Ireland under the Stuarts and during the Interregnum, Vol. I (of 3), 1603-1642. Bagwell, Richard

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ question of religious toleration was one of the first which Chichester had to consider, for the movement in the Munster towns was felt all over Ireland. Priests and Jesuits swarmed everywhere, and John Skelton on being elected Mayor of Dublin refused after much fencing to take the oath of supremacy. Sir John Davies, who had yet much to learn in Ireland, thought that the people would quickly conform if only the priests were banished by proclamation. Saxey, chief justice in Munster, was much of the same opinion, but both these lawyers admitted the insufficiency of the Established Church. The bishops, among whom there were scarcely three good preachers, seemed to them more anxious about their revenues than about the saving of souls.

The penal laws against Recusant

      The experience of James’s only Irish Parliament was to show it was scarcely possible to legislate against the Roman Catholics even when many new boroughs had been created for the express purpose of making a Protestant majority. The Act of Uniformity passed at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign remained in force, but little was done under it as long as she lived. It only provided a fine of one shilling for not attending church on Sundays and holidays, and could have little effect except upon the poor, though it might give great annoyance. Another Act prescribed an oath acknowledging the Queen’s supremacy, both civil and ecclesiastical, and denying that any ‘foreign prince, person, prelate, State, or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction,’ &c. This oath might be administered to all ecclesiastical persons, to judges, justices, and mayors, and to all others in the pay of the Crown on pain of losing their offices. The open maintenance and advocacy of foreign authority was more severely visited, the penalties being the forfeiture of all goods and chattels, real and personal, with a year’s imprisonment in addition, for those not worth 20l. The second offence was a præmunire, and the third high treason. And so the law remained during the whole reign of James. The English oath of allegiance prescribed after the Gunpowder Plot involved a repudiation of the Pope’s deposing power; but this was not extended to Ireland.17

Power of the priesthoodCase of the Jesuit Fitzsimon

      The repressive power in the hands of the Irish Government was weak as against the population in general, but so far as law went it was ample against the priests, who, of course, could not take the oath of supremacy; and against officials who were of the same way of thinking. Mountjoy was successful against the recalcitrant towns, but his back was no sooner turned than Sir George Carey reported that the country swarmed with ‘priests, Jesuits, seminaries, friars, and Romish bishops; if there be not speedy means to free this kingdom of this wicked rabble, much mischief will burst forth in a very short time. There are here so many of this wicked crew, as are able to disquiet four of the greatest kingdoms in Christendom. It is high time they were banished, and none to receive or aid them. Let the judges and officers be sworn to the supremacy; let the lawyers go to the church and show conformity, or not plead at the bar, and then the rest by degrees will shortly follow.’ Protestant bishops naturally agreed, though Sir John Davies thought their own neglect had a good deal to say to the matter; but he admitted that the Jesuits came ‘not only to plant their religion, but to withdraw the subject from his allegiance, and so serve the turn of Tyrone and the King of Spain.’ Now that Ireland was at peace, he thought it probable that they would gladly go away, and cites the case of Fitzsimon, a Jesuit who had petitioned to be banished. Fitzsimon, however, had been five years a prisoner in the Castle, during one month of which he had converted seven Protestants, including the head warder. The King released him mainly on the ground that he did not meddle in secular matters, and he was on the Continent till 1630, when he returned to Ireland and lived there till long after the great outbreak of 1641. About the time of Fitzsimon’s release the Protestant Bishop of Ossory was able to give the names of thirty priests who haunted his diocese, including the famous Jesuit James Archer, who was said to have legatine authority. Archer was closely connected with Tyrone, and had been his frequent companion in London, disguised as a courtier or as a farmer, and busy with Irish prisoners in the Tower. Davies advised that priests and Jesuits should be captured when possible and sent to England, where the penal laws could take hold of them; and if this were done, he thought all Ireland would go comfortably to church. Chief Justice Saxey gave much the same advice in a more truculent form. The opinions of all Englishmen officially concerned with Ireland are reflected in the King’s famous proclamation of July 4, 1605, which Chichester, who had then succeeded to the government, found awaiting him in Dublin on his return from the north.18

Royal Proclamation against Toleration

      James begins by repudiating the idea prevailing in Ireland since the Queen’s death that he intended ‘to give liberty of conscience or toleration of religion to his subjects in that kingdom contrary to the express laws and statutes therein enacted.’ He insisted everywhere on uniformity, resenting all rumours to the contrary as an imputation on himself, and even, as was reported, declaring that he would fight to his knees in blood rather than grant toleration. Owing to false rumours, the Jesuits and other priests of foreign ordination had left their lurking-places and presumptuously exercised their functions without concealment. The King therefore announced that he would never do any act to ‘confirm the hopes of any creature that they should ever have from him any toleration to exercise any other religion than that which is agreeable to God’s Word and is established by the laws of the realm.’ All subjects were therefore charged to attend church or to suffer the penalties provided. As to the Jesuits and others who sought to alienate their hearts from their sovereign, ‘taking upon themselves the ordering and deciding of causes, both before and after they have received judgments in the King’s courts of record … all priests whatsoever made and ordained by any authority derived or pretended to be derived from the See of Rome shall, before the 10th day of December, depart out of the kingdom of Ireland.’ All officers were to apprehend them and no one to harbour them, on pain of the punishments provided by law. If, however, any such Jesuit or priest would come to the Lord Lieutenant or Council, conform, and repair to church, he was to have the same liberties and privileges as the rest of his Majesty’s subjects.

The Proclamation fails

      Devonshire, however, who was still Lord Lieutenant, was opposed to making any curious search for priests who did not ostentatiously obstruct the Government, and his views prevailed with the English Council. Chichester willingly acquiesced, and reported some weeks after the appointed day that no priests, seminaries, or Jesuits of any importance had left the country and that searches, even if desirable, would be useless, ‘for every town, hamlet, or house is to them a sanctuary.’ Just about Carrickfergus, where he was personally known, some secular priests had conformed, and Davies, who thought Government could do everything, believed the multitude would naturally follow. ‘So it happened,’ he said, ‘in King Edward the Sixth’s days, when more than half the kingdom of England were Papists; and again in the time of Queen Mary, when more than half the kingdom were Protestants; and again in Queen Elizabeth’s time, when they were turned Papists again.’ He did not see that the national sentiment of England was permanently hostile to Roman aggression, while the authority of the Crown was accepted as the only refuge against anarchy. The state of feeling which existed in Ireland was just the opposite.19

Sir John Everard’s case

      Sir John Everard, second justice of the King’s Bench, was ordered to conform or resign, though admitted to be a very honest and learned man. It was so difficult to find a successor for this able judge that he was continued in office for eighteen months after the King’s order, when he resigned rather than take the oath of supremacy. Of his loyalty in civil matters there was no question, and he received a pension of a hundred marks, which Chichester wished to make a hundred pounds. In 1608, when the Irish refugees in Spain contemplated a descent upon Ireland, Everard refused to take part in the plot, and he lived to contest the Speakership with Sir John Davies in the Parliament of 1613.20

Vacillation of Government

      December passed, and yet none of the priests had left the country. The Gunpowder Plot was discovered in the meantime, but there was no evidence of ramifications in Ireland, and the English Government half drew back from the policy of the late royal proclamation. It was decided, СКАЧАТЬ