As it was now ascertained that the Irish people would not apostatize as a nation, an expedient was prepared for their utter extirpation.  It would be impossible to believe that the human heart could be guilty of such cruelty, if we had not evidence of the fact in the State Papers.  By this diabolical scheme it was arranged to till or carry away their cattle, and to destroy their corn while it was green.  “The very living of the Irishry,” observes the writer, “doth clearly consist in two things; and take away the same from them, and they are past power to recover, or yet to annoy any subject in Ireland.  Take first from them their corn—­burn and destroy the same; and then have their cattle and beasts, which shall be most hardest to come by, and yet, with guides and policy, they be often had and taken.”  Such was the arrangement; and it was from no want of inclination that it was not entirely carried out, and the “Irishry” starved to death in their own land.

The title of King of Ireland had not as yet been given to English monarchs, but the ever-subservient Parliament of this reign granted Henry this addition to his privileges, such as it was.  We have already seen the style in which the “supreme head of the Church” addressed the bishops whom he had appointed; we shall now give a specimen of their subserviency to their master, and the fashion in which they executed his commands, before returning to secular history.

Henry’s letter to Dr. Browne is dated July 7th, 1537; the Bishop’s reply is given on the 27th September, 1537.  He commences by informing his most excellent Highness that he had received his most gracious letter on the 7th September, and that “it made him tremble in body for fear of incurring his Majesty’s displeasure,” which was doubtless the most truthful statement in his epistle.  He mentions all his zeal and efforts against Popery, which, he adds, “is a thing not little rooted among the inhabitants here.”  He assures the King of his activity in securing the twentieth part and first-fruits for the royal use (what had been given to God was now given to Caesar), and states what, indeed, could not be denied, that he was the “first spiritual man who moved” for this to be done.  He concludes with the fearful profanity of “desiring of God, that the ground, should open and swallow him up the hour or minute that he should declare the Gospel of Christ after any sort than he had done heretofore, in rebuking the Papistical power, or in any other point concerning the advancement of his Grace’s affairs.”

Such a tissue of profanity and absurdity was seldom penned; but men who could write and act thus were fitting instruments for a man, who made it a point of conscience to commit immoral crimes that he might preserve the succession; who kept his mistress in the same palace with his queen; and only went through the form of marriage when he found his real or pretended wishes about the same succession on the point of being