3. It was death to harbor a Catholic priest coming from abroad.
4. It was death to confess to such a priest.
5. It was death for any priest to say mass.
6. It was death for any one to hear mass.
7. It was death to deny, or not to swear, if called on, that this woman was the head of the church of Christ.
8. It was an offense (punishable by heavy fine) not to go to the Protestant church. This fine was £20 a lunar month, or £250 a year, and of our present money £3,250 a year. Thousands upon thousands refused to go to the law-church; and thus the head of the church sacked thousands upon thousands of estates! The poor conscientious Catholics who refused to go to the ‘most tolerant church,’ and who had no money to pay fines, were crammed into the jails until the counties petitioned to be relieved from keeping them. They were then discharged, being first publicly whipped, and having their ears bored with a red-hot iron. But this very great ‘toleration’ not answering the purpose, an act was passed to banish for life all these non-goers to church, if they were not worth twenty pounds, and, in case of return they were to be punished with death.
“I am, my lord, not making loose assertions here; I am all along stating from acts of Parliament, and the above form a small sample of the whole; and this your lordship must know well. I am not declaiming, but relating undeniable facts; with facts of the same character, with a bare list, made in the above manner, I could fill a considerable volume. The names of the persons put to death merely for being Catholics, during this long and dreary reign, would, especially if we were to include Ireland, form a list ten times as long as that of our army and navy, both taken together. The usual mode of inflicting death was to hang the victim for a short time, just to benumb his or her faculties, then cut down and instantly rip open the belly, and tear out the heart, and hold it up, fling the bowels into the fire, then chop off the head, and cut the body into quarters, then boil the head and quarters, and then hang them up at the gates of cities, or other conspicuous places. This was done, including Ireland, to many hundreds of persons, merely for adhering to the church in which they had been born and bred. There were one hundred and eighty-seven ripped up and boiled in England in the years from 1577 to 1603; that is to say, in the last twenty-six years of Elizabeth’s reign; and these might all have been spared if they would have agreed to go to church and hear the Common Prayer! All, or nearly all of them were racked before they were put to death; and the cruelties in prison, and the manner of execution, were the most horrible that can be conceived. They were flung into dungeons, kept in their filth, and fed on bullock’s liver, boiled and unwashed tripe, and such things as dogs are fed on. Edwards Genings, a priest, detected in saying mass in Holborn, was after sentence of death offered his pardon if he would go to church; but having refused to do this, and having at the place of execution boldly said that he would die a thousand deaths rather than acknowledge the Queen to be the spiritual head of the church, Topliffe, the attorney-general, ordered the rope to be cut the moment the victim was turned off, ‘so that’ (says this historian) ‘the priest being little or nothing stunned, stood on his feet casting his eyes toward heaven, till the hangman tripped up his heels, and flung him on the block, where he was ripped up and quartered.’ He was so much alive even after the boweling that he cried with a loud voice, ‘Oh! it smarts!’ And then he exclaimed, ‘Sancte Gregorie, ora pro me,’ while the hangman having sworn a most wicked oath cried, ‘Zounds! his heart is in my hand, and yet Gregory is in his mouth!’”—Wm. Cobbett.
“For centuries the Irish were killed like game. We know not a few good Englishmen who would be convulsed with the story of the murder of Smith or Jones, but whom the killing of an O’Tool or O’Dacherty, or any ‘O’’ or ‘Mac’ would not move in the least. That be it remembered in 1825. The collection of tithes alone cost a million lives. Henry VIII. aggravated all the outrages ever committed, and was determined the faith of the Irish should undergo a radical Protestant conversion. Raleigh butchered Limerick garrison in cold blood after Lord Grey had selected seven hundred to be hanged. [James I.] confiscated one-tenth of all the land in Ireland and destroyed thousands of lives for religion’s sake. Protestant rectors kept private prisons for confining all who dissented from their faith. Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, wrote that the favorite object of the English Parliament was the total extermination of all the Catholics in Ireland.
“Cromwell began by massacreing for three days the garrison of Drogheda after quarter had been promised. Whole towns were put up and sold. The Catholics were banished from three-fourths of Ireland and confined to Connaught, and after a certain day every one found outside were shot or hung. Fleetwood, the reverend, said the Lord will appear in this work. On every wolf’s scalp and priest’s head a premium of £5 was offered! Young girls and boys were gathered up by the thousands and carried to the West Indies. So by 1652 was once populous Ireland so devastated that an occupied house was a curiosity and commented on. Says one writer, S. W. Petry, ‘There perished in 1641 over six hundred thousand lives whose blood somebody must atone to God for.’” (Newspaper article.)
“The sword of the church was unsheathed and the world was at the mercy of ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted on the agonies they inflicted. Acting as they believed, or pretended to believe, under the command of God; stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in another world—hating heretics with every drop of their bestial blood; savage beyond description; merciless beyond conception—these infamous priests in a kind of frenzied joy, leaped upon the helpless victims of their rage. They crushed their bones in iron boots; tore their quivering flesh with iron hooks and pincers; cut off their lips and eyelids; pulled out their nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust needles; tore out their tongues; extinguished their eyes; stretched them upon racks; flayed them alive; crucified them with their heads downward; exposed them to wild beasts; burned them at the stake; mocked their cries and groans; ravished their wives; robbed their children, and then prayed God to finish the holy work in hell. Millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. The Catholic burned the Lutheran, the Lutheran burned the Catholic, the Episcopalian tortured the Presbyterian, the Presbyterian tortured the Episcopalian. Every denomination killed all it could of every other, and each Christian felt in duty bound to exterminate every other Christian who denied the smallest fraction of his creed.... They have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. In the name of God every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. Brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, and prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of Jesus Christ. For more than fifty generations the church has carried the black flag. Her vengeance has been measured only by her power. During all these years of infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. With the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has devoured; pitiless as famine; merciless as fire; with conscience of a serpent; such is the history of the church of God.” (Ingersoll’s “Heretics and Heresies.”)