Spreading Reformation in Ireland and the Dissolution of the Monasteries’
Attempts to Spread the Reformation in Ireland : George Browne Appointed Archbishop of Dublin.—In 1535 Henry appointed a Commission to begin the enforcement in Ireland of the Reformation, as it soon came to be termed. At its head was George Browne, formerly an English Augustinian friar, but who had been recently chosen Archbishop of Dublin by the King, and consecrated for that office by Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, without any authority from the Pope. The new Archbishop was tactless and uncharitable, domineering when he dared, but subservient to meanness when it suited him to be so. He seemed anxious only to obey the tyrannical master who, as he reminded him, could as easily pull him down as before he had elevated him, and we look in vain in his utterances for any trace of religious zeal.
As might be expected, Browne achieved in his episcopal labours no success worth mentioning. Of the bishops, only Staples of Meath supported him, while the clergy, with few exceptions, slighted his authority, and refused to declare in their churches ” the just title of our illustrious prince ” at his command. With Grey he quarrelled violently, and his letters to England are full of complaints of the Deputy.
Religious Legislation in Ireland : Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1536 a Parliament assembled in Dublin, and it was required to pass ” the Act of the Supreme Head,” which declared ” the King Our Sovereign Lord, the only supreme head on earth of the whole Church of Ireland,” with power to suppress and punish ” all errors and heresies.” Anyone refusing to acknowledge the King in this capacity, by the taking of an oath if required, might be punished even with death, if the refusal were obstinate and repeated. This penalty was also incurred by all who persistently preached or spoke against the Royal Supremacy.
By another Act, the ” First Fruits ” or one year’s salary of every ecclesiastical office, hitherto paid by each new incumbent to the Pope, should henceforth go to the King. These Acts appear to have been passed by the Parliament with much reluctance.
The next work undertaken by Henry was the dissolution of the Irish monasteries and convents. There were in Ireland at this time perhaps 500 or 600 religious houses, of which about seventy were convents of nuns. Thirteen were first marked out for destruction, but others followed in rapid succession till, by the end of Edward VI’s reign (1553), almost all those in Leinster, most of those in Munster and some in Connacht had been suppressed.
Many were situated on territories not really subject to the King, but by assigning the confiscated property to the noble or chief of the district, he often obtained their willing cooperation in his spoliations. In Ulster, and in some of the remote parts of Munster and Connacht, monasteries continued to exist till the early seventeenth century. The pretext put forward for the suppression of the monasteries and convents was, as a rule, merely that they had been abodes of ” idolatry and superstition.”
