tion in his first lecture. 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, and give the Irish their freedom? And he answers, 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 or violent men. I deny that they were engaged, as Mr. Froude says, in cutting their people's 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. 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 through those years. But

58

Lecture I. The Norman Invasion.

with all that, history attests that they were still magnanimous enough to be the fathers of their people, and to be the 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 hands 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 Ireland; now comes the demon of religious discord—the sword 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 triumphs still more glorious in the future.

LECTURE II.

IRELAND UNDER THE
TUDORS.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: We now come to consider 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 Philip and Mary, worth counting. The learned gentleman began his second 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 his hero; whether consciously or unconsciously, every man selects some character out of history that he admires, until, at length, by continually dwelling on the virtues and excellencies of his hero, he comes to almost 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

thus choses his hero. Using this privilege, Mr. Froude has made the most singular selection of a hero that 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 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, to us, apparent impossibility; he has discovered among many other shining virtues in the character of the English Nero a great love for order, a great hatred of disorder. Well, we must stop at the very first sentence of the learned gentleman and try to analyze it and see how much there is of truth in this word of the historian, and how much there is which is honorable to him and a charitable though strange figment of his imagination. All order in the state is based upon three great principles, my friends. First, the supremacy of the law; second, respect for the existence as well as liberty of conscience; and third, a tender regard for that which lies at the fountain-head of all human society, namely, the sanctity of the marriage tie.

The first element of order in every state is the supremacy of the law, for in this supremacy lies the very quintessence of human freedom and of all order. The law is supposed to be, according to the definition of Aquinas, "the judgment pronounced by profound reason and intellect, thinking and legislating for the public good." The law, therefore, is the expression of

reason—reason backed by authority, reason influenced by the noble motive of the public good. This being the nature of law, the very first thing that is demanded for the law is that every man shall bow down to it and obey it. No man in any community has any right to claim exemption from obedience to the law; least of all the man who is at the head of the community, because he is supposed to represent before the nation that principle of obedience without which all national order and happiness perishes among the people. Was Henry VIII. an upholder of the law? Was he obedient to the laws? I deny it, and I have the evidence of all history to back me up in that denial, and I brand Henry VIII. as one of the greatest enemies of freedom and law that ever lived in this world, and consequently one of the greatest tyrants. My friends, I shall only give you one example out of ten thousand which might be taken from the history of the time. When Henry VIII. broke with the Pope, he called upon his subjects to acknowledge him-bless the mark!-as spiritual head of the Church. There were three abbots of three Charter-houses in and near London, who refused to acknowledge Henry as the supreme spiritual head of the Church. He had them arrested and held for trial, and he had a jury of twelve citizens of London to sit upon them." Now, the first principle of English law, the grand palladium of English legislation and freedom, is the perfect liberty of the jury. The jury in any country must be perfectly free, not only from