en Mary was entirely reversed." Every
subject connected with this assembly and its enactments, demands the
most careful consideration, as it has been asserted by some
writers--who, however, have failed to give the proofs of their
assertion--that the Irish Church and nation conformed at this time to
the Protestant religion. This certainly was not the opinion of the
Government officials, who were appointed by royal authority to enforce
the Act, and who would have been only too happy could they have reported
success to their mistress.

A recent writer, whose love of justice has led him to take a position in
regard to Irish ecclesiastical history which has evoked unpleasant
remarks from those who are less honest, writes thus: "There was not even
the show of free action in the ordering of that Parliament, nor the
least pretence that liberty of choice was to be given to it. The
instructions given to Sussex, on the 10th of May 1559, for making
Ireland Protestant by Act of Parliament, were peremptory, and left no
room for the least deliberation. Sussex had also other instructions
(says Cox) to him and the Council, to set up the worship of God as it is
in England, and make such statutes next Parliament as were lately made
in England, _mutatis mutandis_. [Hist. Angl. Part I. p.313.] It is plain
that her Majesty's command is not sufficient warrant for a national
change of faith, and that a convocation of bishops only is not the
proper or legal representative assembly of the Church. It is also plain
that the acts of an unwilling Parliament, and that Parliament one which
does not deserve the name of a Parliament, cannot be justly considered
as the acts of either the Irish Church or the Irish people."[407]

The official list of the members summoned to this Parliament, has been
recently published by the Irish Archaeological Society. More than
two-thirds of the upper house were persons of whose devotion to the
Catholic faith there has been no question; there were but few members in
the lower house. No county in Ulster was allowed a representative, and
only one of its borough towns, Carrickfergus, was permitted to elect a
member. Munster furnished twenty members. No county members were allowed
in Connaught, and it had only two boroughs, Galway and Athenry, from
which it could send a voice to represent its wishes. The remaining fifty
members were chosen from a part of Leinster. In fact, the Parliament was
constituted on the plan before-