At the time of James I’s accession, the state of the Irish Reformed Church, never since Henry VIII’s day satisfactory, was, owing to the wars and unrest of the last years of Elizabeth’s reign, more unsatisfactory than ever. The King was most anxious to establish order and uniformity, and to correct abuses. Several times he appointed Royal Commissions, to investigate and suggest remedies for the neglect and corruption which nearly everywhere prevailed, but the Commissions could do little beyond making known the extent of the evil. The alienation of the Church lands by the bishops, which had been complained of in the previous reign, continued, and often a prelate, on taking possession of a See, discovered that so much of the land had been disposed of by his predecessors, that little or nothing remained for him to live on.

The inferior clergy were in still worse case. The incomes of many of the so-called ” livings ” were so minute that not even the most frugal housekeeping could make them suffice for the furnishing of the barest necessities ; thus it became necessary for the clergyman to hold several of these offices, and to officiate, or undertake to officiate, in several parishes, in order to be able at all to support himself. The best paid livings, as also the best of the episcopal and archiepiscopal Sees, very frequently went to Englishmen or Scotchmen. In the bestowal of ecclesiastical patronage there was much nepotism.

The Commission of 1607 reports that the family of Meiler McGrath, the Archbishop of Cashel, hold amongst them over 70 livings. The Bishop of Down and Connor has made his brother, who was a tailor, an archdeacon. Protestant livings were, it would seem, sometimes held by Catholic priests, or at least by those who still clung to the old forms and celebrated jvlass ; sometimes too by Catholic laymen.