Ireland under the Tudors. Volume 3 (of 3)

Cork, Cloyne, and Ross, Bishop LyonPosition of Protestants

The united diocese of Cork, Cloyne, and Ross fared, according to Bramhall, ‘the best of any bishopric in that province; a very good man, Bishop Lyon, being placed there early in the Reformation.’ In 1595 he had had thirteen years’ experience, and he gave a most lamentable account of his stewardship. There was, he said, no knowledge of God’s truth and no obedience to magistrates, but false teachers drew men away ‘to the palpable and damnable blindness to obey her Majesty’s capital and mortal enemy, that Anti-christ of Rome.’ Priests swore men to the Pope, charging a fee of one shilling and sixpence for every mass afterwards. The same priests baptized the children quietly, and it was scarcely possible to get sponsors for a legal christening; one poor clerk, his wife, and a poor minister, acting as universal ‘gossips.’ Recusants had special orders not to argue with any Protestant. Lyon says that at one time he would have a congregation of a thousand when he preached, but that now he had not five, while communicants had dwindled from 500 to three. The country was full of friars, who were in all things obedient to Bishop Gallagher, the legate, while there was not a Protestant in the province who could preach in Irish. The ‘devil’s service’ was the best of the many names popularly applied to the Anglican ritual, and the natives crossed themselves when Protestants passed, as if they were indeed devils. Lyon built himself a house at Ross, which was burned down by the O’Donovans; but he did what he could. Churches were restored, Bibles and Prayer Books were provided in English and Latin; but the congregations would not be tempted. Oaths to the Pope were freely taken, binding men to disobey the Act of Uniformity, and other oaths could not be believed. Owen MacEgan, who was sometimes called Bishop of Ross, had the power of a vicar apostolic, and confirmed children in crowds. ‘These wicked priests,’ says Lyon, ‘are the sowers of rebellion in this kingdom, and will do mischief if they be not looked unto in time… I have lived here twenty-five years, and been bishop fifteen years, and I have observed their doings. I never saw them so badly minded as they be now in general, for it is a general revolt throughout the whole kingdom… they have had the reins of liberty let loose unto them, and have not been kept under, whereas they are a people which, feeling the rigour of justice, are a good people in their kind, and with due justice and correction (but not oppressed, extorted, and unjustly dealt withal) they will be dutiful and obedient. But let them have favour and be well entreated, they will wax proud, stubborn, disobedient, disloyal, and rebellious. This I know by experience. Also the priests of the country have forsaken their benefices to become massing priests, because they are so well entreated and made so much of among the people. Many have forsaken their benefices by the persuasion of those seminaries that come from beyond the seas; they have a new mischief in hand if it be not prevented.’440

Papal emissariesOwen MacEgan

Owen MacEgan, who was killed near Kinsale in 1602, was generally called Vicar Apostolic, and sometimes Bishop of Ross. He was believed by Carew to have all the patronage of Munster. He had great influence in Spain, but in Munster, John Creagh, Bishop of Cork and Cloyne, was really a much more important person. He did not appear in public places where Englishmen were present, but exercised ‘all manner of spiritual jurisdictions in the whole province, being the Pope’s legate, consecrating churches, making priests, confirming children, deciding matrimony causes… one of the most dangerous fellows that ever came to that land, continued longest there of any of his sort, and has done more harm in two years than Dr. Sanders did in his time, who could procure the coming of the Spaniards only, but this Creagh draweth the whole country in general to disloyalty and breaking of the laws.’

Bishop Creagh

Creagh or MacGrath, for the name is written both ways, was the Archbishop of Cashel’s cousin; and Miler took care to warn him of any danger, while pretending to give information to the Government. In November, 1600, he was with the Sugane Earl, and actually fell into the hands of Carew’s soldiers, but they did not recognise him, ‘being clothed in a simple mantle and torn trousers like an aged churl.’ He lived on into the next reign, and exercised a very wide jurisdiction, Lord Cahir and Lord Mountgarret being much under his influence.441

The Pope’s acting primate. Redmond O’GallagherBishop O’Devany

Of nearly equal importance with Creagh was Redmond O’Gallagher, the titular Bishop of Derry, who befriended Captain Cuellar, when he was cast away. O’Gallagher was one of the three Irish bishops who attended the Council of Trent. He had faculty to exercise jurisdiction in the whole province of Armagh during the frequent absences of Archbishop Creagh, and perhaps of his successor, MacGauran, and was busy ‘throughout all Ulster, consecrating churches, ordaining priests, confirming children, and giving all manner of dispensations, riding with pomp and company from place to place as it was accustomed in Queen Mary’s days.’ He was killed in a skirmish or foray in 1601. Cornelius O’Devany, titular bishop of Down and Connor, is revered in Ireland as a martyr, but his death did not take place till 1612, when he had been thirty years bishop. It was reported in 1592 that ‘Ulster contained nineteen monasteries, in which the friars and monks remained, using their habit and service as in Rome itself.’442

Protestant primatesLancasterPrimate LongPrimate GarveyPrimate Henry Ussher

From the translation of Loftus in 1567 to the end of the reign, there were four legal primates. The Cathedral of Armagh had been wrecked by Shane O’Neill, and the ruins of the city could scarcely be held even by a garrison, so that the archbishops generally lived at Termonfeckin. Primate Lancaster was anxious to found a grammar-school in the neighbouring town of Drogheda, and offered to leave ‘out of my transitory trifles 600l. for the performance of the same;’ but he seems to have died without carrying out this design, and his successor, Dr. Long, is better remembered for having wasted the property of his see than for any benefit to it. But Long was not a pluralist like his predecessor, and it may be urged in extenuation that he died 1,000l. in debt. He was succeeded by John Garvey, a Kilkenny man with an Oxford degree, who spoke Irish and who had earned a good name as Bishop of Kilmore. Garvey complained that Long had reduced the value of the see to 120l. a year by granting leases for ninety-nine years, that his houses at Termonfeckin and Drogheda were in ruins, and that three years’ income would scarcely suffice to put a roof over his head. Garvey died in 1595, and his successor, Henry Ussher, is most famous as one of the founders of Trinity College. The restoration of the cathedral and the provision of a residence at Armagh were reserved for Primate Hampton.443

Primate Long’s account of the Church, 1585

Primate Long has left a lamentable account of the Church in Perrott’s time, while giving that Deputy full credit for doing his best. ‘But why,’ he says, ‘should I name it a Church? whereas there is scant a show of any congregation of the godly, either care of material or mystical temple, in which men are brought to that pass, as taking away their shape, they are worse than horse and mule that have no understanding… becometh your honour to remember that subjects have souls as well as bodies, and how grievous it is to the Spirit of God to have them governed in body and neglected in soul… Oh, that your careful eyes did behold the abominations which, like impudent dogs, they are not ashamed before the King of Kings to commit, the smell whereof so annoyeth the heavens that I fear the Lord sitting there laugheth our counsel to scorn, which savours so much of our own wits without the true fear of him which is the beginning of wisdom… the clergy are like the people; nay, they have made the people like them monstrum horrendum informe ingens cui lumen ademptum. Your godly Parliament in England hath somewhat, though not sufficiently, bridled the court of faculties, the corruption of the clergy; but in this poor island it sendeth old and young, clergy and laity, in a wild gallop to the devil… Many souls daily perish whose cure are committed to boys and to open wolves… Is it possible to look for civil peace where there is no peace in conscience? Pitiful it is, and will be answered before the Highest, to suffer his garden to waste wild for lack of trimming, and then to pull up his plants, that might fructify, by the root, by palpable ignorance to make traitors, and then by sword and law to shed their blood, who for lack of better teaching could never do better.’ A few months later Long had the satisfaction of announcing that Owen O’Hart, Bishop of Achonry by papal provision, and one of those who had attended the Council of Trent, had resigned his see, ‘prostrating himself before her Majesty whom he beforehand had agreed to curse, and thoroughly persuaded that the man of sin sitteth in Rome under pretence of the seat of God.’ But O’Hart continued to act as bishop, paying hush money to his ostensible Protestant successor, and forming one of the seven who in 1587 promulgated the Tridentine decrees throughout Ulster. ‘It is a hard thing,’ says Long, ‘to be thought of, that the land is not able to afford of the birth of the land forty Christians which have the taste of the true service of God; and how then can they be true-hearted to her Majesty when they are severed from her.’ Lurking papists were bolder than they had been, and threatened the State; and it would be ‘too late to shut the stable door when the horse is stolen.’ Long is sometimes edifying and always forcible, but Ussher accused him of alienating the see-lands, and of making a seal which enabled him to do so without capitular consent.444

Archbishop Miler MagrathHow Magrath tended his sheepCashelWaterford and Lismore

In the curious epitaph which he wrote for himself, Miler Magrath declares that he served England in the midst of war for fifty years. He was born in Fermanagh, became a conventual Franciscan, and was first provided to the See of Down, of which the O’Neills withheld the temporalities, and from which he was ejected by Gregory XIII. ‘for heresy and many other crimes.’ One of these was probably matrimony; at all events he was twice married, and had a large family of sons and daughters. Whether or not his conversion was sincere – and both opinions have been held – Magrath was no credit either to the Church which he joined or to the Church which he deserted and was accused of secretly favouring. He indulged immoderately in whisky, and he jobbed without the smallest compunction. In 1607, when he had been Archbishop of Cashel and Bishop of Emly for thirty-six years, the united diocese was found to be in a terrible state. Emly Cathedral was in ruins, and things were little better at Cashel. About twenty-six livings were held by his sons or other near relations, often in virtue of simoniacal contracts, and in nearly every case there was no provision for divine service. More than twenty livings and dignities were in the Archbishop’s own possession, who received the profits ‘without order taken for the service of the Church.’ No school whatever was provided. Nineteen livings or dignities were returned as void and destitute of incumbents, and in others,’ says the report, ‘some poor men, priests and others, carry the name, but they have little learning or sufficiency, and indeed are fitter to keep hogs than to serve in the church… in the two dioceses there is not one preacher or good minister to teach the subjects their duties to God and His Majesty.’ Magrath had been Bishop of Waterford and Lismore for twenty years, and ‘it will appear that wheresoever the Archbishop could do hurt to the Church he hath not forborne to do it. Sixteen livings were returned as void and destitute of incumbents.’ Several others were bestowed upon absentees, who provided no curates, and the Archbishop’s daughter or daughter-in-law enjoyed the income of two in which the churches were ruined and the cures not served. Magrath made many leases for his own profit, and, with the connivance of the Dean and Chapter, alienated the manor and see-lands of Lismore, and the castle, which was the episcopal residence, to Sir Walter Raleigh for a rent of 13l. 6s. 8d. in perpetuity. The capitular seal of Cashel he kept in his own hands and used as he pleased.445

The country clergy

‘The country clergy,’ says Davies, ‘were idols and ciphers, and,’ he adds with a fine irony, ‘that they cannot read, if they should stand in need of the benefit of their clergy.’ Serving-men and horseboys held benefices, and the court of faculties dispensed them from all duty. And for all their pluralities they were beggars, since the patron or ordinary took most of the profits by ‘a plain contract before their institution.’

‘The agent or nuncio of the Pope,’ he says, ‘hath 40l. or 50l. a year out of the profits of a parsonage within the Pale.’ The churches were in ruins throughout the kingdom, and there was ‘no divine service, no christening of children, no receiving of the sacrament, no Christian meeting or assembly, no, not once in the year; in a word no more demonstration of religion than amongst Tartars or cannibals.’ The bishops were but too often partakers in the prevalent corruption, and Davies suggested that visitors should be sent from England, ‘such as never heard a cow speak and understand not that language,’ a gift of cattle being the usual means of bribery in Ireland. Neither Loftus nor Jones were disinterested men, but they did take some pains to provide respectable incumbents, Englishmen for the most part, and Davies who did not like either of them, reported that the Pale was ‘not so universally Catholic as Sir Patrick Barnewall and some others would affirm it to be.’ That was all he could say, and it was not much.446

Foundation of Trinity College, Dublin

Archbishop Loftus had prevented Perrott from turning his cathedral of St. Patrick’s into a college, but he helped to provide the means from another source. In 1166 Dermot MacMurrough had founded the priory of All-Hallows for Aroasian canons, just outside Dublin, and by a curious coincidence the man who introduced the English into Ireland thus unwittingly set apart the ground on which the most successful of Anglo-Irish institutions was destined to be built. In 1538 the priory was granted to the city of Dublin; and in 1590 the Corporation were induced to offer the property, which was valued at 20l. a year, as a site for the new college. In 1579 the Queen had entertained the idea of a university at Clonfert, on account of its central position; ‘for that the runagates of that nation, which under pretence of study in the universities beyond the seas, do return freight with superstition and treason, are the very instruments to stir up our subjects to rebellion.’ Nothing came of that plan, perhaps because the bishops were expected to provide the means of realising it, and as there was no education to be had at home, the young gentlemen had continued to resort to universities where the Queen was considered an excommunicated heretic. The offer of the Dublin citizens was now accepted, and the monastic buildings, all but the steeple, were at once pulled down. Henry Ussher, a native of Dublin, but a graduate both of Oxford and Cambridge, who was afterwards Primate, and who was at this time Archdeacon, deserves credit for successfully carrying out the negotiations, and the charter recites that it was he who had petitioned the Queen in the name of the city to found the college. Loftus was the first provost, Ussher himself, with two other fellows and three scholars, being appointed in the same instrument. Burghley was the first chancellor, Essex the second, and Robert Cecil the third. After the siege of Kinsale 1,800l. was subscribed by the army for a library, which thus began at the same time as Bodley’s, and the great collection of Archbishop James Ussher was virtually secured by a subscription of 2,200l. in Cromwell’s army. Trinity College was founded as the mother of a university, but no second house was ever opened, and in common language the college and the university are treated as one and the same.447

Protestant character of the collegeA Puritan provostThe Scotch element

From the first, Trinity College was under Protestant management, and was intended to counteract the influence of the seminaries at Salamanca and other places abroad. And in Ireland, since the masses adhered to Rome, Protestantism has ever naturally tended to the Puritan rather than to the Anglican side. Loftus himself had been a friend of Cartwright. Dr. Travers, the second provost, is claimed by the Presbyterians, and he was certainly a strenuous opponent of Richard Hooker. James Fullerton and James Hamilton, the first elected fellows, were Scotchmen; and seem to have been educated at St Andrews, under Andrew Melville, to whose opinions they may very probably have inclined. Fullerton and Hamilton, while enjoying some portion of Elizabeth’s favour, were James VI.’s secret agents, and it is supposed that Cecil sometimes sent through them letters, which it might have been dangerous to trust to the ordinary channels. The two Scots kept a school in Ship Street, Dublin, and had the honour of teaching James Ussher from his ninth to his fourteenth year. The first buildings were erected by public subscription, and some of the subscribers were Roman Catholics, but Archer the Jesuit was collecting about the same time for the Salamanca seminary. The danger was understood from the first, and a petition to the Pope calls attention to a ‘certain splendid college near Dublin, the capital of Ireland, where the youths of Ireland are instructed in heresy by English teachers.’ In 1609 Trinity is officially called ‘the fanatics’ college’ by the Irish Jesuits.448

Irish seminaries abroad

Trinity College being out of the question, the Irish priesthood continued to be educated abroad, and O’Sullivan gives a list of towns where they had seminaries of their own, or, at least, special facilities. At Salamanca, Compostella, and Lisbon these institutions came into Jesuit hands; and there was a fourth at Seville. The Irish Franciscans had great privileges at Louvain, and there were Irish seminaries at Antwerp, Douai, and Tournai. Those who preferred the dominions of the Most Christian to those of the Most Catholic King, might find classes ready to receive them at Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Paris. In 1624 the famous Rothe and four other Irish prelates declared that the Parisian seminary had supplied many men distinguished in virtue, doctrine, and zeal, for the work of the Church in Ireland. ‘And so,’ says O’Sullivan, ‘crowds of Irish priests inundate Ireland, some educated in convents, some in seminaries, and some at the expense of their parents, and they partly, if not altogether, repair the damage which the English have done by upsetting the religious houses and seats of holy learning.’449

Books and printingThe Prayer BookIrish typesThe Bible in Irish

The first book ever printed in Dublin was Edward VI.’s first Book of Common Prayer. It was printed by Humphrey Powell in 1551, professedly by St. Leger’s command, and it contains a prayer for Sir James Croft. A copy is preserved in Trinity College, and Dr. Todd doubted if there were a second in existence. The only other known specimen of Powell’s work is Sidney’s Book of the Articles printed in 1566. Edward’s second Prayer Book, says Dr. Ball, ‘was never, either by statute or order, introduced, nor was it at all used in the Irish Church; but it forms the basis of that which under Elizabeth was authorised for Ireland.’ Orders were given that the Prayer Book of 1557 should be translated into Irish, for use in places where English was not understood, but this was never done. It is probable that no competent translator could then be found, and certain that the means of printing did not yet exist. Queen Elizabeth afterwards provided a press and fount of Irish type, ‘in hope that God in his mercy would raise up some to translate the New Testament into their mother tongue.’ In 1571 a Catechism was produced by Nicholas Walsh, Chancellor, and John Kearney, Treasurer of St. Patrick’s, both Cambridge men, and this is the first work printed in Irish. There is a copy in the Bodleian, and Dr. Cotton had never heard of any other. Walsh, who became Bishop of Ossory, obtained an order to publish a translation of the Prayer Book for use in country places. He also began an Irish version of the New Testament, and his fellow-worker, Kearney, is said to have proceeded far in the work. It was reserved for William Daniel, Archbishop of Tuam, a Kilkenny man and one of the original scholars of Trinity, to publish the New Testament in Irish: his predecessor, Archbishop Donellan, having worked in the same field. Daniel’s printer was John Francke. Whatever may have been done towards a translation of the Old Testament by Kearney, Daniel, and other scholars, the work was only completed by Bishop Bedell, and, its publication having been delayed by the outbreak of the Rebellion in 1641, it did not appear until 1685.450

Toleration and persecutionBacon’s ideas as to tolerationPopular forces against the Reformation

Elizabeth refused to dispense with penal laws against recusants, but she allowed a good deal of practical toleration, and Irish Catholics who did not engage in plots were not generally interfered with. ‘I find by the Court Rolls,’ says a very learned lawyer and antiquary, ‘that Queen Elizabeth had her High Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who occasionally punished for not attending divine service. But this was rare: no more than two or three instances during her reign.’ Jones and Loftus were willing enough to interpret the laws strictly, and to enforce them rigorously; but nearly all Deputies disliked adding to their difficulties by strictness in religious matters, and Mountjoy in particular was much opposed to severity. Bacon alone seems to have thought legal toleration possible. His plan was to establish Anglicanism in Ireland, to respect liberty of conscience, and to tolerate the public exercise of the Roman ritual in certain places. This was what was done by the Edict of Nantes, following upon many other temporary measures to a like effect. It must, however, be remembered that Henry IV. established the religion of the majority, while Cecil was advised to do the contrary; that in France the professors of both faiths were Frenchmen, while in Ireland the Establishment would exist not only for the minority but almost entirely for Englishmen who came in the guise of conquerors or supplanters of the native population; and that the Church of Rome aims at universal supremacy, which a Protestant Church is not called upon to do. ‘If,’ says Bacon, ‘consciences be to be enforced at all, yet two things must precede their enforcement; the one, means of instruction, the other the time of operation; neither of which they have yet had. Besides, till they be more like reasonable men than they yet are, their society were rather scandalous to the true religion than otherwise, as pearls cast before swine; for till they be cleansed from their blood, incontinency, and theft (which are now not the lapses of particular persons, but the very laws of the nation), they are incompatible with religion reformed. For policy, there is no doubt but to wrestle with them now is directly opposite to their reclaim, and cannot but continue their alienation of mind from this government. Besides, one of the principal pretences whereby the heads of the rebellion have prevailed both with the people and with the foreigner, hath been the defence of the Catholic religion; and it is this that likewise hath made the foreigner reciprocally more plausible with the rebel. Therefore a toleration of religion (for a time not definite), except it be in some principal towns and precincts, after the manner of some French edicts, seemeth to me to be a matter warrantable by religion, and in policy of absolute necessity. And the hesitation in this point I think hath been a great casting back of the affairs there. Neither if any English papist or recusant shall, for liberty of his conscience, transfer his person, family, and fortunes thither, do I hold it a matter of danger, but expedient to draw on undertaking, and to further population. Neither if Rome will cozen itself, by conceiving it may be some degree to the like toleration in England, do I hold it a matter of any moment, but rather a good mean to draw off the fierceness and eagerness of Rome, and to stay further excommunications or interdictions for Ireland. But there would go hand in hand with this, some course of advancing religion indeed, where the people is capable thereof; as the sending over some good preachers, especially of that sort which are vehement and zealous persuaders, and not scholastical, to be resident in principal towns; endowing them with some stipends out of her Majesty’s revenues, as her Majesty hath most religiously and graciously done in Lancashire: and the recontinuing and replenishing the college begun at Dublin; the placing of good men to be bishops in the sees there; and the taking of the versions of bibles, catechisms, and other books of instruction, into the Irish language; and the like religious courses; both for the honour of God, and for the avoiding of scandal and insatisfaction here by the show of a toleration of religion in some parts there.’ This passage, and the whole of the letter containing it, shows an extraordinary comprehension of the Irish difficulties, but some of the positive recommendations are open to question. It was not possible to provide vehement, zealous, and persuasive preachers in Ireland as in Lancashire, for the Lancashire people could be addressed in their own tongue, and the Irish could not. In Ireland the forces of oratory were entirely on the side of Rome.451