absence was considered by the king as a renunciation of his pastoral charge, and Goodacre was appointed to succeed him in the see of Armagh.

At this time the see of Ossory was vacant; and John Bale was appointed by his majesty to fill it. Rough in his manners, and determined, at all events, to support the reformation, his aversion to popery appeared immediately on his consecration. Lockwood, dean of Christ-church, proposed that the Roman ritual should be observed on this occasion, as the people were disinclined to the reformed religion, and the new order of consecration had not been established by a parliament in Ireland. All the clergy and even Goodacre, were inclined to acquiesce; but Bale was a determined enemy to all such condescensions. He obstinately refused to be consecrated according to any other but the reformed ritual; and by his firmness prevailed and terrified the clergy into a compliance. Even the weak among the new reformed were alarmed; and this spirited man was held, by the Romish party, in the utmost abhorrence. He came indeed, with no very exalted idea of an Irish parliament, but fully possessed with the dignity and power, and confident in the favor of his royal master, who had granted him his promotion unsought and unexpected. His consummate learning promised to do considerable service to the cause of reformation, and even the vehemence of his temper seemed well suited to the place and circumstances of his mission. But the truth is, that the business of a religious reformation in Ireland, had hitherto been nothing more than the impositions of English government on a prejudiced people, not sufficiently obedient to this government, and not sufficiently impressed with fear or reconciled by kindness. Bale incautiously insulted the prejudices of his flock; who were provoked, and not so awed by the civil power as to restrain their rage. During the short period of his residence in Ireland, 'he lived in a continual state of fear and persecution

On his first preaching of the reformed doctrines, he was opposed or forsaken by his clergy and so indignant were the people that they rose tumultuously and marked him as the victim of their resentment. Five of his domestics were slain before his face, and his own life saved only by the vigorous interposition of the civil magistrate.

It now appeared that a cautious and vigilant administration of civil affairs, so as to enforce the regulations lately made, was absolutely necessary to prevent the confusion and alarm arising from religious controversy, and the natural attachment of the people to their ancient mode of faith and worship. Indeed such was the comparative tranquillity of the whole country at this time, that the lord deputy began to entertain hopes of the complete and final settlement of the reformation, if the king's government in Ireland could be strengthened and supported, as entirely to suppress the ancient Brehon jurisdiction, and extend the benefits of English law through every quarter of the island. Warm applications to his majesty were made, for this purpose, by the lord deputy; but the present circumstances of England would not admit of the exertions necessary to this undertaking.

'As several of the chieftains had received titles of nobility from the crown, as before mentioned, their dependents took this in great dudgeon. A dignity, together with their power as head of a sept, to descend by hereditary succession, were things of which they had no idea, and to which, being inconsistent with the custom of the country, they were determined not to submit. Accordingly on the death of the earl of Clanricard, his followers proceeded to elect a captain of their sept, under pretence of objection to the legitimacy of the earl's son; who chose to assert his right of succession by force of arms, rather than by a tedious and precarious appeal to the lord deputy. A similar dispute took place on the demise of the earl

of Thomond, when his legal successor, the baron of Ibracken, was, by the turbulence of his brothers, Daniel and Turlogh, and the factious clamours of his sept, obliged to nominate a Tainist according to the ancient custom. Daniel O'Brian was appointed to this dignity, and although obliged to relinquish it for the present, by the vigorous interposition of the English government, he only waited a fair opportunity to assert it by the force of arms.

But a more important alienation from English government, and much more serious in its consequences, was owing to the factious disorders of the great northern family of O'Niall. The earl of Tyrone, notwithstanding his late satisfactory submission, and the honors with which he had been invested, had been originally possessed with the most elevated notions of the greatness of his family. Once he had pronounced a curse on those of his posterity, who should ever conform to the English manners, or associate with the Saxon race. All their favorite ideas were revived, when, from his own reconciliation with English government, he returned home to his family. His son Matthew, whom he had declared, and who had been accepted as his heir, and created baron of Dungannon, was really illegitimate; and this unnatural partiality of the father to a child, who had for many years been considered the son of a smith, was, of course the occasion of great jealousy among his legitimate children. John, or Shane O'Niall (as he was called), a youth of vigor and intrepidity, proud of his nobility and dissatisfied with the English government, joined his brother Hugh, of similar character, in labouring to alienate their father, both from the baron of Dungannon and from the governinent, which had countenanced this shameful attachment to his natural son, and persuaded him to return to his former consequence as an independent chieftain. Though Tyrone had sacrificed his independence to the necessity of his situation, the desire of it was exceedingly dear to his

heart; guided by its influence, and inclined to remove the displeasure of his sons, he determined to sacrifice the interest of his favorite to the hopes of shaking off the trammels of allegiance, and to recover the antient consequence of the O'Niall family. Some attempts made against Matthew, with the contrivance of the earl of Tyrone, raised considerable commotion, and obliged this lord to apprise the deputy of his own danger, of the secret devices of John and Hugh, and of the suspicious conduct of his father. The deputy immediately seized the earl and his countess, a principal agent in seducing him from his allegiance; and at first kept them in a state of honorable restraint within the English pale: but, on some further reports of their disloyal designs, they were committed to the custody of a magistrate in Dublin, and closely confined in his house.

His son John was not intimidated by this unexpected misfortune; he collected his followers, and with the assistance of some neighbouring chiefs, declared war against' Matthew, to whose contrivances he imputed the indignity offered to his parents. The baron relied for assistance on the lord deputy; who, depending on the powers commanded by the baron, hastened to join him with some new raised levies. John and his partisans were reinforced by a body of Scots, who had made a descent on Ulster, and were ready to engage in the service of any leader, who could supply their wants. He suddenly attacked sir James Crofts, and defeated him with the loss of two hundred men. Animated by this success, he plundered his father's mansion, ravaged his whole territory, and spread desolation through a district, the most flourishing of the whole Island, and more than 60 miles in length, and 40 in breadth. The lord deputy made repeated attempts to reduce him, which by the vigilance and activity of John and Hugh, ended in disgrace and disappointment. Thus the flame of war was kindled in Tyrone, and, though it subsided

at certain intervals, was not totally extinguished for many years; nor was the turbulence of the ambitious family of O'Niall repressed, till Ireland sustained considerable injury.

The reader has been already informed of the escape of Gerald, the only surviving branch of the family of Kildare, from the persecuting resentment of Henry the Eighth. This young lord returned to England during this reign, when his graceful person, and refined manners, captivated the daughter of sir Anthony Brown, knight of the garter. By marrying this lady he formed an interest, which soon gained him the royal favor: he was knighted in 1552, and restored to a considerable part of his estate.

To the grief of all those who wished well to the reformation in Ireland, the young king, after a reign of about seven years, died in the sixteenth year of his age.