It has been well insisted on by Mr. Heron, the Roman Catholic historian of Trinity College, that the Charter of Elizabeth is neither exclusive nor bigoted as regards creed. Religion, civility, and learning are the objects to be promoted, and it is notorious that the great Queen’s policy, as regards the first, was to insist upon outward conformity with the State religion without further inquisition. A considerable number of the Corporation which endowed the new College were Roman Catholics, and we know that even the Usshers had near relations of that creed. There was no insistence that the Fellows should take orders--we know that Provost Temple, and Fullerton and Hamilton, among the earliest Fellows, were laymen,--and though in very early days the degree of Doctor conferred was apparently always that in Theology, the Charter provides for all the Faculties, and it was soon felt that Theology and the training of clergy were becoming too exclusively the work of the place. The constant advices from Chancellors and from other advisers to give special advantages to the natives, and the repeated attempts to teach the Irish language, and through its medium to educate the Irish, show plainly that they understood Elizabeth’s foundation as intended for the whole country, and more especially for those of doubtful loyalty in their creed, who were tempted to go abroad for their education. “A certain illustrious Baron,” says Father Fitz-Simons, writing in 1603, “whose lady, my principal benefactress, sent his son to Trinity College. Notwithstanding my obligations to them for my support, I, with the utmost freedom, earnestness, and severity, informed and taught them, that it was a most impious thing, and a detestable scandal, to expose their child to such education. The boy was taken away at once, and so were others, after that good example. The College authorities are greatly enraged at this, as they had never before attracted any [Roman Catholic] pupil of respectability, and do not now hope to get any for the future. Hence I must be prepared for all the persecution which their impiety and hatred can bring down upon me.”[24]