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people. To the enforcing of the part of the Royal Proclamation which concerned the laity, and required their attendance at the Reformed services on Sunday, much more attention was devoted by the authorities. By the statute of 1560, the only penalty that could be inflicted on those who failed to attend church was a fine of a shilling for every absence without valid excuse. This, even when swelled by costs to ten shillings, as it sometimes was, could not force compliance from people in fairly good circumstances, and it was such persons precisely whose obedience the Government specially desired to obtain, in the belief that their example would be followed by those of inferior social station. In November, 1606, Chichester issued an individual summons to certain prominent Dublin citizens, ordering them to attend the Reformed Church on the following Sunday. As they did not comply, they were summoned before the arbitrary tribunal, known as "the Court of Castle Chamber," and heavily fined.

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Similar courses were adopted on many other occasions. Sir John Davys went on a regular progress round Munster to endeavour to enforce the Government decree, but he met with little success. Waterford signalised itself by stubborn resistance; of 162 persons to whom summons to betake themselves to their parish churches" the next and all succeeding Sundays" were issued, but one complied. In Cashel, it appeared that the children of the Protestant Archbishop, Meiler McGrath, were all 'recusants," and went to Mass. Though, at first, as we have seen, the measures taken met with little success, some result was finally achieved. In Wexford, we hear, many have conformed; 500 citizens have gone to Church in Cork (1607) and 200 in Drogheda, including 10 aldermen. In Youghal, 600 attended the Reformed Services. There is, however, a good deal of difficulty in inducing magistrates to carry out the law, or juries to find verdicts against recusants. For refusing to do this, juries were sometimes punished by fines or imprisonment. The Oath of Supremacy was supposed to be required from all who held public office or sought a University degree, as well as from wards, who, on attaining their majority, desired their property to be delivered up to them by their guardians ("suing out their livery" the process was called), but it was not consistently enforced. Some mayors were deprived of their position, and some would-be graduates denied their degrees, for a refusal of the Oath; but, on the other hand, to many well known to be Catholics it was never tendered.

On the whole, we may conclude from the extant evidence that, though against individual clerics the persecuting laws were sometimes brought into play with savage cruelty, and though individual members of the laity were interfered with in various ways, and subjected to fines,

and even imprisonment, at no period during this reign was the persecution general over the whole country, nor was any attempt made to enforce steadily and consistently the terms of the 1605 Proclamation. In the period from 1614 to 1622 the laxity increased. James had conceived the idea of bringing about the marriage of his only surviving son Charles with a Spanish princess, and this made it imperative to give as little cause for complaint as possible to her co-religionists in Ireland. An absolute repeal of the anti-Catholic laws would not have been tolerated by English public opinion, nor probably desired by the English King, but they could be quietly allowed to drop into abeyance, and this was what was generally done. The Sunday fines continued indeed to be fitfully exacted here and there; they had come to be regarded as merely a sort of tax; but this was all. A report made to the Government declares that there are 1,150 (? secular) priests in Ireland, and seven "Mass-houses in Dublin, but we may be sure that this list is far from complete. There were Catholic barristers practising in the Courts, and there were Catholic Justices of the Peace.

State of the Reformed Church.-At the time of James I's accession, the state of the Irish Reformed Church, never since Henry VIII's day satisfactory, was, owing to the wars and unrest of the last years of Elizabeth's reign, more unsatisfactory than ever. The King was most anxious to establish order and uniformity, and to correct abuses. Several times he appointed Royal Commissions, to investigate and suggest remedies for the neglect and corruption which nearly everywhere prevailed, but the Commissions could do little beyond making known the extent of the evil. The alienation of the Church lands by the bishops, which had been complained of in the previous reign, continued, and often a prelate, on taking possession of a See, discovered that so much of the land had been disposed of by his predecessors, that little or nothing remained for him to live on. The inferior clergy were in still worse case. The incomes of many of the so-called "livings were so minute that not even the most frugal housekeeping could make them suffice for the furnishing of the barest necessities; thus it became necessary for the clergyman to hold several of these offices, and to officiate, or undertake to officiate, in several parishes, in order to be able at all to support himself. The best paid livings, as also the best of the episcopal and archiepiscopal Sees, very frequently went to Englishmen or Scotchmen. In the bestowal of ecclesiastical patronage there was much nepotism. The Commission of 1607 reports that the family of Meiler McGrath, the Archbishop of Cashel, hold amongst them over 70 livings. The Bishop of Down and Connor has made his brother, who was a tailor, an archdeacon. Protestant livings were, it would seem, sometimes held by Catholic

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priests, or at least by those who still clung to the old forms and celebrated Mass; sometimes too by Catholic laymen.

In most, at least of the country parishes, the number of persons willing to avail themselves of the services of the Protestant incumbent was small. This was the case even in Ulster, where the Scotch planters had usually brought with them their own Ministers, and, being inclined to the Presbyterian discipline, looked with little favour on the Established Episcopalian Church. It could scarcely be expected that any great number of learned or zealous men would be found willing to accept positions of which the conditions were so unpleasant, the stipends so miserable and the opportunities for useful work so few. Accordingly, it is not surprising to find, in the reports of the Commissions, frequent complaints of the negligence and ignorance of the clergy; some, it is stated, were actually unable to read. The condition of the churches was no more satisfactory than was the status and the character of those who were expected to minister in them. According to the report made by Archbishop Ussher in 1622, there were, in the diocese of Meath alone, 90 churches absolutely ruined; 60 ruinous, and 50 in indifferent repair, out of a total of 243.

Up to the reign of James, there had been, in spite of the efforts of many of Elizabeth's Deputies, very little uniformity in the liturgy of the Irish Reformed Church, and its doctrines had never been regularly and officially defined. In 1613, the King established a regular Convocation, to deal with matters regarding ecclesiastical discipline and in general all matters connected with the Church. After discussion, 104 articles of faith, according generally with the English Articles of Lambeth (passed in 1598), were agreed on.

Catholic Education. Of the grievances from which the Irish Catholic laity suffered, they appear to have felt none more acutely than the difficulty, under the existing laws, of obtaining a liberal education for their sons. During the reign of Elizabeth, this had also been complained of, but now that the English authority had extended itself over the whole island, the state of the case had become worse. Investigations were made, and schoolmasters who had not conformed to the State religion were ordered to close their schools, however efficient these might be. It is certain that, in this as in other matters, evasions were often practised with success. The great schools which had long existed in many of the principal towns, as Waterford, Limerick, Galway and Kilkenny, continued to flourish. To what extent they were reformed" it is often difficult to say; certainly, amongst the men trained in them during the later sixteenth and the earlier seventeenth centuries, were found many steadfast champions of Catholicity. In these schools the classical

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languages, and especially Latin, were the chief subjects of instruction, but, in several, Irish, the native tongue, was also cultivated.

The custom of sending Irish youths to the Continent for education had already begun in the reign of Elizabeth. It was partially with a view of checking this practice that Dublin University (consisting of one college only, "Trinity College ") was founded by Elizabeth in 1593. It was, at first, liberally subscribed to by Catholics, but, as it soon appeared that the Reformed doctrines were to be taught, and attendance at the Reformed services was made compulsory on the students, it did not achieve its object.

The Irish gentry represented to the Pope the difficulties of their case. They must either send their sons to the heretic university, or leave them without higher education altogether. In consequence of this, the Sovereign Pontiffs encouraged, and sometimes themselves assisted in, the foundation of colleges for the education of Irish youths in the different countries of Europe. The first, and one of the most important, was the Royal College of Salamanca, founded by Philip II. Others followed in rapid succession, at Lisbon, Louvain, Antwerp, Rome and elsewhere. They were all of a university type, and the students were rarely admitted before the age of fifteen or sixteen. Regarding the education of Catholic girls during this period, we have little information.

Already, in the reign of Henry VIII (1537), an Act had been passed for the establishment of Primary Schools in every parish in Ireland, and another Act, thirty-three years later, ordered that a free Grammar School be opened in the chief town of each diocese. The object in both cases was, of course, the spreading of the Reformation and of the English language amongst the children. Of the new Grammar Schools, however, we hear little, and of the Primary Schools scarcely anything, till a period much later than that with which we are now dealing. In 1612, King James, by a special decree, assigned certain portions of the confiscated lands of Ulster for the foundation and endowment of Royal Free Schools in various parts of the province.

The students of Trinity College, Dublin, were almost exclusively the sons of those who had adopted the Reformed faith, except in the case of Government wards, who were placed there by the guardians assigned them, to be " maintained and educated in the English religion and habits."

In the more remote districts, some of the old Celtic schools, where poetry and history were taught, and where the Irish manuscripts, which the English authorities sought to destroy, were diligently copied, still struggled on. In them were trained poets and seanachies, and men versed in all the old native learning for which Ireland had once been so famous, but which her new rulers, and many of her own unworthy sons, now despised.

CHAPTER V

THE VICEROYALTY OF

FALKLAND. THE EARLY

YEARS OF CHARLES I's REIGN (A.D. 1622-1633)

THE closing years of the reign of James were marked by some advance in prosperity and in population throughout Ireland as a whole. Irish trade and commerce increased, and tracts long desolate began again to be populated. "The country," it was said, "was full of youth."

In March, 1625, James died, and was succeeded by Charles, his son. Negotiations for "the Graces."-The change of rulers was not followed by any alteration in the Irish administration; Lord Falkland, Deputy since 1622, was continued in office. Almost from the first, Charles found himself involved in disputes with his English Parliament, which refused to grant him adequate supplies. He was, in consequence, in sore straits for money. It was thought that, in return for such relaxations in the recusancy laws as would secure them in the continuance, as of right, of the toleration which they now enjoyed merely as a favour, some pecuniary assistance might be obtained from the Irish Catholics. Negotiations with certain of the Catholic nobility for obtaining money by the sale of "Graces" to their co-religionists, were begun. Dropped for a time, they were renewed in 1628.

In November (1628), the Catholics despatched agents to London, who were admitted to Charles' presence, and conducted their negotiations with him personally. The remission of the Sunday fines was refused, probably because they were a source of revenue, but two other important "Graces," as well as several minor ones, were promised. The first substituted for the Supremacy Oaths a simple Oath of Allegiance to the Sovereign. This oath and no other was to be tendered to the holders of offices; to members of corporations; to wards desirous of suing out their livery; to barristers; to those seeking university degrees, etc., etc. The second conceded that a continuous undisturbed occupation of any land for sixty years might be pleaded as a bar to any Crown claim to such land. This latter "Grace" was desired, because the attempted revival by the Crown of certain claims, some of which were based on grants centuries old, and which in many cases had never attained to any

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