Chapter 13 - ARCHBISHOP USSHER AND BISHOP BEDELL: THE STORY OF THE IRISH BIBLE

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IN March, 1629, Ussher met with a severe domestic affliction in the death of his only brother, the learned Ambrose Ussher. [1] Like the Archbishop, he was deeply read in Eastern languages, especially Arabic and Syriac. He had been a scholar and Fellow of Trinity College. Ambrose Ussher only published one book, a short Catechism, but there is an extensive collection of his MSS. in the library of the college. Ware gives a full list of them. [2] The Primate does not allude to his loss in any of his published letters.

About this time the Archbishop received a communication from the Lord-Deputy and Council thanking him for some trouble he had taken in examining into certain acts of the titular Bishop of Raphoe and the affairs of Popish conventual houses in that town.

[1] "A very learned young man, who died too early." - Dr. Parr to Archbishop Bancroft, Jan. 5, 1682.

[2] Ware's Works, ii. pp. 128-9.

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The Bishop had been accused of making a priest at a public Mass in an orchard." [3]

On May 12th, 1629, Bedell writes to Ussher informing him that he had that day received letters from the King touching the bishopric of Kilmore and Ardagh. The King expresses in them his desire that the college should not proceed to elect another Provost until they further knew the royal pleasure in the matter, and he recognises the good work that had been done on behalf of the college by Bedell. [4]

Immediately before he resigned the Provostship, Bedell had considerable trouble with two of the students, and he informs Ussher of the matter in a letter dated August 20th, 1629. Great efforts had been made to win these students over to the Roman Church. The story is significant, as showing the way in which the Roman Catholic Church was working at this time. The two youths had been met by a Mr. Bodkin in a house in Castle Street, who introduced them to one Plunket, a Carmelite friar, “who laboured to encourage them in their intended resolution of being Roman Catholics," but was a poor controversialist.

[3] Ussher's Works, xv. p 440.

[4] Ibid., xvi. p. 487.

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Then a friar by the name of Dominick Nugent tried his hand on them, and argued very subtilely. Friar Barnwell, a Capuchin, also discoursed them “very learnedly of the non-errability of the Church, producing arguments against the Lord Primate very solidly,” and promising them “pardon and reconcilement.” The following day Father Plunket and Father Browne, Provincial of the Carmelites, met them in a house in Bridge Street, where for privacy sake they retired to an arbour in the garden and discussed “controverted points between the Protestants and the Papists," such as the sacrament of the altar, the supremacy of the Pope, the marriage of priests, &c. They were offered a safe course for a journey into Spain, or to “Galloway" (Galway).

Bedell gives Ussher an account anything but flattering of these youths. One had been irregular in his attendance at hall, absented himself from prayers, lodged out of his chambers in Trinity Hall, and had disorderly meetings “at a very suspected house." The other was equally incorrigible; he lodged and slept at an ale-house. What to do with them is doubtful, and he writes to Ussher for advice. At the close of the letter he says that September 13th will stand for his consecration. [5]

[5] Ussher's Works, xvi. pp. 494-501.

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Bedell was accordingly consecrated Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh on September 13th, 1629, in St. Peter's Church, Drogheda, by the Primate, and the Bishops of Down and Connor, Dromore, and Clogher. [6] He was scarcely installed when he got into difficulties with Dr. Allen Cook, his lay chancellor. He complains of him in a letter to Ussher, dated Kilmore, December 28th, 1629, and maintains that his patent is insufficient. He appeals to the Primate to try the case by himself, and adds, "I have resolved to see the end of this matter.” [7] Affairs did not go smoothly with the new Bishop. It appears from a letter written from Farnham early in the following year, that charges were made against him that he was "a Papist, an Arminian, an equivocator, politician, and traveller into Italy"; that he bowed his knee at the name of Jesus [8] pulled down the late bishop's

[6] Bedell gives a lamentable account of his diocese shortly after he entered on his episcopal duties. The Cathedral Church of Ardagh and the bishop's house were "down to the ground." The Cathedral Church of Kilmore had no "bell or steeple, font or chalice." The parish churches were ruined, unroofed, and unrepaired." The people, with the exception of a “few British planters," were all "obstinate recusants" - Rushworth, ii. p. 47.

[7] Ussher's Works, xv. p. 458.

[8] This was one of the most serious charges that could be brought against the orthodoxy of Protestants at this time. Carte goes so far as to say that Ussher was "horribly afraid of bowing at the Name of Jesus," but gives no authority. - Ormonde, i. p. 78. The Puritan, Sir Edward Deering, on the other hand, had the courage to say that to refuse to bow at the Name of Jesus was "going up the back stairs to Socinianism." - Speech before Parliament, 1642 - See H. Monck Mason's Life of Bedell, p. 245.

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seat because it was too near the altar, preached in his surplice, &c. [9] Bedell defended himself from these random charges in the Cathedral in the presence of his clergy. [10] Ussher was not well at the time, and Bedell writes expressing his sorrow. In a long letter addressed to the Primate, February 15th, 1630, he defends his action against his lay chancellor; and refers to the shameful charges raked up against himself. He has been "blazed a, Papist," "a neuter," "a niggardly housekeeper," "an usurer"; he prays "towards the east"; "would pull down the seat of his predecessor to set up an altar"; denied burial in the chancel to one of Cook's daughters. He is also charged with having compared Ussher's preaching "to one Mr. Whiskins, Mr. Creighton, Mr. Baxter, and preferred them." Ussher had been deceived in him.

[9] A letter addressed by Bramhall to Laud, Dec.20, 1634, gives an insight into the state of the Church in the north of Ireland about this time. "It would trouble a man to find twelve Common Prayer-books in all their churches, and those only not caste behind the altar, because they have none, but in place of it a table ten yards long, where they sit, and receive the sacrament together like good fellows.” -  Shirley's Papers, 1631-9, p. 41.

[10] Ussher's, Works, xv. p. 459. See also Clogy's Memoirs, pp. I39-140.

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"Omitting all the rest,” writes Bedell, "I cannot but touch on the last, touching the preferring others to your Grace's preaching." This he felt was a serious charge. He protests to the Primate that he never heard Mr. Whiskins preach. Mr. Price, a. candidate for holy orders, declared "'he would be quartered" if the charge were true. As for Dr. Cook, his patent was bad, and couched in "false Latin." In one sentence there were above 500 words hanging in the air, without one principal verb." The seal hanging to it was not the Bishop's seal. His fees had been exorbitant. On these grounds Bedell had inhibited Dr. Cook. Very injudiciously, Bedell now falls foul of the Primate, and tells him he has heard it said among great personages that "my Lord Primate is a good man, but his court is as corrupt as others; some say worse." [11] What most offended the Primate was the Bishop's statement that in Ussher's triennial visitation the clergy saw no profit but the taking of money. [12]

[11] Ussher'sWorks, xv. pp. 463-72.

[12] Bedell did not at all relish the Primate's "bull of prohibition," as Clogy calls it, giving notice of his triennial visitation, and the suspension for the time of the Bishop's episcopal jurisdiction. He threw it away, we are told, as a man throws away an unclean thing, and stamped on it with his foot. - Clogy's Memoirs, pp. 72-3.

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To this long letter, Ussher replies with some heat. He says most of the slanders wherewith Bedell was troubled, he had never heard of till Bedell had mentioned them himself. Of Mr. Whiskins', Mr. Creightan's, and Mr. Baxter's preaching, Ussher had never heard, till now; “would God” write the Archbishop, “that all the Lords people might prophesy and there might be thousands of His faithful servants that might go beyond me in doing the Lord’s work; the spirit that is in me I trust shall never lust after such envy." [13] He goes on to warn the Bishop against judicially declaring Dr. Cook’s patent to be void. If he interferes with the civil magistrate he runs the risk of a premunire. The next paragraph in the Primate's letter is noteworthy as proving that there were plenty of bad landlords in Ireland at the time. "Complaints I know will be made against my court and your court and every court wherein vice should be punished, and that not by delinquents alone, but also by their landlords, be they Protestants or others, who in this county care not how their tenants live so as they pay them their rents. Bishops, he continues, should be careful about taking the jurisdiction out of the hands of their chancellors and keeping it entirely in their own hands.

[l3] Ussher’s Works, xv. p. 474.

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"I know a bishop in this land who exerciseth the jurisdiction himself; and I dare boldly say that there is more injustice and oppression to be found in him alone than in all the chancellors in the whole kingdom put together." Ussher himself is thankful to have a lay chancellor. The law is a ticklish matter. “My chancellor is better skilled in the law than I am, and far better able to manage matters of that kind . . . How easy a matter it is for a bishop that is ignorant in the law to do wrong unto others and run himself into a premunire; and where wrong is done, I know right may more easily be had against a chancellor than against a bishop." If his chancellor does wrong, Ussher will be the first man to throw stone at him. As for the Archbishop's visitation of the Bishop's diocese, had there been presentations made and reformation neglected there would have been cause for complaint. In a bantering tone he notices the complaints about fees. "If your clergy can get but half so much for their money from you as they did from me, they may say you were the best bishop that ever came among them.'" The Primate ends his reply by excusing himself from further notice of some other matters adding: "I am quite tired, and what I have written I fear will not be so pleasing to you"; and he ends, “your most assured loving friend and brother (notwithstanding any unkind passages which may have slipped from me in this letter).” [14]

[14] Ussher's Works, xv. Pp. 475-6.

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To this communication, Bedell briefly replies, March 29, 1630, excusing himself for the way he had dealt, "with the papists," and on some of the other subjects referred to in their correspondence. He will not enter further into the controversy between them, but “will lay his hand upon his mouth.” [15] The case of Dr Cook, the lay chancellor, was eventually decided in the Court of Chancery, against the Bishop, with £100 costs, and the chancellor was confirmed in his appointment. [16]

[15] Ditto, p. 486.Dr. Parr, in his preface to the Archbishop's letters, says the correspondence between Ussher and Bedell “was more especially published for the doing right to the Archbishop's character, which might otherwise have suffered by some injurious reflection upon him in the Life of that Bishop lately written”  (probably Burnet's Life).

[16] Bedell, no doubt, found himself in a hornet's nest, when he ventured to oppose the lawyers. He himself called the law his Purgatory, and his journeys to Dublin his returning to Purgatory. He sought to console himself with the words: Post tenebras spero lucem, et dabit Deus his quoque finem. - Clogy’s Memoirs, p. 56. His case was most probably tried by Lord Chancellor Loftus, and if so, he had no chance of mercy. Commenting on the case, Clogy says: "The truth is, my Lord Primate of Armagh gave himself over so much to the search of the Fathers, and all antiquity, and to that apostolic work of praying and preaching the Word, that he had no time scarce once to think of the discipline of the Church, or to regulate any thing that was amiss . . .therefore when he came to die, he earnestly besought the Lord to pardon his sins of omission about things left undone," pp. 74-5. Clogy was Bedell's son-in-law.

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A further misunderstanding subsequently arose between Ussher and Bedell, which was fanned into a flame by the unkind zeal of Dr. Bernard, the former chaplain of the Archbishop, and now Dean of Kilmore. Bedell had set his face against pluralities, and the Dean had applied for the benefice of Kildromfarten, to hold in commendam with his deanery, and had been refused. [17] For this refusal the Dean seems never to have forgiven Bedell. In a letter to Ussher, dated September 18th, 1630, the Bishop enters at large into Dr. Bernard's action. He had received the communion at the Bishop's hands, and expressed a desire for reconciliation; but still he hankered after the living of Kildromfarten, and got himself presented under the broad seal. But the Bishop refused to act, and this “was the only root of all Mr. Dean despite" against him. Bedell goes on to denounce pluralities in the strongest language. In the diocese of Kilmore and Ardagh there were sixty-six Roman Catholic priests and only thirty-two ministers and curates, "of which also three whose wives come not to the church."

[17] The deanery of Kilmore at this time was a sinecure. Ussher, in his Visitation-book of 1622, says, "The deanery is merely titular, nothing belonging to it; but the bishop for the time being made choice of any one of his clergie whom he thought fittest to give unto the name the title of a dean." Bernard afterwards exchanged the deanery for that of Ardagh.

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The priests had also the advantage "of the language, the possession of the people's hearts, the countenancing of the nobility and gentry." The Bishop gave as another reason for not granting his request - that the Dean was ignorant of the Irish language, and therefore could not preach to the people in their own tongue. [18] As a devoted friend of the English interest, Ussher failed to understand Bedell's desire to perpetuate the use of the Irish language, which he regarded as an obstacle in the way of the closer union of the two countries.

We are here presented with two abuses, which more than anything else contributed to destroy the prospects of a reformation of religion in Ireland - the holding of a number of benefices by a single clergyman, and the continued discountenance of the native language in the public worship of the church.

[18] See Ussher's Works, xv. pp. 531-8. Bernard's character maybe pretty well made out from the fact that he managed to be on good terms with both Royalists, and Parliamentarians. He set his sails to the winds of prosperity. He writes to Ussher, "My lot is fallen well; blessed be the hand of that divine Providence . . . I have more than an ordinary habitation . . . I have a very gentlemanlike assembly, and a rich people, and yet, blessed be God, very tractable, sanctifying the Sabbath with reverence." He goes on to describe his manner of preaching and teaching and adds, "And yet for all this variety I avoid tediousness, which keepeth the people constant who have greatly increased their knowledge, beyond that which I am willing to speak;" and more to the same purpose. - Ussher's Works, xvi. pp. 360-3. Mr. Solley says Bernard was in the pay and employment of Cromwell when he wrote the Life of Ussher. - See Notes and Queries, 4th series, ii. p. 165.

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A few years later, August 18th, 1663, Bramhall, Bishop of Derry, writes to Laud from the Castle of Dublin on the former abuse: "The boundless heaping together of benefices by commendams and dispensations in the superior courts, is but too apparent; yea, even often by plain usurpations and indirect compositions made between the patrons, as well ecclesiastical as lay; and the incumbents by which the least part, many times not above forty shillings, rarely ten pounds in the year, is reserved for him that should serve the altar; insomuch that it is affirmed that by all or some of these means, one Bishop in the remoter parts of the kingdom doth hold three-and-twenty benefices with cure. Generally their residences are as little as their livings, seldom any suitor petitioning for less than three vicarages at a time. [19]

[19] Bramhall's Works, i. p. 80. Some of the bishops set a bad example in this respect. Bishop Moygne, for instance, Bedell's predecessor “upon the ruins of two stripped bishoprics” (Kilmore and Ardagh); "had founded his family, and purchased a seigniory for his son." - Clogy's Memoirs, p. 35; but see W. Monck-Mason's St. Patrick, p. 184. Bedell refused to hold the two bishoprics, and got Ardagh transferred to the Rev. John Richardson, "peculiar for a very grave countenance, and his being an extraordinary textuary." Richardson fled to London on the outbreak of the rebellion in 1640, and published some comments on the Annotation of the assembly of Divines. - See Cotton's Fasti, iii. p. 184. With regard to the above charge against Bishop Moygne, it is remarkable how many Irish bishops in former days founded noble families. We may notice, for example, Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin, who founded the Ely family; Maxwell, Bishop of Kilmore, the Farnham family; Robinson, Archbishop of Armagh, the Rokeby family; Agar, also Archbishop of Armagh, the Normanton family; Pery, Bishop of Limerick, the Limerick family; Beresford, Archbishop of Tuam, the Decies family; and many others.

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The MS. Irish Bible of Bishop Bedell, chiefly through the adverse action of Archbishop Laud, who concurred with Ussher in the views he took on the subject, remained unprinted for fifty years. It was then taken up and published by the patriotic Robert Boyle, who expected £700 for the purpose. [20]

[20] See Richardson's Short History, &c.; Brief Sketch of various attempts to diffuse a knowledge of the scriptures through the Irish language and Bishop Bedell's Irish Bible in Marsh's Library. Bedell translated the Apocryphal books, but Boyle would not allow them to be published. The original MS. of the Apocrypha is now preserved in the above Library, together with the MS. copy of books, Genesis to the Song of Solomon. The remainder was lost. Sir B. Lee Guinness, when restoring St. Patrick's Cathedral, had the several MSS. bound in two quarto volumes, whole morocco. Two copies of O’Donnell’s New Testament, 1602 and 1681, are preserved in the same Library, as also the Book of Common Prayer in Irish, 1608. A manuscript copy of original letters from the Hon. Robert Boyle to the Rev. Narcissus Marsh, D.D., Provost of T.C.D., on the subject of the printing and publishing of the Irish Bible, may also be seen in Marsh's Library (Class V. 3. 3. 26). There are also to be found there proposals for printing a Welsh Bible. The letters show the extreme interest taken in the work by Boyle, and the liberality with which he pursued it. Many copies of Bedell's Bible were sent to Scotland, as the Bible in Irish was intelligible to those familiar with the Gaelic tongue. - Clogy's Memoirs, p. 125 (note); see Ussher on these two languages, Works, vi. p. 103, and Reeves' Andamnan, pp. xxxviii-ix. Bedell's MS. Hebrew Bible was rescued from the Irish insurgents in 1641, and is now in Emmanuel College, in accordance with his will. - Wharton Jones' Life, p. 193.

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It was only within the last half century that the Church of Ireland awoke to its duty of ministering the Gospel to the Irish people in their native language, and founded the Irish Society for the purpose. If the building of such "castles in the air," as Ussher called preaching and catechising in the Irish tongue, had been prosecuted from the first, we might not now have, to deplore the fact that the Reformed Church of Ireland is the Church of the minority. [2l] This action of the Archbishop is all the stranger, when we consider that among his posthumous writings is to be found a tract on the duty of teaching the Holy Scriptures In the tongue of the people. In this treatise (Historia Dogmatica Controversiae inter Orthodoxos et Pontificos de Scripturis et Sacris Vernaculis)

[21] According to a document quoted by O'Connell in his Memoir of the Irish People, the English language, at the opening of the Reformation in Ireland, was spoken only in half the counties of Meath, Dublin, Louth, Wexford, and Kildare, and even in these half counties Irish was the language of the mass of the people, with the exception of the cities and walled towns. - See Kelly's Dissertations, p. 94 (note).

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Ussher proves conclusively, both from Jewish writers and Greek and Latin Fathers, that for 600 years the practice of celebrating public worship or reading Holy Scripture in a strange tongue was unknown to the Church. He even gives a list of persons who were punished immediately before the English Reformation for reading, the Bible in the common tongue; and yet we find him at this time discountenancing the idea of translating the Bible into Irish, for fear of weakening the English connection! [22]

The misunderstandings between these two good men were not rectified till a year later, when Bedell visited the Primate at Termonfechan.

[22] In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the King of Denmark applied for an Irish scholar to translate Irish MSS. in his possession; a suitable person was discovered for the work, and was ready to undertake it, when a member of the Council interfered on the ground that it might be prejudicial to the English interest. - Anderson's Historical Sketches, p. 26 (note). It is strange that with all his linguistic accomplishments, and his interest in the antiquities of his native country, Ussher seems to have had but a very slender acquaintance with the Irish language. - See King's Early History of the Primacy of Armagh, p. 50; O'Donovan's MS. Letters on the ordinance survey in the Irish Academy, under, "Fore,” in county Westmeath; Stokes' Article on St. Fechan, J.R.S.A., 5th series, ii. pp. 1-12; and Elrington's Life of Ussher, p. 29 (note): On the other hand, Ussher's uncle, Henry Ussher, Archdeacon of Dublin, was recommended for the Primacy as “very perfect in the Irish language.” - Cal State Papers, I592-6. p. 311.

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He afterwards wrote: “I cannot easily express what contentment I received at my late being with your Grace at Termonfechin. There had nothing happened to me, I will not say since I came to Ireland, but, as far as I can call to remembrance, in my whole life, which did so much affect me on this hand as the hazard of your good opinion." [23]

Strange to say, this business of translating the Bible into the Irish tongue could not be carried on without creating further unpleasantness between the Archbishop and his suffragan. Some years later Ussher commended a certain Mr. Murtagh King (an Irish native and a convert to Protestantism) to the Bishop as useful for his purpose. Bedell was so pleased with Mr. King's assistance that he gave him a living. [24] His enemies, however, represented King to the English Primate as a man unfit for his profession. The Bishop was compelled to appeal to the Lord-Deputy Strafford, and referred to Archbishop Ussher, the Bishop of Meath, and others, for a good character for his protege. A candidate came forward for Mr. King's living, and got possession under the great seal.

[23] Ussher’s Works, xv p 531.

[24] With this Murtagh King was associated a Mr. James Nangle. - Bedell's Life of Bedell, p. 95.

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Bishop Bedell cited and excommunicated him, for which he was cited in his turn before the Prerogative Court, and declared contumacious. Ussher throughout refused to interfere, and allowed all this trouble to fall on the head of the Bishop. [25] As for the unfortunate Mr. King, now an old man, on the verge of eighty, we are told how he was “trailed by the head and feet to horseback," and so carried off to Dublin, where he languished in prison till his death. [26]

[25] The inconsistent conduct of Ussher is difficult to understand. It is suggested that the strong prejudices he formerly entertained against the use of the Irish language had suddenly revived. - See Clogy's Memoirs, p. 118.

[26] Bedell to Strafford, Dec. 1st, 1638, Burnet says the whole business was “a deep fetch to possess reformed divines with jealousy and hard thoughts of the work." - See Anderson, as before, p. 64 (note), where interesting information is given about predecessors of Bedell in the same work - Kearney, Walsh, Donnellan, and O'Donnell. O'Donnell, who translated the Book of Common Prayer into Irish and printed it at his own expense, was one of the first scholars of Trinity College, Dublin, one of the earliest elected Fellows, and if not the first, the second who received the degree of D.D. from the University. He died Archbishop of Tuam. It is part of the irony of history that the Irish types sent over by Queen Elizabeth to print the New Testament should have been stolen and carried off to Douay, where they were used by the Jesuits for, proselytizing purposes. From the Shirley Letters, p. 317, we learn that the Queen paid £66 13s. 4d. to the Irish “Bushoppes for making of caracts for the Testament in Irishe"; unless "they presently put the same in print her Majesty may, be repaid £90.” Oct. 27th, 1567. Elizabeth was the only English Sovereign who ever attempted a knowledge of the Irish language. - See Olden's Church of Ireland, pp. 332-3.

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Tanta molis erat, to give the Irish people, the Irish Bible! [27]

[27] If truth is to be spoken, Bedell seems to have got more credit than he really deserved for the Irish Bible. The fact is, he was largely assisted by others, and, more especially, by Denis Sheridan, a converted Roman Catholic priest, to whom he gave the livings of Killasher (Florence Court); - See King's Lough Erne; and Clogy's Memoirs, p. I25 (note). Bedell died in Sheridan's house at Drumcorr. This Sheridan was of the same family with William Sheridan, Swift’s friend of later days, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, whose granddaughter was mother of the present Marquis of Dufferin. In his "Notes on the Sheridans" Lord Dufferin attributes the translation of the Irish Bible entirely to Denis Sheridan. He speaks of him as a devoted disciple of the saintly Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore; under whose direction he translated the English version of the Bible into Irish. Denis Sheridan's son succeeded Bedell as Bishop of Kilmore. Another son became Bishop of Cloyne. - See Introduction to Songs, Poems, and Verses of Lady Dufferin, pp. 5-6; see also T. Wharton Jones' Life and Death of Bedell, ch. xx.