much as the commons did find by experience, that the subjects -of the realm did suffer no small prejudice in their causes, for want of learned counsel, especially at the assizes, that his lordship would be a means to his majesty, that such, and so many of the said lawyers might be restored to their practice, as his lordship in his judgement should think fit, for the dispatch of said causes." To which his lordship answered, "that the lords of the council in England had signified his majesty's pleasure for silencing them, until they had taken the oath (of suprema cy); but that he would acquaint their lordships with what the commons had signified, and with their desire." But that no redress followed appears from hence, that in the ensuing session of May 16th, 1615, the same commons humbly addressed the lord deputy to know, "whether his lordship had received any answer touching the practice of the Irish lawyers; and prayed, that they might be, by his lordship's recommendation, again restored unto practice." To which we find no answer re. turned. Imprisonments, on account of recusancy, were then so fre quent, and grievous, that the commons in this same session, an. nexed to their long list of grievances, a prayer, " that his lord. ship would be pleased to release all those, that lay in, upon excommunications ;" and at the same time acquainted him, "that a great number of the house desired, that he would recommend to his majesty, that some suspension might be had of the statute of the 2d of Elizabeth. 5 Commons Jour. vol.i. The reason Chichester gives, for not distributing the money collected from catholics, for not going to church on Sundays and holydays, to the poor, as the statute 2d of Elizabeth directs, is, because the poor of the pa rishes are not fit to receive the same, being recusants, (catholics,) and there, fore (adds he) ought to pay the like penalty.--Ib. p. 275. * "It appears, that at the end of this session, eight Roman catholics, who had been excommunicated by the archbishop of Dublin for recusancy, and imprisoned, were released by the indulgence of parliament (some said by the mediation of bribes) but their joy on that account was short lived, and their release rather an illusion and an aggravation of their punishment; for without any crime, but perseverance in their religion, the same archbishop soon after excommunicated them a second time; on which they were again sent back to their long and loathsome confinement."-Analecs Sacra. Rives in Analect. p. 34. The catholics of Ireland, on account of their greater num ber and opulence, had contributed more liberally to the above. mentioned, and all other supplies, than all the rest of his majes ty's subjects of that kingdom; and the king, instead of redressing their present grievances, did, in a few months after the date of his letter of thanks before-mentioned, not only continue, but increase them; by giving particular instructions to sir Oliver St. John, then going over deputy, to put the statute of the 24 of Elizabeth, and all other penal statutes, in strict execution; instructions, which sir Oliver seemed very well inclined to pursue:* for, at his entering on the government, he did indeed proceed with vigor, in the execution of that statute; and caused presentments to be made of such as neglected coming to church, in different parts of the kingdom. The effects of this vigor were dismal, and extensive; the treasures of the rich were thereby soon exhausted; and the poor, every where, not being able to pay this tax on their consciences, fled into dens and caverns, from the cruel collectors of it, whither they were sometimes pursued by furious bloodhounds, set on, and followed by a she. riff, and his posse of disbanded soldiers, equally furious and unrelenting Mr. Rooth, a cotemporary writer, informs us that in the poor county of Cavan alone, not less than eight thou sand pounds were levied in one year, by the means of this tax; ecclesiastical censures, on the same account, were severely executed, in every part of the kingdom. Those who lay under them, when found abroad, were constantly thrown into jails; and great numbers of merchants and artificers, being thus confined at home, and hindered to transact business publicly, and in the way of open commerce, were suddenly reduced to poverty and distress. Even their dead bodies did not escape the 7 Analecta Sacra. 6 Carte's Orm. vol. i. p. 37. "Sir Oliver St. John seemed to be actuated with peculiar zeal against popery."-Leland's History of Ireland, vol. i. p. 561. "A commission was issued by him to seize the liberties and revenues of Waterford, because the magistrates refused the oath of supremacy, which by their charter they had a right to do.”—Id. ib. p. 462, †This will not seem strange, when we consider what lord deputy Mountjoy says in a letter to secretary Cecil, viz. " that in the time of Tirone's war, that earl did raise upon Ulster, ill-inhabited as it was, with no industry, and for the most part wasted, above four score thousand pounds by the year."--Morris. ubi supra. fol. 234, cruelty of these censurers; for if they happened to die, while they yet lay under them, they were denied christian burial, and their corpses thrown into holes, dug in the highways, with every mark of ignominy that could be devised, and inflicted by their cruel and bigotted judges. CHAP. IX. Some account of the ecclesiastical courts at that juncture in Ireland. BISHOP Burnet, in his life of Dr. Bedel, bishop of Kilmore, hath left us a very shocking description of these ecclesiastical courts in Ireland. "They were," says his lordship, "often managed by a chancellor, that bought his place, and so thought he had a right to all the profits he could make out of it. And their whole business seemed to be nothing but oppression and extortion; the solemnest, and sacredest, of all church censures, which was excommunication, went about in so sordid and base a manner, that all regard to it, as it was a spiritual censure, was lost; and the effects it had in law, made it be cried out upon, as a most intolerable piece of tyranny. The officers of the court thought they had a sort of right to oppress the natives; and that all was well got, that was wrung from them. Primate Usher himself seemed so sensible of these abuses, that he told archbishop Laud,'" such was then the venality of all things sacred in Ireland, that he was afraid to mention any thing about them;" and that, upon some of the adverse party's having asked him, "where he had heard, or read before, that religion and men's souls were to sale, after that manner? His grace was obliged to have recourse to a pitiful witicism for an answer, viz. " that there was another place, where both Heaven and God himself, were set to sale." Which whether true or false, (and false it most certainly is) was a tacit confession of the justice of the charge of public corruption against these courts. But we shall presently see, that primate Usher's own court was not a whit less corrupt, in the opinion of the good bishop Bedel, than those of the other Irish bishops. 1 Burnet ubi supra, These corruptions were so flagrant, and long continued, that even in 1640, the dissenters in Ulster, on whom the episcopal clergy had, as we have seen, conferred many signal favors, made severe animadversions upon them. In their remonstrance to the English parliament of that year, they observed, "that the commutation of penance (which Burnet calls the worst of simony) which either should not at all be exacted, or if exacted, should be set apart for the poor, and other pious uses, came either to the prelate's kitchen, or the commissary's purse, or to both; and that, though the officers of these courts pretended themselves to be the advancers of virtue, and punishers of vice, yet they usually, without further satisfaction, absolved the most scandalous persons for a sum of money, and often questioned not all at such, from whom they privately beforehand had received such sum." CHAP. X. The patience and submission of the natives. WHILE the nobility and gentry of Ulster were, by the late act of attainder, stript of their possessions, for crimes that were either never committed, or were formerly pardoned, another design was set on foot, to seize on the estates of the natives in the other provinces, under the pretence of a judicial enquiry into defective titles.* This enquiry caused a general 2 Pryn's Antipathy to Bishops, part ii. p. 374. It was rigorously prosecuted by sir Arthur Chichester, tho' the king in his instructions to him, upon his first appointment to the lieutenancy of Ireland, told him, " that he had directed a commission to compound with his subjects of that kingdom for defective and imperfect titles; and that he had resolved, from thenceforth, to grant no more warrants of lands, coming within any title of concealment; because he hoped that thereby both his people would receive contentment, and his coffers some augmentation, by the composition with the tenants of such lands."-Desid. Curios. Hib. vol. i. p. 455-6. In these enquiries the utmost violence was done to the jurors (as was before observed) to oblige them to find a title in the king to whatever lands they pitched upon; thus, in the year 1611, on the seizure of the county of Wexford, when upon a commission to enquire into his majesty's title to that county," the jury offered their verdict of ignoramus to the M " alarm through every part of the kingdom; inasmuch as1 no title of lineal descent, or long possession, though for several hundred years, nor even letters patent, could secure the pro 1 Remonstrance from Trim. king's title, the commissioners refused to accept it, and bound the jury over to appear before them in the exchequer court, where, when five of them still refused to find the title in the king, the commissioners commited them to prison, and they were afterwards censured in the castle chambør for refusing to join with their fellows to find his majesty's title.”— Report of the King's Commis. Desid. Curios. vol. i. p. 378. "These commissioners were sir Humphry Winche, knight, who had some time been lord justice of the king's bench in Ireland, sir Charles Cornwallis, knight, holden to be a very wise and learned gentleman, sir Roger Wilbraham, knight, who had been the queen's solicitor in Ireland, Thomas Calvert, esq. one of the clerks of the council in England; with these four the lord deputy himself (Chichester) was joined in the patent, as chief commissioner. These four commissioners arrived at Dublin upon the 25th of September, 1613."-Desid. Curios. Hibern. vol. i. p. 283. Those of the Irish agents at London, who, by his majesty's nomination and command, were sent to Ireland, to attend these commissioners with their proofs, were the lords of Killeen and Dunboyne, sir Christopher Plunket, Edward Fitzharris, Andrew Barret, and Paul Sherlock."-Id. ib. p. 281. The commissioners sent about this time from England, by the king, to enquire into the numerous grievances complained of by the Irish agents, set forth in their report to his majesty," that out of the particular instances (being many) of oppression, and extortions of the soldiers, provost-marshals, and others, they had selected three score. That in counties, where the composition, in lieu of the cess was paid, the soldiers did extort on his majesty's subjects, by neither paying money, nor giving tickets, for what they took up. That, besides meat and drink, they extorted money from the poor people, where they were cessed; three shillings for every night's lodging for an horse-man, and two for a foot-man, sometimes more. As also certain petty sums for their boys, and attendants, besides victuals; and these soldiers took money, not only for themselves, but likewise for other soldiers absent, which the country called black men, because they were not seen. That, in all these cases, when the people had not money, they took forcibly some of their cattle or household stuff, for pawns, in lieu thereof; that the officers of the army did the same; that sheriffs did suffer their men and bailiffs and followers, to take both money and victuals from the country. And that the reason the people did not complain to the deputy of all these oppressions and extortions, was for fear of being worse used by the soldiers at other times; and because the charges of the complaint would far exceed the damages." --See that Report, in Desid. Curios. Hiber. vol. ii. p. 365, 4, 2, |