Ireland under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum, Vol. 3 (of 3), 1660-1690

In the year 1756 Archbishop Stone made a speech in the Irish House of Lords which the reporter said was much the best he had ever heard there. Stone showed that the Reformation never had a fair chance in Ireland. In England the people had been ripe for change, but in the smaller island it was far otherwise: ‘The establishment at first of the Protestant religion was an act of power quite opposite to the inclination of the natives, who were, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, generally in rebellion, with the Spanish Court to inflame them more on this account.’ During the reigns of the first two Stuarts this feeling continued unabated, and after the massacre of 1641 all attempts to reclaim the natives were hopeless. Strafford had done something, and would have done more ‘had he not been entirely governed by a peevish, weak, narrow-spirited Archbishop Laud, who placed more importance in the colour of a rag or erecting a monument in the east or middle of a church than in the great essentials of religion.’ Ussher, the only man who might have united the Protestants, was laid aside, and the Scotch colony prevented the settlement of Ulster from serving the Church. Papists were encouraged by these dissensions, and would have driven the Reformation altogether out of Ireland but for the constant support of England. Stone was an Englishman and by no means a model Primate, but he had studied without prejudice the history of the country in the government of which he had so large a share.[284]

Bramhall, whom Cromwell called the Irish Canterbury, naturally became Primate at the Restoration, and the Laudian system was fully established. The difficulties surrounding the Church may be understood from the experiences of Jeremy Taylor. Poor and unbeneficed, in 1647 he had published the ‘Liberty of Prophesying,’ and had endeavoured to determine the true relation between Church and State. ‘The temporal power,’ he said, ‘ought not to restrain prophesyings, where the public peace and interest are not certainly concerned.’ He knew that ‘a union of persuasion is impossible to be attained.’ Taylor came to Ireland in 1658 with the Protector’s licence and protection, and worked quietly as a clergyman under Lord Conway’s patronage. At the Restoration he became Bishop of Down and Connor and administrator of Dromore, and little more than two years later he preached Bramhall’s funeral sermon. The Primate had been softened by age, perhaps his mind had been enlarged by foreign travel and by controversy with Hobbes, and it was against the Bishop of Down that the Presbyterians exerted their full force. The gentle Margetson, who succeeded to Armagh, was not one to make the rent worse. Taylor found a great difference between philosophising as a scholar and governing as a bishop. The ministers told him that they would not acknowledge his office, and that they believed the Presbyterian polity to be of divine right. After several attempts at conciliation he treated thirty-six parishes as vacant and filled them with incumbents from England. The Presbyterians turned their faces to Scotland, and their organisation grew without any reference to the Established Church of Ireland. Bishop Taylor died in 1667, much of his later time being occupied in the hopeless task of trying to convert the Roman Catholics by argument, and in answering the critics of his ‘Dissuasive from Popery.’ The diocese was not fortunate in the shepherds who succeeded him.[285]

Roger Boyle was Bishop of Down for only five years, and made no particular mark. Margetson checked his efforts to repress the Presbyterians. His translation to Clogher was promotion in point of money, and was also desirable because Lord Ranelagh would get something out of the first-fruits. He was followed by Thomas Hacket, whom Essex recommended as a fit person long known to him and to whom he had given a living in Hertfordshire. Hacket was English by birth, but educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and he had been Dean of Cork. According to his own account, he found both Papists and Presbyterians impossible to deal with, and he soon ceased to try; keeping out of his diocese as much as possible. The King ordered strict residence, but Clarendon found that Hacket had been six years absent. He had some good men under his nominal charge who gave a lamentable account, ‘many of the clergy being absent from their cures and leaving them to mean and ignorant curates, such as will serve cheapest, which gives a grievous advantage to the adversaries of our religion.’ One of these incumbents was Robert Maxwell, who drew 900l. a year from several benefices ‘but never resided upon any.’ The lame foot of justice halted until 1694, when a royal commission suspended Hacket for non-residence, and then deprived him for simony. He was one of the worst enemies that the Church of Ireland ever had.[286]

The twelve bishops consecrated together at the Restoration were all of British birth or parentage. Three had been educated at Oxford, three at Cambridge, the rest at Trinity College, Dublin, but some of the latter were Oxford doctors also. Robert Leslie, who was particularly obnoxious to the Presbyterians, had been at Aberdeen as well as Oxford and Dublin. Most of them were worthy men, many of them great benefactors to the Church in which they filled high places, but it does not appear that any spoke Irish. They could, therefore, have no missionary influence in the wilder districts. This was all in pursuance of the Laudian policy. Strafford trusted no Irishman nor anyone born in Ireland, and he thwarted the efforts of Bedell to reach the native Irish through their own language, leaving that work to the friars. Jeremy Taylor’s idea of civilising the Celts was to make them learn English. The Scotch in Ulster, whom Strafford tried to destroy and who instead destroyed him, were also estranged by the determination of the Irish Government and most of the bishops to acknowledge none but what the sceptic Petty called ‘legal protestants,’ and to treat Presbyterians and Anabaptists as ‘fanatics.’[287]

The dignitaries were much too numerous for the requirements of the Church, and they were pretty well paid. From a report made for Ormonde’s information in 1668 by Dean Lingard of Lismore, we know that Primate Margetson had over 3500l. a year, including his fees as Prerogative Judge and King’s Almoner. Archbishop Boyle of Dublin had 1200l. a year and the expectation of more: he was also Lord Chancellor. Dr. Mossom of Derry received 1800l. Of the others, twelve had incomes from 1600l. to 1000l., five between that and 600l. The poorest bishoprics were Clonfert and Kildare, being worth respectively 400l. and 200l. Christ Church, Dublin, worth 600l., was the best deanery. ‘The inferior clergy of Connaught,’ adds Lingard, ‘are very poor, the whole country being swallowed up by impropriations.’ Bedell, and later Robartes, fought against pluralities, and no doubt there were some scandalous cases, but there were a great many parishes in which no clergyman, and especially no married clergyman, could live decently on glebe and tithe. At the beginning of the seventeenth century this had gone very far. The abbeys had got hold of the tithes generally, and after the dissolution the Crown granted them to laymen. The greatest deficiency was in Connaught, where the vicar who did the work got commonly but 40s. a year and sometimes only 16s. At the beginning of the eighteenth century things were not much better. When engaged in obtaining the remission of first-fruits and tenths, Swift reported that hardly one parish in ten had a glebe and still fewer a house. The livings were so small that five or six had to be joined to make up 50l. a year. The clergy ‘for want of glebes were forced in their own or neighbouring parish to take farms to live on at rack-rent.’ So much went to collectors that the first-fruits and tenths were worth only 500l. a year net to the Crown, and Swift succeeded in getting them remitted. He was less successful with impropriations still in the Queen’s hands worth about 2000l. annually to her and a great impoverishment to the Irish Church, amounting to one-third or one-half of the real value of each benefice affected. Goldsmith’s good parson

was in Ireland, and Chaucer’s fuller portrait of such a man might find application there too.[288]

An Act of 1537 provided that English should be the general language and that all children should be brought up to speak it, spiritual promotion in particular being confined to those who could do so. If a person not so qualified was admitted to orders, he was to be sworn under penalties to learn English as soon as possible, and the bishop was subject to a fine of 3l. 6s. 8d. if he failed to administer the oath. The New Testament was, nevertheless, translated into Irish in 1602, and James I. ordered that it should be read in Irish-speaking places. The book soon became scarce, for the Roman Catholic clergy bought up as many copies as possible. The Irish types provided by Queen Elizabeth found their way to Douai, and did service against the Reformation. There was no attempt to translate the Old Testament from the original tongue, but after the publication of the Authorised English version, Bedell managed to get it done into Irish. Strafford, Bramhall, and Chappell all opposed him; nothing was printed, and the poor Irish scholar employed by the bishop was persecuted and denied his reward. When Bedell died, his friend Denis Sheridan preserved the manuscript. During the Civil War nothing could be done, but the sheets were preserved by Bishop Jones. It was not until long after the Restoration that the work was again taken in hand, the translation being then a ‘confused heap, pitifully defaced and broken.’ Andrew Sall, a converted Jesuit, was employed; Narcissus Marsh and Price of Cashel being active in the matter. The Chancellor-Archbishop Boyle was afraid of the Act of Henry VIII., and Dopping was affected by the same consideration. Robert Boyle, who wished to do something for the country whence he drew an income, furnished the funds, fresh types were cut, a second edition of the New Testament was published in 1681, and a first edition of the Old in 1685. The belated work was perhaps more useful in the Scotch highlands than in Ireland, for the time had long passed since the Reformation might have appealed to a Roman Catholic people in their own tongue.[289]

The Protestant sects of English origin gave little trouble after the Restoration, though the Castle plot in 1663 showed that some of the old leaven was still working. But the Presbyterians, who were in fact a colony from Scotland, had powerful support from that country, and active ministers could pass to and fro without difficulty and with little interference from Ormonde, who was not naturally intolerant. Most of his relations belonged to the Church of Rome. When Robartes succeeded him in 1669, some favour was shown to the Presbyterians, but the reign was too short to do much. Berkeley showed very marked indulgence to the Roman Catholics, and it was not his cue to persecute Nonconformists. Essex was inclined to toleration, but did not underrate the difficulties. When Ormonde returned to Dublin Castle in 1677 he found things very much changed. By the law of 1665 no minister not of episcopal ordination could administer the Sacrament without paying 100l. each time. It was, nevertheless, constantly done, thousands assembled to hear preachers who often came from Scotland, and Presbyterian Church government was quietly established. Ormonde thought the most dangerous party in Ireland to the King’s government was that of the Protestant Nonconformists, ‘taken simply by themselves without the consideration of foreign incitement or assistance.’ He knew that men came from Scotland to escape Lauderdale and his myrmidons, but it was impossible to prosecute them without doing the same with the Papists, and after many years tacit toleration that would make great trouble. If both parties were attacked the prisons would be full, the population driven from their homes and work, and the revenue destroyed. His advice was to let things alone without any pronouncement for toleration, since that would be ascribed to fear. Ulster, he said, was full of ‘the worst Protestants and Papists in the whole kingdom.’ The latter would very probably rebel if they saw a chance, and the great thing was not to give one. Speeches in the Long Parliament about the extirpation of Popery in Ireland were ‘some cause or at lease some pretence for the beginning of that rebellion in 1641, as the prospect of the division between the late King and the two Houses of Parliament was the encouragement. I have to spread the army very thin to keep Tories in awe and the English in heart.’ The main strength of Irish Presbyterianism was, and is, in Ulster, but when Ormonde was writing the above its organisation had been extended to several places in the other three provinces. There was some active persecution during the period of reaction after the Popish plot was exploded, but all Protestants, except the Quakers, joined in the great effort against James II. When the danger was over, full toleration was still denied to the Nonconformists.[290]

The Church of Rome retained her hold on the native population of Ireland. Though in constant danger, a number of priests stayed in the country during the Commonwealth period, and the Act of Abjuration only made things worse. Ormonde tried to divide the Roman Catholic clergy, but he failed to get the Remonstrance adopted. He thought he might even then have succeeded had he been left longer in the Government, but in this he was probably wrong. Peter Walsh’s party dwindled fast, and to modern eyes it appears that this was inevitable. The appointment of Berkeley, coinciding with the treaty of Dover, stopped all active repression for the time, and Essex, who tried to copy the dividing policy of Ormonde, had even less chance of success. Occasional fits of Protestant zeal in England might for a time banish some bishops and drive some friars and Jesuits into hiding, but the framework of the Church and the secular clergy were not much disturbed. Ambitious and restless priests had something to fear from the English Government, but nothing to expect. Promotion came from Rome; a safe asylum and sometimes good means of support were afforded by France and Spain.

Oliver Plunket, whose judicial murder has been dealt with above, was appointed Primate by Clement IX. in 1669. On his way he made some stay in London, where he was well received by Queen Catherine, and reached Dublin in March 1670. Robartes was Lord Lieutenant and, search having been made for the new Archbishop before he came, he thought it prudent to move at night only. When Berkeley arrived, all was changed. Plunket was received at Dublin Castle, though not quite openly, and he explained that he could not help going there often, since Lady Berkeley, the chief secretary, and others were of his own faith. He was on good terms with his rival Margetson. There were at that time 1000 secular priests in Ireland and from 600 to 800 regulars who came and went. When Essex became Lord Lieutenant he was inclined to tolerate the Roman Catholic clergy if they kept quiet, but the pressure of the English Parliament in 1673 obliged him to take steps which drove most of the Roman Catholic bishops from Ireland and many of the regulars. He tried to protect the remnant of the Remonstrants which Berkeley had been ordered to do, but did not. Plunket, not otherwise given to harsh judgments, was very bitter against Peter Walsh, and against anything that looked like Jansenism. He himself remained in Ireland under the name of Thomas Cox, and he was not seriously molested until the days of Oates’s plot. He held provincial assemblies, established schools, and in four years confirmed 48,655 persons, some of whom were sixty years old, and repressed vice to the utmost. Drunkenness he especially abhorred, and forbade the clergy to indulge in whisky; to give an example, he himself did not drink at meals. ‘Give me,’ he says, ‘an Irish priest without this vice, and he is assuredly a saint.’ It must be remembered that the clergy were extremely poor and that this devoted Primate had not more than 20l. in the world.[291]

Peter Talbot became Archbishop of Dublin nearly at the same time as Plunket was appointed to Armagh, and the two were soon in controversy about precedence. Talbot was a political priest much practised in intrigues and altogether different from the Primate. He was supported by the Duke of York, but not much liked by any party. Both Archbishops were imprisoned for supposed complicity in the ‘Popish plot,’ but no real evidence appeared against either. Talbot died in the Castle of stone, from which he had long suffered, and Plunket forced his way to him and administered the last rites. Probably the warders were not very unwilling. More important than Talbot was John O’Molony, ‘the most dangerous because the wisest man of their clergy,’ in Essex’ opinion. He was appointed to Killaloe in 1671, and showed his ability by bringing about a good understanding between Plunket and Talbot and between Talbot’s brother, the future Tyrconnel, and Ormonde’s brother-in-law, Colonel Fitzpatrick. He had good preferment in France, so that he could spend some money if required. Essex feared that if the divisions were healed he would be unable to get any information. O’Molony had influence at the French Court even before he became a bishop, and he conferred with Plunket when at Paris on his way to Ireland.[292]

O’Molony, though he evidently liked being in France, did not neglect his duties in Ireland. After three years’ uninterrupted residence, he escaped in 1681 just before the execution of Plunket, and gave a short account of the ecclesiastical state of Ireland. In Ulster the only bishop remaining at the moment was Patrick Tyrrell of Clogher, who wandered about as secretly as possible. In Leinster there were James O’Phelan, who managed to live among friends in his diocese of Ossory, and Mark Forstall of Kildare, who was a prisoner in Dublin Castle. In Munster, Brenan, Archbishop of Cashel, lived quietly with his relations, while Peter Creagh of Cork lurked in hiding near Killaloe; he was betrayed by a servant who mistook him for O’Molony. Wetenhall, the Protestant Bishop of Killaloe, had Creagh arrested and imprisoned at Limerick, but he was afterwards sent to Dublin and left at large under surveillance. James Duley, Bishop of Limerick, was taken before a magistrate, but allowed to go free on account of his age and infirmity. In Connaught, where the Protestant minority was small, De Burgo of Elphin and Keogh of Clonfert were able to live quietly, though not quite safely. The inferior clergy throughout Ireland were practically tolerated, not being considered as directly under foreign jurisdiction like the bishops. O’Molony was specially suspected on account of his known dealings with the French Government, and was supposed to be the contriver of the imaginary invasion which brought Oliver Plunket to the scaffold. He came to believe that ‘there is no Englishman, Catholic or other, of what quality or degree soever alive that will stick to sacrifice all Ireland for to save the least interest of his own in England.’[293]

James II. naturally wished to provide for the endowment of his own Church, and he proposed to create a fund by keeping vacant the archbishopric of Cashel and three other sees. Bishop O’Molony’s advice was to take all benefices, giving a pension to the Protestant incumbents who could ‘pretend’ to nothing more than a lease for life. The Acts of Attainder and of Absentees would have gone a long way towards carrying this out without troubling about life interests. When the Jacobite cause was finally lost, the Irish penal code came into being. Being in a minority, the victors never felt quite safe, and having suffered much were not in a forgiving mood. As to the results of this oppression Berkeley asked, ‘Whether it be not a vain attempt to project the flourishing of our Protestant gentry exclusive of the bulk of the natives?’ In another place he says, ‘The house of an Irish peasant is the cave of poverty; within you see a pot and a little straw; without, a heap of children tumbling on the dunghill.’ Swift at various periods asserted that the Roman Catholics of Ireland were in point of power no more considerable than women and children; and in 1731, when the persecution had done its work, he added that the estates of Papists were very few, ‘crumbling into small parcels, and daily diminishing.’ In 1745, the year of Swift’s death, Berkeley besought the Roman Catholics of his diocese of Cloyne not to rise in favour of the Pretender, lest they should lose the little that was left to them. Four years later he addressed the priests, dwelling upon their common Christianity and urging them, as the only people who had the necessary influence, to use it for the advancement of industry among their people. Respecting his character more than his office, the priests, or at least many of them, took his advice in good part, but Petty had long before pointed out that the idleness of the Irish was less due to original sin than to the absence of inducement to work.[294]

In Locke’s opinion ‘that Church can have no right to be tolerated by the magistrate, which is constituted upon such a bottom, that all those who enter into it do thereby ipso facto, deliver themselves up to the protection and service of another prince. For by this means the magistrate would give way to the settling of a foreign jurisdiction in his own country, and suffer his own people to be listed, as it were, for soldiers against his own government.’ Notwithstanding this consideration, which used to weigh heavily with statesmen, full legal toleration has long been achieved. Intolerance between man and man will, it is to be hoped, become less bitter and less baleful with time. Clerical influence in civil affairs will continue to diminish, but will still be strong for long years to come. In the meantime we have the three Irish Churches keeping the peace between themselves, but distinctly divided. The Protestant Episcopalians look back to St. Patrick and trace their succession to the early days of Christianity, but in modern Ireland they represent mainly the immigrants from England since the Tudor re-conquest. The Presbyterians are the Scotch colony in Ulster with some outposts in the other provinces. The bulk of the native population adheres to Rome.[295]