Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 1 (of 3)Bagwell, Richard
History
Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 1 (of 3)
Bagwell, Richard
Ireland -- History -- 16th century
'Your magnificence praiseworthily and profitably takes thought how to
increase a glorious name on earth and how to lay up a reward of
everlasting happiness in heaven, while you are intent, like a Catholic
prince, on enlarging the bounds of the Church, on declaring the truth to
unlearned and rude peoples, and on uprooting the seedlings of vice from
the Lord's field. The better to attain that end you have asked counsel
and favour of the apostolic see. In which action we are sure that, with
God's help, you will make happy progress in proportion to the high design
and great discretion of your proceedings, inasmuch as undertakings which
grow out of ardour for the faith and love of religion are accustomed
always to have a good end and upshot. There is no doubt and your nobility
acknowledges that Ireland, and all islands upon which Christ the sun of
justice has shone, and which have received the teachings of the Christian
faith, rightfully belong to the blessed Peter and the most holy Roman
Church. We have, therefore, the more willingly made a faithful plantation
among them, and inserted a bud pleasing to God, in that we foresee that
it will require a careful internal watch at our hands. However, you have
signified to us, my dear son in Christ, that you wish to enter the island
of Ireland, in order to reduce that people to law, and to uproot the
seedlings of vice there, and to make a yearly payment of a denarius to
the blessed Peter out of each house, and to preserve the rights of the
churches of that land whole and undiminished.
'We, therefore, seconding your pious and laudable desire with suitable
favour, and giving a kindly assent to your petition, do hold it for a
thing good and acceptable that you should enter that island for the
extension of the Church's borders, for the correction of manners, for the
propagation of virtue, and for increase of the Christian religion; and
that you should perform that which you intend for the honour of God and
for the salvation of that land; and let the people of that land receive
you honourably and venerate you as their lord; the ecclesiastical law
remaining whole and untouched, and an annual payment of one denarius
being reserved to the blessed Peter and to the most holy Roman Church.
But if you shall complete the work which you have conceived in your mind,
study to mould that race to good morals, and exert yourself personally
and by such of your agents as you shall find fit in faith, word, and
living, to honour the Church there, and to plant and increase the
Christian faith, and strive to ordain what is for the honour of God and
the safety of souls in such a manner that you may deserve at God's hands
a heap of everlasting treasure, and on earth gain a glorious name for
ages yet to come.'
[Sidenote: The papal title.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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