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Accession of Charles I - His
Financial Difficulties - The Roman Catholics offer a Subsidy - Charles
responds with Three Graces - The King's Duplicity - Rampant
"Religiosity" - The Protestants protest - Falkland's Proclamation -
Treated in Drogheda with Contempt - The Bishop of Derry calls for "A
Great Amen" - Falkland recalled - Adam Loftus and Lord Cork appointed
Lords Justices - Carmelites in Cook Street - The Archbishop of Dublin
and the Mayor on a Ransacking Expedition - The Demolition of St.
Patrick's Purgatory - The Lords Justices retire in Favour of Wentworth.
Walt Whitman, one of the
most modern of modern men,
and one of those least hampered by the fetters of any particular form of
faith, has declared, in the most emphatic
manner, that nothing is of such importance in human life as
religion. In his capacity as seer, he saw "all things burnt
up for religion's sake". Hard on the heels of the Reformation, and,
indeed, for fully two hundred years later, religion
and everything connected therewith seems to have occupied
all the waking thoughts of the major portion of Europe.
They would willingly have burnt up everything for religion's
sake, and did indeed burn a very great number of their
fellows, occasionally varying this drastic treatment by misapplying
their heads.
In Ireland, where the
people are swayed more largely
by the emotions than by mental considerations, religion
assumed vast proportions. Like the nameless monster in
Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein, it stalked through the land,
dominating the human heart, not by love but by fear, and
by its merciless methods changed to gall the milk of human
kindness.
The prodigality of his
father having left Charles I
burdened with a heavy debt, and wars with France and
Spain demanding supplies which Parliament refused to grant,
except on what he considered unreasonable and dishonour-
able terms, the King was glad to accept from the Irish
Catholics a voluntary subsidy of; 120,000 for the support
of the army, which they offered, at the suggestion of Falkland, at an
opportune moment. The sum was to be paid
in three annual instalments (afterwards extended to four),
and in return the King undertook to grant to the donors
certain concessions or immunities which are referred to in
the history of the period as "Graces". Many of these
"Graces" were applied to Protestants as well as Catholics.
The more important were those which provided "that recusants should be
allowed to practise in the courts of law,
and to sue out the livery of their lands on taking an oath of
civil allegiance instead of the oath of supremacy; that the
undertakers in the several plantations should have time
allowed them to fulfil the conditions of their tenures, and
that the claims of the crown should be limited to the last
sixty years".
The contract was duly
ratified by royal proclamation,
in which the concessions were accompanied by a promise
that a Parliament should be held to confirm them; but when
the Catholics pressed for the fulfilment of the compact, the
essential formalities for calling an Irish Parliament were
found to have been omitted by the officials, the provisions
of Poynings' Act not having been complied with; and thus,
for the moment, the matter fell to the ground.
The Roman Catholic clergy
were now doubly active in
preaching opposition, and a bull of the Pope was promulgated, exhorting
the people to lay down their lives rather
than submit to the oath of supremacy, which oath was represented as an
impious act, that would draw upon those who
took it the vengeance of heaven.
The Government, alarmed
by the dangerous aspect of
things, induced Charles to raise the military force in Ireland
to 5000 foot and 500 horse, which the King his poverty but
not his will consenting ordered, by the exercise of his
prerogative, to be quartered on the different counties and
towns of Ireland, to be maintained by them in turn with
money, clothes, and provisions, for three months at a time.
Religion was now rampant,
and the Protestant party,
coming to the conclusion that Charles's marriage with
Henrietta Maria, a Roman Catholic princess, meant immediate danger to
themselves, called a meeting of some dozen
prelates, with Ussher the Primate in the chair, and drew
up a formal protest, in which they declared that: "The
religion of the Papists is superstitious and idolatrous, their
faith and doctrine, erroneous and heretical; their Church, in
respect of both apostatical. To give them, therefore, a toleration, or
to consent that they may freely exercise their religion
and profess their faith and doctrine, is a grievous sin, and
that in two respects; for, first, it is to make ourselves accessary not
only to their superstitions, idolatries, and heresies,
and, in a word, to all the abominations of Popery, but also
(which is a consequence of the former) to the perdition of
the seduced people, which perish in the deluge of the
Catholic apostacy. Secondly to grant them a toleration,
in respect of any money to be given, or contribution to be
made by them, is to set religion to sale, and with it the
souls of the people whom Christ hath redeemed with his
blood. And as it is a great sin, so it is also a matter of most
dangerous consequence: the consideration whereof we commit
to the wise and judicious, beseeching the God of truth to
make them who are in authority zealous of God's glory, and
of the advancement of true religion, zealous, resolute, and
courageous against all popery, superstition, and idolatry."
There is little doubt
that Falkland did actually issue
writs for the calling of an Irish Parliament, for it appears
that some elections took place; but it was necessary, before
holding a Parliament in Ireland, to obtain the King's licence
under the Great Seal of England, and this requirement
Falkland by some unaccountable oversight omitted. This
omission might have been rectified by the King if he had
been sincere in his intentions that the Graces which he had
sold for money should be binding upon him. But, instead
of doing so, Charles allowed his Privy Council to pronounce
the summons issued by Falkland illegal and void; no
Parliament was held, while the Irish nobility and gentry
complained that even the purely administrative part of the
Graces had not been acted upon.
The Graces, however, were
not withdrawn; but while the
Irish Catholics enjoyed a period of comparative toleration
and indulgence to which they had not for long been accustomed, they were
left in a state of suspense, buoyed up with
the belief that a Parliament would eventually be held to con-
firm the granting of the Graces; and they therefore cheerfully
submitted to the heavy monetary consideration by which
the said Graces had been purchased.
In the bitterness of
religious and political opposition, each
party, as it felt or imagined itself the stronger, hurried into
excesses which injured its own cause while they aroused the
anger of the opposition. The Roman Catholic clergy were
now rapidly increasing in numbers, and, alas! were also be-
coming noticeably violent in deeds as well as words. The
recusants were led by priests educated almost entirely on the
Continent, in seminaries in which bitter hatred of English
Protestants was inculcated, and they were impatient to show,
in this respect, the faith that was in them.
The Catholics now seized
upon some of the old churches
and reconsecrated them; began to establish religious houses;
exercised a rigorous ecclesiastical authority; and even founded
in Dublin, under the rule of a Catholic ecclesiastic of some
celebrity, a school for the education of priests.
Falkland's administration
was tentative and hesitating, but
the language and actions of the recusants at length aroused
him from his apparent supineness. Urged to activity against
the religious orders in Ireland, not alone by the English
Government, but also by the Irish^ Council, and egged on
by the clamours of the Protestant clergy, he published hastily
a proclamation, stating that "the late intermission of legal
proceedings against Popish pretended titular archbishops,
bishops, abbots, deans, vicars-general, Jesuits, friars and
others, deriving their pretended authority from the See of
Rome, in contempt of His Majesty's royal power and
authority, had bred such an extravagant insolence and presumption in
them, that" he was obliged to charge and
command them in His Majesty's name, "to forbear the
exercise of their Popish rites and ceremonies".
This proclamation was
received with becoming respect
in Dublin, but in Drogheda it was treated with contempt,
"a drunken soldier being first set up to read it, and then a
drunken serjeant of the town, both being made, by too much
drink, incapable of that task, and perhaps purposely put to
it, made the same seem like a May game". Such proceedings must have got
to the ears of Ussher, who resided in
Drogheda; but, whether or no, the Primate had the mortification of
knowing that despite the Proclamation, to which he
was a party, mass was still celebrated in Drogheda and the
surrounding country as regularly, if not quite so openly, as
it used to be.
George Downham, Bishop of
Londonderry, now took up
the cudgels. A Cambridge man, and a strong Calvinist, he
preached at Christ Church, Dublin, before the Lord Deputy
and Council, taking the opportunity to read aloud the Protest
of the Prelates, and emphasizing the pronouncements that
"the religion of the Papists is superstitious and heretical",
and "to grant them toleration in respect of any money to be
given or contribution to be made by them is to set religion to
sale and with it the souls of the people". Having given an
impressive and sonorous rendering of these passages, the
preacher called upon his audience to say "Amen", and
"suddenly the whole church almost shaked with the great
.sound their loud 'Amens' made".
The sound of this great
Amen was followed in Christ
Church, the Sunday following, by the sound of Ussher's
voice in a dissertation on Judas and the thirty pieces of
silver. "We are", said the Primate, "now at odds with
two of the most potent princes in Christendom; to both which
in former times the discontented persons in Ireland have had
recourse heretofore, proffering the Kingdom itself to them,
if they would undertake the conquest of it." Nor had the
recent plantations, in Ussher's eyes, much improved matters,
for new planters had been brought into the land, and the old
inhabitants had been left "to shift for themselves".
Many charges were now
brought against Falkland, who
was an unpopular man; but as these do not enter into a
history of Ulster, we need not concern ourselves with them.
Suffice it to say that the Lord Deputy cleared himself and left
the court without a stain upon his character. Charles, however, deemed
it advisable to recall the Viceroy, and the
government of Ireland was left in the hands of Adam Loftus,
Viscount Ely, the Irish Lord Chancellor, and Richard, Earl
of Cork, who then held the office of Lord High Treasurer of
Ireland. The army was placed in the hands of Lord Wilmot.
The Lords Justices were
at daggers drawn, and a formal
reconciliation was therefore imperative and forthwith took
place in the presence of Wilmot; Cork piously expressing
his desire that the bond of friendship might endure, saying:
"I beseech God his lordship observe it as religiously as I
resolve to do, if new provocations enforce me not to alter my
resolutions".
No sooner had they
assumed the reigns of government
than the Lords Justices discovered that they had at least one
desire in common, one thing was certain and the rest was lies,
that toleration of recusants was a mistaken kindness, and they
proceeded to put in force many old laws, especially a statute
of Elizabeth that made attendance on Sundays and holidays
obligatory on all, Catholic and Protestant alike. It must be
noted, however, that the instructions issued to the Lords
Justices enjoined upon them the necessity to take active
measures to suppress all Popish religious houses and all
foreign jurisdictions, and to persuade the army and all
civilians to attend church.
To these instructions the
Lords Justices paid careful
attention, their efforts to carry them into effect being zealously
aided and abetted by the ecclesiastical authorities, as we can
see from a note in Lord Cork's diary in which he jotted down
the fact that "the Archbishop of Dublin and the Mayor of
Dublin, by the direction of us the Lords Justices, ransacked
the house of friars in Cook Street". It is interesting to note
that the Lords Justices were "attending divine service at
Christ Church" on St. Stephen's Day, 1629, when intelligence was brought
to them that a fraternity of Carmelites
were publicly celebrating their religious rites, in the habits
of their order, "in a part of Dublin called Cook Street".
Believing, with Sir
Matthew Hale, that "a Sabbath well
spent brings a week of content", the Archbishop of Dublin,
with the chief magistrate of the city, proceeded to Cook
Street at the head of a file of musketeers, and, entering
the chapel during the celebration of High Mass, they seized
the priest in his vestments, and carried away all the sacred
utensils and Popish ornaments. The congregation, alarmed,
at first sought safety in flight, but on second thoughts some
returned to the scene of the "ransacking", and succeeded in
rescuing the priest. A mob, now grown to nearly 3000
strong, proved too many for the file of musketeers; stones
were thrown, and Archbishop Bulkeley was glad to forfeit
his collection of "Popish ornaments" and take refuge in
a neighbouring dwelling. The Lords Justices, having
undertaken a Sabbath day's journey, now appeared with
their guard, but there were not soldiers enough to act with
effect, and Lord Wilmot, to his regret, found there was not
a pound of gunpowder in Dublin Castle. The friary building was, however,
demolished, in the presence of several
recusant aldermen, who left the scene in high dudgeon,
and later were arrested for not assisting the Mayor.
The English Privy Council
expressed their approval
of what had been done, and sixteen monastic houses were
seized to the King's use, the Council recommending that
they should be turned into "houses of correction, and to
set the people on work or to other public uses, for the
advancement of justice, good arts, or trades". The Jesuit
church and college in Back Lane, Dublin, were annexed
to Trinity College, and the former was for some time used
as a lecture-room.
Attention was now drawn
to St. Patrick's Purgatory, on
Lough Derg, in Donegal, to which thousands of pilgrims
repaired annually. This sacred spot was situated in the
territory of Miler Magrath, and was now held by James
Magrath, a son of the Archbishop of Cashel. Disagree as
they might on minor matters, the Lords Justices were unanimous with
regard to this shrine of iniquity, and accordingly
they bound the owner, in a penalty of £1000, "to pull down
and utterly demolish that monster of fame called St. Patrick's
Purgatory, with St. Patrick's bed, and all the vaults, cells,
and all other houses and buildings, and to have all the other
superstitious stones and materials cast into the Lough, and
that he should suffer the superstitious chapel in the island to
be pulled down to the ground, and no boat to be there, nor
pilgrimage used or frequented during James Magrath's life
willingly or wittingly".
The government of the
Lords Justices thus presented a
ceaseless contest between Roman Catholics and Protestants,
and tended not a little to embitter their feelings of animosity.
But the time now approached when the King's necessities
and his designs called for an even more resolute and arbitrary
policy, and, having held the government from 1629 to 1633,
they gave it up, in the beginning of the latter year, to one of
the most remarkable men to whom it had ever been entrusted
Thomas, Lord Wentworth. |
