n a well-intentioned man, a hard worker, and a keen
soldier, but neither subtle enough nor conciliatory enough for his
place. He was accused of treasonable practices, and a list of formidable
charges made against him. At his own request he was summoned to court to
answer these. To a good many he pleaded guilty--half in contempt as it
would seem--and threw himself upon the mercy of the king. No mercy
however followed. Like many another "well-meaning English official" of
the period, his life ended upon the scaffold.

A more astute and cautious man, Sir Anthony St. Leger, next took the
helm in Ireland. His task was chiefly one of diplomacy, and he carried
it out with much address. In 1537 a parliament had been summoned in
Dublin for the purpose of carrying out the Act of Supremacy. To this
proposal the lay members seem to have been perfectly indifferent, but,
as was to be expected, the clergy stood firmer. So resolute were they in
their opposition that the parliament had to be prorogued, and upon its
re-assembling, a Bill was hastily forced through by the Privy Council,
declaring that the proctors, who had long represented the clergy in the
Lower House, had henceforward no place in the Legislature. The Act of
Supremacy was then passed: thirteen abbeys were immediately suppressed,
and the firstfruits made over to the king in place of the Pope. The
foundation of the new edifice was felt to have been securely laid.

This was followed five years later by another Act, by which the property
of over four hundred religious houses was confiscated. That the
arguments which applied forcibly enough in many cases for the
confiscations of religious houses in England had no application in
Ireland, was a circumstance which was not allowed to count. In England,
the monasteries were rich; in Ireland, they were, for the most part,
very poor: in England, they absorbed the revenues of the parishes; in
Ireland, the monks as a rule served the parishes themselves: in England,
popular condemnation had to a great degree already forestalled the legal
enactment; in Ireland, nothing of the sort had ever been thought of: in
England, the monks were as a rule distinctly behind the higher orders of
laity in education; in Ireland, they were practically the only
educators. These however were details. Uniformity was desirable. The
monasteries were doomed, and before long means were found to enlist most
of the Irish landowners, Celts no less than Normans, in