The first book ever printed in Dublin was Edward VI.’s first Book of Common Prayer. It was printed by Humphrey Powell in 1551, professedly by St. Leger’s command, and it contains a prayer for Sir James Croft. A copy is preserved in Trinity College, and Dr. Todd doubted if there were a second in existence. The only other known specimen of Powell’s work is Sidney’s Book of the Articles printed in 1566. Edward’s second Prayer Book, says Dr. Ball, ‘was never, either by statute or order, introduced, nor was it at all used in the Irish Church; but it forms the basis of that which under Elizabeth was authorised for Ireland.’ Orders were given that the Prayer Book of 1557 should be translated into Irish, for use in places where English was not understood, but this was never done. It is probable that no competent translator could then be found, and certain that the means of printing did not yet exist. Queen Elizabeth afterwards provided a press and fount of Irish type, ‘in hope that God in his mercy would raise up some to translate the New Testament into their mother tongue.’ In 1571 a Catechism was produced by Nicholas Walsh, Chancellor, and John Kearney, Treasurer of St. Patrick’s, both Cambridge men, and this is the first work printed in Irish. There is a copy in the Bodleian, and Dr. Cotton had never heard of any other. Walsh, who became Bishop of Ossory, obtained an order to publish a translation of the Prayer Book for use in country places. He also began an Irish version of the New Testament, and his fellow-worker, Kearney, is said to have proceeded far in the work. It was reserved for William Daniel, Archbishop of Tuam, a Kilkenny man and one of the original scholars of Trinity, to publish the New Testament in Irish: his predecessor, Archbishop Donellan, having worked in the same field. Daniel’s printer was John Francke. Whatever may have been done towards a translation of the Old Testament by Kearney, Daniel, and other scholars, the work was only completed by Bishop Bedell, and, its publication having been delayed by the outbreak of the Rebellion in 1641, it did not appear until 1685.[450]
Toleration and persecution.
Bacon’s ideas as to toleration.
Popular forces against the Reformation.
Elizabeth refused to dispense with penal laws against recusants, but she allowed a good deal of practical toleration, and Irish Catholics who did not engage in plots were not generally interfered with. ‘I find by the Court Rolls,’ says a very learned lawyer and antiquary, ‘that Queen Elizabeth had her High Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who occasionally punished for not attending divine service. But this was rare: no more than two or three instances during her reign.’ Jones and Loftus were willing enough to interpret the laws strictly, and to enforce them rigorously; but nearly all Deputies disliked adding to their difficulties by strictness in religious matters, and Mountjoy in particular was much opposed to severity. Bacon alone seems to have thought legal toleration possible. His plan was to establish Anglicanism in Ireland, to respect liberty of conscience, and to tolerate the public exercise of the Roman ritual in certain places. This was what was done by the Edict of Nantes, following upon many other temporary measures to a like effect. It must, however, be remembered that Henry IV. established the religion of the majority, while Cecil was advised to do the contrary; that in France the professors of both faiths were Frenchmen, while in Ireland the Establishment would exist not only for the minority but almost entirely for Englishmen who came in the guise of conquerors or supplanters of the native population; and that the Church of Rome aims at universal supremacy, which a Protestant Church is not called upon to do. ‘If,’ says Bacon, ‘consciences be to be enforced at all, yet two things must precede their enforcement; the one, means of instruction, the other the time of operation; neither of which they have yet had. Besides, till they be more like reasonable men than they yet are, their society were rather scandalous to the true religion than otherwise, as pearls cast before swine; for till they be cleansed from their blood, incontinency, and theft (which are now not the lapses of particular persons, but the very laws of the nation), they are incompatible with religion reformed. For policy, there is no doubt but to wrestle with them now is directly opposite to their reclaim, and cannot but continue their alienation of mind from this government. Besides, one of the principal pretences whereby the heads of the rebellion have prevailed both with the people and with the foreigner, hath been the defence of the Catholic religion; and it is this that likewise hath made the foreigner reciprocally more plausible with the rebel. Therefore a toleration of religion (for a time not definite), except it be in some principal towns and precincts, after the manner of some French edicts, seemeth to me to be a matter warrantable by religion, and in policy of absolute necessity. And the hesitation in this point I think hath been a great casting back of the affairs there. Neither if any English papist or recusant shall, for liberty of his conscience, transfer his person, family, and fortunes thither, do I hold it a matter of danger, but expedient to draw on undertaking, and to further population. Neither if Rome will cozen itself, by conceiving it may be some degree to the like toleration in England, do I hold it a matter of any moment, but rather a good mean to draw off the fierceness and eagerness of Rome, and to stay further excommunications or interdictions for Ireland. But there would go hand in hand with this, some course of advancing religion indeed, where the people is capable thereof; as the sending over some good preachers, especially of that sort which are vehement and zealous persuaders, and not scholastical, to be resident in principal towns; endowing them with some stipends out of her Majesty’s revenues, as her Majesty hath most religiously and graciously done in Lancashire: and the recontinuing and replenishing the college begun at Dublin; the placing of good men to be bishops in the sees there; and the taking of the versions of bibles, catechisms, and other books of instruction, into the Irish language; and the like religious courses; both for the honour of God, and for the avoiding of scandal and insatisfaction here by the show of a toleration of religion in some parts there.’ This passage, and the whole of the letter containing it, shows an extraordinary comprehension of the Irish difficulties, but some of the positive recommendations are open to question. It was not possible to provide vehement, zealous, and persuasive preachers in Ireland as in Lancashire, for the Lancashire people could be addressed in their own tongue, and the Irish could not. In Ireland the forces of oratory were entirely on the side of Rome.[451]
FOOTNOTES:
[435] Cotton’s Fasti; Brady’s Episcopal Succession.
[436] Considerations touching Munster, 1587, No. 70; Andrew Trollope to Walsingham, Oct. 26, 1587. Sir William Russell is said to have advised liberal grants of church lands to the nobility of both persuasions, ‘who would then hold their religion with their lands, in capite.’
[437] Spenser’s View of the State of Ireland, 1596. Some of the poet’s words might suggest Swift’s savage outburst about the worthy divines appointed to Irish sees who were uniformly robbed and murdered on Hounslow Heath ‘by the highwaymen frequenting that common, who seize upon their robes and patents, come over to Ireland, and are consecrated bishops in their stead.’