THE IRISH
ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD.
JANUARY, 1865.
[THE SEE OF CLONMACNOISE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.]
[CARDINAL CONSALVI AND NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.]
[ST. BRIGID'S ORPHANAGE.]
[THE MSS. REMAINS OF PROFESSOR O'CURRY IN THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY.]
[ASSOCIATION OF ST. PETER'S PENCE, DUBLIN.]
[POLAND.]
[LITURGICAL QUESTIONS.]
[DOCUMENTS.]
[NOTICES OF BOOKS.]
THE SEE OF CLONMACNOISE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century the See of St. Kieran was reckoned among the dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Tuam. Dr. Walter Blake was then its bishop; he was a native of Galway, and Canon of Enaghdune, and by the provision of Pope Innocent VIII., was appointed to this See on the 26th of March, 1487. During twenty-one years he governed the faithful of Clonmacnoise with prudence and zeal, and died in May, 1508.
Thomas O'Mullally was appointed his successor the same year, and after administering this diocese for five years, was, in 1513, translated to the archiepiscopal see of Tuam.
There are still preserved in the Vatican archives two original letters written by King Henry VIII., on the 18th of June, 1515, soliciting the appointment of Father Quintinus Ohnygyn, of the Order of St. Francis, as successor to Dr. Mullally. These letters should, of themselves, suffice to set at rest for ever the plea which some modern theorists have advanced, that the course pursued by the English monarch in the latter years of his reign, in appointing bishops by his own authority to the episcopal sees, was the traditional right of the crown, ever exercised by him and his predecessors on the throne of England. The first letter is addressed to the reigning pontiff, Leo X., as follows:
"Sanctissimo, Clementissimoque Dño nostro Papae.
"Beatissime pater, post humillimam commendationem et devotissima pedum oscula beatorum. Certiores facti, Cluanensem Ecclesiam in Dominio nostro Hiberniae per translationem Revmi Patris Dñi Thomae ejus novissimi Episcopi ad Archi-Episcopatum Tuamensem vacare, venerabilem ac religiosum virum fratrem Quintinum Ohnygyn ord. min. virum doctum, gravem, circumspectum et probum, multorum testimonio maxime idoneum esse cognovimus qui dictae Ecclesiae praeficiatur. Quapropter Vestrae Sanctitati ipsum commendamus, eamque rogamus, ut eundem fr. Quintinum praedictae Cathedrali Ecclesiae Cluanensi per dictam translationem vacanti praeficere et Episcopum constituere dignetur, quem ut Deo acceptum, sic perutilem eidem Ecclesiae pastorem futurum arbitramur. Et felicissime valeat eadem Vestra Sanctitas, Quam Deus Altissimus longaevam conservet.
"Ex Palatio nostro Grenwici;
"die xviii. Junii 1515.
"Ejusdem Sanctitatis Vestrae
"Devotissimus atque obsequentissimus filius
"Dei gratia Rex Angliae et Franciae ac Dom. Hibae.