Ulster, a barrier of distinction was thereby set up between the Churches of England and Ireland, calculated to chill the sympathies and arouse the suspicions of the former a result of which traces may be observed even to the present day. The actual divergence indeed was but of short continuance: for in the next Convocation, held in the year 1634, the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England were unanimously received and approved. Probably from respect to the feelings of Usher (now Primate) and of others who were concerned in the passing of the former articles, no formal repeal of these took place, but they were allowed quietly to fall into abeyance'. While, however, the Church of Ireland thus effectually "manifested her agreement with that of England in the confession of the same Christian faith and the doctrine of the Sacraments "," she at the same time, by declining to accept totidem verbis the English canons, but preferring to draw up a distinct though equivalent code of discipline for herself, vindicated her independence and equality of position, and upheld the just and reasonable principle, that in matters of rite and ceremony each national Church may lawfully decide for itself according to its circumstances.

44. Since the accession of James I. in the beginning of the century, the country had enjoyed an unwonted period of repose and prosperity. The power of the great native chieftains had, after a contest of thirty years, been overthrown by Elizabeth; while the system of clanship-the foundation on which that

1 These articles had never been sanctioned by Parliament, and had therefore no legal force. (See Stephens' "Introduction to Irish Prayer-book," p. 59.) m Canon I. (1634).

power rested—was upturned by James; and with it all those petty tyrannies and exactions, and likewise all those antiquated customs and usages which clung around it, making life and property precarious, and national progress impossible. The change, however, was too great and too sudden to be appreciated by those whom ages of misrule had unfitted for freedom. British law, indeed, repressed violence, enforced justice, encouraged industry, invited capital; and the result was, improved husbandry, revived commerce, and increased wealth: but by the people in general the advantages thus held out were neither understood nor valued. Very many of the chieftains, disgusted at the restraints laid upon them by these arbitrary exactions, and either unable or unwilling to enforce their legal rights in courts of justice, of whose laws and language they were for the most part ignorant, left the country to seek subsistence and adventure in foreign lands, and to foment foreign intrigues against the British government; while the people, (in whom the spirit of clanship still survived, though the system was abolished,) deprived of their hereditary guides, easily fell into the hands of hostile emissaries from abroad, and of a disaffected priesthood at home". These new leaders well knew how to turn to their own purposes the deeply-rooted anti-English feeling, which (implanted in former ages, when England and Rome were leagued together) still prevailed with everincreasing intensity, now that they were on opposite sides; and the war of races soon became likewise a war of religion. The comparative quiet of the last forty years was therefore only superficial: below the

surface were discontent, hatred, intrigue, and conspiracy. Two several periods had already been fixed by the malcontents for the simultaneous rising at home and invasion from abroad, which were to put an end together to English rule and (as it was regarded) English heresy in Ireland; but on both occasions accidental circumstances defeated the project. At length, however, the domestic troubles in England and Scotland, which fully occupied the attention of the British government, seemed to point out a favourable opportunity for the execution of the long-meditated, but well-concerted design; and accordingly on the 23rd of October, 1641, suddenly burst forth the fearful insurrection and massacre which deluged the land with innocent blood, and was the prelude to half a century of civil war, followed by a long and lamentable train of confiscations and penal enactments.

45. That the movement was primarily anti-English, and only subordinately anti-Protestant, appears from the fact that the insurgents were ordered to spare the Scotch settlers in the north, and directed all their fury against the English colonists, who however were of course nearly all Protestants, and now connected with the Reformed Church of Ireland. So utterly unexpected was the outbreak, that these unfortunate people were almost wholly without means of defence or concerted plan of resistance; so that, for several

The same inference may be drawn from their exclamation at the interment of the saintly Bishop Bedell, who died from the hardships and exposure consequent on his captivity, but whose apostolic life and labours had extorted the respect and veneration of his captors. Firing a volley over his grave, they cried out, "Requiescat in pace ultimus Anglorum." (Mason's Life of Bedell, p. 376.) It is remarkable also that the only equivalent in Irish for Protestant is Sassenach, 'Saxon.'

months, they and their families were the helpless victims of spoliation, torture, and murder, while the slender garrisons of English soldiers, which alone represented the force of the Government, found enough to do to preserve from external attack or internal treachery the principal towns in which they were quartered; nor was it till the spring of the following year that a sufficient reinforcement arrived from England to take the offensive, and to put some stay to the universal pillage and slaughter by which the country was desolated. The number of victims to this nefarious conspiracy has of course been variously stated. It is, however, almost certain that in the first outbreak not less than 40,000 were murdered in cold blood—an amount largely increased in its later stages P. After the first burst of hatred and revenge had subsided, the movement assumed by degrees the character of a regular civil war, and as such was openly joined by the Romish hierarchy, and headed by the Papal nuncio Rinuccini. The nobles of the Pale likewise, though originally of English extraction, yet being for the most part Roman Catholics, and being envious moreover of the favours bestowed on the later colonists, now made common cause with the native Irish against the Government. For nearly seven years did this state of tumult and confusion continue, with varying results, till at length (the royal authority in England having been in the meantime superseded) the stern avenger Cromwell landed in Dublin in the

P Sir John Temple (History of Irish Rebellion) estimates the total number during the two years 1641-3, at 300,000; Sir Wm. Petty, limiting his calculation to the first year only, makes it 37,000: Lord Clarendon, followed by Hume, adopts the number in the text.

I

year 1649, and commenced that pitiless and unflinching career of retribution, which is even now remembered in Ireland with horror and dismay. These matters, however, pertaining rather to the civil than to the ecclesiastical history of the country, need not be enlarged on here.

46. It was the unhappy fate of the Church and her members to find oppressors alike in the aggressors and the retaliators. The principal mark for the bloodthirsty fury of the insurgents, her people were slain, her churches plundered and burnt, her clergy exposed to many indignities, and in numerous instances to torture and death, her bishops forced into exile, or in constant peril of their lives,-two of them (Webb of Limerick, and Bedell of Kilmore) actually dying in captivity. On the other hand, when the English government succeeded in overpowering the confederacy, there was still no redress, nor consolation, nor justice for the Church. That government was now in the hands of the republican party, which had overturned both Church and monarchy in England, and which was therefore not likely to act a more tolerant part in Ireland. The use of the Liturgy was forcibly suppressed, and the Westminster Directory substituted; several of the bishops and clergy were imprisoned; the sees, as they became vacant by death, were left unfilled, and their revenues sequestered; while most of the survivors, both of the bishops and clergy, (including the Primate Usher himself,) were reduced to great indigence and distress.

47. At length, after a fiery ordeal which lasted for nineteen years, a brief respite was permitted to the harassed Church and country. Charles II. was proclaimed in Dublin on the 14th of May, 1660, and,