Chapter 5 - USSHER AND THE ROMAN CATHOLICS

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To return to our story. In the year 1600, Ussher went up for the degree of Master of Arts. It was a remarkable coincidence that on the same day the Earl of Essex, before whom he had performed the exercises for his B.A. Degree, was beheaded in London. Shortly afterwards, Ussher was elected a Fellow, and also Catechist, and at the same time made the first Proctor. As Catechist, it was his business to expound the principles of the Christian religion. Then as afterwards this took very much the form of controversial lectures against the errors of the Church of Rome. In fact, the Professorship of Divinity had this by statute for its principal business, and it is still the work of the Professor during the academical year to devote a certain portion of his lectures to the same subject. The Chair was originally called the "Professorship of Controversies." [1]

[1] As Professor of Divinity, Ussher lectured chiefly on "Bellarmine's Controversies." - Bernard's Life, p. 45; Smith's ditto, p. 63. Trinity College was recognised from the first as a great Protestant  endowment. This is proved by the ferment into which the Jesuits were thrown by its erection. A petition was presented to the Pope against a "certain splendid college near Dublin where the youths of Ireland were instructed in English heresy." In 1609 the College was officially called by its enemies "The Fanatics' College." See Hogan's Hib. Ignatiana, p. 35; Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors, iii. p. 472. With a view to neutralising the influence of the College, Jesuit seminaries were founded by Irishmen at Seville, Salamanca, Lisbon, and other places.

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So successful was Ussher in his prelections, that he was soon pointed out as the proper person to address larger and more influential audiences, and so, though still a layman and not twenty years of age, he was selected with two others (also laymen) to deliver weekly lectures in divinity, and especially on the Roman controversy, before the Lord-Deputy and his household, in Christ Church Cathedral. This looks as if at the time of the Reformed Church of Ireland was but poorly provided with clerics of reputation, and that the authorities were glad to fall back on the services of educated laymen. Ussher was very reluctant to take upon himself the office, and it required much persuasion to overcome his youthful diffidence. His arguments and exhortations were so powerful that not a few Roman Catholics were led to conform to the Protestant faith. He had scruples, however, about discharging an office that was naturally clerical, and therefore determined to obtain orders. [2]

[2] Bernard's Life, p: 35.

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The difficulty arising from his not being of the canonical age was overcome by a dispensation from the Primate [3] and on the Fourth Sunday in Advent, 1601, he was ordained both deacon and priest by his uncle, the Archbishop of Armagh, being then but twenty-one years of age. [4] The first sermon after his ordination was preached on December 24th, being the day set apart for special prayer for success against the Spanish invasion. The same day saw the battle of Kinsale fought and won. Immediately after this, Ussher was appointed afternoon preacher to the State in Christ Church Cathedral. [5]

The student life of Ussher may here be said to have ended; but it must be remembered that he was little more than a youth, whose precocious talents had forced him to the front.

[3] Parr's Life, p. 8. Ussher's Letters of Orders, enclosed in a glass case, are to be seen in the Library of Trinity College.

[4] This is the date given by all the biographers, but the Letters of Orders bear the date May 1602.

[5] A good deal of preaching went on at this time in Dublin, but apparently without much effect. Archbishop Loftus writes to Burleigh, December 1596, "I dare assure your lordship that there is not in any like place in England more often preaching of God's word (by godly and learned preachers) than in this city, where it little prevaileth.”  - Calendar of State Papers, A.D. 1596; P. 193.

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He was still immersed in his books, and was carrying on in the midst of other labours those studies that were to bear fruit in his riper years, and hand down his name to after centuries as one of the most learned scholars of his day. He had yet a work to do in the founding of the noble Library of Trinity College, with which his collegiate career proper may be said to have closed.

We have already seen that the Government of Queen Elizabeth thought right to pursue a different religious policy in Ireland from that adopted in England. That that policy was one calculated to attract the Roman Catholics may well be questioned. There can be little doubt likewise that the unwise determination to have the Reformed Liturgy said in Latin in those parts of Ireland where the English language was not understood by the people was a most unhappy conclusion to arrive at. How different might the result have proved had there been then a Bedell at the head of affairs to encourage the use in public worship of their own tongue among the Irish-speaking population! The reformation of religion in Ireland would most probably have proved a success, and not the unhappy failure it has turned out to be.

The introduction of the penal laws had also a most deterrent effect, and Ussher was often called upon to preach before an audience who could hardly help being present, seeing they would have

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been fined in their absence! [6] In their zeal to propagate Protestantism, the Government required controversial sermons to be preached in different churches throughout the city, and Ussher was directed to preach in St. Catherine's Church, not far from the Castle. This custom of preaching controversial sermons, inaugurated in the sixteenth century, survived to a generation ago, and engaged the talents of some of the most eloquent preachers of the Irish Church, including O'Sullivan, McGhee, Fleury, and others. It was only the Protestants, however, who attended, and the Roman Catholics kept studiously away. [7]

6 When these unfortunate “Recusants" did go to church they made it extremely uncomfortable for the Protestant congregations. "If they come to church, they walk round about like mill horses, chopping, changing, making merchandise, so that they in the quire cannot hear a word, and those not small fools but the chief of the city." - John Shearman to Archbishop Long (Armagh), Cal. State Papers, July 8, 1585; see Gardiner's History, i. ch. ix. for the position of the Recusants. It is to the credit of Laud that he could give no sanction to the stupid and wicked policy of taxing Roman Catholics into Protestantism. "This course," he wrote to Sir Edward Coke, "will never bring them to church, being rather an engine to draw money out of their pockets than to raise a right belief and faith in their hearts." See Hutton's Laud, pp. 170-1; Hogan's Dist. Irishmen, p. 454.

7 The last great public disputation between champions of the rival Churches was the famous discussion between "Pope and Maguire," in the Rotunda, Dublin, in 1827.

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The Statute of Recusants, as it was called, passed in the second year of Elizabeth, seems at this time to have been put in force more severely in Dublin than elsewhere. In virtue of this statute, Roman Catholics who did not attend the parish churches were liable to be fined one shilling for every offence of the kind, and the money thus received was spent in repairing Protestant churches and building bridges. [8] After a time it was felt that this statute was being pressed too severely, and orders came to the Lord-Deputy, Lord Mountjoy, to relax its requirements. In a letter dated February 26, 1603, Lord Mountjoy expresses the pleasure he felt at being permitted to adopt more moderate measures. Ussher, however, who was a strong Protestant, took umbrage at this interference with the Act of Uniformity, considering that it endangered religion and loyalty in the country; and when next called on to preach in Christ Church Cathedral, undeterred by any fear of the consequences, he boldly denounced what he considered to be the toleration of Popery.

[8] See Bishop Rider's Returns at the Royal Visitation of Killaloe (1622), as given in Dwyer's History of the Diocese, pp. 130, 146. In some instances these fines were made very heavy, as much as £100 being levied from leading citizens - a sum approaching £1000 at the present day. - See, for examples, Cal. State Papers, 1607-8, Preface, 80-99; also Desid. Cur. Hib., i. p. 274. The keeping up of the bridges was a quasi religious duty, formerly discharged by the monasteries, now dissolved. The old bridge of Dublin, the first of the six bridges of Ussher's time, had been built by the Friars Preachers, and had a chapel with a stoup for holy water to sprinkle passers-by on the centre. - Halliday's Scan. Kingdom of Dublin, pp. 222-3 (note); Froude's History of England, x. p. 535.

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He chose for his text the words: "And thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year." (Ezek. iv. 6). When some forty years later the Rebellion broke out, people looked back on Ussher's discourse and regarded it as prophetic, [9] and the view taken of his sermon and some other later utterances gave rise to a small publication entitled De Predictionibus Usserii.

Ussher, indeed, had such a dread of the inroads of Popery that he thought it well that all Roman Catholic books should be withdrawn from the shelves of the College library. Thus, he writes to Dr. Challoner, from London, in 1612: "I would wish those English Popish books were kept more privately, as the books of discipline are, in a place by themselves, for it would be somewhat dangerous to have them remain in the public library." [10]

[9] Parr's Life, pp. 39-40. Elrington argues that this sermon could not have been preached in 1601, amongst other reasons because Ussher was not ordained till the December of that year: but for some time he had preached as a layman.

[10] Ussher's Works, xvi. pp. 318-19.

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And the fear still haunts him, for he writes again next year from the same place: "You may do well to have a care that the English Popish books be kept in a place by themselves, and not placed among the rest in the library, for they may prove dangerous." [11] He notes a few weeks later, in the course of his correspondence, apparently with a mild satisfaction, how "Latham, alias Molyneux, one of the learnedest and insolentest of the Popish priests here, was executed at Tyburn." [12]

To understand aright the position which Ussher took with regard to the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, it would be necessary to take a retrospective glance at the history of the country. It is not too much to say that England has never understood the sister island, and though she has now held possession of the country for more than seven centuries, Ireland is still unreconciled, and her rule continues to be regarded by the majority of Irishmen as that of an alien and usurper. England has never succeeded in conciliating the race; she has failed in successfully implanting the Reformed religion on the soil; she has governed the country by alternately threatening and relaxing her hold of it. Annexed as it was to England by Henry II., Ireland has never been thoroughly conquered, or made an integral part of the United Empire, happy and contented by a wise and equable government.

[11] Ussher's Works, xv. p. 74.

[12] Ussher, xvi. p. 320.

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The Irish difficulty exists today as it existed in Elizabeth's time, in that of Charles I., Oliver Cromwell, William III, and George III. Some evil must lie deep and undiscovered at the root, which has led to such untimely and undesirable results.

When we regard the ecclesiastical condition of the country at the time that Ussher was becoming a prominent figure in its history, we find the question of religion affecting to a greater or lesser degree its social and political condition. In the sixteenth and the opening of the seventeenth century, the Roman Catholics in Ireland were divided into two parties, the "Papists" and the “Loyalists"; [13] the distinction in itself is significant. When O'Neill rose in rebellion against Elizabeth, he proclaimed a religious war; he raised his standard "for the extirpation of heresy"; he got the Pope on his side, who sent him a consecrated plume, and styled him "Commander and Captain General of the Catholic Army in Ireland"; and the King of Spain, who supplied him with an armament. Thus Romanism and treason went hand-in-hand, and led to repressive measures.

[13] Cox, History of Ireland, p. 454.

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The Queen, in an address issued in 1591, protested against the insinuation so eagerly made by her enemies that she was persecuting the faith: “We have saved our kingdoms by the efficacy of the laws enacted against rebels and those guilty of high treason, and not against religion, as has been falsely advanced by the favourers of these base views; which is the more flagrant from criminal suits, having been instituted in which none were condemned or put to death, except for treason, and for their avowal that they would aid and assist the Pope and his army if sent to invade our realms

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"It is a matter of notoriety also, that none of our subjects have been put to death for their religion; inasmuch as many possessed riches, and professing a contrary belief to ours are punished neither in their properties, their lives, nor their freedom, and are subject only to pay a certain fine for their refusal to frequent our churches, which is on our part, a clear refutation of the aspersions and calumnies which have been propagated in foreign countries by those who have fled from their own." [14]

 There can be no doubt that the Queen was endeavouring, to carry on the government of Ireland on the principle of giving freer and fuller, liberty of worship to the Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholic historian Moore, and other authorities of that Church, acknowledge the fact. [15]

[14] Macgeoghegan's History of Ireland, p. 494.

[15] See Moore's History of Ireland; iv. 108.

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Lord Barry, a Roman Catholic peer, writing in 1600, in reply to Hugh O'Neill's letter, upbraiding him for his loyalty, gives expression to the feelings of the Loyalist Party: "Her Highness hath never restrained me for matters of religion. . . I hold my lordship and lands immediately under God of her Majesty and her most noble progenitors, by corporal service and of none other by very ancient tenure, which service and tenure none may dispense withal but the true possessor of the Crown of England, being now our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth." [16] But how, was this toleration rewarded? When the Spanish General, Don Juan de Aquila, landed in Kinsale with the approbation of the Pope, he instantly issued a manifesto, coupling loyalty towards England with heresy: "Whoever shall remain in the obedience to the English we will persecute him as a heretic and a hateful enemy of the Church, even unto death." [17] The Irish Roman Catholics, with a few exceptions, were only too glad to rally to this cry, and found a leader in Eugene McEgan, the Vicar-Apostolic for Munster, an inhuman ecclesiastic, who required all prisoners taken in battle to be murdered outright in his presence, and who died fighting against the Queen, “his sword drawne in one hand, and his portuis and beades in the other."

Nor was McEgan the only Roman Catholic priest of high standing who preached and practised sedition. Matthew de Oviedo, the titular Archbishop of Dublin, came over from Spain with men and arms to assist O'Neill in his revolt against the Queen's authority.

[16] Carew's Pacata Hibernia, pp. 21-22.

[17] Carew, p. 202.

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[18] Can we wonder, if under those circumstances, Elizabeth towards the close of her life felt compelled to adopt stricter measures, and required the oath of allegiance to be pressed on all indiscriminately, and proceedings to be taken against such persons as refused it, "peremptorily or obstinately? " [19]

[18]Carew, p. 366. McEgan is one of the "martyrs” of Elizabeth's reign, according to Roman Catholic authorities. He was not alone in his example of a desire to combine the temporal with the spiritual sword. Sir John Clotworthy, who was one of the Irish representatives at the Westminster Assembly, declared that Ireland was to be converted "with the Bible in one hand, and the sword in the other." -  Nalson's Impartial Collection, vol. ii. p. 536. Clotworthy was an advanced Puritan. He "dissembled not his old animosity against the bishops, the cross and the surplice, and wished all might be abolished." - Clarendon's Life, vol. ii. p. 380.

[19] The national antipathy to the Queen ran very high. For example; on August 26th, 1600, the Lord-Deputy is in the Queen's County, and in one of the houses he finds "the Queen's picture behind the door, and the King of Spain's at the upper end of the table.” - Carew, Calendar of State Papers, p. 432.The censures of that diabolical Church," writes Sir G. Carew, "is at the bottom of all the mischief, and were it not for this, ere May Day next, I would not doubt, by God's assistance . . . . to settle Munster in as good quiet as Middlesex." - Ditto, p. 454. It is almost like a page of modern history to find, the Bishop of Cork writing a memorandum to Lord Runsdon, July 6th, I596, to the following effect. Searching the books in a certain school in the diocese, he says; "I found to my great grief her Majesty's style and title torn out of all the grammars to the number of seventy-four in one school; the leaf in the grammar quite torn out which containeth it - 'Elizabeth, by the grace of God, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the, Faith, &c., and in the end of the leaf - 'God save the Queen." - Calendar of State papers, I596, p. I7.

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On the death of the Queen, the Irish Roman Catholics looked forward with much expectation to the accession of James I. They remembered that he had Celtic blood in his veins, and that his mother, Mary Stuart had been an unflinching member of the Catholic Church. Impressed with the notion that he would be favourably disposed towards them, they at once commenced to perform the rites of their Church with much outward pomp and ceremony. The service of the Mass was even celebrated in some of the parish churches from which the Protestant clergy were expelled. The Vicar-Apostolic of Waterford and Lismore had the hardihood, when announcing publicly the death of the Queen, to say, "Jezebel is dead." [20]

[20] "When Elizabeth's death became known the citizens of Waterford, Kilkenny, and Cork burned the books of the heretics, ejected the ministers, and publicly had Mass said in the churches." Father Holywood to the General of the Jesuits, July 1603. - The Month, lxxxviii. p. 467.

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Symptoms of revolt against the English authority began to show themselves once more, especially in the southern provinces. The result of this was that before long the Government of King James was forced to exchange the mild regime with which it had commenced for sterner measures. All Jesuits and even many priests were ordered by an edict of July 4, 1605, to leave the kingdom of Ireland, before a certain date. The people were required to attend the Protestant service in their respective parish churches at the risk of being fined for not doing so, and incurring the King's "high displeasure." [21] Where these orders and penalties were disregarded, a "mandate" was further issued under the broad seal, commanding attendance at church, with the alternative of being handed over to be dealt with by the Star Chamber and incur a heavier mulct, together with imprisonment. Here again it is evident that religion had to be punished, not because it was unreformed, but because it had united itself with treason and become dangerous to the State; and the Government from attempting toleration plunged under a panic into the opposite extreme of an excessive severity. The Pope as before took up the cause of his co-religionists, and issued a Bull declaring it the same as sacrificing to idols to be present at the reading of the English Liturgy.

[21]Calendar of State Papers, James I., 1606-8,  pp. 60-64, 80; Hibernia Dominicana,  pp. 611-12.

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When under the terror of the recent gunpowder plot the King proceeded to insist on an oath of allegiance which acknowledged him to be the rightful sovereign, and declared that the Pope had no power to depose him or release his subjects from their fidelity, Paul V. replied on September 22, 1607, with another Bull declaring that the oath was one which could not be taken by Catholics as being dangerous to their salvation. [22] The loyal Roman Catholics had been prepared to take the oath when the action of the Pope stumbled them. Such in brief was the condition of the country when Ussher found himself called upon to take a more prominent and responsible position in the affairs of Church and State. As might be supposed, his attention was largely occupied with the great question of the day - the rival claims of the two Churches which then as now, in the main divided Irish Christianity between them.

[22] Hib. Dom, pp. 613-15. See also King's Church History, Supplement, pp. 1318-20, where the Bull is given.