Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/95

Charles II "Englishry," were composed, in almost equal numbers, of Scotch Presbyterians, of English Dissenters, and of members of the Established Church. The difference of creed served to mark the dividing line between the hostile factions; but it had not originated, and it may be questioned if it had even increased, their mutual animosity.

At the period of which I am speaking the larger of these two bodies were, by the letter of the law at least, subject, on the ground of their religion, to elaborate and stringent penalties. The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, passed in the second year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, remained upon the statute book, and would, had they been strictly executed, have amounted to a total prohibition of the Roman Catholic rites. The first of these Acts declared the Queen's Highness to be "the only supreme governor of this realm and other her Highness's dominions, as well in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal; and that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm"; and enacted that all persons convicted of maintaining a contrary opinion in speech or writing, should be 83