unknown to civilized times, both parties were inclined to accede to a cessation of hostilities, which cessation was anxiously desired and encouraged by the king, who, having come to open war with the Parliamentarians in England, wished to pacify Ireland, in order that he might draw assistance from them against his Republican opponents. Urged then by his own necessities, and by the urgency of his Royal master's situation, Ormonde concluded a cessation with the confederates on the 15th of September, 1643. O'Connor, Walsh, and other Roman Catholic writers allow, that the King and Ormonde, as well as the confederate Roman Catholic nobility and gentry, were sincere in their desires to maintain this cessation, and bring all differences to a conclusion, by a permanent peace; the conditions of which, as offered by Ormonde, according to Bishop Burke's own acknowledgment, gave the Romanists in Ireland all temporal advantages they desired, and moreover, all spiritual, as far as a full, free exercise of religion, and in which all that was wanting was what conduced to its pomp and ostentation.Hib. Domicana. p. 654. But it was violently exclaimed against by the majority of the hierarchy and regular clergy, under the foreign influence of the court of Rome. They spoke loudly against the cessation and the subsequent peace as heretical and schismatical, and its favourers were denounced to the people, and from the altar, as be

be loath to execute any way whereby your Lordship may be displeased, whom we highly honour and love.

"Before I took up arms, or stirred from home, my castles and lands were surprised, no restitution offered of my arms, and particular goods detained; companies and forces raised, and monies levied in several baronies, the king's authority shaken off, the goods of his majesty's subjects taken by violence, their persons assaulted and murdered, his forts beseiged; the gates of Galway shut, all passages thither stopped and maintained by force; the disease being grown to so high a distemper, can it be wondered that the remedies have an acerbity with them? and if they must be frequently applied, let them answer for it, that have been the contrivers, actors, and are still maintainers of these troubles. I cannot but much admire what I hear spo ken by many, that desperation should now make that cause and war lawful, that was at first grounded upon wrong and bad foundations: for my part I will hope in the mercy of Almighty God for the preservation of his church, the arming herself (not with temporal power, but) with those accustomed, and (truly) spiritual weapons, which hath ever maintained her flourishing in all ages. I will never doubt the mild and gracious inclinations of his Majesty, not only to grant pardon for their offences, but redress of their grievances, if they timely and modestly apply themselves to give him a right information of the causes of their fears and apprehensions that brought them to appear refractory and disobedient; and if this be not held a fit proceeding, I assure you, that until bis Majesty's commands and pleasure be further declared unto me, I have no other course to take but to make use of his power and authority to reduce them to their former obedience, being strictly obliged thereto upon forfeiture of life, honour, and fortune, by the duty of my place, and oath of allegiance, from which I presume you cannot absolve me, and not being absolved, neither your judgments, dispositions, or power, will direct you to set forth any ecclesiastical censure against me, or those who shall assist me for his Majesty's service; VOL. VIII.

F

trayers of religion. It was moreover to counteract the accomplishment of this dreaded peace, that Pope Urban VIII. in the first instance, issued his Bull from the Vatican, dated May, 1643, and successively sent his Nuncios Scarampi, and Rinuncini, to support the impression it was intended to make. This monstrous document which is too long for entire assertion here, begins thus:"Having taken into consideration the great zeal of the Irish towards the propagation of the Catholic Faith, and the piety of the Catholic warriors in the several armies of that kingdom, which was of old the Land of Saints, and having got certain notice how, in imitation of their Godly and worthy ancestors, they endeavour by force of arms to deliver their thralled nation from the oppression and grievous injuries of the heretics, and gladly do what in them lieth to extirpate and totally root out those workers of iniquity, who in the kingdom of Ireland had infected and always strive to infect the mass of Catholic purity, with the pestiferons leaven of their heretical contagion. We, therefore, willing to cherish them with the gift of the spiritual graces whereof, by God, we are appointed the only disposers on earth, by the mercy of the same Almighty God, trusting in the authority of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by virtue of that power of binding and loosing souls, which God was pleased to confer on us-To all and every one of the faithful Christians in the

but

for, if these resolutions be taken, 1 shall not only appeal to higher authority, proceed to other plans 1 have laid, in case I be put to extremity; and it may be worthy your best considerations, not too far to exasperate one that in his public actions and thoughts hath ever been a most affectionate, faithful, and obedient child to the Church; and by a late declaration hath published, for the satisfaction of all men, my constant resolution therein, and if any shall persist obstinate, I must hereafter, for my own justification, produce my present expressions of judgment against them. "Your humble servant, "CLANRICARD and ST. ALBANS.

"April 19th, 1642.” Another instance of firmness, and resistance to ecelesiastical tyranny, on the part of Clanricard, is recorded on occasion of the surrender of Galway to the confederates, by Captain Willoughby, in 1643. On this occasion, when the Bishops of Connaught, under pain of excommunication, required all the gentry and people to take the oath of association, many of Clanricard's followers having been terrified by the threatened exclusion from the rights of the Church, unless they took an oath diametrically contradictory to their previous oath of allegiance. Clanricard, therefore, published a direction that they should demaud from their priest and their bishop to declare in writing, whether, notwithstanding their previous oath, they were bound under pain of MORTAL SIN, to take the oath of association; and to require the priests and the bishops direction in this respect in writing, and their reasons for the

same.

To this the Bishop of Clonfert published by way of reply, "That notwithstanding their oath of allegiance, they were bound, under pain of mortal sin, to take the oath of association, and in default, were in danger of the censure of excommunication being fulminated against them. Because (said he) the omission of the oath, in itself both lawful, and necessary, is commanded upon great deliberation by the Church, in a matter of weight, and approved by bis Holiness."

Can any man (says Warner, from whom I take this passage) read this declaration from a Christian prelate in favour of perjury and rebellion, and not be shocked at the impiety of setting up the Church above the Gospel, and the approbation of the Pope above that of God. But this is a further confirmation of what has been often observed, that no oaths or obligations are to stand in competition with the interests of the religion of Rome.

aforesaid kingdom of Ireland, now and for the time to come, militating against the heretics, and other enemies of the Catholic faith, they being truly and sincerely penitent, after confession, and the spiritual refreshing of themselves with the sacred communion of the body and blood of Christ, do grant a full and plenary indulgence, and absolute remission of all their sins, such as in the holy time of Jubilee is usually granted, &c. And to all and every one of these aforesaid faithful Christians, we grant licence to choose any fit confessor, who shall have power to liberate and absolve them from all sins, trespasses, crimes, and delinquencies, how heinous and atrocious soever they be." This Bull, countersigned M. A. Maraldus, was forwarded with all due diligence, and ordered to be published in all churches, dioceses, counties, and cities in the kingdom. But this Bull was not enough, without an active agent to see it enforced, and therefore Rinuncini, Bishop of Fermo, landed in Ireland on the 22d of October, 1645. He was received by the supreme council at Kilkenny with extraordinary respect, and in the great hall of the castle, he made a Latin oration to the council, in which he pledged himself on the word of a Prince, to attempt nothing prejudicial to the king.

It is necessary to state that at the period of the arrival of Rinuncini, Ireland was oppressed by five armies which represented so many separate interests. The Loyal Protestant army, commanded by Ormonde; the Parliamentarian, under Coote; the Scotch, under Munroe; the Ancient Irish army, under Owen Roe O'Neil; and the army especially subject to the direction of the Council of Kilkenny, under Preston and Castlehaven. Of these only Ormonde's and Preston's adhered to the cessation. Coote, Owen Roe, and the Scotch covenanters carried still on a predatory war of posts and surprisals in Ulster and Connaught. The moment the Nuncio arrived he laid himself out to attach O'Neil and the Ulster Irish to his peculiar cause; and O'Neil who was a consummate Fabian general, as well as an astute politician, found it his interest to become the Pope's general. Backed then by the best and most efficient army in Ireland, the Nuncio at once set every engine at work to counteract the proposed peace, and in the conduct of the unfortunate king he found a pretext and an opportunity. While Ormonde was negociating his peace with the Council of Kilkenny, Charles, anxious to secure assistance from Ireland, was instigated by the ardent, loyal, and at the same time, bigotted Papist, Glamorgan, whose head teemed with projects, and who afterwards, as Marquess of Worcester, became so famous in the scientific world for his "Century of Inventions." This intriguer persuaded Charles that if he would gratify the Irish by a perfect enjoyment of their religion, he would be enabled by the aid of their forces to overthrow all his republican enemies. Charles, who had learned the boasted science of king-craft from his father, and who trifled to his cost with sincerity, that first of conventional virtues-who cared so little for the prosperity of Protestantism, as to consent to have his children reared by a Popish mother, until they arrived at their 13th year-who always had in view a re-union of the two churches, and, who held secret

interviews with Popish intriguers and Priests,-this unfortunate Prince was induced by Glamorgan to write letters to Rinuncini, and to "the most blessed Father Innocent X." and while he instructed his Lord Lieutenant, Ormonde, to concede to the Romanists, only a toleration of the exercise of their religion, he sent over Glamorgan, with power to conclude a secret treaty with the Irish Clergy, whereby the whole Church property of Ireland was to be transferred to them, and their religion to be restored to the splendour it enjoyed in the reign of Henry VIII.

Hume, Carte, and other historians have denied that Charles gave any authority to Lord Glamorgan to make this treaty; but Birch has fixed the transaction on Charles I. so firmly, that no doubt can now exist but that he gave commission to Glamorgan to grant such concessions to the Irish Bishops as he knew his Protestant LordLieutenant, Ormonde, would never be instrumental in conceding. This transaction, between Glamorgan and the Popish Hierarchy, was, for a time, kept a profound secret. And Ormonde and the loyal Protestants and Catholics in Ireland could not imagine why obstacles were daily thrown in the way of the peace, which the confederates had first courted, and Ormonde had anxiously negociated. But the whole matter unexpectedly came out in consequence of the defeat and death of Malachy O'Kelly, Popish Archbishop of Tuam, at Sligo-one of these military prelates of the day, concerning whom Father Carve, in his Lyra, says "it would have been more becoming had he stuck to the breviary and laid aside the truncheon." In his pocket was found Glamorgan's secret treaty. Coote the Parliamentary General, who rifled the Popish Bishop, took good care to transfer the important document to England, and not only in London but in Dublin it created a great sensation; Ormonde was indeed astonished, and so were even many of the loyal Roman Catholic nobility and gentry; and, placed as Ormonde was in a cruel predicament, he determined to make it appear to the world that Glamorgan had assumed powers with which he was never invested, and that he did so in a blind and forward zeal to procure the King the Irish succours he so much desired. The confederate Roman Catholics were also much perplexed; the majority saw the necessity of the peace, and in the General Assembly maintained, that the King had granted all the temporal conditions they desired, and such as would infallibly render the Romish party triumphant in that kingdom; that as to spirituals, they had by this treaty all that was necessary to the exercise and enjoyment of religion, and that nothing was wanting but what served for pomp or ostentation; and, since his Majesty's circumstances would not admit, for the present, of that being granted publicly, they ought to trust to the King's good intentions, manifested to them, as well by the Earl of Glamorgan, as otherwise. On the other side the Popish clergy dissatisfied without the instant possession of the Ecclesiastical revenues and patrimonies of the Church, insisted that the Lord-Lieutenant should be beaten into better terms. However, on the present occasion, the votes of the lawyers, and nobility and gentry prevailed; and, though the Nuncio endeavoured to change their reso

lution, by protesting, on the word of a prince, that at that very time a treaty was going on between the Queen and the Pope, with the King's consent, which would produce a peace, glorious to the Church and happy to the people, though thus he was able to succeed in delaying the peace so long as to contribute to the total ruin of the King's affairs,* yet the peace was ratified in the begin ning of the year 1646, and proclaimed at Dublin and Kilkenny, and the articles printed by the authority of the Supreme Council of the confederates. O.

(To be continued.)

SKETCHES OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY.-No. I.

THE STATION.

Our readers are to suppose the parish priest, hereafter to be named, standing upon the altar of the chapel, facing the congrega tion, after having gone through the canon of the Mass, and having nothing more of the service to perform than the usual prayers with which he closes the ceremony.

"On Monday in Jack Gallagher's of Corraghnamoddagh: Are you there Jack ?" "To the fore, yer Reverence:" "Why then, Jack, there's something ominous-something auspicious to happen, or we wouldn't have you here, for its very seldom that you make part or parcel of this present congregation-seldom are you here, Jack, it must be confessed: however you know the old classical proverb, or if you don't, I do, which will just answer as well; Non semper ridet Apollo'' it's not every day Manus kills a bullock;' so as you are here, be prepared for us on Monday.” "Never fear, yer Reverence, never fear; I think you ought to know that the grazin' at Corraghnamoddagh's not bad." "To do you justice, Jack, the mutton was always good with you, only if you would get it better killed, it would be an improvement :" 66 Very well, yer Reverence, I'll do it."

"On Tuesday in Peter Murtagh's, of the Crooked Commons: Are you there Peter?" "Here, yer Reverence." "Indeed, Peter, I might know you are here, and I wish that a great many of my flock would take example by you; if they did, I wouldn't be so far behind in getting in my dues. Well, Peter, I suppose you know that this is Michaelmas ?" "So fat, yer Reverence, that they're not able to wag; bud, any way, Katty has them marked for you two fine young crathurs, only last year's fowl, an' the ducks isn't a taste behind them-she's crammin' them this month past." "I believe you, Peter, and I would take your word for more than the condition of the geese--remember me to Katty, Peter."

• The King entirely looked to the Irish succours he expected, in consequence of the conclusion of the peace, for the relief of Chester, the best and only strong-hold he had in the West, and which he lost because he fondly trusted to the brittle reeds of Popish promises and loyalty..