ROBERT WAUCHOPE, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH.
(Vol. vii., p. 66.)
This prelate seems to have been a cadet of the family of Wauchope, of Niddry, or Niddry Marischall, in the county of Midlothian, to which family once belonged the lands of Wauchopedale in Roxburghshire. The exact date of his birth I have never been able to discover, nor which "laird of Niddrie" he was the son of. Robert was a favourite name in the family long before his time, as is evidenced by an inscription at the entry to a burial chapel belonging to the family to this effect: "This tome was Biggit Be Robert Vauchop of Niddrie Marchal, and interit heir 1387." I am at present out of reach of all books of reference, and have only a few manuscript memoranda to direct further research; and these memoranda, I am sorry to say, are not so precise in their reference to chapter and verse as they ought to be.
According to these notes, mention is made of Robert Wauchope, doctor of Sorbonne, by Leslie, bishop of Ross, in the 10th book of his History; by Labens, a Jesuit, in the 14th tome of his Chronicles; by Cardinal Pallavicino, in the 6th book of his Hist. Conc. Trid.; by Fra Paolo Sarpi, in his Hist. Conc. Trid. Archbishop Spottiswood says that he died in Paris in the year 1551, "much lamented of all the university," on his return home from one of his missions to Rome.
One of my notes, taken from the Memoirs of Sir James Melville, I shall transcribe, as it is suggestive of other Queries more generally interesting. The date is 1545:
"Now the ambassador met in a secret part with Oneel(?) and his associates, and heard their offers and overtures. And the patriarch of Ireland did meet him there, who was a Scotsman born, called Wauchope, and was blind of both his eyes, and yet had been divers times at Rome by post. He did great honour to the ambassadour, and conveyed him to see St. Patrick's Purgatory, which is like an old coal pit which had taken fire, by reason of the smoke that came out of the hole."
Query 1. What was the secret object of the ambassador?
Query 2. Has St. Patrick's Purgatory any existence at the present time?
D. W. S. P.