This letter is dated Dublin, 27th August, 1520, and whatever may have been the cause, another recommendation was transmitted in the following month by the same lord deputy in favour of Walter Wellesley. Both these recommendations, however, were without success, and we meet with a Bishop Patrick, whose name sufficiently indicates the land of his birth, holding these sees in the year 1521. His episcopate was short: as Cotton remarks, "he probably sat only for a year or two". In the State Papers Cork is again described as vacant on the 25th of April, 1522: and before the close of that year John Bennett was appointed by the Holy See, successor of Saint Finbarr. He chose for his place of residence the collegiate establishment of Youghal, which had originally been founded by his family, and at his death he too endowed it with a great part of his own paternal property. Brady in his Records has registered several interesting memorials connected with this ancient Collegiate Church of Youghal. The catalogue of its books, drawn up in the year 1490, especially deserves attention, as it reveals to us what was the literary store treasured up in an humble religious house in a country town of our island at a supposed period of ignorance and barbarism. Besides several books of devotion and tracts on the decretals and canon law, there were eight Missals, five of which are described as "missalia pulchra pergameni". There was also the Life of Christ, by Ludolf of Saxony, now so rare, the Letters of St. Jerome, the Works of St. Gregory the Great, the Summa of St. Thomas, and a number of treatises by St. Bonaventure, the Master of Sentences, St. Antoninus, and others. The Sacred Scriptures had a specially prominent place; there were five psalters for the use of the choir, and twelve other copies of the Bible. One of these is entitled "Una Biblia Tripartita, et alia parvae quantitatis": another was the Old and New Testament, with the gloss of Nicholas de Lyra, "in five volumes"; and then there are "quatuor Evangelistae, glossati, in quatuor voluminibus", and "unum volumen in quo continentur parabolae Salomonis, libri Sapientiae, Canticorum, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus", etc. Some of the works of this little library, if now preserved, would be invaluable for illustrating the antiquities of our island. There was one "antiquum martirologium"; also a volume called "Petrus de Aurora, artis versificatoriae", is described as "mire exauratum": again, "Apparatus Magistri Johannis de Anthon super constitutiones Ottoboni": whilst another small volume was enriched, amongst other things, "cum quibusdam historiis provinciae Hiberniae". An addition was made to this library in 1523, consisting, probably, of the Books of Dr. Bennett. It will suffice to mention two of these works, viz., "Liber meditationum sancti Bonaventurae cum aliis meditationibus et chronicis Geraldinorum", and "Biblia de impressione, in rotunda forma, in manu Joannis Cornelii" (Records, etc., London, 1864, vol. 3, pag. 319, seqq.).
Dr. Bennett died in the year 1535/6, and at his death enriched the chantry of St. Mary's with some ancestral lands in Youghal and its neighbourhood (Ulster Journal of Arch., April, 1854). Henry VIII. appointed Dominick Tirrey to the vacant see, but the reigning Pontiff refused to recognize this nomination, and chose a Franciscan named Lewis MacNamara as successor to Dr. Bennett. The brief of his appointment to Cork and Cloyne is dated 24th September, 1540. This prelate, however, soon after his consecration was summoned to a better world, and on the 5th of November, the same year, another brief was expedited appointing John Hoyeden, (which name is probably a corruption for O'h-Eidhin, i.e. O'Heyne; see O'Donovan, Book of Rights, pag. 109), a canon of Elphin, bishop of the united dioceses. From the consistorial acts we learn that he was impeded by the crown nominee from taking possession of the temporalities of his see, and hence on the 25th February, 1545, he received the administration of his native diocese. The following is the consistorial record:
Die 20º Feb., 1545. "S. Sanctitas providit Ecclesiae Elphinensi de persona Joannis Episcopi Corcagiensis et Clunensis (sic) qui regiminis et administrationis Corcagensis et Clunensis Ecclesiarum invicem unitarum possessionem eo quod a schismaticis et iis qui a Catholica fide defecerunt occupatae detinentur assequi non potuit, nec de proximo assequi speret: ita quod, propter hoc, eisdem Corcagensi et Clunensi Ecclesiis praesse non desinat sed tam Elphinensi quam Corcagensi et Clunensi Ecclesiis hujusmodi ad sex menses a die habitae per eum pacificae possessionis seu quasi regiminis", etc. (sic).
It was probably impossible for Dr. O'Heyne to obtain possession of the temporalities of his see till the accession of Queen Mary. Even then he must have held them only for a little while, as the royal letter granting these temporalities to Roger Skiddy is dated 18th of September, 1557. A curious record of the period gives us an accurate idea of the possessions of the religious houses in the vicinity of Cork: it is a pardon granted to William Bourman for alienating the property of the house of the Friars Preachers, situated in the suburbs of Cork, and the property thus alienated is described as "the site, circuit, and precinct of the monastery, the church, belfry, closes (perhaps this is for clausura), halls and dormitories, castles, messuages, lands, buildings, gardens, mills, and other hereditaments thereunto belonging, an orchard, three gardens, a water-mill, a parcel of meadows containing half a stang, a fishing pool, a salmon weir, three acres called the half scaghbeg, ten acres in Rathminy, and twenty acres in Galliveyston" (Morrin, i. 374).
The next Bishop appointed to the united sees of Cork and Cloyne was Roger Skiddy, who for some time had held the dignity of Dean of Limerick. Queen Mary's letter ordering the restitution of the temporalities to him, is dated the 18th of September, 1557, and it adds that her Majesty "had addressed letters commendatory to his Holiness the Pope a good while since in his favour, and it was hoped he should shortly receive his Bull and expedition from his Holiness" (Ib., i. 377). Letters patent granting the temporalities to him were issued on 2nd November the same year (Ib., i. 373, and Brady, Records, iii. 46), and it is probable that the Bulls from the Holy See were expedited during the interval; for, in an original memorandum preserved in the State Paper Office, London, the remark is made that "the Queen's letters were sent to the Bishop of Rome, and the Bulls were returned thence for the bishoprick of Cork" (Shirley, pag. 115). Nevertheless, this Bishop was not consecrated, neither did he receive possession of the temporalities during the life-time of Queen Mary, although her death did not take place till the 17th of November, 1558. For some time after the accession of Queen Elizabeth, no mention was made of the See of Cork and Cloyne, till on 31st of July, 1562, her Majesty wrote to the Earl of Sussex and the Lord Chancellor, "directing the admission of Roger Skiddy to the bishopricks of Cork and Cloyne, to which he had been previously elected" (Ibid., 472); accordingly, on the 29th of October, 1562, this dignitary was admitted to possession of the temporalities, and a mandate was issued for his consecration, bearing the same date. In his writ of restitution to the temporalities was inserted a retrospective clause, that he should have possession of them from the time of his first advancement by Queen Mary. Whether Dr. Skiddy was actually consecrated or not, no record has been preserved to us, and his consecration in virtue of such a royal mandate would be wholly uncanonical and schismatical. No doubt, however, seems to be entertained of his orthodoxy and devotedness to the Catholic faith: and in 1567, unwilling to lend his name to the religious novelties which the government of the day wished to propagate in the kingdom, he resigned the bishoprick and retired to Youghal, where for several years he devoted his undivided attention to prepare for a happy eternity.
Nicholas Landes was appointed bishop of this see in consistory of 27th of February, 1568/9. The consistorial entry is curious, as it omits all mention of Dr. Skiddy, and describes the see as vacant by the death of Dr. John O'Heyne.
"Die 27º Februarii, 1568: referente Revmo. Cardinali Alciato S. Sanctitas providit Ecclesiae Corcagiensi et Cloinensi invicem unitis, per obitum bonae memoriae Joannis Jadican, ultimi Episcopi vacanti, de persona Rev. D. Nicolai Landes, Hiberni et litteris Episcoporum Catholicorum ejusdem Provinciae atque etiam testimonio Reverendi Patris Wolf S. I. commendati cum retentione rectoriae cum cura donec possessionem Episcopatus adeptus fuerit".
A suggestion has been made that the name Landes is a corruption for some other original name. Such errors in names are certainly very frequent in the consistorial entries of our Irish Bishops: still, two distinct copies of the consistorial acts (viz., the Corsinian and the Vallicellian) retain the present name without variation; and what is still more important, the Brief appointing his successor, Dr. Tanner, in 1574, describes the see as then vacant per obitum Nicolai Landes. Moreover, the name Landey was no novelty in the ecclesiastical records of Ireland in the sixteenth century, an Abbot Landey having held the monastery of St. Mary's, Dublin, during Henry VIII.'s reign, as we learn from the first volume of Morrin's Records.
Dr. Edmund Tanner was next appointed to Cork and Cloyne by brief of 5th November, 1574. There are some peculiar passages in this brief, which merit our attention. Thus it describes Dr. Tanner as "in Theologia Magistrum, de legitimo matrimonio procreatum, in quinquagesimo aetatis anno et presbyteratus ordine constitutum, que fidem Catholicam juxta articulos dudum a Sede Apostolica emanatos professus fuit, cuique de vitae munditia, honestate morum, spiritualium providentia et temporalium circumspectione, aliisque multiplicum virtutum donis fide digna testimonia perhibentur". Subsequently, addressing the clergy and faithful of the united sees, the brief continues: