第268章

and accepted pensions from the king as a compensation for the loss they sustained by the suppression of the monasteries, creates a grave suspicion of their orthodoxy, though it does not prove that they accepted royal supremacy. Baron was undoubtedly in close communication with the government officials, and Nugent seems to have been removed by the Pope. Again, several of the bishops, Roland de Burgo of Clonfert, Florence Kirwan of Clonmacnoise, Eugene MacGuinness of Down and Connor, and Thady Reynolds of Kildare[59] surrendered the Bulls they had received from Rome, and accepted grants of their dioceses from the king. Such a step, however, affords no decisive evidence of disloyalty to the Holy See. For years a sharp controversy had been waged between the Kings of England and the Pope regarding the temporalities of bishoprics. The Popes claimed to have the right of appointment to both the spiritualities and the temporalities, and gave expression to these claims in the Bulls of appointment. The kings on their part asserted their jurisdiction over the temporalities, and to safeguard their rights they insisted that the bishop-elect should surrender the papal grant in return for a royal grant. Such a custom was well known before any schismatical tendencies had made themselves felt in England, and compliance with it would not prove that the bishops involved looked upon the king as the source of their spiritual jurisdiction. The main point to be considered in case of the bishops who surrendered their monasteries or their Bulls is what kind of oath, if any, were they obliged to take. If they consented to swear the form of renunciation prescribed for Irish bishops by the king their orthodoxy could not well be defended, but it is possible that, as Henry VIII. did not wish to press matters to extremes with the Irish princes, he may have adopted an equally prudent policy in case of the bishops, and contented himself with the oath of allegiance.

Fully cognisant of the importance of winning the bishops to his side, Henry VIII. took care to appoint his own nominees as soon as a vacancy occurred. By doing so he hoped to secure the submission of the clergy and people, and to obtain for himself the fees paid formerly to Rome.

During the ten years, between 1536 and 1546, he appointed Dominic Tirrey to Cork, Richard Nangle to Clonfert, Christopher Bodkin, already Bishop of Kilmacduagh to Tuam, Alexander Devereux to Ferns, William Meagh to Kildare, Richard O'Ferral, late prior of Granard to Ardagh, Aeneas O'Hernan (or O'Heffernan), late preceptor of Aney, to Emly, George Dowdall, late prior of Ardee, to Armagh, Conat O'Siaghail, a chaplain of Manus O'Donnell to Elphin, and Cornelius O'Dea, a chaplain of O'Brien of Thomond, to Killaloe. Though there can be little doubt that some of these received their appointments as a reward for their acceptance of royal supremacy, it is difficult to determine how far they were committed to the religious policy of Henry VIII. It is certain that none of them, with the possible exception of Nangle, took an active part in favouring the cause of the Reformation in Ireland once they understood the real issues at stake, and that the fact of their being opposed in every single case by a lawful bishop appointed by the Pope rendered it impossible for them to do much, however willing they might have been to comply with the wishes of the king.[60]

During this critical period in Irish history Pope Paul III. was in close correspondence with several of the Irish bishops and lay princes. Time and again the officials in Ireland complain of the "Rome-runners," of the provisions made by the Pope to Irish bishoprics, of the messengers passing to and fro between Ireland and Rome, and of the Pope's co-operation in organising the Geraldine League in 1538 and 1539. It should be noted, however, that the silly letter attributed by Robert Ware to Paul III., wherein he is supposed to have warned O'Neill that he and his councillors in Rome had discovered from a prophecy of St. Laserian that whenever the Church in Ireland should fall the Church of Rome should fall also, is a pure forgery published merely to discredit the Pope and the Roman See.[61]

Undoubtedly Paul III. was gravely concerned about the progress of a movement that threatened to involve Ireland in the English schism, and was anxious to encourage the bishops and princes to stand firm in their resistance to royal supremacy. In 1539 reports reached Rome that George Cromer, the Archbishop of Armagh, who had resisted the measures directed against the Pope during the years 1536-38, had yielded, and as a result the administration of the See was committed (1539) to Robert Wauchope, a distinguished Scotch theologian then resident in Rome. What proofs were adduced in favour of Cromer's guilt are not known, but it is certain that the official correspondence of the period will be searched in vain for any evidence to show that Cromer accepted either in theory or in practice the ecclesiastical headship of Henry VIII. He held aloof from the meetings of the privy council, never showed the slightest sympathy with the action of the Archbishop of Dublin, and though his name appears on some of the lists of the spiritual peers in the Parliament of 1541, the official report of St.

Leger makes it certain that he did not attend.[62] It is quite possible that the Archbishop did not find himself in agreement with the political schemes whereby the Irish princes and the King of Scotland were to join hands for the overthrow of English authority in Ireland, and on this account the King of Scotland was desirous of having him removed to make way for his agent at the Roman Court.