No parliament sat again in Ireland, till that short one of a single session before mentioned, (the 4th James II.,) summoned in 1689. This parliament repealed the acts of settlement and explanation, Poyning's law, and other coercive and intolerant statutes; but the issue of battle went against King James, and the two succeeding reigns became fruitful beyond precedent of penal legislation. Although the 9th of the "Articles of Limerick"--at the close of the war--had simply imposed one unobjectionable sentence as an oath of allegiance on the defeated party, the act (2d and 3d William and Mary) prescribed an elaborate form of abjuration of the doctrines of transubstantiation and of the invocation of saints, and declaring the holy sacrifice of the Mass "superstitious and idolatrous."' The oath of abjuration concluded by the denial to any foreign prince or prelate (namely, the pope) of "any jurisdiction, power, superiority, preeminence, or authority, _ecclesiastical_ or _spiritual_, within the realm." There never was a more shameful breach of public faith than this statute. The treaty of Limerick had simply prescribed this form of oath for the restoration to their former _status_ of all who chose to take it: "I, A. B., do solemnly promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to their majesties King William and Queen Mary; so help me God." And the 10th article of the same treaty had provided: "The oath to be administered to such Roman Catholics as submit to their majesties' government, shall be the oath aforesaid and no other." Yet within the same twelvemonths in which William's generals and lord-justices signed this latter compact, the new penal law was passed, and the new oath of abjuration was imposed. In 1691, the tolerant treaty was signed; in 1692, when the few Catholic peers and commoners who ventured to present themselves appeared to be sworn in of the new Irish parliament, they were met by this infamous oath of abjuration, driven out and disqualified. Above a million of their broad acres were forfeited, as a further penalty on those who refused the oath, and we need not be surprised to find, at King William's death, (1702,) that but "one sixth part" of the property of the kingdom remained in Catholic hands. The 7th and 8th William and Mary re-enacted, with additions, the Elizabethan penal laws. Of these additions the principal were: 1. Authorizing the Protestant chancellor to name guardians for Catholic minors. 2. Act to prevent recusants (Catholics) from becoming tutors in private families, unless by license of the Protestant ordinaries of their several dioceses. 3. An act to prevent Roman Catholics acting as guardians to minor children. 4. An act to disarm Roman Catholics. 5. An act for the banishment of popish priests and prelates.