Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/65

 In fact, the ecclesiastical tithes, and the rent-charges for which they were commuted, the Church lands, and the large estates of bishops, chapters, and colleges, have all been appropriated in violation of that law of prescription to which Lord Cairns so confidently appeals. The conduct of the clergy, that is, of the secular clergy, was not in violation of their trusts, but the mind and the policy of the nation had changed. By the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, passed in the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, England was finally separated from Rome, and all persons having ecclesiastical dignities or cure of souls were bound to conform to the Reformed Church. Burnet and Strype tell us that, according to the reports of visitors appointed by the Queen, only about one hundred dignitaries and eighty parish priests refused to accept the Protestant formularies, and resigned or were deprived of their benefices. Burnet says pensions were reserved for those who quitted their benefices on account of religion; and the historian Hallam, far from exclaiming against the expulsion of Roman Catholic dignitaries and parish priests on account of their religion, praises the grant of pensions as 'a very liberal measure.' It may be said indeed that on this great occasion the whole nation changed and the government with them.

The case of Scotland, however, approaches much nearer that which now presents itself in regard to Ireland. In 1688 England had endeavoured for many years to establish Episcopacy in Scotland, against the will of its people. England was by no means dis-