Henry VIII Declares Himself “Supreme Head of the Church” . In order to understand the events which followed the recall of Grey, we must retrace our steps and consider, in its earliest stages, the question which has, more than all others, down even to our own day, complicated the relations between Ireland and England—namely, what is known as ” the religious difficulty.” In 1532 Henry VIII had regularly begun a quarrel with the Pope, by asserting himself to be ” Supreme Head of the Church ” in England, and so withdrawing himself and his Kingdom from all spiritual dependence on the See of Rome.

Above : St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Since 1585 no Parliament had sat in Ireland : now it appeared expedient that one should be summoned ; not only because the King was in urgent need of money, but also in order to legalise the confiscation of the Ulster lands by the attainder of their former possessors. So far, Irish Parliaments had been representative only of a part, and that by no means a large part, of the country; the districts namely which were really under the authority of the English Crown, and sometimes of some of the southern towns. Now members would be returned from each of the counties and boroughs in the four provinces. The Catholics were almost everywhere in a great majority. To counteract their influence, forty new boroughs were created, of which nineteen were in the newly-planted lands of Ulster, while all were carefully selected as likely to return Protestant representatives. It was hoped that, by this means, a majority would always be secured for the Reformers, who were deemed to be the Government party.