The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

Among those most active for the propagation of the new doctrines were found, the Seneschal of Kilkenny, the Treasurer of Ireland, and the Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas—all English of the Pale. The zealous bishop, fearless of the consequences, openly denounced them, and publicly excommunicated the Treasurer. At once a terrible storm was raised among their English abettors, and, in order to screen the guilty parties, they recriminated against the prelate, and accused him of being a sharer in the crime of Thomas Fitzgilbert, who had burned the castle of Moy Cahir, and killed its owner, Hugh Le Poer. The temporalities of Ledred having been already sequestrated for his boldness in denouncing heretics, he was compelled finally to leave his diocese and fly to Avignon, where he remained in exile for nine years.

The Archbishop of Dublin had been one of his bitterest enemies, and, although not actually accused of heresy himself, he was certainly the abettor of heretics, and had done all in his power to have Ledred arrested for his supposed crimes.

Ware, in his lives of Bicknor and Ledred, is evidently a partisan of the first and an enemy of the second. He pretends that Ledred tacitly acknowledged his guilt in the affair of Le Poer, since he sued for pardon to the king, as though readers of English history did not constantly meet with instances of innocent men compelled to sue for pardon of crimes which they had never committed.

We have fortunately better judges of the characters of both prelates in the two popes, Benedict XII. and Clement VI.: the first believing in the existence of the heresy denounced by Ledred; the second exempting the Bishop of Ossory from the superior jurisdiction of Bicknor, on account of the unjust animosity displayed toward him by this worldly prelate.

The absence of all historical documents in reference to the case leaves us at a loss to know the effect produced on Edward III. by the letter of the Pontiff. It is highly probable that the king preferred to believe Bicknor rather than the Pope, and disregarded the advice of the latter.

In such an event, how was the heresy put down? Simply by the good sense and spirit of faith of the people, or rather by the deep Christian feeling of the native Irish, who were always opposed to innovation, and who remained firm in the traditional belief inherent in the nation by the grace of God. Schism and heresy seem impossible among the children of Erin. If at any time certain novelties have appeared among them, they have speedily vanished like empty vapor. They heard that, in other parts of the Church, in the East chiefly, heresiarchs had arisen and led away into error large numbers of people forming sometimes formidable sects, which threatened the very existence of the religion of Christ; but the face of a heretic they had never beheld. Soon, indeed, they were to be at the mercy of a whole swarm of them, to see a pretended church leagued with the state to bring about their perversion; but as yet they had had no experience of the kind.

Only a few heretics were pointed out to them by the finger of one of their bishops, and his denunciations were confirmed by the judgment of the Holy See. Hence, according to F. Brenan, "the sensation which pervaded all classes became vehement and frightful. The bishop and his clergy came forward, and by solid argument, by the strength and power of truth, opposed and discomfited the enemies of religion."

The feeling here expressed is a natural one for a true Christian at the very mention of heresy. Yet how few nations have experienced a sensation "vehement and frightful" at the appearance of positive error among them! But, at all periods of their history, such has been the feeling of the Irish people.

Fortunately for them, the number of sectarians was so small as to become insignificant; the English of the Pale were always few in comparison with the natives, and heresy had been, adopted by only a small body.

Error, therefore, could not cause in the island the social and political convulsions which it had produced in France about the same time. There was no need of a second Albigensian war to put it down. There was no need even of the Inquisition, as an ecclesiastical tribunal. The sentence of the bishop, the decree of excommunication pronounced from the foot of the altar, was all that was required.