into existence, at the command and, of course, with all
the aid of the civil power. The Bishops of Meath and
Kildare, the nearest to Dublin, for resisting it were
banished their sees; the former to die an exile in Spain,
the latter to find refuge and protection with the Earl
of Desmond. Several Prelates were tolerated in their
sees, on condition of observing a species of neutrality;
but all vacancies, if within the reach of the English
power, were filled as they occurred by nominees of the
crown. Those who actively and energetically resisted the
new doctrines were marked out for vengeance, and we shall
see in the next decade how Ireland's martyr age began.

The honour and danger of organizing resistance to the
progress of the new religion now devolved upon the noble
family of the Geraldines of Munster, of whose principal
members we must, therefore, give some account. The
fifteenth Earl, who had concurred in the act of Henry's
election, died in the year of Elizabeth's accession
(1558), leaving three sons, Gerald the sixteenth Earl,
John, and James. He had also an elder son by a first
wife, from whom he had been divorced on the ground of
consanguinity. This son disputed the succession
unsuccessfully, retired to Spain, and there died. Earl
Gerald, though one of the Peers who sat in the Parliament
of the second year of Elizabeth, was one of those who
strenuously opposed the policy of Sussex, and still more
strenuously, as may be supposed, the more extreme policy
of Sidney. His reputation, however, as a leader, suffered
severely by the combat of Affane, in which he was taken