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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
Why the Reformation failed in Ireland was, until recent years, a matter for little debate. That it failed was beyond question and that its failure was inevitable was a premise seldom challenged. For many Irish historians, the root of its failure lay in the unswerving faith of a gallant people who resisted the attempts of a conquering force to impose upon them a creed at once heretical and foreign. Indeed, it was not until Brendan Bradshaw initiated a whole new approach to the history of the sixteenth century that this kind of view began to be firmly discarded. Others, like Nicholas Canny and, more recently, Steven Ellis and Alan Ford, have joined Bradshaw in questioning some of the old orthodoxies. The result of these endeavours has been, above all, to uncover the fact that the course of the Reformation in Ireland and the reasons for its failure were infinitely more complex than we once believed and, rather unexpectedly, one of the most tantalising issues raised by the debates which Bradshaw’s work has provoked has been the problem of precisely when the Reformation may be said to have failed in Ireland. Bradshaw and Canny have conflicting answers to that question and some of them will be considered here.
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10 Sidney to Cecil, 23 Apr. 1566 (ibid., 63/17/31).
11 Queen to Sussex, 15 Oct. 1563 (ibid., 63/8/63).
12 Brady to Cecil, 10 Dec. 1563 (ibid., 63/9/69).
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37 Shirley, E.P. (ed.), Original letters and papers in illustration of the history of the church in Ireland during the reigns of Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth (London, 1851), p. 11 Google Scholar, letter ii.
38 Browne to Cromwell, 16 Feb. 1539 (P.R.O., S.P. 60/8/6).
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43 Claire Cross, Church & people, p. 115.
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45 Act of uniformity, 2 Eliz., c. 2.
46 Ibid.
47 Palliser, ‘Popular reactions to the Reformation’, p. 47.
48 Brady to Cecil, 10 Jan. 1565 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/12/17).
49 Craike to Dudley, 30 Apr. 1561 (ibid., 63/3/62).
50 Wrothe and Arnold to privy council, 16 Mar. 1564 (ibid., 63/10/34).
51 Brady to Cecil, 14 Mar. 1564 (ibid., 63/10/30).
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 For more details of Brady’s temporalities and income, see Walshe, Helen Coburn, ‘The life and career of Hugh Brady, bishop of Meath, 1563–84’ (unpublished M.A. thesis, St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, 1985)Google Scholar. See also Simington, R.C. (ed.), The civil survey, A.D. 1654–1656: county of Meath (I.M.C., Dublin, 1940), pp xvii–xxi Google Scholar.
55 Irish privy council to English privy council, 27 Oct. 1567 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/22/14).
56 Brady (ed.), State papers concerning Ir. ch., p. 1.
57 Irish privy council to English privy council, 27 Oct. 1567 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/22/14).
58 Ibid.
59 Brady to Cecil, 16 May 1565 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/13/39).
60 Brady to Cecil, 24 Feb. 1570 (ibid., 63/30/17).
61 Ronan, Myles V., The Reformation in Ireland under Elizabeth (London, 1930), p. 329 Google Scholar.
62 Loftus to Walsingham, 12 May 1584 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/110/28).
63 Ford, Alan, ‘Protestant reformation in Ire.’ in Brady, & Gillespie, (eds), Natives & newcomers, pp 50–74 Google Scholar.
64 Heal, Felicity, ‘Economic problems of the clergy’ in Heal, & O’Day, (eds), Church & society in England, p. 104 Google Scholar.
65 Sidney to queen, 28 Apr. 1576 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/55/38).
66 Brady to Cecil, 14 Mar. 1564 (ibid., 63/10/30).
67 Ford, ‘Protestant reformation in Ire.’; idem, Protestant reformation in Ireland, 1590–1641 (Frankfurt, 1985), ch. 1.
68 Heal, ‘Economic problems’, p. 108.
69 Sidney to queen, 28 Apr. 1578 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/55/38).
70 Sidney to privy council, 13 Apr. 1566 (ibid., 63/17/8).
71 Pelham to Walsingham, 7 Dec. 1579 (ibid., 63/69/46).
72 Sidney to queen, 28 Apr. 1578 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/55/38).
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79 Brady to Cecil, 3 Apr. 1565 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/13/5).
80 Ibid.
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82 Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Eliz., p. 489.
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid.
85 Loftus to queen, 17 May 1565 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/13/42).
86 Ibid.
87 Walshe, ‘Life & career of Hugh Brady’, pp 63–89; Walshe, Helen Coburn, ‘Responses to the protestant reformation in sixteenth-century Meath’ in Ríocht na Midhe, viii (1987- ), pp 97–110 Google Scholar.
88 Loftus to queen, 17 May 1565 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/13/42); Brady to Cecil, 14 Mar. 1564 (ibid., 63/10/30).
89 Brady to Cecil, 14 Mar. 1564 (ibid.).
90 Brady to Cecil, 14 Sept. 1566 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/19/13).
91 Loftus to Cecil, 3 Sept. 1566 (ibid., 63/19/1).
92 As above, n. 90.
93 Bradshaw, ‘Sword, word & strategy’, pp 476–88.
94 Potter, G.R., ‘The egg that Luther hatched’ in Hay, Denis (ed.), The age of the Renaissance (London, 1967), p. 141 Google ScholarPubMed.
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98 O’Day, Rosemary, ‘Problems of an early Elizabethan episcopate’ in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, xxiii (1972), pp 137–59 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
99 Weston to Cecil, 3 Apr. 1568 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/24/2).
100 Brady to Cecil, 16 May 1565 (ibid., 63/13/39).
101 Brady to Cecil, 10 Jan. 1565 (ibid., 63/12/17).
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107 Brady to Cecil, 16 May 1565 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/13/39).
108 ‘Articles’ exhibited by Oliver Sutton (ibid., 63/15/54).
109 Brady (ed.), State papers concerning Ir. eh., pp 4–7.
110 Report on the MSS of Lord de Lisle and Dudley preserved at Penshurst (H.M.C., 6 vols, London, 1925–66), ii, 94.
111 Deputy and council to English privy council, 22 Nov. 1566 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/19/55).
112 Brady, Ciaran, ‘Conservative subversives: the community of the Pale and the Dublin administration, 1556–86’ in Corish, Patrick J. (ed.), Radicals, rebels and establishments (Historical Studies, xv, Belfast, 1986), pp 11–32 Google Scholar.
113 Lancaster to Walsingham, 12 Oct. 1580 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/77/29).
114 Lancaster to Burleigh, 1 Feb. 1572 (ibid., 63/35/15).
115 For Walsingham’s views, see Collinson, Elizabethan puritan movement, pp 198–200.
116 Lord Chancellor Gerrard’s ‘Notes of his report on Ireland’ in Anal. Hib., no. 2 (1931), p. 133.
117 Brady to Sidney, 13 May 1577 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/58/16).
118 Wallop to Walsingham, 8 Mar. 1581 (ibid., 63/81/16).
119 Brady to Walsingham, 11 May 1582 (ibid., 63/92/32).
120 Brady to Walsingham, 6 Dec. 1581 (ibid., 63/87/6); Trollope to Walsingham, 12 Sept. 1581 (ibid., 63/85/39).
121 Brady to Walsingham, 11 May 1582 (ibid., 63/92/32).
122 Fiants Ire., Eliz., no. 3983.
123 Wallop to Walsingham, 24 Oct. 1581 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/85/31).
124 Brady to Walsingham, 5 Nov. 1582 (ibid., 63/97/19).
125 Ibid.
126 Brady to Sidney, 12 May 1577 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/58/16).
127 Canny, Nicholas, ‘Why the Reformation failed in Ireland: une question mal posée’ in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, xxx (1979), p. 431 Google Scholar.
128 Loftus to Burleigh, 22 Sept. 1590 (ibid., 63/154/37).
129 Brian MacGeoghan to Walter Hope, 6 Dec. 1583 (ibid., 63/106/2).
130 Ibid.
131 Walshe, ‘Life & career of Hugh Brady’, pp 59–89; Brady, John, ‘Father Christopher Cusack and the Irish college of Douai, 1594–1624’ in O’Brien, Sylvester (ed.), Measgra i gCuimhne Mhichíl Uí Chléirigh (Dublin, 1944), pp 98–107 Google Scholar.
132 Corish, Patrick J., The Irish catholic experience: a historical survey (Dublin, 1985), pp 78–87 Google Scholar.
133 Ibid., p. 85.
134 Canny, ‘Why the Reformation failed’, pp 440–45.
135 Ibid. For the Counter-Reformation, see Corish, Irish catholic experience; idem, The catholic community in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Dublin, 1981); Lennon, Colm, ‘The Counter-Reformation in Ireland’ in Brady, & Gillespie, (eds), Natives & newcomers, pp 75–92 Google Scholar.
136 Ford, Protestant reformation in Ire., esp. ch. 1; Bottigheimer, Karl, ‘The failure of the Reformation in Ireland: une question bien posée’ in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, xxxvi (1985), pp 196–207 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
137 Cited by Bottigheimer, loc. cit., p. 199.
138 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1600, p. 273.
139 Sidney to queen, 28 Apr. 1576 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/55/38).
140 See Walshe, ‘Life & career of Hugh Brady’, pp 254–6.
141 Ford, Protestant reformation in Ire., ch. 1; idem, ‘The protestant reformation in Ireland’ in Brady & Gillespie (eds), Natives & newcomers, pp 50–74.
142 Ford, ‘Protestant reformation in Ire.’, pp 63–4.
143 E.g. Brady to Walsingham, 6 Dec. 1581 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/87/6). For Ussher and Bedell, see Bottigheimer, ‘The failure of the Reformation’.
