At this fearful period of calamity and reverse, when few clergy or prelates of the English and Irish church escaped the license of plun der, and the rapacity of unhallowed power; and Bramhal, like most of his brethren, was narrowly struggling on the verge of utter destitution, he was so fortunate as to receive a debt of £700, from some person to whom he had lent the sum in better times. As he was circumstanced, this was, indeed, a great and signal mercy, which he thankfully received, and gratefully disposed of, not only for his own relief, but that of other sufferers of his forlorn and persecuted church, and faithful loyalists, "to whom even of his penury he distributed so liberally, that the blessing of such as were ready to perish fell upon him."*

But Bramhal was reserved for better times; and as he had been tried and found faithful in the season of a fiery trial, so he was to be rewarded by the station for which he had been thus severely approved.

"At this period," writes bishop Mant, "the church of Ireland had preserved only eight of her former bishops; Bramhal of Derry; John Lesly of Raphoe; Henry Lesly of Down and Cavan; Maxwell of Kilmore; Baily of Clonfert; Williams of Ossory; Jones of Clogher; and Fulwar of Ardfert. Of these, the bishop of Derry, in particular, was well-known, and highly esteemed for his previous ecclesiastical services, so that the general sense of the church and of the kingdom concurred with the judgment of the government, which made an early selection of him for the archbishoprick of Armagh, and primacy and metropolitan dignity of all Ireland, to which he was nominated in August 1660, and formally appointed on the 18th of January, 1661."† The appointment of so many new bishops as such a state of things demanded was for a time the rallying point of party and sectarian excitement: the desolate condition of the Irish church had raised the strong hopes of its enemies of every persuasion, that it could hardly be restored: and above all, at the present moment the expectation was, that the sees would not be filled. There was some difficulty on the part of government, arising from the want of the great seal, for the execution of the patents; but the marquess of Ormonde saw the strong expediency of putting an end to party speculation and to the propagation of the adverse feeling, by expediting the nomination which he advised to have made out under the king's signet. On the opposite side, addresses were sent up from numerous protestants, chiefly the leaven of the Cromwellian soldiers, to petition against bishops, and that their spiritual interests might remain "under the charge of the godly ministers of the gospel, who had so long laboured among them." The strength of this party was, however, not of a substantial or permanent character, as it lay almost entirely in the officers of the army, who were in fact only kept together in a state of organization by the want of money to pay their arrears. By these, or rather by their principal commanders, Sir T. Stanley, &c., the petitions were sent round for signatures, which were obtained with the ordinary facility of that spurious expression of popular sentiment. The officers had nevertheless been generally so free in their language, that there were few of

• Mant from Vesey's life of Bramhal.

Hist. of the Church of Ireland

them altogether beyond the reach of being called to account for seditious and disloyal expressions: of this circumstance Sir Charles Coote took advantage for the purpose of intimidating the most violent of them, and it is stated that they were thus led to desist.*

Yet the intrigues thus defeated, would, at this time, have been of slight comparative moment, had there not been persons of high rank and weight secretly concerned in impeding the re-edification of the Irish church. Such persons could not without danger commit themselves to proceedings which might, without wrong, be interpreted into disaffection to the crown at a moment when such a charge would be most unsafe. They felt themselves therefore, compelled, silently to allow the appointment of the bishops; but it was another thing and subject to no dangerous construction, to interfere with their temporalities, and to resist in every way the restoration of church possessions. Under the pretence of urging other interests, they endeavoured to obtain the insertion in the king's declaration for the settlement of Ireland, of a clause to withhold all improvements of ecclesiastical rents made during the government of the earl of Strafford-improvements mainly attributable to the wisdom and energy of Bramhal. They were now attacked on the pretence that they had been made at the council table, which had no authority for such acts.

To counteract this intrigue, Bramhal, now raised to the head of the Irish church, convened the other eight bishops in Dublin, in November, 1660, when they agreed upon an address, in which they represented to king Charles, "that it never was the intention of his grandfather, that one single tenant, who had no need, and was of no use to the church, should enjoy a greater yearly revenue out of his royal bounty than the see itself, and the succession of pastors; yet this was the case till the time of the earl of Strafford, through whose sides the church was now attacked, and in danger of suffering. That they were ready to demonstrate, that the council table in Ireland had been ever esteemed and used as the proper judicature for such causes, throughout the last two reigns, and so upwards throughout all ages since the conquest. Nor could it possibly be otherwise; the revenues of Irish bishops, depending much on the rules of plantation—and rules of plantation being only cognoscible at the council board." Having further extended the application of this principle, the petition went on to state the consequences, which they showed to be the entire beggary of the sees; and craved that nothing should be done to the prejudice of the church, until at least they might be heard in its defence. This petition was presented by the marquess of Ormonde, and received, through him, a favourable answer from the king, "that he would, by all the ways and means in his power, preserve their rights and those of the church of Ireland, so far as by law and justice he might, &c., &c." With the king's letter the marquess wrote to the primate, assuring him of his own zealous co-operation. The good offices of the marquess were indeed prompt and effectual, and, through his zealous exertion, the king soon restored the temporalities of the Irish church

Carte, ii. 209.

to the full extent of their possessions in 1641. He also issued his royal mandate to the primate for the consecration of the new bishops nominated to the vacant sees. Accordingly, two archbishops and ten suffragans were, on the 27th of January, 1661, consecrated in St Patrick's cathedral, by the primate, assisted by four other bishops; the consecration sermon being preached by Jeremy Taylor. And, not often in the history of churches has there occurred an occasion so suited to call forth the higher powers of that illustrious preacher, than on that occasion which witnessed the restoration of the sacred edifice of the church from the dust and ashes in which it had been cast down by cupidity and fanaticism; and the consecration to that sacred office of twelve men, who had, during these dark and dreadful years of trial and dismay, braved all the terrors and sufferings of persecution for her sake, and now stood up in their white robes, like those "which came out of great tribulation," to stand before their Master's throne and serve him in his temple. Bishop Mant, who gives a brief but full detail of the proceedings of this day, closes his account with the following observation, which we here extract:-"The consecration, at the same time, and by imposition of the same hands of twelve Christian bishops, two of the number being of metropolitan eminence, to their apostolical superintendence of the church of Christ, is an event proba bly without a parallel in the church." The event and its consequence, with reference to the illustrious primate engaged in the consecration, is thus noticed by bishop Taylor, in his sermon preached at the funeral of archbishop Bramhal, in the year 1663:—

"There are great things spoken of his predecessor St Patrick, that he founded 700 churches and religious convents, that he ordained 5000 priests, and with his own hands consecrated 350 bishops. How true the story is I know not, but we were all witnesses that the late primate whose memory we celebrate, did by an extraordinary contingency of Providence, in one day consecrate two archbishops and ten bishops; and did benefit to almost all the churches of Ireland; and was greatly instrumental in the re-endowments of the whole clergy; and in the greatest abilities and incomparable industry was inferior to none of his antecessors."

We cannot, consistently with the popular design of this work, here enter, in all the detail to which we might otherwise be inclined, upon a view of the position in which our church now stood, after many trying vicissitudes again settled on a strong basis, against a sea of troubles which continued and continues to beat against her sacred ramparts. She was yet surrounded on every side by jealousy, enmity, and cupidity; and her many and various enemies, though beaten down by the result of the long struggle which had steeped the land in woe and murder for so many years, still retained their hate, and, though they did not endanger her existence, exposed her to many trials, and much abridged her usefulness. On this general state of things we shall at a further period venture some reflections, which might here carry us further than is our desire from the direct purpose of this memoir.

Among the difficulties to which the bishops were now exposed, was that arising from the number of their clergy who had been admitted from

the presbyterian church, and who, therefore, had not received ordination according to the canons of the church, as it now stood. To these men in general, there was personally no objection; but it was justly decided by Bramhal and the other bishops, that the canons of the church must be adhered to. A departure from order is unquestionably inconsistent with that inviolability on which the existence of institutions is (to all human contemplation,) dependent. The difficulty was indeed considerable: the necessity of a strict adherence to the laws of an institution is not always sensible to the popular eye; it is easier to see the evil or the hardship when a good preacher and a worthy minister of the gospel stands questioned on a seeming point of form, than to comprehend the vital necessity of preserving inviolate the order and form of a sacred institution. The bishops were, perhaps, becomingly indifferent as to the foam and "salt surf weeds" of popular opinion: but they felt as men the hardship to the man, and as prelates the loss to the church. The course to be pursued was nice and difficult, for it was a peremptory necessity in such cases, that the minister should receive episcopal ordination: such, by a clause in the act of uniformity was the law; nor could the bishop depart from it for any consideration of expediency, without an abandonment of the sacred obligations of his office. Under these circumstances, the conduct of Bramhal displayed the prudence, firmness, and kindness of his nature; "when the benefices were called at the visitation, several appeared and exhibited only such titles as they had received from the late power. He told them they were no legal titles; but in regard he heard well of them, he was willing to make such to them by institution and induction, which they humbly acknowledged, and entreated his lordship to do. But desiring to see their letters of orders, some had no other but their certificates of ordination by some presbyterian classes, which, he told them did not qualify them for any preferment in the church. Whereupon the question immediately arose are we not ministers of the gospel?" To this Bramhal replied that such was not the question, and explained the essential distinction between an objection on the ground of a positive disqualification for the ministry, and one on that of not being qualified to be functionaries of the church. He pointed out the important fact that the defect of their orders was such as to vitiate the title of their temporal rights, and that they could not legally sue for their tithes. Without disputing their sacred character or their spiritual qualification, he insisted on the necessity of guarding against schism and of the preservation of order. To his arguments all the more reasonable gave their assent, and complied with the law by receiving ordination according to the form prescribed by the canons of the church, and contained in the Book of Common Prayer. In the letters of orders given on this occasion, there was introduced the following explanatory form. "Non annihilantes priores ordines, (si quos habuit,) nec validitatem aut invaliditatem eorum determinantes, multo minus omnes ordines sacros ecclesiarum forensicarum condemnantes, quos proprio judici relinquimus: sed solummodo supplentes quicquid prius defuit per canones ecclesiæ Anglicana requisitum; et providentes paci ecclesiæ, ut schismatis tollatur occasio, et conscientiis fidelium satisfiat, nec ullo modo dubitent de ejus ordinatione, aut actus

suos presbyteriales tanquam invalidos asseverentur: in cujus rei testimonium," &c.

In 1661, a parliament was called in Dublin, and Bramhal was appointed speaker of the house of lords; the lord chancellor having been supposed to be disqualified for that office, as being at the time one of the lords-justices of the kingdom. The appointment, with the reasons and attendant circumstances, are thus announced to the duke of Ormonde, by lord Orrery: "His majesty having empowered the lords-justices to appoint a fit person to be speaker of the house of lords, my lord Chancellor has proposed to us my lord Santry, against whom we had several material objections, besides his disability of body; and he being at best a cold friend to the declaration: which made me propose my lord primate, well known in [versed in] the orders and proceedings of that house, (having sat in two parliaments,) a constant and eminent sufferer for his late and now [present] majesty: and that in such a choice, we might let the dissenters and fanatics see what we intend as a church government. Besides, it was but requisite, that church which had so long suffered, should now, (in the chief of it,) receive all the honours we could confer on it. My lord chancellor, [Sir M. Eustace,] for some days dissented therein, but at last concurred; and this day my lord primate sat in that character."

In this parliament the primate was both alert and efficient in promoting the cause of the church and the interests of the clergy, and his efforts were expressly recognised by a solemn vote in the convocation. The parliament, indeed, appears to have been favourably inclined, as their first act was a declaration, requiring conformity to the church and liturgy as established by law. They are said to have proceeded thus early in this matter, as there was an apprehension of opposition from the dissenters so soon as their estates should be secured.† Other acts indicative of the same spirit may be here omitted, having been for the most part already noticed

During the continuance of this parliament, a false alarm was excited by a letter, dated November 18th, and purporting to be written by a priest, named James Derinot, to another, named James Phelan. This was sent to the lords-justices, and contains complaints of the obstinacy of their enemies, in not returning to the obedience of the holy see, holding out prospects of freedom, and recommending that care should be taken to preserve their arms for the time of using them which was near, &c. This letter was the means of exciting alarm, and causing rigorous proceedings to be proposed; but the primate at once suspected and early pronounced it to be an imposture. To expose the truth he advised to have the two priests sent for: this was done, and many circumstances appear to have confirmed the primate's suspicion, although it was not found an easy matter to quiet the zeal of the government functionaries or the strong fears of the protestants; and the priests were treated with undeserved suspicion and protracted inquiry before the affair was set at rest.

On the 31st May, 1661, by an order of the house of commons, the master of the wards waited upon the primate to request, that he would

* Carte's Life of Ormonde, and Orrery's State Letters. + Life of Ormonde.