sworn to the Allegiance, they are to give a Ticket; and of those no Fee to be demanded afterwards for Swearing of them. And for such as have been heretofore, or shall hereafter be Sworn, and cannot produce their Ticket, if they take that oath that they have been once Sworn, then they are not to be Sworn again nor pay any more Fee. And the Justices of Peace are not henceforth to give any Warrants for the Collecting or Levying of any Fines whatsoever, but in Publick Sessions, and by Extent under the Seal of the Quarter Sessions.

"XLVIII. For delivering Possessions upon Judgments at Common Law, Decree in Chancery, or other Legal Injunction, the Sheriffs are not to exact or take any other Fee than is limited by the Statutes in England for like Causes; and that to be Irish Money; and if any Sheriff shall demand or take more, he is to be proceeded against and censured for Extortion.

"XLIX. No extraordinary Warrants of Assistance touching Clandestine Marriages, Christnings, or Burials, or any Contumacies pretended against Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, are to be issued by the Lord Deputy, or any other Governor or Governors, nor executed : nor are the Clergy to be permitted to keep any private Prisons of their own for those Causes; but the Delinquents in that kind are henceforth to be committed to our Publick Goals, and that by our Officers, according to the Ordinary Proceeding of the same and all Unlawful Exactions taken by the Clergy are to be reformed and regulated by the Commission there before mentioned.

"L. If any Person shall be Outlawed upon an Action of Debt, and thereupon a Seizure issued, or a Custodiam of his Lands granted to any other, the Barons of the Exchequer are to discharge the same, upon sight of a Certificate, that the Outlawry is reverst, without any further Plea, paying only Five Shillings Sterling for entering the Certificate and Discharge.

"LI. No Person is to be compelled to plead to any new Charge upon the Lands in his possession, unless any Inquisition or other Matter of Record besides the New Patent appear to charge the Land therewith, and the New Charge to be past in super upon the New Patentee, and Process to issue against him and his Lands, and not against the other."

That these Instructions of the King, or His Majesty's gracious intentions, were but little attended to by his Deputy is evident: for not withstanding his Proclamation just now mentioned, he on the 1st of April, 1629, issued a new Proclamation against "the Popish Clergy," although the sum stipulated to be paid by the Irish Agents was regularly paid, and still

continued to be paid up to the 1st of October, 1629.* Shortly after this, on 29th October, the Lord De- * puty returned to England, and Adam Loftus, Viscount Ely, Lord Chancellor, and Richard Earl of Cork, were sworn Lords Justices, who immediately directed, that the Papists should be prose"cuted for not coming to Church, and accordingly the Statute of 2d Eliz. was given in charge at the "Assizes."-(Coa's Hist. Ir. part II. p. 54.)

66

The Earl of Cork, one of the Lords Justices, had set the Protestants against the payment of the annual contribution, which the Irish Agents had engaged to pay, and this caused a defalcation in the regular payments, on which a scheme was formed of levying the whole contribution on the Catholics. Accordingly, the Lords Justices and Council informed his Majesty, "That it was impossible to improve that part of the revenue, save only by imposing the twelve pence on Sunday on the Recusants." To this proposal the answer of the King was remarkable, and is characteristic of the duplicity which distinguishes the conduct of the whole Stuart Dynasty towards the Irish. He says, "We approve well that this business, as you desire, may be presently put into such a state as that money, which shall by that means grow due unto "us, may be ready to be levied by Michaelmas "next. And as the best and surest way to bring it "to effect, we do hereby authorise and require you, "forthwith to assemble our Council there, and with their privity to cause presentments to be made through the whole Kingdom, according as the "law you mention doth appoint."-(Strafford's State Letters, vol. I. p. 71.)

66

66

66

56

.

It would be tedious, and is, for our present purpose unnecessary, to enter into a detailed account of the persecutions which the Irish Catholics endured at this, or at any other time, on the score of religion, we shall therefore decline giving any account of

the schemes practised by the Lord Deputy Wentworth, afterwards created Earl of Strafford, to urge the Catholics of Ireland to come forward with subsidies for the support of the State, in order to save themselves from the unjust tax, imposed upon them for not resorting to a Church, where their consciences. would not allow them to join in the worship. These things are mentioned here, merely to shew that violent as was the enmity of the powers who misgoverned Ireland for a number of years, no attempt was made to deprive the Catholics of their right to sit and vote in both Houses of Parliament.

Wentworth was sworn Lord Deputy of Ireland. on the 25th of July, 1633, and immediately after commenced his preparations for convening a Parliament. Of the insolence with which he treated the Lords of the Pale, in the manner in which he affronted the Earl of Fingal, who had been deputed by them to wait on him; of the unjustifiable manner which he adopted to model the Parliament, in which he did not willingly suffer any to be returned members, whom he did not believe to be some way or other subservient to his predatory designs; of the manner in which he bullied and attempted to overawe the Parliament, in forcing upon them a Speaker of his own choice; and of his Proclamation, that neither the Lords nor Commons should come into Parliament with their swords, it is beside our present purpose to treat. One these particulars those who wish for information will find it in Strafford's own words, in various parts of the first volume of his State Letters, page 274 to 342. But let us observe, that in this Parliament the Catholics sat in both Houses, he tells us himself that on the second day of the meeting of Parliament, “the Recusant

Party (Roman Catholics,) began somewhat "warmly to move for the purging of the House, as "they termed it, with an aim, doubtless, to put out a

*

great number of the Protestants upon the point of "non-residency; at last this settled in a Committee

66

66.

of Privileges, to determine those questions, yet when' "it came to be named, the House was divided, the "Protestants in a manner intire on one side, the Papists on the other, and carried by the former, eight voices.--- That the Popish party's moving "the House with so much earnestness for purging (as they called it) the House, came not, as I am "well assured, from any backwardness to supply the King, but out of a (hope, that by this means putting "out many of the other party) to become the greater "number, and so to indear themselves the more with "his Majesty, to make that work wholly their own, "and themselves more considerable, which would "turn a greater obligation upon the King, than I "conceived his Majesty would be willing they "should put upon him, or indeed was fit, the present "condition of affairs considered."(State Letters, v. 1, p. p. 277, 278.) The number of Roman Catholic Peers sitting, and qualified to sit, in this Parliament, may be seen by an inspection of the list of Peers.-Ibid, p. 283—5.

The Lord Deputy expected that in this Session the Parliament would press for a confirmation of all the Graces, given 24th May, 1628, in Instructions to Lord Falkland-but this he was determined to resist, though the refusal of them would certainly create ill humour: He therefore resolved upon making two Sessions of the Parliament, and to give them the King's promise for both at the opening of the Parliament, the one Session in Summer, and the other in Winter; in the former to settle his Majesty's supply, &c. and in the other to enact so many of the Graces, as in honour and wisdom should be judged equal.-(See Carte's Ormond, vol. 1. p. 61.) This scheme succeeded-the supplies were voted, but the Graces were never confirmed. A copy of the entire Graces, as they were transmitted to Ireland, is to be found at page xix. of this Preface. The 15th Article of these Graces relates to the Oath of Supremacy, the abolition of which was afterwards

always stipulated for, and insisted on, by the Catholics in all their Treaties with the English Government, from Glamorgan's Treaty in 1646, down to that of Limerick in 1691. (See DOCUMENTS, No. 3, page 4.)

66

In the Irish Parliament that met in the year 1640, the Catholics were as usual amongst the most forward to grant liberal supplies to the Crown, which was now involved in a war with the Scotch Puritans, who in the year before had risen in rebellion. The Puritans had by this time become numerous and considerably powerful in Ireland; several of that body had found their way into Parliament, and two of their friends, Sir William Parsons and Sir John Borlace were sworn Lords Justices. Cox tells us that, "This Session of Parliament was spent by the Papists (who were "the most numerous party in the House) in fruit"less declarations and protestations, private peti"tions and votes upon needless queries."-(Hist. Ir. part 2, page 71.)-Here, if any were wanted, we have proof that the Catholics at that period enjoyed their right of sitting in Parliament. But if Cox had never mentioned this affair, the Journals of the House of Commons would put the matter beyond a doubt. Indeed that right never was so much as disputed, much less denied, by any of the enemies of the Roman Catholics, until after the Insurrection of 1641. When, the Puritan Party became predominant in the House of Commons, an ordinance, or vote, of that House was made 21st June, 1642, to compel all the Menbers to take the Oath of Supremacy. This order, or vote, is to be found in the subjoined DOCUMENTS, No. 7, page 51, and it is left to the judgment of the reader, whether a vote of one House of Parliament, without the concurrence of the other, and the Assent of the King, be sufficient to deprive any class of his Majesty's Subjects of one of their most valuable privileges.