But as it consisted chiefly of bankrupts, fugitives from justice and others "of so corrupt a disposition as England rather refuseth," it did not help matters much but rather "irrecuperably damnified the state." The Irish Parliament continued to represent only the English of the Pale and of a few towns outside of it.

Though the inhabitants of the {349} Pale remained nominally Catholic, the Parliament was so servile that in 1541 it destroyed the monasteries and repudiated the pope, [Sidenote: Religion] shortly after which the king took the title of Head of the Irish Church.

Not one penny of the confiscated wealth went to endow an Irish university until 1591, when Trinity College was founded in the interests of Protestantism.

Though almost every other country of Europe had its own printing presses before 1500, Ireland had none until 1551, and then the press was used so exclusively for propaganda that it made the very name of reading hateful to the natives.

There were, however, no religious massacres and no martyrs of either cause.