'Thus we are not warring against the legitimate sceptre and honourable throne of England, but against a she-tyrant who has deservedly lost her royal power by refusing to listen to Christ in the person of his vicar, and through daring to subject Christ's Church to her feminine sex on matters of faith, about which she has no right to speak with authority.
'In what belongs to the conduct of the war, we have no thoughts of invading the rights of our fellow-citizens, nor of following up private enmities, from which we are especially free, nor of usurping the supreme royal power. I swear that God's honour shall be at once restored to Him, and we are ready at any moment to lay down the sword, and to obey our lawful superiors. But if any hesitate to combat heresy, it is they who rob Ireland of peace, and not us. For when there is talk of peace, not with God but with the Devil, then we ought to say, with our Saviour: I came not to bring peace on earth, but a sword. If then we wage continual war to restore peace with God, it is most just that those who oppose us should purchase their own damnation, and have for enemies all the saints whose bones they spurn, and also God himself, whose glory they fight against.
'Let so much here suffice, for if anyone wishes to understand the rights of the case he need but read and understand the justice and reasonableness of the fuller edict which we have taken care should be also published.'[16]
[Sidenote: How Fitzmaurice understood liberty of conscience.]
In these papers the arguments derived from the right to liberty of conscience, which all Protestants should respect, and from the Papal claims which all Protestants deny, are blended with no small skill; but Fitzmaurice, while demanding liberty of conscience for himself, expressly denies it to those who disagree with him.
There can be no doubt that Desmond was jealous of James Fitzmaurice; and historians well-affected to the Geraldines have attributed the latter's rebellion to the ill-feeling existing between them. It is said that Lady Desmond, who was a Butler, had prevented her husband from making any provision for his distinguished kinsman. It was reported to Drury that Fitzmaurice had called himself Earl of Desmond on the Continent, and that this would be sure to annoy the Earl, whose pride was overweening. But this does not seem to have been the case. Fitzmaurice is not called Earl either in his own letters or in those written to him. The general of the Jesuits addresses him as 'the most illustrious Lord James Geraldine'; the Pope speaks of him as James Geraldine simply, and so he calls himself, sometimes adding 'of Desmond.' But that he should have been appointed general of a force which was to operate in Desmond's country was quite enough to excite suspicion. No sooner did the news of his arrival reach the Earl than he wrote to tell Drury that he and his were ready to venture their lives in her Majesty's quarrel, 'and to prevent the traitorous attempts of the said James.' He had nevertheless been in correspondence with Fitzmaurice, and had urged his immediate descent upon the Irish coast some eighteen months before.[17]