the Lord Depu checking the Whereupon, considering their obstinacy, we continuation of thought good to prorogue the parliament for this ty's letter. time; and against the next session provide a remedy for them. And therefore, my lord, it were well done that some mean be devised whereby they may be brought to remember their duties better. Except the mean may be found that these proctors Necessity for may be put from voice in the parliament, there shall proctors. but few things pass for the king's profit. For hitherto, since this parliament, have they shewed themselves in nothing conformable. We think that no reasonable man would judge them to have such pre-eminence in a parliament, that though the king, the lords, and the commons, assent to an act, the proctors in the Convocation House, though they were but seven or eight in number, as sometime they be here no more, shall stay the same at their pleasure, be the matter never so good, honest, and reasonable. But it doth well appear that it is a crafty cast, devised betwixt their masters, the bishops, and them. It is good that we have against Means proposed the next session a declaration from thence, under the king's great seal of England, of this question, whether the proctors have a voice in the parliament, or not? and that every act, passed without their assents, is nevertheless good and effectual." In pursuance of this letter, amongst the other acts" drawn and delivered to commissioners under the great seal of England," in July following, "to be conveyed to Ireland, and passed there by parliament, which shall be holden at the being there of the said commissioners," there was provided "an act to determine the authority of the proctors of the convocation, which take upon them now to direct the whole parliament." It was thereupon enacted, for so doing. Act passed for clesiastical op quelling the ec position. Proctors de clared not members of parliament. Act for first fruits. First-fruits of religious houses. that "the proctors should not be deemed or taken, from the first day of the present parliament, as parcels or members of the same, but only as counsellors and assistants; and that they should give no voice, nor should their assent be requisite or necessary to any act"." And thus a fatal blow was inflicted on that ecclesiastical opposition, which otherwise, in the persons of these representatives of the clergy, and under the management and dictation of their spiritual rulers, might have been effectual in defeating the proposed alterations, and in perpetuating the abuses and ascendency of the papacy. In the same parliament several other acts were passed, which had reference to ecclesiastical property, and materially affected the church and the clergy. The act for first fruits, taking for its precedent a similar act in England, enacted that all persons, nominated to any ecclesiastical preferment, should pay to the king the profits for one year, to whomsoever the foundation, patronage, or gift belong. Another vested in him the first-fruits of abbeys, priories, and hospitals: a previous act having provided for the suppression of thirteen religious houses Pensions to ab- by name; for the assurance of pensions to the bots. Twentieth part of benefices. abbots during their respective lives, and for the enjoyment of the possessions by the patentees, to whom the king should have granted them". Another ordained, that the twentieth part of the profit of all spiritual promotions be paid yearly to the king for ever: an enactment so well pleasing to the king, that he sent a particular letter of thanks to the lords spiritual for the grant1. 15 Irish Stat., 28 Henry VIII., c. 12. 16 Ib., c. 8. 18 Ib., c. 14. Peter-pence, tions, &c. Another prohibited the payment of Peter-pence, Prohibition of pensions, and other impositions, to the bishop or see Papal dispensaof Rome, and the procuring of dispensations, licences, and faculties from thence; and authorized the granting of them by commissioners appointed by the king, in the same manner as by the Archbishop of Canterbury in England". guage. By another act of the same parliament, for English order, encouraging "the English order, habit, and lan- habit, and language," spiritual promotions were directed to be given “only to such as could speak English, unless, after four proclamations in the next market town, such could not be had." And an oath was to be administered to "such as take orders, and to such as are instituted to any benefice, that he would endeavour to learn and teach the English tongue to all and every being under his rule; and to bid the beads in the English tongue, and preach the word of God in English, if he can preach; and to keep or cause to be kept within his parish a school for to learn English, if any children of his parish come to him to learn the same, taking for the keeping of the same school such convenient stipend or salary as in the same land is accustomably used to be taken":" an engagement this which, by persons grossly ignorant of the purport of the statute in general, as well as of this specifick enactment, has been invidiously and injuriously misinterpreted into an obligation incurred by every parochial incumbent, of providing at his own cost a general gratuitous education for all the poor children of his parish! Foregoing acts opposed by the Popish party and the primate. SECTION II. Difficulty of carrying the foregoing Acts of Parliament into execution. Archbishop of Dublin's endeavours to remore false objects of worship. King's Correspondence with him. Inquest of Commissioners into the State of the Kingdom. Impediments opposed to the Archbishop's exertions by the Lord Deputy. Necessity of fresh support from England. IT has been judged convenient to notice together these several acts relating to ecclesiastical persons, as they were all passed in the same parliament of 1537, which passed the acts of Supremacy, and of prohibition of the Pope's usurped authority. Reverting, however, to these most important acts we must observe, that although the efforts for enacting them triumphed over powerful resistance, still in the execution of them no small difficulty remained. And this indeed was to be expected. For longstanding prepossessions, whether personal or national, though they have not their foundation in reason, are not quickly to be eradicated; and, however little could reasonably be pleaded for an Italian bishop's claim to pre-eminence and power in the British isles, the idea of submission to his usurped authority was not more preposterous than it was inveterate. Thus a Popish party, opposed to the rightful prerogative of the sovereign, recognised as it now expressly was and strengthened by the law of the land, still persevered in its resistance; and at the head of that party was the primate, who, if he did not venture to act in open defiance of this two-fold authority, yet forbore to exert his influence in confirming and extending it; and was sedulous rather and active in giving what secret countenance and patronage he dared to the opposition. Archbishop of himself to abolish images and re Dublin exerts liques; To such opposition an additional stimulus was doubtless given by the endeavours, made at the same time by the Archbishop of Dublin, for abolishing the false objects of Romish worship from the churches within his jurisdiction. His two cathedrals in particular, as there has been already occasion to observe1, abounded with these symbols of corruption. In the church of the Holy Trinity, or Christ's Church, the reliques and statutes were innumerable; and in the walls of St. Patrick's a multitude of niches had been furnished by the superstition of the times with images of saints. These endeavours were about coincident in time with similar proceedings carried on under the royal authority in England; and the archbishop acted under the like authority, which had been recently acknowledged in Ireland by the late statutes, having received instructions from the Lord Cromwell to that effect. But in executing these instructions he was met with opposition, not only from the primate, but from those who were next in authority to himself within his own diocese; namely, the prior of the church of the Resisted by the Holy Trinity, Robert Castele, alias Payneswick, and Edward Bassenet, dean of St. Patrick, who were tempted by the emoluments accruing from those superstitious objects of veneration to resist the king and the archbishop, and to seek support in their resistance from the Pope". chief dignitaries. This conduct of Archbishop Browne does not Unaccountablo prepare us for finding him about this time the 2 Cox, i. 256. 1 Above, pp. 70, 77. displeasure of |