And Irish. carriage, and good report, being well able to give an account of their faith in the English tongue, and to instruct the people by reading, to enter orders of the Church; and provided for them first cures among the English parishes, afterward small vicarages, which they enjoy at this time, and reside upon them. And whereas two or three of the natives of this country, being well able to speak and read Irish unto their countrymen, sought unto me for holy orders, I thought likewise fit, in the great scarcity of men of that quality, to admit them thereunto (being likewise of honest life, and well reported of amongst their neighbours), and to provide them some small competency of living in the Irish parts. Furthermore, being desirous, serere alteri seculo, His provision of by providing a learned ministry, which shall be able to preach unto the people hereafter, I have also, according to the ancient custom of my diocese, dispensed with three or four youths of fifteen or sixteen years of age, to hold each of them a church living under ten pounds in true value, studii gratia, having taken order with the churchmen adjoining, to discharge the cures of the same, and having had a watchful eye over these young men, that they did and do bona fide follow candidates for the ministry. Impropriations destitute of vicars. The Bishop of ply of the defect. [Rest of the sheet mutilated.] The subjoined recommendation of the bishop's was well worthy of attention, and touched a point which has been fruitful in mischief to the Irish Church. "There being divers impropriations within each of my dioceses, which have no vicars endowed, whose possessioners are bound by their leases or fee-farms to find sufficient curates mine earnest request is, that a competent stipend may be raised out of every such impropriation, whereby vice for the sup- the curate thereof may be maintained. And that two or three of the impropriations of small value may be united among themselves, if they be together; and a competency raised out of them all so united for an incumbent. But, if they be asunder, that then they may be united to the next parsonage or vicarage adjoining, and contribute towards the bettering thereof: provided always, that in whichsoever of the united churches divine service is celebrated, thither all the parishioners of the churches united be compelled every sabbath and holyday to repair in their course and turn. Now the competency which I conceive will be fittest for the impropriators to yield, and for the curates to receive, is the small tithes of every such parish. Christopher Hampton advanced to the Primacy. A Parliament and Convocation of the Clergy. Articles of Religion. Summary of their contents. Their discursive character. Exceptions taken to them at the time. Their discrepancy with those of the Church of England. Regal Visitation of the Province of Dublin. Arrogant conduct of the Papists. succeeded in the primacy by Hampton. Christopher 1613. and good deeds. On the death of Henry Ussher, archbishop of Henry Ussher Armagh, in 1613, Christopher Hampton was advanced to the primacy, and consecrated by the Archbishop of Dublin, with three assistant bishops, on the 8th of May. He was born at Calais, had been a student of Christ's College, Cambridge, and elected to the see of Derry, the year of his elevation to the primacy. He is recorded as a prelate of great His character gravity and learning. A handsome palace at Drogheda, then the principal residence of the archbishops of Armagh, was indebted to him for its foundation and erection, as well as an old episcopal house at Armagh for its reparation, the addition of sundry new buildings, and the annexing to the see of three hundred acres of land near the town of Armagh, for mensal lands. By his care also the cathedral of Armagh, which had been destroyed by Shane O'Neal, was restored; the walls with their windows reconstructed, the aisles reroofed, and the steeple rebuilt, Opening of the parliament. Conduct of the recusant nobility. and again furnished with the great bell, newly cast for the occasion. And he appears to have been particularly assiduous in repairing and rebuilding the parochial churches of his diocese'. A few days after his consecration, on the opening of the parliament in great state by the Lord Deputy, Arthur, Lord Chichester, May the 13th, the primate, after divine service, preached in St. Patrick's cathedral before the other prelates and temporal peers of the realm, with the exception of the recusant nobility, who went not into the church, neither heard divine service or sermon, notwithstanding they were lords of the parliament-house, and rode towards the church with the lords of estate: yet they stayed without during the time of service and sermon. Now when service was done, the Lord Deputy returned back to the castle: and those recusant lords joined themselves again with rest of the estate, and rode to the castle in manner as before they came from thence"." Notwithstanding an ineffectual attempt to place in the chair of the House of Commons a Popish Sir John Davies speaker, Sir John Davies was elected to the office: in discharging the duties of which he made an excel elected speaker of the House of Commons. lent speech to the Lord Deputy concerning the condition of the country, observing with regard to its former and its actual ecclesiastical state, as represented in parliament, that in former times "the bishops and archbishops, though their number was greater than now it is, in respect to the divers unions made of latter years, yet such as were resident in the more Irish countries, and did not acknowledge the king to be their patron, were never summoned 1 WARE'S Bishops, p. 97. • Letter from Sir Christ. Plunket, Desiderata Curiosa Hibern., i. 167. to any parliament;" but that "this parliament is called when all the lords spiritual do acknowledge Patronage of the the king of England to be their undoubted patron"." ledged by all the On the present occasion twenty-five spiritual lords spiritual peers. were in attendance. king acknow the clergy. Although the meeting of the parliament had been accompanied by this and some other attempts on the part of the Papists in furtherance of their own projects, it passed without any act or other occurrence particularly affecting the Church. But A convocation of together with the parliament was assembled a convocation of the archbishops, bishops, and other clergy of the Church of Ireland, to deliberate solemnly with united efforts and counsels on matters relating to religion. Question whocations were ther Irish convo customary. From the language of those, who have transmitted to us this information, it should seem that the assembling of a convocation of the clergy was a customary accompaniment of the assembling of a parliament in Ireland as well as in England. Dr. Bernard and Dr. Parr, in their lives of Archbishop Ussher, relate, "Anno 1615, there was a parliament in Dublin, and so a convocation of the clergy:" apparently assuming the latter as a consequence of the former. The writer of the archbishop's life, among Sir JAMES WARE'S Bishops, says, "A par- The fact liament was held in Ireland, and, according to custom, a convocation of the clergy." And this appears to be the foundation of Dr. Smith's statement, in his life of the same prelate, "Ordinibus regni Hiberniæ parlamento Dublinii A. M.DCXV. habito coactis, pro more indicta erat nationalis archiepiscoporum, episcoporum, reliquique cleri Hiberniæ 3 DAVIES'S Tracts, pp. 302, 306. asserted, But questionable. Church of Ireland in constant agreement with that of England. scribed the English Articles of Religion. synodus." This statement of the custom may be correct, perhaps also it may be questionable; at least I find no authority, in fact, for maintaining the existence of the custom, in other words, I cannot call to mind any earlier example than the present of a convocation being holden. To proceed, however, to the business of this convocation. The Church of Ireland, from the earliest days of the Reformation under King Edward the Sixth, and especially during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, had depended in a principal degree, if not altogether, on the Church of England, and had been in agreement with that church in all things. Her bishops had been in a great measure either Englishmen, sent over from England, or the descendants of English parents, though of Irish birth. Her Liturgy, her forms of ordination, and her sacred rites and Irish clergy sub- ceremonies, were the same. Her clergy practised an entire and regular conformity, so far as the different customs of the two countries would allow, to the articles and constitutions of the English Church: and whether on their admission to holy orders, or on their appointment to the cure of souls, or on their promotion to any ecclesiastical dignity, subscribed from the year 1562, the fourth year of Queen Elizabeth, to the English articles of faith. In common with others, James Ussher had thus subscribed, as appears from his sermon before the parliament of England, in which he most earnestly urges all to maintain the unity and peace of the church, from this just consideration, that those very articles ought to be accounted and were the measure, rule, and ground of our communion'. • Vita Jacobi Usserii, Script. THOMA SMITHO, pp. 40, 72. |