* * * * *
Minor Notes.
_Irish Bishops as English Suffragans._--In compliance with the suggestion
of J. M. D. in your last volume, p. 385., I abridge from _The Record_ of
March 17th the following particulars:
"At a recent meeting of the Archaeolgical Society the Rev. W. Gunner
stated that from a research among the archives of the bishops and of
the college of Winchester, he had found that many Irish bishops, during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were merely titular bishops,
bearing the titles of sees in Ireland, while they acted as suffragans
to bishops in England. A Bishop of Achonry, for instance, appeared to
have been frequently deputed by William of Wykeham to consecrate
churches, and to perform other episcopal duties, in his diocese; and
the Bishops of Achonry seemed frequently to have been suffragans of
those of Winchester. No see exhibits more instances of this
expatriation than Dromore, lying as it did in an unsettled and
tumultuous country. Richard Messing, who succeeded to Dromore bishopric
in 1408, was suffragan to the Archbishop of York; and so died at {570}
York within a year after his appointment. His successor John became a
suffragan to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and died such in 1420.
Thomas Scrope, a divine from Leicestershire, was appointed by the Pope
to this see in 1430: he could not live in peace with the Irish, and
therefore became vicar-general to the Bishop of Norwich. Thomas
Radcliffe, his successor, never lived in Ireland: 'the profits of his
see did not extend to 30l. sterling, and for its extreme poverty it is
void and desolate, and almost extincted, in so much as none will own
the same, or abide therein.' Dr. Radcliffe was therefore obliged to
become a suffragan to the Bishop of Durham. William, who followed him
in the Dromore succession in 1500, lived in York, and was suffragan to
its archbishop; and it would seem his successors were also suffragans
in England, until the plantation of Ulster improved the circumstances
of that province."