A grandson of Sir Charles Coote, become Earl of Bellomont, was, some years after, made Governor of New York and of New England, and was strongly suspected of complicity in the piracies of Captain Kidd. He certainly showed the fierce anti-Catholic spirit of his father and grandsire, having introduced and forced through, both in New York and Massachusetts, laws to punish with imprisonment for life, or, on recapture, with death, any Catholic priest entering those colonies.
Among the more illustrious martyrs we notice the Most Rev. Malachy O'Queely, Archbishop of Tuam, who was overtaken at Clare, near Sligo, in 1645, by some Puritan cavalry. They hacked off his right arm, and then cruelly mangled his body, cutting it into small pieces. In 1650, Boetius Egan, Bishop of Ross, a holy Franciscan friar, appointed to that see in 1647, on the recommendation of the Nuncio, Rinuccini, left the retreat in which he had been hidden for months, to visit some distant and abandoned parts of his diocese, although Ludlow's Puritan bands were laying waste the country. After performing the apostolic duties that had called him forth, he was returning to his lonely hiding-place, when he was overtaken by a troop of horse hastening to join Cromwell in besieging Clonmel. The commander of this troop, Lord Broghill, whom our readers may not recognize as Robert Boyle, subsequently Earl of Orrery, offered him life,
"If he would deny his faith and join the Parliamentarians, but he rejected the temptation with disdain. He was then abandoned to the soldiers' fury, and, his arms being first severed from his body, he was dragged along the ground to a neighboring tree, and, being hanged from one of its branches by the reins of his own horse, happily consummated his earthly course in November, 1650."
The fall of Limerick enabled Ireton to revel in the blood of Catholic priests. The martyrs were led by Terence Albert O'Brien, Bishop of Emly, born in Limerick in 1600, and nurtured piously by a devoted mother. At an early age he entered the order of St. Dominic, and, after pursuing his studies in Spain, returned to labor in his native city. In 1643, he became provincial of his order, and attended a general chapter at Rome. Four years afterward, he was consecrated Bishop of Emly, and labored there earnestly till he joined the rest who took refuge in Limerick.
"Knowing the fate that was reserved for him, Dr. O'Brien retired to the pest-house, in order to devote the last hours of his life to the benefit of his suffering fellow-citizens, and to preparing himself for death. Here he was found by the officers sent to arrest him, and brought before Ireton, who told him he was to be tried by a court-martial, and imprisoned till the sentence was pronounced. The bishop heard this unmoved, and when asked did he want counsel, calmly replied that all he required was his confessor. This boon was granted, and Father Hanrahan, a member of his own order, was suffered to pass the whole day and night of the 30th of October in his prison. On the following evening he was led out to execution, and, as Father Hanrahan related, walked as joyfully to the place as to a feast. His contemporary, De Marinis, relates his execution thus: 'He went with joy to the place of execution, and then, with a serene countenance, turning to his Catholic friends, who stood in the crowd inconsolable and weeping, he said to them, "Hold firmly by your faith, and observe its precepts; murmur not against the arrangements of God's providence, and thus you will save your souls. Weep not at all for me, but rather pray that in this last trial of death I may, by firmness and constancy, attain my heavenly reward." The head of the martyr was struck off and placed on a spike on the tower,' ('which is on the middle of the bridge.'—A Rosario,) 'and long after seemed to drop fresh blood, and uncorrupted and unchanged in aspect, flesh, or hair—a tribute, as may be thought, to that virginal purity which it is universally believed he preserved to the end.' Thus he went to his reward, on the vigil of All Saints', 1651. De Marinis and A Rosario relate that the holy bishop summoned Ireton to the judgment-seat of God to answer for his crimes; and on the 18th day afterward that bloody persecutor was seized with the plague, and, after sixteen days, expired in great torments. Dr. Moran mentions that the spot where this holy bishop was martyred is yet pointed out and venerated by the Catholics of Limerick."
Another Dominican martyr of this scene, Father James Wolf,
"was an old man, and preacher-general, who had before been a long time in prison for the faith, and in this last persecution was as a wall against the enemies of the faith. He was taken in Limerick while offering the mass, and in a few hours afterward was sentenced to be hung, and brought out into the market square, where he made a public profession of his faith, and exhorted the Catholics to constancy in the religion of their ancestors, and that with so much ardor that it moved his very enemies. Standing on the top step of the ladder, and about to be swung off, he joyously exclaimed, 'We are made a spectacle to God and angels and men—of glory to God, of joy to angels, of contempt to men.' Having said this, he was hung, and so went to his crown."
It is a strange fact, and one that we must regret, that England should owe the final conquest of Canada to one who should have honored this martyr of his family, but who was really intensely English, and rivalled Ireton by his bloody march up the St. Lawrence, butchering priests at their own church doors with as little compunction as Ireton felt for Father James Wolf. That martyr had a brother George, an officer in the Irish army. Although doomed, he managed to escape, and reaching England, finally settled in Yorkshire. His grandson Edward fought under Marlborough, and rose to the rank of general. His son, a namesake of the Limerick martyr, was General James Wolfe, who died in the arms of victory at Quebec, having struck the blow that seemed to crush for ever Catholicity in Canada.
Another bishop, Arthur Magennis, a Cistercian, Bishop of Down and Connor, was, in spite of his infirmities and years, dragged on shipboard, to be carried to some other land. Death was, however, the object of his tormentors, not exile: and, as he lingered too long to please their impatience, they dragged one of the ship's cannon beside his berth, and, firing it, caused such a shock to the invalid that he expired.
The clergy who suffered met death in every form. Some perished of starvation in the mountain, like the Rev. John Carolan; some were starved to death in prison, like the Dominican father, John O'Laighlin; some, tracked to their hiding-places, were shot in their caves, like the Franciscan father, Francis Sullivan; some were stoned to death, and flung into rivers, like the Dominican father, John Flaverty; many cut down by the roadside, or shot and hacked to pieces, like Stephen Pettit, the Dominican fathers, Peter Costello, Dominic Neagan, Lawrence O'Ferral; others more deliberately hanged on sea or land, like the Franciscan fathers, Fergal Ward, Denis Nelan, Rev. Peter Higgins, the Dominican Bonaventure de Burgo, and many more; or drowned at sea, like the Trinitarian fathers O'Conor and Daly; or tied to stakes and shot, like the Jesuit, Father Bathe, and his brother at Drogheda.