¹ Thus Edwards, R. D. in Church and State in Tudor Ireland (Dublin, 1935)Google Scholar, the only relevant monograph on the Reformation in sixteenth-century Ireland that meets acceptable standards of scholarship and objectivity. The contributions by Mooney, C. and Jones, F. M. to A history of Irish Catholicism, ed. Corish, P. J. (Dublin, 1968)Google Scholar, deal with the Reformation in its external aspect and are not relevant to the present discussion. For helpful criticism of an earlier draft of this study my thanks are due to Professor G. R. Elton.

² On all of this see my ‘George Browne, first reformation archbishop of Dublin, 1536–54’ in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, XXI (1970), 301–26Google Scholar. The subject is more fully treated in my unpublished M.A. thesis of the same title, University College, Dublin, 1966.

³ Bale's own account of his Irish mission is in the ‘Vocacyon of Johan Bale to the bishoprick of Ossorie in Ireland’ in Harleian Miscellany (London, 1810), VI, 437 ffGoogle Scholar. See also my ‘George Browne’, pp. 318–22Google Scholar and my unpublished M.A. thesis (previous note).

⁴ Edwards, , Church and State, pp. 214–17.Google Scholar

⁵ The classic account of the enforcement of the Henrician Reformation is now, of course, Elton, G. R., Policy and police (Cambridge, 1972)Google Scholar. On the enforcement of the English Reformation generally see Loades, , Politics and the nation (Brighton, 1974), pp. 164–72, 213–15, 257–64, 283–9Google Scholar; Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation (London, 1963), pp. 175–82, 418–25Google Scholar; Cross, C., Church and people, 1450–1600 (Glasgow, 1976), pp. 135–62.Google Scholar

⁶ Record survives of two pulpit controversies relevant to the debate. One was the duel between Archbishop Browne and Bishop Staples in the first half of 1538, State papers Henry VIII, III, 1, 66Google Scholar. Letters and papers, Henry VIII, XIII (i), no. 1161Google Scholar; XIII (ii), no. 64. The other was the dispute between Archbishop Long and Bishop Jones in 1585–6, Cal. S.P. Ire., iii, 100, 102Google Scholar. Pamphlets dealing with the debate were equally few and far between. The earliest seems to have been Bale's work already cited (above, n. 3), though it is not directly relevant. Spenser dealt with the question in his View of the present state of Ireland, ed. Ware, J. (Dublin, 1809 edn)Google Scholar. Barnaby Rich contributed to the debate in his Allarme to England (London, 1578)Google Scholar, B[ritish] L[ibrary], 58. a.1.

⁷ Elton criticizes the tendency of historians to gloss over the problem of the enforcement of the church settlement in England. He does not suggest, however, that the attitude of the clergy and of the local leadership classes generally was unco-operative as the evidence suggests within the Anglo-Irish community: Elton, , Policy and police, pp. 1–127, 383–425Google Scholar; cf. Dickens, , The English Reformation, pp. 175–83Google Scholar; Scarisbrick, J. J., Henry VIII (Harmondsworth, 1968), pp. 423–52.Google Scholar

⁸ S.P. Henry VIII, II, 539, 563, 569Google Scholar; III, 6, 29, 35, 102, 103. Bradshaw, Brendan, ‘The opposition in the Irish Reformation parliament, 1536–7,’ Irish Historical Studies, XVI (1969), 285 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ Egerton papers (Camden Society, 1840), p. 7.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ S.P. Henry VIII, III, 29.Google Scholar

¹² Ibid.

¹³ For St Leger's promotion of the Reformation see my The dissolution of the religious orders in Ireland (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 211–12Google Scholar. The subject is more fully treated in my two unpublished theses, ‘George Browne, first Reformation archbishop of Dublin’ (M.A., University College, Dublin, 1966)Google Scholar, and ‘The Irish constitutional revolution of the sixteenth century’ (Ph.D., Cambridge, 1975).Google Scholar

¹⁴ L. & P. Henry VIII, XXI (ii), nos. 35, 475 (36)Google Scholar; S.P. Henry VIII, III, 580Google Scholar. [Public Record Office], S.P. 61/3, no. 45.

¹⁵ S.P. 61/3, no. 45, 61/4, no. 36 (2, 3); Acts of the privy council (Eng.), III, 456, 466Google Scholar; Jordan, W. K. (ed.), Chronicle of Edward VI, 102, 119.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Archbishop Loftus is the subject of a recently completed study by Mrs Helga Robinson-Hammerstein of Trinity College, Dublin. Unfortunately it was not possible for me to consult the work but I had the benefit of a number of lengthy discussions with the author on her subject. It should not be assumed that Mrs Robinson-Hammerstein agrees with the interpretation of Loftus's attitude presented here.

¹⁷ S.P. 61/13, no. 42. Earlier, on his elevation to Armagh, he secured a commission to administer the penal legislation throughout his metropolitan area: Fiants (Ireland), Elizabeth, nos. 462, 547.

¹⁸ As testimony to his continuing frustration see: Loftus to the Queen, 17.5.1565 (S.P. 63/13, no. 42); Loftus to Burghley, 14.11.1573 (S.P. 63/42, no. 76); Loftus to Walsingham, 16.3.1577 (S.P. 63/51, no. 36); Loftus to Burghley, 6.1.1580 (S.P. 63/71, no. 9); and below, pp. 15–16.

¹⁹ Cal. S.P. Ire., IV, 365 ff., 517–18.Google Scholar

²⁰ Ibid. 365 ff.

²¹ On Bishop Jones see the Dictionary of National Biography. For his support of Loftus's approach see S.P. 63/118, no. 66.

²² On Sir William Fitzwilliam see the D.N.B. For his association with Loftus see S.P. 63/53, no. 44; Cal. S.P. Ire., IV, 215, 312.Google Scholar

²³ For Lord Grey's support of Loftus see Cal. S.P. Ire., II, 267Google Scholar; S.P. 63/79, no. 25.

²⁴ Spenser, , View, pp. 251–2.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid. pp. 138–9, 224, 250, 253–7.

²⁶ Much of Sidney's correspondence is collected in Collins, Arthur (ed.), Letters and memorials of state (London, 1746)Google Scholar. For a study of Sidney's Irish administrations see Canny, N., The Elizabethan conquest of Ireland (Hassocks, 1976).Google Scholar

²⁷ Rich, , Allarme to England, fo. E(1).Google Scholar

²⁸ Spenser, , View, pp. 152–3, 164–6.Google Scholar

²⁹ Loftus insisted to Burghley in 1592 that his attitude was one of firmness but moderation (Cal. S.P. Ire., IV, 517–18Google Scholar). Examples of an attitude of compassion on his part are his appeal for the relief of famine distress in the wake of the Desmond rebellion in 1582 (S.P. 63/97, no. 16); also his release of the imprisoned Romish bishop, Connor O'Devenna, having persuaded him to take the oath of supremacy. Reprimanded for this action he pleaded that O'Devenna was old and infirm (Cal. S.P. Ire., IV, 581Google Scholar). In 1588–9 Loftus, Jones and Fitzwilliam earned rebuke from Walsingham for opposing Bingham's peremptory methods in Connacht (Cal. S.P. Ire., IV, 209, 215, 220Google Scholar). See also Loftus's complaint to Walsingham in 1583 that the disorderly conduct of the seneschals in Leinster had goaded the O'Byrnes into rebellion (S.P. 63/99, no 60) On the other hand the hardliners were very willing to support Loftus's calls for firmer action: e.g. Rich to Burghley, 20.5.1591 (S.P. 63/158, no. 12).

³⁰ On Archbishop Long see the D.N.B.

³¹ On Perrot's essentially conciliatory approach to government in Ireland see the contemporary biography by an unknown author, Rawlinson, Richard (ed.), The history of Sir John Perrot (London, 1728), pp. 142–3.Google Scholar

³² On Weston see the D.N.B.

³³ Biographical notes on Cusack, Dillon and White are contained in Ball, F. E., The judges in Ireland (Dublin, 1927), vol. 1Google Scholar. A typical example of the approach to reform found among Anglo-Irish liberals in the Elizabethan period is found in Canny, N. (ed.), ‘Rowland White's “Discors touching Ireland”’, Irish Historical Studies, XXIV (1977).Google Scholar

³⁴ See below, p. 486.

³⁵ S.P. 63/19, no. 13.

³⁶ Cal. S.P. Ire., III, 100, 102.Google Scholar

³⁷ Cal. S.P. Ire., IV, 365, 517–18Google Scholar. Earlier Bale had jibed about Browne ‘preaching twice in the year’. His congregations knew the two sermons by rote by dint of repetition (‘The vocacyon of Johan Bale’ in Harleian Miscellany, VI, 455).Google Scholar

³⁸ Cal. S.P. Ire., IV, 277.Google Scholar

³⁹ S.P. 63/17, no. 31; 22, nos. 13, 14.

⁴⁰ On Brady's school see S.P. 63/22, no. 13. On Lancaster's efforts to found a school at Drogheda see S.P. 63/77, no. 29; 83, no. 60. Long endowed a schoolmaster at Waterford who found, however, that he could not compete with the famous school of the White family (S.P. 63/118, no. 29 [1]).

⁴¹ Loftus's addresses in connexion with the foundation of Trinity College, Dublin, are published by Stubbs, J. W. (ed.), Archbishop Adam Loftus: speeches (Dublin, 1892)Google Scholar. Loftus called for the removal of Archbishop Curren in 1565 because of the latter's resistance to the proposal to transform St Patrick's into a university. When he was himself installed in Curren's place he proceeded to angle for the grant to him of the cathedral deanery in commendam and thereafter resolutely opposed the university scheme (S.P. 63/15, no. 12; 20, no. 8; 21, no. 6; 112, nos. 4, 5). Similarly, an earlier proposal by Archbishop Browne for the transformation of St Patrick's into a university must be regarded as self-interested. It has earned him undeserved plaudits as an enlightened humanist (Jourdan, , ‘Reformation and reaction’ in History of Church of Ireland, ed. Phillips, II, 247Google Scholar). In fact his scheme was designed to make the most of a situation in which Lord Deputy St Leger had already secured authority to dissolve St Patrick's Cathedral for the purpose of establishing the permanent headquarters of the administration there as well as a school. Browne's plan entailed recovering St Patrick's for the archdiocese in exchange for the more modest Christ Church. The carrot for the London administration was the prospect of establishing an intellectual centre for the Reformation in Ireland at Christ Church. Browne's interest in education may be gauged from the fact that none of his other schemes for reform suggest the establishment of schools or a university (Cal. patent rolls, Ireland, Henry VIII – Eliz., 132, 142Google Scholar; S.P. 61/1, nos. 2, 10).

⁴² The university project was proposed by Brady in 1565 (S.P. 63/13, nos. 5, 74). Weston revived it in 1570 (ibid. 30, no. 29), as did Perrot with Long's encouragement in 1584–6 (ibid. 112, no. 5; 119, nos. 14, 32).

⁴³ Cal. S.P. Ire., III, 331 ff., 532 ff., 569 ff.Google Scholar; iv, 189, 192. For Archbishop Long's engagement in the same kind of proselytizing by individual contact see S.P. 63/117, no. 7.

⁴⁴ S.P. 63/30, no. 29.

⁴⁵ S.P. 63/118, no. 12.

⁴⁶ S.P. 63/30, no. 29.

⁴⁷ S.P. 63/42, no. 2.

⁴⁸ S.P. 63/77, no. 29.

⁴⁹ S.P. 63/114, no. 39; 30, no. 29; Cal. S.P. Ire., III, 532 ffGoogle Scholar. In contrast to such pacific moralizing Rich provided a philosophical and theological defence of militarism in the Allarme to England, passim.

⁵⁰ Cal. S.P. Ire., III, 100–1, 102 ff.Google Scholar; IV, 365.

⁵¹ S.P. 63/13, nos. 5, 74.

⁵² S.P. 63/24, no. a.

⁵³ S.P. 63/114, no. 39.

⁵⁴ Cal. S.P. Ire., III, 331.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ S.P. 63/13, no. 74.

⁵⁶ S.P. 63/114, no. 39.

⁵⁷ S.P. 63/30, no. 29.

⁵⁸ Spenser, , View, pp. 108–9, 150–3, 248.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ S.P. Henry VIII, II, 539Google Scholar; Cal S.P. Ire., IV, 365, 517–18Google Scholar. Typical was Loftus's plea to Burghley in 1573 concerning the lack of co-operation in the execution of the high commission ‘against this stubborn and crooked people’ (S.P. 63/42, no. 76).

⁶⁰ Spenser outlined his plan for reformation in View, pp. 150–259.Google Scholar

⁶¹ E.g. S.P. 63/117, no. 7; Cal. S.P. Ire., III, 331.Google Scholar

⁶² A number of copies of Fenton's major work survive: A discourse of the civilie warres…in France, B.L. 1192, cc. 3.

⁶³ Trinity College, Dublin, 198.S.104. The work was not published until 1606. On Bryskett see Plomer, H. R. and Cross, T. P. (eds.), The life and correspondence of Lodowick Bryskett (Chicago, 1927).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ross, D., Aristotle (London, 1964 edn), pp. 197–201, 221–5Google Scholar; Bambrough, R., The philosophy of Aristotle (New York, 1963), pp. 26–30Google Scholar; Hare, R. M., ‘General Introduction’ in The dialogues of Plato, ed. Hare, R. M. and Russell, D. A. (London, 1970)Google Scholar. Though subsequent commentators discussed it in those terms, Aristotle's quarrel with Plato did not explicitly concern the relationship between intellect and will since neither succeeded in formulating the latter concept clearly.

⁶⁵ Starkey, Thomas, The dialogue between Pole and Lupset, ed. Burton, K. M. (London, 1948)Google Scholar. Professor Elton has shown that the Dialogue presents the views of Starkey not of Cardinal Pole: Elton, G. R., ‘Reform by statute’, Proc. of the British Academy, LIV (1970 for 1968), 165–88.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Ibid.

⁶⁷ Starkey, , Dialogue, pp. 28–45Google Scholar. The attribution of evil human acts to ignorance as the root cause is a recurrent feature in Plato but is given particularly apposite expression in The Laws, Book 9. His general thesis about knowledge and ignorance is most extensively argued in the Protagoras.

⁶⁸ Starkey, , Dialogue, pp. 8–10, 143–4, 152–3, 169–71.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Ibid. pp. 186–90.

⁷⁰ Ibid. p. 185. These ideas of Starkey about ignorance and moral evil, government by persuasion and education, the concept of a reformative rather than a punitive penology, and even the essential role of religion are basic ingredients of the approach to government found in Plato's Laws, see especially Books 4, 5, 9.

⁷¹ Elton, G. R., ‘The political creed of Thomas Cromwell’, Trans. R. Hist. Soc. 5th series, VI (1956), 69–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reform and renewal (Cambridge, 1973), passim.Google Scholar

⁷² See Burton's introduction in Starkey, , Dialogue, pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

⁷³ Elton, , ‘Political creed,’ Trans. R. Hist. Soc., 1956, p. 71.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Ibid.; also Elton, , Reform and renewal, p. 49.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Ibid. 50–5; also Elton, , Policy and police, pp. 193–4Google Scholar. Zeeveld, W. Gordon, Foundations of Tudor policy (Cambridge, Mass., 1948), pp. 128–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷⁶ Elton, , Reform and renewal, pp. 52–3.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Ibid. 55; Elton, , Policy and police, pp. 193–5.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Significantly Staples came to Ireland in 1529, before Cromwell's rise, and had no close contact with him later.

⁷⁹ See the introductory study by Levi, A. H. T. in his edition of Erasmus's Praise of folly (Harmondsworth, 1971), pp. 17–31.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Erasmus, , The education of a Christian prince, trans. Born, L. K. (New York, 1973), pp. 133 ff., 140, 175–6.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Rupp, E. G., The righteousness of God, London, 1953, pp. 274–8Google Scholar. In the Institutes of the Christian religion, II, iiGoogle Scholar, Calvin explicitly repudiated Plato's anthropology and, therefore, that of Erasmian humanism. Thus, to speak of Protestant humanism is, strictly speaking, a contradiction in terms, despite the valiant attempts at the time of adherents of both movements, and later of historians, to reconcile them, e.g., Yost, J. K., ‘Protestant reformers and the humanist via media’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, V (1975), 187–202Google Scholar. Luther, M., ‘Temporal Authority’, ed. Schindel, J. J. in Lehmann, H. T. (ed.), Luther's works (Philadelphia, 1962), LXV, 81–129.Google Scholar

⁸² Two factors tend to obscure the antipathy between Christian humanism and protestantism. One is the humanist reaction against scholastic dogmatism. The reluctance to dogmatize, which was characteristic of humanism, and its irenical approach to theology, have led some historians to speak of humanism as an undogmatic gospel. But the dogmatic content of humanism, like the Christian gospel itself, became clarified through controversy. Hence it is methodologically inadmissible in analysing the humanist gospel to ignore the issue of dogma involved for humanism in the dispute between Erasmus and Luther (e.g. McConica, J. K., English humanists and Reformation politics, Oxford, 1965, pp. 13–43Google Scholar) A corrective to this is provided by the study of Levi cited in n. 79. The other factor is the role played by the new learning in the emergence of protestantism and in its dissemination. By discussing the relationship between humanism and protestantism mainly in these terms – as, for instance, in Dickens, A. G., The German nation and Martin Luther (London, 1974), pp. 49–71Google Scholar – the implications of the clash between Erasmus and Luther can also be obscured. Here it seems pertinent to repeat the invitation issued by Professor Rupp some years ago to ponder the theology of De servo arbitrio, a work which, in Professor Rupp's phrase, was calculated to set the modern protestant mind on edge. Yet, as he also pointed out, it was the work which, together with the Children's catechism, Luther considered, of all his writings, best deserved to survive (Rupp, , Righteousness, pp. 259–85Google Scholar). Writing about the same time as Rupp, Joseph Lortz showed how the emergence of protestantism created an internal crisis for the humanist movement which effectively ended the humanist phase: The Reformation in Germany (revised edn, London, 1968), i, 333–43.Google Scholar

⁸³ Erasmus, , The education of a Christian prince, pp. 177–90, 221–34Google Scholar. For a more succinct presentation by Erasmus of his views on government see the ‘Spartan nactus es, hanc orna’ in Phillips, M. M. (ed.), Erasmus on his times, pp. 100–7.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Calvin, , Institutes, II, ii, iiiGoogle Scholar; iv, xx; Thompson, W. D. J. Cargill, ‘Martin Luther and the Two Kingdoms’, Political ideas, ed. Thomson, D. (Harmondsworth, 1966), pp. 34–52Google Scholar; Allen, J. W., A history of political thought in the sixteenth century, pp. 20–2, 52, 60–7Google Scholar. Cf. Rupp, , Righteousness, pp. 286–309.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Hill, C., Society and puritanism (Panther edn, 1969), pp. 217–18, 234–41Google Scholar. A recent study of the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland relates the harsh attitudes of the conquerors towards the Irish to an intellectual shift brought about by the impact of primitive cultures upon the Western European mind in the course of European overseas expansion, Canny, N., The Elizabethan Conquest (Hassocks, 1976), ch. viGoogle Scholar. I have challenged this, arguing that the shift in anthropological perspective was brought about by the Reformation, ‘The Elizabethans and the Irish’, Studies, LXVI (1977), 38–50.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Hill, ibid. pp. 31–77, 212–50.

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⁸⁸ Concentration by historians on the promotion of preaching and education by puritans in England can obscure the fact that, as a recent writer remarked, ‘the rationality of this approach was hedged with the underlying assumption that man's rational ability became acutely limited in his fall from perfection.’ Short, K. R. M., ‘A theory of common education in Elizabethan puritanism’, J.E.H., XXIII (1972), 45.Google Scholar

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⁹² S.P. 63/30, no. 29; Statutes at large (Ire.), 1, 361–2Google Scholar. The preamble to the act accurately reflects the persuasive analysis of Irish barbarity: ‘Forasmuch as the greatest number of the people of this your majesty's realm hath of long time lived in rude and barbarous states, not understanding that Almight God hath by his divine laws forbidden the manifold and heinous offences, which they spare not daily and hourly to commit and perpetrate, nor that he hath by his holy scriptures commanded a due and humble obedience from the people to their princes and rulers; whose ignorance in these so high points touching their damnation proceedeth only of lack of good bringing up of the youth of this realm either in public or private schools…’

⁹³ S.P. 63/115, no. 11; 118, no. 66.

⁹⁴ Robinson-Hammerstein, H., ‘The continental education of Irish students,’ Historical Studies, VIII (1969)Google Scholar; O'Boyle, J., The Irish colleges on the continent (Dublin, 1935), pp. 28–33, 126–7, 153–7, 176, 179, 222–3.Google Scholar

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