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The Crown of Ireland Act 1542 established the title of "King of Ireland" for English monarchs, who had previously ruled Ireland as Lords of Ireland. The Act was passed by the Irish Parliament in 1542 and created the position of King of Ireland, with King Henry VIII becoming the first monarch to hold this title. However, the title was not initially recognized by Catholic European monarchs and the papacy, who still considered Ireland a feudal territory of the papacy. It wasn't until 1555 that Pope Paul IV issued a papal bull recognizing Philip and Mary as King and Queen of both England and Ireland, effectively surrendering papal authority over Ireland.

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44 views

Dert

The Crown of Ireland Act 1542 established the title of "King of Ireland" for English monarchs, who had previously ruled Ireland as Lords of Ireland. The Act was passed by the Irish Parliament in 1542 and created the position of King of Ireland, with King Henry VIII becoming the first monarch to hold this title. However, the title was not initially recognized by Catholic European monarchs and the papacy, who still considered Ireland a feudal territory of the papacy. It wasn't until 1555 that Pope Paul IV issued a papal bull recognizing Philip and Mary as King and Queen of both England and Ireland, effectively surrendering papal authority over Ireland.

Uploaded by

Michael Farrow
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Crown of Ireland Act 1542

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Crown of Ireland Act 1542

Parliament of Ireland

Long title An Act that the King of England, his Heirs and

Successors, be Kings of Ireland

Citation 33 Hen 8 c. 1

Territorial show
Kingdom of Ireland initially
extent 

Other legislation

Amended by Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Short Titles Act

(Northern Ireland) 1951

Repealed by Statute Law Revision (Pre-Union Irish Statutes) Act,

1962 (ROI)

Revised text of statute as amended

Constitutional documents and events relevant to the


status of the United Kingdom and its countries

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          List per year

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The Crown of Ireland Act 1542[1] is an Act that was passed by the Parliament of


Ireland (33 Hen. 8 c. 1) on 18 June 1542, which created the title of "King of Ireland"
for monarchs of England and their successors; previous monarchs had
ruled Ireland as Lords of Ireland. The first monarch to hold the title was King Henry
VIII of England.
The long title of the Act was "An Act that the King of England, his Heirs and
Successors, be Kings of Ireland". Among the 18th-century Irish Patriot Party it was
called the Act of Annexation.[2]

Background[edit]
The pope in 1171 abolished the High Kingship of Ireland (of 9th-century origin,
successor to the Kingship of Tara) and devalued the ancient Kingdoms of Ireland.
Under Laudabiliter, a papal bull, the ancient realm was disestablished and turned
into a feudal province of the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church under
the temporal power of the monarch of England who henceforth held the title Lord of
Ireland, relinquishing to the papacy the annual tribute levied upon the nobility and
people of Ireland.
The Act was passed in the Parliament of Ireland, meeting in Dublin, on 18 June
1542, being read out to parliament in English and Irish.[3]

Further developments in the 16th century[edit]


The secession of various European rulers during the Protestant Reformation,
including Henry VIII, prompted the papacy to initiate the Counter-Reformation. One
consequence of this was that the papacy required all Roman Catholic rulers to
consider Protestant rulers (and their loyal subjects) as heretics, thus making their
realms illegitimate under customary Roman Catholic international law. [citation
needed]
 Consequently, the title "King of Ireland" was not initially recognised by Europe's
Catholic monarchs and the papacy. Instead, they remained committed in considering
Ireland a feudal fief of the papacy, to be granted to any Catholic sovereign who
managed to secure the island Kingdom from the control of its Protestant monarchs.
After the death of Henry VIII's only legitimate son, Edward VI, the throne passed to
his oldest daughter, Mary I, who was a devout Roman Catholic. Mary shortly
thereafter married Philip of Spain, who was also staunchly Catholic. The new
monarch restored papal authority in both England and Ireland. However, the status
of Ireland as a kingdom remained in question: would the papacy recognise Ireland's
existence as a kingdom in its own right or maintain some fiction of temporal papal
power in the land? To rectify this, Pope Paul IV issued a papal bull in 1555, Ilius, per
quem Reges regnant, recognising Philip and Mary as King and Queen of England
and its dominions including Ireland. Although this did not explicitly recognise Ireland
as a kingdom, it represents the surrender of most of the papacy's declared authority
over Ireland, elevating it from a mere province of the Holy See to one that united
Ireland's and England's crowns in one person.[4]
Mary died without issue in 1558, and the thrones of England and Ireland passed to
her half-sister, Elizabeth I, who was a Protestant. Once again, both Kingdoms were
removed from papal authority. In reply, Pope Pius V issued a papal bull in
1570, Regnans in Excelsis, declaring "Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of England
and the servant of crime" to be a heretic and releasing all her subjects from any
allegiance to her and excommunicating any that obeyed her orders.

Subsequent developments[edit]
Over the course of the next two centuries, the papacy and Europe's Catholic rulers
continued to recognise Ireland as a kingdom in its own right, whilst at the same time
asserting its Protestant monarchy as illegitimate.[citation needed] Simultaneously, they would
incite Catholic rebellion to Protestants in the island as a means of recovering Ireland
to a Catholic sovereign, prece

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