and that
those who speak of its tyranny and priestcraft, and the absolute
submission it requires from its subjects, would do well to remember the
trite motto, _Audi alteram partem_, and to inquire whether a similar
charge might not be made more justly against the founders of the
Protestant Establishment.

Dr. Browne and the Lord Deputy now rivalled each other in their efforts
to obtain the royal approbation, by destroying all that the Irish people
held most sacred, determined to have as little cause as possible for
"the trembling in body" which the King's displeasure would effect. They
traversed the land from end to end, destroying cathedrals, plundering
abbeys, and burning relics--all in the name of a religion which
proclaimed liberty of conscience to worship God according to individual
conviction, as the great boon which it was to confer on the nation.
However full of painful interest these details may be, as details they
belong to the province of the ecclesiastical historian. The Four Masters
record the work of desecration in touching and mournful strains. They
tell of the heresy which broke out in England, and graphically
characterize it as "the effect of pride, vain-glory, avarice, and
sensual desire." They mention how "the King and Council enacted new laws
and statutes after their own will." They observe that all the property
of the religious orders was seized for the King; and they conclude thus:
"They also made archbishops and bishops for themselves; and although
great was the persecution of the Roman emperors against the Church, it
is not probable that so great a persecution as this ever came upon the
world; so that it is impossible to tell or narrate its description,
unless it should be told by him saw it."[397]

The era of religious persecution was thus inaugurated; and if Ireland
had made no martyrs of the men who came to teach her the faith, she was
not slow to give her best and noblest sons as victims to the fury of
those who attempted to deprive her of that priceless deposit. Under the
year 1540, the Four Masters record the massacre of the Guardian and
friars of the Convent at Monaghan, for refusing to acknowledge the
spiritual supremacy of the King. Cornelius, Bishop of Down, a Franciscan
friar, and Father Thomas FitzGerald, a member of the noble family of the
Geraldines, and a famous preacher, were both killed in the convent of
that Order in Dublin. Father Dominic Lopez has given a detailed account
o