DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

‘cae | century, the brilliant displays of its great nobles, the lofty conceptions of its great writers, with the horrors that were then committed under the cloak of religion. Smithfield was long ablaze with the fires at which Protestants suffered for their faith. When the stake had ceased to send forth its ghastly glare, the Roman Catholics had to endure numberless oppressive and cruel restrictions at the hands of a Protestant Government. Under James UL. the Pro- testant majority came in once more for its share of persecution. After his fall in 1688, despite the growth of civilisation, the Roman Catholics again paid the penalty for their creed; and for 150 years afterwards they were excluded from both Houses of Parliament, as well as from public offices of all kinds. In Ireland especially the intolerance which was exercised against the Roman Catholics until the end of the first quarter of this century was almost inconceivable. They were for the greater part of a century prohibited under pain of death from practising their religion; priests were pro- hibited under the same penalty from marrying Catholics, and marriages solemnised by them were treated as void in law: in short, Catholics were debarred from every right of citizenship and dealt with as rebels and outlaws. Need J enlarge on the restrictions and dis- abilities imposed on the Nonconformists of this