Huguenot gentlemen were murdered in cold blood. The king at once sent an utterly false account to the European Courts. He declared that the Huguenots had attempted his life by a seditious movement, which had been suppressed by force. His account deceived the Pope in common with every other sovereign in Europe. Queen Elizabeth, the acknowledged leader of the Protestant party in England, congratulated the King through the French Ambassador. Whatever the Pope did was done under the false impression created by the lying despatch, and weeks before the truth was known. So far for the first part of the accusation. As to the second, that, too, has been utterly refuted. Representative men have written not alone condemning the massacre in the strongest language, but pointing out that this has been the tone adopted by Catholics at all times.

Pope Adrian's Bull.

AVING alluded to the disputations between Edward I. and the Pope, regarding the sovereignty of Scotland, and to the bull "In Cœna Domini", which is erroneously asserted by historians to have been a bull of excommunication against England, I shall allude to the supposed bull transferring the sovereignty of Ireland to the British crown. Historians very generally assume the fact as indisputably established, and the public mind is incorrigibly prejudiced with the certain belief that Pope Adrian IV. issued this famous bull transferring the Lordship of Ireland to King Henry II. of England. The fact is by no means satisfactorily established. There are

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grave historians of high authority who even positively deny the truth of the statement. From amongst them I shall adduce extracts from the works of Buodinus, who wrote in the seventeenth century. It may be asked who was Buodinus, or what works has he written. I shall tell. He has written the work, "Propugnaculum Catholicæ Veritatis", the Bulwark of Catholic Truth, in ten books, and divided into two parts; the first part, historical, is in five books-a work completely new, useful, and agreeable to read, as from the following table of contents may be collected:-"In favour of the searchers after truth, and to the confusion of the obstinate in error, now first published and brought to light by the author, R. P. T. Antonius Bruodinus, of Thomond, in Ireland, Ordin. Minor. Strict. Observ. Reform. Lecton jubilate; Almæ Provinciæ Bohemiæ definitore habituali, necnon Conventus Pragensis B. V. ad Nives actuali Guardiano. Praga. Typis Universitatis Carolo Ferdinandæ in Collegio Societ. Jesu ad S. Clementem, Anno 1669". In the first book there is a very curious account of all the early heresies up to the fifteenth century, concluding with a very interesting narrative of the origin of the Hussites, in which it is shown that it originated much more from the Slavonian national Bohemian feeling as opposed to German domination, than from any religious opinion. The second book treats of Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, and others. The third, the rise and progress of the Reformation in England, Scotland, and Ireland. The fourth book contains a very original account of the civil war in Ireland, and of the then new sects, such as the Brownists, Independents, Quakers, of whom there is a very remarkable account. It would seem that even at that early date Irish Catholics had emigrated to New

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England, for Broudinus states that he had frequently heard John O'Hehir, who with many other Irish Catholics had gone to New England, relate with wonder how one Anne Hutchinson acted like a leader, priest, and prophet, preached, administered the sacraments, and disposed of all things despotically there. The fifth book is, in fact, an abridged history of Ireland, enumerating every county and the families connected with each. Throughout the whole work there is a great deal of Irish family lore. I am obliged to merely indicate the contents of this rare old work, in which is the following reference to the Bull of Adrian :-" Various authors say that Adrian IV., by nation English, who had ascended the chair of St. Peter in the year 1154, had granted to Henry II., King of England, the dominion of the Kingdom of Ireland which Donatus O'Brien had offered to the Holy See. Baronius follows these writers and recites in his Annals the diploma of this concession. I (that I may say what I think) have considerable doubts of this story: for while Pope Adrian lived (he died in the year 1159), Henry II. had not a foot of ground in Ireland, or any other foreigner except the Ostmen". "I conclude, therefore, first, that Pope Adrian never was Lord of Ireland any more than of England, and consequently never granted the Lordship of Ireland to Henry II., King of England. Secondly, that Henry II. had no possession of Ireland during the life of Pope Adrian, and consequently King Henry never received from Pope Adrian any right over Ireland. Thirdly, that Henry II. having defeated the Irish in 1172, Alexander the Third being Pope, by the extorted consent of the magnates of Ireland, obtained the Lordship of Ireland; and thus by succession of time the Kings of England became the legitimate lords

of Ireland, as indeed they are the legitimate kings (would that they were also Catholic) and lords of England. The successors also of so many noble families who in his reign came into Ireland are 'veri Hiberni' and legitimate, 'bona fide' owners of the estates which they actually possess, although their ancestors then invaded a foreign kingdom by no more just a title than did the Milesians who seized it from the Danaans". A learned critique upon this matter of history appeared in a Review now some years extinct, of which the following is the substance. It may be desirable to consider minutely an event over which modern writers have thrown a great obscurity: "The Bull of Adrian must have been issued in the spring of 1156. The Pope came to Benevento in December of the previous year, and remained there during the whole winter. Here he was visited by John of Salisbury, the Secretary of the Primate Theobald, who had been sent on ecclesiastical business to the former Popes-Eugene and Anastasius-and who now came on a more important mission. John acquired an extraordinary influence over the mind of the new Pontiff, who loved to open his conscience to his Saxon countryman, and declared that he preferred him even to his own relations. During the three months they spent together the affair of Ireland was arranged; and when John of Salisbury started for England he carried with him the famous deed, and the symbol of investiture, for which, with a strange felicity, Adrian had chosen an emerald ring. The document would be drawn up and dated only when the messenger who was to take it was ready to depart; and as the three months which John of Salisbury relates that he spent at Benevento began only after the Pope's arrival at the end of December, this brings us to March, 1156.

THE GREGORIAN DISCIPLINE.

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"Irish patriotism has generally been reluctant to admit that the condition of the Church of Ireland was really known at Rome, or in any degree justified so grave an act; and the accusation made by the Irish Princes in the Fourteenth century, that Adrian had acted Anglicana affectione", has been admitted even by such writers as Cardinal Pole and Döllinger. In both respects, however, a careful examination of the facts will vindicate the English Pope. At the Council of Kells in 1152, there was the Gregorian discipline to establish, for which the Holy See had incessantly struggled since the days of Hildebrand, and which St. Malachy first tried to introduce after his journey to Rome in 1139. Even when the Legate Paparo came to Kells, thirteen years later, the thing remained to be done, for the decrees regard the abolition of simony, the celibacy of the clergy, and the institution of tithes. We need not cite the Annals of the Four Masters to show that constant wars and civil disorders at that time made the introduction of any ecclesiastical reform very difficult. We know that the Irish prelates themselves despaired of it, and represented to the Pope that it could not be accomplished without the intervention of England. Not once, but repeatedly, they sent warning exhortations to Rome. "Ingentibus vitiorum enormitatibus gens Hibernica sit infecta. . . Ex vestrarum serie literarum nobis innotuit", says Alexander III. to the Archbishops of Ireland.

"Long before the days of Adrian it had been customary to commit to the successors of Charlemagne the care of religion and the defence of the faith in countries to which the imperial influence extended. But for nearly a century the Emperors had been the most dreaded enemies of the Holy See; and during this long