Laudabiliter was a papal bull issued in 1155 by Adrian IV, an Englishman, purporting to give the Angevin Henry II of England the right to assume control over Ireland and to enforce the Gregorian Reforms on the Catholic Church in Ireland. The leaders of the Norman invasion of Ireland (1169–71) would later claim that Laudabiliter authorised the invasion. Richard de Clare, a Cambro-Norman knight from Pembrokeshire, was retained by Diarmuid MacMorrough, the deposed King of Leinster, as an ally in his fight with the High King of Ireland, Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair.In the event, successive Kings of England, from Henry II (1171) until Henry VIII (1541), claimed to derive`the title and the authority of the Lord of Ireland from Adrian's successor, Pope Alexander III.After almost four centuries — upon the declaration of the independence of the Church of England from papal supremacy and rejection of the authority of Rome — a new basis for the English monarch's legitimate claim to the rule of Ireland was needed: the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 therefore established a sovereign Kingdom of Ireland with Henry being given the title of King of Ireland.There has been some controversy over the authenticity of Laudabiliter.