3. It is added: "It is an oversight to suppose that about 1541 and 1543 the northern chieftains who submitted to Henry VIII. were exempted from all pressure in matter of religion". The statement which we made on a former occasion (p. 268) had reference only to 1543; and it was not without historic grounds that we asserted that, "the northern chieftains who then submitted were exempted from all reference to religion when professing their allegiance to the government". It is true that in 1541 O'Donnell and O'Neil, and other chieftains, acknowledged the king's supremacy; but it is equally true that this submission of the Irish princes was an illusory one, and their profession was so lavish of loyalty that even the government felt that no reliance could be placed on such declarations. To similar professions, made in 1537, the King "replied by his letter to the lord deputy, that their oaths, submissions, and indentures, were not worth one farthing". (Cox, p. 253, ad. an. 1537). In fact, we find O'Donnell, in 1542, sending to Rome a commissioner (whom we shall have to commemorate again as bishop elect of Raphoe), humbly asking pardon for the guilt of perjury which he had incurred. However, in 1543 it was far different. The government feared the reconstruction of the confederation of the Irish chieftains; and hence, when the great O'Neil, as he is styled by Cox (p. 257), sailed in this year for England and surrendered his estate to the king, the conditions imposed on him, howsoever humiliating to his national pride, were wholly silent in regard of religion. These conditions are given in full by Cox (p. 275).[3] About the same time, O'Brene made also his submission, and the articles exacted from him omit all reference to the royal supremacy or other matters of religion. The letter of the King, March 5th, 1543 (Morrin, i. 99), giving instructions to the Deputy regarding O'Neil Connelaghe, nephew of the earl of Tyrone, in like manner makes no mention of the religious articles. On the 24th of May an agreement was made with the Magennises, as Cox informs us, yet without the obnoxious clauses; and on the 9th of July, 1544, these clauses were again omitted, when several grants in Dublin, including 140 acres of the beautiful "Grange of Clonliffe" (Morrin, i. 103), were made to the earl of Desmond. These examples sufficiently prove that the government in 1543 was anxious to conciliate the Irish princes, and hence was not particular in exacting the obnoxious declaration of supremacy.
4. That a portion of the diocese of Down and Connor was subject to the English government in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, admits of no doubt; but it is equally certain that the greater portion of it remained under the control of O'Neill. Hence, a Vatican paper, written about 1579, adds to a list of the Irish sees, the following important note:
"Ex praedictis Dioecesibus duae sunt in quibus libere et sine periculo possunt Episcopi vel Vicarii; residere. Una est Ardfertensis, quod sita sit in ea Desmoniae parte quae Kierri nominatur in qua Comes Desmoniae omnino liber est et jus plane regium habet. Altera est Dunensis et Connorensis quae in ditione est O'Nellorum qui continenter contra reginam bellum habent, suntque Catholicissimi principes".—Ex Archiv. Vatican.
5. As regards the year of Dr. Macgennis's demise, the letter of the Queen, dated 6th of January, 1564, appointing his successor, though at first sight it seems so conclusive an argument, nevertheless, is far from proving that our bishop had died in 1563. For at the period of which we treat, January was not the first month of the year 1564, but was rather one of its concluding months; according to our present manner of reckoning it would be the 6th of January, 1565. (See Shirley, Original Letters, page 132).
6. The last and weightiest remark of the esteemed correspondent concerning Dr. Macgennis is, that he "assisted in consecrating by the vitiated rite of king Edward" the unfortunate John Bale of Ossory. However, we must remark that Dr. Macgennis is certainly not responsible for the appointment of this unworthy apostate to the see of St. Canice; and the antecedent character of Bale seems to have been wholly unknown in Ireland, especially in the Irish districts of the island. Much less is the bishop of Down responsible for the use of the new-fangled vitiated rite; for, it was Bale himself that at the very time of the consecration insisted on the new liturgy being employed:[4] and this event supplies us with an additional argument in favour of the orthodoxy of Dr. Macgennis, for, it is expressly recorded that, "in union with the clergy of Dublin", he entered his solemn protest against this heretical innovation. We shall return again to this subject when speaking of the Bishops of Ossory. In the mean time we may conclude that there is no sufficient proof of Dr. Macgennis having swerved from the rule of orthodoxy; whilst on the other hand the silence of the advocates of the new creed, who never even whispered his name in connection with their tenets—the omission of the supremacy clause in his submission to the crown—his union with Dr. Dowdall in repudiating the English liturgy when proposed by the viceroy—his protest on the occasion of Bale's consecration—his retaining the see of Down and Connor during the reign of Queen Mary—the consistorial entry which subsequently describes the see as vacant per obitum Eugenii Magnissae, seems to us to place beyond all controversy the devotedness of this worthy prelate to the Catholic cause.
But to return to the diocese of Dromore. On the death of Dr. Arthur Macgennis, it was united with the see of Ardagh, and for the remaining years of the sixteenth century seems to have shared the trials and sufferings of that diocese. In the consistorial acts the appointment of Dr. Richard MacBrady is registered on the 16th January, 1576, and it is added that his see was the "Ecclesia Ardacadensis et Dromorensis in Hibernia". On his translation to Kilmore on 9th of March, 1580, Doctor Edmund MacGauran was chosen his successor, and thus our see is entitled to a special share in the glory which this distinguished bishop won for the whole Irish Church by his zealous labours and martyrdom.
The first Protestant bishop of the see was John Todd, who was appointed to Down and Connor on 16th of March, 1606, and received at the same time the diocese of Dromore in commendam. We shall allow the Protestant writers Ware and Harris to convey to the reader an accurate idea of the missionary character of this first apostle of Protestantism amongst the children of St. Colman. Ware simply writes:
"In the year 1611, being called to account for some crimes he had committed, he resigned his bishoprick, and a little after died in prison in London, of poison which he had prepared for himself" (pag. 207).
To which words Harris adds:
"The crimes of which he was accused were incontinence, the turning away his wife, and taking the wife of his man-servant in her room; to which may be added subornation of witnesses. It doth not appear that he resigned his bishoprick voluntarily, but was convented before the High Commission Court in England in the tenth year of king James I., and degraded. His case is cited in the long case of the bishop of Lincoln. Before his deprivation he made a fee-farm lease of the tithes of his see in the territory of Kilultagh to Sir Fulk Conway at a small rent", etc. (Ibid., pag. 208-9).