The History of Ireland: 17th Century. Bagwell Richard

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      CHAPTER XIII

       STRAFFORD AND THE ULSTER SCOTS

       Table of Contents

      Rise of a Presbyterian community in Ulster.

      Two tolerant bishops.

      Extension of Laud’s system to Ireland.

The Scottish settlers in Ulster gave trouble from the first, for crossing the sea did not change their nature, nor their religious opinions. When Presbyterianism was oppressed at home, Ireland received its ministers; when persecution came there, they could go back to Scotland. Always glad to promote his own countrymen, James I. appointed them to Irish bishoprics; they in their turn ordained others, often without much inquiry as to their views on Church government. Andrew Knox, who was Bishop of Raphoe from 1611 to 1633, was not over particular about the regularity of orders, and many Presbyterians were preferred by him. ‘Old Bishop Knox,’ says Adair, ‘refused no honest man, having heard him preach. By this chink John Livingston and sundry others got entrance.’ Knox died about the time of Wentworth’s coming to Ireland, and up to that time another Scotch bishop, Robert Echlin of Down, followed in his footsteps. Livingston had been silenced by Spottiswood in Scotland, but brought recommendations from eminent laymen, and Knox told him he thought his own life had been prolonged only to do such offices as ordination. He did not care about being called my Lord, and he allowed the imposition of hands to be by presbyters in his presence. He gave Livingston the book of ordination, desiring him to draw a line through any words to which he objected. ‘I found,’ says the latter, ‘that it had been so marked by some others before that I needed not mark anything; so the Lord was pleased to carry that business far beyond anything that I had thought or ever desired.’ This was in 1630. Seven years before Echlin had done a like service for Robert Blair, acting only as one of several presbyters. ‘This,’ says Blair, ‘I could not refuse, and so the matter was performed.’ Knox was succeeded by John Leslie, and Echlin by Henry Leslie, neither of whom was much inclined to make terms with Presbyterianism. The Laudian canons had altered the position for them, and later on the Covenant made the breach irreparable.[206]

      Wentworth, Laud, and Bramhall, 1634.

      A conference where no one is converted, 1636.

      Bramhall’s rhetoric.

      Silenced ministers go to Scotland.

In May 1634 Bramhall became Bishop of Derry in succession to Downham, who had been a strong Calvinist and a friend of Presbyterians. He was soon in correspondence with Wentworth, who encouraged him to insist on strict conformity, and with Laud, whose confidence he enjoyed throughout. Very many of the Scotch ministers were driven back to their own country, there to swell the growing discontent and to prepare the way for the lay crowds whom Wentworth’s later policy was to drive out of Ulster. Bramhall did not confine himself to his own diocese, but gave his services to Down also, where Echlin was driven to enforce conformity without much conviction on his own part. Henry Leslie succeeded on Echlin’s death, and a conference was held at Belfast on August 11, 1636, between the two bishops and five Presbyterians who refused to subscribe the new canons. Among them was Edward Brice, who is regarded as the founder of that church in Ulster. Their spokesman was James Hamilton, Lord Claneboy’s nephew, who had been ordained by Echlin ten years before. Both sides were no doubt satisfied that they were wholly in the right, but Bramhall was more extreme even than Leslie, who as bishop of the diocese of course conducted the controversy. According to the Bishop of Derry, who intervened frequently, Hamilton was a prattling Jack, a fellow fit to be whipped, who might worship the devil if he pleased. He prescribed hellebore to purge the Scot’s brain, reminding him with a bold metaphor that the weight of Church and State did not hang ‘upon the Atlas shoulders of such bullrushes’ as he was; and he blamed Leslie, not without something like a threat, for allowing so much liberty of discussion. The five ministers were sentenced to perpetual silence so far as the diocese of Down was concerned. Outward conformity was for a time achieved, but only by the temporary effacement of the Scotch colony in Ulster. Brice did not long survive the Belfast conference, but Hamilton, Cunningham, СКАЧАТЬ