rank of captains in the army. These perverts evinced by their subsequent conduct that they belonged to the basest class of time-servers.

It was not to be expected that the Irish Protestant Established Church would obtain any favour from James or his bigoted Viceroy. The clergy often lost their tithes because the sheriffs refused to execute writs for their recovery; and it was vain to appeal for redress to courts of law-as the majority of the judges, under the influence of Tyrconnel, were prepared to connive at these delinquencies. Many buildings long used for Protestant worship, and held by a parliamentary title, were openly seized by the priests, on the unfounded plea that they stood on ground belonging to Roman Catholic proprietors.2 The archbishopric of Cashel and the bishoprics of Clonfert, Elphin, and Clogher-now vacant-were permitted to remain so till James ended his reign; and their revenues were meanwhile appropriated to the maintenance of the Romish hierarchy.3 When episcopal incumbents embraced the religion of the King, James insisted that they should remain in the undisturbed enjoyment of their benefices. He attempted to gag the advocates of the Protestant faith by prohibiting the episcopal clergy from discussing controversial topics in the pulpit ;5 but it does not appear

1 King, p. 32. An attempt was made to weaken the impression produced by the publication of King's State of the Protestants of Ireland, under the late King James's Government. The reply is entitled An Answer to a Book intituled The State of the Protestants in Ireland, &c. It appeared in London in 1692; and, though anonymous, it was well known that the author was Charles Leslie-the famous non-juror, a man of very superior talent. Every one who reads this work must feel that Leslie does not even attempt to grapple with the mass of facts adduced by King. He produces a number of excellent arguments ad hominem, and convicts King of great inconsistency: as he had not long before been a strenuous assertor of the doctrine of passive obedience. He also endeavours to excite odium against King William for his treatment of the Scottish Episcopal clergy; but he scarcely ventures to defend the misgovernment of Tyrconnel. 3 Ibid. i. 690.

2 Mant, i. 689.

4 King, p. 231. The most noted of these converts was Peter Manby, Dean of Derry, who wrote a tract in vindication of his apostasy, which was answered by King. Dr. Mant states that there were only two apostates among the clergy, but he has himself named a third. Mant, i. 692, 693.

6 Mant, i. 691.

that he imposed a similar restriction on the champions of Romanism. Vacant parishes-where the patronage belonged to the Crown-were either left without a Protestant ministry, or supplied by men who reflected discredit on the cause of the Reformation.2

Nor were these the only expedients employed by this unworthy sovereign to promote the interests of Romanism in Ireland. Funds intended to provide a sound Protestant education were employed in supporting popish seminaries; and in one remarkable case a teacher who had conducted with great efficiency a school founded at Kilkenny by the Duke of Ormonde, was driven from the place; and the building converted into a military hospital. A Jesuits' school was established in the same town; and a charter provided for a college. The University of Dublin did not escape the injurious interference of the Government. Even during the administration of the Earl of Clarendon, the King's mandate, addressed to the Provost and Fellows, required them to admit a Romanist, named Green, to the Professorship of the Irish language with all its emoluments and arrears of salary; 4 but, as no such office existed,5 the attempt proved abortive. At a subsequent period James proposed completely to alter the constitution of the College, and to fill the Fellowships with the adherents of his own religion.

The policy pursued by this infatuated monarch and his agents indicated a determination to root Protestantism out

1 At this time the popish priests and friars in the city of Dublin amounted to from three to four hundred, though the place had not then one-third of its present population. King, p. 138. With all this array of clergy, Dublin was a very den of iniquity. There were about fourteen chapels and convents built at this time in the metropolis. Ibid.

2 Mant, i. 691. Bishops also were prevented from exercising discipline on scandalous clergymen. King, pp. 230, 231.

3 Mant, i. 689.

4 Leland, iii. 504-5.

5 In 1680, Dr. Narcissus Marsh, then Provost, engaged teachers of Irish at his own expense, and about eighty students joined their classes. Publications of Ecc. Hist. Society. Book of Common Prayer for Ireland, i., Introd. xiv., note. This may have led persons outside the College to infer that there was an endowment for a Professor of Irish. 6 Mant, i. 689.

of Ireland. Its professors were suddenly disarmed, and deprived of all political power. Lawyers were employed to discover defects in the title-deeds of their lands; they were exposed to countless annoyances and hardships; popish magistrates turned a deaf ear to their complaints; and even the tories or robbers, who infested the country, were permitted to spoil them with impunity. As was to be expected, many of them in the north, as well as elsewhere, fled from a land in which they met with such discouragement. In the beginning of the reign of James, Ireland was in the enjoyment of comparative prosperity; but before the close of his wretched rule, it presented a quite different aspect. Its trade was injured; its fountains of justice were polluted; and its whole social machinery was disorganized. Even the public revenue declined with such rapidity as to alarm the best friends of the Government.

Meanwhile the Romish prelates were busily engaged in endeavouring to impart increased vigour to their ecclesiastical machinery. Talbot, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, who died in prison in 1680, was succeeded, after a vacancy of a few years, by Patrick Russell. This prelate filled the Primatial chair of Leinster from 1683 to 1692; and during his official career witnessed some of the most exciting scenes in the history of Ireland. For the greater part of this period, Romanism was virtually restored to its ancient supremacy. Russell held two Provincial, and three Diocesan Synods. Some of the canons promulgated at these meetings are curious specimens of ecclesiastical legislation. Every priest who had the care of souls for five years in the diocese of Dublin was "to present to it a silver chalice and pixis; and in case he had spent ten years on its mission," he must give, "in addition, a missal and a set of appropriate ornaments for the altar." "Piping and dancing" were forbidden “on Sundays and festivals throughout the year until after vespers, or

1

1 Meagher's Notices of the Life and Character of his Grace the Most Reverend Daniel Murray, p. 125. Dublin, 1853.

2 In the old Irish church the regulations relative to the observance of the Lord's Day were much more stringent. See vol. i., p. 66, note (1).

three o'clock in the afternoon."1 "Without his bishop's express permission, no priest was to attempt to wear false hair, commonly called a periwig; "2 neither was he to go bail for anyone in any sum exceeding forty shillings. On fast days. the use of fish was prohibited; but, should the rosary be recited once in each week of Lent, the restriction need not be observed. The priests were required to exert themselves "to eradicate the scandals of immodest singing and acting at wakes."5 But the Revolution gave a rude shock to Irish Romanism; and no Popish Provincial Synods again assembled in the country until after the passing of the Emancipation Act of 1829. In addition to his other emoluments, Archbishop Russell received from James a pension of £200 per annum. On the fall of the Stuart dynasty he fled to Paris. When he ventured to return to Ireland he was seized and imprisoned. He died in July, 1692, in the sixty-third year of his age; and a coffin-plate, dug up some years ago in the graveyard attached to the old church of Lusk, in the county of Dublin, bears his epitaph.8

When James arrived in Ireland from France-where he fled on the appearance of the Prince of Orange in England— the country was sadly torn by political convulsions. At first he professed his willingness to protect the Protestants; but it was very soon obvious that they had nothing to expect but measures of the utmost rigour. A parliament assembled by him in Dublin, and composed almost exclusively of Romanists, repealed the Acts of Settlement and Explanation; and thus, at one stroke, deprived the existing owners of a large portion of the landed property of the kingdom. The parties

1 Meagher's Notices of the Life and Character of his Grace the Most Reverend Daniel Murray, p. 125.* Dublin, 1853.

2 Ibid. p. 126.* Ibid. p. 124.*

#

3 Ibid. p. 127.*

4 Ibid.

The Canons of the Council of Trent were adopted and enforced by Archbishop Russell at this time. See evidence of R. C. Archbishop

of Cashel in the O'Keeffe case. Kirkpatrick's Report, p. 473.

Renchan's Collections, p. 231.

7 D'Alton's Memoirs of Archbishops of Dublin, p. 456.

8 Renehan's Collections, p. 234.

9 In the second Parliament of William, all the attainders and other acts of this

Parliament were declared void.

most interested had no opportunity of defending their claims; and the conduct of James, in consenting to their spoliation, was all the more unwarrantable, as he had again and again solemnly signified his determination to uphold the arrangements now so summarily overturned.1 By another Act of this Parliament, upwards of 2,400 persons-including peers, baronets, knights, clergy, gentry, and yeomanry-were attainted of high treason, and adjudged to suffer death, unless they surrendered within certain assigned periods. Some of those proscribed had, no doubt, joined the Prince of Orange; but others had merely left the island, and had not returned in obedience to a royal proclamation. It was provided that the property even of such as were detained abroad by sickness should be seized by the King; and it was not to be restored until the parties proved their innocence. A clause inserted in the Act prevented the monarch himself from exercising the power of pardoning after the first day of the following November. The individuals thus proscribed had no opportunity whatever of making a defence. The provisions of the Act were studiously concealed; and had it been carried into execution, many would have been hopelessly ruined before they were aware of their danger. Another Act made over to the Romish clergy all the tithes and ecclesiastical dues payable by members of their own communion.1

At this trying crisis the Protestants suffered severely all throughout Ireland. The Regium Donum, granted in 1672 by Charles II., was now withdrawn from the Presbyterian ministers of Ulster. Many of their adherents were driven from the country: some emigrated to America; not a few of them fled to Scotland; and others took refuge within the walls of Derry. That city sustained for months all the horrors of a siege; and the Presbyterians formed the great

1 It is said that Dopping, the Protestant Bishop of Meath, at the instigation of James, spoke against the Bill. Liber Munerum Hiberniæ, i., part i., 87. James hoped thus to avoid the odium of the measure.

2 Leland, iii. 538-9.

3 King, p. 207. "The Act was concealed and no Protestant for any money permitted to see it, much less take a copy of it, till the time limited for pardons was passed at least four months."—Ibid. 4 Leland, iii. 539-40.