The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

But the law was passed which made it "high-treason" to assert, three times in succession, the spiritual supremacy of the Pope; and, henceforth, whoever should suffer in defence of that Catholic dogma, was to be a traitor and not a martyr.

The woman, seated on the English throne, speedily discovered that it was not so easy a matter to change the religion of the Irish as it had been to subvert completely that of her own people.

Deprived of religious houses and means of instruction, deprived of priests and churches, no communication with Rome save by stealth, the Irish still showed their oppressors that their consciences were free, and that no acts of Parliament or sentences of iniquitous tribunals could prevent their remaining Catholics.

By promising to deal as lightly with the laity as severely with the clergy, Elizabeth felt confident that the Catholic religion would soon perish in Ireland, and that, with the disappearance of the priests, the churches, sacraments, instruction, and open communion with Rome, would also disappear. To all seeming, her surmises were correct; but the people were silently gathering and uniting together as they had never done before.

The whole of Elizabeth's Irish policy may be comprised under two headings: 1. Her policy toward the nobles, apparently one of compromise and toleration, but really one of destruction, and so rightly did they understand it that they rose and called in foreign aid to their assistance; 2. Her church policy, one of blood and total overthrow, which priests and people, now united forever in the same great cause, resisted from the outset, and finally defeated; and the decrees of high-treason, which were carried out with frightful barbarity, only served to confirm the Irish people in that unanimity which the wily dealings of Henry VIII. had originated.

I. With the nobility Elizabeth hoped to succeed by flattery, cunning, deceit, finally by treachery, and sowing dissension among them; but all her efforts only served to knit them more firmly one to another, and to revive among them the true spirit of nationality and patriotism.

She did not state to them that her great object was to destroy the Catholic Church; neverthless they should have felt and resented it from the beginning; above all, ought they to have given expression to the contempt they entertained for the bait held out to them that the "laws" would not be executed against them, but against Churchmen only. Had they been truly animated by the feelings which already possessed the hearts of the people, they would have scornfuly rejected the compromise proposed.

But she appeared to allow them perfect freedom in religious matters; she subjected them to no oath, as in England; the new laws were a dead letter as far as regarded the native lords, who lived under other laws and remained silent, as with the lords of the Pale. Yet nothing was of such importance in her eyes as the enforcement of those decrees; consequently, she could only accomplish her designs by deceit. George Browne, the first Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, had predicted that the old Irish race and the Anglo-Irish chieftains would unite and combine with Continental powers in order to establish their independence. The whole policy of Elizabeth's reign would give us reason to believe that she rightly understood the deep remark of the worldly heretic. Hence, although (or, rather, because) the north, Ulster, was at that time the stronghold of Catholic feeling, and the O'Neills and O'Donnells its leaders, she flatters them, has them brought to her court, pardons several "rebellions" of Shane the Proud, and afterward loads with her favors the young Hugh of Tyrone, whom she kept at her own court. She would dazzle them by the splendor of that court, by the royal presents she so royally lavishes upon them, and by the prospect of greater favors still to come. Meanwhile on the south she turns a stern eye, and makes up her mind to destroy what is left of the Geraldine family. This was to be the beginning of the war of extermination, and the nobility which at the time was disunited became firmly consolidated shortly after.

It is needless to go into the glorious and romantic history of the Geraldine family. Elizabeth chose them for the first object of her attack, because they, as Anglo-Irish Catholics, were more odious in her eye than the pure Irish.

She knew that the then Earl of Desmond had escaped almost by miracle from the island with his younger brother John, when the rest of the noble stock had been butchered at Tyburn. She knew that Gerald, after many wanderings, had finally reached Rome, been educated under the care of his kinsman, Cardinal Pole, cherished as a dear son by the reigning Pontiff, had subsequently appeared at the Tuscan court of Cosmo de Medici; that consequently, since his return to Ireland, he might be considered the chief of the Catholic party there, although, to save himself from attainder and hold possession of his immense wealth in Munster, he displayed the greatest reserve in all his actions, appeared to respect the orders of the queen in all things, even in her external policy against the Church; so that if priests were entertained in his castles, it was always by stealth, and they were compelled to lead a life of total retirement.