ON ARCHBISHOP USSHER.
Without designing to take part in the question at issue regarding archbishop Ussher, I may be permitted to record the evidence of one of the earliest and best-informed witnesses on it—Nicholas Bernard, doctor of divinity, and preacher to the honourable society of Grayes-Inne, London.
"Anno 1641. The great businesse of the Earle of Strafford came in agitation, in which there is one thing he gave me a charge, as I had occasion, to clear him, viz. of a scandall raised on him, by a rash, I will not say malicious pen, in his Vocall forrest, as if he had made use of a pretended distinction of a Personall and politicall conscience, to satisfy the late King, that he might consent to the beheading of the said Earle; that though the first resisted, he might do it by the second; which, I wonder men of prudence, or that had any esteem of him, could be so credulous of: but there is a presumptuous Observator of late, hath more ridiculously and maliciously abused him in it, as if the root of it was in revenge, for the Earles suppressing the Articles of Ireland; both are of the like falshood, as hath been already made apparent, in an answer to him.
"And I have lately seen it under the hand of a person of quality, affirming, that some yeers agone, a rumour being spread of the death of this Reverend Primate (who was much lamented at Oxford) and this concerning the Earle being by one then objected against him. He was an ear-witnesse, that the late King, answered that person in very great Passion, and with an oath protested his innocency therein."
Bernard received ordination from the hands of Ussher; was his librarian at the period in question; and was honoured with his confidence for thirty years. His Life of Ussher is a work of authority, and deserves to be held in remembrance.
BOLTON CORNEY.