tute the English for the Brehon law. Donald O'Brien and Shane O'Neil equally resisted the abolition of the old law of the land. Both maintained that the source of nobility was the election by the tribe; that the land of each clan belonged in common to its members, who had, however, the right to dispose of their part, with the general consent; that the customs, or Celtic common law, of gossipred, gavelkind, and coshering, answering to the old English usages of maintenance, fosterage, and gavelkind, were just and wise, and ought to stand; that hereditary Brehons were better judges than royal barons. In short, they contended for all the former law of Ireland, excepting only that part regulating the supreme power. After some warlike demonstrations of the deputies, some castles and skirmishes won and lost, they finally made_peace with O'Neil, at Kilmainham, and O'Brien at Dangan, in which they conceded to Ulster and Munster the free exercise of the Brehon law.

On the 17th November, 1558, Mary died at St. James's palace, Westminster; Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, died before her, and Cardinal Pole on the following day. King Philip was absent in Spain; the Catholics were left without a head. The Protestants, on the contrary, had kept up a compact organization during this reign. The mercantile jealousy of Spain, the national humiliation of the loss of Calais, and the intrigues of those who had forfeited the possession of power by their conduct in former reigns, sustained that combination. They can only be characterized by the term party; for they had all the strength and weakness of party. They procured a vote of the Parliament declaring Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, heiress to the throne. She was crowned in Westminster, according to the Roman ritual, the Bishop of Carlisle officiating. Dr. Heath, Archbishop of York, and other prelates, refused to attend.

These six years of Mary's reign were highly useful to the Irish church as a breathing space, as a truce between two battles. It demonstrated the hollowness of that court religion which was put on and off like a garment,

and it enabled the hierarchy to strengthen their defences, and to recruit their broken order. The storm that now arose found it with full and well-ordered ranks, and prelates prepared to meet martyrdom rather than apostasy.

CHAPTER IV.

THE IRISH CATHOLIC STRENGTH AT THE ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH.-TEST OATHS ENACTED. FIRST CATHOLIC CONFEDERACY. THE INSURRECTION OF THE DESMONDS. CONFISCATION OF MUNSTER. THE FIRST MARTYRS. THE ULSTER PRINCES.SECOND CATHOLIC CONFEDERATION. - ALLIANCE WITH SPAIN. BATTLE OF KINSALE.

WHEN Elizabeth was crowned, there were about sixty great chiefs, or princes, in Ireland, all of whom possessed actual civil and military power. Perhaps forty were Milesians, the remainder Anglo-Normans. Cutting a crescent out of the Leinster side of it, the island was still Celtic. The Brehon laws were still administered in three of the provinces; the chiefs spoke Latin, French, or English, and the people under their banners still cherished their native tongue and native customs. Well organized, this force would be a formidable opposition. The O'Neil could command six thousand foot and one thousand horse; the Earl of Desmond, lord of two hundred and fifty thousand acres of the most fruitful soil of Munster, could count five hundred knights of his own name, each of whom stood for a dozen armed men ; the O'Brien and his suffragans could command nearly equal force, and the western and Leinster chiefs as many more. With a population of little more than a million, Ireland had a total of nearly fifty thousand men in arms throughout this long reign, though never in one particular place, nor under one general-in-chief. The result teaches how vainly provincial forces must struggle for liberty if national unity does not inspire and concentrate their efforts.

The acts of supremacy, and uniformity, in the outset of the new reign, showed Catholics what they had to expect. By the one, all clergymen and laymen holding church property or civil office should swear to receive the queen's headship of the church-to deny this thrice was treason; by the other, none but the established liturgy was to be used by clergymen, on pain of perpetual imprisonment, and absence from the established churches on Sunday entailed a fine of one shilling on laymen. The oath of supremacy, by a retrospective enactment, was to be put to all who held public office, had taken a degree abroad, or were engaged in the profession of the laws. Members of the House of Commons were to be tested by it; the peers were exempt. Elizabeth's first Irish deputy, Charles Brandon, Duke of Sussex, called a Dublin Parliament in 1559; but, though the attendance was inconsiderable, its acts were held to be ever after binding.

At this Parliament was passed, among other acts, "an acte for the uniformytie of common prayer and service in the churche and admynystration of the sacraments in the church.”

"An acte againste suche persons as shall unreverentlye speake agaynst the sacrament of the bodye and blode of Christe, commonlye called the sacrament of the alter, and for the receivynge thereof under bothe kyndes."

"An acte restoring the crowne the auncient jurisdistion over the state ecclesiasticall and spirituall, and abolyshinge all power repugnant to the same."

"An acte for the conferrynge and consecratynge of archebushopps and bushopps within this realme."

By the same Parliament, the late "pryorye or hospytall of Seynt Jones Jerusalem," in Ireland, was restored to the crown.

In the subsequent session, which began in 1560, an act was passed, of which the most important clauses

"Sec. V. No foreign power to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction in this realm.

"Sec. VI. Such jurisdiction annexed to the crown. "Sec. VII. Ecclesiastical persons and officers, judges,

justices, mayors, temporal officers, and every other person that hath the queen's wages, to take the oath of supremacy.

"Sec. VIII. Penalty for refusing the oath, forfeiture of office, and of promotion during life.

"Sec. XVII. Commissioners to exercise spiritual jurisdiction shall not adjudge any thing heresy, but what is so judged by the canonical Scriptures, or the first four general councils, or any other general council, or by Parliament."

All bishops and archbishops, "in the name of God," were called on to aid in enforcing the same. And, lest the old bishops should fail of their part, even so conjured, a set of queen's bishops were duly inducted. One Sheyn was entitled Bishop of Cloyne and Ross, and commenced his career at Cork by burning the image of St. Dominic; a successor to Dr. Bale was set down in Ossory, and forty principal citizens of Kilkenny gave heavy bonds to attend his ministrations; one `Brady was made queen's bishop of Meath, and Adam Loftus, fellow of Cambridge, aged twenty-eight years, whose "comely person and good address pleased the queen," was made Archbishop of Armagh, over which he watched solicitously from the safe distance of Dublin Castle. The "recusant" bishops (this was the English synonyme for the faithful) were obliged to throw themselves on the native princes for protection, and with them in Munster and Ulster, they found safety yet a while. The Earl of Desmond, O'Brien, and O'Neil were the champions of the persecuted churchmen. O'Neil, especially, distinguished himself in the first years of Elizabeth. A troop of horse, under one Randolph, having landed at Derry, stabled their horses in St. Columbcille's church. Roused by this profanation, O'Neil besieged them; Randolph was defeated and slain, and Derry taken. In like manner he drove another sacrilegious garrison from Armagh, leaving the queen no fortress north of Dundalk. In 1564, despairing of his subjugation, the deputy employed Piers, a spy, to assassinate him. Under pretence of peace, the assassin met him at McDonnell's, of Antrim, procured a

quarrel, stabbed him, and brought his head, "pickled, in a pipkin," to Dublin Castle. For this service Piers had 66 a thousand marks," from the queen.

Thurlogh was the next O'Neil. In 1587, Hugh, grandson to Con, was duly elected, the last and perhaps the ablest of his able family, who bore the title of "Prince of Ulster."

Desmond was guilty of three offences against the queen's majesty his immense estate, his marriage of a daughter of O'Brien, and his hospitality to Leverus, the "recusant" Bishop of Kildare. To complete his guilt, he refused to take the oaths. The Earl of Ormond and Sir William Drury were, in turn, commanders of a southern army sent to chastise him. By the former the earl was defeated and taken prisoner at Affane, in 1564, sent to London, and imprisoned in the Tower. Exchanged to Dublin ten years afterwards, to use his influence over his brothers then in arms, he effected his escape, during a hunting party, the following year, and, once back amid his people, he prepared for open war. With this view he strengthened himself by marriage, with the daughter of McCarthy, (his first wife being dead,) made alliance with other powerful neighbors, and despatched his gallant brother, James, (to whose fraternal care he owed his liberty,) to the pope and the King of Spain. After the election of the English dynasty, this was the first successful effort at an offensive alliance with a foreign power.

In Madrid, James of Desmond was cordially received by King Philip and by the legate, Cardinal Granville. His two sons were placed at the University of Alcala, and himself lodged in the king's house. At this time, the Netherlands were in arms against Spain, Elizabeth privately abetting them. Philip retaliated by alliance with the Desmonds. If he had before conceived the expedition of "the Armada," he now hastened his resolution; and soon after that memorable fleet began to grow beneath the hands of his skilful shipwrights at Cadiz and Seville.

From Madrid, in 1580, James proceeded to Rome, where, on the 13th of May, Gregory XIII. issued his