Photo by W. Leonard
Dining-room, Curraghmore House
Seat of the Marquis of Waterford
"Your highness is contemplating the laudable and profitable work of gaining a glorious fame on earth, and augmenting the recompense of bliss that awaits you in heaven, by turning your thoughts, in the proper spirit of a Catholic Prince, to the object of widening the boundaries of the Church, explaining the true Christian faith to those ignorant and uncivilised tribes, and exterminating the nurseries of vices from the Lord's inheritance. In which matter, observing as we do the maturity of deliberation and the soundness of judgment exhibited in your mode of proceeding, we cannot but hope that proportionate success will, with the Divine permission, attend your exertions.
"Certainly there is no doubt but that Ireland and all the Islands upon which Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, hath shined, and which have received instruction in the Christian faith, do belong of right to St. Peter and the Holy Roman Church, as your grace also admits. For which reason we are the more disposed to introduce into them a faithful plantation and to engraft among them a stock acceptable in the sight of God, in proportion as we are convinced from conscientious motives that such efforts are made incumbent on us by the urgent claims of duty.
"You have signified to us, son, well-beloved in Christ, your desire to enter the island of Ireland in order to bring that people into subjection to laws, and to exterminate the nurseries of vices from the country; and that you are willing to pay to St. Peter an annual tribute of one penny for every house there, and to preserve the ecclesiastical rights of that land uninjured and inviolate. We, therefore, meeting your pious and laudable desire with the favour which it deserves, and graciously according to your petition, express our will and pleasure that, in order to widen the bounds of the Church, to check the spread of vice, to reform the state of morals and promote the inculcation of virtuous dispositions, you shall enter that island and execute therein what shall be for the honour of God and the welfare of the country. And let the people of that land receive you in honourable style and respect you as their Lord. Provided always that ecclesiastical rights be uninjured and inviolate, and the annual payment of one penny for every house be secured for St. Peter and the Holy Roman Church.
"If then, you shall be minded to carry into execution the plan which you have devised in your mind, use your endeavour diligently to improve that nation by the inculcation of good morals; and exert yourself, both personally and by means of such agents as you employ (whose faith, life, and conversation you shall have found suitable for such an undertaking), that the Church may be adorned there, that the religious influence of the Christian faith may be planted and grow there; and that all that pertains to the honour of God and the salvation of souls may, by you, be ordered in such a way as that you may be counted worthy to obtain from God a higher degree of recompense in eternity, and at the same time succeed in gaining upon earth a name of glory throughout all generations."
In such words this island, which had been faithful to the Church of Rome for centuries, was handed over by its head to bloodshed and murder.
That the progress of the King was watched and approved of is amply set forth in the letter of Pope Alexander III.:
"Alexander, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our well beloved son in Christ, Henry, the illustrious King of the English, greeting and apostolical benediction.
"It is not without very lively sensations of satisfaction that we have learned, from the loud voice of public report, as well as from the authentic statements of particular individuals, of the expedition which you have made in the true spirit of a pious King and magnificent prince against that nation of the Irish (who, in utter disregard of the fear of God, are wandering with unbridled licentiousness into every downward course of crime, and who have cast away the restraints of the Christian religion and of morality, and are destroying one another with mutual slaughter), and of the magnificent and astonishing triumph which you have gained over a realm into which, as we are given to understand, the Princes of Rome, the triumphant conquerors of the world, never, in the days of their glory, pushed their arms, a success to be attributed to the ordering of the Lord, by whose guidance, as we undoubtedly do believe, your serene highness was led to direct the power of your arms against that uncivilised and lawless people."
There exists to-day the complaint of the Irish Princes to Pope John XXII. in answer to a letter from him to the Irish prelates empowering them to launch the thunders of the Church against all, whether lay or ecclesiastical, who were guilty of disaffection to the ruling powers. This from their holy head in favour of the English was felt very keenly all over the land and called forth the document referred to above.