Gillapatrick, has sent me to thee to say, that if thou wilt not punish
the Red Earl he will make war on thee." Pierse resigned his title in
favour of Sir Thomas Boleyn, in 1527, and was created Earl of Ossory;
but after the death of the former he again took up the old title, and
resigned the new.

[386] _Spared._--It is quite evident from the letter of the Council to
Henry VIII. (State Papers, ciii.), that a promise was made. Henry admits
it, and regrets it in his letter to Skeffington (S.P. cvi.): "The doyng
whereof [FitzGerald's capture], albeit we accept it thankfully, yet, if
he had been apprehended after such sorte as was convenable to his
deservynges, the same had been muche more thankfull and better to our
contentacion."

[387] _Already_.--Mant describes him as a man "whose mind was happily
freed from the thraldom of Popery," before his appointment.--_History of
the Church of Ireland_, vol. i. p. 111.

[388] _Houses_.--Lingard, vol. vi. p. 203.

[389] _Charges_.--Mr. Froude has adopted this line with considerable
ability, in his _History of England_. He has collected certain
statements, which he finds in the books of the Consistory Courts, and
gives details from these cases which certainly must "shock his readers"
considerably, as he expects. He leaves it to be implied that, as a rule,
ecclesiastics lived in open immorality. He gives names and facts
concerning the punishment of priests for vicious lives (_History of
England_, vol. i. pp. 178-180); and asserts that their offences were
punished lightly, while another measure was dealt out to seculars. He
might as well select the cases of scandal given by Protestant clergymen
in modern times from the law books, and hold them up as specimens of the
lives of all their brethren. The cases were exceptions; and though they
do prove, what is generally admitted, that the moral condition of the
clergy was not all that could be desired in individual cases, they also
prove that such cases were exceptional, and that they were condemned by
the Church, or they would not have been punished. With regard to the
punishment, we can scarcely call it a light penance for a _priest_ to be
compelled to go round the church barefoot, to kneel at each altar and
recite certain prayers, and this while High Mass was singing. It was a
moral disgrace, and keener than a corporal punishment. The writer also
evidently misunderstands the Catholic doctrine of absolution, when he
says that a fine o