Charles Reynolds (cleric)
Born in County Leitrim into an Irish clan of Hiberno-Norse descent and son of Marcus Mac Raghnaill, Reynolds entered a religious order and was appointed to influential posts as archdeacon and military chaplain to the Earl of Kildare.
Reynolds was posthumously attained for high treason in the Attainder of the Earl of Kildare Act 1536 and is sometimes included as one of the Irish Catholic Martyrs.
The ecclesiastical, or erenagh, branch of the Mac Raghnaill derbhfine had very strong associations with the Augustinian priory of Mohill, County Leitrim, from at least the 15th-century.
[8] Reynolds graduated in Canon Law around 1531, and secured a grant of "English liberty" entitling him to acquire property and ecclesiastical promotion in the Pale .
[14][f] The Irish Council in the Pale was dominated by rival Old English factions, and the only clerics trusted by the King to promote his policies of Caesaropapism and the Reformation in Ireland were three Englishmen, the most prominent being John Alen, Archbishop of Dublin.
[15] Rumours circulated that Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, aggrieved by the treatment of his aunt, Catherine of Aragon, might intervene in Ireland.
[17] The incumbent, Gerald Fitzgerald, was imprisoned in the Tower of London in spring 1534, provoking his son Silken Thomas, who falsely believed his father to have been executed and that himself and his uncles were certain to be next, to raise the Irish clans and Old English soldiery subject to his leadership and launch the "Kildare rebellion".
[15][g] These clerics shared a held belief English rule was empowered, under Laudabiliter-inspired papal sanction, to merely reform the Irish along conventional canonical lines only.
Recognising the English revolution as fundamentally attacking the intellectual and legal basis for their canonical beliefs, they were spurred into revolt and radical action.
According to Ortiz, Pope Paul III was impressed by his arguments, absolved the Earl, apologised for past negligence and dutifully promised to excommunicate King Henry VIII.
[j] He developed an "incurable fever", possibly malaria, and died in early July 1535, one day before the Pope was to appoint him Bishop of Elphin and Clonmacnoise.
[2][13][27] for the accomplishment of his traitorous purpose sent his letters addressed as well to the bishop of Rome as emperor by one Cale McGranill otherwise called Charles Reynold, archdeacon of Kells, for to have their aid against our said sovereign lord and his heirs for the winning of the said land of Ireland out of their possession and he to hold the same of them forever.
[30][31][32] Had Reynolds not died and returned to Ireland, he faced imprisonment and execution because the Attainder of the Earl of Kildare Act 1536 convicted him, Silken Thomas, and others, by name for high treason.
The top of the slab is lost, though the lower portion of the Fitzgerald crest can be observed, alongside the hind legs of a lion rampant associated with the arms of the Reynolds family.
Archdeacon of Kells of the Diocese of Meath; Counsellor of his illustrious friend Thomas of Kildare; Messenger sent by his superior to Paul III Supreme Pontiff about serious matters especially those pertaining to the Christian Redemption.
"Sacred to the greatest God – for Charles Raynal MacRaynald, son of Maurus Raynal; Irish by nation, descended from a distinguished family; a just man, well learned, endowed with the qualities of body and soul, archdeacon of Kells in the church of Meath, counsellor to the illustrious Thomas, earl of Kildare, and envoy sent to Pope Paul III, supreme pontiff and successor to the prince of the Apostles(?
); while with upmost integrity and faith he was conducting these affairs in Rome, on the day before he was to be placed in charge as bishop of the churches of Elphin and Cluonensis, on account of his merits, by the same Paul, supreme pontiff, he was swept away quickly by an incurable fever, to the greatest sorrow of all, and was interred on the ides of July in the year of Christ 1535, aged 38.
Charles belonged to the Mac Raghnaills, a Gaelic sept of Muintir Eolais, now forming part of southern county Leitrim.
