CHAP. XL. The Persecution of the Church in Ireland, Anno Christi, 1642.
THough the barbarous cruelty used by the Irish against the Eng∣lish, go usually under the name of Rebellion, yet I rather look up∣on it as, and chuse to call it a persecution, because their cruelties were exercised upon Protestants only, so farre as ever I could hear; neither were the English Papists murthered, yea they joyned with the Irish in murthering of their brethren. Besides, the Jesuites, Priests, and Friars were the chief instigators to these murthers, stirring up continually all sorts, both of the Gentry and Communalty, to shew the utmost of their zeal therein; and when their designe was so surely laid, that they thought it impossible to be prevented, they did in their publick devo∣tions recommend by their Prayers the good successe of a great de∣signe, tending much to the advancement of the Catholick cause; and that they might stir up the people with the greater animosity and cruelty to put it in execution, they everywhere declaimed loudly against the Protestants, saying, That they were Hereticks, not to be suf∣fered any longer to live amongst them; that it was no more sin to kill one of them, than to kill a dog; and that it was a mortal and unpardonable sin to relieve or protect any of them.
They also with much acrimony represented the severe courses taken by the Parliament of England to suppresse the Romish Reli∣gion, and utterly to extirpate the Professors of it: They told them that in England they had caused the Queens Priests to be hanged be∣fore her face, and that they held herself under a most severe disci∣pline; and that the like cruel Laws should be made against Popery in Ireland, &c.
When their plots were ripe for execution, we finde their first pro∣ceedings against the English very various; some of the Irish only stripping and expelling them; others murthering man, woman, and childe without mercy; yet all resolving universally to root out all the Protestants out of Ireland; yea, so deeply malicious were they a∣gainst the English Protestants, that they would not endure the very sound of that language, but would have all such punished as spake English; and the names of all English places they would have changed in∣to old Irish.
In many places they killed the English Cowes and Sheep, meerly