories of Shane the Proud. But he distrusted the English, as he was distrusted by them. The treacherous seizure of Hugh O'Donnell, the planting of an English garrison at Portmore along the Blackwater, and the warlike preparations begun by Sir Henry Bagenal made it evident to him that the government aimed at the complete overthrow of the Irish chieftains.

Having strengthened himself by alliances with Hugh O'Donnell, Maguire, and the principal nobles of the North, he rose in arms, seized the fortress of Portmore, laid siege to Monaghan, and inflicted a very severe defeat on the English forces at Clontibret (1595). Whatever might have been his ulterior object, O'Neill put the question of religion in the forefront. Already it had been noted by the English officials that O'Neill, though brought up in England, was attached to the "Romish Church." In their negotiations with the government after the defeat of the English forces at Clontibret, both O'Neill and O'Donnell demanded that "all persons have free liberty of conscience." Similar demands were made by the other chieftains of Ulster, and later on by all the Irish nobles in Connaught, Leinster, and Munster. In reply to these demands the commissioners announced that in the past the queen had tolerated the practice of the Catholic religion, and "so in likelihood she will continue the same." When the report of these negotiations reached England Elizabeth was displeased. The request for liberty of conscience was characterised as "disloyal." O'Neill was to be informed that "this had been a later disloyal compact made betwixt him and the other rebels without any reasonable ground or cause to move them thereunto, especially considering there hath been no proceeding against any of them to move so unreasonable and disloyal a request as to have liberty to break laws, which her Majesty will never grant to any subject."[102]

Though the negotiations were continued for some time neither side was anxious for peace. Elizabeth and her officials strove to secure the support of the Anglo-Irish of the Pale and of a certain section of the Irish nobles. Unfortunately she was only too successful. Most of the Anglo-Irish nobles, though still devoted to the Catholic faith, preferred to accept toleration at the hands of Elizabeth rather than to fight side by side with O'Neill for the complete restoration of their religion.[103] O'Neill and O'Donnell turned to Spain and Rome for support. From Spain they asked for arms, soldiers, and money to enable them to continue the struggle. From the Pope they asked also for material assistance, but in addition they demanded that he should re-publish the Bull of excommunication and deposition issued against Elizabeth by Gregory XIII., that he should declare their war to be a religious war in which all Catholics should take the side of the Irish chiefs, that he should excommunicate the Catholic noblemen who had taken up arms in defence of the queen, that he should grant them the full rights of patronage enjoyed in Ulster by their predecessors, and that he should appoint no ecclesiastics to vacant Sees without their approval.[104]

These requests were supported strongly at Rome by Peter Lombard (1601), who was appointed later on Archbishop of Armagh, and as a result Clement VIII. determined to send a nuncio to Ireland in the person of Ludovico Mansoni (1601). Philip III. of Spain at last consented to dispatch a force into Ireland, but instead of landing in the North where O'Neill and O'Donnell were all-powerful, the Spanish exhibition under command of Don Juan del Aquila arrived off Kinsale, and took possession of the town (Sept. 1601). For the three years preceding the arrival of the Spaniards the Northern chiefs had been wonderfully successful. They had defeated Marshal Bagenal at the Yellow Ford (1598), had overthrown the forces of Sir Conyers Clifford at the Curlieu Mountains (1599), and had upset all the plans of the Earl of Essex, who was sent over specially by Elizabeth to reduce them to subjection. Hardly, however, had the Spaniards occupied Kinsale when they were besieged by the new Deputy, Lord Mountjoy, and by Carew, the President of Munster. An urgent message was dispatched by them requesting O'Neill and O'Donnell to march to their assistance, and against their own better judgment they determined to march South to the relief of their allies. Even still, had they been satisfied with hemming in the English forces, as O'Neill advised, they might have succeeded, but instead of adopting a waiting policy, they determined to make an attack in conjunction with the Spanish force. As a result they suffered a complete defeat (1602). O'Neill conducted the remnant of his army towards Ulster; O'Donnell was dispatched to seek for further help to Spain from which he never returned, and Aquila surrendered Kinsale and other fortresses garrisoned by Spaniards. Carew laid waste the entire province of Connaught, while Mountjoy marched to Ulster to subdue the Northern rebels. The news of the death of O'Donnell in Spain, the desertion of many of his companions in arms, and the total destruction of the cattle and crops by Mountjoy forced O'Neill to make overtures for peace. An offer of terms was made to him, and good care was taken to conceal from him the death of Queen Elizabeth. He decided to meet Mountjoy and to make his submission (1603). ----------

[1] /Calendar of Patent Rolls/, i., 304.

[2] Id., i., 315.

[3] Moran, /History of the Archbishops of Dublin/, 52-54. Brady,
/Episcopal Succession/, ii., 133 sqq.

[4] /Calendar of Patent Rolls/, i., 327-335.

[5] Lynch-Kelly, /Cambrensis Eversus/, ii., 780 sqq.

[6] /Calendar of Carew Papers/, i., 252-53.

[7] Id., 258.

[8] /Calendar of Patent Rolls/, i., 169-70.

[9] /Irish Statutes/, vol. i., 239-74.

[10] /Lib. Munerum/, i., 38.

[11] Cox, /Hib. Anglicana/, 308-9.

[12] Bridgett, /Blunders and Forgeries/, 217-21.

[13] /Calendar of Documents, Ireland/, i., 140.

[14] /Calendar of Documents, Ireland/, i., 151-52.

[15] /Calendar of Carew Papers/, i., 279-80.

[16] Shirley, op. cit., 90-1.

[17] Bagwell, /Ireland under the Tudors/, ii., 354.

[18] Bridgett, /Blunders and Forgeries/, 229-36.

[19] Shirley, op. cit., 91.

[20] Cox, /Hib. Angl./, 313.

[21] The return is printed in /Tracts Relating to Ireland/, ii.,
134-38.

[22] /State Papers/, iii., 306-7.

[23] Id., 305.

[24] Litton Falkiner, /Essays Relating to Ireland/, 236.

[25] Kelly, /Dissertations on Irish Church History/, 363.

[26] /Lib. Mun./, ii., pt. 6, 10.

[27] Brady, /Irish Reformation/, 32, 33.

[28] /Irish Statutes/, i., 275-320.

[29] Cf. Lynch-Kelly, /Cambrensis Eversus/, ii., 19-23. Rothe,
/Analecta/ (ed. Moran, 1884), 235-7.

[30] /Calendar of Patent Rolls/, i., 303-4.

[31] Shirley, op. cit., 140, 234, 265.

[32] Brady, /The Irish Reformation/, 169-73.

[33] /Fiants of Elizabeth/, no. 199.

[34] Mason, /History of St. Patrick's/, 162.

[35] Moran's, /Spicil. Ossor./, i., 83.

[36] Shirley, op. cit., 220.

[37] /Fiants of Elizabeth/, no. 666.

[38] Shirley, op. cit., 101.

[39] Id., 207.

[40] Cf. Letter of J. A. Froude in Brady's /Irish Reformation/,
173-80.

[41] /Fiants of Elizabeth/, nos. 198, 221, 223, 363.

[42] Shirley, op. cit., 94.

[43] Id., 125.

[44] Shirley, op. cit., 162.

[45] Id., 201, 226.

[46] Id., 249-250.

[47] Cf. Shirley, op. cit., 98-9, 120, 184, 214, 239, 242, 272, 278,
295.

[48] Shirley, op. cit., 130, 135, 180, 189, 271, 313 sqq.

[49] Ware's /Works/, vol. i., p. 391.

[50] Shirley, op. cit., 96, 104, 106, 122.

[51] Id., 271.

[52] Id., 95.

[53] /Calendar of State Papers/ (Ireland), i., 171.

[54] Shirley, op. cit., 117 sqq.

[55] Shirley, op. cit., 139.

[56] Id., 233 sqq.

[57] Shirley, op. cit., 160-3, 135-6, 220, 279, 95.

[58] Shirley, op. cit., 195-96.

[59] Cf. Hogan /Hibernia Ignatiana/, 10-24. Moran, /Archbishops of
Dublin/, 77-83. /Cal. State Papers/ (Ireland), i., 255, 472, 524.

[60] /Spicil. Ossor./, i., 32-8.

[61] Cf. Theiner, /Acta genuina S. Concil. Trid./, 4 vols., 1875.
Bellesheim, op. cit., ii., 142-44.

[62] Renehan, /Archbishops/, 435 sqq. Moran, /Archbishops of Dublin/,
441 sqq.

[63] /Cal. of Carew Papers/, i., 297, 301 sqq.

[64] Id., 292, 297, 310 sqq. /Cal. of State Papers/ (Ireland), 188.

[65] /Cal. of State Papers/, i., 179.

[66] Id., 233.

[67] Renehan-MacCarthy, op. cit., i., 241 sqq.

[68] /Spicil. Ossor./, i., 59-62.

[69] /Calendar of Carew Papers/, i., 397-400.

[70] Gillow, /Bib. Dict. Eng. Catholics/, v., 476.

[71] /Spicil. Ossor./, i., 94.

[72] /Hooker's Diary/ (printed in Litton Falkiner's /Essays Relating
to Ireland/, 237 sqq.).

[73] Id., 235-6.

[74] Cf. /Irish Statutes/, i., 312 sqq. /Calendar of Carew Papers/,
ii., 334 sqq.

[75] Cf. /Calendar of Carew Papers/, i., 347. Shirley, op. cit.,
206-7. Brady, /Ep. Succession/, ii., 43. Ware's /Works/, i., 511.

[76] Cf. /Spicil. Ossor./, i., 38, sqq. Shirley, op. cit., 164, 171,
176, 287, 306, 324. /The Analects of David Rothe/ (ed. Moran),
1884, xlvi.

[77] O'Sullevan, /Compendium Hist. Cath. Iber./ (ed. by Kelly), 1850,
108-111.

[78] Renehan's /Archbishops/, 241 sqq. Brady, op. cit., ii., 5 sqq.
/Spicil. Ossor./, i., 83.

[79] Cf. Brady, op. cit., Rothe's /Analecta/ (ut supra), 381 sqq.
/Spicil. Ossor./, i., 82 sqq.; iii., 35 sqq. /Ir. Ecc. Record/,
i., ii.

[80] Cf. Rothe's /Analecta/ (Introduction), xiii. sqq.

[81] Brady, op. cit., 221-3.

[82] /Annals F. M./, ann. 1601.

[83] /Cal. Carew Papers/, ii., 137.

[84] Id., iii., 494.

[85] Cf. /I. E. Record/, (1884). Bagwell, op. cit., iii., 462-69.
/Archiv. Hib./, i., 277-311.

[86] O'Doherty, /Students of the Irish College, Salamanca, 1595-1700/,
(/Archiv. Hib./, ii., iii.).

[87] On the Irish Colleges on the Continent, cf. Boyle, /The Irish
College in Paris (1578-1901)/. Murphy, /College of the Irish
Franciscans, at Louvain/, (/Journal R.S.A., I./, 1898). Proost,
/Les réfugiés anglais et irlandais en Belgique/, etc. (/Messager
des Sciences historiques/, 1865), Daumet, /Notices sur les
établissements religieux anglais, écossais et Irlandais/, etc.,
1912. /Irish Eccl. Record/, vii., viii., ix., x. Hogan, /Irish
Worthies of the Sixteenth Century/, 1886. /Catholic Encyclopedia/
(art. Irish College, Rome--Mgr. O'Riordan).

[88] /State Papers/ (Ireland), iii., 30.

[89] Shirley, op. cit., 13, 31.

[90] Green, /The Making of Ireland and its Undoing/, 401-439.

[91] Stubbs, /The History of the University of Dublin/, 1889. Heron,
/The Constitutional History of the University of Dublin/, 1847.
/Trinity College Calendar/, 1833.

[92] /Cal. State Papers/ (Ireland), ii., 588.

[93] /Cal. Carew Papers/, iii., 58, 316, 356, 469.

[94] /Cal. State Papers/, ii., 92-93.

[95] /Carew Papers/, ii., 144.

[96] /Cal. State Papers/, ii., 229, 235, 245.

[97] /Carew Papers/, iii., 457-8.

[98] /Carew Papers/, iii., 213.

[99] Id., 387-8.

[100] Cf. Shirley, op. cit., 95, 271. Ware, /Works/, i. (under the
dioceses mentioned). Bagwell, op. cit., iii., 459 sqq. Moran,
/Archbishops of Dublin/, 163 sqq.

[101] Cf. Spenser, op. cit. (ed. Morley, 1890), 123-28, 202 sqq. /Cal.
State Papers/ (Ireland), iii., 424, 427, 428. Bagwell, op. cit.,
iii., 459 sqq.

[102] /Cal. Carew Papers/, iii., 105, 133, 151-3.

[103] O'Sullevan, op. cit., 140 sqq.

[104] Cf. Hagan, /Some Papers Relating to the Nine Years' War/ (/Arch.
Hib./, ii., 274 sqq.).