The next bishop respecting whom I wish to make some observations is Eugene or Owen Magenis, appointed in 1541, and though I am not disposed to deal uncharitably with him, I have no doubt he was a “temporiser”, though he may have been secretly “orthodox”. Dr. M’Carthy (Dr. Kelly’s _Essays_, p. 427), and Brennan, and Walsh, in their ecclesiastical histories of Ireland are compelled to come to the same conclusion; and upon the whole of his career I candidly confess I don’t know what other result they could arrive at. I ground nothing on his being present, if he were present, at Queen Elizabeth’s first parliament in 1560, which passed the Act of Uniformity, and required the oath of supremacy to be taken by all ecclesiastics; for even if he had been present, there is no documentary evidence extant showing how those in attendance voted, and those acquainted with Irish history know on the authority of Archdeacon Lynch that these acts were hurriedly and surreptitiously passed on a day when they were not expected to be brought forward, and in a thin packed house. But it appears, so far as his public acts are reported, that he submitted in matters of ecclesiastical discipline to all the rapid changes and schisms which the fertile imaginations of the pseudo-reformers introduced during the Tudor reigns. He surrendered his bulls to Henry VIII., obtained from Paul, “Bishop of Rome”, not “His Holiness”; took out pardon for accepting them, with a new grant of the see, with the archdeaconry and confirmation of the parishes of Aghaderg and Anaghlone, parishes to which _he had been_ promoted by the Primate in 1526 and 1528. It is an oversight to suppose that about 1541 and 1543 the northern chieftains who submitted to Henry VIII. were exempted from all pressure in matter of religion. Cox (_Aug. Hib._, vol. i. p. 272) writes that the king about that time caused all the Irish who submitted to him to renounce the “Pope’s usurpations, and to own the king’s supremacy by indenture”, among others, stating that O’Neill did so, January, 1542, all the indentures being registered in the Red Book of the Exchequer. The articles of Con O’Neill’s submission are printed in vol. iii. part iii. p. 353, of the _State Papers of Henry VIII_.; and by the second article, he expressly renounces obedience to the Roman Pontiff and his usurped authority, and acknowledges the king to be the supreme head of the Church in England and Ireland, immediately under Christ. Manus O’Donnell, 3rd June the preceding year, in his letter styles the king on Earth immediately under Christ supreme head of the Church of England—(_Ib._, p. 217). M’Donell, captain of the galloglasses, goes further, and promises to annihilate and relinquish the usurped authority of the Bishop of Rome; and his adherents and abettors will expel, extirp, and diminish, etc.—(_Ib._, p. 383). Redmond MacMahon, captain of the Farney, 30th December, 1543, also renounces the usurped authority of the Roman Pontiff—(Shirley’s _Farney_, p. 40). Even in the reign of Queen Mary, we find Owen Macgenis, of Iveagh, chief of his sept and captain of his country, binding himself not to admit any provisions from Rome, but oppose them all he could—(Cox, i. p. 299). No doubt these indentures were extorted by necessity from these chiefs, who scoffed at the idea that Henry had any religion or was the head of any church, and kept the articles just as long as they could not help it. Dr. M’Carthy, I presume on the ground of Bishop Magenis suing out pardon in Queen Mary’s reign, considers he afterwards “repented”, being made a privy councillor and governor of his country; but then we have two similar acts of repentance in Elizabeth’s reign, for he took out the royal pardon, 1st May and 25th October in her first year, thus atoning for his folly in her predecessor’s. If he lived till 1564, as Dr. Moran (_Archbishops of Dublin_) supposes—though I consider he was dead in 1563, from the queen’s letter, dated 6th January, 1564, naming James M’Caghwell to the see, then “destitute of an incumbent”, and also from the fact of Shane O’Neill applying for the see for his brother, 1563-4—then, knowing that the greater parts of the counties of Down and Antrim were, in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign, completely under subjection to the English, and coupling this with the solicitation of the royal pardons, the least that can be said is, that Bishop Magenis acquiesced in or tacitly submitted to the ecclesiastical changes enacted in the parliament of 1560, not forgetting that about the same time Andrew Brereton, governor of Lecale (called Britton by Anthony Bruodin, in Dr. Moran’s _Archbishops of Dublin_, p. 142), mercilessly strangled John O’Lochran and two other Franciscan friars, in Downpatrick.