Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 3 (of 3)Bagwell, Richard
History
Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 3 (of 3)
Bagwell, Richard
Ireland -- History -- 16th century
As if to fill the time till the Spaniards came, a movement now began
which defeated Pelham's calculations. The new rebel was James Eustace,
who had lately succeeded his father as Viscount Baltinglas, and who
was an enthusiastic Catholic. He was already connected with the
turbulent O'Byrnes, and his father had been in opposition on the cess
question; but it is clear that religion was the chief motive. Before
he succeeded to the title, Sanders and others persuaded him to go to
Rome, and what he saw there under Gregory XIII. had exactly a contrary
effect on him to what the Rome of Leo X. had upon Luther. On his return
he heard mass, boldly gloried in the fact before the Ecclesiastical
Commission, and was mulcted in the statutable fine of 100 marks,
Sidney quaintly declaring that he could not countenance 'Papistry and
abolished religion.' Loftus was told to exact the money or a bond, and
to imprison in default. The young lord went to gaol for twenty-four
hours, and was pardoned on signing the bond. But fine and imprisonment
never convince, though they sometimes silence, and Baltinglas was in
no way changed by what courtly officials called her Majesty's godly
proceedings. 'I mean,' he wrote to a Waterford merchant, 'to take this
holy enterprise in hand by the authority of the Supreme Head of the
Church.'
[Sidenote: Baltinglas and Ormonde.]
The letter fell into Ormonde's hands, and the bearer seems to have
been hanged in chains. Ormonde had already warned the Viscount to
be careful, and he now sent an answer which at once committed him
irretrievably and almost without hope of pardon. He said he had been
commanded to take the sword by the highest power on earth, and would
maintain the truth to the extent of his means.
'Questionless,' he added, 'it is great want of knowledge, and more of
grace, to think and believe that a woman uncapax of all holy orders,
should be the supreme governor of Christ's Church; a thing that
Christ did not grant unto his own mother. If the Queen's pleasure
be, as you allege, to minister justice, it were time to begin; for
in this twenty years' part of her reign we have seen more damnable
doctrine maintained, more oppressing of poor subjects, under pretence
of justice, within this land than ever we read or heard.... If Thomas
Becket, the Bishop of Canterbury, had never suffered death in the
defence of the Church, Thomas Butler, alias Becket, had never been Earl
of Ormonde.'[43] Ormonde sent the letter by express to Walsingham, for
the Queen's eye, characterising it as 'foolish, traitorous, popish, and
devil-persuaded,' praying that God might confound all her unnatural
subjects and give her victory over all His enemies.
'Sir, I pray you tell her Majesty that poor Lucas will remain constant
in the true faith, whoever follow the Pope and do the contrary, and
that neither Becket nor Canterbury shall alter him.'
[Sidenote: A Catholic confederacy.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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