a daughter under age, the heir or heiress, together with the estate, went into the hands of the King. He might, perhaps, leave a widow with ten children; she would have to support all the children herself out of her dower, but the estate and the eldest son, or the eldest daughter, went into the hands of the King. Then, during their minority, the King could spend the revenues or could sell the castle and sell the estate without being questioned by any one, and when the son or daughter came of age, he then sold them in marriage to the highest bidder. We have Godfrey of Mandeville buying, for twenty thousand marks, from King John, the hand of Isabella, Countess of Gloster. We have Isabella de Linjera, another heiress, offering two hundred marks to King John-for what? For liberty to marry whoever she liked, and not to be obliged to marry the man he would give her. If a widow lost her husband, the moment the breath was out of him the lady and the estate were in the possession of the King, and he might squander the estate or do what he liked with it, and then he could sell the woman. We have Alice, Countess of Warwick, paying King John one thousand pounds sterling in gold for leave to remain a widow as long as she liked, and then to marry any one she liked. This was the slavery called the feudal system, of which Mr. Froude is so proud, and of which he says, "It lay at the root of all that is

noble and good in Europe.' (Laughter.) The Irish could not understand it-small blame to them. (Laughter.) But when the Irish people found that they were to be hunted down like wolves-found their lands were to be taken from them, and that there was no redress, over and over again the Irish people sent up petitions to the King of England to give them the benefit of the English law and they would be amenable to it, but they were denied and told that they should remain as they were that is to say, England was determined to extirpate them and get every foot of Irish soil. This is the one leading idea or principle which animated England in her treatment of Ireland throughout those four hundred years, and it is the only clue you can find to that turmoil and misery and constant fighting which was going on in Ireland during that time. Sir James Eusick, the English Commissioner sent over by Henry VIII,

wrote to his Majesty these quaint words: The Irish be of opinion among themselves that the English wish to get all their land and to root them out completely." He just struck the nail on the head. Mr. Froude himself acknowledges that the land question lies at the root of the whole business. Nay, more, the feudal system would have handed over every inch of land in Ireland to the Norman King and his nobles, and the O'Briens, the O'Tooles, the O'Donnells, and the O'Conors, were of more ancient and better blood than that of William the Bastard Norman.'

!

ENGLAND'S GREAT MISTAKE.

The Saxon might submit to feudal law, and be crushed into a slave a clod of the earth. The Celt never would. England's great mistake in my soul I am convinced that the great mistake of all the others the greatest-lay in this, that the English people never realized the fact that in dealing with the Irish, they had to deal with the proudest race upon the face of the earth. (Applause.) During these wars the Norman Earls -the Ormonds, the Desmonds, the Geraldines, the De Burghs were at the head and front of every rebellion; the English complained of them, and said they were worse than the Irish rebels, constantly stirring up disorders. Do you know the reason why? Because they, as Normans, were under the feudal law, and, therefore, the King's Sheriff would come down on them at every turn with fines and forfeitures of the land held from the King; so, by keeping the "country in disorder, they were always able to be sheriffs, and they preferred the Irish freedom to the English feudalisms; therefore, they fomented. and kept up these discords. It was the boast of my kinsmen of Clanricald that, with the blessing of God, they would never allow a King's writ to run in Connaught. (Laughter and applause.) Dealing with this period of our history, Mr. Froude says that the Irish chieftains and there septs, or tribes, were doing this and that the Geraldines, the Desmonds, and the Ormonds. I say, slowly, Mr. Froude, the Geraldines and the Ormonds were not the Irish people; so don't father their acts upon the Irish. The Irish chieftains have enough to answer for. During these four hundred years, I protest to you that,

in this most melancholy period of our sad history, I have found but two cases →→ two instances that cheer me-and both were the actions of Irish chieftains. In one we find that Turlough O'Conor put away his wife; she was one of the O'Briens. Theobald Burke, one of the Earls of Clanricarde, lived with the woman. With the spirit of their heroic ancestors, the Irish chieftains of Connaught came together, deposed him and drove him out of the place. Later on, we find another chieftain, Brian McMahon, who induced O'Donnell, chief of the Hebrides, to put away his lawful wife and marry a daughter of his own. The following year they fell out, and McMahon drowned his own son-in-law. The chiefs, O'Donnell and O'Neill, came together with their forces and deposed McMahon in the cause of virtue, honor and womanhood. I have looked in vain through these four hundred years for one single trait of generosity or of the assertion of virtue among the Anglo-Norman chiefs, and the dark picture is only relieved by these two gleams of Irish patriotism and Irish zeal in the cause of virtue, honor and purity,

ANOTHER QUESTION.

Now, my friends, Mr. Froude opened another question in his first lecture. He said that all this time, while the English monarchs were engaged in trying to subjugate Scotland and subdue their French provinces, the Irish were rapidly gaining ground, coming in and entering the pale year by year; the English power in Ireland was in danger of annihilation, and the only thing that saved it was the love of the Irish for their own independent way of fighting, which, though favorable to freedom, was hostile to national unity. He says, speaking of that time, "Would it not have been better to have allowed the Irish chieftains to govern their own people? Freedom to whom? Freedom to the bad, to the violent-it is no freedom." I deny that the Irish chieftains, with all their faults, were, as a class, bad men and violent men. I deny that they were engaged, as Mr. Froude says, in cutting their peoples' throats, that they were a people who would never be satisfied. Mr. Froude tells us, emphatically and significantly, that "the Irish people were satisfied with their chieftains," but people are not

satisfied under a system where their throats are being cut. (Great laughter.) The Irish chieftains were the bane of Ireland by their divisions; the Irish chieftains were the ruin of their country by their want of union, and want of generous acquiescence to some great and noble head that would save them by uniting them. The Irish chieftains, even in the days of the heroic Edward Bruce, did not rally around him as they ought. In their divisions is the secret of Ireland's slavery and ruin throughout those years. But, with all that, history attests that they were still magnanimous enough to be the fathers of their people and to be natural leaders, as God intended them to be, of their septs, families and namesakes. And they struck whatever blow they did strike in what they imagined to be the cause of right, justice and principle, and the only blow that came in the cause of outraged honor and purity came from the hand of the Irish chiefs in those dark and dreadful years.

Now I will endeavor to follow this learned gentleman in his subsequent lectures. Now a darker cloud than that of mere invasion is lowering over that Ireland; now comes the demon of religious persecution waving over the distracted and exhausted land. And we shall see whether this historian has entered into the spirit of the great contest that followed, and that, in our day, has ended in a glorious victory for Ireland's church and Ireland's nationality, and which will be followed as assuredly by a still more glorious future,

L

ADIES AND GENTLEMEN :- -We now come to considér the second lecture of the eminent English historian who has come among us. It covers one of the most interesting and terrible passages in our history. It takes in three reigns →→→ the reign of Henry VIII, the reign of Elizabeth, and the reign of James I. I scarcely consider the reign of Edward VI or of Mary worth counting. The learned gentleman began his sect ond lecture with rather a startling paradox. He asserted that Henry VIII was a hater of disorder.

Now, my dear friends, every man in this world has a hero, whether consciously or unconsciously. Every man selects some character or other out of history which he admires, until, at length, he is constantly thinking of the virtues and the excellencies of this hero until he comes almost to worship him. Before us all lie the grand historic names that are written in the world's annals, and every man is free to select the character that he likes best, and he selects his hero. Using this privilege, Mr. Froude has made the most singular selection of a hero that either you or I ever heard of. His hero is Henry VIII. It speaks volumes for the integrity of Mr. Froude's own mind; it is a strong argument that he possesses a charity the most sublime when he has been enabled to discover virtues in the historical character of one of the greatest monsters that ever cursed the earth. He has, however, succeeded in this, which to us ap.