The Act of Uniformity, which played such a terrible part in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, was put into relentless force. The Catholics were crushed, as it were, into the earth, and Ireland again became a veritable counterpart of the infernal regions. Priests, of all ranks, were hunted like wild beasts, and many fell victims to their heroic devotion to their flocks. Catholic lawyers were rigidly disbarred and Catholic school-teachers were subjected to deadly penalties. “Three bishops and three hundred ecclesiastics” perished violently during the Protectorate. “Under the superintendence of the commissioners,” says McGee, “the distribution made of the soil among the Puritans ‘was nearly as complete as that of Canaan by the Israelites.’ Such Irish gentlemen as had obtained pardons were obliged to wear a distinctive mark on their dress under pain of death. Those of inferior rank were obliged to wear a round black spot on the right cheek, under pain of the branding iron and the gallows. If a Puritan lost his life in any district inhabited by Catholics, the whole population were held subject to military execution. For the rest, whenever ‘Tory’ (nickname for an Irish royalist) or recusant fell into the hands of these military colonists, or the garrisons which knitted them together, they were assailed with the war-cry of the Jews—‘That thy feet may be dipped in the blood of thy enemies, and that the tongues of thy dogs may be red with the same.’ Thus, penned in (according to the Cromwellian penal regulation) between ‘the mile line’ of the Shannon and the ‘four-mile line’ of the sea, the remnant of the Irish nation passed seven years of a bondage unequaled in severity by anything which can be found in the annals of Christendom.” When the news of Oliver Cromwell’s death, which occurred on September 3, 1658, reached Ireland, a sigh of intense relief was heaved by the persecuted nation. Many a prayer of thankfulness went up to the throne of God from outraged Irish fathers and mothers, whose children were sweltering as slaves under tropical suns. Cromwell himself had passed away, but the “curse of Cromwell” remained with Ireland for many a black and bitter day thereafter. What followed after his death until the Restoration belongs to English history. Under his son Richard, and his associates, or advisers, the Protectorate proved a failure. Then followed the negotiations with General Monck, and the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, who landed on English soil, at Dover, May 22, 1660, proceeded to London, where he was cordially welcomed, and renewed his interrupted reign over a country which, at heart, despised and distrusted him and all of his fated house. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER X Ireland Further Scourged Under Charles II—Murder of Archbishop Plunket—Accession of James II