_, p. 237.

[272] Cromwell to the Archbishop of Canterbury: _Rolls House MS._

[273] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 411, et seq.

[274] Royal Proclamation, June, 1534.

[275] Ibid.

[276] Foxe, Vol. V. p. 70.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE IRISH REBELLION.

[Sidenote: The vision of the Holy Brigitta.]

"The Pander[277] sheweth, in the first chapter of his book, called
_Salus Populi_, that the holy woman, Brigitta, used to inquire of her
good angel many questions of secrets divine; and among all other she
inquired, 'Of what Christian land was most souls damned?' The angel
shewed her a land in the west part of the world. She inquired the cause
why? The angel said, for there is most continual war, root of hate and
envy, and of vices contrary to charity; and without charity the souls
cannot be saved. And the angel did shew to her the lapse of the souls of
Christian folk of that land, how they fell down into hell, as thick as
any hail showers. And pity thereof moved the Pander to conceive his said
book, as in the said chapter plainly doth appear; for after his opinion,
this [Ireland] is the land that the angel understood; for there is no
land in this world of so continual war within itself; ne of so great
shedding of Christian blood; ne of so great robbing, spoiling, preying,
and burning; ne of so great wrongful extortion continually, as Ireland.
Wherefore it cannot be denied by very estimation of man but that the
angel did understand the land of Ireland."[278]

Nine hundred years had passed away since the vision of the Holy
Brigitta, and four hundred since the custody of the unfortunate country
had been undertaken by the most orderly nation in the world; yet, at the
close of all those centuries, "it could not be denied by very estimation
of man" that poor Irish souls were still descending, thick as hail
showers, into the general abyss of worthlessness. The Pander's satire
upon the English enterprise was a heavy one.

[Sidenote: Rapid success of the first invasion of Ireland.]

[Sidenote: The character of the country.]

[Sidenote: The settlement of it under the Norman leaders.]

When the wave of the Norman invasion first rolled across St. George's
Channel, the success was as easy and appeared as complete as William's
conquest of the Saxons. There was no unity of purpose among the Irish
chieftains, no national spirit which could support a sustained
resistance. The country was open and undefended,[279] and after a fe