In
former times the chief governors dared not execute with severity the laws
against the Catholic priesthood, and the fugitives easily found security on
the estates of the great landed proprietors. But now the Irish people lay
prostrate at the feet of their conquerors; the military were distributed in
small bodies over the country; their vigilance was sharpened by religious
antipathy and the hope of reward; and the means of detection were
facilitated by the prohibition of travelling without a license from the
magistrates. Of the many priests who still remained in the country, several
were discovered, and forfeited their lives on the gallows; those who
escaped detection concealed themselves in the caverns of the mountains, or
in lonely hovels raised in the midst of the morasses, whence they issued
during the night to carry the consolations
[Footnote 1: Hibernia Dominicana, 707. Bruodin, 696. Porter, Compendium
Annalium Eecclesiasticorum (Romae, 1690), p. 292.]
of religion to the huts of their oppressed and suffering countrymen.[1]
3. In Scotland the power of the commonwealth was as firmly established as
in Ireland. When Cromwell hastened in pursuit of the king to Worcester, he
left Monk with eight thousand men to complete the conquest of the kingdom.
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