ing of the Convocation. In a letter dated December 16, the Lord Deputy says: "In° a former letter of mine I mentioned a way propounded by my Lord Primate how to bring upon this clergy the articles of England and silence those of Ireland without noise, as it were aliud agens, which he was confident would pass amongst them. In my last I related to you, how his Grace grew fearful he should not be able to effect it, which awakened me, that had rested secure upon that judgment of his, and had indeed leaned upon that belief so long, as I had not bestirred myself, though I say it, like a man, I had been fatally surprized to my extream grief for as many days as I have to live." This is the whole account which has been preserved, and we are at a loss to ascertain what was the Primate's plan, or to discover the reasons which influenced him to despair of carrying it; we have fortunately a full detail of the measures which were adopted, and of the mode in which the Lord Deputy secured his success.

During the first short session of the Parliament the Convocation does not appear to have done any thing except making a liberal grant to the King of eight subsidies? :

• Strafford's Letters, voi. i. pag. 342.

The form was as follows: "Illustrissimo ac potentissimo Principi, ac Domino nostro clementissimo Carolo; Dei gratia Angliæ Scotiæ et Hiberniæ, fidei defensori &c. Jacobus Providentia divina Armachanus Archiepiscopus, totius Hiberniæ Primas et Metropolitanus, cum omni observantia tanto Principi debita, prosperum in hac vita successum et in futura æternam felicitatem. Serenissimæ vestræ Majestati, per publicum hoc instrumentum notum facimus, quod Prælati et clerus totius Hiberniæ, in sacra synodo nationali, jussu serenissimæ Majestatis vestræ, in ecclesia Cathedrali Sancti Patricii Dublinii legitime congregati, recolentes multa illa et summa beneficia, quæ communiter cum cæteris subditis vestris percipiunt (veluti sunt puræ religionis exercitium, justitiæ administratio, publicaque pax, in qua omnium bonorum affluentia continetur) et multo magis singularem Majestatis vestræ zelum erga decorum domus Dei et hæreditariam illam munificentiam, qua ordinem ecclesiasticum Regia Majestas vestra, paternis insistens vestigiis, prosequitur; non modo Deo optimo maximo humillimas pro vobis gratias agendas, et assiduas preces pro Regni vestri tranquillitate fundendas, sed etiam gratitudinem suam aliquo indicio Regiæ vestræ sublimitati testificandam duxerunt, et octo integra et ultronea subsidia, unanimi consensu, nemine prorsus dissentiente, Regiæ vestræ sublimitati alacriter concesserunt, Majestatem

and it was on its reassembling in November that they commenced to consider the state of the Church, and the necessity of establishing canons. The first step in the Upper House was agreeing upon the following petition to the King in favor of the inferior clergy:

vestram rogantes, ut ex affectus largitate potius quam rei ipsius tenuitate, hoc officium suum metiatur. Tenor vero concessionis prædictæ se habet in hunc qui sequitur modum.

"Most gracious and dread Soveraigne, we your Majesties most loyall subjects, the prelates and clergie of this church and kingdom of Ireland, called together out of the severall provinces of Armagh, Dublin, Cashell and Tuam, by the authoritie of your Highnesse writ, and orderly assembled in a national synode or convocation, being lately dejected and depressed to the lowest degree of misery and contempt, by the warres and confusions of former times, having our churches ruined, our habitations left desolate, our possessions aliened, our persons scorned, our very lives subject to the bloody attempts of rebellious traytors; and now by the pietie and bountie of your blessed Father, and by the gracious influence of your sacred Majestie being new enlived, and beginning to lift up our heads out of darknesse and obscurity, doe freely acknowledge to your immortal glory before God and the whole Christian world, that as no Church under Heaven did ever stand more in need, so none did ever finde more royal and munificent patrons and protectors than the poore Church of Ireland; you have not onely made restitution of that which the iniquitie of former ages had bereft us of, but also, as though you intended to expiate their faults, enriched us with new and princely endowments; all which great favours doe yet become more sweet unto us, whilst we entertain them as pledges of your future unexhausted goodnesse; and if we doe not seriously endeavour, throughout our whole lives, to make unfaigned expressions of true loyaltie and thankfulness to your sacred Majestie, we deserve to be condemned by men and punished by God as monsters of ingratitude; to which infinite obligation and many others, we may adde your Majesties inestimable goodnesse in providing for us your present Deputie Thomas Viscount Wentworth, a governour so just, carefull, provident and propitious to the Church."

Then proceeds the enactment of the different provisions, and it concludes thus ;

"In quorum omnium et singulorum præmissorum fidem et testimonium, nos Jacobus Archiepiscopus Armachanus, totius Hiberniæ Primas antedictus, has præsentes literas nostras testimoniales, sive hoc præsens publicum instrumentum ad humilem rogatum Prælatorum et Cleri prædicti, sigilli nostri appensione ac signo, nomine et subscriptione Johannis Forth Armigeri notarii publici, jussimus et fecimus communiri. Dat' vicesimo sexto die instant' mensis Julii, Anno Domini millesimo sexcentesimo tricesimo quarto, Regnique vestri felicissimi, scilicet Angliæ Scotiæ et Hiberniæ, decimo."

"To our dread Sovereign Charles by the grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland.

"The Humble petition of his Highness's most loyal and devoted subjects the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland assembled in Convocation by his Majestys special command

"Sheweth unto your sacred Majesty

"That in the whole Christian world the rural clergy have not been reduced to such extreme contempt and beggary, as in this your Highness's kingdom by the means of the frequent appropriations, commendams and violent intrusions into their undoubted rights in times of confusion : having their churches ruined, their habitations left desolate, their tythes detained, their glebes concealed, and by inevitable consequence an invincible necessity of a general non residence imposed upon them, whereby the ordinary subject has been left wholly destitute of all possible means to learn true piety to God, loyalty to their Prince, civility towards one another, and whereby former wars and insurrections have been occasionally both procreated and maintained. Whereas by settling a rural clergy, endowed with competency to serve God at his altar, besides the general protection of the Almighty, which it will most surely bring upon your Majesty and this kingdom, barbarism and superstition will be expelled, the subject shall learn his duty to God and his Sovereign, and true religion be propagated.

"Our most humble suit is, that your Highness would be graciously pleased for God's cause and for his Churches cause and for the encouragement of others by your Royal example to so good a work: to perfect the pious intentions of your blessed Father and your sacred Majesty by establishing upon a rural and resident clergy those appropriations, which are yet in the crown undisposed. So as the same may bring no diminution to your revenue, nor considerable prejudice to the rights of the Imperial Crown of this Realm, as by a representation of the true state of these benefices made to the Lord Deputy and hereunto annexed may appear. And your devoted beadsmen, as they are more obliged in the strictest bonds of duty and gratitude, than any clergy

in the whole world to a Prince, will be incessant suitors to the God of Heaven for the long continuance of your blessed reign, and the perpetuation of this crown and scepter to your posterity until the second coming of Christ Jesus. "JA. ARMACHANUS. "ARCH. CASSELENS."

The Lower House of Convocation were in the meantime discussing the question of the canons, in which was included that of the Articles of religion. The narrative, as given by Lord Strafford to Archbishop Laud, is so complete and so minute, that it bears the stamp of truth, and must be followed in preference to that of Dr. Parr, or that of Bishop Vesey in his Life of Archbishop Bramhall. Lord Strafford commences his narrative by stating, that he was so much employed upon the business of Parliament, that he neglected the affairs of the clergy, "reposing secure upon the Primate, who all this while said not a word of the matter." At length he learned, "that the Lower House of Convocation had appointed a committee to consider the canons of the Church of England, that they did proceed to the examination without conferring at all with their Bishops, that they had gone thorough the book of Canons and noted in the margin such as they allowed with an A. and on others they had entered a D. which stood for Deliberandum; that in the fifth article they had brought the Articles of Ireland to be allowed and received under the pain of excommunication, and that they had drawn up their Canons into a body and were ready that afternoon to make report in the Convocation." The Lord Deputy immediately sent for the Chairman of the Committee, Andrews' Dean of Limerick, re

9 He means the fifth canon, which in the English canons establishes the Thirty-nine Articles as settled in 1562, under pain of excommunication.

Lord Strafford proposed a curious punishment for Dean Andrews. If your Lordship think Dean Andrews hath been to blame and that you would chastise him for it, make him Bishop of Fernes and Laughlin to have it without any other commendam than as the last Bishop had, and then I assure you he shall leave better behind him, than will be recompensed out of that Bishoprick, which is one of the meanest of the whole Kingdom." The punishment was inflicted, and the Lord Deputy reported

quiring him to bring the volume of Canons so noted in the margin, and also the draught he was to present to the House. When he had read over the proceedings, he expressed with great indignation his opinion of what had been done; told him, not a Dean of Limerick, but Ananias, had sat in the chair of the Committee, and commanded him on his allegiance not to report any thing from the Committee until he heard again from him. On the following morning he had a meeting of the Primate, the Bishops of Meath, Raphoe, Kilmore, and Derry, the Prolocutor, and all the members of the Committee, and publicly told them, "how unlike clergymen, that owed canonical obedience to their superiors, they had proceeded in the Committee; how unheard a part it was for a few petty clerks to presume to make articles of faith without the privity or consent of State or Bishop; what a spirit of Brownism and contradiction he observed in their deliberations, as if indeed they purposed at once to take away selfgovernment and order forth of the Church, and leave every man to chuse his own high place where liked him best." The Lord Deputy then laid his injunctions,

First. Upon Dean Andrews, that he should report nothing from the Committee to the House.

Secondly. He enjoined the Prolocutor, Dean Lesley, that in case any of the Committee should propound any question', he should not put it, but break up the sitting for that time, and acquaint the Lord Deputy with it.

Thirdly. That he should put no question at all touching the receiving or not of the Articles of the Church of Ireland.

that the Dean was well satisfied. "Never any so well pleased or so much desirous to take a Rochet to loss as he: Had he not died Bishop, he had been immemorial to posterity, where now he may be reckoned one of the worthies of his time."-Strafford's Letters, vol. i. pag. 344, 378.

The Bishop of Meath was Antony Martin; the Bishop of Raphoe John Lesley; the Bishop of Kilmore William Bedell, and the Bishop of Derry John Bramhall.

'Lord Strafford says that there were some hot spirits, who moved that they should petition him for a free synod, but in fine they could not agree among themselves who should put the bell about the cat's neck, and so this likewise vanished.