Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/100

80 in anger to ward, he will say, 'Content thyself, for I do no worse to thee than I will do to the best of the council if he displease me.''

Yet Allen had a true eye for merit; he had seen others in Bellingham's place filling their own coffers—making parties among the Irish, and lending themselves to the worst vices of the country. But Bellingham was pure. The Chancellor admitted that he could see but one fault in him—that he sought 'to rule alone.'

In the change of religion—since a change there was to be—the deputy proceeded with the same firmness; and although wilder task was never imposed on any man than the introduction of Protestantism with a high hand among the Irish, even here he was not wholly unsuccessful. Fitzwilliam, a priest of St Patrick's, and a personal friend of the deputy, said mass there after it was prohibited. 'Mr Fitzwilliam,' he wrote, 'where I am informed that you have gone about to infringe the King's Majesty's injunctions, being moved of charity, I require you to omit so to do, and by authority I command you, as a thing that may not be suffered, you incite nor stir no such schism amongst the King's faithful and Christian subjects; for, if you do, as by likelihood you are incited to do it, thinking, through friendship, it shall be overpassed in your behalf, trust me, as they say commonly, it shall not go with you.'