 CHAPTER XVI. Queen Mary's treatment of her sister, the Princess Elizabeth. The preservation of Princess Elizabeth may be reckoned a remarkable instance of the watchful eye which Christ had over his church. The bigotry of Mary regarded not the ties of consanguinity, of natural affection, of natural succession. Her mind, physically morose, was under the dominion of men who possessed not the milk of human kindness, and whose principles were sanctioned and enjoined by the idolatrous tenets of the Romish Pontiff. Could they have foreseen the short date of Mary's reign, they would have imbrewed their hands in the Protestant blood of Elizabeth, and, as a sine qua non of the Queen's salvation, have compelled her to bequeath the kingdom to some Catholic Prince. The contest might have been attended with the horrors incidental to the religious civil war, and calamities might have been felt in England similar to those under Henry the Great in France, whom Queen Elizabeth assisted in opposing his priest-ridden Catholic subjects. As if Providence had their perpetual establishment of the Protestant faith in view, the difference of the duration of the two reigns is worthy of notice. Mary might have reigned many years in the course of nature, but the course of grace wielded otherwise. Five years and four months was the time of persecution allotted to this weak, disgraceful reign, while that of Elizabeth reckoned a number of years among the highest of those who have set on the English throne, almost nine times that of her merciless sister. Before Mary attained the crown, she treated Elizabeth with a sisterly kindness, but from that period her conduct was altered, and the most imperious distance substituted. Though Elizabeth had no concern in the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt, yet she was apprehended and treated as a culprit in that commotion. The manner too of her arrest was similar to the mind and dictated it. The three cabinet members, whom she deputed to see the arrest executed, rudely entered the chamber at ten o'clock at night, and, though she was extremely ill, they could scarcely be induced to let her remain until the following morning. Her enfeebled state permitted her to be moved only by short stages in a journey of such length to London, but the princess, though afflicted in person, had a consolation in mind which her sister never could purchase, the people, through whom she passed on her way pitied her and put up their prayers for her preservation. Arrived at court, she was made a close prisoner for a fortnight, without knowing who was her accuser, or seeing anyone who could console or advise her. The charge, however, was at length unmasked by gardener, who, with nineteen of the council, accused her of abetting Wyatt's conspiracy, which she religiously affirmed to be false. Failing in this, they placed against her the transactions of St. Peter Carew in the West, in which they were as unsuccessful as in the former. The Queen now signified that it was her pleasure she should be committed to the Tower, a step which overwhelmed the Princess with the greatest alarm and uneasiness. In vain she hoped the Queen's Majesty would not commit her to such a place, but there was no leniency to be expected. Her attendance were limited, and a hundred northern soldiers appointed to guard her day and night. On Palm Sunday she was conducted to the Tower. When she came to the Palace Garden she cast her eyes toward the windows, eagerly anxious to meet those of the Queen, but she was disappointed. A strict order was given in London that everyone should go to church and carry palms, that she might be conveyed without clamour or commiseration to her prison. At the time of passing under London Bridge the fall of the Tide made it very dangerous, and the barge sometimes struck fast against the Starlings. To mortify her the more she was landed at Trader Stairs. As it rained fast and she was obliged to step in the water to land she hesitated, but this excited no complacence in the Lord in waiting. When she set her foot on the steps she exclaimed, Here lands as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs, and before thee, O God, I speak it, having no friend but thee alone. A large number of the wardens and servants of the Tower were arranged in order between whom the Princess had to pass. Upon inquiring the use of this parade she was informed it was customary to do so. If, said she, it is on the count of me, I beseech you, that they may be dismissed. On this the poor men knelt down and prayed that God would preserve her grace, for which they were the next day turned out for their employments. The tragic scene must have been deeply interesting to see an amiable and irreproachable Princess sent like a lamb to languish in expectancy of cruelty and death, against whom there was no other charge than her superiority in Christian virtues and acquired endowments. Her attendance openly wept as she proceeded with a dignified step to the frowning battlements of her destination. Alas, said Elizabeth, what do you mean I took you to comfort, not to dismay me, for my truth is such that no one shall have cause to weep for me. The next step of her enemies was to procure evidence by means which, in the present day, are accounted detestable. Many poor prisoners were racked to extract, if possible, any matters of accusation which might affect her life, and thereby gratify gardener's sanguinary disposition. He himself came to examine her, expecting her removal from the house at Ashbridge to Dunnington Castle a long while before. The Princess had quite forgotten this trivial circumstance, and Lord Arendelle, after the investigation, kneeling down apologised for having troubled her in such a frivolous matter. You sift me narrowly, replied the Princess, but of this I am assured that God has appointed a limit to your proceedings, and so God forgive you all. Her own gentlemen, who ought to have been her purveyors, and served her provision, were compelled to give place to the common soldiers at the command of the Constable of the Tower. Who was, in every respect, a servile tool of gardener, her gracious friends, however, procured an order of counsel which regulated this petty tyranny more to her satisfaction. After having been a whole month in close confinement, she sent for the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Chandoise, to whom she represented the ill state of her health, from want of proper air and exercise. Application being made to the Council, Elizabeth, was with some difficulty admitted to walk in the Queen's lodgings, and afterwards in the garden, at which time the prisoners, on that side, were attended by their keepers, and not suffered to look down upon her. Their jealousy was excited by a child of four years, who daily brought flowers to the Princess. The child was threatened with a whipping, and the Father ordered to keep him from the Princess' chambers. On the 5th of May the Constable was discharged from his office, and Sir Henry Benefield, appointed in his room, accompanied by a hundred ruffian-looking soldiers in blue. This measure greeted considerable alarm in the mind of the Princess, who imagined it was preparatory to her undergoing the same fate as Lady Jane Gray, upon the same block. Assured that this project was not in agitation, she entertained an idea that the new keeper of the tower was commissioned to make away with her privately, as his equivocal character was in conformity with the ferocious inclination by those whom he was appointed. A report now obtained that her grace was to be taken away by the new Constable and his soldiers, which in the sequel proved to be true. An order of counsel was made for her removal to the manor Woodstock, which took place on Trinity Sunday, May 13, under the authority of Sir Henry Benefield and Lord Tame. The ostensible cause for her removal was to make room for other prisoners. Richmond was the first place they stopped at, and here the Princess slept, not however without much alarm at first, as her own servants were superseded by the soldiers, who were placed as guards at her chamber door. Upon representation, Lord Tame overruled this indecent stretch of power and granted her perfect safety while under his custody. In passing through Windsor, she saw several of her poor dejected servants waiting to see her. Go to them, said she to one of her attendants, and say these words from me, ten quim ovus, that is, like a sheep to the slaughter. The next night her grace lodged at the house of Mr. Dormer, in her way, to which the people manifested such tokens of loyal affection that Sir Henry was indignant, and bestowed on them very liberally the names of rebels and traitors. In some villages they rang the bells for joy, imagining the Princess' arrival among them was from a very different cause. But this harmless demonstration of gladness was sufficient with the persecuting Benefield to order his soldiers to seize and set these humble persons in the stocks. The following day her grace arrived at Lord Tame's house, where she stayed all night and was most nobly entertained. This excited Sir Henry's indignation and made him caution Lord Tame to look well to his proceedings. But the humility of Lord Tame was not to be frightened, and he returned a suitable reply. At another time this official prodigal, to show his consequence in disregard of good manners, went up into a chamber where was appointed for her grace a chair, two cushions, and a foot-carpet wherein he presumptuously set and called his man to pull off his boots. As soon as it was known to the ladies and gentlemen, they laughed him to scorn. When supper was done he called to his lordship and directed that all gentlemen and ladies should withdraw home, marveling much, that he would permit such a large company, considering the great charge he had committed to him. Sir Henry, said his lordship, content yourself, and all shall be avoided, your men and all. Nay, but my soldiers, replied Sir Henry, shall watch all night. Lord Tame answered, there is no need. Well, said he, need or need not, they shall so do. The next day her grace took her journey from thence to Woodstock, where she was enclosed as before in the tower of London. The soldiers keeping guard within and without the walls every day to the number of sixty, and in the night, without the walls, were forty during the time of her imprisonment. At length she was permitted to walk in the gardens, but under the most severe restrictions, Sir Henry keeping the keys himself and placing her always under many bolts and locks, whence she was induced to call him her jailer, at which he felt offended and begged her to substitute the word officer. After much earnest entreaty to the council, she obtained permission to write to the queen, but the jailer who brought her pen, ink, and paper stood by her while she wrote, and, when she left off, he carried the things away until they were wanted again. He also insisted upon carrying it himself to the queen, but Elizabeth would not suffer him to be the bearer, and it was presented by one of her gentlemen. After the letter, Doctors Owen and Wendy went to the princess, as the state of her health rendered medical assistance necessary. They stayed with her five or six days in which time she grew much better. They then returned to the queen, and spoke flatteringly of the princess's submission and humility, at which the queen seemed moved, but the bishops wanted a concession that she had offended her majesty. Elizabeth spurned this indirect mode of acknowledging herself guilty. If I have offended, said she, and am guilty, I crave no mercy but the law, which I am certain I should have had ere this, if anything could have been proved against me. I wish I were as clear from the peril of my enemies. Then, should I not be thus bolted and locked up within these walls and doors? Much question arose at this time respecting the propriety of uniting the princess to some foreigner that she might quit the realm with a suitable portion. One of the council had the brutality to urge the necessity of beheading her, if the king, Philip, meant to keep the realm in peace. But the Spaniards, detesting such a base thought, replied, God forbid that our king and master should consent to such an infamous proceeding. Stimulated by a noble principle, the Spaniards from this time repeatedly urged to the king that it would do him the highest honor to liberate the Lady Elizabeth, nor was the king impervious to their solicitation. He took her out of prison, and shortly after she was sent for to Hampton Court. It may be remarked in this place that the fallacy of human reasoning is shown in every moment. The barbarian, who suggested the policy of beheading Elizabeth, little contemplated the change of condition which his speech would bring about. In her journey from Woodstock, Benefield treated her with the same severity as before, removing her on a stormy day, and not suffering her old servant, who had come to Colnbrook, where she slept, to speak to her. She remained a fortnight, strictly guarded and watched, before anyone dared to speak with her. At length the vile gardener, with three more of the council, came with great submission. Elizabeth saluted them, remarked that she had been for a long time kept in solitary confinement, and begged that they would intercede with the king and queen to deliver her from prison. Gardener's visit was to draw from the Princess a confession of her guilt. But she was guarded against this subtlety, adding that rather than admit she had done wrong, she would lie in prison all the rest of her life. The next day Gardener came again, and kneeling down declared that the queen was astonished she would persist in affirming that she was blameless, whence it would be inferred that the queen had unjustly imprisoned her grace. Gardener further informed her that the queen had declared that she must tell another tale before she could be set at liberty. Then, replied the high-minded Elizabeth, I had rather be in prison with honesty and truth than have my liberty, and be suspect by her majesty. What I have said I will stand to, nor will I ever speak falsehood. The bishop and his friends then departed, leaving her locked up as before. Seven days after the queen sent for Elizabeth at ten o'clock at night, two years had elapsed since they had seen each other. It created terror in the mind of the Princess, who, at setting out, desired her gentlemen and ladies to pray for her, as her return to them again was uncertain. Being conducted to the queen's bedchamber, upon entering it the Princess knelt down, and having begged to God to preserve her majesty, she humbly assured her that her majesty had not a more loyal subject in the realm, whatever reports might be circulated to the contrary. With a haughty ungraciousness the imperious queen replied, You will not confess your offence, but stand stoutly to your truth. I pray God it may so fall out. If it do not, said Elizabeth, I request neither favour nor pardon at your majesty's hands. Well, said the queen, you stiffly still persevere in your truth. Besides, you will not confess that you have not been wrongfully punished. I must not say so, if it please your majesty, to you. Why, then, said the queen, be like you will to others. No, if it please your majesty, I have borne the burden, and must bear it. I humbly beseech your majesty to have a good opinion of me, and to think me to be your subject, not only from the beginning hitherto, but forever, as long as life lasteth. They departed without any heartfelt satisfaction on either side, nor can we think the conduct of Elizabeth displayed that independence and fortitude which accompanies perfect innocence. Elizabeth's admitting that she would not say, neither to the queen nor to others, that she had been unjustly punished, was indirect contradiction to what she had told Gardner, and must have arisen from some motive at this time inexplicable. King Philip is supposed to have been secretly concealed during the interview, and to have been friendly to the princess. In seven days from the time of her return to prismant, her severe jailer and his men were discharged, and she was set at liberty, under the constraint of being always attended and watched by some of the queen's counsel. Four of her gentlemen were sent to the tower without any other charge against them than being zealous servants of their mistress. This event was soon after followed by the happy news of Gardner's death, for which all good and merciful men glorified God, insomuch as it had taken the chief tiger from the din, and rendered the life of the Protestant successor of Mary more secure. This miscreant, while the princess was in the tower, sent a secret writ, signed by a few of the counsel, for her private execution, and, had Mr. Bridge's lieutenant of the tower been as little scrupulous of dark assassination as this pious prelate was, she must have perished. The warrant not having the queen's signature, Mr. Bridge's hastened to her majesty to give her information of it, and to know her mind. This was a plot of Winchester's, who, to convict her of treasonable practices, caused several prisoners to be wracked, particularly Mr. Edmund Treemane, and Smithwick, were offered considerable bribes to accuse the guiltless princess. Her life was several times in danger. While at Woodstock, fire was apparently put between the boards and ceiling under which she lay. It was also reported strongly that one Paul Penny, the keeper of Woodstock, a notorious ruffian, was appointed to assassinate her, but, however this might be, God counteracted in this point the nefarious designs of the enemies of the Reformation. James Bassett was another appointed to perform the same deed. He was a particular favorite of Gardner, and had come within a mile of Woodstock, intending to speak with Benefield on the subject. The goodness of God, however, so ordered it, that while Bassett was traveling to Woodstock, Benefield, by an order of counsel, was going to London, in consequence of which he left a positive order with his brother that no man should be admitted to the princess during his absence. Not even with a note from the queen. His brother met the murderer, but the latter's intention was frustrated, as no admission could be obtained. When Elizabeth quitted Woodstock, she left the following lines written with her diamond on the window. Much suspected by me. Nothing proved can be, quote Elizabeth Prisoner. With the life of Winchester ceased the extreme danger of the princess, as many of her other secret enemies soon had followed him, and, last of all, her cruel sister, who outlived Gardner but three years. The death of Mary was ascribed to several causes. The counsel endeavored to console her in her last moments. Imagining it was the absence of her husband that lay heavy at her heart, but though his treatment had some weight, the loss of Callis, the last fortress possessed by the English in France, was the true source of her sorrow. Open my heart, said Mary, when I am dead you will find Callis written there. Religion caused her no alarm. The priest had lulled to rest every misgiving of conscious, which might have intruded on account of the accusing spirits of the murdered martyrs. Not the blood she had spilled, but the loss of a town excited her emotions in dying, and this last stroke seemed to be awarded that her fanatical persecution might be paralleled by her political imbecility. We earnestly pray that the annals of no country, Catholic or Pagan, may ever be stained with such a repetition of human sacrifices to papal power, and that the detestation in which the character of Mary is holding may be a beacon to succeeding monarchs to avoid the rocks of fanaticism, God's punishment upon some of the persecutors of his people in Mary's reign. After that arch-persecutor Gardner was dead, others followed, of whom Dr. Morgan, Bishop of St. David's, who succeeded Bishop Frarar, is to be noticed. Not long after he was installed in his Bisherphoric, he was stricken by the visitation of God. His food passed through the throat, but rose again with great violence. In this manner almost literally starved to death, he terminated his existence. Bishop Thornton, suffergen of Dover, was an indefatigable persecutor of the true church. One day, after he had exercised his cruel tyranny upon a number of pious persons at Canterbury, he came from the chapter-house of Bourne, where, as he stood on a Sunday, looking at his men, playing at bowls, he fell down in a fit of the palsy, and did not long survive. After the latter succeeded another bishop, or suffergen, ordained by Gardner, who, not long after he had been raised to the sea of Dover, fell down a pair of stairs in the cardinal's chamber at Greenwich, and broke his neck. He had just received the cardinal's blessing. He could receive nothing worse. John Cooper of Watson Suffolk suffered by perjury. He was from private peak, persecuted by one finning, who suborned two others to swear that they had heard Cooper say, If God did not take away Queen Mary, the devil would! Cooper denied all such words, but Cooper was a Protestant and a heretic, and therefore he was hung, drawn, and quartered, his property confiscated, and his wife and nine children reduced to beggary. The following harvest, however, Grimwood of Hitcham, one of the witnesses before mentioned, was visited for his villainy. While at work stacking up corn, his bowels suddenly burst out, and before relief could be obtained he died. Thus was deliberate perjury rewarded by sudden death. In the case of the martyr Mr. Bradford, the severity of Mr. Sheriff Woodruff has been noticed. He rejoiced at the death of the Saints, and at Mr. Rogers' execution he broke the Carmen's head, because he stopped the cart to let the martyr's children take a last farewell of him. Scarcely had Mr. Woodruff's sheriffality expired a week when he was struck with a paralytic affection, and languished a few days in the most pitable and hopeless condition, presenting a striking contrast to his former activity in the cause of blood. Ralph Lardrin, who betrayed the martyr George Eagles, is believed to have been afterward arraigned and hanged in consequence of accusing himself. At the bar he denounced himself in these words, This has most justly fallen upon me, for betrained the innocent blood of that just and good man George Eagles, who was here condemned, in the time of Queen Mary, by my procurement, When I sold his blood for little money. As James Abbey's was going to execution, and exhorting the pitting bystanders to adhere steadfastly to the truth, and like him to seal the cause of Christ with their blood, a servant of the sheriffs interrupted him, and blasphemously called his religion heresy, and the good man a lunatic. Scarcely, however, had the flames reached the martyr before the fearful stroke of God fell upon the hardened wretch, in the presence of him he had so cruelly ridiculed. The man was suddenly seized with lunacy, cast off his clothes and shoes before the people, as Abbey's had done just before, to distribute among some poor persons, at the same time exclaiming, Thus did James Abbey's, the true servant of God, who is saved by, I am damned! Repeating this often, the sheriff had him secured, and made him put his clothes on, but no sooner was he alone, than he tore them off, and exclaimed as before. Being tied in a cart, he was conveyed to his master's house, and in about half a year he died, just before which a priest came to attend him, with the crucifix, etc. But the wretched man bade him take away such trumpery, and said that he and the other priest had been the cause of his damnation, but that Abbey's was saved. One clerk and avowed enemy of the Protestants in King Edward's reign hung himself in the Tower of London. Frawling, a priest of much celebrity, fell down in the street, and died on the spot. Dale, an infatigable informer, was consumed by vermin, and died a miserable spectacle. Alexander, the severe keeper of Newgate, died miserably, swelling to a prodigious size, and became so inwardly putrid that none could come near him. This cruel minister of the law would go to Bonner, Storie, and others, requesting them to rid his prison. He was so much pestered with heretics. The son of this keeper, in three years after his father's death, dissipated his great property, and died suddenly in Newgate Market. The sins of the father, says the Decalogue, shall be visited on the children. John Peter, son-in-law of Alexander, a horrid blasphemer and prosecutor, died wretchedly. When he affirmed anything, he would say, If it be not true, I pray I may rot ere I die. This awful state visited him in all its loathesomeness. Sir Ralph Ellacre was eagerly desirous to see the heart taken out of Adam Damplip, who was wrongfully put to death. Shortly after, Sir Ralph was slain by the French, who mangled him dreadfully, cut off his limbs, and tore his heart out. When Gardner heard of the miserable end of Judge Hales, he called the profession of the Gospel a doctrine of desperation, but he forgot that the judge's despondency arose after he had consented to the papistry. But, with more reason, may this be said of the Catholic tenets, if we consider the miserable end of Dr. Pendleton, Gardner, and the most of the leading persecutors. Gardner, upon his deathbed, was reminded by a bishop of Peter, denying his master. Ah, said Gardner, I have denied with Peter, but never repented with Peter. After the accession of Elizabeth, most of the Catholic prelates were imprisoned in the tower, or the fleet. Gardner was put into the Marsalia. Of the revilers of God's word, we detail, among many others, the following occurrence. One William Maldon, living in Greenwich, in servitude, was instructing himself profitably in reading an English primer one winter's evening. A serving man, named John Powell, set by and ridiculed all that Maldon said, who cautioned him not to make a jest of the word of God. Powell, nevertheless, continued until Maldon came to a certain English prayers, and read aloud, quote, Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us, etc. Suddenly the revilers started and exclaimed, Lord have mercy upon us. He was struck with the utmost terror of mind, said the evil spirit could not abide that Christ should have any mercy upon him, and sunk into madness. He was remitted to bedlam, and became an awful warning that God will not always be insulted with impunity. Henry Smith, a student in the law, had a pious Protestant father of Canban in Glosglaschire, by whom he was virtuously educated. While studying law in the Middle Temple, he was induced to profess Catholicism, and, going to Lovian in France, he returned with pardons, crucifixes, and a great fright of popish toys. Not content with these things he openly reviled the gospel religion he had been brought up in. But conscious one night reproached him so dreadfully that in a fit of despair he hung himself in his garters. He was buried in a lane without the Christian service being read over him. Dr. Story, whose name has been so often mentioned in the preceding pages, was reserved to be cut off by public execution, a practice in which he had taken great delight when in power. He is supposed to have had a hand in most of the conflagrations of Mary's time, and was even ingenuous in his invention of new modes of inflicting torture. When Elizabeth came to the throne, he was committed to prison, but unaccountability affected his escape to the continent to carry fire and sword there among the Protestant brethren. From the Duke of Alva at Antwerp he received a special commission to search all ships for contraband goods, and particularly for English heretical books. Dr. Story gloried in a commission that was ordered by Providence to be his ruin, and to preserve the faithful from his sanguinary cruelty. It was the contrive that one Parker, a merchant, should sail to Antwerp, and information should be given to Dr. Story that he had a quantity of heretical books on board. The latter no sooner heard this than he hastened to the vessel, sought everywhere above, and then went under the hatches, which were fashioned down upon him. A prosperous gale brought the ship to England, and this traitorous prosecuting rebel was committed to prison, where he remained a considerable time, obstinately rejecting to recant his anti-Christian spirit, or admit of Queen Elizabeth's supremacy. He alleged, though by birth and education and Englishmen, that he was a sworn subject of the King of Spain in whose service the famous Duke of Alva was. The doctor, being condemned, was laid upon a hurdle, and drawn from the tower to Tibern, where, after being suspended about half an hour, he was cut down, stripped, and the Executioner displayed the heart of a traitor. Thus ended the existence of this Nimrod of England. CHAPTER 17 PART 1 OF FOX'S BOOK OF MARTERS VOLUME 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by J. R. Omehen. FOX'S BOOK OF MARTERS VOLUME 2 BY JOHN FOX Edited by William Byron Forbush CHAPTER 17 RISE IN PROGRESS OF THE PROTISTIC RELIGION IN IRELAND WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE BARBERIS MASSAKER OF 1641 PART 1 The gloom of Popery had overshadowed Ireland from its first establishment there until the reign of Henry VIII, when the rays of the Gospel began to dispel the darkness, and afford that light which until then had been unknown in that island. The abject ignorance in which the people were held, with the absurd and superstitious notions they entertained, were sufficiently evident to many, and the artifices of their priests were so conspicuous that several persons of distinction, who had hitherto been strenuous papists, would willingly have endeavored to shake off the yoke and embrace the Protestant religion. But the natural ferocity of the people, and their strong attachment to the ridiculous doctrines which they had been taught, made the attempt dangerous. It was, however, at length undertaken, though attended with the most horrid and disastrous consequences. The introduction of the Protestant religion into Ireland may be principally attributed to George Brown, an Englishman, who was consecrated archbishop of Dublin, on the 19th of March, 1535. He had formally been an Augustine friar, and was promoted to the miter on account of his merit. After having enjoyed his dignity about five years, he, at the time that Henry VIII was suppressing the religious houses in England, caused all the relics and images to be removed out of the two cathedrals in Dublin, and the other churches in his diocese, in the place of which he caused to be put up the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. A short time after this he received a letter from Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, informing him that Henry VIII, having thrown off the papal supremacy in England, was determined to do the like in Ireland, and that he thereupon had appointed him Archbishop Brown, one of the commissioners for seeing this order put in execution. The Archbishop answered that he had employed his utmost endeavors at the hazard of his life to cause the Irish nobility and gentry to acknowledge Henry as their supreme head, and matters both spiritual and temporal, but had met with a most violent opposition, especially from George, Archbishop of Amar, that this prelate had, in a speech to his clergy, laid a curse on all those who should own his heinous supremacy, adding that their isle, called in the Chronicles Insula Sacra, or the Holy Island, belonged to none but the Bishop of Rome, and that the king's progenitors had received it from the pope. He observed likewise that the Archbishop and clergy of Amar had each dispatched a courier to Rome, and that it would be necessary for a parliament to be called in Ireland to pass an act of supremacy, the people not regarding the king's commission without the sanction of the legislative assembly. He concluded with observing that the popes had kept the people in the most profound ignorance, that the clergy were exceedingly illiterate, that the common people were more zealous in their blindness than the saints and martyrs had been in the defense of truth at the beginning of the gospel, and that it was to be feared that Shan O'Neill, a chieftain of great power in the northern part of the island, was decidedly opposed to the king's commission. In pursuance of this advice, the following year a parliament was summoned to meet at Dublin by order of Leonard Gray, at that time Lord Lieutenant. At this assembly, Archbishop Brown made a speech in which he set forth that the bishops of Rome used, anciently, to acknowledge emperors, kings, and princes to be supreme in their own dominions, and therefore that he himself would vote King Henry VIII as supreme in all matters, both ecclesiastical and temporal. He concluded with saying that whosoever should refuse to vote for this act was not a true subject of the king. This speech greatly startled the other bishops and lords, but at length, after violent debates, the king's supremacy was allowed. Two years after this, the Archbishop brought a second letter to Lord Cromwell, complaining of the clergy, and hinting at the machinations which the pope was then carrying on against the advocates of the gospel. This letter is dated from Dublin in April 1538, and among other matters the Archbishop says, A bird may be taught to speak with as much sense as many of the clergy do in this country. These, though not scholars, yet are crafty to cousin the poor common people and to dissuade them from following his highness orders. The country folk here much hate your lordship and despitefully call you, in their Irish tongue, the blacksmith's son. As a friend, I desire your lordship to look well to your noble person. Rome hath a great kindness for the Duke of Norfolk, and a great favors for this nation, purposely to oppose his highness. A short time after this, the pope sent over to Ireland, directed to the Archbishop of Amach and his clergy, a bowl of excommunication against all who had or should own the king's supremacy within the Irish nation, denouncing a curse on all of them, and theirs who should not, within forty days, acknowledge to their confessors that they had done a miss in doing so. Archbishop Brown gave notice of this in the letter dated, Dublin, May 1538. Part of the form of confession, or vow, sent over to these Irish papists, ran as follows. I do further declare him or here, father or mother, brother or sister, son or daughter, husband or wife, uncle or aunt, nephew or niece, kinsman or kinswoman, master or mistress, and all others nearest or dearest relations, friend or acquaintance whatsoever, accursed, that either do or shall hold for the time to come any ecclesiastical or civil power above the authority of the mother church, or that do or shall obey for the time to come any of her, the mother of church's opposers or enemies, or contrary to the same of which I have here sworn unto, so God, the Blessed Virgin, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and the Holy Evangelists, help me, etc. is an exact agreement with the doctrines promulgated by the councils of Latter-in and Constance, which expressly declare that no favours should be shown to heretics, nor faith kept with them, that they ought to be excommunicated and condemned, and their estates confiscated, and that princes are obliged, by a solemn oath, to root them out of their respective dominions. How abominable a church must that be, which thus dares to trample upon all authority! How besotted the people who regard the injunctions of such a church! In the Archbishop's last mentioned letter, dated May 1538, he says, His Highness Viceroy of this nation is of little or no power with the old natives. Now both English and Irish begin to oppose your lordship's orders, and to lay aside their national quarrels, which I fear will, if anything will, cause a foreigner to invade this nation. Not long after this, Archbishop Brown seized one Daddy O'Brien, a Franciscan friar, who had in his possession a paper sent from Rome, dated May 1538, and directed to O'Neill. In this letter were the following words, His Holiness, Paul, now Pope, and the Council of the Fathers have lately found in Rome a prophecy of one Saint Lacherianus, an Irish bishop of Cacel, in which he says that the Mother Church of Rome falleth when, in Ireland, the Catholic faith is overcome, therefore for the glory of the Mother Church, the honour of Saint Peter, and your own succourness, suppress heresy, and his holiness enemies. This Daddy O'Brien, after further examination and search made, was pilloried, and kept close prisoner until the King's orders arrived in what manner he should be further disposed of, but order coming over from England that he was to be hanged, he laid violent hands on himself in the castle of Dublin. His body was afterwards carried to Gallows Green, where, after being hanged up for some time, it wasn't heard. After the accession of Edward VI to the throne of England, an order was directed to Sir Anthony Ledger, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, commanding that the liturgy in English be forthwith set up in Ireland, there to be observed within the several bishoprics, cathedrals, and parish churches. And it was first read in Christchurch, Dublin, on Easter Day, 1551, before the said Sir Anthony, Archbishop Brown, and others. Part of the royal order for this purpose was as follows. Whereas our gracious Father, King Henry VIII, taking into consideration the bondage and heavy yoke that his true and faithful subjects sustained under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, how several fabulous stories and lying wonders misled our subjects, dispensing with the sins of our nations by their indulgences and pardons for gain, purposely to cherish all evil vices, as robberies, rebellions, thefts, whoredoms, blasphemy, idolatry, etc., our gracious Father hereupon dissolved all priories, monasteries, abbeys, and other pretended religious houses, as being but nurseries for vice or luxury, more than for sacred learning, etc. On the day after the common prayer was first used in Christchurch, Dublin, the following wicked scheme was projected by the papists. In the church was left a marble image of Christ, holding a read in his hand with a crown of thorns on his head. Whilst the English service, the common prayer, was being read before the Lord Lieutenant, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Privy Council, the Lord Mayor, and a great congregation, blood was seen to run through the crevices of the crown of thorns, and trickle down the face of the image. On this some of the contrivers of the imposture cried aloud, See how our Saviour's image sweats blood, but it must necessarily do this since heresy is common to the church. Immediately many of the lower order of people, indeed the vulgar of all ranks, were terrified at the sight of so miraculous and undeniable in evidence of the divine displeasure. They hastened from the church, convinced that the doctrines of Protestantism emanated from an infernal source, and that salvation was only to be found in the bosom of their own infallible church. This incident, however ludicrous it may appear to the enlightened reader, had great influence over the minds of the ignorant Irish, and answered the ends of the impudent impostors who contrived it, so far as to check the progress of the Reformed religion in Ireland very materially. Many persons could not resist the conviction that there were many errors and corruptions in the Romish church, but they were awed into silence by this pretended manifestation of divine wrath, which was magnified beyond measure by the bigoted and interested priesthood. We have very few particulars as to the state of religion in Ireland during the remaining portion of the reign of Edward VI, and the greater part of that of Mary. Towards the conclusion of the barbarous sway of that relentless bigot, she attempted to extend her inhuman persecutions to this island. But her diabolical intentions were happily frustrated in the following providential manner, the particulars of which are related by historians of good authority. Mary had appointed Dr. Pol, an agent of the bloodthirsty Bonner, one of the commissioners for carrying her barbarous intentions into effect. He having arrived at Chester with his commission, the mayor of that city, being a papist, waited upon him. When the doctor taking out of his cloak bag a leathern case said to him, Here is a commission that shall lash the heretics of Ireland, the good woman of the house being a Protestant, and having a brother in Dublin, named John Edmonds, was greatly troubled at what she heard. But watching her opportunity, whilst the mayor was taking his leave, and the doctor politely accompanying him downstairs, she opened the box, took out the commission, and in its stead laid a sheet of paper with a pack of cards and the nave of clubs at top. The doctor, not suspecting the trick that had been played him, put up the box, and arrived with it in Dublin in September 1558. Anxious to accomplish the intentions of his pious mistress, he immediately awaited upon Lord Fitzwalter, at that time Viceroy, and presented the box to him, which being opened was nothing found in it but a pack of cards. This startling all the persons present, his lordship said, We must procure another commission, and in the meantime let us shuffle the cards. Dr. Pol, however, would have directly returned to England to get another commission, but waiting for a favourable wind, news arrived that Queen Mary was dead, and by this means the Protestants escaped a most cruel persecution. The above relation, as we before observed, is confirmed by historians of the greatest credit, who add that Queen Elizabeth settled a pension of forty pounds per annum upon the above mentioned Elizabeth Edmonds for having thus saved the lives of her Protestant subjects. During the reigns of Elizabeth and James I, Ireland was almost constantly agitated by rebellions and insurrections, which, although not always taking their eyes from the difference of religious opinions between the English and Irish, were aggravated and rendered more bitter and irreconcilable from that cause. The popish priests artfully exaggerated the faults of the English government, and continually urged their ignorant and prejudiced hearers, the lawfulness of killing the Protestants, assuring them that all Catholics who were slain in the persecution of so pious an enterprise would be immediately received into everlasting felicity. The naturally ungovernable dispositions of the Irish, acted upon by these designing men, drove them into continual acts of barbarous and unjustifiable violence, and it must be confessed that the unsettled and arbitrary nature of the authority exercised by the English governors was but little calculated to gain their affections. The Spaniards, too, by landing forces in the south, and giving every encouragement to the discontented natives to join their standard, kept the island in a continual state of turbulence and warfare. In 1601 they disembarked a body of four thousand men at Kinsale, and commenced what they called the Holy War for the Preservation of the Faith in Ireland. They were assisted by great numbers of the Irish, but were at length totally defeated by the deputy, Lord Mountjoy, and his officers. This closed the transactions of Elizabeth's reign with respect to Ireland. An interval of apparent tranquility followed, but the popish priesthood, ever restless in designing, sought to undermine by secret machinations that government and that faith which they durst no longer openly attack. The Pacific reign of James afforded them the opportunity of increasing their strength and maturing their schemes, and under his successor, Charles I, their numbers were greatly increased by titular Romish archbishops, bishops, deans, vicar general, abbots, priests, and friars, for which reason, in 1629, the public exercise of the popish rites and ceremonies was forbidden. But notwithstanding this, soon afterwards the Romish clergy erected a new popish university in the city of Dublin. They also proceeded to build monasteries and nunneries in various parts of the kingdom, in which places these very Romish clergy and the chiefs of the Irish held frequent meetings, and from thence used to pass to and fro to France, Spain, Flanders, Lorraine, and Rome, where the detestable plot of 1641 was hatching by the family of the O'Neill's and their followers. A short time before the Horde conspiracy broke out, which we are now going to relate, the papis in Ireland had presented a remonstrance to the Lord's justice of that kingdom, demanding the free exercise of their religion, and a repeal of all laws to the contrary, to which both houses of parliament in England solemnly answered that they would never grant any toleration to the popish religion in that kingdom. This further irritated the papis to put in execution the diabolical plot concerted for the destruction of the Protestants, and it failed not of the success wished for by its malicious and rankerous projectors. The design of this Horde conspiracy was that a general insurrection should take place at the same time throughout the kingdom, in that all the Protestants, without exception, should be murdered. The day fixed for this Horde massacre was the 23rd of October 1641, the Feast of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and the chief conspirators in the principal parts of the kingdom made the necessary preparations for the intended conflict. In order that this detested scheme might the more infallibly succeed, the most distinguished artifices were practiced by the papists, and their behavior in their visits to the Protestants at this time was with more seeming kindness than they had hitherto shown, which was done the more completely to affect the inhuman and treacherous designs than meditating against them. The execution of this savage conspiracy was delayed until the approach of winter, that sending troops from England might be attended with greater difficulty. Cardinal Richelieu, the French minister, had promised the conspirators a considerable supply of men and money, and many Irish officers had given the strongest assurances that they would heartily concur with their Catholic brethren as soon as the insurrection took place. The day proceeding that appointed for carrying this Horde design into execution was now arrived, when, happily, for the metropolis of the kingdom, the conspiracy was discovered by one Owen O'Connolly, an Irishman for which most signal service the English Parliament voted him £500 and a pension of £200 during his life. So very seasonably was this plot discovered, even but a few hours before the city and castle of Dublin were to have been surprised, that the Lord's justice had but just time to put themselves and the city in a proper posture of defence. Lord McGuire, who was the principal leader here, with his accomplices, was seized the same evening in the city, and in their lodgings were found swords, hatchets, poleaxes, hammers, and such other instruments of death as had been prepared for the destruction and extirpation of the Protestants in that part of the kingdom. Thus was the metropolis happily preserved, but the bloody part of the intended tragedy was past prevention. The conspirators were in arms all over the kingdom early in the morning of the day appointed, and every Protestant who fell in their way was immediately murdered. No age, no sacks, no condition was spared. The wife weeping for her butchered husband and embracing her helpless children was pierced with them, and perished by the same stroke. The old, the young, the vigorous, and the infirm underwent the same fate, and were blended in one common ruin. In vain did flight save from the first assault, destruction was everywhere let loose, and met the hunted victims at every turn. In vain was recourse had to relations, to companions, to friends. All connections were dissolved, and death was dealt by that hand from which protection was implored and expected. Without provocation, without opposition, the astonished English, living in profound peace, and, as they thought, full security, were massacred by their nearest neighbors, with whom they had long maintained a continued intercourse of kindness and good offices. Nay, even death was the slightest punishment inflicted by these monsters in human form. All the tortures which wanton cruelty could invent, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge, excited without injury, and cruelty, and cruelly derive from no just cause whatever. Depraved nature, even perverted religion, though encouraged by the utmost license, cannot reach to a greater pitch of ferocity than appeared in these merciless barbarians. Even the weaker sex themselves, naturally tender to their own sufferings, and compassionate to those of others, have emulated their robust companions in the practice of every cruelty. The very children, taught by example and encouraged by the exhortation of their parents, dealt their feeble blows on the dead carcasses of the defenseless children of the English. Nor was the average of the Irish sufficient to produce the least restraint on their cruelty. Such was their frenzy that the cattle they had seized, and by rapine had made their own, were, because they bore the name of English, wantonly slaughtered, or, when covered with wounds, turned loose into the woods, there to perish by slow and lingering torments. The commodious habitations of the planters were laid in ashes, or leveled with ground, and where the wretched owners had shut themselves up in the houses, and were preparing for defense, they perished in the flames together with their wives and children. Such is the general description of this unparalleled massacre. But it now remains from the nature of our work that we proceed to particulars. The bigoted and merciless papists had no sooner begun to imbrew their hands in blood, then they repeated the horrid tragedy day after day, and the Protestants in all parts of the kingdom fell victims to their fury by deaths of the most unheard of cruelty. The ignorant Irish were more strongly instigated to execute the infernal business by the Jesuits, priests, and friars, who, when the day for the execution of the plot was agreed on, recommended in their prayers diligence in the great design which they said would greatly tend to the prosperity of the kingdom, and to the advancement of the Catholic cause. They everywhere declared to the common people that the Protestants were heretics, and ought not to be suffered to live any longer among them, adding that it was no more sin to kill an Englishman than to kill a dog, and that the relieving or protecting them was a crime of the utmost unpardonable nature. The papists having besieged the town and castle of Longford, and the inhabitants of the latter, who were Protestants, surrendering on condition of being allowed quarter, the besiegers, the instant the townspeople appeared, attacked them in a most unmerciful manner. Their priests, as a signal for the rest to fall on, first ripping open the belly of the English Protestant minister, after which his followers murdered all the rest, some of whom they hanged, others were stabbed or shot, and great numbers knocked on the head with axes provided for the purpose. The garrison at Sligo was treated in like manner by O'Connor Sligo, who, upon the Protestants quitting their holds, promised them quarter, and to convey them safe over the Curlew Mountains to Rokamon. But he first imprisoned them in a most loathsome jail, allowing them only grains for their food. Afterward, when some papists were merry over their cups, who were come to congratulate their wicked brethren for their victory over these unhappy creatures, those Protestants who survived were brought forth by the White Friars and were either killed or precipitated over the bridge into a swift river where they were soon destroyed. It is added that this wicked company of White Friars went some time after in solemn procession with holy water in their hands to sprinkle the river, on pretense of cleansing and purifying it from the stains and pollution of the blood and dead bodies of the heretics, as they called the unfortunate Protestants who were inhumanely slaughtered at this very time. At Kilmore, Dr. Bedel, Bishop of that sea, had charitably settled and supported a great number of distressed Protestants, who had fled from their habitations to escape the diabolical cruelties committed by the papists. But they did not enjoy the consolation of living together. The good prelate was forcibly dragged from his Episcopal residence, which was immediately occupied by Dr. Swiney, the Pope's titular bishop of Kilmore, who set mass in the church the Sunday following, and then seized on all the goods and effects belonging to the persecuted bishop. Soon after this, the papists forced Dr. Bedel, his two sons, and the rest of his family, with some of the chief of the Protestants whom he had protected, into a ruinous castle called Lochwater, situated in a lake near the sea. Here he remained with his companions some weeks, all of them daily expecting to be put to death. The greatest part of them were stripped naked, by which means, as the season was cold, it being in the month of December, and the building in which they were confined open at the top, they suffered the most severe hardships. They continued in this situation until the 7th of January, when they were all released. The bishop was courteously received into the house of Dennis O'Sheridan, one of his clergy, whom he had made a convert to the Church of England, but he did not long survive this kindness. During his residence here he spent the whole of his time in religious exercises, the better to fit and prepare himself and his sorrowful companions for their great change, as nothing but certain death was perpetually before their eyes. He was at this time in the 71st year of his age, and being afflicted with a violent egg caught in his late cold and desolate habitation on the lake, it soon threw him into a fever of the most dangerous nature. Finding his dissolution at hand, he received it with joy, like one of the primitive martyrs just hastening to his crown of glory. After having addressed his little flock, and exhorted them to patience, in the most pathetic manner as they saw their own last day approaching, after having solemnly blessed his people, his family, and his children, he finished the course of his ministry and life together on the 7th of February 1642. His friends and relations applied to the intruding bishop for leave to bury him, which was with difficulty obtained, he at first telling them that the churchyard was holy ground and should be no longer defiled with heretics, however leave was at last granted. And though the church funeral service was not used at the solemnity, for fear of the Irish Papists, yet some of the better sort, who had the highest veneration for him while living, attended his remains to the grave. At this interment, they discharged a volley of shot, crying out, Rithquiat in bache ultimus aglorum, that is, may the last of the English rest in peace. Adding that as he was one of the best, so he should be the last English bishop found among them. His learning was very extensive, and he would have given the world a greater proof of it had he printed all he wrote. Scarce any of his writings were saved, the Papis having destroyed most of his papers and his library. He had gathered a vast heap of critical expositions of scripture, all which with a great trunk full of his manuscripts fell into the hands of the Irish. Happily, his great Hebrew manuscript was preserved, and is now in the library of Immanuel College, Oxford. End of Chapter 17, Part 1. Recording by J. R. Omehen. Chapter 17, Part 2 of Fax's Book of Martyrs, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jason Justice. Fox's Book of Martyrs, Volume 2 by John Fox. Edited by William Byron Forbush. Chapter 17. Rise and Progress of the Protestant Religion in Ireland. With an account of the barbarous massacre of 1641, Part 2. In the barony of Turali, the Papis set the instigation of the friars, compelled above forty English Protestants, some of whom were women and children, to the hard fate of either falling by the sword or of drowning in the sea. These choosing the latter were accordingly forced by the naked weapons of their inexorable persecutors into the deep where, with their children in their arms, they waded up to their chins and afterwards sunk down and perished together. In the castle of Lisgul, upwards of one hundred and fifty men, women and children, were all burnt together, and at the castle of Monea, not less than one hundred, were all put to the sword. Great numbers were also murdered at the castle of Tula, which was delivered up to Maguire on condition of having fair quarter, but no sooner had that base villain got possession of the place than he ordered his followers to murder the people, which was immediately done with the greatest cruelty. Many others were put to deaths of the most horrid nature, and such as could have been invented only by demons instead of men. Some of them were laid with the center of their backs, on the axel tree of a carriage, with their legs resting on the ground on one side, and their arms and head on the other. In this position, one of the savages scorched the wretched object on the thighs, legs, etc., while another set on furious dogs, who tore to pieces the arms and upper parts of the body, and in this dreadful manner, were they deprived of their existence. Great numbers were fastened to horses' tails, and the beasts being set on full gallop by their riders, the wretched victims were dragged along until they expired. Others were hung on lofty gibbets, and a fire being killed under them. They finished their lives, partly by hanging, and partly by suffocation. Nor did the more tender sex escape the least particle of cruelty that could be projected by their merciless and furious persecutors. Many women of all ages were put to death of the most cruel nature. Some, in particular, were fastened with their backs to strong posts, and being stripped to their waists. The inhuman monsters cut off their right breasts with shears, which, of course, put them to the most excruciating torments. And in this position they were left, until, from the loss of blood they expired. Such was the savage ferocity of these barbarians, that even unborn infants were dragged from the womb to become victims to their rage. Many unhappy mothers were hung naked in the branches of trees, and their bodies being cut open the innocent offsprings were taken from them, and thrown to the dogs and swine. And to increase the horrid scene they would oblige the husband to be a spectator before suffering himself. At the town of Isincathe they hanged above a hundred Scottish Protestants, showing them no more mercy than they did to the English. McGuire, going to the castle of that town, desired to speak with the governor. When being admitted he immediately burnt the records of the county which were kept there. He then demanded one thousand pounds of the governor, which, having received, he immediately compelled him to hear mass and to swear that he would continue to do so, and to complete his horrid barbarities. He ordered the wife and children of the governor to be hanged before his face, besides massacring at least one hundred of the inhabitants. Upward of one thousand men, women and children, were driven, in different companies, to port a downed bridge, which was broken in the middle, and there compelled to throw themselves into the water, and such as attempted to reach the shore were knocked on the head. In the same part of the country at least four thousand persons were drowned in different places. The inhuman papists, after stripping them, drove them like beasts, to the spot fixed on for their destruction, and if any, through fatigue or natural infirmities were slack in their pace, they pricked them with their swords and pikes, and to strike terror on the multitude they murdered some by the way. Many of these poor wretches, when thrown into the water, endeavored to save themselves by swimming to the shore, but their merciless persecutors prevented their endeavours taking effect by shooting them in the water. In one place, one hundred and forty English, after being driven for many miles stark naked, and in the most severe weather, were all murdered on the same spot, some being hanged, others burnt, some shot, and many of them burned alive, and so cruel were their tormentors that they would not suffer them to pray before they robbed them of their miserable existence. Other companies they took under the pretense of safe conduct, who, from that consideration, proceeded cheerfully on their journey, but when the treacherous papists had got them to a convenient spot, they butchered them all in the most cruel manner. One hundred and fifteen men, women, and children were conducted by order of Sir Phelan O'Neill to Portodown Bridge, where they were all forced into the river, and drowned. One woman, named Campbell, finding no probability of escaping, suddenly clasped one of the chief papists in her arms, and held him so fast that they were both drowned together. In Kiliman they massacred forty-eight families, among whom twenty-two were burnt together in one house. The rest were either hanged, shot, or drowned. In Kilmore, the inhabitants which consisted of about two hundred families, all fell victims to their rage. Some of them sat in the stocks until they confessed where their money was, after which they put them to death. The whole county was one common scene of butchery, and many thousands perished in a short time, by sword, famine, fire, and others the most cruel deaths that rage and malice could invent. These bloody villains showed so much favor to some as to dispatch them immediately, but they would by no means suffer them to pray. Others they imprisoned in filthy dungeons, putting heavy bolts on their legs, and keeping them there until they were starved to death. At Kassel they put all the Protestants into a loathsome dungeon, where they kept them together for several weeks in the greatest misery. At length they were released. When some of them were barbarously mangled and left on the highways to perish at leisure, others were hanged, and some were buried in the ground upright, with their heads above the earth, and the papus to increase their misery treating them with derision during their sufferings. In the country of Antrim they murdered nine hundred and fifty-four Protestants in one morning, and afterwards about twelve hundred more in that county. At a town called Langary they forced twenty-four Protestants into a house, and then setting fire to it burned them together, counter-fitting their outcries and derision to the others. Among other acts of cruelty they took two children belonging to an English woman and dashed out their brains before her face, after which they threw the mother into a river and she was drowned. They served many other children in the like manner, to the great affliction of their parents, and the disgrace of human nature. In Kilkenny all the Protestants without exception were put to death, and some of them in so cruel a manner as perhaps was never before thought of. They beat an English woman with such savage barbarity that she had scarce a whole bone left, after which they threw her into a ditch, but not satisfied with this they took her child, a girl of about six years of age, and after ripping its belly through it to its mother, there to languish until it perished. They forced one man to go to mass, after which they ripped open his body, and in that manner left him. They sawed another asunder, cut the throat of his wife, and after having dashed out the brains of their child and infant, threw it to the swine who greedily devoured it. After committing these and several other horrid cruelties they took the heads of seven Protestants, and among them that of a pious minister, all of which they fixed up at the market cross. They put a gag in the minister's mouth, then slit his cheeks to his ears, and laying a leaf of a Bible before it, bid him preach, for his mouth was wide enough. They did several other things by way of derision, and expressed the greatest satisfaction at having thus murdered and exposed the unhappy Protestants. It is impossible to conceive the pleasure these monsters took in exercising their cruelty, and to increase the misery of those who fell into their hands, when they butchered them they would say, Your soul to the devil, one of these miscreants would come into a house, with his hands imbued in blood, and boast that it was English blood, and that his sword had pricked the white skins of the Protestants, even to the hilt. When any one of them had killed a Protestant, others would come and receive gratification and cutting and mangling the body, after which they left it exposed to be devoured by dogs, and when they had slain a number of them they would boast that the devil was beholden to them for sending so many souls to hell. But it is no wonder they should thus treat the innocent Christians, when they hesitated not to commit blasphemy against God in his most holy word. In one place they burnt two Protestant Bibles, and then said they had burnt Hellfire. In the church at Powers Court they burnt the pulpit, pews, chests, and Bibles belonging to it. They took other Bibles, and after wetting them with dirty water, dashed them in the faces of the Protestants saying, We know you love a good lesson. Here is an excellent one for you. Come tomorrow, and you shall have as good a sermon as this. Some of the Protestants they dragged by the hair of their heads into the church where they stripped and whipped them in the most cruel manner, telling them at the same time that if they came tomorrow they should hear the like sermon. In Munster they put to death several ministers in the most shocking manner. One in particular they stripped Starknaked, and driving him before them pricked him with swords and darts until he fell down and expired. In some places they plucked out the eyes and cut off the hands of the Protestants, and in that manner turned them into the fields there to wander out their miserable existence. They obliged many young men to force their aged parents to a river where they were drowned, wives to assist in the hanging of their husbands, and mothers to cut the throats of their children. In one place they compelled the young man to kill his father, and then immediately hanged him. In another they forced a woman to kill her husband, and then obliged the son to kill her, and afterwards shot him through the head. At a place called Glaslow, a Popish priest, with some others prevailed on 40 Protestants to be reconciled to the Church of Rome. They had no sooner done this than they told them they were in good faith, and that they would prevent their falling from it and turning heretics by sending them out of this world, which they did by immediately cutting their throats. In the county of Tipperary, upwards of 30 Protestants, men, women, and children, fell into the hands of the Papists, who, after stripping them naked, murdered them with stones, whole axes, swords, and other weapons. In the county of Mayo, about 60 Protestants, 15 of whom were ministers, were, upon covenant, to be safely conducted to Galway, by one Edmund Burke and his soldiers, but that in human monster by the way drew his sword, as an intimation of his design to the rest, who immediately followed his example and murdered the whole, some of whom they stabbed, others were run through the body with pikes, and several were drowned. In Queens County, great numbers of Protestants were put to the most shocking deaths. Fifty or sixty were placed together in one house, which, being set on fire, they all perished in the flames. Many were stripped naked, and being fastened to horses by ropes placed around their middles, were dragged through bogs until they expired. Some were hung by the feet to tenor hooks, driven into poles, and then in that wretched posture left until they perished. Others were fastened to the trunk of a tree, with a branch at the top. Over this branch hung one arm, which principally supported the weight of the body, and one of the legs was turned up and fastened to the trunk, while the other hung straight. In this dreadful and uneasy posture did they remain as long as life would permit pleasing spectacles to their bloodthirsty persecutors. At Clowns, seventeen men were buried alive, and in Englishmen his wife, five children, and a servant maid were all hanged together, and afterward thrown into a ditch. They hung many by the arms to the branches of trees, with a weight to their feet, and others by the middle, in which posture they left them until they expired. Several were hanged on windmills, and before they were half dead the barbarians cut them in pieces with their swords. Others, both men, women, and children, they cut and hacked in various parts of their bodies, and left them wallowing in their blood to perish, where they fell. One poor woman they hanged on a givet, with her child, an infant, about a twelve month old, the latter of whom was hanged by the neck with the hair of its mother's head, and in that manner finished its short, miserable existence. In the county of Tyrone, no less than three hundred Protestants were drowned in one day, and many others were hanged, burned, and otherwise put to death. Dr. Maxwell, rector of Tyrone, lived at this time near Arma, and suffered greatly from these merciless savages. This person, in his examination, taken upon oath before the King's commissioners, declared that the Irish papists owned to him, that they, at several times, had destroyed in one place twelve thousand Protestants, whom they inhumanly slaughtered at Glenwood, in their flight from the county of Arma. As the river ban was not affordable, and the bridge broken down, the Irish forced Sither at different times a great number of unarmed defenseless Protestants, and with pikes and swords violently thrust about one thousand into the river where they miserably perished. Nor did the Cathedral of Arma escape the fury of those barbarians, it being maliciously set on fire by their leaders, and burnt to the ground. And to extra pay, if possible, the very race of those unhappy Protestants, who lived in or near Arma, the Irish first burnt all their houses, and then gathered together many hundreds of those innocent people young and old, on pretense of allowing them a guard and safe conduct to coloring, when they treacherously fell on them by the way, and inhumanly murdered them. The like horrid barbarities, with those we have particularized, were practiced on the wretched Protestants in almost all parts of the kingdom, and when an estimate was afterward made of the number who were sacrificed to gratify diabolical souls of the papists, it amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand, but it now remains that we proceed to the particulars that followed. These desperate wretches, flushed and grown insolent with success, though by methods attended with such excessive barbarities as perhaps not to be equaled, soon got possession of the Castle of Neury, where the king's stores and ammunition were lodged, and, with as little difficulty, made themselves masters of Dundal. They afterward took the town of R.D., where they murdered all the Protestants, and then proceeded to Drogheda. The garrison of Drogheda was in no condition to sustain a siege, notwithstanding which, as often as the Irish renewed their attacks, they were vigorously repulsed by a very unequal number of the king's forces, and a few faithful Protestant citizens under Sir Henry Tickborn, the governor, assisted by the Lord Viscount Moore. The siege of Drogheda began on the thirtieth of November, 1641, and held until the fourth of March, 1642, when Sir Philharmoniel and the Irish miscreants under him were forced to retire. In the meantime, ten thousand troops were sent from Scotland to the remaining Protestants in Ireland, which, being properly divided in the most capital parts of the kingdom, happily eclipsed the power of the Irish savages, and the Protestants for a time lived in tranquility. In the reign of James II, they were again interrupted. For in a parliament held at Dublin in the year 1689, great numbers of the Protestant nobility, clergy, and gentry of Ireland were attained of high treason. The government of the kingdom was, at that time, invested in the Earl of Tyreconel, a bigoted papist, and an inveterate enemy to the Protestants. By his orders they were again persecuted in various parts of the kingdom. The revenues of the city of Dublin were seized, and most of the churches converted into prisons. And had it not been for the resolution and uncommon bravery of the garrisons in the city of Londonderry, and the town of Inesquilin, there had not one place remained for refuge to the distressed Protestants in the old kingdom, but all must have been given up to King James, and to the furious Popish party that governed him. The remarkable Siege of Londonderry was opened on the 18th of April, 1689, by twenty thousand papists, the flower of the Irish army. The city was not properly circumcised to sustain a siege, the defenders consisting of a body of raw undisciplined Protestants who had fled thither for shelter, and half a regiment of Lord Mountjoy's discipline soldiers, with the principal part of the inhabitants making it only 7,361 fighting men. The besieged hoped, at first, that their stores of corn and other necessities would be sufficient, but by the continuance of the siege their wants increased, and these became at last so heavy that for a considerable time before the siege was raised, a pine of coarse barley, a small quantity of greens, few spoonfuls of starch, with a very moderate proportion of horse flesh, were reckoned a week's provision for any soldier, and they were, at length, reduced to such extremities that they ate dogs, cats, and mice. Their miseries increasing with the siege, many, through mere hunger and want, pined and languished away or fell dead in the streets. And it is remarkable that when their long-expected sucurs arrived from England, they were upon the point of being reduced to this alternative, either to preserve their existence by eating each other, or attempting to fight their way through the Irish, which must have infallibly produced their destruction. These sucurs were most happily brought by the ship Mountjoy of Derry, and the Phoenix of Coloring, at which time they had only nine lean horses left, with a pint of meal to each man, by hunger and the fatigues of war, their 7,361 fighting men were reduced to 4,300. One-fourth a part of whom were rendered unserviceable. As the calamities of the besieged were great, so likewise were the terrors and sufferings of their Protestant friends and relations, all of whom, even women and children, were forcibly driven from the country 30 miles round and inhumanly reduced to the sad necessity of continuing some days and nights without food or covering, before the walls of the town, and were thus exposed to the continual fire both of the Irish army from without, and the shots of their friends from within. But the sucurs from England, happily arriving, put an end to their affliction, and the siege was raised on the 31st of July, having been continued upwards of three months. The day before the siege of London Derry was raised, the Innoskillers engaged a body of 6,000 Irish Roman Catholics, at Newton, Butler, or Crown Castle, of whom near 5,000 were slain. This, with the defeat at London Derry, dispirited the Papists, and they gave up all further attempts to persecute the Protestants. The year following, 1690, the Irish took up arms in favour of the abdicated Prince, King James II, but they were totally defeated by his successor, King William III. That monarch, before he left the country, reduced them to a state of subjection, in which they have ever since continued. But notwithstanding all this, the Protestant interest at present stands upon a much stronger basis than it did a century ago. The Irish, who formally led an unsettled and roving life in the woods, bogs, and mountains, and lived on the depredation of their neighbours, they who, in the morning, seized the prey, and at night divided the spoil have, for many years, passed, become quiet and civilized. They taste the sweets of English society, and the advantages of civil government. They trade in our cities, and are employed in our manufactories. They are received also into English families, and treated with great humanity by the Protestants.