Chapter 4 - STUDENT LIFE: THE YOUNG CONTROVERSIALIST: PURITANISM IN TRINITY COLLEGE

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WHEN Ussher entered Trinity College in 1593, he immediately directed his attention to Greek and Hebrew studies. He also devoted much attention to history and chronology. The words of Cicero - Nescire quid antea quam natus sis acciderit id est semper esse puerum - seemed to have had great weight with him. At the early age of fourteen he had begun his Annales and a year later he had drawn up a chronicle of the Bible, as far as Kings, the nucleus of the work he published later in life, and which still supplies the dates at the headings of the chapters in the Authorised Version of the Old Testament. By what authority Ussher's chronology obtained this position in our Bibles seems never to have been clearly ascertained.

In 1596, Ussher went up for the degree of B.A., having previously been elected to a scholarship. He performed the necessary exercises in the presence of the Earl of Essex, the Lord-Deputy and Chancellor of the University.

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On the death of his father, two years later, we are told that he resigned the whole of his estate to his brothers and sisters, with the exception of a small portion which he retained for himself. He seems to have done so from a desire to be as free as possible from worldly cares, with a view to prosecuting his studies without interruption. [1]

Two circumstances now combined to give a marked bias to the theological opinions of Ussher. One was a natural reaction from the Roman Catholic leanings of some members of his family, the other the strong Puritanical element that prevailed in Trinity College. Stapleton, a polemical writer in the interests of the Church of Rome, had written a book called the "Fortress of the Faith," in which he endeavoured to prove, by quotations from the Fathers, that the Roman Catholic Church was the old Church, and Protestantism altogether a new religion. To combat Stapleton, Ussher's attention was directed to the earliest Christian writers, and he commenced that study of the Fathers which only ended with his thirty eighth year.

[1] In this year the infant College was in a precarious condition. "For lack of maintenance it was ready to dissolve and break-up if it had not been relieved on this instant. The Queen's grant of £100 per annum was accordingly raised to £600." - Calendar of State Papers, 1596, p. 190.

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But Ussher found a still more formidable foe to his faith in the Jesuit Henry Fitzsymons. The career of this remarkable man deserves more than a passing notice. He was sprung of a good stock, who were all “of name and account in Dublin." His branch of the family was settled in Swords, and he himself was born in Dublin in 1566. His father was a senator or alderman of the city, and his grandfather was Sir Thomas Fitzsymons, Prime Serjeant-in-Law. By his mother, Anna Segrave, he was allied to the Stanihursts, and James Ussher was his cousin. [2] Fitzsymons seems to have been born a Roman Catholic, since he tells us that when ten years of age he was "inveigled into heresie," and at twenty-one he claimed that he was "able to convert into Protestancie any encounterer whatsoever." In 1583 he matriculated at Hart Hall, and subsequently returned to Ireland, and gave "great disedification in Dublin by his error" - i.e., Protestantism. In 1587 we find Fitzsymons, in Paris, where, in controversy with Father Darbyshire, "an owld English Jesuit," nephew of Bishop Bonner, and formerly Archdeacon of Essex, his Protestantism was overthrown, and he was received into the Roman Catholic Church.

[2] See Ussher Memoirs, pp. 29, 277, and Dict. Nat. Biog.

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In 1596 Fitzsymons, who meanwhile had joined the Jesuit Order in Rome, was sent back to Ireland in response to a petition from O’Neill and others, to carry on a mission, and he opened a chapel in a nobleman's house in Dublin and celebrated the first high Mass that had been heard of in the city for forty years. As is always the way with converts, Fitzsymons, from being a warm supporter of Protestantism, had now become one of its most bitter assailants.

At length his aggressiveness became so great that the authorities were compelled to interfere, and Fitzsymons was seized and thrown into prison in the Castle of Dublin. His incarceration, however, could not have been very severe, as he was permitted to hold a religious controversy with Challoner, Hanmer, and Rider the Dean of St. Patrick's. Against the latter he maintained the thesis that "all antiquitie is repugnant to Protestancie." Fitzsymons himself, in the dedication of his "Britannomachia" to Aquaviva, the General of his Order, gives a graphic account of his controversial labours, and also of his interview with Ussher. "While I was in captivity in the Castle of Dublin for five years, I did everything in my power to provoke the parsons to a discussion. . .  Whenever I knew they were passing in the corridors or castle yard, I cried to see them, and by word or gesture to attract their attention.

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But they neither wished to look up at me in the tower, nor did they pretend to hear me when I challenged them in, a stentorian voice. [3] One indeed, a youth of eighteen, came forward in the greatest trepidation of face and voice. He was a precocious boy, but not of a bad disposition and talent as it seemed. Perhaps he was rather greedy of applause. Anyhow he was desirous of disputing about most abstruse points of divinity.” Fitzsymons tells us he bid Ussher bring him some proof that he was considered a fit champion by the Protestants, and that then he would enter into a discussion with him. According to Fitzsymons, Ussher never appeared again. [4]

A letter from Ussher, however, is extant, which seems to throw doubt on this last statement that the combatants only met once. The letter is given by Fitzsymons himself, but an attempt has been made to question its genuineness. It runs as follows: "I was not prepared, Mr. Fitzsymons, to write unto you before you had first written unto me concerning some chief points of your religion, as at our last meeting you promised.

[3] The Castle was to Dublin what the Tower was to London. According to the Carew MSS., it had some very loathsome "dungeons;" - See also Hogan's Celebrated Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century, pp. II, 12. Fitzsymons seems not to have been harshly treated, and to have enjoyed a considerable amount of liberty.

[4] See preface to his Britannomachia, p 14.

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But, seeing that you have deferred the same (for reasons best known to yourself), I thought it not amiss to inquire further of your mind concerning the continuance of the conference begun between us; and to this I am rather moved because I am credibly informed of certain reports, which I would hardly be persuaded should proceed from him who, in my presence, pretended so great love and affection to me. If I am a boy (as it hath pleased you very contemptuously to name me), I give thanks to the Lord that my carriage towards you hath been such as could minister no just occasion to despise my youth. Your spear, belike, is, in your own conceit, a weaver's beam; and your abilities such that you desire to encounter with the stoutest champion in the host of Israel, and, therefore, like the Philistine, you contemn me as being a boy. Yet this I would fain have you to know, that I neither came then, nor do come now, unto you in any confidence of any learning that is in me (in which respect notwithstanding, I thank God I am what I am), but I come in the name of the Lord of Hosts, whose companies you have reproached, being certainly persuaded that even out of the mouths of babes and sucklings He was able to shew forth His own praises; for the further manifestation whereof, I do again earnestly request you that, setting aside all vain comparison of persons, we may go plainly forward in examining the matters that rest in controversy between us.

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Otherwise I hope you will not be displeased if, as for your part you have begun, so I also, for my own part, may be bold, for the clearing of myself, and the truths which I profess, freely to make known what hath already passed concerning this matter. Thus entreating you, in a few lines, to make known unto me your purpose in this behalf, I end. Praying the Lord that both this and all other enterprises that we take in hand may be so ordered as may most make for the advancement of His own glory, and the kingdom of His Son Jesus Christ."Tuas ad aras usque," JAMES USSHER.

The above letter, indeed, bears on its face evidence of being the effusion of a writer in his teens, and must therefore be excused for its overconfidence, especially when addressed by a youth to one considerably his senior. It is not the kind of letter Ussher would have written to an antagonist in later years, when time had matured his judgment and enabled him to realise the responsibilities of such controversies. Fitzsymons reply to the letter, if he ever wrote any, is not forthcoming. [5]

[5] According to Ware, the subject of the three first discussions between Ussher and Fitzsymons was "Antichrist," that fertile ground for controversy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were to argue once a week, but only met two or three times - Works, ii. p. 327.

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The future of this champion of the Roman Catholic Church in, Ireland may be briefly told. In March 1604, after a declaration of his "loyalty and dutiful affection to his Majesty," Fitzsymons was released from prison by order of King James, and transferred to Bilboa in a ship. After various adventures in foreign parts he returned to Ireland, and having mixed himself up in treasonable plots, he was sentenced to be hanged. Flying from Dublin by way of the village of Rathfarnham, he sought a hiding-place at Glencree, among the bogs of the Dublin mountains, and when pursuit had ceased he made his way southwards, and probably died in Kilkenny about 1643. A list of his writings is given in the "Dictionary of National Biography," and Ussher's copy of his "Catalogue of Irish Saints" may be seen in the Library of Trinity College, with marginal notes in the Archbishop's handwriting. [6] Such was the career of a noted ecclesiastical plotter of his day, but the story of his life may be paralleled with that of many others of the same period, such as Archer, Holywood, and White (founder of the Irish College at Salamanca), and whose religious zeal was in many cases only a cloak to cover treasonable enterprises. [7]

[6] [Class Press A. 2, 8.] For the details of Fitzsymons' history the reader may consult his Life by the Rev. Edmund Hogan, S.J.; Articles in the Month, vol. lxxi., by the same author; Fitzsymons' Britannomachia and Confutation; Wood's Ath. Oxon.; and Article in the Dictionary - of National Biography. We read that by Fitzsymons' death the Roman Catholics lost a pillar of their Church. . . . he being esteemed the greatest defender of their religion in his time." - Wood's Ath. Oxon., iii. p. 96. Fitzsymons' writings are full of violent and indecent attacks on the Reformers.

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There is a probability that it was not altogether in the interests of Protestantism that the young Ussher was thus put forward to challenge such a mature and experienced champion of the Roman faith. But if this be so, the efforts thus made by his Roman Catholic relatives to entrap him only recoiled on themselves and left Ussher more strongly confirmed in the Reformed faith. Richard Stanihurst, his uncle, seems to have abated no efforts with a view to converting him to the Roman Catholic religion. He left behind him for this purpose extensive notes, with the heading, "Brevis premonitio pro futura concertatione cum Jacobo Ussuro." 8 Ussher became strengthened in his Protestantism, and none of his writings is more valuable than his "Answer to a Jesuit," to be noticed hereafter, in which he combats and overthrows with the strength of a giant the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.

[7] Ware says of Fitzsymons: "He was a great abettor and encourager of the rebellion of 1641." -  Writers of Ireland, ii. p. 118.

[8] See Ellington’s Life, p. 35. "'Tis thought and verily believed by some that Ussher was too hard for his uncle in controversial points relating to divinity." - Wood's Ath. Oxon., ii. p. 254.

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But as this controversy gave a stronger bias to Ussher's Protestantism, so the atmosphere of Trinity College contributed to give that Protestantism a decidedly Puritan hue. Strange as the statement may appear, it is evident that while the Queen had a Catholic leaning in England, and encouraged the party which afterwards developed into the Laudian school, in Ireland she was either indifferent to the turn the Reformed religion might take or else encouraged the spread of Puritanism, believing that this phase of the Protestant movement best suited the requirements of the Irish Church.

Archbishop Loftus, though nominated first Provost of Trinity College, [9] only filled the office as a locum tenens until a regular and permanent Provost could be appointed. He was himself a strong Puritan, and, on leaving Armagh for Dublin, had suggested Hooker's opponent, Cartwright, who had been his chaplain at Armagh, as his successor in that archbishopric. [10]

[9] Portraits of Loftus may be seen, one in the Provost's House, and the other (presented by Lord Iveagh) in the Fellows' Common Room. The Archbishop built himself a noble castle in the village of Rathfarnham, near Dublin, which is still standing and occupied. "The greatness of his mind and grandeur is sufficiently expressed in the stately edifice he built at Rathfarnham." - Borlase, Reduction of Ireland, pp. 147-8. Loftus's high positions in Ireland are thus summarised": Primate, - Chancellor, - Provost, - Lord Justice."

[10] Cal. State Papers, March 1577; Shirley's Letters, p; 321.

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The Presbyterian divine, Walter Travers, was ultimately selected. Travers had refused episcopal orders and had gone to Holland to receive ordination at the hands of the Dutch Presbytery at Antwerp, and on this account had been prohibited from preaching in London by Archbishop Whitgift. He had been for a period Lecturer at the Temple Church (where subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles was not required) when Hooker was Master, and as their views of Church doctrine and discipline were diametrically opposed, it used to be said, "the forenoon sermon spake Canterbury, and the afternoon Geneva." [11] Travers appealed against the Archbishop's inhibition to the Privy Council, but without success, although he had the powerful patronage of his friend the Earl of Leicester.

[11] Fuller's History, vol. iii. pp. 138-42, and Appeal of Injured Innocence, pp. 518-9. See also Walton's Life of Hooker, S.P.C.K.Ed., pp. 165-9. Travers' Letters of Orders by the Presbytery of Antwerp can be seen in Fuller, vol. iii. p.125. Walter Travers was of Irish extraction, and this may have had something to do with his appointment. He was the grandson of John Travers and Sarah Spenser, sister of the poet, a large portion of whose property in the county of Cork he inherited. Having no issue, he left his estates to his cousin John Travers. The family are now represented by the heir of Sir William St. Lawrence Clark-Travers, who married the only daughter and heiress of John Moore Travers of the county of Cork. The first of the family to settle in Ireland was the above-mentioned John Travers, who came over in 1580 in the retinue of Lord Grey de Wilton, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. - See Brady's Records of Cork, i. pp. 351-2.

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It was brought as a charge against him that he was in a conspiracy with Theodore Beza and others to set up a Presbyterian form of Church government. Hooker in his reply to a petition lodged by Travers, also charged against him that he had administered the communion, the recipients neither kneeling as was the custom of the realm, nor sitting as was the custom in the Temple Church, but standing and walking round the table. [12] According to Fuller, "Mr. Travers' utterance was graceful; gesture plausible; matter profitable, and his style carried in it indolem pietatis, ’a genius of grace’ flowing from his sanctified heart. Some say that the congregation in the Temple ebbed and flowed in the afternoon, and that the auditory of Mr. Travers was far the most numerous . . . The worst was, these two preachers . . . clashed one against another; so that what Hooker delivered in the forenoon, Mr. Travers confuted in the afternoon. At the building of Solomon's Temple neither hammer nor axe nor tool of iron was heard therein; whereas alas! in this temple not only much knocking was heard but which was the worst - the nails and pins which one master

[12] The counter-charges of Travers against Hooker were that he prayed before and not after the sermon; in his prayers he named bishops; he kneeled both when he prayed and when he received the sacrament. - Walton’s Life of Hooker, pp. 165-173.

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builder drove in were driven out by the other." [13] Fuller quaintly goes on to describe the circumstances attending the inhibition of Travers: "All the congregation on a Sabbath in the afternoon were assembled together, their attention prepared, the cloth (as I may say) and napkins were laid, yea, the guests set, when suddenly as Mr. Travers was going up into the pulpit a sorry fellow served him with a letter forbidding him to preach any more . . . . Thus was our good Zaccheus struck dumb in the pulpit. Meanwhile his auditory (pained that their pregnant expectation to hear him preach should so publicly prove abortive and sent sermonless home) manifested in their variety of passions - some grieving, some groaning, some murmuring; and the wisest sort who held their tongues, shook their heads, as disliking the management of the matter.” [14] Such was the man who was considered a suitable Provost under whose care the newly established college might start on its career.

[13] Fuller's Church History, iii. p. 128. The same kind of controversy was also proceeding elsewhere. At Cambridge; for example, "great clashing was now in the schools. Where one professor impugned - the other asserted the Church discipline in England." - Fuller's Hist. Univ. of Cambridge, p. 197.

[14] Fuller's Church Hist., vol. iii. p. I29.

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When Tyrone's rebellion broke out, Travers resigned his provostship and returned to England, [15] when the same policy was pursued, and three years later another avowed Puritan was put by the Queen at the head of the college in the person of Henry Alvey, a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and an intimate friend of Hooker's opponent, Cartwright. [16] The influence exercised by these men over Ussher is plainly manifested in the Irish Articles of Religion he was mainly instrumental in drawing up some years later, and also in the Eirenicon he published in later years, wherein he sought a common standing ground between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism.

The effort to strengthen the Puritan element in Trinity College did not cease on the resignation of Alvey. [17]

[15] Where he died, according to Neal, "in silence, obscurity, and great poverty." We find in 1693 a John Travers, nephew of the Provost and grandnephew of Edmund Spenser, rector of St. Andrews, Dublin. -  Gilbert's Hist. of Dublin, iii.  p. 307.

[16] Ussher's signature is first found in the college books on this occasion (October 1601), when he signs with the rest of the Fellows the certificate of Alvey's appointment. Henry Alvey is not to be confounded with Richard Alvey, also a Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge, who was Hooker's immediate predecessor as Master of the Temple, and who died in 1584. Elrington in one place (p. 15), by mistake, calls the new Provost "John Alvey."

[17] Alvey fled from Dublin on the approach of the plague. He died at Cambridge, January 25, 1626. Dr. Ward, Master of  Sidney, Sussex, visited him twice when he was sick, and found him "very patient and comfortable." Alvey desired to be "buried privately, and in a sheet only, without a coffin, for so, said he, was our Saviour. But it was thought fit that he should be put in a coffin, and so he was." Dr. Ward to Ussher. - Ussher’s Works, xv. p. 369.

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His successor, William Temple, who had been Lord Essex's secretary, was a pronounced Puritan, and refused to obey the orders of Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of the University, who required him to wear a surplice in the College Chapel on Sundays and holy days. Ussher writes to Dr. Challoner, stating that this condition of things had annoyed the Archbishop, who had observed that no order was taken that the scholars should come into the chapel clericaliter vestiti. He objected also to the other things as "flat puritanical." [18] The king (James I.) was also "exceedingly offended thereat." “His Majesty sayeth that it is no reason to suffer those places to be the ground plotte of disorder and disobedience; neither is there any reason to be severe against the Papists if His Highness should be remiss against the Puritans." [19] The king apparently was bent on pursuing a different policy from that of his predecessor on the throne.

18 Ussher's Works, xv. p. 72. Temple was originally Master of the Free School of Lincoln. He was afterwards secretary to Sir Philip Sidney; and saw him fall at Zutphen. In 1609 he accepted the provostship "on the earnest solicitations of Dr. Ussher." - Wood's Fasti Axon. pt. i. p. 220; Borlase's Red of Ireland, p. 150.

[19] Archbishop Abbot to Archbishop Jones (Dublin), February 25th, 1613. Abbot was now Chancellor of the University of Dublin. - Elrington's Life, pp. 32-3 (note).

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Ussher, we may observe, had been offered but refused the Provostship before it was given to Temple, for the reason that it might prove "a hindrance to his studies." [20] Temple refused to wear the surplice, on the ground that it was unreasonable to ask a layman to do so. He also intermitted the celebration of the Holy Communion till he was called to order through the intervention of Abbot. Still Temple did some good work for the College. He obtained its first statutes, and he so improved in his churchmanship that he induced the students to wear surplices and attend Christ Church Cathedral. They also, we learn, used the Communion Book". [21]

That the Puritan element survived in Trinity College is shown by the fact that one of the divines who met in Westminster, some thirty years later and assisted in drawing up the Confession of Faith, was Dr. Hoyle, Professor of Divinity in the College. [22]

[20] Parr's Life of Ussher, p. ii. Ussher was then in his thirtieth year. .

[21] Stubbs' History of Dublin University, pp. 35-8. It was considered noteworthy that Ussher always wore his episcopal robes in church, and required his chaplain to wear a surplice when celebrating the Holy Communion. It is also on record that the Archbishop never wore his hat in church, and always received the communion kneeling. - Bernard's Clavi Trabales, pp. 60-1; Elrington's Life, p 284.

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[22] Dr. Salmon, the present Provost of Trinity College, refers to this constant influence of Puritan divines on the Church of Ireland, bringing up the cases of Travers and Alvey. "Under these influences was trained the great boast of our University, James Ussher, who, more than anyone else, imprinted his character on the Irish clergy of his day. Report of the Dublin Church Congress, p 126. Professor Mahaffy's view is that Travers, Alvey, and Temple were men who were “baulked in their English promotion by their acknowledged Puritanism." - Book of Trinity College, p. 17. In the MS. Room, Trinity College, Dublin, may be seen notes, made by Ussher when an undergraduate, of Travers' sermons preached in the chapel, Trinity College, Dublin, dated 1594 (Class C. 5, 13). Trinity College was not exceptional in its Puritanism. It had a rival in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where the authorities discarded surplices and hoods at morning and evening prayer, as well as at the celebration of the Holy Communion. College suppers, as a rule, were given on Fridays. Bishop Hall writes to Wadsworth, afterwards tutor to the Infanta: "In Emmanuel College they receive the Holy Sacrament sittinge upon forms about the communion-table, and doe pull the loafe one from the other after the minister hath begon. And so the cupp, one drinking, as it were to another, as good fellows, without any particular application of the saide words more than once for all." - Lewis's Life of Hall, pp. 32-3. It was of this college that Dr. Preston became president. We also read that in the absence of Dr. Whitgift, on a certain Sunday, Mr. Cartwright and two of his adherents made three sermons so vehemently inveighing against all ceremonies of the Church that, at leaving prayer, all scholars save three cast off their surplices as an abominable relic of superstition. - See Fuller's History of the University of Cambridge, p. 197. Compare the surplice riots of our own day in St. George's-in-the-East, as described by Stanley, Life and Correspondence, ii. p. 25, &c.