A number of English gentlemen who undertook the settlement of Ulster in 1569. The forfeited lands were to be peopled by settling a family on each 240 acres, and no Irish were to be admitted as tenants. Neither of these obligations was adhered to, and little was accomplished till the Plantation of Ulster in 1606.
Undertakers.
The name given to certain members of the Addled Parliament in 1615, who undertook to control it in the interests of the King. Their plans became known, and they consequently failed to carry out their scheme.
Undertakers, Parliamentary.
Twenty-five Irish landowners who, in the unreformed Parliament, were able to control the return of 116 members out of a house of 300. They were thus enabled to make their own terms with the Government, and were consequently known by the above title.
Uniformity, Act of.
An Act passed in 1549 (Edward VI), forbidding the use in churches of any book of prayers except the Book of Common Prayer approved by the Parliament then sitting, and known as Edward VI’s First Prayer Book. Certain alterations having been made in the book, a further Act was passed in 1552, substituting the new version for the First Prayer Book. The use of this book having been abolished during Mary’s reign, it was again made obligatory by an Act of Queen Elizabeth in 1559, and made to apply to Ireland, while the same course was pursued after the Restoration in 1662, with the additional proviso that no clergyman might hold a living who was not ordained by a bishop and prepared to accept the Prayer Book.
Unigenitus, Bull.
A Bull issued by Innocent X in 1653, in condemnation of the Jansenist heresy.