Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/255

 thus confiscated were divided amongst Germans, Spaniards, Walloons and Italians, and amongst the grantees, by a curious irony of fate, were to be found some Irishmen.

The new regime sought security by resting on the German element, already strong in all the towns and in some of the country districts. The German element, profoundly hostile to the Slav, had on that account kept apart from the religious innovations which had found such support among the native Czech race. There was a Catholic Ulster of German speakers firmly planted in the north-west portion of the kingdom. The German tongue with German culture rapidly became supreme under the patronage of the State.

In one respect, however, there is a profound difference between Bohemia and Ireland. The mass of the people deprived of their preachers and of an upper class belonging to the reformed religion, soon, under the unceasing labours of the Jesuits and other missionaries and under pressure from the State, reverted to Catholicity. According to Lützow, Bohemia presents the nearly unique case of a country which formerly almost entirely Protestant, has now become almost entirely Catholic.

Thus one great source of divergence was removed. But Lützow says: "Yet the evil seed of hatred and distrust sown by the oppressors of the seventeenth and eighteenth century bears evil fruit up to the present day. Bohemian peasants even now instinctively distrust the nobles of their country, even if they belong to their own race, and are in sympathy with the national cause."