The whole story of these sad years is summarised in a striking if slightly exaggerated fashion by the Four Masters. "A heresy and new error," they say, "sprang up in England through pride, vain-glory, avarice, and list, and through many strange sciences, so that the men of England went into opposition to the Pope and to Rome. . . . They styled the king the chief head of the Church of God in his own kingdom. New laws and statutes were enacted by the king and council according to their own will. They destroyed the orders to whom worldly possessions were allowed, namely, the Monks, Canons, Nuns, the Crouched Friars, and the four Mendicant Orders, namely the Friars Minor, the Friars Preachers, the Carmelites, and the Augustinians, and the lordships and livings of all these were seized for the king. They broke down the monasteries and sold their roofs and their bells, so that from Aran of the Saints to the Iccian See there was not one monastery that was not broken and shattered, with the exception of a few in Ireland, of which the English took no notice or heed. They afterward burned the images, shrines, and relics of the saints of Ireland and England; they likewise burned the celebrated image of Mary at Trim, which used to perform wonders and miracles, to heal the blind, the deaf, the crippled, and persons affected with all kinds of disease; they burned the Staff of Jesus, which was in Dublin, and which wrought miracles from the time of St. Patrick, and had been in the hands of Christ while He was among men. They also appointed archbishops and bishops for themselves, and though great was the persecution of the Roman emperors against the Church, scarcely had there ever come so great a persecution from Rome as this, so that it is impossible to narrate or tell its description unless it should be narrated by one who saw it."[43] The Annalists might have added a fact noticed by a distinguished Protestant historian that "instead of bestowing their [of the monasteries] incomes on the amelioration of the Church, or expending them in providing for the religious or secular improvement of the people in any other way, caring little apparently for the impoverishment of the Church, he [Henry VIII.]
misapplied those revenues for the purposes of promoting his own gratification or enriching his favourites."[44]
Very early in his reign Henry VIII. had dreamt of the complete subjugation of Ireland, but it was only after the successful overthrow of the Geraldine Rebellion (1534-5) that the realisation of these dreams seemed to be within measurable reach. The boldness and military genius of Lord Leonard Grey bade fair to bring all Ireland within the sphere of English jurisdiction, until the religious crisis arose to complicate the issues. Many of the Irish princes took offence at the doctrine of royal supremacy, the attack on images, pictures, pilgrimages, relics, etc., and at the desperate efforts that were being made to drive out entirely the monks and nuns. During the years 1537 and 1538 rumours of a great confederation reached the ears of the English officials. It was represented that Con O'Neill, Manus O'Donnell, O'Brien of Thomond, the De Burgos of Connaught, and the Earl of Desmond had joined hands to protect the young Garrett Fitzgerald and to defend the authority of the Pope. Messengers, it was said, were passing constantly from Ireland to Scotland, and from Scotland to Rome. It was reported in 1539 that the Irish princes regarded Henry VIII. as a heretic, who had forfeited all title to the Lordship of Ireland, that they were determined to uphold the authority of the Pope, that they expected help from the Emperor, from France, and from Scotland, and that if an invasion were attempted not even the Anglo-Irish of the Pale could be relied upon on account of their attachment to the Pope and to the Geraldines.[45]
But the successful expeditions against both the North and South undertaken by the Deputy in 1539 seems to have put an end to all concerted defence, and to have reduced the Irish princes to a state of utter helplessness. One after another they hastened to make their submission, to accept titles and honours and money from the king, and to consent to hold their territories by royal patent. Already in 1534the Earl of Ormond had accepted the religious policy of Henry VIII. in the hope of scoring a triumph over his old rivals, the Geraldines.