The Edict of Clonrise (sometimes spelled Edict of Cluain Sharoise) was issued on Curé of Ars Day (4 August) of 2009 by Seán III of Coleraine to grant the Roman Catholic Church, in particular the Pope, official power within the Realm. It ended the period of Colerain History known as the Gaelic Dark Age, and began the Amadeian Renaissance, in which a revival of both traditional Gaelic Civilisation and Roman Catholicism began in Coleraine.
Background[]
Main article: Gaelic Dark Age
The Edict aimed primarily at ending the nearly five century long period known as the Gaelic Dark Age, which began with the Act of Supremecy of 1534 when King Henry VIII of England officially broke from the Roman Catholic Church.
Though the predecessor state to the present Kingdom of Coleraine, the Kingdom of Limavady, did not actually begin until 1658, the first seeds were sown in 1534. The collapse of Gaelic Law in Ireland was quickened by the Tudor Reconquest, which introduced the first Protestant colonists to the isle. In 1607 the main Gaelic Kings of Ulster, the O'Neill and O'Donnell went into exile in an event known today as the Flight of the Earls. The pair would die exiles in Rome in the coming centuries. One of the few remaining Kings was Domhnáill I of Limavady, who met his downfall at Dublin Castle, where after being arrested for treason against King James I of England, despite the fact Domhnáill himself was a soverign monarch with no loyalties to the English Crown, nor the Court of Saint James's. He died in 1626 a prisoner in the Tower of London.
Ironically it was James's descendants who would become the last great hope for Gaelic and Catholic Ireland and Scotland. In 1688 James's Great-grandson, James II of England was ousted from the Throne by Parliament, his daughter Mary and son-in-law William of Orange to take the English throne. James fled to France, where he raised a Catholic Army to retake the throne. Sadly on 12 July 1690, James was defeated by William at the Battle of the Boyne in County Meath, Ireland. James's son the rightful James III would also attempt to retake the throne for the House of Stuart in 1715, however he too was unsuccessful. In 1745 his son Prince Charles Edward Stuart, more commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, was proclaimed King Charles III at Glenfinnan, Scotland. The Second Jacobite Rising was also a failure, after the major defeat at Culloden, which ended any hope of a Catholic restoration in Britain or Ireland.
At this point in time the Kings of Limavady were living in exile in the western part of County Mayo in the Irish province of Connacht. Their power broken, they would remain there until the beginning of the 20th Century, when in 1915 the last King to die in Ireland, Pádraig II, died. His son, Tómás I, immigrated to America in 1914 as Ireland slowly began to fall into the civil war, which would culminate in the Irish War of Independence, Civil War, and more recently the Troubles.
With the foundation of the Kingdom of Coleraine by Tómás I's grandson, Tómás II, in 2009 the questions of Church and State arose again. Tómás II, a firm believer in the rule of the state, chose not to answer the question. With the ascension of his son Seán III, however it was answered. Seán is just the opposite of his father, a firm believer in the rule of the Church. Subsequently to answer the long standing issue he declared the Church to have dominion over the state in this Edict. In correlation with his new legislation, Seán took the Latin name Ioannes Amadeus, meaning Seán who Loves God.
The Text[]
I COME not to speake of mere mortality, for what is it worth? Rather to speak of the Kings and their power dominant. If Man should be ruled by a King, let it be a King anointed under God, a King with the power of Holy Mother Church behind him. ‘Tis the edict of I, Ioannes Amadeus, Rex Colerainicus et Archdux Sanctus Iacobus, do declare the Realm of Coleraine, her Peoples, Nobles, and King to be under the authority of OUR LORD’S representative on Earth, the Successor of Saint Peter, the Holy Father, Pope Benedictus XVI as overlord of the Realm, and that I, the King shall with all the might of the Realm, uphold God’s Kingdom on Earth, and his most holy bride, she being Holy Mother Church. This by the power of the King I do proclaim In Nomine Patris, et Fili, et Spiritu Sancti.
In this acte I, the King, hope that Man may come yet closer to God, that peace may yet be restored to this Battletorne Worlde. With the mighty Chi-Rho, the sign of Christ the King, Coleraine shall lead the way of Nations, led by none other than God and the Holy Father, through the Centuries to come.
Signed on this the Fourth Day of August at a Quarter Past Ten o’Clock in the Evening at the Palace of Cluain Sharoise, Clonrise:
Ioannes Amadeus ☧☧