The Tudor politicians held that the one hope for the regeneration of Ireland lay in its absorbing the civilization of England.

The prohibition of the national dress, customs, laws, and language must have seemed to them merely the suppression of a barbarism which stood in the way of all improvement.
[Sidenote: Cromwell's Reform of Religion] With England and Ireland alike at his feet Cromwell could venture on a last and crowning change.

He could claim for the monarchy the right of dictating at its pleasure the form of faith and doctrine to be taught throughout the land.

Henry had remained true to the standpoint of the New Learning; and the sympathies of Cromwell were mainly with those of his master.

They had no wish for any violent break with the ecclesiastical forms of the past.