Surmises as to his successor. Motives to the new appoint ment. offered by him to the king's measures, it was to be expected that a man of different principles would be selected to succeed him in the primacy; and accordingly that a successor would be sent from England, as on the vacancy of the archbishoprick of Dublin, eight years before; or that Archbishop Browne, who had so diligently and efficiently filled that vacancy, would be advanced to the superior dignity of Primate of all Ireland; or that the station would be conferred on some other of the actual prelates, such as Staples, bishop of Meath, or Miagh of Kildare, or Sanders of Leighlin, or Tirrey of Cork and Cloyne, who are on record as favourers and promoters of the Reformation, and of whom Bishop Staples, in particular, seems to have been distinguished for his zeal and activity in the promotion of true religion, and to have enjoyed the king's good opinion and favour, being employed in several commissions issued at different times by the crown for ecclesiastical purposes. But whether the principles of the future primate had not yet been disclosed, which indeed is hardly probable; or that the animating force, which actuated the king in the exercise of his ecclesiastical patronage, had been removed by the fall of Cromwell; or that the king himself, having succeeded in accomplishing his projects for his own aggrandizement, cared not for the spiritual improvement of the Church, and abandoned the cause of the Reformation, of which he had given indications, not in England only, by his conduct about "The Six Articles," but in Ireland by bestowing a special mark of favour and confidence on Archbishop Cromer, in his appointment, together with the Lord of Louth, as arbitrator of such controversies as might arise in Ulster, on certain subjects specified in the edict"; a very different nomination to the primacy now took place. Another person had been recommended for the station in 1541, the son of a nobleman, the Lord Delvin, who had been Lord Deputy fourteen years before, possibly in anticipation of an earlier vacancy: for in an answer of the king to the letters of the Lord Deputy and council, dated the 21st of February, in that year, we find, "Where you desire to have a son of the late Baron of Delvins preferred to the archbishoprick of Armachan; we do consider the said bishoprick to be there a great and principal dignity, and therefore before we shall determine our pleasure in it, we would be glad to have the party sent hither, that we might both see him, and further know, how he is qualified for such an office: whereupon we shall more certainly signify our pleasure unto you in that behalf." 爨 In the following year, however, 1542, things were changed. For in another letter from the king we read, "We have granted, at your request, to Parson Doudall, both a pension of 207. sterling, till he shall be promoted by us to a benefice exceeding that sum, or enjoy the bishoprick of Armacon, which we have also granted unto him, when it shall first and next be vacant"." This grant had been made on Dowdall's voluntary surrender of the Crouched Friary of Ardee, of which he was the prior". Accordingly, George Dowdall, a native of the county of Louth, and official to his predecessor Archbishop Cromer, 29 WARE'S Annals, Hen. VIII., p. 106. 30 State Papers, vol. iii. part iii. p. 299. 32 ARCHDALL, p. 447. 31 Ib., p. 429. N 1543; succeeded to the primacy, by the interest of the His nomination, Lord Deputy, Sir Anthony St. Leger", who had also procured for him the guardianship of the spiritualties of the archbishoprick during the vacancy, in which interval a synod had been held of the clergy of the diocese; and by the king's mandate", bearing date the 28th of November, 1543, he was in the early part of the following December consecrated by Edward Staples, bishop of Meath, and other assistant bishops: the mandate for his confirmation and consecration having been directed to Edward, bishop of Meath; Cornelius bishop of Raphoe; Eugenius, bishop of Down and Connor; Edmund bishop of Kilmore; Hugh, bishop of Clogher; Florence, bishop of Clonmacnois; Richard, bishop of Ardagh; and Thady, suffragan bishop to the Archbishop of Dublin. And consecration. Question concerning one of consecrators. Who this "Thady, suffragan bishop to the ArchAbp. Dowdall's bishop of Dublin," may have been, is by no means certain. The other seven, named in the mandate, were suffragans to the Archbishop of Armagh, in the sense of diocesan bishops, under that metropolitan. But in the province of Dublin there was, at that time, no bishop of the name of Thady. It is true, that on the death of Wellesley, bishop of Kildare, in 1540, a Franciscan friar was, by the Pope's provision, declared bishop on the 16th of July, but died in a few days. "Whereupon," as Sir James Ware states", on the 15th of November following, Thady Reynolds, doctor of the civil and canon law, was by the like provision nominated. But the king, (being now declared supreme head of the Church of Ireland,) rejected this election, and advanced William Miagh to the bishoprick, and afterwards called him into his 23 WARE'S Bishops, p. 91. 66 34 Rolls, 36 Hen. VIII. 35 WARE'S Bishops, p. 390. privy council of Ireland." In endeavouring to ascertain who was the individual mentioned in the king's mandate, I have been struck by this identity of name and it has occurred to me, as a possible, but hardly as a probable, case, that in drawing up the instrument a confusion may have arisen between the names of him who had been nominated to the see, and of him who actually occupied it. in Ireland. It appears, however, more probable, that Thady Suffragan bishops was suffragan bishop to the Archbishop of Dublin, in the sense of an assistant. The English statute of 26 Henry VIII. chap. 14, had "enacted that every archbishop and bishop of this realm, (of England,) and elsewhere within the king's dominions, being disposed to have any suffragan, shall name two persons to the king, who shall choose one." The preamble speaks of such suffragans, as "having been accustomed to be had within this realm ;" and Dr. Bullingbroke, in his Ecclesiastical Law of Ireland, vol. i. p. 189, remarks upon this, that "These were the same with the ancient chorepiscopi, or bishops of the country; so called by way of distinction from the proper bishops of the city or see. And they were very common," he adds, "in England; taking their titles from places in partibus infidelium,' or from places in which, though there were fixed sees, and they had been ordained to them, they could not remain with safety; and upon this account we find several Irish bishops, from time to time, received and acting as suffragans, under English bishops." under the Arch bishop of Dub lin; After this manner, it appears from a letter of Example of one Archbishop Browne, quoted above, page 153, that, to assist him in preaching to the Irish natives, he had "provided a suffragan, named Dr. Nangle, bishop of And under the Clonfert," who had been "expulsed" from his own diocese by a lawless governor of those parts, countenanced by the then Lord Deputy, Lord Gray. Of this Bishop Nangle, the archbishop afterwards repeatedly speaks as "his suffragan." It should seem, therefore, by no means improbable that he may have subsequently had the assistance of another "suffragan," besides or instead of Nangle, and that this Thady may have been the man; and this probability is increased by evidence furnished by Sir James Ware's report, that a Bishop of Ardagh, who succeeded to his see in 1553, had been "before a suffragan to Dowdall, archbishop of Armagh"." This question has been examined somewhat more than on its own account it might deserve, if it did not appear to throw some light upon the administration of ecclesiastical offices at this period by means of suffragan bishops. As to the nomination of this individual, in the mandate for the consecration of the new archbishop, together with seven bishops of the province of Armagh, and the non-insertion of the name of the Archbishop of Dublin, whilst that of his suffragan was inserted, the case under both aspects is remarkable, but any inquiry in search of explanation could be answered only by conjecture. To revert then to the Archbishop of Armagh; his consecration was solemnized in obedience to the mandate, by the Bishop of Meath, as the consecrating bishop, with the assistance of some of the other prelates named in the commission. Archbishop Archbishop Dow- Dowdall is related to have been a man of gravity and learning, and a very assiduous preacher, but withal a most zealous advocate for popery: notwithstanding which, he was contented to accept his 26 WARE'S Bishops, p. 255. dall's character. |