Henry VIII., Dr. Browne, Cromwell, Viceroy Grey

**Chapter IV.

**1534 - 1537.

Henry VIII. Head of the Church - Dr. Brown, Archbishop of Dublin - Irish refuse to renounce the Pope - The Archbishop’s Letter to Cromwell - Lord Leonard Grey, Viceroy - Catholic Ceremonies observed - Parliament in 1537 - Henry VIII. made King of Ireland - Statute respecting Absentee Proprietors - Effect of that Statute.

Henry VIII., having taken the title of Head of the Church, in AD. 1534 appointed Dr. Brown, who had been an Augustinian friar, but was changed by Henry’s conclusive mode of conduct into a zealous Protestant, Archbishop of Dublin. He was specially commissioned that it was the royal will and pleasure that his Majesty’s subjects in Ireland, and even those in England, should obey his commands in spiritual as in temporal matters and renounce their allegiance to the Pope of Rome. The failure of this mandate may be judged from the archbishop’s letter to Lord Cromwell. He wrote on December 1535, “that he had endeavoured, almost at the risk of his temporal life, to procure the nobility and gentry of this nation to due obedience, to obey his Highness as Supreme Head, as well spiritual as temporal, but I could prevail nothing, as yet.”

The Irish Parliament, summoned by Henry’s viceroy, Lord Leonard Grey, met in 1537, and adopted all the commands of Henry VIII. He was made by statute Supreme Head of the Church; entitled to the first fruits of bishoprics and other revenues of the Church in Ireland. The revenues of suppressed, religious houses were invested in the Crown, and his title from this point, hitherto lord of Ireland, was changed to that of king. In the Parliament summoned in 1541, Sir Thomas Cusack, who had filled the chair as Speaker in Lord Grey’s Parliament, was again elected., Great ceremonies were used when opening the Irish Parliament at this time, which would startle our present House of Commons. The Houses met on Corpus Christi Thursday, a holiday of obligation in the Catholic Church. After morning mass, the lord deputy was escorted from the church by the lord chancellor, the archbishop, the bishops, the judges, and a numerous retinue of guards. In the procession rode the Earls of L Ormond and Desmond, the Lords Barry, Roche, FitzMaurice, and. Birmingham, and members of the Privy Council. As there were several Irish members present who were not acquainted with the English language, the Earl of Ormond acted as interpreter, and translated the message from the king, delivered to the lords by Alan, Lord Chancellor, and by the Speaker, Sir Thomas Cusack, speeches which the Irish members received greatly to their contentation.

The alteration in the royal title having been announced, the Speaker and members of the House of Commons withdrew to their own House, when the lords proceeded to pass the Bill changing the king’s title from that of lord to king of Ireland. We learn from the State papers of Henry VIII. that the proctors, bishops, and abbots, who were summoned to meet the Royal Commission in Parliament, May 18th, 1537, so strictly opposed the Act of Supremacy, that a letter from Dublin was addressed to Lord Cromwell, stating the lord-deputy was compelled to prorogue the Parliament. This at once caused an order to be directed, under the Great Seal of England, declaring that spiritual proctors should have no vote in Parliament, which was confirmed by the Irish Statute, 28 Henry VIII. c 12.

Failing to convert the Irish by Act of Parliament, the lord chancellor, the Archbishop of Dublin, and other Protestant members of the Privy Council, undertook a *Converting Circuit, *of which we have this account in the State papers. [Vol. iii. P. 108.] “We arrived first at Carlow, where the Lord James Butler kept his Christmas; and there being well entertained, from thence we went to Kilkenny, where we were not less entertained by the Earl of Ormond. There, on New Year’s Day, the Archbishop of Dublin preached the word of God, having very good audience, and published the king’s injunctions and the king’s translation of the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, the Articles of Faith, and the Ten Commandments, in English - divers papers whereof we delivered to the bishop and other prelates of the diocese, commanding them to do the like in other districts. The Saturday following we repaired to Ross, which town having been heretofore one of the best towns of this land, being also situated in the best place of these parts for subduing the Kavanaghs, is in manners utterly decayed and waste, by reason of the continual war and annoyance of the Kavanaghs, which cannot be helped while the Kavanaghs remain unreformed. Then the morning after, the said archbishop preached; that night we went to Wexford, where the archbishop preached and delivered the injunctions; and on to Waterford, where they were well entertained, the mayor and his brethren having great obedience. On Sunday, the archbishop again preached, and published the king’s injunctions. Next day we kept the sessions both for the city and the shire, where was put to execution four *felons, *accompanied with * another, *a friar, whom, among the residue, we commanded to be hanged in his habit, and so to remain upon the gallows for a mirror to all his brethren to live truly.” [Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland, vol. i. p.191]

It cannot cause surprise this mode of instructing the benighted papists to confession to the creed of Henry VIII., hanging, monks as felons, and having the hanged in their habits, pour encourager les autres, did not cause many conversions.

The Parliament, during the reign of Henry VIII., passed a stringent law against absentees. Receiving rents through agents was regarded criminal, and English noblemen, who, by marriage or descent, acquired lands in Ireland, on which they never resided, were required to assign them to persons resident in Ireland. The statute declared that if such was not done, the lands of all such as disobeyed were forfeited. [28 Henry VIII. C. 77.]

The case of the estates of absentees was brought before the English judges in a case reported in the 12th Part of Lord coke’s Reports. The case was that of the Earl of Shrewsbury and Waterford, when, “it was resolved by the judges of England, to whom the question was by the Privy Council referred, that the Irish Act against absentees did not only take away from the Earl of Waterford the possessions which were given to him at the time of his creation, but also the dignity itself.” The Court said, “It was with good reason to take away such dignity by Act of Parliament; and although the said Earl of Shrewsbury be not only of great honour and virtue, but also of great possessions in England, yet it was not the intention of the Act to continue him earl in Ireland when his possessions were taken from him.”

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