allegiance to the kings of England, under certain pecuniary penalties. But what is remarkable, these fines were all covenanted to be paid into the Apostolical Chamber, supposing the Pope as the superior power, whose peace was broken and whose majesty was violated in disobeying his governor. By this time, so far as regarded England, the kings had extremely abridged the Papal power in many material particulars: they had passed the Statute of Provisors, the Statute of _Praemunire_,--and, indeed, struck out of the Papal authority all things, at least, that seemed to infringe on their temporal independence. In Ireland, however, their proceeding was directly the reverse: there they thought it expedient to exalt it at least as high as ever: for, so late as the reign of Edward the Fourth, the following short, but very explicit, act of Parliament was passed:-- IV. ED. Cap. 3. "An act, whereby letters patent of pardon from the king to those that sue to Rome for certain benefices is void. Rot. Parl. "Item, At the request of the commons, it is ordeyned and established, by authority of the said Parliament, that all maner letters patents of the king, of pardons or pardon granted by the king, or hereafter to be granted, to any provisor that claim any title by the bulls of the Pope to any maner benefices, where, at the time of the impetrating of the said bulls of provision, the benefice is full of an incumbent, that then the said letters patents of pardon or pardons be void in law and of none effect." When, by every expedient of force and policy, by a war of some centuries, by extirpating a number of the old, and by bringing in a number of new people full of those opinions and intending to propagate them, they had fully compassed their object, they suddenly took another turn,--commenced an opposite persecution, made heavy laws, carried on mighty wars, inflicted and suffered the worst evils, extirpated the mass of the old, brought in new inhabitants; and they continue at this day an oppressive system, and may for four hundred years to come, to eradicate opinions which by the same violent means they had been four hundred years endeavoring by every means to establish. They compelled the people to submit, by the forfeiture of all their civil rights, to the Pope's authority, in its most extravagant and unbounded sense, as a giver of kingdoms; and now they refuse even to tolerate them in the most moderate and chastised sentiments concerning it. No country, I believe, since the world began, has suffered so much on account of religion, or has been so variously harassed both for Popery and for Protestantism.