The meeting of Parliament in 1569 was nearly coincident
with the formal excommunication of Elizabeth by Pope
Pius V. Though pretending to despise the bull, the Queen
was weak enough to seek its revocation, through the
interposition of the Emperor Maximilian. The high tone
of the enthusiastic Pontiff irritated her deeply, and
perhaps the additional severities which she now directed
against her Catholic subjects, may be, in part, traced
to the effects of the excommunication. In Ireland, the
work of reformation, by means of civil disabilities and
executive patronage, was continued with earnestness. In
1564, all Popish priests and friars were prohibited from
meeting in Dublin, or even coming within the city gates.
Two years later, _The Book of Articles_, copied from the
English Articles, was published, by order of "the
Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical." The articles
are twelve in number:--1. The Trinity in Unity; 2. The
Sufficiency of the Scriptures to Salvation; 3. The
Orthodoxy of Particular Churches; 4. The Necessity of
Holy Orders; 5. The Queen's Supremacy; 6. Denial of the
Pope's authority "to be more than other Bishops have;"
7. The Conformity of the Book of Common Prayer to the
Scriptures; 8. The Ministration of Baptism does not depend
on the Ceremonial; 9. Condemns "Private Masses," and
denies that the Mass can be a propitiatory Sacrifice for
the Dead; 10. Asserts the Propriety of Communion in Both
Kinds; 11. Utterly disallows Images, Relics and Pilgrimages;
12. Requires a General Subscription to the foregoing
Articles. With this creed, the Irish Establishment started