[COWGILL is right: the question of the Marriage of Ecclesiastics is not calculated for our pages. But our correspondent CEPHAS having impugned the scholarship of H. WALTER, and the honesty of the translators of the authorized version, justice required that we should insert MR. WALTER'S answer, and one of the many replies we have received in defence of the translators. With these, and COWGILL'S references to authorities which may be consulted upon the question, the discussion in our columns must terminate.]
LORD STRAFFORD AND ARCHBISHOP USSHER.
(Vol. iv., p. 290.)
The question raised by PEREGRINUS is one of interest, which a comparison of original and trustworthy writers enables us soon to settle. It is no vulgar calumny which implicates Ussher in the advice which induced Charles I. to consent to the murder of Lord Strafford; and though it seems not unlikely that from timidity Ussher avoided giving any advice, but allowed it to be inferred that he coincided in the counsel of Williams; after weighing the evidence on this subject it is, to say the least, impossible for us to believe for an instant that he acted in the same noble manner as Bishop Juxon. Thus far is clear, that Bishop Juxon, knowing that the king was satisfied of the innocence of Lord Strafford, besought him to refuse to allow of the execution, and to "trust God with the rest." Neither is it denied that Bishops Williams, Potter, and Morton advised the king to assent to the bill of attainder, on the ground that he was only assenting to the deeds of others, and was not himself acting responsibly. And assuredly the same evidence which carries us thus far, will not allow of our supposing that Ussher joined with Juxon, though, as I have said before, he may, when summoned, have avoided giving any advice. The facts seem simply these: when it was known that the king, satisfied of the innocence of Lord Strafford, hesitated about affixing his signature to the bill, or granting a commission to others to do so, the London rabble, lord mayor, and prentice lads were next called up, and the safety of the royal family menaced. This led to the queen's solicitation, that Charles would regard the lives of his family and sacrifice Strafford. Still the king could not be moved. He had scruples of conscience, as well he might. This the peers knowing, they selected four bishops who should satisfy these scruples: the four thus selected were Ussher, Williams, Morton, and Potter. On Sunday morning, the 9th of May, the four should have proceeded to Whitehall: the three latter did so; but Ussher preferred the safer course of going and preaching at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, leaving to his brother bishops the task of distinguishing between the king's private conscience and his corporate one. The king, not satisfied to leave the matter in the hands of those specially selected to urge his consent, summoned the Privy Council. Juxon was present as Lord Treasurer, and gave that noble and truly Christian advice: "Sir, you know the judgment of your own conscience; I beseech you follow that, and trust God with the rest." Moved by this, and by his own conviction of Strafford's innocence, the king still refused assent; and it was needful to hold another meeting, which was done in the evening of the same day. As evening service had not been introduced into churches, Ussher was present at the palace, and by his silence acquiesced in the advice tendered by Bishop Williams. After the bill was signed, he broke silence in useless regrets. But it was then too late to benefit Strafford, and quite safe to utter his own opinions. In opposition to this, which rests upon indisputable evidence, and with which Ussher's own statement entirely accords, PEREGRINUS adduces the fact that Ussher attended Strafford on the scaffold. But what does this prove? Merely that the faction which would not tolerate that Laud or Juxon should minister the last offices of the Church to their dying friend, did not object to Ussher's presence; and that Strafford, who could have known nothing of what had passed on Sunday in the interior of Whitehall, gladly accepted the consolations of religion from the hands of the timid Primate of all Ireland.
The substance of what appears in Elrington's Life of Ussher had been long before stated by Dr. Thomas Smith in his Vita Jacobi Usserii, apud Vitæ quorundam Erudit. et Illust. Virorum; but if, in addition, PEREGRINUS would consult May's History of the Long Parliament; Echard's History of England, bk. ii. ch. i.; Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 45.; Rushworth; Collier's Ecclesiastical History, t. ii. p. 801.; Dr. Knowler, in Preface to The Earl of Strafford's Letters and Dispatches; Dr. South, in Sermon on Rom. xi. 33.; and Sir George Radcliffe's Essay in Appendix to Letters, &c. of Lord Strafford, t. ii. p. 432., I doubt not but that he will come to the conclusion that the above sketch is only consistent with stern fact.
W. DN.
SCULPTURED STONES IN THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND.
(Vol. iv., p. 86.)
ABERDONIENSIS tells us that Mr. Chalmers, of Auldbar, had got drawings of the sculptured stone obelisks in Angus lithographed for the Bannatyne Club, and that the work had excited considerable interest, and that the Spalding Club of Aberdeen are now obtaining drawings of the stones of this description in the north of Scotland. Circulars from the Spalding Club desiring information had been sent to a large number of the clergy, to which answers had been received only from a small portion, and he desired further information. These monuments, he states, are not to be found south of the Forth, and I am told not further north than Sutherlandshire. It would be desirable to know what these sculptured obelisks and the sculptures on them are; if symbolical, of what, or what they serve to illustrate; the supposed race and date to which they are referable. What the Veronese antiquarians, Maffei and Bianchini, did from the nation's ancient remains to throw light on history, shows what may be done. In Orkney no sculptured stone, or stone with a runic inscription, has been noticed among its circles of standing stones, or single bantasteins; and though it is right to admit that attention has not been directed to seeking them, yet I do not believe they could have escaped observation had there been any such. The absence of runic stones in Orkney appears singular in a country certainly Scandinavian from its conquest by Harald Harfager, king of Norway, A.D. 895 (or perhaps earlier), till its transfer to Scotland in 1468 in mortgage for a part of the marriage portion of the Danish princess who became the queen of James III. of Scotland by treaty between the countries of Denmark and Norway and Scotland. In Zetland Dr. Hibbert noticed a few ruins, and within these few days the peregrinations of the Spalding Club have brought to notice, in the Island of Bruray, a stone of runic state, having inscribed on it letters like runic characters, and sculptures in relief, but decayed. A drawing is being made of it, to satisfy antiquarian curiosity. It may merit notice that no runic stones have been found in Orkney, nor circles of standing stones in Zetland. The sculptures of classic antiquity have been made use of to elucidate history, and it is equally to be desired that those Scottish sculptured remains should, if possible, be rescued from what Sir Francis Palgrave calls the "speechless past," and made to tell their tale in illustration of the earlier period of Scottish or Caledonian story.
W. H. F.
ANAGRAMS.
(Vol. iv., pp. 226, 297.)
As anagrams have been admitted into your pages, perhaps the following, on the merits of your publication, may find a place.