Note 534 — Chapter XVIII · ON THE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND

Leland, iii. 4 et post. A vehement protestation of the bishops about this time, with Usher at their head, against any connivance at popery, is a disgrace to their memory. It is to be met with in many books. Strafford, however, was far from any real liberality of sentiment. His abstinence from religious persecution was intended to be temporary, as the motives whereon it was founded. "It will be ever far forth of my heart to conceive that a conformity in religion is not above all other things principally to be intended. For undoubtedly till we be brought all under one form of divine service, the Crown is never safe on this side, etc. It were too much at once to distemper them by bringing plantations upon them, and disturbing them in the exercise of their religion, so long as it be without scandal; and so indeed very inconsiderate, as I conceive, to move in this latter, till that former be fully settled, and by that means the protestant party become by much the stronger, which in truth I do not yet conceive it to be." Straff. Letters, ii. 39. He says, however, and I believe truly, that no man had been touched for conscience' sake since he was deputy. Id. 112. Every parish, as we find by Bedell's Life, had its priest and mass-house; in some places mass was said in the churches; the Romish bishops exercised their jurisdiction, which was fully obeyed; but "the priests were grossly ignorant and openly scandalous, both for drunkenness and all sort of lewdness."—P. 41, 76. More than ten to one in his diocese, the county of Cavan, were recusants.