W. C. Trevelyan.
Wallington.
David Routh, R. C. Bishop of Ossory (Vol. iii., p. 169.).—In the article on a Cardinal's Monument, by Mr. J. Graves, of Kilkenny, allusion is made to the monument of the above Catholic Bishop Routh or Rothe, as being in the Cathedral of St. Canice, Kilkenny, with his arms "surmounted by a cardinal's hat," and that he died some years after 1643. If Mr. Graves would give the date of this prelate's decease, or rather a copy of the full inscription on his monument, with a notice of the sculptured armorial bearings thereupon, he would be conferring a favour on a distant inquirer; and as Mr. Graves is, apparently, a resident at Kilkenny, no obstacle exists to prevent his complying with this request.
Any notices procurable regarding Bishop Routh are well deserving of insertion in "N. & Q.," for he was a man of deep learning and research, and is well known to have assisted the celebrated Archbishop Ussher of Armagh in the compilation of his Primordia, for which he had high compliments paid him by that eminent prelate, notwithstanding their being of different religions.
Bishop Routh was also himself the author of a work on Irish Ecclesiastical History, now very rare, and seldom procurable complete. He published it anonymously, in two volumes 8vo., in the year 1617, at "Coloniæ, apud Steph. Rolinum," with the following rather long title:
"Analecta Sacra, Nova, et Mira, de Rebus Catholicorum in Hibernia: Divisa in tres partes, quarum I, Continet semestrem gravaminam relationem, secundâ hac editione novis adauctam additamentis, et Notis illustratam. II. Parænesin ad Martyres designatos. III. Processum Martyrialem quorundam Fidei Pugilium; Collectore et Relatore, T. N. Philadelpho."
I fear this has degenerated from a Note into a Query; however, I may state in conclusion, that Mr. Graves is in error in styling the hat on Bishop Routh's monument a cardinal's, for all Catholic prelates, and abbots also, have their armorial bearings surmounted by a hat, exactly similar to a cardinal's hat, with this difference only, that the number of tassels depending from it varies according to the rank of the prelate, from the cardinal's with fifteen tassels in five rows, down to that of a prior with three only on each side in two rows.
A. S. A.
Punjaub.
Cardinal Erskine (Vol. ii., p. 406.; Vol. iii., p. 13.).—Several notices of this ecclesiastic have appeared in "N. & Q.," but as none of them give the exact information required, I now do so, though perhaps tardily. He was born 13th February, 1753, at Rome, where his father, Colin Erskine, a Jacobite, and exiled scion of the noble Scottish house of Erskine, Earls of Kellie, had taken up his residence. "Monsignor Charles Erskine," having embraced the ecclesiastical life at an early age, and passed through several gradations in the Church of Rome, was, in 1785, "Promotore della Fede," an office of the Congregation of Rites; in 1794 auditor to Pope Pius VI., and raised to the purple by Pope Pius VII., who created him a Cardinal-Deacon of the Holy Roman Church, 25th February, 1801. Cardinal Erskine accompanied the latter pontiff in his exile from Rome in the year 1809, and died at Paris, 19th March, 1811, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and eleventh of his cardinalate.