"The greater part of the treatise of Dr. Roothe, entitled Analecta, is taken up with details of the sufferings of our Church at this sad period. The chief facts, however, which he commemorates are: (1) that the fines levied in the county Cavan, in 1615, for the mere crime of not assisting at Protestant service, amounted to more than eight thousand pounds; (2) that when some of the poor Catholics of the county Meath, who were unwilling to pay this tax, fled from the cruel collectors of it into the caverns and mountain recesses, furious bloodhounds were often let loose in pursuit of them, followed by the sheriff and his posse of soldiers, equally furious and unrelenting; (3) that the Protestant authorities had constant recourse to ecclesiastical censures, in consequence of which, great numbers of Catholic merchants and artificers were thrown into prison, and reduced to extreme poverty and distress; (4) that those who happened to die whilst under the ban of these Protestant censures, were denied Christian burial, and thrown into graves dug in the highways, where, to increase the ignominy, stakes were driven through their bodies.[18] "More interesting to the reader than all these narratives, will probably be the sketch of the sufferings of Ireland from the pen of the archbishop himself,--a sketch drawn up with special care by Dr. Matthews, in 1623, and presented by him to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda.[19] He thus writes:-- "'Although from the very commencement of the schism we have been constantly in the battle-field, and, with the exception of the momentary repose enjoyed during the reign of Catholic Mary, have been unceasingly exposed to the attacks of our persecutors, yet so severe are their late assaults, that, in comparison, all their preceding efforts sink into insignificance. Of this persecution I myself have been a witness and a sharer, and I shall briefly commemorate a few of its chief heads.