fore, to all intents and purposes, Romish bishops. They all of them went to Canterbury for consecration, and regarded themselves as suffragans of the Primate of England. Some historians have seen in this submission 'a wholesale betrayal of the liberties of the Irish Church.' This, however, is a mistake. That it paved the way for the subjection of the Irish Church is true enough; but there was no betrayal. The case was exactly analogous to the case of Gibraltar at present. The Bishop of Gibraltar is subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury, not because he wishes to bring the Spanish Church into subjection to the Anglican metropolitan, but simply because Gibraltar is English, and not Spanish. In the same way the Danish bishops of Dublin were subject to Canterbury, because Dublin was an English and not an Irish city.
In the pontificate of Alexander II. it was ordered that no bishop should exercise his functions until he had received the confirmation of the Holy See. Possibly it was in pursuance of this edict that Patrick, second Bishop of Dublin, proceeded to Rome, after he had been consecrated by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. Hildebrand, the actual framer of the decree, was then the occupant of the papal chair; and as he was always watchful for opportunities of extending the sway of that 'city of God,' which it was the one object of his life to establish, we can well believe that he gave directions to the Danish bishop to use his influence for the bringing of the Irish Church into a state of canonical obedience. At the same time he himself wrote to Turlogh O'Brien, King of Ireland, telling him that the Holy Church is placed above all the kingdoms of the earth, the Lord having put into subjection unto her principalities and powers and all that seems possessed of
