Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/283

I570-] STATE OF IRELAND. 263 deliver them from a Power which, discharged no single duty that rulers owe to subjects. That Philip allowed the opportunity to escape him was due in part to the causes which closed his ears against the English Catholics, and for which he endured for so many years the intolerable insolence of the privateers. He could not agree to any common course of action with France, and without France he was afraid to move ; while again, it was only with extreme reluctance, and by extremely slow degrees, that he could bring himself to regard Elizabeth as an enemy, or consent to measures which might overthrow her throne. Yet, as with England he had been long perplexed and irreso- lute, so it was not without a struggle that he abandoned a second Catholic nation who flung themselves upon him for protection ; and, after all, he might have listened favourably to the petition of which the Archbishop of Cashel was the bearer, but for a difficulty unforeseen by any one who did not understand the secret relations between the Courts of Borne and Madrid. The Irish had dutifully addressed their request in the first instance to the Pope. For some mysterious reason, the ultimate sovereignty of Ireland was held to be vested in the Holy See. Saint Peter had given it to the Normans. The grant was considered to have lapsed with English apostasy, and St Peter's successor was entreated to transfer it to the Catholic King. No one in Ireland dreamt that the Pope would raise an objection. Having excommunicated Elizabeth, and commissioned the Catholic Powers to execute his sentence upon her, it