Note 310 — Chapter XV · THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII.

Grey and Brabazon to Cromwell, May 18, 1537. The King to the Lord Deputy and Council, S.P., vol. ii. p. 425. Harris’s Ware under Staples, Bishop of Meath. For the names of the dissolved houses, see the Statute, 28 Henry VIII. cap. 16, and Calendar of Patent Rolls, p. 38. There were twenty-five mitred abbots and priors in Ireland, ten of Canons Regular, one of Benedictines, one of Hospitallers, and thirteen of Cistercians. Ware, in his Annals, says the heads of St. Mary’s and St. Thomas’s, Dublin, of Kilmainham, and of Mellifont were regularly summoned to Parliament—the more distant ones very seldom. The Augustinians were the most numerous and probably the richest of the sedentary orders. Their rule was adopted by most of the ancient Irish monasteries, the small residue becoming Benedictine. Alemand, who was originally a Huguenot and who was Voltaire’s countryman, remarks that in order to become quickly a bishop in Ireland, it was necessary first to be a Regular Canon.