Page:Sermons in Irish-Gaelic - O'Gallagher.djvu/21

Rh the sovereigns of England—Henry VIII., Elizabeth, James I., the two Charleses, to a certain extent, the Protector, Anne, and the Georges—sided with the spirits that sought, not reform, but freedom from legitimate control—not liberty, but license—not God, but self.

Another powerful element, at once of enterprise and hostility, was excited anew in the breast of every Briton, namely, love of gain—love of acquiring new lands and increased territorial possessions, together with an ill-regulated desire for power, for plunder, and self-indulgence.

Ireland, so long, in ages past, secure from the attacks of the legions of Imperial Rome, owing to her remote situation and insular position, now quite near to the adventurous sons of Britain, was no longer secure from aggression. This island was a territory in which at that time religious hate, love of land and uncontrolled power could be satisfied to the fullest extent by those who sought a field to exercise these favorite failings. Under the influence of a hostile spirit, rendered delirious by religions mania, and insensible to every emotion that enobles human nature, the Penal Laws, during the reigns of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, James I., Charles, Cromwell, and Anne, were enacted. In the same demoniac spirit, as Mr Fronde shows ("History of England," vol. x., p. 509), were carried on the wars which devastated Desmond and the principalities of O'Neill and O'Donnell, the territories of O'Rourke, MacGuire, MacMahon, and O'Dogherty. The action of the Penal Laws uprooted and almost completely destroyed Catholicism in England; it ruined, exiled, or destroyed the Catholics of the Pale—the English settlement in Ireland [see "The