80 FORTY PRIESTS

FORTY PRIESTS (From O’Heyn’e Epilogus, p.18) IN 1602 forty priests of different religious Orders were put to death by drowning. This writer thus described the manner of their death: Turn, reader, and listen to a horrid crime. In the year 1602, Elizabeth, the instrument of hell, falsely styled Queen of England, published a decree suppressing all the monasteries in Ireland and confiscating their property. The monks of the Orders of St. Benedict and of St. Bernard, and others, presented a petition to her asking for a safe-conduct out of the kingdom. She consented readily, and ordered all to assemble in a certain island in the Shannon, called in Irish Innis catha, in English Scattery, fourteen leagues from Limerick. There were two aged Fathers of our Order, who were going out as agents to the Catholic Princes on behalf of Ireland, then in a state of ruin. Seven students, also of our Order, came there from the monasteries of Limerick and Kilmallock. One large ship of war was sent to transport them all. All went on board, and when they had reached the open sea, they were thrown overboard by order of that wicked woman. She imprisoned the captain and all the sailors and soldiers belonging to that vessel, to show to the world that she was innocent of so shameful a crime. Privately she told them that they should make no mention of her in connection with the business, and she recompensed them with a part of the property of the monasteries left by those who were drowned in this sacrilegious manner.’