collection of letters" one addressed to the Archbishop by Dr. Hakewill, afterwards Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, in which he speaks "of this young gentleman whom you were pleased to commend as a jewel of price to my care and trust, praising God that your Lordship hath been made his instrument to reclaim him from the superstitions of the Romish Church, and wishing that we had some more frequent examples on that hand, in these cold and dangerous times." This Mr. James Dillon was afterwards Earl of Roscommon: and, at a subsequent period, it appears that the Primate undertook the care of the young Lord of Evagh, his father being dead, and kept a tutor for him in his own family. Dr. Parr gives the following account of the Archbishop's conduct in carrying out the directions contained in His Majesty's letter: "He made it is business to reclaim those deluded people who had been bred up in the Roman Catholic religion from their infancy; for which end he began to converse more frequently and more familiarly with the gentry and nobility of that persuasion, as also with divers of the inferior sort that dwelt near him, inviting them often to his house, and discoursing with them with great mildness of the chief tenets of their religion; by which gentle usage he was strangely successful, convincing many of them of their errors, and bringing them to the knowledge of the n See vol. xv. pag. 417. • The Archbishop entertained a very high respect for Dr. Hakewill, and addressed the following letter to him in praise of his work, "An Apologue or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God:" "WORTHY SIR, "It lyeth not in my power to make any sufficient requitall unto you for the many courtesies which I received from you at Oxford; but especially for your last remembrance of mee with that noble monument of your learning and industrie, which you were pleased to send unto me. Other books I seldom read but once, and that cursorily too for the most part: but here juvat usque morari, the things contained therein being so artificially mixed with such variety of learning and matter of delight, that they can not but decies repetita placere. "Your faithful friend and brother, P See MSS. Smith, in Bodleian Library, vol. lxxiii. pag. 33. truth. And he also advised the bishops and clergy of his province to deal with the Popish recusants in their several dioceses and cures after the same manner; that if possible they might make them understand their errors and the danger in which they were; which way in a country, where there are no penal laws to restrain the publick profession of the religion, was the best if not the only means that could be used. Nor was his care confined only to the conversion of the ignorant Irish Papists; but he also endeavoured the reduction of the Scotch and English sectaries to the bosom of the Church as it was by law established, conferring and arguing with divers of them, as well ministers as laymen, and shewing them the weakness of those scruples and objections they had against their joyning with the publick service of the Church and submitting to its government and discipline." In the winter of this year, the Primate suffered severely from an extraordinary loss of blood: he says himself, “which instruction' God did shortly after really seal unto me by his fatherly chastisement, whereby he brought me even unto the pits brink, and when I had received in myself the sentence of death was graciously pleased to renew the lease of my life again, that I might learn not to trust in myself, but in him which raised the dead." On the 29th of May, 1630, the Queen was safely delivered of a son. The King sent a special messenger, Thomas Preston, Portcullis, one of the officers of arms, to announce the joyful events to the Lords Justices, who appointed a day of public thanksgiving, and wrote to the Primate an earnest request, that he would preach at Christ Church on the occasion, if he could do so without danger to his health. The Primate, though not r See letter 163, vol. xv. pag. 480. The event was received by his Majesty's subjects with very different feelings. The Puritans were greatly disappointed, for they looked to the descendants of the Electress Palatine. One of the leaders of that party did not scruple to say, "He could see no such cause of joy, as the others did; for God had already better provided for us, in giving the Queen of Bohemia such a hopeful progeny brought up in the Protestant religion, whereas the King's children being to be brought up under a mother of the Romish persuasion, it was uncertain what religion they would follow." yet perfectly recovered, complied, and preached a thanksgiving sermon on the text, "Instead' of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth." At this time the Primate was actively engaged in endeavouring to prevent the grant of some impropriations from the Church. From the correspondence with the Bishop of London, and with the Lords Justices, it appears that Sir John Bathe had obtained a letter from the King, granting him certain impropriations, which had been all conferred upon the Church. The Primate urges upon the Lords Justices the propriety of stopping Sir John Bathe's patent, because the letter from the King "had been gotten by mere surreptition." He proceeds with great earnestness: "Whatsoever" they knew or knew not of his Majesty's own pious resolution and constant purpose never to revoke that which he hath once given to God; I rest so confident, as I dare pawn my life upon it, that when he did sign those letters of Sir John Bathe's, he had not the least intimation given unto him, that this did in any way cross that former gift which he made unto the Church, upon so great and mature deliberation, as being grounded upon the advice, first of the Commissioners sent into Ireland; then of the Lords of the Council upon their report in England, thirdly of King James, that ever blessed Father of the Church, and lastly, of the Commissioners for Irish affairs, unto whom for the last debating and conclusion of this business, I was by his now Majesty referred myself at my being in England." He then concludes with the reasonable request, that "your Lordships will stay your hands from passing Sir John Bathe's patent, until my Lord of London himself shall signifie his Majesties further pleasure unto you in this particular.” This letter was dated the 3rd of April, and at that very time they sealed the patent in spite of this remonstrance, and kept the fact concealed from the Archbishop, who persevered in his endeavours to prevent, as he thought, the robbery from being committed. He writes instructions a few days after Psalm xlv. ver. 16. u Letter 165, vol. xv. pag. 488. to Dean Lesly, to take the proper measures for stopping the patent; among them is the following: "You are to put the Lords Justices in mind from me, that in the instructions which they received with the sword, they are authorized to make stay of the passing of any grant, for which the Kings letters are brought unto them, where they have cause to doubt whether his Majesty were fully informed or no concerning the conveniency or inconveniency of that particular. Wherein if my Lord of London's letter be not of authority sufficient otherwise to make a legal attestation of his Majesties royal intendment: yet I suppose it will carry so much weight with it, as to stay their hands a little while longer (as they have done hitherto, when they had nothing so strong a motive) until his Majesty being fully informed. upon both sides, shall signifie his express pleasure unto them in this particular. And in doing otherwise, they may justly conceive that it will be charged upon them for a neglect in performance of his Majesties pleasure." The deception was carried on for three months, and at length Bishop Laud writes to the Primate: "Though in your last letters you be confident Sir John's grant is not past the Seals, as he hath avouched it is: yet I must acquaint your Grace that you are mistaken therein; for it appeared at the last sitting of the Committee, that the seal was put to his grant at the beginning of April last. Of which doctrine you may make this use; what close conveyance and carriage there may be when the Church is to be spoiled." Another paragraph in this letter shews at what an early period the exaggerations with respect to the wealth of the Irish Church commenced. Sir John Bathe stated, in a speech for the purpose of enforcing his claims to the impropriations, "that the clergy had a third part of the kingdom." Bishop Laud adds: "I represented to the Lords the paper which you sent me concerning the state of the County of Louth. It was a miserable spectacle to them all." This return for Louth is not preserved; but the Return of the Diocese of Meath, printed in the Appendix, will sufficiently prove the real state of the clergy. These letters also bring to our notice the endeavours of the Primate to procure the deanery of Armagh for the learned Gerard John Vossius, and thus induce him to fix his residence in Ireland. Lord Brook had some time before made an attempt to bring Vossius into England, by offering him a readership at Cambridge, but he had excused himself on the ground that he was unwilling, "in regard of his wife and children, to bring them from all their kindred into a strange place." Subsequently Charles I. had given him the reversion of a prebend in the cathedral of Canterbury, into which he was installed in the year 1629, and received an allowance of one hundred pounds a year notwithstanding his absence". Bishop Laud remarks, that "the prebend of Canterbury, would he have been a priest and resided upon it, would have been as much to him as the deanery of Armagh." Vossius did not accept the offer of the deanery, if indeed it ever was made. Bishop Laud's answer to the Primate's application is very mysterious: "But howsoever, my Lord, the King having given him that preferment already, will hardly be brought to give him another, especially considering what I could write to you, were it fit. Nevertheless out of my love to the work you mention, if you can prevail with Vossius to be willing, and that it may appear the Deanery of Armagh will be of sufficient means for him and his numerous family, if your Grace then certify me of it, I shall venture to speak, and do such offices as shall be fit." From this it appears that no scruple existed in the minds of Laud or Ussher, as to giving prebends or deaneries to persons who were not priests. Had this been the opinion of Laud alone, many would gladly have seized upon the fact, as an additional proof of his devotion even to the abuses of the Romish system, but they will scarcely venture to include Ussher in such a censure. It seems, however, ▾ Grotius, after congratulating Vossius upon his appointment, says; "Sane præter commoda quæ tibi inde evenerunt, honos ille eximius est et quod sciam tibi ac Petro Molinao externorum habitus nemini. Id vero est tanquam Corinthi meruisse civitatem." Grotius was mistaken, for the same preferment had been given to Casaubon, and the same allowance made to him. Letter 162, Works, vol. xv. pag. 478. VOL. I. |