American people and make the miserable excuse that they have failed to do the public business because the minority would not let them act. Mr. Reed has demonstrated that a majority in Congress can act if it chooses to do so, and no public man has rendered such an important service as this to the people of the United States for many years.

The primary duty of a legislative body is to act. Debate, even when most valuable, is subsidiary. We ought to have always both debate and action, but, if we must choose between them, action must have the preference, for endless debate without action would soon bring any government into contempt. Moreover, the surest way to-day to get intelligent debate is to make it impossible for the minority to stop legislation by obstruction. It has been declared that the business of an Opposition is to oppose,' and if an Opposition can oppose by delay and obstruction they certainly will do so. Take from them this power, and they will then be forced to content themselves with reasonable discussion, which will be of value to the country and the House, and of which they can never be deprived, because enlightened public opinion is sure always to insist upon it. One thing is certain, that unless Parliamentary obstruction can be rigidly restrained Parliamentary government will come into serious peril, for no intelligent people will long bear with a system which is vocal but motionless, which marks time but does not march.

HENRY CABOT LODGE

(Member of Congress).

House of Representatives,
Washington.

FRAGMENTS OF IRISH CHRONICLES.

GERALD THE GREAT.

(Concluded.)

IN Ireland, after this, matters soon settled down into their customary grooves, though there must have been a good many sighs of relief on the part of the late rebels, or so one surmises. Kildare went off a month later upon one of his usual raids, this time into the territory of Moy-Cashel, where we read that he 'broke down the castle of Bille-ratha upon the two sons of Murtragh Macgeoghegan, after having brought ordnance against it.' This is noteworthy as the first occasion upon which ordnance was made use of in Ireland, and its introduction was evidently a source of much self-exultation to the Deputy, who had recently been presented for a great rarity' with 'six hand guns out of Germany, which his guard used during the time they stood sentry before his habitation.' Poor Earl Gerald! His satisfaction would have been greatly damped could he have looked forward another fifty years, and seen the big ugly holes that this same 'great rarity' was destined to make in the stout walls of his own keep at Maynooth.

Though everything had thus apparently settled down again, and he himself seemed to be as firm in the saddle as ever, matters were not really as safe or as smooth as might have been wished. Apart from the eternal enmity of the Butlers, Kildare had a formidable foe in Ottavio or Octavius, Archbishop of Armagh, who at that moment was known to be in England diligently instilling into the King's mind a belief that the Deputy was already tampering with his oath, and only waiting for a fresh opportunity to break ont into open rebellion. To counteract these insidious suggestions the indefatigable Payne, Bishop of Meath, was again despatched, and a brisk interchange of personalities and mutual contradictions ensued between the two prelates. The result was that the King resolved to summon all his Irish lords to Court, and to Court accordingly they went, the only important exceptions being the Earl of Desmond and Lord Kerry, the former of whom claimed at this time a sort of half-acknowledged exemption on the score of the

grievous treachery committed against his father during a former reign.

It was a great occasion, and is dilated upon by the Anglo-Irish chroniclers of the day with becoming emphasis. The chief speaker amongst the Irish guests seems by their account to have been less Kildare than Lord Howth, of whom we lose sight after the ceremony of Lambert Simnel, and who is not once mentioned in connection. with the Edgecombe negotiations, but who now comes to the front with all the consciousness of having taken the winning side, and fills an agreeable rôle of mingled dignity and jocularity. In the first of the following extracts he is found patronisingly encouraging an English fellow peer, whose soul is disquieted by some previsions of impending danger, though it is not clear for what reason. The scene is the Royal Court at Greenwich.

Afterwards the King sent for all his Lords out of Ireland, they being in England with the King. After long talk with them, the King said to his Lords, 'My masters of Ireland, you will crown apes at length!' Those Lords being appointed for a procession, with certain Lords of England to be their companions and fellows, walked in that procession as appointed. Amongst them was one Lord and the Lord of Houthe together, which Lord trembled with fear, and scarce could speak, and said, 'Sir, there shall be no butchery done upon none of us this time, praise be to God, for the face of the axe is turned from us.' This was an axe borne before the procession, as is accustomed, and he that was speaking could scarce speak with fear. Being asked by the Lord of Houthe the cause why he was so frayed, he said that the Lord his father and grandfather had been both beheaded. Well,' said the Lord of Houthe, follow my counsel; serve God with all your heart, and fear your Prince and obey his laws to your power, and you need never doubt of such a thing.'

Coming from an Irish subject to an English one, this advice is edifying! In the next extract Howth is still the hero and spokesman, but now addressing and reproving his own countrymen :—

The same day at dinner, as the Lords of Ireland was at Court, a gentleman came there as they was at dinner, and told them that their new King Lambarte Symenell had brought them wine to drink, and drank to them all. At that not one would have taken the cup out of his hands, but bade the great Devil of Hell take him before that ever they had seen him. Bring me the cup if the wine be good,' cryed the Lord of Houthe, being a merry gentleman, and I shall drink it off both for the wine's sake and for mine own sake also, and for thee, as thou art, so I leave thee, a poor Innocent.' The Lords being there longer than their purses could well bear, were licensed to go to their country, and the King gave the Lord of Houthe the apparel that he wore that day, and 3007. in gold, with thanks; and so they departed.

They departed, and all went well for the present. There were not lacking, however, distant mutters of thunder, and shrewd premonitory hints that a change was at hand. The first serious blow fell two years later in 1492, when by a sudden act of the King— believed in Ireland to be due to the machinations of the Butlers

the deputyship was taken from Kildare, and conferred upon Walter Fitz Simons, Archbishop of Dublin, who belonged to the rival faction. What seems to have been resented more than even Kildare's deprivation was that his uncle, the old Baron of Portlester, who had held the office of Lord Treasurer for no less than eight-and-thirty years, was also suddenly deprived of it, and threatened moreover with a hostile prosecution, which would have had the result of ruining him. At the same time the arch enemy, Sir James of Ormonde, was made Master of the Rolls, so that nearly the whole power, as far as the executive was concerned, swung suddenly over into the hands of the Butlers.

It made less practical difference than might be imagined. Even when out of office and apparently in disgrace, the Earl of Kildare was still by far the most influential man in or near Dublin, and very little attempt seems to have been made to diminish his power, or curtail the almost regal importance he affected. One consequence of the change was that the ever-smouldering feud between him and the Butlers burst at this point into sudden fury, partly, no doubt, on account of recent events, but partly because, being no longer trammelled by the responsibilities of office, Geroit Mor felt himself probably in a position to avenge a whole crop of minor injuries that had been slowly gathering for years past. The acts committed at this time on both sides are literally almost past belief, and therefore it is as well to let them be told in contemporary words. Who the writer of the account I am about to quote was, seems now impossible to ascertain, no signature having ever been appended to it. One thing, however, is clear from internal evidence, and that is that he was no friend of Earl Gerald's.

Upon a time Lord Gerot came to Dublin and called the citizens out upon Oxmantoune Green and slew many of them. . . . Then Lord Gerot sent part of his horsemen over the river against St. James' Gate to enter in the city. But as God would, some of the city being upon the walls, did see the horsemen coming and had the gates shut and so disappointed their enterprise. This was because that Lord Gerot thought the citizens took part with the Butlers more than they did with him.

In like manner the Earl of Wormon [this, as already explained, means Sir James of Ormonde] came another time with the O'Brens, and other his friends in the South, towards Dublinge, and camped awhile at the wood of St. Thomas Court, and so came to Dublinge to see his friends, which told him of the doings of the Earl of Kildare. And any men whom he understood to be towards the Earl of Kildare, those he destroyed to the uttermost of his power, and said openly he wished of God to have been by, when the Earl of Kildare played those parts.

That this was a wholly Butlerian view of the matter, and that Kildare, far from being reluctant to meet Sir James, was on the contrary diligently hunting him out, is clear from what follows. It was Sir James who apparently had no fancy for meeting Geroit Mor, but

preferred wreaking his vengeance upon the less formidable members of his party. One not very attractive feature in the struggle is the absolute indifference with which both sides attacked churches and churchmen in their pursuit of one another. Writing to the genuine Ormonde about this time to complain of the misdeeds of his cousin. and substitute, Kildare tells him that Sir James had brought in the O'Briens, with other Irish enemies, and therewith destroyed the King's subjects, and spareth no churches, nor religious places, but hath despoiled them.' A partial explanation of this peculiar atrocity lies in the fact that a church was the only place where there was even a chance of the two factions meeting without instantly coming to blows and killing one another. Even when a church, nay a cathedral, was the meeting-place selected, it by no means followed that this result would not occur. Witness the following incident which occurred in St. Patrick's Cathedral, close under the walls of the town. This time our extract is from Holinshed.

The Earle of Kildare appoynted a meeting to bee at St. Patrick, his churche; where, as they were ripping up one to the other their mutual quarrels, the citizens and Ormonde's army fell at some jarre, for the oppression with whiche the souldiers surcharged them. With whom as part of the citizens bickered, so a round knot of archers rusht into the church, meaning to have murthered Ormond, as the captain and belweather of al these lawlesse rabble. The Earl of Ormond suspecting that he had been betrayed, fled to the chapitre house, and put too the dore, sparring it with might and mayne. The citizens in their rage, imagining every post in the churche had been one of the souldiers, shot habbe and nabbe at random up to the roode-loft and to the chancell, leaving some of their arrows sticking in the images. Kildare pursued Ormond to the chapitre house dore, and there undertooke, on his honour, that he should receive no villanie. Whereupon the recluse craving his lordship's hand to assure him his life, a clift in the chapitre house dore was pierced in a thrice, to the end both the Earls should have shaken hands and bee reconciled. Nevertheless Ormond surmising that this drift was intended for some further treacherie, and that if he would stretche out his hand it had been per case chopt off, refused that proffer, untill Kildare stretched in his hand to him, and so the dore opened, and they both embraced.

6

How cordial such embraces were it is easy to guess! 'Their quarrels,' says Holinshed, were for the presente rather discontinued than ended,' and we should think so! For the presente,' however, there was a delusive calm. The little town breathed again. The citizens dropped their bows and arrows, and took up their cleavers or yard measures. Dublin was like some small walled Italian city in an interval between two onslaughts from its fierce rival protectors. Great displeasure was expressed in Rome for the outrage committed by the citizens in shooting their arrows about in the church, and a Legate was sent from the Pope to inquire into the matter. In the end the citizens were absolved from the sentence of excommunication laid upon them only by consenting that in future their Maior should go barefoot through the citie in open procession before the Sacrament on Corpus Christiday, which penitent satisfaction was