stamp out Protestantism, and England once more
stood almost alone. In Spain and Portugal, heresy was of course still
punishable with death; the Pope had celebrated the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes with a triumphal _Te Deum_; a terrible persecution was
raging not only throughout the Protestant districts of France but also
on the Rhine, in Hungary, Savoy and the Alpine Valleys; if Ireland
had remained a separate kingdom ruled by the ally and admirer of Louis
XIV, the next step would certainly have been an invasion of England
by the joint forces of France and Ireland. All that we in modern
times include in the term "religious liberty" hung on the issue of the
battle that was fought and won on the banks of the Boyne.

CHAPTER V.

THE PERIOD OF THE PENAL LAWS.

The flight of James II brings us to the era of the "penal laws." To
one who lives in the twentieth century and is embued with the spirit
of modern thought, the whole subject is more than painful--it is
detestable. But to pass it over in silence is impossible; and in order
to get a clear view of the position it is necessary to examine
what the penal laws were, what they were not, and what were the
circumstances of the time during which they were in force.

The penal laws were a series of enactments carefully planned so as to
harass the Roman Catholics at every moment of their lives, in the hope
of inducing them to abandon their religion. The unhappy people were
prohibited from becoming or voting for members of Parliament; they
were excluded from corporations, the army, the navy and the legal
profession. They were forbidden to bear arms, or even to possess a
horse worth more than L5. Education was denied to them, as they could
not send their sons to the university and were forbidden either to
have schools of their own in Ireland or to send their children abroad.
They were not allowed to possess freehold estates in land, and even as
to leaseholds they were seriously restricted. On the death of a Roman
Catholic his estate was divided amongst his children equally, unless
the eldest son became a Protestant, in which case he inherited the
whole. And as no Roman Catholic was allowed to act as a guardian, a
man never knew that if he should die his children might not be brought
up in a faith that he detested. The performance of Roman Catholic
worship was barely tolerated, as no bishops or other dignitaries were
allowed to remain in Ireland, and the only priests