_Bishop Merriman._--A few years ago inquiry was unsuccessfully made in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_, and elsewhere both in England and Ireland for some
particulars of John Merriman, the first Protestant Bishop of Down and
Connor.
In Cox's _Hibernia Anglicana_ it appears that "Loftus, Archbishop of
Armagh, was consecrated by the Popish Archbishop Curwin; Thomas Lancaster,
the first Protestant Bishop of Kildare, was consecrated by Archbishop
Brown; and John Merriman, the first Protestant Bishop of Down and Connor,
was consecrated by Lancaster when Primate."
This Bishop Merriman had been chaplain to Queen Elizabeth; he was made
Vicar of St. John's, Atheboy, in the first year of her reign, and was
consecrated Bishop of Down and Connor, Jan. 19, 1568/9. He died in 1572.
The probable father of Bishop Merriman may be found in the _Rutland
Papers_, published by the Camden Society, where _Mr. Meryman_, in a second
list called _William Meryman_, who held some office in the "Kechyn," is
selected as one of the attendants on Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine to the
Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520.
There was formerly a family of the name of Merriman residing in Ireland:
does it now exist? In England there are several families of this name: are
any of them descended from this source?