THE SEE OF CLONMACNOISE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
CARDINAL CONSALVI AND NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
ST. BRIGID'S ORPHANAGE.
THE MSS. REMAINS OF PROFESSOR O'CURRY IN THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY.
ASSOCIATION OF ST. PETER'S PENCE, DUBLIN.
POLAND.
LITURGICAL QUESTIONS.
DOCUMENTS.
NOTICES OF BOOKS.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century the See of St. Kieranwas reckoned among the dioceses of the ecclesiastical provinceof Tuam. Dr. Walter Blake was then its bishop; he was anative of Galway, and Canon of Enaghdune, and by the provisionof Pope Innocent VIII., was appointed to this See onthe 26th of March, 1487. During twenty-one years he governedthe faithful of Clonmacnoise with prudence and zeal, and died inMay, 1508.
Thomas O'Mullally was appointed his successor the sameyear, and after administering this diocese for five years, was,in 1513, translated to the archiepiscopal see of Tuam.
There are still preserved in the Vatican archives two originalletters written by King Henry VIII., on the 18th of June,1515, soliciting the appointment of Father Quintinus Ohnygyn,of the Order of St. Francis, as successor to Dr. Mullally.These letters should, of themselves, suffice to set at rest forever the plea which some modern theorists have advanced,that the course pursued by the English monarch in thelatter years of his reign, in appointing bishops by his own authorityto the episcopal sees, was the traditional right of thecrown, ever exercised by him and his predecessors on the throneof England. The first letter is addressed to the reigning pontiff,Leo X., as follows:
"Sanctissimo, Clementissimoque Dño nostro Papae.
"Beatissime pater, post humillimam commendationem et devotissima[Pg 154]pedum oscula beatorum. Certiores facti, Cluanensem Ecclesiamin Dominio nostro Hiberniae per translationem Revmi Patris DñiThomae ejus novissimi Episcopi ad Archi-Episcopatum Tuamensemvacare, venerabilem ac religiosum virum fratrem Quintinum Ohnygynord. min. virum doctum, gravem, circumspectum et probum, multorumtestimonio maxime idoneum esse cognovimus qui dictae Ecclesiaepraeficiatur. Quapropter Vestrae Sanctitati ipsum commendamus,eamque rogamus, ut eundem fr. Quintinum praedictae CathedraliEcclesiae Cluanensi per dictam translationem vacanti praeficere etEpiscopum constituere dignetur, quem ut Deo acceptum, sic perutilemeidem Ecclesiae pastorem futurum arbitramur. Et felicissimevaleat eadem Vestra Sanctitas, Quam Deus Altissimus longaevamconservet.
"Ex Palatio nostro Grenwici;
"die xviii. Junii 1515.
"Ejusdem Sanctitatis Vestrae
"Devotissimus atque obsequentissimus filius
"Dei gratia Rex Angliae et Franciae ac Dom. Hibae.
"Henricus".