making them their tenants and thrusting out the English; and some of the proprietors were themselves becoming “mere Irish.”  Then, although no doubt a certain proportion of the Elizabethan settlers renounced their Protestantism and embraced the Roman Catholic religion, that can hardly have been the case with the mass of them; and yet before the middle of the seventeenth century we find that the great majority of the freeholders of Ireland and even of the members of the Irish Parliament were Roman Catholics; surely they must have represented the earlier population.  And lastly, considering the wild exaggerations that occur in the accounts of every other event of Irish history, we cannot suppose that this period alone has escaped.

Towards the end of the queen’s reign occurred the last of the native rebellions.  It too was crushed; and, by the “flight of the earls”—­Tyrone and Tyrconnell—­was completed the work which had been commenced by Henry II.  And so the third chapter of Irish history was ended.

CHAPTER IV.

The seventeenth century, until the end of the reign of James II.

The seventeenth century is a terrible period of European history.  It has been described as “the age of religious wars”; and those wars were waged with a savage ferocity which it is impossible even now to read of without a shudder.

It is a plain matter of history that from the very commencement of the Reformation the idea of toleration never entered into the heads of any of the authorities of the Church of Rome.  France, Spain, Portugal, Savoy and Germany all tell the same story.  Except in countries such as England where the sovereigns adopted the new opinions, the only chance which the reforming party had of being able to exercise their religion was by means of rebellion and all the horrors of civil war.  What that meant, the history of the rise of the Dutch Republic tells us.  As Lord Acton has said:  “In the seventeenth century the murder of a heretic was not only permitted but rewarded.  It was a virtuous deed to slaughter Protestant men and women until they were all exterminated.  Pius V held that it was sound Catholic doctrine that any man may stab a heretic; and every man was a heretic who attacked the papal prerogatives.”  And it is equally true that in those cases where the reforming party succeeded in gaining the upper hand, they did not show much more mercy than had been shown to them previously or was being shown to their co-religionists in other countries at the time.  Yet it is only fair to add that when the idea of toleration did arise, it arose amongst the reformed churches.  Probably the only Roman Catholic State in the world where toleration existed during the seventeenth century was the little English colony of Maryland, of which Lord Baltimore was the proprietor.  And when at length the religious wars died out it was, as far as Catholic countries were concerned, because the lay mind had become thoroughly disgusted with the whole thing, and men’s minds were turning in other directions—­not because the clerical rulers showed the slightest desire to relax their efforts or change their policy.