Catalogue description GEORGE [BROWN], ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN, to CROMWELL.

Dublin, 8 May.

The first Sunday in May was with us the Translation of Saint Owen, in whose church a Prebendary of St. Patrick named Humphrey, the author of the contempt that I am in, and of the discord between me and my friends, sang high mass, because he is parson, and "thought scorn" to read the beads after the form which I have devised. His parish priest thereupon went up into the pulpit and began to read them to the people. He had scarcely read three or four lines, when the parson began the preface and the choir sang, so that the beads were unbidden. Certain of the parish represented it to me. Considering that this man, who first swore to the King and also moved others to do the same, contemned my articles devised for the furtherance of God's Word and the advancement of our Sovereign's title of supremacy, I committed him to ward. "They be in manner all at the same point with me. There is an 28 of them, and amongst them all there is not three learned of them, nor yet scarce one that favoureth God's Word. Your Lordship might do a good deed to have a little thing put in practice with them, and that is, de non idoneis removendis; else it is but vain for me or any other to take pains in our Prince's causes.

On the first day of this term, an intercepted letter was brought to me, "which should have been conveyed from the Father of Trym to another of the same coat;" I have sent it to you. "You may perceive their towardness, and yet great men in these parts may evil spare them for their auricular confession, for they may be bold to utter unto them treason and other. If they lacked them, I suppose they should lack much boldness to do evil. Where they rule, God and the King cannot justly reign.

Addressed: Lord Private Seal. Endorsed.

State Papers III. 6.

Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, ed. J. S. Brewer & W. Bullen (6 vols., 1867-73), vol. I, document 120.