which passed three days after the arrival of Lord Taaf and Col. Barry, whom Ormond sent, with a letter to their Chairman Mr. Plunket, dated Jan. 25, representing the indelible infamy which they would contract by violating the public faith.*

§ XXIII. Ormond's reasons for surrendering Dublin to the Parliament rather than to the Catholics.

1. Ormond had waited all this time, in the midst of the greatest difficulties and dangers, in expectation of the issue of that Assembly; but now, seeing a full period to all hopes, and that Dublin lay an easy prey to persons who had resolved to call in a foreign power, (Carte, vol. 1, p. 600.) he determined at length to give up his trust to the Parliament, which he was confident would sooner or later, return to its allegiance, and restore it to the King.

* Carte, vol. 3, No. DXXXIV. Their decree against the peace, is dated Feb. 7, 1647.

2. And now, after bringing forward this body of evidence in favour of Ormond, I may be allowed to pause, and to contemplate the difficulties in which this great Man was so dangerously involved.--I can easily fancy him walking, in pensive silence, within the battlements of Dublin Castle; passing restless days, and sleepless nights; pondering on his situation, and that of his wife and children; surrounded by enemies; confined within the narrow precincts of a species of State prison; and without any other means of escape, than by adopting, in a choice of evils, one of those alternatives, whether he should surrender Dublin to the Nuncio, or to the Parliament ?

To the Nuncio-who had determined to confer the Crown of Ireland on a foreign Power, and to establish an Episcopal tribunal of inquisitorial, uncontrouled and excommunicating power on the necks of his Countrymen; or to a Puritanical Parliament, which had determined to abolish Episcopacy, to introduce the Liturgy of the Kirk, to level the Nobility, and to extinguish the Irish Nation!

3. Let those who will, condemn him for the part he acted; I only wish that they may never have to encounter such a dilemma; and I proceed to state my reasons, not only for not condemning, but for applauding him, for that line of conduct which, in these anxious and dreadful circumstances, he resolved finally to pursue.

He knew that it had been always the policy of the Roman Court, to maintain its ancient claim to the temporal dominion of Ireland, as asserted in the Bulls of Gregory VII, Adrian IV, Alexander III, Urban III,* and several other succeeding Pontiffs.The grant of Ireland to King John, by the Legate Pandulph, on condition of an annual tribute of 300 marks for both Islands, and of Peter Pence,

Pope Urban's grant of the Crown of Ireland to Henry II's son John, may be seen in the Cotton Library, Claudius E VIII, MS. Membr. Sæc. xv, folior 267, No. 10.-" De "Coronatione Johannis, filii Henrici, in Regem Hiberniæ. In "quem finem Urbanus Papa misit Coronam de penna Pavonis

auro contextam, anno 1186."-This is a beautiful Copy of Higden, and ought as such, to be noticed in the excellent Catalogue of 1802. The same grant is referred to in Lynch's Alithin. p. 27, and by Spondanus in his Continuation of Baronius, ann 1213, No. 7 and No. 18, also Hoveden, p. 631.

is well known. All subsequent Legates, and Ultramontanists, contended that the Pope was the Supreme Sovereign of Ireland, and that the English Kings were only domini, or Lords of Ireland, by a feudal tenure subject to the Pope. Henry VIII was, in fact, the first King of England who dared to have himself styled King of Ireland; a title which none of his Predecessors ever ventured to assume.

O'Broudin maintains this doctrine in a work printed by permission in Rome, so lately as in 1722; and that work is highly praised by another Irish Ultramontane Bishop, the author of the Hibernia Dominicana, so lately as in 1762, p. 649!We may therefore very justly infer, that since such principles, are maintained by the Ultramontane Bishops of our own times, their influence must have been most vigorous indeed in the days of Ormond, and of Rinuccini.

4. Ormond knew that, as soon as Henry VII revolted against the Holy See, the Ultramontanists inferred directly that, since the Kings of England did not fulfil the conditions of Peter pence, annual tribute, and others set forth in

Adrian's Bull, they forfeited all right and title to their subordinate tenure of Ireland, which of course reverted to the Pope.-In consequence of this doctrine, John Earl of Desmond made an offer of his Palatinate of Kerry to Henry II of France, if the Pope would annex Ireland to his dominions. Usher, states, and could have informed Ormond, that the original of this deed was preserved at Paris to his time.* 5. This was the argument which the Legate Sanders used when he was sent by Gregory XIII to the Earl of Desmond, in 1579. "The

Kings of England, says he, were never Kings "of Ireland, but only Lords thereof, holding "under the Pope. The Irish never did, and never will acknowledge any Temporal Sovereign but the Pope;" and in his letter to the Cardinal of Como, Protector of Ireland, he states that John of Desmond was the Pope's

* Usserii Vita, p. 61, in Alithin. Supplem. p. 205, and in Alithin. p. 38.-Rooth of Ossory maintained the same argument in Ormond's time. "Hæreditaria Regum Anglorum "successio iisdem innixa conditionibus, quibus ipsa initialis "concessio Adriani IV nitebatur." Analecta. p. 194.