WILLIAM LYON, BISHOP OF CORK, CLOYNE, AND ROSS.
It is very generally believed that Dr. William Lyon (not Lyons, as he is sometimes called) was originally in the navy; that having distinguished himself in several actions against the Spaniards, he was promised by Queen Elizabeth the first crown appointment that should be vacant; and that this happening to be the see of Cork, he was appointed to it. This is mentioned in other works as well as in Mr. Crofton Croker's very agreeable Researches in the South of Ireland, p. 248.; and I have more than once heard it given as a remarkable instance of church preferment.
Sir James Ware informs us that Bishop Lyon was Vicar of Naas in 1573, Vicar of Brandanston in 1580, and chaplain to Lord Grey, who was sent to Ireland as Lord Deputy in September, 1580. This is inconsistent with the statement, that Queen Elizabeth took him from the quarter-deck to make him a bishop, inasmuch as he was in holy orders, and in possession of preferment in Ireland, nearly ten years before he was raised to the highest order in the ministry. If, therefore, he was ever distinguished for gallantry in naval warfare, it must have been before 1573; for we have no reason to suppose that the Rev. George Walker, the hero of Londonderry, had him as an example. But, as no action with the Spaniards could have taken place prior to 1577, how is this to be reconciled with the common account, that his gallantry against them attracted the notice of the queen? In a miscellaneous compilation, entitled Jefferson's Selections (published in York in 1795, and indebted for its information about Lyon to an old newspaper, which gave oral tradition as its sole authority), we are told that his picture, in the captain's uniform, the left hand wanting a finger, is still to be seen in the bishop's palace at Cork. The picture is there, and represents him certainly as wanting a finger; he is dressed, however, not in a captain's uniform, but in a very scholar-like black gown.
I know not how Mr. Croker could have given the year 1606 as the date of his appointment to the see of Cloyne, for we learn from Ware, who is no mean authority, that he was first appointed to the see of Ross in 1582; that the sees of Cork and Cloyne were given to him in commendam in 1583 (as is recorded in the Consistorial Court of Cork), and that the three sees were formally united in his person in 1586.
In 1595 he was appointed one of the commissioners to consider the best means of peopling Munster with English settlers, and of establishing a voluntary composition throughout that province in lieu of cess and taxes; this does not look as if he had been an illiterate captain of a ship, or one of those "rude-bred soldiers, whose education was at the musket-mouth." In fact, Ware does not seem to have considered him remarkable for anything except such qualities as well became his order. And we have the high testimony of Archbishop Bramhall (quoted by Ware), that "Cork and Ross fared the best of any bishoprick in that province, a very good man, Bishop Lyon, having been placed there early in the Reformation."
Abhba.