Sermon by Bishop Ussher,
who wished to enforce the Act of Supremacy,
but is rebuked by the Primate.
The King’s, or Buckingham’s, choice fell upon Henry Cary, lately created Viscount Falkland in Scotland and best known as the father of Clarendon’s hero. Falkland was Controller of the Household, and sold his place to Sir John Suckling, the poet’s father, who paid a high price. The money may not all have gone to the new Lord Deputy, but his departure was delayed for seven months by the long haggling about it, Sir Adam Loftus and Lord Powerscourt acting as Lords Justices. He was sworn in on September 8, 1622, after hearing Bishop Ussher preach a learned sermon in Christchurch on the text, ‘He beareth not the sword in vain.’ This sermon, which is not extant, was looked upon by some as a signal for persecution; and no doubt the reports of it were much exaggerated. Ussher found it necessary to write an explanatory letter to Grandison summarising the argument he had used. It rested, he had said, with the King to have the recusancy laws executed more or less mildly, but the Established Church had a right to protection from open insult. He had alluded, without giving names, to the case of ‘Mr. John Ankers, preacher, of Athlone, a man well known unto your lordship,’ who had found the church at Kilkenny in Westmeath occupied by a congregation of forty, headed by an old priest, who bade him begone ‘until he had done his business.’ The Franciscans who were driven out of Multifernham by Grandison had retaken it, and were collecting subscriptions to build another house ‘for the entertaining of another swarm of locusts.’ He asked that the recusancy laws should be strictly executed against all who left the Establishment for the Church of Rome, but deprecated violence and ‘wished that effusion of blood might be held rather the badge of the whore of Babylon than of the Church of God,’ which is a little too like the common form of the Inquisition. On the day after this letter was penned, Primate Hampton wrote a mild rebuke from Drogheda. He thought it very unwise to trouble the waters, and suggested that Ussher should explain away what he had said about the sword, for his proper weapons were not carnal but spiritual. He also advised the Bishop of Meath to leave Dublin and spend more time in his own diocese, of which the condition, by his own showing, was unsatisfactory, and to make himself loved and respected there even if his doctrine was disliked. According to Cox, Ussher preached such a sermon as the Primate advised; but there seems to be no trace of it anywhere else.[154]
Effects of the Spanish marriage negotiations.
The King of Spain treated as sovereign.
Whatever may have been the Bishop of Meath’s exact meaning, Falkland was well inclined to use his authority for the support of the Establishment. But the Spanish match was in the ascendant, and not much was done until the Prince of Wales came back without his bride. While the prospect was still held out of having an Infanta as Queen of England, the priests became bolder than ever. A clergyman was attacked by a mob of eighty women when trying to perform the funeral service for Lady Killeen. At Cavan and Granard thousands assembled for worship, and Captain Arthur Forbes reported that, unless he knew for certain that the King wished for toleration, he would ‘make the antiphonie of their mass be sung with sound of musket.’ Some priests went so far as to pray openly for ‘Philip our king.’ At Kells fair it was publicly announced that the Prince of Wales was married and that the Duke of Buckingham had carried the cross before him. The return of the royal adventurer came as a surprise, and the Roman Catholics of the Pale proposed to send agents to London to congratulate him upon it, and to make it clear that they had no hand in obstructing the marriage. The newly made Earl of Westmeath and Sir William Talbot took the lead and proposed to raise a sum of money which seemed to Falkland quite disproportioned to the necessity of the case. Earls were expected to contribute ten pounds, and there was a graduated scale down to ten shillings for small freeholders, ‘beside what addition every man will please to give.’ Falkland was very suspicious, and it is clear enough that a general redress of grievances was part of the plan; but Westmeath and his friends were probably too loyal to excite much enthusiasm, and the whole scheme was given up because subscriptions did not come in.
Proclamation against the priests, Jan. 1624,
which takes little effect.
Charles reached England in October, and early in 1624 a proclamation was printed and published, apparently by the King’s orders, banishing on pain of imprisonment all Roman Catholic priests of every kind and rank. They were to be gone within forty days, and to be arrested if they came back. The only way of escape was by submitting to the authorities and going to church. The reason set forth for this drastic treatment was that the country was overrun by great numbers of ‘titulary popish archbishops, bishops, vicars-general, abbots, priors, deans, Jesuits, friars, seminary priests, and others of that sect,’ in spite of proclamations still in force against them. But the King, or Buckingham, wavered, and not much was done towards getting rid of the recusant clergy. An informer who started the absurd rumour that Westmeath was to be king of Ireland, acknowledged that he had lied; but Falkland was not satisfied, because on Friday in Easter week there was a great gathering some miles from the Earl’s house, ‘made by two titulary bishops under the title of visiting a holy anchorite residing therabouts.’ In the end, Westmeath went to England, where he was able to clear himself completely, the prosecution of his detractors was ordered, and Falkland was persuaded that his chief fault was too great a love of popularity.[155]