progress in the path of virtue,* if we can give credence to the contemporary Protestant bishop of Meath, who writes to lord. St. Leger, on 17th June, 1538:† "I have written unto you, by John Plunkett, much of my trouble by the bishop of Dublin, and the occasion of the same. He now boasteth himself to rule all the clergy under our sovereign lord, and he hath given a taste of his good demeanour, that every honest man is not only weary thereof, but reckoneth that pride and arrogance hath ravished him from the right remembrance of himself. I doubt not but you shall hear from others the specialities at large, from such as be indifferent; for surely he hath handled. me and my poor friends for my sake most cruelly, so far as he might." As to his subsequent career, we have no direct source of information; but perhaps we may justly infer that his life was not one of the most edifying, from the words of the Protestant bishop of Ossory, who tells us, that on his seeking to reform the corrupt morals of some of his ministers in 1553, they would at no hand obey, alleging for their vain and idle excuse, the lewd example of the archbishop of Dublin, who was always slack in things pertaining to God's glory." And the same writer, in his own coarse strain, subsequently accuses him of "drunkenness and gluttony," and calls him an epicurious archbishop, a brockish swine, and a dissembling proselyte.

The character of Dr. Staples seems to have borne the same stamp as that of Dr. Browne. The editors of the "State Papers" inform us, that the king sent an admonition to Staples identical with that sent to the archbishop of Dublin; and Dr. Browne himself, writing to a member of the council, on 15th of April, 1538,§ speaks of Dr. Staples as having preached without any honest shame, and in such a manner 66 as I think the threemouthed Cerberus of hell could not have uttered it more viperiously."

"As for teaching and preaching, these were utterly neglected, indeed not so much as thought of, unless occasionally, as when the chancellor once exclaimed, 'How should men know their duties when they shall not hear teaching or preaching from one end of the year to the other.""-Liber. Mun. Hib. part p. 37.

† State Papers, iii. p. 29.

Bale's Vocacyon, p. 414, reprinted in Harl. Misc., vol. vi. In Shirley, p. 18, are given articles of accusation against Dr. Browne, written in 1548. One of them accuses the archbishop of making alienations, etc., of most of his bishopric to his children and others. § State Papers, vol. iii. p. 1.

The bishop of Ossory has not found many eulogists even amongst his brother reformers; and Dr. Mant confesses that "with an uncommon warmth of temperament, he allowed himself the use of an unbecoming coarseness, and even grossness of expression."* The people of Kilkenny seem to have been soon tired of his ministrations; and his flight from that city on the accession of queen Mary, is one of the most remarkable events in the history of the restoration of the Catholic religion. Even during the reign of Elizabeth he did not venture to revisit the former scene of his labours,—so persuaded was he of the utter absence of sympathy and respect for him amongst its inhabitants. He retired to Canterbury, and died there in obscurity in 1563.†

9-The Reformation of Henry, a failure in Ireland.

From a cursory glance at some of the passages cited in the preceding pages, from the reports of Dr. Browne, and other English agents in Ireland, the reader might, perhaps, conclude that our island joyously embraced the boon of the English reformation. The Protestant archbishop, indeed, more than once depicted, in glowing colours, the happy fruits of his zeal in propagating the new tenets in Ireland. Yet all this was a mere delusion, the commencement of that mighty delusion which, for three hundred years, the Protestant establishment has continued to be in Ireland. Whilst the reformed doctrines remained unheard-of in most of the Irish districts, innumerable records of the period attest that, even within the pale, but little progress was made in the work of proselytism. Hence, our task in this article will be an easy one, and it will suffice to quote some passages from these records, to illustrate the true extent of the reformation in our Irish church.

A private letter of Browne to Cromwell, on 8th of January, 1538, thus describes the opposition made by the clergy, especially in the diocese of Dublin:

"It may please your lordship to be advertised, that within these

* Hist. of Ir. Ch., i. 226.

†The reader will find many curious facts connected with this unworthy individual in Harris's Ware, p. 417; Brennan's "Eccles. Hist." vol. ii. p. 99. State Paper, vol. ii. page $539.

parts of Ireland, which grieveth me very sore,-yea, and that within the diocese of Dublin and province of the same, where the king's power ought to be best known, where it hath pleased his most excellent highness to make me a spiritual officer, and chief over the clergy; yet neither by gentle exhortation, evangelical instruction-neither by oaths solemnly taken, nor yet by threats of sharp correction, can I persuade or induce any, either religious or secular, since my coming over, once to preach the word of God, or the just title of our most illustrious prince There is never an archbishop nor bishop, but myself, made by the king, but he is repelled even now by provision; again, for all that ever I could do, might I not make them once, but as I send mine own servants to do it, to cancel out of the canon of the Mass, or other books, the name of the bishop of Rome, whereby your lordship may perceive that my authority is little regarded."

About the same time, a king's justiciary, named White, made an inspection of the counties of Wexford, Waterford, Kilkenny, and Tipperary, and in his report to the lord privy seal,* he declares that he found but one city (Kilkenny) and one gentleman, lord Butler, who had embraced the reformation, whilst all the people were imbued with "an evil and erroneous opinion of the king's most noble grace, and of all those that under his majority, be the setters forth of the true word of God." Whether the remark, as far as regards Kilkenny, be true, will be illustrated hereafter by the fact of the expulsion of the Protestant bishop Bale from the precincts of that fine old Catholic city.

Many of the letters of Dr. Browne are written in a most desponding strain. Thus, we have already seen how in his letter to lord Cromwell, on 28th November, 1535, he described the Irish natives, as "more zealous in their blindness than the saints and martyrs" of the early church; and again, on 29th March, 1538, he writes to the same: "the people of this nation be zealous, yet blind and unknowing The country folk

here much hate your lordship, and despitefully call you, in their Irish tongue, the blacksmith's son Rome hath great favour for this nation, purposely to oppose his highness; therefore my hope is lost, yet my zeal is to do according to your lordship's orders." On the 8th May, same year, he laments the disobedience of a prebendary of St. Patrick's who, when ordered to read the new set form of prayers, "thought scorn to read them,” + Phoenix, loc. cit., pp. 123-4.

* State Papers, vol. ii., page 562.

and he adds: " they be, in a manner, all at the same point with There are twenty-eight of them, and yet scarce one that favoureth God's word."*

me.

Subsequently he informs the lord privy seal of the union in opposition to the reformation, which had sprung up between those of English descent and the old Irish race. "It is observed (he says) that ever since his highness's ancestors had this nation in possession, the old natives have been craving foreign powers to assist and rule them; and now both English race and Irish begin to oppose your lordship's orders, and to lay aside their national old quarrels,† which I fear will, if anything will, cause a foreigner to invade this nation.-(Cox's Hib. Anglic. vol. i. pp. 256-258; Macaria Excid., edit. by Royal Ir. Acad., 1850, page 288).

Even as late as 19th May, 1540, he laments the indocility of our country, in refusing to adopt the newly-fashioned creed: "I trust the time of amendment be at hand; howbeit, since ever I heard the name of Ireland first, the country was never farther out of order."+

Other leading members of the government, from time to time, betrayed the same despondency regarding the Irish people. Thus, Agard writes to Cromwell on 5th April, 1538.§ "Here as yet the blood of Christ is clean blotted out of all men's hearts except it be the archbishop of Dublin, and my good lord Butler, the master of the rolls, Mr. Treasurer, and one or two more, which are of a small reputation; here is else. none, from the highest to the lowest, who may abide the hearing of God's word, spiritual, as they call them, nor temporal, and

* State Papers, vol. iii. page 6.

and

†This confederacy threatened for awhile the complete annihilation of the English power. Robert Cowley writes to Cromwell on 8th September, 1539: "There never was seen in Ireland so great a host of Irishmen and Scots," the motive of it being, he adds, that "they considered the king a heretic this spirit, too, he says, pervaded the English pale. (State Papers, vol. iii. page 145.) On the 18th January, 1540, the lord deputy Gray informed the king that the detestable traitors, young Gerald, O'Neil, O'Donel, the pretended Earl of Desmond, O'Brene, O'Conor, and O'Mulmoy had well nigh subdued the whole country "to the supremacy of the pope." (Ibid, page 148.) See further details of this confederacy in the "The Earls of Kildare," by the marquis of Kildare: Dublin 1858, page 180-1.

State Papers, vol. iii. page 308. In another letter (Ibid. page 35) Dr. Browne laments that many who outwardly "feigned themselves maintainers of the gospel, have it not inwardly in their hearts."

§ State Papers, vol. ii. page 569.

especially they that here rule all, that is, the temporal lawyers who have the king's fee."

Cowley writes, the same year (19th July), in a like strain: "Sorry I am to hear such abuses; praying God that the employment of the king's treasure exhausted, and all his grace's resource in Ireland do not work to the confusion of the king's true subjects.......More sorry am I to hear how the papistical sect springs up and spreads abroad, infecting the land pestiferously."

Some years later (in 1548) Dr. Staples, the Protestant bishop of Meath, writing to the secretary of the lord deputy,† thus depicts the sentiments of the people of his own diocese regarding his evangelical ministrations: "One gentlewoman to whom I did christen a child, which beareth my name, came in great alarm to a friend of mine, desiring how she might find means to change her child's name: and he asked her why, and she said: because I would not have him bear the name of an heretic. A gentleman, dwelling nigh unto me, forbade his wife, who would have sent her child to be confirmed by me, so to do; saying, his child should not be confirmed by him that denied the sacrament of the altar. A friend of mine, rehearsing at the market that I would preach the next Sunday at Navan, divers answered they would not come there lest they should learn to be heretics. One of our lawyers declared to a multitude that it was a great pity that I was not burned; for I preached heresy... A beneficed man, of mine own promotion, came unto me weeping, and desired me that he might declare his mind unto me without my displeasure: I said I was well content. My lord, said he, before you went last to Dublin, you were the best beloved man in your diocese, and now you are the worst beloved that ever came here. I asked why. Why, said he, for you have taken open part with the state-that false heretick, and preached against the sacrament of the altar, and deny saints, and will make us worse than Jews; wherefore if the country could, they would eat you: and he besought me to take heed of myself, for he feared more than he durst tell me. He said, you have more curses than you have hairs in your head, and I advise you not to preach at Navan, as I hear you intend to do," etc.

*State Papers, vol. iii. page 50.

† Shirley, "Original Letters," p. 22.