George Browne

George Browne D.D. (died 1556) was an English Augustinian who was appointed by Henry VIII of England to the vacant Episcopal see of Dublin. He became the king's main instrument in his desire to establish the state church in the Kingdom of Ireland. An iconoclast, during the Protestant Reformation he is noted for destroying the Bachal Isu, one of the symbols of authority of the Archbishop of Armagh. Life Almost nothing is known of his family, or his early life: his place and date of birth are both uncertain. As provincial of the suppressed Augustinian Hermits (Austin Friars) in England, he was employed, in conjunction with John Hilsey, the provincial of the suppressed Dominican Order (Blackfriars), to administer the 1534 oath of succession to all the friars of London and the south of England. He is said to have recommended himself to the king by advising the poor in distress about the religious changes to make their applications solely to Christ. Within a year he was nominated to the see of Dublin, vacant by the murder of Archbishop John Alen in the rising of Kildare in 1534; but it was not until another year had elapsed that he arrived in Ireland, in July 1536. He had meanwhile received the degree of D.D. at Oxford in 1535. Henry's religious policy The murder of Alen afforded the King an opportunity of introducing his religious agenda into Ireland. He kept the see vacant for nearly a year, and then filled it without any reference to the Pope, by the appointment of Browne. He was consecrated by Thomas Cranmer, on 19 March 1536, and took up his residence in Dublin in August 1536. The antecedents of Browne and the schismatical character of his appointment did not recommend him to the Dublin clergy. He complained of their resistance to his injunctions and was compelled to send round his own servants in order to cancel the Pope's name in the service books. A warning from the King stirred him up to more demonstrative action, and he had all holy relics preserved in Christ Church cathedral, including St. Patrick's crozier, known as the "Staff of Jesus", gathered into a heap and burned. He cooperated in the suppression of all the religious houses, in changing the prior and convent of Christ Church into a secular dean and chapter, and in the total suppression of the chapter of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. The Irish Parliament, which had been sitting for two months, accepted all the principal acts by which England had declared herself independent of Rome.