L. D. By all means, reverend father, proceed.
D. Is Erasmus’s writings more powerful than the precepts of the Mother Church?
S. Not more than the Holy Catholic one, yet more than the Church of Rome, as that Church hath run into several errors since St. Ambrose’s days.
D. How hath the Church erred since St. Ambrose’s days? Take heed lest you be not excommunicated.
S. I have excommunicated myself already from thence.
Opposite opinions were then given about the Virgin and her power to mediate; and the Primate finally appealed to the consecration oath, which Staples had taken as well as he. The Bishop of Meath said he held it safer for his conscience to break it than to keep it, and he praised the oath of supremacy. And thus, without any approach to an understanding, but with many mutual expressions of courtesy and goodwill, the champions of Rome and of England measured swords and parted.[369]
Dowdall goes away. The Primacy removed to Dublin.
A few days after this the Primate disappeared, and it was understood that he had gone abroad like a traitor, as Browne said, who with indecent haste demanded that the old contest between Armagh and Dublin should be finally decided in his favour. Dowdall, he said, claimed by the ‘Bishop of Rome’s bulls and I by the King’s majesty and his most noble progenitors’ grants and gifts.’ He recounted the services of his predecessors in supporting the Government of the Pale, and asked not only for the empty title and honours of Primate of all Ireland, but for ‘all and every the spiritual profits, living, and commodities,’ belonging to Armagh. The King granted the chief place to Browne, who in the Anglican succession remained Primate of all Ireland till deprived by Queen Mary. Those who adhere to Rome of course ignore the interruption in Dowdall’s primacy, but his withdrawal beyond seas was considered as a resignation by the English Government.[370]
Church patronage. Bale.
The sees of Armagh, Cashel, and Ossory being vacant, Croft recommended that they should be filled with peculiar care. The negligence of the Bishops and other ministers allowed the old ceremonies to remain in many places. It was necessary to send over good, zealous men to fill up the bishoprics as they fell vacant. If this could not be done, Croft begged that at least he might have a competent adviser in ecclesiastical matters to enable him to direct the bishops, who were blind, obstinate, negligent, and very seldom learned. For Armagh it would be well to choose a divine with some property in England, who might act as a commissioner for deciding the daily quarrels arising in the North. For the bishopric of Ossory, Croft, Protestant as he was, ventured to recommend Leverous, Gerald of Kildare’s old tutor, who had been pardoned for his offence in carrying him out of the realm. For learning, discretion, and decorous life there was no one superior in Ireland, and Croft had heard him ‘preach such a sermon, as in his simple opinion he heard not many years.’ Personally unobjectionable, Leverous was known to be attached to the old doctrines, and Croft’s advocacy failed, as he himself expected. The see of Ossory was conferred after some delay upon John Bale, a Carmelite friar, born in Suffolk and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. The arguments of a layman, Lord Wentworth, according to his own account, enforced by the charms of a young lady, according to the account of his enemies, converted Bale to the Reformation. He married a wife, who was his companion in all his wanderings and vicissitudes, and became a professed Protestant. It was not in his nature to hide his light under a bushel; he preached openly against the Roman doctrine, and suffered imprisonment in consequence. Having been released through Cromwell’s intercession, he spent eight years in Germany. Returning to England on Edward’s accession, he became Poynet’s chaplain, and obtained the living of Bishopstoke. The King happening to see and hear him at Southampton, of his own accord promoted him to Ossory. Bale was a multifarious writer, a man of learning and eloquence, and unquestionably sincere; but coarse and violent, with no respect whatever for the feelings of others, and remarkably unfit for the task of persuading an unwilling people to embrace the Reformation.