The History of Ireland: 17th Century. Bagwell Richard

      Wentworth, Laud, and Bramhall, 1634.

      A conference where no one is converted, 1636.

      Bramhall’s rhetoric.

      Silenced ministers go to Scotland.

In May 1634 Bramhall became Bishop of Derry in succession to Downham, who had been a strong Calvinist and a friend of Presbyterians. He was soon in correspondence with Wentworth, who encouraged him to insist on strict conformity, and with Laud, whose confidence he enjoyed throughout. Very many of the Scotch ministers were driven back to their own country, there to swell the growing discontent and to prepare the way for the lay crowds whom Wentworth’s later policy was to drive out of Ulster. Bramhall did not confine himself to his own diocese, but gave his services to Down also, where Echlin was driven to enforce conformity without much conviction on his own part. Henry Leslie succeeded on Echlin’s death, and a conference was held at Belfast on August 11, 1636, between the two bishops and five Presbyterians who refused to subscribe the new canons. Among them was Edward Brice, who is regarded as the founder of that church in Ulster. Their spokesman was James Hamilton, Lord Claneboy’s nephew, who had been ordained by Echlin ten years before. Both sides were no doubt satisfied that they were wholly in the right, but Bramhall was more extreme even than Leslie, who as bishop of the diocese of course conducted the controversy. According to the Bishop of Derry, who intervened frequently, Hamilton was a prattling Jack, a fellow fit to be whipped, who might worship the devil if he pleased. He prescribed hellebore to purge the Scot’s brain, reminding him with a bold metaphor that the weight of Church and State did not hang ‘upon the Atlas shoulders of such bullrushes’ as he was; and he blamed Leslie, not without something like a threat, for allowing so much liberty of discussion. The five ministers were sentenced to perpetual silence so far as the diocese of Down was concerned. Outward conformity was for a time achieved, but only by the temporary effacement of the Scotch colony in Ulster. Brice did not long survive the Belfast conference, but Hamilton, Cunningham, Ridge and Colwort all retired to Scotland. Among other ministers silenced by Leslie the most noteworthy were John Livingston and Robert Blair, both of whom went to Scotland and helped materially to defeat Laud. They had attempted to lead about 140 of the faithful to New England, but were beaten back by storms from a point nearer to the banks of Newfoundland than to any place in Europe. ‘That which grieved us most,’ says Livingston, ‘was that we were like to be a mocking to the wicked; but we found the contrary, that the prelates and their followers were much dismayed, and feared at our return.’[207]

      Bramhall was Wentworth’s instrument.

      Case of Bishop Adair.

      Bishop John Maxwell.

      Deprivation of Adair.

Ussher submitted against his inclination to Wentworth and Laud. Some years later, when they were both prisoners, Bramhall, who was in the same position, thought it necessary to apologise to his metropolitan for interfering in the diocese of Down, his defence being that he was employed by the Lord Deputy. ‘Since I was Bishop,’ he added, ‘I never displaced any man in my diocese, but Mr. Noble for professed popery, Mr. Hugh for confessed simony, and Mr. Dunkine, an illiterate curate, for refusing to pray for his Majesty.’ But if he was tolerably mild as a bishop, he was much less so when acting as Wentworth’s representative. Archibald Adair, a Scotchman by birth, was made Dean of Raphoe in 1622, and became Bishop of Killala in 1630. He was a good Episcopalian, but a good Scot also, and he did not like to see Canterbury lording it over his native land. In 1639 John Corbet, minister of Bonhill, was deprived by the General Assembly for refusing the covenant or for adhering to episcopacy, and he fled to Dublin, where he published a bitter pamphlet against his enemies at home. He was presented by Strafford to the vicarage of Strade in Adair’s diocese, but found the bishop by no means friendly. It was, he said, an ill bird that fouled its own nest, and a raven (corbie) which had been driven from the ark could expect no resting place with him. For these and other expressions, which were thought favourable to the Covenanters, Adair was summoned before the High Commission, but deprivation might not have followed on such slight grounds had not the bishopric been wanted for someone else. This was John Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, Spottiswood’s friend and executor, who had been Laud’s most active ally in Scotland. ‘The satisfaction of the Bishop of Ross,’ Wentworth wrote to the King, ‘shall be the only thing I shall attend in the next place, and have found even already the means to effect it by depriving, and that deservedly, the Bishop of Killala and substituting the other in his place. This is one of the best bishoprics in the kingdom, worth at least one thousand pounds a year.’ And he thought this was a good way ‘to quench the venom of that rebellious humour.’ Charles and Laud were of the same opinion, and but little independence was to be expected from the Irish High Commission. Bedell, however, with whom it seems Chappell agreed, was against the deprivation, partly on canonical grounds and partly because it was ‘as times and things now stood inconvenient.’ He prevailed nothing; the Bishop was sentenced to be deprived of his bishopric, deposed or degraded, fined 1,000l., imprisoned during the King’s pleasure, &c. Soon after the meeting of Strafford’s last Parliament a bishop, possibly Bedell, moved that Adair should have his writ of summons. Ormonde spoke against it, and Bramhall declared that the deprived prelate was ‘fit to be thrown into the sea in a sack, not to see sun, nor enjoy the air.’ Lord Ranelagh said there had been a patient hearing at the High Commission, where many of their lordships’ House sat, who found Adair ‘guilty of favouring that wicked Covenant which all the House detests,’ and the writ was unanimously refused. The Court wind changed when Strafford was dead and Laud a prisoner, and Adair was made Bishop of Waterford. Maxwell succeeding him at Killala was stripped, wounded, and left for dead by the rebels during the massacre at Shrule, but escaped ultimately to England. Corbet was not so fortunate, being ‘hewn in pieces by two swineherds in the very arms of his poor wife.’[208]

      The Scots hate Wentworth.

      English, Scotch, and Irish in Ulster.

Clarendon, who hated the Scots and did not love Strafford, says ‘he had an enemy more terrible than all the others and like to be more fatal, the whole Scotch nation, provoked by the declaration he had procured of Ireland and some high carriage and expressions of his against them in that kingdom.’ The Ulster colony had been injured by the Londonderry forfeiture, and he had done what he could to discourage further immigration, but it was not until the summer of 1638 that the attitude of the Scotch settlers began to give him serious uneasiness. Antrim, who was at Court and in communication both with Hamilton and Laud, believed or professed to believe that Lorne, who became Earl of Argyll soon after, intended to attack his estates, and suggested that the King should provide him with plenty of arms ‘to be kept in a store-house in Coleraine, because it would be too far for me and my tenants to send to Knockfergus, if there were any sudden invasion.’ Lorne knew what was going on at Court, and announced in Scotland that Antrim intended to invade him. It appears from his late letters that Strafford thought Lorne not unlikely to come, but he knew well that his Council would advise nothing that might strengthen Tyrone’s grandson. And in case the troubles of Scotland were to extend to Ulster, he thought it very likely that the settlers there would borrow the arms to help their countrymen. ‘They are,’ he added ‘shrewd children, not much won by courtship, especially from a Roman Catholic.’ He had but 2,000 foot and 600 horse, none of which could be spared for Scotland, but it might be possible to raise double that force of English and Irish. The latter disliked the Scots and their religion, but might be a source of danger in other ways. In the meantime he told Northumberland, the best part of the Irish army might be drawn down into Ulster, close upon Scotland, ‘as well to amuse those upon that side as to contain their countrymen among us in due obedience.’[209]

      The Scottish Covenant, 1638.

      Wentworth’s plan to bridle Scotland.

      Case of Robert Adair.

      An inquisitorial policy.

That