weavers personated Abraham and Isaac, with their offering and altar. The smiths, Pharaoh and his host. The skinners, the camel, with the children of Israel. The goldsmiths were to find the king of Cullen-(who was he?) The hoopers, or coopers, were to find the shepherds, with an angel singing Gloria in excelsis Deo. Corpus Christi guild was to find Christ in his passion, with the Maries and angels. The tailors were to find Pilate with his fellowship, and his wife clothed accordingly. The barbers, Annas and Caiaphas. fishers, the apostles. The merchants, the prophets. And the butchers, the tormentors. The reader may comment on the list as he will. Doubtless each corporation felt a gratification in doing its part well, though the degree of complacency must have varied according to the honour and excellency of what it had to personify.

The

What was reckoned an act of gross sacrilege was perpetrated in Dublin, early in the reign of Henry VIII. The partisans of the lord deputy Kildare, and those of the earl of Ormond, met in St. Patrick's cathedral professedly for an amicable conference with a view to adjust differences which had led to much asperity between them. It was a stratagem, however, on the part of Ormond and his people to get Kildare and his followers into their power. Words soon gave place to blows. Some of the arrows of Kildare's men stuck in the images of the sacred edifice. The

daring profanation was reported to the pope, who in his clemency absolved the citizens, but "in detestation of the deed, and to keep up the memory of it for ever," ordained that "the mayor of Dublin should walk barefoot through the city in open procession before the sacrament on Corpus Christi day yearly," a penance duly submitted to till the Reformation, and the performance of which must have given much interest to the festival.

The year 1535 saw Dublin in one of the greatest of its many perils. Fitzgerald, son of the lord deputy, was left in charge of it while his father went to England. A rumour was spread that the latter had been seized and beheaded in London. The son, on the 11th of June, came with a party of a hundred and forty horse, and made a formal and entire resignation of his authority to the chancellor, and then forthwith raised the standard of rebellion. He demanded liberty to pass through the city in order to besiege the castle, giving the magistrates some time to consider their reply. In this interval, a large supply of provisions and means of defence were conveyed into the castle. Alderman John Fitz-Simons, on his own account, furnished its commander with twenty-two tuns of wine, twenty-four of beer, two hundred dried ling, sixteen hogsheads of powdered beef, twenty chambers for mines, and an iron chain for the drawbridge, forged in his own house to avoid suspicion. The citizens then, with the commander's con

currence, agreed to Fitzgerald's demand, on the condition that no injury should be done to themselves. They had at first sent a messenger to the king for help, and he brought an encouraging answer. The rebels killed archbishop Allen when he attempted to escape; and they broke faith with the citizens, by threatening to place some of the children of the latter on their works, to deter the garrison in the castle from firing upon the besiegers. The citizens at last closed their gates, imprisoning the soldiers who were within the walls, and cutting them off from their comrades outside. Fitzgerald was absent from his camp. On hearing of what had occurred, he hastened back, attempted to take the city, but was repulsed and obliged to retire. The fidelity of the citizens was not unrewarded. The king, Henry VIII., by letters patent, dated February 4th, 1538, after reciting the "siege, famine, miseries, wounds, and loss of blood," they had suffered, granted them "all the building and estates belonging to the dissolved monastery of All-hallows, near Dublin, lying in the counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth, Kildare, Tipperary, Kilkenny, and elsewhere in Ireland, at the rent of four pounds, four shillings, and three farthings." And, further, to repair the weakened and ruined great forts and towers of the city and its walls, he confirmed to them, for ever, a formal grant of nearly forty pounds a year, with an annual gift of twenty pounds from himself.

62 DUBLIN SUBJECT TO ENGLISH PAPAL RULE.

The hill on which Dublin stood was not yet entirely cleared of the "hazel-wood" which at first gave it the name of " Ath-Cliath," for the annals record that, during the quarrels between the two factions of Ormond and Kildare, the former came down with a great host of Irishmen, and encamped in Thomas Court Wood." What is now Dame-street was then an "avenue" leading from the city gate to Hogges, or Hog gin's, Green.

SECTION III.

DUBLIN DURING THE BRITISH REFORMATION.

numbered more English throne. been convulsed

THE city had been for five hundred years under the spiritual yoke of Romanism, and, during nearly four centuries out of the five, the secular power of England had, for upholding its own interests, been joined with that spiritual dominion in both countries. In profound, yet contented servitude to the pope, Ireland remained till Henry VIII. had than thirty years on the Continental Europe had throughout; the monk of Wittemberg had made the Vatican quake to its foundations; Great Britain was in the midst of the tumult attending a revolution in her faith; but Ireland slumbered on as if drugged to stolidity or death under the pontiff's sway. Having little intercourse with other nations, she was so ingrossed with the local interests and strifes of her people, that she neither cared for nor knew much of what was passing elsewhere. Many of the Irish clergy, some even of prelatic rank, were ignorant, indolent, and immoral; and