Creagh made his way back to Ulster. According to his own account he was at all times friendly to Englishmen, anxious to serve the Queen as far as conscience would allow, and careful to prevent Shane O’Neill from plundering the Pale ‘according to his cursed custom.’ No sincere priest—and Creagh was undoubtedly a virtuous man—could have approved Shane’s doings, and no Archbishop could be well pleased to see his cathedral a blackened ruin. But his language in the Tower differed greatly in tone from that which he held in Ulster. On Christmas Day 1566 he was with Shane, and wrote to Sidney suggesting that ‘if peace should be or not, whether it should please your lordship, that we should have our old service in our churches, and suffer the said churches to be up for that use, so that the said Lord O’Neill should the less destroy no more churches, and perhaps should help to restore such as by his procurement were destroyed.’ In the same letter he admits that he had close relations with Spain, and throughout uses the first person plural. Sidney’s winter campaign, which broke Shane’s power, perhaps made Ulster untenable, or that chief may not have been unwilling to surrender him in order to make room for Terence Daniel. However that may be, Creagh seems to have wandered into Connaught, for it was by O’Shaughnessy that he was arrested, just four months after his letter to Sidney. He was indicted in Dublin for conspiring with Shane, but the intention to try him there was abandoned. There may have been considerable doubt of the fact, and much more of Irish judges and juries; or perhaps Sidney disliked the odious task. Once more Creagh escaped, but was again arrested by some of Kildare’s people and sent to London. He was never put on his trial, and remained eighteen years in the Tower. In 1579, after he had been more than eleven years in prison, one Hupton, his keeper for the last five, who thought himself, says Creagh, ‘ordained to take harm by Papists,’ was in custody ‘only for papistry.’ Colwick, another keeper, was accused of carrying letters to the poor Archbishop, but he said he had never given him anything but certain sums of 20s., 10s., or 5s. at a time, ‘sent him by his countrymen.’ In 1574 Creagh wrote a long letter to the Council, in which he defended himself from all charges of treason or rebellion, while acknowledging that he owed obedience to the Pope. One of his legs, he said, was rendered useless by the pressure of irons for eight years. He had lost most of his teeth, and suffered from rupture, stone, ‘and many other like miseries.’ Yet he lived on till 1585. A memorandum made in the spring of that year notes him as ‘a dangerous man to be among the Irish, for the reverence that is by that nation borne unto him, and therefore fit to be continued in prison.’ A few months afterwards he died. It has been said that he was poisoned; but his manifold diseases would account for his death, and Holing the Jesuit, a contemporary writer, says simply that he was worn out by years and by the filth of his prison. The story is bad enough as it stands.[365]
See of Meath. Bishop Staples.
Edward Staples, who was appointed both by King and Pope in 1529, was deprived in 1554, but remained in Ireland. ‘I was,’ he says, ‘driven almost to begging, thrust out of my house, cast from estimation, and made a jesting among monks and friars, nor any cause why was laid against me; but for that I did marry a wife they did put an Irish monk in my place, whose chief matter in preaching hath been in railing against my old master.’ Pole, he adds, chiefly objected to his praying for Henry VIII.’s soul, but promised that he should have some means of support. He was, however, left to beg, and could not even afford the journey to London. He probably died soon after Elizabeth’s accession, for the Cistercian William Walsh was left in possession of his see until 1560, when he was deprived for preaching against the royal supremacy and the Book of Common Prayer. Though appointed by Pole, Walsh received no regular Papal provision till 1564. He was soon afterwards imprisoned, but escaped to France in 1572. In 1575 he had a Brief to act both for Armagh and Dublin, Creagh being in the Tower and the other primacy vacant; but it is not clear that he returned to Ireland. ‘He is,’ said Loftus, who had vain hopes of converting him, ‘of great credit among his countrymen, and upon whom, as touching causes of religion, they wholly depend.’ But Walsh could hardly live safely in Ireland, and he died in Spain in 1578, having for some time acted as suffragan to the Archbishop of Toledo. Hugh Brady, appointed by patent in 1563, was a purely Protestant bishop.[366]
See of Clogher. Meiler Magrath.
At the accession of Elizabeth, Raymond MacMahon was Bishop of Clogher. He died in 1560 probably, and it is not pretended that he conformed. There is a regular Papal succession from his death, but the Queen made no appointment till 1570, when she preferred the notorious Meiler Magrath. Eugene Magennis was Bishop of Down and Connor, and perhaps made some show of conformity, for he was present in the Parliament of 1560. He died in 1563, and Shane O’Neill tried to get the see for his brother, who was only twenty-three years old. The Pope refused, and in 1565 Meiler Magrath was appointed at Rome. Magrath, who was utterly unscrupulous, made all the official submissions required of him, and in 1580 was deprived by the Pope ‘for the crime of heresy and many other enormities.’ From that date there is a regular Papal succession. Magrath, who had been originally a Franciscan friar, became the Queen’s Archbishop of Cashel in 1570; her Majesty having previously appointed John Merriman to Down and Connor. Magrath therefore enjoys the unique distinction of having been Protestant Archbishop of Cashel and Papal Bishop of Down and Connor at one and the same time. He was no ornament to either Church.[367]
Derry. Raphoe. Dromore. Clonmacnoise.
Eugene O’Dogherty was Bishop of Derry at Elizabeth’s accession. He was appointed by provision, and there is a regular Papal succession from him, but it does not appear that the Queen ever interfered. The same may be said of Raphoe and Dromore. Peter Wall, a Dominican, became Bishop of Clonmacnoise in 1556. On his death, in 1568, the see was united to Meath by Act of Parliament, and the Popes made no appointment until 1647. Patrick MacMahon was Bishop of Armagh from 1541 to 1568 at least, in which latter year he appears to have been deprived by bull. He died before November 1572, and in 1576 the Pope provided a successor as from his death and not from his deprivation, which may cast some doubt on the above-mentioned document. The Queen made no appointment till 1583. Kilmore was vacant at her accession, and she made no appointment till 1585. There is, however, a regular Papal succession. As a plain matter of fact the Government had no ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Ulster during the early part of Elizabeth’s reign. It was different with Meath, and Bishop Brady has the credit of restoring the ruined church of Kells in 1578. That it should have been then in ruins says little for the position of religion where the State had power.[368]
Dublin.
A sentiment attaches to Armagh, but Dublin was much more really important. It was beyond Shane O’Neill’s power to burn either St. Patrick’s or Christ Church, and a Papal nominee could hardly venture into the city or even into the diocese. Hugh Curwen, who was Archbishop from 1555 to 1568, when he was translated to Oxford, undoubtedly conformed, and it is through him that Irish Protestant bishops derive what is called apostolical succession. The Pope did not make even a titular appointment until 1600. Thomas Leverous, Kildare’s old tutor, and a most excellent man, was Bishop of Kildare at Mary’s death, was deprived in 1559, so far as the Government could deprive him, for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, and supported himself as a schoolmaster till his death in 1577. He was buried at Naas, within his own diocese, and his body was said to have performed many miracles. The Popes made no appointment until 1629, and the history of the Protestant see is very curious.[369]
Kildare.