History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution - Volume 2 by James MacCaffrey (free e books to read online txt) 📖

Treaty of Limerick,[12] but his protest produced no effect in England or in Ireland.

The whole army of government officials, Protestant ministers, and spies were set to work to discover what persons had left Ireland to go abroad for education, to seize all priests found entering the country, and to take measures against those in the country who neglected to register themselves as they had been commanded to do. One hundred and eighty-nine priests were registered in Ulster, three hundred and fifty-two in Leinster, two hundred and eighty-nine in Munster, and two hundred and fifty-nine in Connaught.[13] Against the laity, too, the full penalties of the law were enforced, but yet it is satisfactory to note that in the year 1703 only four certificates of conformity were filed, sixteen in 1704, three in 1705, five in 1706, two in 1707, and seven in 1708.[14] It was clear, therefore, that if the Catholic religion was to be suppressed recourse must be had to even more extreme measures. In 1709 an act was passed ordering all priests to take the Oath of Abjuration before the 25th March 1710, unless they wished to incur all the pains and penalties levelled against the regular clergy.[15] By the Oath of Abjuration they were supposed to declare that the Pretender "hath not any right or title whatsoever to the crown of this realm or any other the dominions thereunto belonging," that they would uphold the Protestant succession, and that they made this declaration "heartily, willingly, and truly." Rewards were laid down for the encouragement of informers, £50 being allowed for discovering an archbishop, bishop, vicar, or any person exercising foreign jurisdiction, £20 for the discovery of a regular or a non- registered secular priest, and £10 for the discovery of a Popish schoolmaster. To facilitate the arrest of the clergy it was provided that any two justices of the peace might summon Catholics before them and interrogate them under oath when and where they heard Mass last, what priest officiated, and who were present at the ceremony. Failure to give the required information about Mass, priests, or school- masters was to be punished by imprisonment for twelve months or until the guilty person paid a fine of £20. A pension of £20 a year, increased afterwards to £40, was provided for those priests who left the Catholic Church.[16] As regards lay Catholics further measures were taken to encourage the children of Catholic parents to become Protestant by ordaining that in such a case the Court of Chancery could interfere and dictate to the father what provision he must make for such children. Similarly wives of Catholics were encouraged to submit by the promise that the Court of Chancery would interfere to safeguard their interests. Stringent regulations were made to ensure that all pretended converts engaged in the professions and in public offices should rear their children in the Protestant faith, and to ensure that no Catholic could teach school publicly or privately or even act as usher in a Protestant school.

The priests, though not unwilling to take a simple oath of allegiance, refused as a body to take the Oath of Abjuration, and immediately they became liable to all the punishments directed against the bishops and regulars. Wholesale arrests took place over the country; spies were employed to track them down; the men who had gone security for their good behaviour in 1704 were commanded to bring them in under threat of having the recognisances estreated; judges were ordered to make inquiries at the assizes; and Catholics were called upon to discover on their clergy by giving information about the priests who celebrated Mass. The search was carried on even more vigorously in Munster and Connaught than in Ulster and Leinster, so that during the remainder of the reign of Queen Anne no priest in any part of Ireland could officiate publicly with safety.[17] Petitions were drawn up and forwarded to all the Catholic sovereigns of Europe, asking them to intercede for their co-religionists in Ireland, but though many of them did instruct their representatives in London to take action, their appeals and remonstrances produced very little effect.[18] At the same time the laws in regard to Catholic property, and Catholic education were enforced with great severity, particular care being taken that only Protestants should be recognised as guardians of Catholic minors or orphans, and that the guardians should rear the children as Protestants. Against the law, the wishes or even the last testament of a dying father were of no avail.[19]

During the reign of George I. (1714-27) there was very little improvement in the condition of the Catholics of Ireland. Indeed, in regard to legal enactments their condition was rendered much worse. They were obliged to pay double the contribution of their Protestant neighbours for the support of the militia; their horses could be seized for the use of the militia; they were prevented from acting as petty constables or from having any voice in determining the amount to be levied off them for the building and repairing of Protestant churches or for the maintenance of Protestant worship. In 1719 a new and more violent measure was passed by the House of Commons, according to one of the clauses of which all unregistered priests caught in Ireland were to be branded with a red-hot iron upon the cheek. The Irish privy council changed this penalty into mutilation, but when the bill was sent to England for approval the original clause was restored. For purely technical reasons the bill never became law.[20] In 1742 another bill was introduced and passed by both Houses in Dublin by which all unregistered priests who did not depart out of Ireland before March 1724 were to be punished as guilty of high treason unless they consented to take the Oath of Abjuration; a similar punishment was decreed against bishops, vicars, deans, and monks without allowing them any alternative; all persons adjudged guilty of receiving or affording assistance to priests were to be put to death as felons "without benefit of clergy;" Popish schoolmasters and tutors were to undergo a like punishment, and to ensure that the law would be enforced ample rewards were given to all informers. But when the bill was sent to England it failed to receive the sanction of the king and privy council, and was therefore allowed to lapse.[21]

The results of these laws made to secure the extirpation of the Catholic religion were to be seen in 1731 when a systematic inquiry was conducted by the Protestant ministers and bishops into the condition of the Catholics in every single parish in Ireland. In Armagh there were only twenty-five "Mass-houses," some of them being mere cabins; in Meath there were one hundred and eight; in Clogher only nine although in addition it was reported that there were forty- six altars where the people heard Mass in the open air; in Raphoe one "old Mass-house," one recently erected, "one cabin, and two sheds;" in Derry there were nine Mass-houses, all "mean, inconsiderable buildings," but Mass was said in most parts of the diocese in open fields, or under some shed set up occasionally for shelter; in Dromore there were two Mass-houses, and "two old forts were Masses are constantly said;" and in Down there were five Mass-houses, but in addition the priests celebrated "in private houses or on the mountains." In the diocese of Dublin it was reported that the number of Mass-houses amounted to fifty-eight, sixteen of which were situated within the city; in Ferns there were thirty-one together with eleven "moveable altars in the fields;" in Leighlin, twenty-eight, besides three altars in the fields and three private chapels, and in Ossory their were thirty-two "old Mass-houses" and eighteen built since the reign of George I. In Cashel there were forty "Mass-houses," and it was noted particularly that one was being built at Tipperary, "in the form of a cross, ninety-two feet by seventy-two;" in Cloyne there were seventy Mass-houses. In Tuam the Protestant archbishop reported that there were Mass-houses in most parishes; in Elphin it was reckoned that there were forty-seven "Mass-houses," a few of them being huts; in Killala there were four, in Achonry thirteen, in Clonfert forty, and in Kilmacduagh there were thirteen. But in a remarkable fact that in spite of all the legal penalties directed against the priests, and of all the work that was being done by the government officials, the "priest-catchers," whose profession according to the Irish House of Commons was an honourable one, and by the magistrates, and ministers, there was a very large number of secular priests still ministering to the people and also of friars, who were reported as being active in preaching to the people sometimes in private houses and sometimes in the open fields. And it is even still more remarkable that despite the vigilance of the Protestant bishops there were even then over five hundred "popish schools" in some of which the classics were taught, and there were besides several schoolmasters who moved from place to place. The Protestant Bishop of Derry announced with a considerable amount of pride that there were not any popish schools in his diocese. "Sometimes," he said, "a straggling schoolmaster sets up in some of the mountainous parts of some parishes, but upon being threatened, as they constantly are, with a warrant, or a presentment by the church- wardens, they generally think proper to withdraw."[22]

During the reign of George II. (1727-60) the persecution began to abate, though more than one new measure was added to the penal laws. Primate Boulter, who was practically speaking ruler of the country during his term of office, was alarmed at the large number of Papists still in the country-five to one was his estimate-and at the presence of close on three thousand priests, and suggested new schemes for the overthrow of Popery. The Catholics were deprived of their votes at parliamentary or municipal elections lest Protestant members might be inclined to curry favour with them by opposing the penal code; barristers, clerks, attornies, solicitors, etc., were not to be admitted to practice unless they had taken the oaths and declarations which no Catholic could take; converts to Protestantism were to be treated similarly unless they could produce reliable evidence that they had lived as Protestants for two years, and that they were rearing their children as Protestants. Very severe laws had been laid down already against marriages between Catholics and Protestants, but as such marriages still took place, it was declared that the priest who celebrated such marriages was to be reputed guilty of felony, that after the 1st May 1746 all marriages between Catholics and persons who had been Protestants within the twelve months preceding the marriage, should be null and void, as should also all marriages between Protestants if celebrated in the presence of a priest. Later on the death penalty was decreed against priests who assisted at such unions.[23] Finally, through the exertions of Primate Boulter and Bishop Marsh, the Charter Schools were established. They were intended, as was explained in the prospectus, "to rescue the souls of thousands of poor children from the dangers of Popish superstition and idolatry, and their bodies from the miseries of idleness and beggary." The schools were entirely Protestant in management, and the children were reared as Protestants. Once a Catholic parent surrendered his children he could never claim them again. In 1745 the Irish Parliament appropriated the fees derived from the licences required by all hawkers and pedlars to the support of the Charter Schools, and it is computed that between the years 1745 and 1767 these same institutions received about £112,000 from the public funds.[24] Though emancipation was still a long way off, yet after 1760 it began to be recognised that the penal code had failed to achieve the object for which it had been designed. -----

[1] Lecky, op. cit.,