Chapter 17 - LORD STRAFFORD AND THE CHURCH OF IRELAND: QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE BETWEEN ARMAGH AND DUBLIN: ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND NEW CANONS ADOPTED BY THE IRISH CONVOCATION

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IN 1633 Lord Strafford had arrived in Ireland to take up the office of Chief Governor of that distressful country. [1] The same year saw his great contemporary Laud advanced to the English Primacy.

Both these remarkable men manifested a deep interest in the spiritual and temporal welfare of the Church of Ireland. The Archbishop’s studies in the See of Canterbury did not prevent him advising both Strafford and Ussher on Irish Church affairs. One great desire of Laud was to see the Church put into possession of extensive property alienated from her by the rapacity of the landowners, and the fraudulent leases granted by Bishops.

[1] He came over to Ireland as Viscount Wentworth, and was not created Earl of Strafford with the title of Lord-Lieutenant till 1640.

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"I pray my Lord to be hearty in this," writes Laud to Strafford, "for I shall think myself very happy if God be pleased to spare my life to see this business ended." [2] He writes again, asking the Deputy to find out from the Lord Chief Justice what steps should be taken to assist the poor vicars out of the impropriations in Ireland. [3] Archbishop Ussher, writing to Laud acknowledges how ready he found Wentworth to do all in his power toward recovering the alienated patrimony of the Church. Shortly after entering on his high office, the Lord-Deputy writes to Laud from Dublin Castle giving a frightful description of the state of the Irish Church, "which I find," he writes, "many ways distempered, an unlearned clergy which have not so much as the outward form of churchmen to cover themselves with, nor their persons anyway reverenced or protected; the churches unbuilt, the parsonages and vicarage houses utterly ruined, the people untaught through the non-residency of the clergy occasioning by the unlimited and shameful number of spiritual promotions without cure of the souls, which they hold by commendams; the rites and ceremonies of the

[2] Strafford’s Letters, i. p. 82.

[3] Ditto. In 1634 Laud was able to write “done" in his diary with regard to the matter of impropriations by the Crown.

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Church run over without all decency of habit, order, or gravity, in the course of their service; the possessions of the Church to a great proportion in lay hands; the Bishops alienating their very principal houses and demesnes to their children and to strangers, farming out their jurisdictions to mean and unworthy persons, the Popish titulars exercising the whilst a foreign jurisdiction much greater than theirs." The Deputy also complains of the public schools, endowed with grants by King James, being ill-provided and ill-governed, and their funds sometimes supplied underhand to the support of Popish schoolmasters. [4] He likewise refers to the extraordinary fact that baptisms and marriages are nearly always performed in private houses, "and which is odd, they never marry till after supper, and so to bed." [5] He advises that the Irish should be made conformable to the English practice of public marriages, as “more civil and comely." Laud writes back later, Nov. 1623, to the Lord Deputy: "The truth is, a great many Church cormorants have fed so full upon it (the Church), that they are fallen into a fever, and for that no physick better than a vomit if it be given in time, and therefore you have taken a very judicious course to administer one so early to my Lord of Cork.

[4] Strafford's Letters, i. pp. 187-8.

[5] Ditto.

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I hope it will do him good." [6] Again, he writes wisely: "I am glad you will so soon take order that Divine service may be read throughout in the churches, be the company that vouchsafe to come never so few. Let God have His whole service with reverence, and He will quickly send more to help to perform it." Towards the close of the year (Dec. 1633) Strafford writes to Laud showing how he was putting his good advice into practice. He complains of the Bishop of Killala, who had leased the See lands of the value of £500 to Sir Daniel O’Bryan. The Knight did so juggle with the Bishop underhand as that he compounded privately to accept of £26 rent for all the interest of the church. Si hac fiunt in viridi, in arido quid fiet. "I got notice of it sent to the Bishop, told him roundly he had betrayed the bishopric, that he deserved to have his rochet (setting the dignity of his calling aside) pulled over his ears, and to be turned to a stipend of four nobles a year, and so warmed his old sides as I made him break the agreement, crave pardon, and promise to follow the cause with all diligence.”[7] Another prelate he denounced was the Bishop of Down, who had leased out “the very demesne and principal house of that bishopric to his own son for sixty years," reserving little or no rent.

[6] Strafford's Letter's, i. p. 156.

[7] Ditto, i. p.171.

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Wentworth "made him see his great fault." He has in mind two or three other bishops whom he desires to "trounce" for having alienated Church property.

The condition of the churches in Dublin was also extraordinary. One of them had been given over as a stable to a former Deputy, a second had been turned into a private dwelling-house for a nobleman, and the choir of a third used as a tennis court. The vaults (crypts) of Christ Church Cathedral were used as ale-houses and tobacco shops, where the people were "pouring either in or out their drink offerings and incense, while we above are serving the High God." [8]

[8] Strafford to Laud, vol. i. p. 173. Bramhall writes to Laud in a similar strain, Aug. 1633. The vaults were leased to "Popish recusants." "The table," he writes, "used for the administration of the Blessed Sacrament in the midst of the choir is made an ordinary seat for maids and apprentices." - Bramhall's Works, vol. i. p. lxxxix. Among the rules laid down by Bedell for the regulation of his diocese was this: Ut sacrarium consistorium non convertatur, aut sacra mensa notariis, aut scribis, sit pro pluteo. - Clogy's Memoirs, p. 63. Some of Bedell's episcopal injunctions would seem rather contradictory in these days. He separated the sexes, and made the women sit outside the chancel. He required the minister alone to repeat the Psalms and Te Deum, as most in accordance with the rubric. The Puritans, who were against the practice, complained in 1641 that the Church people "did tosse the Psalms like tennis-balls." They petitioned Parliament to restrain those persons "who doe interrupt the minister when he readeth the Psalms by taking every other verse out of his mouth with a hackering confused noise." Indeed, the Westminster divines abolished the Psalter altogether, and substituted for it a metrical version, by Francis Rous, M.P., afterwards Speaker of the Barebones Parliament, and subsequently one of Cromwell's peers. - Lewis Hewess (private) MSS., 1640-1. Burnet's Life of Bedell, pp. 113-114.

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In the sister Cathedral of St. Patrick's there were also abuses. Lord Cork's monument had been allowed to block up the east end of the Cathedral, "as if it were on purpose to gain the worship and reverence which the chapter and whole church are bound to give towards the east." [9] This being the case in Dublin, your Lordship,” he adds sententiously, “will judge what we may expect in the country." The Earl of Cork, in consequence of the agitation raised on the subject, was compelled to have the tomb removed to the south side of the chancel, where it remained a considerable eyesore till finally removed to its present position at the south-west end of the nave on the restoration of the Cathedral by Sir B. Lee Guinness in 1865. [10]

[9] Strafford's Letters, i. p. 173. It is remarkable that Ussher, writing to Laud on the subject, speaks of “the Cathedral Church of St. Patrick's in the suburbs of Dublin" showing that the Cathedral at that time was outside the city. Ussher’s  Works, xv. p. 572.

[10] Strafford treated the splendid monument with but little respect. He had it “trundled away in boxes, as if were marchpanes all banqueting stuffs going down to the christening of a young master in the country." - Strafford's Letters, i. p. 377.

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This was not the only bone of contention which Strafford had with the great Earl of Cork. He summoned him before the Council in Dublin Castle, and forced him to pay a fine of £15,000 for illegally seizing on certain advowsons and church properties in Cork and also to surrender the revenues of the Bishopric of Lismore, amounting to £1600 a year, which he had managed to get hold of. The Earl complains in his diary that Lord Strafford had compelled him to disgorge some £40,000, and we need not wonder if afterwards when the unfortunate Deputy was in extremis, the Earl of Cork was found to be one of his bitterest enemies. [11]

[11] Rusworth's Trial of Strafford, p. 23. The Earl of Cork apparently took a strange view of the family motto - "God's Providence is my inheritance." For a different view of the Earl see Cox's History, vol. ii., opening remarks "To the Reader"; and Mason's Cathedral of St. Patrick, pp; liii.-lvii., where some interesting information may be gathered regarding the Boyle family. It must be said that the Earl is found speaking well of Strafford to Laud, praising his “prudence, indefatigable industry, and impartial justice" (Strafford Letters, - ii. p. 245), but in his diary is found an entry expressing his great joy at the downfall of his enemy. The founder of the family, Richard Boyle, was born at Canterbury in 1566, and came to Ireland in 1588 with £27 in his pocket. In 1602 he was in a position to purchase the great estate of Sir Walter Raleigh in the south of Ireland. He made such improvement in his property as attracted the notice and commendation of Cromwell. It is an extraordinary fact that his iron-works in the south of Ireland realised for him the enormous sum of £100,000. What has become of these iron ores? - See Earl of Cork's True Remembrances, Budgett’s Memoirs, and Article in Dic. Nat. Biog.

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Another noble plunderer of the Church was the Lord Clanrickard of that day, who had disposed of a number of parsonages and vicarages for £4000.

We cannot feel surprised if men like Laud and Wentworth raised up a host of foes against themselves. The Puritan party would naturally be enraged against them for their efforts to strengthen the Church, both in England and Ireland; and the successful attempts made to recover from the hands of the spoilers the ecclesiastical property they had seized, exposed them to the unrelenting attacks of such powerful enemies as the Earl of Cork, and prelates like the above Bishops of Killala and Down. "This is so universal a disease" (Church plunder), he writes to Laud, that I shall incur a number of men's displeasures if he best rank among them." But still he does not flinch. "Have at the ravens," he cries; "if I spare a man of them, let no man ever spare me." [12]

About this time a question arose which had more than once previously disturbed the Church, touching the rival claims for precedence as between the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin. A Parliament "had been summoned to vote supplies, and it had to be decided which of the two prelates was to have the place of honour.     

[12] Strafford's Letters, pp. 299.

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The dispute had begun so far back as 1182, when the Pope (Lucius III) had granted a Bull of precedence to John Comyn, The Archbishop of Dublin. A series of rivalries followed to the time of the Reformation. In 1337, David O’Heraghty, Archbishop of Armagh, had been summoned to Parliament at St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin, but was obstructed by the Archbishop of Dublin, who would not permit him to have a cross borne before him as he had intended in asserting the right of precedence of the See of Armagh over that of Dublin. [13] When at the period of the reformation, the Archbishop of Armagh (Dowdal) took the Roman side, and the Archbishop of Dublin (Browne) that of the King, royal letters were issued transferring the Primacy to Dublin. [14]

[13] Gilbert's Chartularies of St. Mary's Abbey, i. xlii. A similar contest had raged in the Church of England between Canterbury and York. An attempt was made to settle the question at a Council at Windsor in 1072, but the dispute broke out afresh a century later at a synod held in Westminster, when York incontinently sat in the lap of Canterbury, and was only driven thence at the expense of blows and torn vestments. - See William of Newbury, De Rebus Ang. iii. I; R. De Hoveden, ii. 92; Cal. Papal Letters, A.D. 1304, p. 160, where Gregory IX. complains that the Archbishops of Canterbury and York “cannot come together to the royal councils on account of the quarrel of carrying the cross."

[14] On Aug 6, 1551, Archbishop Browne writes to the Earl of Warwick that the Archbishops of Armagh claim the Primacy and tythe of the whole realm by the Bishop of Rome's' Bulls, but he (Browne) claims the same by the King's Majesty and his most noble progenitors' grants and gifts. - Cal. State Papers.

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The state of things was reversed under Queen Mary, but the question remained in suspense.

In June 1634, immediately, before the assembling of Parliament, Lord Strafford had the two Archbishops, Ussher and Bulkeley, summoned before him, and the case was finally decided in favour of Armagh and has so continued ever since. The precedence of the Primate over the Lord Chancellor was determined at the same time. It may noticed that Archbishop Hampton, Ussher's predecessor, had previously maintained the rights of his See against Theophilus Jones, Lord Chancellor, and Archbishop of Dublin, and afterwards against Archbishop Bulkeley. All the proofs which he drew up are extant in his own handwriting among the MSS. of Trinity College, Dublin. [15] He thus concludes: "I am weary and a little ashamed at spending so much time on matters merely formal. The Archbishop of Dublin hath compelled me. He challengeth that which is not due to him. I defend the long continued right of my See. My defence is necessary; his challenge and encroachments are superfluous and more than needed.” [16]

[15] See Reeves' Ware, vol. i. p. 97 (MS. note). Hampton always signed himself simply "Armagh" - Ditto.

[16] Class E. 3. 13.

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In coming to conclusion at this time, when the question came on again, the Lord Deputy had the advantage of the learned argument drawn up by Archbishop Ussher, and which also is to be found among the MSS. of Trinity College. [17] Curious to say, the like dispute raged between the Roman Catholic occupants of the same Sees, and was only finally decided in 1728, after a successful vindication of the rights of Armagh by MacMahon, the Roman Catholic Primate. According to this authority, Archbishop Bulkeley was very keen on the question, and attended the Council accompanied by a crowd of lawyers (“Causidicorum turba stipatus,").

At the same time that Parliament assembled, the two Houses of Convocation were directed to pass under review the Articles and Canons of the Church of Ireland with it view to bringing the two Churches into closer conformity. On July 14th Parliament assembled, and an imposing service was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral in the presence of Lord Strafford, [18] when the sermon was preached by Ussher who took for his text the words, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until, Shiloh come. And to him shall the gathering of the people be."

[17] Class E. 3. 15. Elrington prints in extenso the Lord-Deputy's decision, pp. 151-3. See also Ware, i. pp.71-80.

[18] For an account of the grand procession to and from the Cathedral, see Strafford's Letters, i. p. 282. The Lord-Deputy, who loved pomp and order, found the Castle a perfect Augean stable when he arrived in Dublin, and was at much trouble to restore some kind of decent ceremonial in State functions. He was also a splendid entertainer, but would allow of no toasts beyond the usual loyal ones with a view to putting down the drinking habits which were then excessive in the city. - See Mozley's Essays i. pp. 24-5.

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Archbishop Ussher was President and Lesley, Dean of Down, was chosen Prolocutor of the Lower House. It was the settled purpose of the Lord-Deputy, backed up by Laud to bring the Church of Ireland into as complete conformity as possible with that of England; but there is reason to believe that the project was far from being favourably entertained by Ussher, who clung to the independence of his Church as a distinctly separate and national organisation. On the subject of the Irish Articles, of his own making chiefly, he gave way unwillingly, and with an effort to make the two sets of equal obligation. With regard to the Canons he was more courageous, and succeeded in having separate Irish Canons carried, largely modelled however, on those of the Church of England, and in some respect superior to them. Ussher had to deal with a very powerful will in the person of Strafford, who in this as in other respects illustrated his own policy of “thorough.”  [19]

[19] This word “thorough” has been strangely misunderstood as if it implied the principle of absolutism, whereas it only meant straightforwardness and resolute prosecution of an Irish policy as opposed to the fatal tendency to temporise and vacillate. The opposite was understood to be the policy of “Lady Mora." By the latter the Lord Chancellor Weston was meant. - See Strafford's Letters i. pp. 379-80; and Trail1's Strafford, pp. 99 (note) and 200-1.

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It is more than probable that time has vindicated this policy of the great Deputy, as no doubt much of the strength of the Irish Church in after times was derived from her close alliance with that of England, an alliance, however, which did not save her eventually from disestablishment.

The resistance developed itself in the Lower House of Convocation; where the chairman of the Committee, Dr. Andrews, Dean of Limerick, entered on an independent course criticising the English Canons, allowing some and questioning others. Strafford, who at the time was engaged in the House of Lords, was under the impression that all things were going fairly for him in the Convocation; great was his astonishment therefore when he found that they were actually going over the English Articles one by one, putting an, A here for "agreed," and a “D" there for deliberandum. He sent at once for Andrews and his annotated copy of the Canons, and rated him soundly. He said it was not a Dean of Limerick who sat in the chair, but an Ananias, [20] and that it was not for a few petty clerks to make Articles of faith and laws for the Church without the privity of State and Bishops.

[20] A character in Ben Jonson's Alchymist. Ananias is represented as a hypocritical purist who holds a brief for the "Brethren” of those days.

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They were no better, he said, than a pack of Brownists. The Lord-Deputy, then taking a high hand, insisted that no question should be put touching the receiving or otherwise of the Articles of the Church of England, but that the question should be put directly for allowing and receiving the Articles of the Church of England, each member to give his vote in writing, saying "Yes," or " No," and without further discussion. [21] Indulging in a grim severity, he had the unfortunate Dean afterward transferred to the See of Ferns and Leighlin, "one of the meanest in the whole kingdom," without any commendam, giving him the poor satisfaction that he would die "as a person of some importance, having been a bishop."

[21] See Straffords Letter to Laud vol. i. pp. 342-5. The meeting of the Lower House to consider Strafford's demands was evidently a stormy one. "There were some hot spirits, sons of thunder, amongst them, who moved that they should petition me for a free Synod, but in fine they could not agree amongst themselves who should put the bell about the cat's neck;" - Ditto.

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It is manifest that Archbishop Ussher was not happy over the business, and entered on it with reluctance. [22] The enacting Canon he was commissioned to draw up did not satisfy Strafford, who forthwith prepared one of his own, assuring the Primate that he knew the minds of the members better, and that they would pass the Canon as he had penned it. [23]

The Lord-Deputy, writing to Laud, informs him of the terms in which he addressed the Prolocutor, insisting on his view being carried out, the Upper House being now quite complacent. [24]

[22] The Editor of the Rawdon Papers falls into an extraordinary error when he says that Ussher “lent his powerful assistance” to passing of the Articles and Canons. - See R.P., p. 24 (note).

[23] Collier is in error when he says that Ussher drew up this Canon. - See his Eccl. Hist., ii. p. 868; see also Elrington's Life of Ussher, p. 172, (note).

[24] Of the twenty-two prelates who took part in this Convocation, only two, Ussher and Martin, Bishop of Meath, were educated in Trinity College, Dublin; the rest were English or Scotch. - Ball's Reformed Church of Ireland, p. 129 (note). Bramhall, says, if there were any of the Bishops who spoke in favour of the Irish Articles, they were very few and did it faintly.” Works, vol. v. p, 81. The following Bishops were all Englishmen: Bulkeley (Dublin), Bedell (Kilmore), Buckworth (Dromore), Downham (Derry), Boyle (educated at Oxford), Gough (Limerick); Steere (Ardfert), Pilsworth (Kildare), Wheeler (Ossory), Ram (Ferns and Leighlin), King (Elphin), Dawson (Clonfert and Kilmacduagh). The following were Scotch: Spotswood (Clogher), Echlin (Down and Connor), Lesley (Raphoe), Hamilton (Cashel), Heygate (Kilfenora), Adair (Killala and Achonry). The Bishop of Killaloe, Lewis Jonas, was a Welshman. - See Cotton's Fasti.

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"I send you here enclosed the form of a Canon to be passed by the votes of this Lower House of Convocation, which I require you to put to the question, for their consent without admitting any debates or other discourse; for I hold it not fit, nor will suffer that the Articles of the Church of England be disputed. Therefore I expect you to take only the voices consenting or dissenting, and to give me a particular account how each man gives his vote. The time admits of no delay, so I further require you to perform the contents of this letter forthwith, and so I rest your good friend, Wentworth." [25]

The result was as the Lord-Deputy anticipated, there being only one non-content - "a Calvinist," says Collier, "who had looked deeper than the rest into the matter." Thus did an English lay churchman of resolute spirit play the chief part in giving a blow to Irish Calvinism, and compel the Church of Ireland to set aside her own Articles of Religion in favour of those of the Church of England. [26]

[25] Laud’s Works, vii. p. 98.

[26] The change may be seen by comparing the language of almost mathematical precision of the Irish Articles (12 and 14) regarding the definite number of the elect with the cautious and moderate tone of the 17th of the English Articles.

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The enacting Canon declared "we do receive and approve the Book of Articles of Religion agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops, and the whole clergy in the Convocation holden in London in the year of our Lord, 1562,” &c. [27]

Notwithstanding this ratification of the English Articles in Ireland, Archbishop Ussher continued to require assent and consent to the old Irish Articles as well from all candidates for holy orders, and some of the other Bishops did likewise. [28] The double assent and consent only ceased altogether at the restoration of the monarchy. [29]

[27] Bramhall, who had been consecrated a short time previously (May 26th, 1634) in the Castle Chapel, Dublin, by Ussher and the Bishops of Meath, Down, and Cork, says he was the intermediary between Strafford and the Convocation throughout this business: “I was the only man employed from him to the Convocation and from the Convocation to him." - Works; vol. v. p.83. No doubt the Bishop of Derry was, next to the deputy, the most determined party in seeing the changes carried out.

[28] Ussher represents the state of the case thus in a letter to Dr. Ward, Sept. 15th, 1635: "The Articles of Religion agreed upon in our former Synod, A.D. MDCXV., we let stand as they did before. But for the manifestation of our agreement with the Church of England we have received and approved your Articles also." - Works, xvi. p. 9. This seems a halting way of putting it. Bramhall is much more decisive. He says: "If any Bishop had been known to have required any man to subscribe to the Irish Articles after the English were received and authorised under the great seal of Ireland, he would have been called to account for it." - Works, v. p. 81. Bramall says on the authority of Bernard, that Bedell examined a candidate for orders, Thomas Price, afterwards Archbishop of Cashel, in the Irish Articles subsequent to 1634; but this must be a mistake, as Price was in priest's orders, and sat as Archdeacon of Kildare in the Convention of that year. - See Bramhall as above and notes p and q.

[29] They were then practically abolished, "as if they had never existed." - Smith's Life, p. 73.

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Bishop Jeremy Taylor, preaching in 1663 at the funeral of Archbishop Bramhall, represented the gain to be derived by both Churches from the acceptance of a common code of Articles, that thereby they became “populus unius labii, of one heart and one lip, and removed the shibboleth that made the Church lisp too indecently, or rather in some degree speak the speech of Ashdod, and not the language of Caanan.”

The question of the Articles having been thus decided, Bramhall moved that the English Canons of 1604 should henceforth be accepted as the Canons of the Church of Ireland. Ussher again resisted, and with greater success. The matter ended by a compromise, Irish Canons to the number of 100 being drawn up, founded more or less on the English ones, but differing from them occasionally in some important respects. Writing to Laud, the Lord-Deputy acknowledged that Ussher was hugely against the business, which was merely a point of honour . . . lest Ireland might become subject to the Church of England as the province of York is to that of Canterbury; needs forsooth we must be a Church of ourselves, which is utterly lost, unless the Canons here differ, albeit not in substance, yet in some form from yours in England; and this crotchet put the good man into such an agony as you cannot believe so learned a man should be troubled withal." [30]

[30] Strafford's Letters, i. p, 381.

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One cannot but sympathise with the Irish Primate in his efforts to preserve what he thought to be some shreds of independence for his Church, and his chagrin when he found that those efforts were in vain. At the same time that Church could scarcely be regarded as very independent which was ruled, as was the case at this time with the Church of Ireland, almost entirely by bishops of English or Scottish extraction.

Both Bishop Mant and Dr. Elrington are at some trouble to compare the respective sets of Articles, and wherein they agree or differ. The twelfth Irish Article, which is believed to have embodied Ussher's instructions, requires the heads of the Catechism to be divided into as many parts as there are Sundays in the year, and so explained in the parish churches. [31]

[31] This was probably done at the suggestion of Bedell, who, when yet a Lecturer in Christ Church Cathedral, used to break up the Catechism into fifty-two parts, on which he preached every week. Before he did this Ussher was in the habit of using a private Catechism of his own for the purpose. - See Clogy's  Memoirs of Bedell, p. 31-2.

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Canon 19 received an addition to the effect that every parish clergyman in the afternoon before the celebration of the Holy Communion, should give notice by the tolling of the church bell or otherwise, "to the intent that if any have any scruple of conscience, or desire the special ministry of reconciliation, he may afford it to those who need it; and those extremely dull or much troubled in mind are exhorted to resort unto God's ministers to receive from them as well advice and counsel for the quickening of dead hearts. . . as the benefit of absolution.”

This part of the Canon gave great umbrage to the Puritan party which the indiscreet zeal of a wild young English curate, named Croxton, sent over to Ireland by Archbishop Laud, further intensified. The English Primate did not himself view the new Canons with much favour. He wrote: “I cannot but think the English Canons entire, with some few amendments, would have done better." [32]

On the subject of the desirableness of conducting public worship in the Irish tongue, where the English language was not understood, Ussher had now seen reason for changing his mind, and he accordingly seconded Bishop Bedell, in proposing and carrying the eighth and eighty-sixth Canons, both of which gave facilities for the purpose.

[32] Laud to Ussher. - Ussher's Works, xvi. p.7.

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On the other hand, Bishop Bramhall opposed, founding his objection chiefly on the statute of the 28th of Henry VIII., passed in 1537. [33]

[33] Anderson's Historical Sketches, p. 61. This absurd and mischievous statute ran as follows: “If any spiritual promotion within this land at any time become void, such as have title to nominate shall nominate to the same such a person as shall speak English, and none other, unless there can be no person as can speak English will accept it; and if the patron cannot within three months get any such person that can speak English he shall cause four proclamations to be openly made at four several market days in the next market town adjoining the said spiritual promotion, that if any fit person that can speak English will come and take the same he shall have it; and if none come within five weeks after the first Proclamation, then the patron may present any able honest man, albeit he cannot speak English. Severe penalties were to be inflicted in cases where the statute might be violated.