John Alen

John Alen (1476–1534) was an English canon lawyer, Archbishop of Dublin, and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who was murdered during the Rebellion of "Silken Thomas" Fitzgerald.

Life

He was born in Coltishall, Norfolk.The Alans were a numerous clan and six of his cousins settled in Ireland including his namesake John Alan, who was Lord Chancellor in his turn, and Thomas Alen of Kilteel, Clerk of the Hanaper. He was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, graduated in the latter place, and spent some years in Italy, partly at Rome, for studies and for business of Archbishop Warham of Canterbury. He was ordained priest 25 August 1499, and held various parochial benefices until 1522, about which time he attracted the attention of Cardinal Wolsey, whose helpful commissary he was in the matter of the suppression of the minor monasteries. As such, his conduct, says James Gairdner, "gave rise to considerable outcry, and complaints were made about it to the king".

He continued to receive ecclesiastical advancement, assisted Wolsey in his legatine functions, among other things in the suit instituted by the cardinal against Henry VIII in May, 1527, by which it was sought at first to have the marriage with Catharine of Aragon declared invalid without her knowledge. In the summer of the same year he accompanied the cardinal on his mission to France, and finally (August, 1528) was rewarded with the archepiscopal see of Dublin.

Soon after his arrival he was invested with the Chancellorship. For a short time until Wolsey's downfall Alen was a dominant figure in the Irish administration, forming one of an "inner council of three" on the Privy Council of Ireland. In 1532, Alan was relieved of the office of Chancellor through the influence of Gerald FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Kildare.

He was relieved from asserting, against George Cromer, Archbishop of Armagh, the legatine authority of Wolsey by the latter's fall (October, 1529). With the rest of the English clergy he had to pay a heavy fine (1531) for violation of the Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, in recognizing the legatine authority of Wolsey, then, in the king's eyes, a heinous crime, and a reason for the cardinal's indictment. Alen survived Wolsey's downfall but his political influence was never the same.

Murder

As a former follower of Wolsey, he was hated by the followers of the great Irish house of Kildare (Fitzgerald), whose chief, Gerald FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Kildare, had been imprisoned by Wolsey in the Tower of London from 1526 to 1530, and again, by the King, early in 1534. Soon a false rumour spread through Ireland that the earl had been put to death, and Earl Gerald's son, "Silken Thomas", rose in revolt in 1534. The Archbishop, anticipating a siege of Dublin Castle, attempted to escape to England. He embarked at Dame Gate, but his boat was driven ashore at Clontarf. He fled for refuge to the home of his friend Thomas St. Lawrence at Artane Castle near Dublin, but his hiding place was betrayed. Lord Thomas arrived before the house in hot pursuit of him. The Archbishop was dragged out in his shirt, and, falling on his knees, begged for mercy. Archbishop Alen was killed by two retainers of "Silken Thomas" Fitzgerald at Artane Castle, 28 July 1534. Whether Silken Thomas actually ordered the killing or not remains a subject of dispute: there is a well-known tradition that his men misunderstood his command in Gaelic to "take this fellow away" as a command to murder him. Lord Thomas subsequently insisted that he meant only that the Archbishop should be removed to custody. He afterwards sent his chaplain to Rome to obtain absolution for him from the excommunication incurred by this murder.

Character

Sir James Ware says of Alen that "he was of a turbulent spirit, but a man of hospitality and learning, and a diligent inquirer into antiquities".

Works

Alen wrote a treatise on the pallium, Epistola de pallii significatione activa et passiva on the occasion of his reception of this pontifical symbol, and another De consuetudinibus ac statutis in tutoriis causis observandis. He seems also to have been a man of methodical habits, for in the archives of the Anglican archdiocese of Dublin are still preserved two important registers made by his order, the Liber Niger, or Black Book, and the Repertorium Viride, or Green Repertory, both so called, after the custom of the age, from the colour of the binding. The former is a chartularium of the archdiocese, or collection of its most important documents, and the latter a list of the parishes of the see as it was in 1530.

References

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  Endnotes:
  • Brady, Episcopal Succession in England, Ireland, and Scotland (Rome, 1876), I, 325 sqq.
  •  ;
  • Anthony à Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (ed. Bliss), I, 76
  • Meehan, in tr. Daly, Rise, Increase and Fall of the Geraldines, Earls of Desmond (Dublin, 1878), 53, 54
  • Ware, Annals of Ireland, ad an. 1534
  • Cox, Hibernia Anglicana, 234
  • Ware, Irish Bishops (ed. Harris, Dublin, 1764), 347
  • Alphons Bellesheim, Gesch. D. kathol. Kirche in Irland (Mainz, 1890), II, 5, 6, 16, 17.

Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Hugh Inge	Archbishop of Dublin 1528–1534	Succeeded by George Browne as Anglican Archbishop (1536)
		Succeeded by Hugh Curwen as Catholic Archbishop (1555)