In the March number of your valuable periodical there was a most
interesting paper on the See of Down and Connor. I apprehend, however, it
contained a few slight mistakes, which I would have pointed out, but hoped
that some person more intimately conversant with the subject would have
done so in your April number. Such not having been the case, I shall
endeavour to do so. However, before entering on these matters, I beg to
say, in illustration of your learned contributor’s notes, that the
“_Ecclesia de Rathlunga_”, of which Bishop Liddell had been rector, is now
called Raloo, and lies between Larne and Carrickfergus, in the county of
Antrim (see Reeves, p. 52); that _Lesmoghan_, of which Bishop Killen had
been pastor, still bears the same name, forming a sub-denomination of the
parish of Ballykinler, county Down (Ib., p. 28); that _Arwhyn_, of which
John of _Baliconingham_ (now Coniamstown, near Downpatrick) was rector, is
now the mensal parish of Ardquin, in the barony of Ardes, county Down
(Ib., p. 20); and that _Camelyn_, of which Bishop Dongan was pastor, is
now called Crumlin, being united to the parish of Glenavy, near Lough
Neagh, county Antrim (_Ib._, p. 4). Returning from this digression, it is
quite plain from the Bull dated June, 1461, given by De Burgo (_Hib.
Dom._, p. 474), and cited by your contributor, p. 267, appointing Richard
Wolsey to the See of Down, that Wolsey was not the immediate successor of
Bishop John, who died in 1450. It expressly states, as mentioned in the
article, that the See was _vacant_ by the death of THOMAS, last bishop of
the canonically united dioceses of Down and Connor, repeating the same
name in the body of the Bull. How this is to be reconciled with the
statement that Wolsey was John’s successor, I cannot say; but it follows,
on the principle laid down by your contributor in ignoring John Logan,
placed by Ware between William, bishop from 1365 to 1368, and Richard Calf
II., 1369, that we must have a Bishop Thomas between John and Richard
Wolsey. Dr. Reeves (_Eccl. Ant. Down_, etc., p. 257), on the authority of
this very Bull, has accordingly done so, marking him as succeeding in
1450, and the see vacant in 1451. He conjectures him to have been _Thomas
Pollard_, who in 1450 was appointed custose of the temporalities. Dr.
Cotton (vol. iii. p. 201) adopts this view without hesitation, and it
would appear by a complaint of the beforementioned Bishop John, shortly
after the union of Down and Connor in 1441, that even then Pollard claimed
to have an apostolical provision for the See of Down (Primate Mey’s
_Registry_, cited by Reeves, p. 37; see also Harris’s _Ware_, p. 203,
where it is likewise mentioned that Pollard contested the See of Down with
John of Connor, both carrying themselves as bishops thereof, Harris adding
that it was thought Pollard was supported by the primate, and that it was
only in 1449 Pollard lost his cause, just two years before Wolsey’s
appointment). It may be asked, had he a reversionary provision before the
union was canonically effected? If not, is _Thomas_ a misprint for _John_
in the Bull? as we are aware that there are many typographical errors in
the _Hib. Dom._—for instance, as to _John_ O’Molony, Bishop of Killaloe,
who died circ. 1650, is in several places called _Thomas_.
The next bishop respecting whom I wish to make some observations is Eugene
or Owen Magenis, appointed in 1541, and though I am not disposed to deal
uncharitably with him, I have no doubt he was a “temporiser”, though he
may have been secretly “orthodox”. Dr. M’Carthy (Dr. Kelly’s _Essays_, p.
427), and Brennan, and Walsh, in their ecclesiastical histories of Ireland
are compelled to come to the same conclusion; and upon the whole of his
career I candidly confess I don’t know what other result they could arrive
at. I ground nothing on his being present, if he were present, at Queen
Elizabeth’s first parliament in 1560, which passed the Act of Uniformity,
and required the oath of supremacy to be taken by all ecclesiastics; for
even if he had been present, there is no documentary evidence extant
showing how those in attendance voted, and those acquainted with Irish
history know on the authority of Archdeacon Lynch that these acts were
hurriedly and surreptitiously passed on a day when they were not expected
to be brought forward, and in a thin packed house. But it appears, so far
as his public acts are reported, that he submitted in matters of
ecclesiastical discipline to all the rapid changes and schisms which the
fertile imaginations of the pseudo-reformers introduced during the Tudor
reigns. He surrendered his bulls to Henry VIII., obtained from Paul,
“Bishop of Rome”, not “His Holiness”; took out pardon for accepting them,
with a new grant of the see, with the archdeaconry and confirmation of the
parishes of Aghaderg and Anaghlone, parishes to which _he had been_
promoted by the Primate in 1526 and 1528. It is an oversight to suppose
that about 1541 and 1543 the northern chieftains who submitted to Henry
VIII. were exempted from all pressure in matter of religion. Cox (_Aug.
Hib._, vol. i. p. 272) writes that the king about that time caused all the
Irish who submitted to him to renounce the “Pope’s usurpations, and to own
the king’s supremacy by indenture”, among others, stating that O’Neill did
so, January, 1542, all the indentures being registered in the Red Book of
the Exchequer. The articles of Con O’Neill’s submission are printed in
vol. iii. part iii. p. 353, of the _State Papers of Henry VIII_.; and by
the second article, he expressly renounces obedience to the Roman Pontiff
and his usurped authority, and acknowledges the king to be the supreme
head of the Church in England and Ireland, immediately under Christ. Manus
O’Donnell, 3rd June the preceding year, in his letter styles the king on
Earth immediately under Christ supreme head of the Church of
England—(_Ib._, p. 217). M’Donell, captain of the galloglasses, goes
further, and promises to annihilate and relinquish the usurped authority
of the Bishop of Rome; and his adherents and abettors will expel, extirp,
and diminish, etc.—(_Ib._, p. 383). Redmond MacMahon, captain of the
Farney, 30th December, 1543, also renounces the usurped authority of the
Roman Pontiff—(Shirley’s _Farney_, p. 40). Even in the reign of Queen
Mary, we find Owen Macgenis, of Iveagh, chief of his sept and captain of
his country, binding himself not to admit any provisions from Rome, but
oppose them all he could—(Cox, i. p. 299). No doubt these indentures were
extorted by necessity from these chiefs, who scoffed at the idea that
Henry had any religion or was the head of any church, and kept the
articles just as long as they could not help it. Dr. M’Carthy, I presume
on the ground of Bishop Magenis suing out pardon in Queen Mary’s reign,
considers he afterwards “repented”, being made a privy councillor and
governor of his country; but then we have two similar acts of repentance
in Elizabeth’s reign, for he took out the royal pardon, 1st May and 25th
October in her first year, thus atoning for his folly in her
predecessor’s. If he lived till 1564, as Dr. Moran (_Archbishops of
Dublin_) supposes—though I consider he was dead in 1563, from the queen’s
letter, dated 6th January, 1564, naming James M’Caghwell to the see, then
“destitute of an incumbent”, and also from the fact of Shane O’Neill
applying for the see for his brother, 1563-4—then, knowing that the
greater parts of the counties of Down and Antrim were, in the early years
of Elizabeth’s reign, completely under subjection to the English, and
coupling this with the solicitation of the royal pardons, the least that
can be said is, that Bishop Magenis acquiesced in or tacitly submitted to
the ecclesiastical changes enacted in the parliament of 1560, not
forgetting that about the same time Andrew Brereton, governor of Lecale
(called Britton by Anthony Bruodin, in Dr. Moran’s _Archbishops of
Dublin_, p. 142), mercilessly strangled John O’Lochran and two other
Franciscan friars, in Downpatrick. But I have reserved for the last the
conduct of Bishop Magenis in the reign of Edward VI. On the 2nd of
February, 1552-3, he assisted George Brown of Dublin in _consecrating_
Hugh Goodacre to be Archbishop of Armagh, and _John Bale_ to be Bishop of
Ossory, according to a new-fangled form annexed to the second Book of
Common Prayer of Edward VI., which was not even authorised by act of
parliament, nor by any order of the king (Mant, vol. i. p. 219)—as an
Erastian church would require—which was opposed by the Catholic clergy at
the time, and afterwards, in the reign of Queen Mary, condemned by all the
Catholic bishops of England as invalid, defective in matter, form, and
intention. And who was this John Bale whom Bishop Magenis assisted in
_consecrating_ by this vitiated rite? He, according to Pits, as quoted by
Harris (Ware’s _Bishops_, p. 417), was “an English Heretick, an apostate
Carmelite, and a married priest. This poor wretch, except his calumnies
against men and his blasphemies against God and his saints, hath nothing
in him worthy to be taken notice of”. Condemned by his brother
Protestants, Vossius, Wharton, etc., for his acrimony and falsehood, it is
little wonder the Catholics, on the death of Edward VI., chased him from
Kilkenny. Had his “King Johan: a play, in two parts”, published by the
Camden Society in 1838, been known in his lifetime, in which drama he
apotheosises that merciless tyrant, alike despicable, cruel, and infamous,
the murderer of his own nephew, as a great reformer, “the model of every
virtue, human and divine”, it would have completed his infamy and
disgrace. No earthly fears should have prevailed on an orthodox bishop to
pretend to consecrate a man whose life was such a disgrace to religion. I
do not lay much stress on the formal words of the Bull appointing Myler
Magrath to these sees, 12th October, 1565, vacant _per obitum Eugenii
Magnissae_: it simply shows he was not deposed, and it may have been with
him as with his successor, that hopes were entertained for some years that
he would abandon his state conformity, which I trust was the case. The
astute and wily ministers of Elizabeth at this early date did not compel
apostacy, nor seek for purity of morals; though apostates themselves, all
they required was outward conformity, that the elect should take
investiture from the crown. They bided their time.
It is questionable but that Sir James Ware knew Bishop Dougan had been
Bishop of Soder and Man, for in one of his MSS. in Trinity College
Library, cited by Reeves, p. 177, he writes of John Duncan, Archdeacon of
Down, in 1373, “Factus Episcopus Sodorensis sive Insular. Manniar, 1374”;
the different spelling of the name, and the great age Dr. Dougan must have
attained before his elevation to Down in 1394 (living till 1412), may have
induced him to doubt the identity.
I am delighted to learn that we are to have these valuable papers with
others on the succession of the Irish sees, published in a separate
volume; and were I permitted to offer a suggestion, I would recommend that
the succession should be brought down to the period of the Confederation
of Kilkenny, when all the sees, with the exception of Derry and Dromore,
were, I think, full. Enriched with a few biographical notes, such a work
would be a valuable accession to Irish ecclesiastical history, and would,
besides, utterly shatter the vain and fanciful theories of Mant, Palmer,
etc., as to apostolical succession through the puritanical Adam Loftus,
the apostate rector of Outwell, in Norfolk, to which he had been appointed
in 1556—(Cotton’s _Fasti_, v. p. 197).
I omitted to ask if it can be explained why Myler Magrath, in his letter
of 24th June, 1592, given _in extenso_ by Father Meehan in Duffy’s _Hib.
Magazine_, March, 1864, calls, “Darby Creagh”, Bishop of Cloyne, his
cousin. Dermot or Darby Creagh, or Gragh, or MacGragh, or M’Grath—for by
these various names he is called, is stated in the paper on Cork and
Cloyne in your last number to be a native of Munster; whereas Myler
Magrath was eldest son of Donogh, otherwise Gillagmagna Magrath, of Termon
Magrath, county of Fermanagh, of which the family had been erenachs. He
married Anne O’Meara, by whom he had five sons—Terence, alias Tirlagh,
Redmond, Barnaby, _alias_ Brien, Mark, and James, besides two daughters,
Cecily or Sheelagh, married to Philip O’Dwyer, and Eliza or Ellis, married
to Sir John Bowen. How came the relationship? I don’t understand why Myler
is named as the foster-brother of the great Shane O’Neill. The latter was
fostered by the O’Donnellys of Tyrone, and hence frequently styled Shane
Donnellagh. Terence Donnelly, alias Daniel, Dean of Armagh, was his
foster-brother.