England, and their example was followed by at least four prelates of
dioceses without the Pale. The native chieftains made no more scruple than
the Lords of the Council in renouncing obedience to the Bishop of Rome,
and in acknowledging Henry as the "Supreme Head of the Church of England
and Ireland under Christ." There was none of the resistance to the
dissolution of the abbeys which had been witnessed on the other side of
the Channel, and the greedy chieftains showed themselves perfectly willing
to share the plunder of the Church. But the results of the measure were
fatal to the little culture and religion which even the past centuries of
disorder had spared. Such as they were, the religious houses were the only
schools that Ireland contained. The system of vicars, so general in
England, was rare in Ireland; churches in the patronage of the abbeys were
for the most part served by the religious themselves, and the dissolution
of their houses suspended public worship over large districts of the
country. The friars, hitherto the only preachers, and who continued to
labour and teach in spite of the efforts of the Government, were thrown
necessarily into a position of antagonism to the English rule.

[Sidenote: Ireland and the Religious Changes]

Had the ecclesiastical changes which were forced on the country ended here
however, in the end little harm would have been done. But in England the
breach with Rome, the destruction of the monastic orders, and the
establishment of the Supremacy, had roused in a portion of the people
itself a desire for theological change which Henry shared and was
cautiously satisfying. In Ireland the spirit of the Reformation never
existed among the people at all. They accepted the legislative measures
passed in the English Parliament without any dream of theological
consequences or of any change in the doctrine or ceremonies of the Church.
Not a single voice demanded the abolition of pilgrimages, or the
destruction of images, or the reform of public worship. The mission of
Archbishop Browne in 1535 "for the plucking down of idols and
extinguishing of idolatry" was a first step in the long effort of the
English Government to force a new faith on a people who to a man clung
passionately to their old religion. Browne's attempts at "tuning the
pulpits" were met by a sullen and significant opposition. "Neither by
gentle exhortation," the Archbishop wrote to Cromwell, "nor by evangelical
instruction