With men such as these in charge of the new religious movement it was almost impossible that it could succeed. In spite of the various royal commissions appointed between the years 1560 and 1564 to secure submission to the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, the people still clung tenaciously to the old faith. Though Elizabeth and her advisers were anxious to destroy the Catholic religion in Ireland they deemed it imprudent to do so immediately in view of the threatening attitude of O'Neill and of several of the other Irish and Anglo-Irish nobles.
In case of the Act of Uniformity it had been laid down expressly that in places where the people did not understand Irish the service might be read in Latin, and as not even the people in Kildare knew English at this time,[52] it followed that outside of Dublin the Book of Common Prayer was not obligatory. Indeed outside Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and portion of Armagh very little attempt seems to have been made to put these laws into execution. From the draft instructions drawn up for Sir Henry Sidney in 1565 it is perfectly clear that outside the Pale territory zealous measures had not been taken to enforce the new doctrines, and that even within the Pale the authorities were not inclined to press matters to extremes. In the various agreements concluded between Shane O'Neill and Elizabeth, O'Neill was not called upon to renounce the Pope. It was thought to be much more prudent to pursue a policy of toleration until the English power could be placed upon a sound footing, and that if this were once accomplished the religious question could be settled without much difficulty.
Although the Lord Deputy was empowered to punish those who refused to attend the English service by imprisonment (1561),[53] he was obliged to report in the following year that the people were "without discipline," and "utterly devoid of religion," that they came "to divine service as to a May game," that the ministers were held in contempt on account of their greediness and want of qualifications, that "the wise fear more the impiety of the licentious professors than the superstition of the erroneous Papists," and that nothing less than a Parliamentary decree rigorously enforced could remedy the evil.[54]
The commissioners who had been appointed to enforce the religious innovations reported in 1564 that the people were so addicted to their old superstitions that they could not be induced to hear the new gospel, that the judges and lawyers, however, had promised to enforce the laws, that they had cautioned them not to interfere with the ****** multitude at first but only "with one or two boasting Mass men in every shire," and that with the exception of Curwen, Loftus, and Brady, all the rest of the bishops were Irish about whom it was not necessary to say anything more."[55] In a document presented to the privy council in England by the Lord Deputy and council of Ireland (1566) a good account is given of the progress and results of the so-called Reformation. They reported that Curwen, Loftus, and Brady were diligent in their pastoral office, but that "howbeit it [the work]
goeth slowly forward within their said three dioceses by reason of the former errors and superstitions inveterated and leavened in the people's hearts, and in [on account of] want of livings sufficient for fit entertainment of well-chosen and learned curates amongst them, for that these livings of cure, being most part appropriated benefices in the queen's majesty's possession, are let by leases to farmers with allowance or reservation of very small stipends or entertainments for the vicars or curates, besides the decay of the chancels, and also of the churches universally in ruins, and some wholly down. And out of their said dioceses, the remote parts of Munster, Connaught, and other Irish countries and borders thereof order cannot yet so well be taken with the residue till the countries be first brought into more civil and dutiful obedience."[56]
In Dublin, where it might be expected that the government could enforce its decrees, the people refused to conform, and even in 1565, after several commissions had finished their labours, it was admitted that the canons and clergy of St. Patrick's were still Papists. From Meath the queen's bishop received such a bad reception that he declared he would much rather have been a stipendiary priest in England than Bishop of Meath. "Oh what a sea of trouble," he wrote, "have I entered into, storms rising on every side; the ungodly lawyers are not only sworn enemies to the truth, but also for the lack of due execution of law, the overthrowers of the country; the ragged clergy are stubborn and ignorantly blind, so as there is left little hope of their amendment; the ****** multitude is through continual ignorance hardly to be won so as I find /angustiae undique/." But while Brady was involved in a sea of difficulties, the Catholics of Meath rallied round their lawful bishop, Dr. Walsh. According to the report of Loftus, who ordered his arrest (1565), "he was one of great credit amongst his countrymen, and upon whom as touching causes of religion they wholly depended." Loftus petitioned to be recalled from Armagh because it was not worth anything to him nor was he able to do any good in it, since it lay among the Irish; and Craik, who was appointed to Kildare, announced that he could not address the people because they were not acquainted with the English language, nor had he any Irish clergymen who would assist him in spreading the new gospel.[57]