So great indeed was the danger of discovery at this time, and so watchful were the emissaries of the law, that he was compelled to write most of his foreign letters over the assumed signature of "Mr. Thomas Cox," and was usually addressed by that name in reply. He even tells us that he was sometimes obliged to go about the performance of his duties in the disguise of a cavalier with cocked hat and sword.
Dr. Plunket is represented by his contemporaries as a man of delicate physical organization, highly sensitive in his temperament, and disposed naturally to prefer the seclusion of the closet to the excitement and turmoil of the world. The contrast between the scholastic retirement in which he had spent so many years of his life, and the circumstances by which he now found himself surrounded, must have been indeed striking, but like a true disciple he did not hesitate a moment in entering on his new sphere of usefulness. Shortly after his arrival in Dublin, on the 17th of June, 1670, he called together and presided over a general synod of the Irish bishops, at which several important statutes were passed, as well as an address to the new viceroy declaring the loyalty and homage, in all things temporal, of the hierarchy of Ireland to the reigning sovereign. Two synods of his own clergy had already been held, and in September following a provincial council of Ulster met at Clones, which not only reaffirmed the decrees of the synod of Dublin, but enacted many long required reforms in discipline and the manner of life of the clergy. In a letter from the assembled clergy of the province of Armagh, date October 8, 1670, and addressed to Monsignor Baldeschi, they thus speak of the untiring labors of their metropolitan:
"In the diocese of Armagh, Kilmore, Clogher, Derry, Down, Connor, and Dromore, although far separated from each other, he administered confirmation to thousands in the woods and mountains, heedless of winds and rain. Lately, too, he achieved a work from which great advantage will be derived by the Catholic body, for there were many of the more noble families who had lost their properties, and, being proclaimed outlaws in public edicts, were subsequently guilty of many outrages; those by his admonitions he brought back to a better course; he moreover obtained pardon for their crimes, and not only procured this pardon for themselves, but also for their receivers, and thus hundreds and hundreds of Catholic families have been freed from imminent danger to their body and soul and properties."
But the good pastor was not contented with these extended labors among the laity. To make his reforms permanent and beneficial, he felt that he should commence with the clergy, who as a body had always been faithful to their sacred trust, but, owing to the disturbed state of the country for so many years past, had been unable to perform their allotted duties with that exactness and punctuality so desirable in the presence of a watchful and unscrupulous enemy. He therefore ordained many young students, whom he found qualified for the ministry, and, taking advantage of the temporary cessation of espionage consequent on the arrival of Lord Berkeley, he established a college in Drogheda, in which he soon had one hundred and sixty pupils and twenty-five ecclesiastics, under the care of three learned Jesuit fathers. The expenses of this school he defrayed out of his slender means, never more than sixty pounds per annum, and frequently not one-fifth of that sum, with the exception of 150 scudi (less than forty pounds sterling), annually allowed by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda. When, in 1674, the penal laws were again put in force in all their original ferocity of spirit, the college was of course broken up; but Dr. Plunket in his letters to Rome was never tired of impressing on the minds of the authorities there the necessity of affording Irish students more ample facilities for affording a thorough education. His suggestions in regard to the Irish College at Rome, by which a larger number of students might be accommodated without increased expense, though not acted upon at the time, have since been carried out, and it was principally at his instance that the Irish institutions in Spain, previously monopolized by young men from certain dioceses of Ireland only, were thrown open to all.
In the latter part of 1671, we find Dr. Plunket on a mission to the Hebrides, where the people, the descendants of the ancient Irish colonists, still preserved their Gaelic language, and received him with all the gratitude and enthusiasm of the Celtic nature. In 1674, notwithstanding the storm of persecution then raging over the island, he made a lengthy tour through the province of Tuam, and in the following year we have a detailed report of his visitation to the eleven dioceses in his own province, every one of which, no matter how remote or what was the personal risk, he took pains to inspect, bringing peace and comfort in his footsteps, and leaving behind him the tears and prayers of his appreciative children.
If we add to this multiplicity of occupations the further one of being the chief and almost only regular correspondent of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda in the three kingdoms, we may presume that the primate's life in Ireland was fully and advantageously occupied. The number of his letters to Rome on every subject of importance is immense, when we consider the difficulty and danger of communication in those days. He was also in constant correspondence with London, Paris, and Brussels, and, though he sometimes complains of the weakness of his eyesight, caused doubtless by exposure and change of climate, he frequently regrets more his poverty, which did not enable him to pay the postage on all occasions. At one time, indeed, he avers that all the food he is able to procure for himself is "a little oaten bread and some milk and water."
The last important act of the primate was the convocation of a provincial synod at Ardpatrick, in August, 1678, at which were present the bishops or vicars-general and apostolic of all the dioceses of Ulster. Many decrees of a general and special nature were there passed with great solemnity, and upon being sent to Rome were duly approved. It was upon this occasion that the representatives of the suffragan diocese of Armagh, deeply impressed and edified as they were by the labors and sanctity of their archbishop, addressed a joint letter to the Sacred Congregation, eloquently describing the extent and good effect of his constant solicitude for his spiritual charge.
"We therefore declare (say those venerable men) that the aforesaid Most Illustrious Metropolitan has labored much, exercising his sacred functions not only in his own but also in other dioceses; during the late persecution he abandoned not the flock entrusted to him, though he was exposed to extreme danger of losing his life; he erected schools, and provided masters and teachers, that the clergy and youth might be instructed in literature, piety, cases of conscience, and other matters relating to their office; he held two provincial councils, in which salutary decrees were enacted for the reformation of morals; he, moreover, rewarded the good and punished the bad, as far as circumstances and the laws of the kingdom allowed; he labored much, and not without praise, in preaching the word of God; he instructed the people by word and example; he also exercised hospitality so as to excite the admiration of all, although he scarcely received annually two hundred crowns from his diocese; and he performed all other things which became an archbishop and metropolitan, as far as they could be done in this kingdom. In fine, to our great service and consolation, he renewed, or rather established anew, at great expense, correspondence with the Holy See, which, for many years before his arrival, had become extinct. For all which things we acknowledge ourselves indebted to his Holiness and to your Eminences, who, by your solicitude provided for us so learned and vigilant a metropolitan, and we shall ever pray the Divine Majesty to preserve his holiness and your Eminences."
Had the distinguished body of ecclesiastics who thus voluntarily testified to the merits of their archbishop anticipated the awful catastrophe that was soon to remove him from them and from the world, they could not have epitomized his career in more truthful and concise language for the benefit of posterity. The end, however, was now at hand. In the same year that the provincial synod was held, the persecution against the Catholics, intermittent like those of the early ages of the church, broke out with redoubled violence. Forced to the most extreme measures by the parliament, the English court sent the strictest orders to Ireland to have arrested and removed from the country the entire body of the bishops and the clergy. The statute of 2d Elizabeth, declaring it præmunire or imprisonment and confiscation for any person to exercise the authority of bishop or priest in her dominions, was revived, and liberal rewards for the discovery of such offenders were publicly offered, to stimulate the energy of that class of spies known as "priest-hunters." Dr. Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin, was arrested and thrown into prison, where during a long confinement he languished and finally died. Dr. Creagh, Bishop of Limerick, the Archbishop of Tuam, and several of the inferior clergy, were also imprisoned and subjected to many annoyances and indignities previous to being expelled the kingdom. Dr. Plunket, who hoped that the storm would soon blow over, while prudently seeking a place of safety in a remote part of his diocese, frequently avowed his determination never to forsake his flock until compelled to do so by superior force. Learning, however, of the dangerous illness of his relative and former patron, Dr. Patrick Plunket, he cautiously left his concealment, and hastened to Dublin, to be with the good old bishop during his last moments, and it was in that city, on the 6th of December, 1679, that he was discovered and apprehended by order of the viceroy. For the first six months after his arrest he was confined in Dublin Castle, part of the time a close prisoner, but, as the only charge openly preferred against him was, to use the expression of one of his relatives, "only for being a Catholic bishop, and for not having abandoned the flock of our Lord in obedience to the edict published by parliament," and as the punishment for this at the worst was expatriation, his friends did not fear for his life. They were not aware then that a conspiracy had been formed against him by some apostate friars under the patronage of the infamous Earl of Shaftesbury, the leader of the English fanatics, with the object of accusing him of high treason, and thus compassing his death. On the 24th of July following, he was sent under guard to Dundalk for trial; but so monstrous were the charges of treason against him, and so thoroughly was his character for moderation and loyalty known to all, that, though the jury consisted exclusively of Protestants, his accusers dared not appear against him, and he was consequently remitted back to Dublin. But his enemies on both sides of the Channel were thirsting for his blood, and, in October, 1680, he was removed to London, ostensibly to answer before the king and parliament, but, actually, to undergo the mockery of a trial in a country in which no offense was even alleged to have been committed, where the infamous character of his accusers was unknown, and where he was completely isolated from his friends. The result could not be doubtful. Without counsel or witnesses, in the presence of prejudiced judges and perjured witnesses, and surrounded by the hooting of a London mob, he was found guilty, and, on the 14th of June, 1681, he was sentenced to be executed at Tyburn, a judgment which was carried out on the 11th of July following, with all the barbaric ceremonies of the period. During the trial and on the scaffold, his bearing was singularly noble and courageous, so much so, indeed, that many who beheld him, and who shared the violent anti-Catholic prejudices of the hour, were satisfied of his perfect innocence. He repeatedly and emphatically denied all complicity in the treasonable plots laid to his charge, but openly declared that he had acted as a Catholic bishop, and had spent many years of his life in preaching and teaching God's word to his countrymen. His life in prison between the passing and the execution of the sentence is best described by a fellow-prisoner, the learned Benedictine, Father Corker, who had the privilege of being with him in his last hours. In his narrative, he says: