the British Bishops, to unite with the Monk Austin? Is it necessary to state, that the British and Scotch churches derived the authority of their customs from † Saint John, and not from Saint Peter; that they differed from the church of Rome in the celebration of Easter, in a manner that proves decidedly, that the origin of those churches must have been nearly, if not precisely, in the Apostolic times? The body of those composing the ancient British church, properly such, was perhaps at no time entirely under the See of Rome. The intrusion of the Norman Bishop Barnard did indeed bring St. David's, in the time of Henry I. under it; and the crafty manoeuvre of Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, in going through Wales, under the colour of raising recruits for the Crusade, and by saying Mass in the churches, laying a foundation for subjecting them to the See of Canterbury.

The means adopted were worthy of the design. Rhys ap Gryffydd, Prince of South Wales, was, in opposition to the prayer and protest of the clergy of St. David's, persuaded and perhaps intimidated so far as to allow Baldwin to go through his territories. It is, however, very remarkable, that, though Giraldus tells a long story of Henry II. at St. David's, he dispatches the account of Baldwin's acts there in few and very suspicious words. "The Archbishop having said Mass at the high altar in the church of

* See also Blackstone's Commentaries, book 4. chap. 8. † See Bede, Hist. Eccl. lib. 3. cap. 25.

St. David at the first glimpse of day 11ASTENED towards Aberteifi."

Hence it is evident that if he said Mass there at all, which seems dubious, he did it like a robber of the privileges of the church, surreptitiously, and had reason to apprehend a signal and just vengeance. As to his levies for the crusade, even Giraldus confesses they were the refuse of the people, chiefly malefactors; and, supported by those, he was able to use force to intrude at Bangor: for the same author says, that Guian, the Bishop, was compelled, by an importunity beyond persuasion, (in plain English, absolute force,) whilst the people of both sexes lamented it with tears and cries, in the most piteous manner, to take the cross, and thus to be exiled from his bishopric, that an intruder might be placed there.

There was, however, one Prince, Owen Cyfeiliog, who was not to be imposed upon by the novelty of the sight, or the speciousness of the sanctified usurper. He did not suffer him to come within his territories; and of course was anathematized, because he did not surrender the rights of the ancient British church. How this inroad of Baldwin was followed up, and how far, or how long, precisely, the Sees of Wales were brought to be dependent on the Pope, it may not be easy to ascertain; but it is easy to see, that, whilst any memory of these things remained, there could be no cordial connexion. The church of Rome, did not however, rest here. That which was an usurpation begun by fraud, was to be accomplished by force; the English, as it appears from the remonstrance of the Welshmen to Edward I., did cruellie

H

exercise, tyrannie towards the church and churchmen. This denotes no agreement. Llewelyn styles Peckham Archbishop of Canterbury, and Primate of all England, but not a word of Wales. He also observes that England is under the speciall protection of the See of Rome; but he solicits its interest for Wales by no such claim, and Peckham's answers have nothing of the address to a beloved son in them. They are merely to be intimated. In fact, the wish to subdue the church of Wales to Rome seems to have been the prime mover of the wish to subdue the country. Owen Glendower, in retaliation, destroyed the Cathedrals of Bangor and St. Asaph; the Reformation, therefore, was welcomed throughout Wales, as breaking off that connexion, and the reading of the Scriptures completed it.

That the ancient church of Ireland was not in union with Rome, and that it was force that, in the time of Henry II., brought it about, will be evident from some very curious and remarkable passages in Bede and in Giraldus Cambrensis, who was himself a staunch Romanist, and one of the most zealous of his time in promoting the power and influence of Rome, except in the case of making St. David's subject to Canterbury.

In the 4th chapter of the 2d book of his Ecclesiastical History, Bede gives this account of the antipathy of the Irish to the Romish church in the time of Laurence, the immediate successor of the Monk Austin in England. Speaking of Laurence, he says: "And truly he hofully (anxiously) caréd, not only for the new churche, wich was now gathered of

Englishmen, but also for the church of the old inhabitantes of Britannie, and of the Scottes too, who harboured in Ireland-For as sone as he knew the life and profession of the Scottes in their forenamed country to be skarce ecclesiastical, and well ordered in manie pointes, (lyke as was the Britons at that tyme in Britannie,) specially bycause, they celebrated not the solemnitie of Ester (Easter) in dew tyme-he-with the other Byshops-wrote unto them an exhorting epistle The beginning of this epistle was suche."

"To our derest beloved brethren the Bysshops and Abbottes throwgh out all Scotland, Laurence, Mellite, and Justus, Bysshops, and servants to them that fear God, greeting. When as the See Apostolique (according to the customable maner thereof, to send into all places of the worlde) directed and sent us unto these west quarters to preache the word of God to paynim people and to Hethen men, it happed us to entre into this yle, which is called Britannie. Where thinking that all that dyd beare the name of Christen men walked according to the way of the universal churche, we honored with greate reverence as wel the Britons, as the Scottes. But after we had wel proved and tryed the Britons to swarve from the same, we yet judged the Scottes for better men. Marye now we have lerned by Bysshop Dagamus' coming to this before-mentioned yland, and we doe understand by the Abbot Columban of Fraunce, that the Scottes (that is the Irish) doe nothing differ from the Britons in their conversation. For Bysshop Dagamus coming to us, wold not only not eate with us, but not so much as eate his meate in that house where we were." The principal reasons assigned by the Romish

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writers in general for this aversion are the difference as to the time of keeping Easter, and that as to shaving the crown. But in the Life of Wilfrid another cause also is stated, viz. that they of the Romish church made such an use of the sign of the cross as appeared to the Britons to be idolatrous.*" If any of our Abbots or Presbyters" says the writer of Wilfrid's Life, "when invited by any of the believers amongst the common people, blessed the food set before him with the SIGN of the CROSS, they thought that the, meat ought to be carried out and thrown away, as an idolatrous sacrifice." From this circumstance it seems probable that the introduction of the use of images was also a cause of the dissension. The worshipping of saints and martyrs, was also another cause, as will presently appear.

Hence then it appears, that a Bishop of the Irish church would not even eat in, the same house as a Romish Bishop at this time, and that on account of the difference of their churches in very essential respects. It also appears that the ancient British and Irish churches were the same, and that both disagreed with the church of Rome, and refused to have any connexion with it. This was indeed a provoking defalcation from its pretended universality, and the warmth apparent in the above epistle shews it was felt so. Here, however, we have the authority of a writer of the church of Rome, and of acknowledged

* Si quispiam abbatum vel Presbyterum nostrorum, a fideli de plebe rogatus, refectionem suam ante se positam signo crucis Dei benediceret, foris projiciendum et effundendum, quasi idolothytum judicabant.-Vita Wilfredi. Ed. Gale, p. 77.