Bibliographical details: Sir Richard Musgrave, Memoirs of the different rebellions in Ireland from the arrival of the English: with a particular detail of That Which Broke Out the XXIIId of May, MDCCXCVIII [23rd May 1798]; with the History of the Conspiracy which Preceded It and the Characters of the Principal Actors in It. (Dublin: John Millikin; London: John Stockdale 1801), 636pp. + Appendices, 166pp + Index [8pp.] 1st edn. copy available at Internet Archive - online. The biographical and critical file on Musgrave may be found in RICORSO > A-Z Dataset > Authors > m > Musgrave_R/life [supra].

The antiquaries of the laft century contended, that the Chriftian religion was introduced into Ireland by Roman miffonaries, in the beginning of the fifth century; but a learned writer clearly proves, that it was eftablifhed there at a much earlier period, and by miffionaries of the Greek church.

It is moft certain, that the Irifh clergy had no connection with, and did not fubmit to, the jurifdiction of the Roman pontiff, till the year 1152, when pope Eugenius fent, by cardinal Paparon, four palls to the archbifhops of Armagh, Dublin, Cafhel, and Tuam, when the Romifh ritual was fubflituted in the place of the Greek, which was previoufly ufed in the Irifh church; an undoubted proof that it was perfectly independent of the pope till that period.

Our excellent primate Ufher proves this in a moft unquestionable manner, in a learned treatife on the religion of the antient Irifh, well worth the perufal of the natives of Ireland. Archbifhop* Anfelm, in his letters to Muriardach an Irifh king, complained that bifhops were confecrated by bifhops alone, and often by one bifhop only, contrary to a canon of the Nicene council, which required two bifhops, at leaft, to attend the confecration of one; but the Irifh clergy were totally ignorant of the councils of the church, and derived their knowledge of Chriftianity, for near eight hundred years, from no other fource but the bible, the grand charter of Chriftians. Athanafius allowed the confecration of Siderius, bifhop of Palœbifca; and the church of Alexandria that of Evagrius, though performed but by one h. As to celibacy, we know, from W are, that the four archbifhops of Armagh who preceded Celfus, and Celfus himfelf, who died 1129, were married; and, not until popery was eftablifhed at Cafhel in 1172, was marriage interdicted.

In the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, a feafon of midnight ignorance in Europe, the Roman pontiff, who was regarded with fuperftitious reverence, claimed and gradually acquired a fuperiority, not only of fpiritual, but of temporal power, over all the potentates of Europe, who confidered his fanftion as neceffary to expiate the guilt of any crime, how heinous foever, or to promote the fuccefs of any adventure.

For this reafon, Henry II. folicited pope Adrian for a bull to give him. the inveftiture of Ireland; and, in confideration of it, agreed to grant him a tax of one penny on each houfe in it, called Peter Pence.

When Phocas murdered his liege fovereign Mauritius, emperor of Conftantinople, in the year 602, he obtained the pope’s benediction, and by this varnifhed over the turpitude of that foul action; and Pepin, having depofed king Chilperic, and feized the throne of France in the year 751, prevailed on pope Zachary to abfolve the French from

* Anfelm. Epift. 1. 3. ep. 141, 147. Ufher, Epift. Hib. p.95. Lanfranc, archbifhop of Canterbury, complained of this practice above twenty years before. Ufher, fup. p.73.

their allegiance to their lawful prince, whom hefhaved, and confined in a monaftery, “Tantum religio potuit fuadere malorum.”
In like manner, when Ethelred, king of the Northumbrians, was affaffinated in the year 796, Eardulph, who ufurped his throne, was anointed, and went through fome pompous ceremonies at his coronation, to hallow his ufurpation with the odour of sanctity.

Rebellion, ufurpation, and murder, are crimes that require extraordinary meafures to palliate them in the eyes of the people, and to procure fome veneration for the perfons who have been guilty of them.

Adrian, in his bull, empowered Henry II. “to* propagate in Ireland the righteous plantation of faith, and the branch moft acceptable to God;” which meant no more, than that he fhould subject that kingdom to the dominion of the pope, which it is remarkable was the laft country in Europe that fubmitted to the ambitious and rapacious defigns of his holinefs.

At this day the Roman Catholicks deprecate the grant of Ireland to a foreign and not a native prince. Mc. Geoghegan, in his hiftory of Ireland, tom, i. p.440, exclaims thus againft it “A decree pronounced againft Ireland, by which the rights of nations, and the moft facred laws are violated, under the fpecious pretext of religion, and the reformation of manners! Could one fufpect the vicar of Chrift of fuch grofs injuftice? Could one believe him capable of iffuing a bull, by which an entire nation was overturned?”† If the aboriginal Irifh lament the fettlement of the Englifh in Ireland, all its loyal inhabitants have to deplore, that they introduced popery into it, as it has been a conftant fource of difaffection, and has produced unutterable calamities in it.

* Unde tanto in eis libentius plantationem fidelem, & germen gratum Deo inferimus. Ufher, fup. p.109.
† ‘Un arret prononcé centre l’Irelande, par lequel le droit des gens, & les loix les plus facrées font violées, fous le fpecieux pretexte de religion & de reformation des mœurs. Peut on foupfonner le vicaire de Jefus Crift d’une injuftice fi criante? Peut on le croire coupable d’avoir dicté une bulle qui a bouleverfé toute une nation?’ Mc. Geoghegan was a Roman Catholick.

It is not the object nor the wifh of the writer of the following pages to difparage Ireland, or its inhabitants; the former, in point of foil and climate, the latter, in their intelledual and corporeal powers, being defcrvedly efteemed among the fineft works of the creation; but to evince the truth of the maxim, that an imperium in imperio, or two feparate fovereign powers, civil and ecclefiaftical, cannot co-exift in the fame ftate, without perpetual collifion, producing difcord and rebellion; and that the only remedy for the calamities attendant on fuch a ftate is, either the extinftion of one power, or the milder procedure of incorporating it with the other. The latter mode has been adopted in Ireland: abftract reafoning muft approve, and experience will demonftrate, the meafure to be founded in the trueft wifdom.

Few of the writers on the Union of Ireland with England have calmly difcuffed the subject on the grounds here ftated; if they had, thofe who oppofed it would have received conviction, and thofe who fupported it, would have found invincible arguments in its favour, from the inftances now adduced.

As this great political question is finally fettled, why, it may be adced, bring it again before the publick? The anfwer is, that the publick mind is far as yet from being reconciled to it; that a plain llatement of facts, in an authenticated hiftorical detail of the various rebellions, and particularly of the occurrences of the laft which afflidted this kingdom, and defolated a confiderable portion of it, muft bring conviction to the moft uninformed, of the inftability of their fafety or happincfs, while both are subjectl to the workings of bigotry, or the flagitious dfcfigns of the rebel and the plunderer. A mariner, who has been (hipv.Tccked on a funken rock, does not accurately defcribe its longitude and latitude for others to run on it, but carefully to avoid it; fo the writer, in recounting the former and the late rebellion, does not wifh to revive party diftinctions and animofities, which he ardently hopes will be for ever buried in oblivion, but to point out the neceffity of adopting radical remedies to prevent their recurrence, which have been neglected by former goveniments.

In fpeaking of the Roman catholick religion, the writer hopes he will not be mifinterpreted, when he declares, that, as far as it is agreeable

to the Gofpel, he moft highly refpects it; but the fuperinduced doctrines, as the Pope’s infallibility and fupremacy, his difpenfing power, exclufive falvation, and other points, he knows, and the reader will perceive, are fubverfive of fociety; and if its pliability be fuch as Doctor Troy and Doctor Huffey affert in their paftoral letters, that it can accommodate itfelf to a monarchic, ariftocratic, or democratic form of government, it may be a dangerous engine in the hands of defigning men. After this explanation, I fhall proceed to sfetch the ftate of Ireland, on the arrival of the Englifh, in the year 1169.

The country was divided among clans or fepts, profeffing fubjection to a higher power; but, at the fame time, exercifing every independent right. Their numbers then, according to Sir William Petty, did not exceed three hundred thoufand fouls, difperfed over more than twelve millions of acres. The country, as defcribed by Giraldus Cambrenfis, in the twelfth century, an eye-witnefs of it, was overrun with forefts, or cankered with bogs, and in all the arts of civil life, the inhabitants were little fuperior to the Indians of North America. Their Brehon laws were calculated to make them favage, and to keep them fo; as they rendered the enjoyment of life and property infecure. Their kings or princes did not fucceed each other by hereditary defcent, or any fixed principles of fucceffion, but by force and arms. It was a peculiar favour from heaven to fend a civilized people among them, nor did the wifer part feem infenfible to it; for Matt. Paris tells us, that, at a council at Lifmore, they gratefully received the laws of England (gratanter receptæ) and fwore to obey them, (juratoria cautione prasftita) which included their allegiance to the crown of England. As foon as Henry II returned, they rejected the laws, violated their allegiance, and ran into rebellion: which excluded them from the benefit of them.

A few fepts, who adhered to their oaths, were confidered as English fubjects, and were protected by law. Attached to their barbarous manner of living, and indulged by their own municipal laws in hcentioufnefs of every kind, they found the wholefome reftraint of English regimen, fo irkfom.e and galling, that, by perpetual infurrections, they

endeavoured to fhake it off; and in the reign of Henry III. 1230, they collected fuch a force, that they flattered their party with the hope of being able totally to expel the Englifh (omme genus Anglorum ab Hibernise finibus exturbare,) fays Matt. Paris. This has been the declared purpofe of the native Irifh for above fix hundred years. What alone they were unable to accomplifh, they endeavoured to eftedt by calling in the aid of the pope, and the king of Spain, as we fhall fee in the fequel. The kings of England tried various means to civilize the Irifh; but they were fo blinded by difaffection, and attached to their own barbarous cuftoms, as to oppofe every meafure for that purpofe. The ftatute of Kilkenny, 1367, is a decifive proof of this, for by it the Brehon law was abolifhed; and again by the tenth , Henry VII. and laftly by a judgment of the court of King’s Bench, fifth James I.

Speaking a different language, and obedient to different laws, it is not to be wondered at, that the Englifh and Irifh did not cordially unite, and coalefce into one people. Nothing was attempted which could materially conduce to effect this; for the operations of government were confined for centuries to pitiful expedients. The introduction of the reformed religion, by increafing the antipathy of the native Irifh to the English, was a new fource of calamities; for, as the Irifh ecclefiafticks, to whom the ignorant and bigoted people were bhndly devoted, received their education in foreign feminaries, particularly in thofe of France and Spain, they returned to their native country, bound folemnly to the pope, in an unlimited fubmiffion, without any bond of allegiance to the king, and full fraught with thofe abfurd and peftilent doctrines, which the moderate of their own communion, at leaft, profeffed to abominate; of the univerfal dominion of the pope, as well fpiritual as temporal; of his authority to excommunicate and depofe princes; to abfolve fubjects from their oaths of allegiance, and to difpenfe with every law of God and man; to fanftify rebellion and murder, and even to change the very nature and effential difference of vice and virtue. With fuch impious tenets, fabricated by their fchools and councils, they filled their fuperftitious votaries,

contrary, fays Walfh the Irifh francifcan, to the letter, the fenfe, and defign of the Gofpel, the writings of the apoftles, and the commentaries of their fucceffors, to the belief of the Chrifhan church for ten ages, and to the cleareft dictates of nature.

I hope the reader will excufe the digreffion which I fhall now make, to fhew him the origin of the Papal power, which became, in procefs of time, from very flender beginnings, formidable to fovereign princes, and fatal to the peace of Europe; as he will be able to difcover in it, the real fource of the various rebellions which have difgraced and defolated the kingdom of Ireland; fo that I may fay with the Roman poet,

Long after the death of the apoftles, the popes continued to be elected by the people and the clergy, and, when elected, they were confecrated by fome other prelates, which, as *Eufebius tells us, happened in the cafe of St. Fabian, bifhop of Rome, in the year 236. But the bifhop, after being elected, could not be confecrated, or confirmed in the See, without the confent of the emperor, which was as effential to the ratification of it, as that of our king to the election of a bifhop, by a dean and chapter. For this reafon, when pope Gregory I. was elected, about the year 600, he, not wifhing to fill the pontifical chair, wrote to the emperor Mauritius, not to confent to his election; but he refufed, and ratified it. The emperors thus continued to watch the elections and the conduct of the popes with a vigilant and jealous eye, till the year 896, when Charles the bald refigned to the pope all power and authority over the Roman See; and, on the extinction of the race of Charlemagne, Adrian III. made a decree, that in future the popes fhould be elected without the emperor’s confent.

Previous to this period, the emperors maintained and exercifed fupreme power in ecclefiaftical affairs: † they appointed judges for religious caufes, prefided at councils, and often, in ecclefiaftical courts,
they

* He was bifhop of Nicomedia, and died in the fourth century,
† Spanheim’s Ecclefiaftical Hiftory, p.1102.

they depofed bifhops that were lapfed into herefy, and determined difputes and fchifms in the church. It is remarkable, that, till this era, the councils were denominated from the emperors, and not from the popes; becaufe their canons and ordinances were invalid, till confirmed by the former. Eufebius tells us therefore, that Conftantine the great was called the general bifhop, from his univerfal fupremacy over all prelates.

He alfo tells us, in his life of this emperor, (lib. 3. cap. 18.) that the fathers of the council of Nice obtained the confirmation of their decrees from Conftantine the great; and the fathers of the council of Conftantinople from Theodofius the great, in the year 381, as we are told by Socrates in his Ecclefiaftical Hiftory.

The emperors forefaw how neceffary it was, that the civil and ecclefiaftical powers fhould be united in the fupreme executive magiftrate, to promote and fecure the peace and profperity of the ftate; and the difcord, the ftrife, the bloodfhed, and the various calamities which their feparation afterwards occafioned, in every kingdom of Europe, proved the forefight, the prudence, and the policy of the imperial fovereigns. And yet the Irifh innovators, whofe ignorance can be equalled by nothing but their difaffection and audacity, have treated the union of the fpiritual and temporal power as abfurd and ridiculous.

So little idea had the Roman pontiff of fupremacy in the fifth century, that, when there was a rivalship between him and the patriarch of Conftantinople for precedence, it was refolved by the twenty-eighth canon of the council of Chalcedon,* 451, that the fame rights and honours which had been conferred on the bifhop of Rome, were due to the bifhop of Conftantinople, on account of the equal dignity and luftre of the two cities, in which they exercifed their authority. On the clofe of the fixth century, Gregory I. was poffeffed of immenfe territories, and was in fuch eftimation for his piety, that he ftands high as a faint in the Roman calendar; and yet he had fo little idea of being fupreme head of the church, that, when the bifhop of Conftantinople

* This was a general council.

affumed that title, he declared in a letter to the emperor Mauritius, “that it was a blafphemous title, and that none of the Roman pontiffs had ever affumed fo fingular a one.”* And in a letter to the fame patriarch, he fays, “what wilt thou fay to Chrift, the head of the univerfal church, in the day of judgment, who thus endeavoured to fubjeft his members to thyfelf, by this title of univerfal? Who, I afk thee, doft thou imitate in this, but the devil?”† And in a letter to the emprefs Conftantia, he fays, his pride, in affuming this title, fhewed the days of Antichrift were at hand.‡ The fame pope faid, “I acknowledge that a prince, having his power from God, is fupreme over, not only the military, but the facerdotal power.”§
Rome continued the capital of the weftern empire, till the reign of Valentinian II who, about the year 390, transferred it to Ravenna, for the purpofe of being near the Alps, to oppofe the incurfions of the northern barbarians; and afterwards, Theodorick, king of the Goths, did the like for the fame reafon.
As the dignity and authority of the bifhop of Ravenna were augmented by the fplendor of the court, and the auguft prefence of the emperor, he difputed the primacy of Italy with the bifhop of Rome. ||
When this falutary reftraint of the emperors over the Roman pontiffs was removed, their eagle-winged ambition foared above the power of fovereign princes, and often was the means of their dethronement.
That arrogant pontiff, Gregory VII. raifed to the popedom in the year 1073, claimed and exercifed a right of excommunicating and depofing fovereigns, by invoking their fubjects to rife in rebellion

* Gregory’s Epiftles, lib. 4. Ind. 13, p.137. ‡ Gregory’s epift. 34.
† Ibid, epift. 38.     § Lib. 2, epift. 94.
|| This rivalfhip reminds me of the following anecdote: An itinerant friar was preaching on a ftage in the ftreet of Florence, with a crucifix in his hand, to a numerous audience. A mountebank erected his ftage within a few yards of him, and, by his pleafantry and fallies of wit, attracted to him all the followers of the friar, who was foon deferted. A mountebank in Italy goes by the appellation of punchinello. The friar, having in vain exhaufted all the force of his eloquence to induce his auditory to return, cried out in a rage, pointing to the crucifix, Ecco, il vero punchinelio!  Behold, the true punchipello!

againft them. His ambitious efforts to gain an afcendancy over the emperors, on the clofe of the eleventh century, occafioned the faction of the Guelphs and Gibellines in Germany and Italy, which produced numberlefs affaffinations, tumults, and convulfions, and no lefs than fixty pitched battles in the reign of Henry IV. and eighteen in that of his fucceffor Henry V. when the claims of the Roman pontiff finally prevailed.
The emperor, Henry IV. with the emprefs, and his children, waited three days and three nights, barefooted, at the gates of the pope’s palace, for abfolution; and after all, his holinefs deprived him of his dominions, and gave them to Rodolphus, in the moft* infulting manner.
The following emperors experienced the effects of this fcourge from the popes, whofe names are annexed; and fome of them loft their thrones and their lives by it.

Befides the above, a great many fovereign princes loft their lives and their dominions by this dreadful engine of fuperftition.
The popes, well knowing that they could not maintain the immenfe power, the great wealth, and the extenfive territories which they had acquired when Reafon re-affumed her empire, refolved to erect, in the bofom of every ftate, a fyftem of terror, by a device, the ingenuity of which could be equalled by nothing but its monftrous iniquity. Pope Innocent III. in the year 1215, procured the following

* He fent a crown to Rodolph with this Leonine verfe: “Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rodolpho.”

ordinances to be paffed by the fourth council of Lateran; and the decree of a legitimate general council, fuch as this, has been always deemed infallible and irreverfible in the Romifh church: “Heretics of every kind againft the true orthodox faith fhall be condemned; and if they fhall not prove their innocence by a proper purgation, they fhall be excommunicated, and their effects fhall be confifcated. All fecular powers fnall be compelled, by ecclefiaftical cenfures, to take an oath to extirpate* within their refpective territories, fuch of their subjects as fhall be condemned as hereticks by the church. But if any temporal prince fhall refufe to purge his territories of heretical pravity, when required to do fo by the metropolitan and his fuffragant bifhops, let him be excommunicated: and if he fhall not make full fatisfaction in one year, let it be notified to the fovereign pontiff, that he may abfolve his fubjects from their oaths of allegiance, and transfer his territories to any other catholicks, who may enjoy them without contradiction, provided they exterminate all hereticks in them, and preferve the purity of the catholick faith.”

“All catholicks, who fhall take up arms for the purpofe of extirpating fuch hereticks, fhall enjoy the fame indulgence, and the like holy privilege, with thofe who vifited the holy land.” This means eternal falvation; and the reader will find, in the courfe of the late rebellion, that the fanguinary fanaticks who embarked in it were fure of enjoying happinefs in a future ftate, for having rifen in arms againft an heretical king; and that they regarded the extirpation of hereticks, as a facred duty which recommended them to the divine favour.

In confequence of the commentaries made on this council, the following doctrines have been inculcated: cardinal Tolet affirmed, “that the fubjects of an excommunicated prince are not abfolved from their oaths of allegiance, before denunciation; but, when he is denounced, they are completely fo, and are bound not to obey him, unlefs the fear of death, or the lofs of goods, excufe them”, which was the cafe with

* Bona fide pro viribus exterminare ftudebunt.

the Englifh catholicks in the reign of Henry VIII; and father Bridgewater, an Englifh prieft, commended this faying of the cardinal.

Father Crefwell, an Englifh prieft, faid, “it is the fentence of all catholicks, that fubjects are bound to expel heretical princes, by the commandment of God, the moft ftrict tie of confcience, and the extreme danger of their fouls.”

Suarez, a moft learned divine, fays, “an excommunicated king may with impunity be depofed or killed by any one.” After the diabolical confpiracy of the gunpowder plot was difcovered and defeated, it became indifpenfably neceffary to provide as far as could be againit fuch horrible machinations, and therefore the oath of allegiance, fupremacy and abjuration was enacted in the year 1605. Burke, in his Hibernia Dominicana, page 613, obferves, that the Romifh divines and laymen were divided into two factions; one thought the oath reafonable and proper, the other rejected it. To fettle this matter, pope Paul V. iffued two bulls, in which, under pain of damnation, he orders the oath not to be taken. King James, in a very learned treatife, fupported the oath; and Suarez, in a very long and laboured work, in vain endeavoured to fubvert the arguments of the king.

Cardinal Bellarmine fays, “though it may be a fin to depofe or kill an excommunicated prince, it is no fin if the pope commands you to do fo; for if the pope fhould err, by commanding sin, or forbidding virtues, yet the church were bound to believe that the vices were good, and the virtues evil.”

Azorius, highly eminent in the Romifh church, fays, “a catholick wife is not tied to pay her duty to an heretical hufband. The fons of an heretical father are made fui juris, that is, free from their father’s power; and fervants are not bound to do fervice to fuch mafters.”

According to the decree of this council, and that of Conftance alfo, it has been held, and the doctrine has been conftantly carried into practice, that no faith is to be kept with hereticks; in confequence of which, no contrafts, leagues, promifes, vows, or oaths, are fufficient fecurity to a proteftant that deals with one of the church of Rome,

if he fhall make ufe of the liberty, which may, and is often granted to him that folicits it. But it is certain, that many good and confcientious Roman catholicks fpurn at this infamous privilege offered by the pope, and adhere to the laws of God,
Becanus fays, there are two different tribunals, and the ecclefiaftical is the fuperior; and therefore, if a fecular prince gives his fubjefts a fafe conduct, he cannot extend it to the fuperior tribunal.

In a council held at Vienna, Clement V. avowed and maintained, that the power of all kings depended on him: omne jus regum a fe pendere.

Purfuant to this doctrine, the whole council of bifhops at Conftance determined, 1415, that John Hufs fhould be burnt, though he had been fummoned by the emperor Sigifmund to appear and defend the reformed religion, and had obtained a fafe conduct from him; but the council determined that his power was fubordinate to theirs, and, as their concurrence had not been previoufly obtained, his grant of a fafe conduct was null and void.

It was ftrongly contended at Worms, by all the bifhops who attended there, that Luther fhould be burnt; but the emperor, who had given him a fafe conduct, would not allow his good faith to be violated. It is very remarkable, that the council of Lateran, which I have quoted, made tranfubftantiation an article of faith, and at the fame time, treafon and rebellion to be the duty of fubjects.

A council held at Toledo, contains provifions againft hereticks exactly fimilar to thofe of Lateran, “that if a temporal prince fhall neglect to purge his territories of heretical pravity, notice muft be given to the pope, that he may thenceforth pronounce his fubjects difcharged of their oaths of allegiance, and give his dominions to catholicks.”
The diffimulation and cruelty of queen Mary were the refult of thefe councils; for fhe gave her fubjects the ftrong eft affurance, by a declaration in council, that fhe would permit them to purfue any fuch religion as their confcience fhould dictate; but, when firmly eftablifhed 

on her throne, fhe promoted the burning of her proteftant subjects, merely on account of their religion.

Human ingenuity could not form a better device, to impofe the fhackles of fuperftition on the human mind, and that univerfal domination over fovereign princes, to which the pope afpired, than this council; but his holinefs, knowing that he could not enforce the execution of this dreadful engine, unlefs he had a number of perfons attached to him in every ftate, and that the battering ram, fo ingenioufly contrived by him, could not be worked without artificers of his own appointment, ftruggled hard to obtain the inveftiture of bifhops; and having fucceeded, he laid them all under a neceffity, at their inauguration, of taking an oath of allegiance to him, of which I give fome paragraphs.

“The rights, privileges, and authority, of the holy Roman church, and of our Lord the pope, and his fucceffors, I will be careful to preferve, defend, enlarge, and promote.”

“All hereticks, fchifmaticks, and rebels againft our faid Lord, and his fucceffors, I will, to the utmoft of my power, perfecute and impugn.”

From this time the bifhops became the fpies and centinels of the Roman pontiff; and, in order to infulate their affections, to detach them from the ftate to which they belonged, and to engage them in the intereft of the Holy See, he enjoined celibacy to the Popifh clergy.

The words in the bifhops’ oath of allegiance are, pro viribus perfequar et impugnabo. Some Romifh ecclefiafticks have contended, that the word perfequar fignifies to profecute by argument; but the futihty of that conftruftion will appear very obvious. “When Pafchal II. excommunicated the emperor Henry IV. he ufed exactly fimilar words, in a bull directed to Robert count of Flanders: Henricum caput hæreticorum, et ejus fautores, pro viribus perfequaris et impugnes. Hoc tibi et militibus tuis precipimus. “We command you, and your foldiers, to perfecute and impugn Henry, the head of the hereticks.”

It is not to be fuppofed that he would call upon foldiers to difpel and proftrate herefy by ratiocination. The logick of a foldier lies in his arms; befides, impugno fignifies to attack by argument, and is put in contradiftinction to perfecute.

The only herefy of which he could accufe this innocent prince was, that he oppofed the pope’s claim to the inveftiture of bifhopricks in his dominions.

We may conceive how obedient councils muft have been to the pope, when he procured this fentence to be firft voted and ratified by a council held 1102.

Cicero, in his fourth oration againft Catiline, ufes the word perfequar in the fenfe which I contend for. “Atque illo tempore, hujus avus Lentuli, clariffimus vir, armatus, Gracchum eft perfecutus: ille etiam grave tum vulnus accepit. Perfequor and perfecutio are words appropriated by ecclefiaftical writers to exprefs the bloody cruelties exercifed on chriftians by heathen princes. After enumerating thirty-four under the Roman emperors, they reckon ten under Antichrift, to which they might have added hundreds under the popes.

Raymond, count of Thouloufe, was the firft fovereign prince againft whom this dreadful engine was levelled. Part of his fubjects called the Albigenfes and Waldenfes, happened to obtain, about the clofe of the twelfth century, a tranflation of fome parts of the New Teftament; and becaufe they endeavoured to conform their tenets and practices to the light of the Gofpel, which was obvioufly repugnant to popery, they were excommunicated by the pope; and becaufe Raymond refufed to perfecute them, he was deprived of his dominions by the orders of his holinefs, who invoked his fubjects to rife in rebellion againft him, by a promife of eternal falvation; and Simon de Mountfort, whom he nominated general of the crufade, was invefted with the dominions of Raymond, by Innocent III. at the council of Lateran. It is univerfally allowed, that nearly one million of thefe innocent people were extirpated by the fword and the gibbet, in conformity to the decree of that council.

It was on that occafion that the bloody court of inquifition was eftablifhed, and the fuperintendance of it was committed to the dominican friars, by Gregory IX. in the year 1233.

In confequence of the oath which bifhops were obliged to take at their inftallation, obvioufly repugnant to the fidelity which they owed their refpective fovereigns, William Rufus told archbifhop Anfelm, that he could not preferve his allegiance to the pope, and his temporal fovereign, at the fame time;* and cardinal De Retz tells us, in his Memoires, that the Parifians, for the fame reafon, objected to the miniftry of cardinal Mazarine.

In that favage fcene of butchery, the maffacre of St. Bartholomew, planned with all the coolnefs of deliberation, five hundred gentlemen, and ten thoufand perfons of inferior rank, were maffacred in one night at Paris alone, and great numbers in the provinces, becaufe they were proteftants.†  The Roman pontiff, on hearing it, expreffed great joy announced that the cardinals fhould return thanks to the Almighty for fo fignal an advantage obtained for the Holy See, and that a jubilee fhould be obferved all over Chriftendom.‡  Sixtus V. excommunicated Henry III. of France, as a heretick, becaufe he, contrary to his Holinefs’s orders, fpared the blood of his proteftant fubjefts; and he granted nine years indulgence to fuch of his fubjects, as would bear arms againft him; upon which Jacque Clement, a friar, affaffinated him with fingular treachery.

In a publick confiftory held at Rome, the pope, in a long premeditated fpeech, applauded the virtue and the firmnefs of the holy friar; declaring, that his fervent zeal towards God, furpaffed even that of Judith and Eleazer; and that this affaffination was brought about by divine providence. §

Henry III. left his kingdom by will to Henry IV. to whom alfo it devolved by hereditary right; but the Parifians, having confulted the doctors of the Sorbonne on his claim, they declared that his title was inadmiffible.

* Speed, 441, 442.      † Thuanus, lib. 63, fee. 14.      ‡ Ibid.        §I bid, vol. 4. page 767, 768.

inadmiffible, becaufe he had been excommunicated, and excluded from fucceeding to it by the Holy See. They pronounced that thofe who fhould affift him would be damned, and they promifed eternal happinefs to thofe who fhould oppofe him, even to the fhedding of blood, “ufque ad effufionem fanguinis.”*

The bull fulminated againft this amiable prince by Sixtus V. 1585, begins thus: “The authority given to St. Peter and his fucceffors, by the immenfe power of the eternal King, excels all the powers of earthly kings: it paffes uncontrolable fentence upon them all.”

Henry, though endued with the moft fhining virtues, was, after two attempts to murder him, affaffinated at Paris by Ravaillac. He was twice depofed by Gregory XIV. and once by Clement VIII. as a favourer of hereticks.†

In the year 1538, pope Paul III. iffued a bull of excommunication and depofition againft Henry VIII. becaufe he declared himfelf, and not the pope, to be head of the church of England: — A right which both the Saxon and Norman monarchs had always afferted, and which had been indifputably eftablifhed by various acts of parliament, from the time of Edward the Confeffor, to the reign of Henry VIII. for the laws of the latter do not contain ftronger provifions againft papal encroachments, than thofe of Edward I. and Richard II.

The bull of excommunication and depofition which Pius V. denounced againft queen Elizabeth begins thus:
“He that reigneth on high, to whom all power is given in heaven and earth, hath committed the one holy catholick and apoftolick church, out of which there is no falvation, to one alone on earth, namely, to Peter, prince of the apoftles, and to the Roman pontiff, fucceffor of St. Peter, to be governed with a plenitude of power. This one he hath conftituted prince over all nations, and all kingdoms, that he might pluck up, deftroy, diftipate, overturn, plant, and build.” For the many confpiracies to murder queen Elizabeth, as a heretick, and fome of them by the exprefs orders of the pope, I fhall refer the reader to Speed, Rapin, and Hume. I fhall mention but one.

* Thuanus, lib. 93, see. 19.      † Spond. tom. a. p.868.

Two priefts of the name of Parfons and Campion, who confpired to murder that princefs, obtained for themfelves, and all the papifts in England, a difpenfation from the rigorous obfervation of the bull fulminated by pope Pius V. againft her. They were allowed by it to appear obedient and refpectful to her, until their party was ftrong enough to rife againft her. It ends thus: “The higheft pontiff’ granted the forefaid graces to fathers Robert Parfons and Edward Campion, who are now to take their way to England, the fourteenth of April, 1586;* but thefe holy fathers, very fortunately for England, could not fucceed in their pious defign, for they were detected, arrefl;ed, and hanged.

The popes, well knowing that riches are the fmews of power, adopted the following expedient to fill their treafury, by a conftant and neverfailing revenue. Having firft efl;ablifhed the doctrine of purgatory, and the pains and torments attending it, the deluded feftaries of the Roman pontiff had recourfe to him to be relieved from their terrors.

Fifher, bifhop of Rochefter, an eminent Romifh divine, fays, that indulgences were not neceffary in the firft ages of the church; and that they were not devifed till the people were frightened with the torments of purgatory.

Moft of the fchoolmen confefs, that the ufe of indulgences began in the time of pope Alexander III. towards the end of the twelfth, or beginning of the thirteenth century; and from that period, till the folly and iniquity of them occafioned the reformation, the fale of them was a fruitful fource of wealth to the popes.

They alfo inflicted penalties on the commiffion of sin, fuch as rigorous facts, bodily pains and mortifications, long and frequent prayers, and pilgrimages to the tombs of faints and martyrs; and as thefe penalties could be commuted or difpenfed with for money, thofe who chofe to lead voluptuous lives, and to continue in a courfe of licentious pleafure, embraced this new mode of expiation,†

At length the remiffion of fins became fo fyftematick, and fuch a conftant and regular fource of revenue to the Holy See, that they were reduced to a fchedule, in a book of rates, with the fums correfponding

* Speed, 871.     † Muratori, de redemptione pcccatorum in antiqui. Italiæ medii feculi.

for which they were to be remitted. Of this work, entitled, “The taxes of the Romifh Chancery,” different editions were publifhed for the ufe of Roman catholick ftates: one at Rome by Marcellus Silber in 1514: one at Cologne in 1515: three at Paris in 1520, 1545, 1625: one at Venice, in the fixth volume of the Oceanus Juris in 1523. The proteftant princes pubifhed one among their reafons for rejecting the council of Trent.* The reader may judge of this extraordinary work by the following fhort extracts:

“A nun having committed fornication feveral times, fhall be abfolved, and enabled to hold the dignities of her order, even that of abbefs, on paying 39 livres tournois, and 9 ducats.”

“The abfolution of him who has defloured a virgin, gr. 6.”

“The abfolution of a clerk for all acts of fornication with a nun, within or without the limits of the nunnery, or with his relations in affinity or confanguinity, or with any woman whatfoever, 36 livres.”†

The Roman pontiff very wifely gave great latitude to the clergy, as they were prohibited from marrying.

When celibacy (a doctrine juftly reprobated in the fcriptures, and refuted by the practice of the apoflles, all of whom were married men, except Paul and John; a doctrine peculiarly unfit for the church of Rome to teach, their founder, as they term him, and prince of the apoflles, as they ridiculoufly call him, having exploded it by his example, ‡) was firft enforced in England, the bifhops conflantly granted licenfes to the parochial clergy to keep concubines, l eft they might run into licentioufnefs with the wives and daughters of their parifhioners. Exclufive falvation, a doctrine invented by the artful policy of the Romanr pontiff, for the purpofe of encouraging profelytes to his church, and for fecuring thofe who were already within its pale, has been a fruitful fource of difcord and rebellion in many countries in Europe.

* Heideggeri myfter. Babyloniae, tom. i. p.350.
† Every crime that human depravity can commit, is inferted in this book.
‡ Peter’s wife’s mother was fick of a fever. Matt. viii. 14. And Simon’s wife’s mother was fick of a fever. Mark i. 30. And Simon’s wife’s mother, &c. Luke iv. 38. — See alfo, on this subject, St. Paul’s epiftle to Timothy iii. 2. and 8, 11, and Hebrews xiii. 4.

It is not only contrary to the doctrine of the fcriptures, but repugnant to the moral and phyfical perfections of the Deity, fubverfive of his attributes of wifdom, juftice, and mercy, which are the main pillars of the divine adminiftration; and it is likely to end in atheifm, and has already produced all its baneful effects; for any perfon who can be brought to debafe and difparage the Almighty fo much, as to aflert that he is fo unwife, fo unjuft, and fo unmerciful, as to ordain, that a very fmall portion of his creatures fhall enjoy eternal happinefs, and that the remainder fhall be doomed to eternal punifhment, becaufe they differ from them in a few trifling ceremonies and tenets, will foon probably become atheifts.

This doctrine, which narrows the channels of infinite mercy, fets bounds to omnipotence, and teaches that there is but one road that leads to the heavenly city, engenders in the lower clafs of people, an uncharitable averfion, a cruel and unrelenting fpirit of perfecution, againft proteftants, which manifefted itfelf in a moft flagrant manner during the late rebellion. In fhort, nothing but fanaticifm, kindled by this doctrine, could have enabled the leaders of rebellion, and the Irifh priefts, to invoke the popifh multitude to rife againft their fovereign and their proteftant fellow fubjefts, which they did with as much zeal as the Crufaders fhewed againft the Saracens. We fhall find the pope’s fupremacy, and exclufive falvation, with all the ramifications of new-fangled doctrines which have branched out from them, eminently confpicuous in the late rebellion.

Boniface VIII. in the year 1294, boldly afferts the latter. “We declare, fay, define, and pronounce it to be neceffary to falvation, for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.”*

Human vanity has been fuch in all ages, that ftatefmen, warriors, poets, hiftorians, and divines, have thought their own works and achievements the beft. Cicero in his epiftles to Atticus makes the following obfervation on this, [Greek phrase], nemo unquam, neque poeta neque orator fuit, qui quenquam meliorem quam fe arbitraretur. Epift. 14, 20. Adhuc neminem cognovi poetam, et mihi fuit cum Aquinio

* In extrava, v, com. lib. i. tit. 38. (id eft) deterrimo amicitia, qui fibi non optimo videretur. Tufcul. 5. 22.

Juvenal, the latin poet, mentions two towns in Arabia, near the Ifthmus of Suez, Ombos and Tentyra, between the inhabitants of which this ridiculous doftrine maintained mutual and implacable hatred.

Mahomet inculcates the fame doftrine in the Koran, and it produces the moft intolerant and fanguinary principles between his votaries, and other religionifts.

Plutarch, in his life of Pericles, cenfures the poets for being guilty of the fame abfurdity; “for though, at times, they afcribe to the gods that degree of happinefs and ferenity which is agreeable to their divine and immortal nature, yet, on other occafions, they affert that they are subject to anger, enmity, and other paffions, which are unworthy even of men, who have any underftanding.”*

When thefe doctrines occafioned the dethronement, and the murder of fo many princes, the maffacre of the Albigenfes and Waldenfes in the thirteenth century, that of the proteftants at Paris in the fixteenth, the extermination of many thoufands of them in the Low Countries, the expulfion of the Moors from Spain, the perfecution of the Vaudois in the king of Sardinia’s dominions, we cannot be furprifed that they

* God’s partial, changeful, paffionate, unjuft,
Whofe attributes were rage, revenge, or luft. Pope.

fhould have produced fo many rebellions in Ireland, as her inhabitants have been plunged in the moft abject ignorance, and have been blindly devoted to their priefts.

Accordingly we find that kingdom involved in one fcene of inteftine diforder during a period of forty-one years, from the year 1567, to the year 1603, occafioned by the interference of the Roman pontiff’, and the fermentation of popery. The rebellions of that period may be divided as follows:

1ft. In 1567, Shane O’Neil raifed a notable one in Ulfter, merely in hatred to the Englifh; and he erefted a caftleon Loughneagh, which he named Feogenall, which fignifies, in Irifh, the hatred of the English. His forces were routed and difperfed by fir Henry Sidney.

2d. In 1569, the Fitz-Geralds of Munfter raifed one, in which the Byrnes, Tooles and Cavenaghs joined; but they were fubdued by fir William Drury, and w^ere all attainted the twenty-feventh and twentyeighth of Elizabeth.
James Fitz-Gerald publifhed a manifefto in juftification of this rebellion, in which, he faid, it was for the glory of God, and of Chrift, whofe facraments the hereticks deny; for the glory of the catholick church, which the hereticks falfely aflert was not known for many ages.

3d. In 1595, Hugh O’Neil raifed a rebellion, which lafted till the end of Elizabeth’s reign.
It was called Tyrone’s rebellion, and branched out into three different civil wars, according to Borlafe.

4th. On the acceffion of James I. the citizens of Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Kilkenny, and Wexford, denied his title, and attacked fo furioufly the perfons who went to proclaim him, that they narrowly efcaped with their lives. They openly avowed, that they oppofed his acceflion for no other reafon, than that he was not a catholick; but they were foon brought to obedience by lord Mountjoy.

5th. Within four years after, Tyrone and O’Donnell confpired with Maguire, Cormack 0* Neil, lord Delvin, O’Cahan, and others, to raife a rebellion, but were prevented by the lord deplity Chichefter, in 1607, and an act of attainder paffed againft them.

6th. In 1608, fir Cahir O’Dogherty’s civil war, raifed principally by the priefts, lafted no longer than five months; but it was bloody and deftrudlive while it continued, and was accompanied with fhocking inftances of cruelty and treachery on his part.
Previous to the reign of queen Elizabeth, the aboriginal Irifh bore a moft unrelenting hatred againft thofe of Englifh blood; but on the Reformation, popery became a firm bond of union amongft them, and infpired them with inextinguiftiable rancour againft proteftants in general; and it is remarkable, that the natives of Englifh blood became more ftubborn and inveterate rebels after that period, than the primitive Irifh.

Francis I. defirous to embarrafs Henry VIII. refolved to raife fome commotions in Ireland; and for that purpofe he, in the year 1523, opened a negociation with the earl of Defmond, whom he found ready to co-operate with him againft his liege fovereign.
In 1539, the popifh clergy engaged O’Neil as their champion, and to this he was encouraged by pope Paul. This rebellion was fubdued by lord Grey. In 154^, O’Neil, O’Donnell, and the other Irifh chiefs, offered Ireland to the French king, provided the pope confented to it; and the propofal was fo flattering, that the king fent over John de Montluc, bifhop of Valence, to enquire more minutely into the bufinefs. In 1568, the confederate rebels of Munfter implored the aid of the pope and the king of Spain, through their ambaffadors, the titular bifhops of Cafhel and Emly; in 1570, they prevailed on pope Paul V. to iffue a bull, declaring queen Elizabeth deprived of her crown, and abfolving her fubjefts from their oaths of allegiance; which bull was confirmed by the popes Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V.

But the fovereign pontiffs contributed fomething more fubftantial than bulls to feparate Ireland from England; for in 1579, the two jefuits, Allen and Saunders, difappointed in their application to the king of France, obtained large fums of money from the pope and the king of Spain, with which they excited a rebellion in Munfter. In ^59 Si O’Neil, otherwife Tyrone, made an offer of Ireland to the

king of Spain, if he affifted him with men and money, and began an alarming rebellion. The lords juftices wrote to queen Elizabeth, that an univerfal Irifh rebellion was intended, to fhake off all English government.” To the fame purpofe the earl of Effex, in his letter to the queen declares, that, “in their rebellion they have no other end but to fhake off the yoke of obedience to her majefty, and to root out all remembrance of the English nation in this kingdom: I fay this, adds he, of the people in general.”

In her reign, a declaration of the divines of Salamanca and Valladolid was difperfed through Ireland by O’Sullivan, a Spanifh prieft; in which they maintained the pope’s fupremacy, both in temporals and fpirituals; and that no oath.could bind the faithful to hereticks. They approved of the former rebellions which were raifed in Ireland, and they encouraged the Irifh to oppofe the title of an heretical prince; and yet the Roman catholicks of England in the year 1789, obtained, and publifhed the opinions of thofe univerfities, and thofe of Paris, Doway, Louvain, and Alcala, that they did not admit fuch to be doftrines of the Roman catholick church.*

This was done with a defign of clearing themfelves from the odium of maintaining fuch infamous tenets; and it is moft certain, that they deferved the admiration and the applaufe of every Britifh fubjeft, for the bold and unequivocal manner in which they renounced them, and vindicated the purity of their principles, notwithftanding the inhibitions and menaces of their bifhops. In the reign of Charles I. 1626, pope Urban VIII. exhorted the Irifh, by a bull, to lofe their lives, fooner than fubmit to the wicked and peftilent oath of fupremacy, by which the fceptre of the Catholick church was wrefted from the vicar of God Almighty; and yet fuch blafphemy had the defired effect on the ignorant and fuperftitious multitude!

In the diftracted reign of Charles I. the popifh lords, prelates, and clergy, and popifh deputies, chofen by feveral counties and towns in the different provinces, affembled at Kilkenny, regulated all their proceedings with the forms and folemnity of parliament, and bound themfelves

* The Irifh Roman catholicks publifhed the opinions of thefe univerfities in Dublin in I791.

by oath, “that they would obey and ratify all the orders and decrees made, or to be made, by the fupreme council of the confederate catholicks of the kingdom; that they would not feek directly or indirectly any pardon or protection for any act to be done touching the general caufe; and that they would not accept or fubmit unto any peace, made or to be made, with the faid confederate catholicks, without the confent thereof and by the preamble to faid oath it appears, that if muft; have been adminiftered univerfally.

“ Whereas it is requifite, that there fhould be an unanimous confent, and real union, between all the catholicks of this realm.”*

Their prelates enjoined all the priefts to adminifter an oath of aiToclation to their parifhioners, and to raife fubfcriptions amongft them.

The chief object which they profeffed, was, to maintain inviolable the rights and immunities of the Roman catholick faith; and they fo far fucceeded in refloring popery, on the ruins of the proteftant church, that the confederates wrote to the pope in 1644, “that their religion was publickly pradlifed according to the Romifh ritual; that moft of the bifhops were in poffeffion of the cathedrals, the priefts of the parifhes; and that many of the convents were reftored to the monks.”†

After various negotiations they made peace with the duke of Ormond, but not until they had obtained the free exercife of their religion, and many other important privileges.

Rinuncini, the pope’s nuncio, a turbulent fanatic, who was then in Ireland, exclaimed loudly againft the peace, and denounced the terrors of excommunication againft fuch perfons as fliouId adhere to it, unlefs it was framed and approved of by the pope, and unlefs they obtained an immediate, a complete and fplendid eftablifhment of the Romifh worship and hierarchy.
But finding them determined not to comply with his very unreafonable wifhes, and that they were refolved to accept of the indulgent and conciliating offers of the duke, he, in a fpeech to the confederates

* Their combination cemented by an oath refembled that of the united Irifhmen.
†Burke Hibernica Dominicana, appendix, page 876.

at Kilkenny, recommended fidelity, firft to God and their religion,* and next to the king, by which they meant the pope and their own clergy; and they were always taught, that their attachment to them fhould fuperfede and predominate over their allegiance to a proteftant ftate.

He fent a copy of his fpeech to Rome, and in return was feverely reprimanded by cardinal Pamfillo; and the following reafons were affigned for it: “That the Holy See never would, by any pofitive act, approve the civil allegiance which catholicks pay to an heretical prince; and the difpleafure of the court of Rome was the greater, as he had depofited a copy of his fpeech with the council of Kilkenny, which, if publifhed, would furnifh hereticks with arguments againft the papal authority over heretical princes, when the pope’s own minifter fhould exhort catholicks to be faithful to fuch a king.

Rinuncini, after he had feparated from, and excommunicated the confederates, put himfelf at the head of a body called the general affembly, confifting of fome of their bifhops, peers and commoners, and a number of the common herd of papifts, who were entirely at the devotion of this furious fanatick; and fuch was the religious rancour which he infufed into them, that they offered to treat with the members of Cromwell’s government, fooner than fubmit to the royal authority. Nicholas French, the titular bifhop of Ferns, a zealous partizan of the nuncio, and a virulent enemy of a proteftant government, was earneft for this treaty, which had been entered upon with fome of Ireton’s agents. How exactly do the circumftances of the prefent times refemble thofe of that period, when the Irifh Roman catholicks fhewed in earneft defire to renounce their allegiance to, and overturn the government of their prefent amiable fovereign, through whofe interceffion almoft the whole of the penal laws have been repealed, and a college has been erected for the education of their clergy; and this with

* By this doftrine the priefthood have made the temporal power fubfervient to the sacerdotal, and we find it ftrongly inculcated in the paftoral letters of doctors Troy and Huffey. According to this, John Hufs was burnt in 1415, contrary to the emperor’s wifhes; and James II. was induced to violate his coronation oath, in attempting to overturn the proteftant religion.

a defign of connecting themfelves with a fet of blood-Rained monfters, who murdered their king, and would wifh to dethrone their God!

At laft, fuch was their enthufiaftick virulence againft the government of a proteftant king, that they fent Nicholas French to the duke of Lorraine, to invite him to accept of the fovereignty of the kingdom, and they figned a treaty with him, by which he was, in effect, completely invefted with it, as far as their power could extend.

Carte, in his life of the duke of Ormond, p.155, mentions another confpiracy for a general rifing in the year 1634. It was difcovered by Emer Mac Mahon, afterwards titular bifhop of Clogher, to fir G. Radcliffe, on a general affurance of pardon; and he acknowledged, that the confpirators were to have received affiftance from abroad, and that he had been employed many years in foliciting affiftance from foreign courts to carry on the bufinefs for the good of religion.

The earl of Strafford, viceroy at that time, a great and wife minifter, without alarming the nation, or driving the party concerned in it by their fears into open rebellion, engaged the Englifh minifters abroad to watch the practices of the Irifh in foreign courts, and to baffle their fchemes.

Carte imputes the rebellions in Ireland to the Irifh priefts on the fcore of religion, and to the hopes of the old proprietors to recover the forfeited eftates;* and it muft be allowed, that while the latter have this in contemplation, and the mafs of the natives retain their hatred to England, no parallel can be drawn between the Roman catholicks of Ireland, and thofe of any other ftate.

When James II. arrived in Ireland, the popifh parliament which he affembled, propofed, by an act, to make it independent of England; but having a ftrong hope of remounting the Englifh throne, he hefitated to give his affent to it, on which they refolved to renounce him and his caufe; for they fent to him, Nagle, a rigid papift, whom he had made attorney general, to inform him, that they could do without him.

* Life of the duke of Ormond, b. 3.

In fhort, fuch was their inextinguifhable hatred to a connexion with England, that, though he attempted a complete extirpation of proteftantifm, by attainting every proteftant landholder in Ireland, and by reftoring their property to the old proprietors, and promifed that the popifh religion fhould predominate there, they would not be fatisfied, without a total feparation from England.

Mr. Macpherfon very properly obferves, “that James foon found, that he was not mafter of his own kingdom.”
Some perfons have endeavoured to palliate the horrors and atrocities committed during the rebellion of 1641, by imputing it to various caufes of provocation, without confidering that the pope’s interference was the chief caufe of inciting it. For, befides the bull iffued by pope Urban in 1628, the fame pontiff during the exiftence of that dreadful civil war, the better to inflame his votaries, fulminated another, containing the following paragraphs: “In imitation of their godly and worthy anceftors, to endeavour, by force, to deliver their thralled nation from the oppreffions and grievous injuries of the hereticks, wherewith this long time it hath been afflifted and heavily burthened; and gallantly do in them what lieth, to extirpate, and totally root out thofe workers of iniquity, who, in this kingdom of Ireland, had infected, and were always ftriving to infect, the mafs of catholick purity, with the peftiferous leaven of heretical contagion.”

Mr. Edmund Burke ferioufly intended to have written a hiftory of that rebellion, for no other purpofe but to vindicate the Roman catholicks from the odium which they brought on themfelves by it.

Lord chief juftice Lowther, in his fpeech at the opening of the court, on the trial of fir Phelim O’Neil, one of the leaders of rebellion in 1641, ftated that the following privileges were enjoyed by the Roman catholicks previous to its eruption. “That befides the licentious freedom of their Romifh fuperftition, they had their titular archbifhops for every province, their titular bifhop, with his dean and chapter, for every diocefe, and their fecular prieft for every parifh in the land; befides their abbots, priors, monks, nuns, jefuits, friars, monafteries, nunneries, and other religious houfes, and convents in the principal

cities and towns of the land, even in the city of Dublin, the refidence of the ftate; fo that father Harris, a fecular prieft of their own, publifhed in print, that it was as hard to find what number of friars were in Dublin, as to count how many frogs there were in the fecond plague of Egypt.”

“Befides the exercife of their fuperflitious rites and ceremonies, they had alfo papal jurjfdiction, as by law they had vicars general, and kept their provincial courts and confiftories, and excommunicated the people, delivering them unto fatan. Their lawyers, fheriffs, and juftices of the peace were not required to take the oaths of allegiance and fupremacy, which were not difpenfed with as to proteftants; and all thefe popifh lawyers, priefts, jefuits, and friars, were the principal incendiaries and fire-brands in the rebellion; and the publick burthens and charges of the commonwealth were more borne by the proteftants than by them, in proportion to their numbers, and the quality of poffeffors of inheritance.”

“And of the fubfidy granted in the tenth Charles I. whereof the Roman catholicks raifed fo great a clamour, both in England and Ireland, the proteftants paid above one-third part of the whole, befides the clergy; though neither the quantity or quality of lands of inheritance, then holden of them in the land, did amount to more than a fifth part; and befides all this, the proteftants had contributed to the charge of their committees, towards the obtaining grace, in bounties, in fending commiffioners for them. They were made earls, vifcounts, lords, baronets, and knights; enjoying all this and much more, without any provocation to rife up fuddenly to this height of cruelty, and to murder many thoufand proteftants, that lived peaceably and friendly with them, before they could take up arms for their defence, made the fins of murder, violence, and cruelty, unmeafurably finful and deteftable.”

Borlafe adds, “that they were elected knights, citizens, and burgeffes, in parliament they enjoyed their religion without control, while proteftants, diffenting from the church of England, were often fummoned before the bifhop’s court juftice was equally adminiftered to the

Britifh and Irifh; duties and taxes were levied without diftinction; all private animofities were fuppreffed; all antient grudges were removed; and, in all outward appearance, they lived fo affectionately intermixed together, that they could not be efleemed two nations in one kingdom.”

But we cannot be at a lofs for the real fource of the rebellion, when Walfh, the francifcan friar, tells us at large, of a printed book, written by Mac Mahon an Irifh jefuit, inculcating the lawfulnefs of killing, not only all the proteftants, but even fuch of the Roman catholick Irifh, as fhould ftand for the crown of England, and the rights of the king to Ireland.

There have been various opinions as to the number of proteftants maffacred in the rebellion of 1641. Mr. Carte, an able and judicicus hiftorian, after examining them with the utmoft candour, coincides with fir William Petty, who makes them amount to thirty-feven thoufand, in his Political Anatomy; and as he was well fkilled in calculation, and had furveyed the whole kingdom, foon after that dreadful event happened, it is probable that his account was accurate.

In the year 1729, the popifh bifhops of Ireland applied for, and obtained, a bull from the pope, to raife money by the fale of indulgences, to be fpeedily applied to reftore James III. to his right, and to put his majefty George II. and all the royal family to the fword. The whole of this plot is to be found in the fixth volume of the journals of the houfe of commons, page 342.

It appears that a number of popifh prelates and other ecclefiafticks, being affembled at the houfe of Teigue Mc. Carthy, alias Rabagh, titular bifhop of Cork, Conner Keefe, bifhop of Limerick, prefented a letter to the faid Mc. Carthy, from doctor Butler, titular archbifhop of Cafhel, informing him, that his holinefs the pope, had at laft complied with the requeft of the Irifh archbifhops and bifhops, in granting them an indulgence for the above purpofe.

The purport of the bull was this: “That every communicant duly confeffing, and receiving the facrament on the patron days of every refpective parifh, and every Sunday, from the firft day of May to September, having repeated the Lord’s prayer five times, and once the

apoftles creed, and upon paying two pence each time, was to have a plenary indulgence for his fins; and all approved confeffors had full power to abfolve in all cafes, with intent that God would fpeedily place James III. on the throne of England. Every parifh prieft was to pay £5 towards this fund, and was to account upon oath for the collection of it; and the pretender had an agent in each province tocollect it.”

Some of the papers of thefe traitors were difcovered, and feized, by which the confpiracy was detected.*

* See the joumals before cited.