And they will of Bedell will plead its own excuse. receive with indulgence, at least, and complacency, the annexed engraving, of which the upper part exhibits the arms and accompaniments, as sketched by the visitor of 1820, and recently examined and corrected on the spot, and the lower the inscription. in its actual state of decay and imperfection. The extent of the decay may be inferred from the fact, that in the two copies of the inscription, so carefully traced, the spelling of the bishop's name does not tally. Burial of Bishop Depressed con dition of the Church. At the interment of Bishop Bedell many of the chief rebels assembled, out of their singular value for his excellence, and discharged a volley of shot over his grave, crying out in Latin, "Requiescat in pace ultimus Anglorum!" "May the last of the English rest in peace!" For they had often said, that as they esteemed him the best of the English bishops, so he should be the last to survive among them. And one of a pensive and desponding mind, pondering the actual state and the immediate prospects of the Church, of which he was so distinguished a governor, might not unreasonably, perhaps, have caught in that sound the requiem for the Church herself. She was well nigh spent with her affliction. During the six years, indeed, of war and tumult, which filled up the interval between the Irish massacre and the murder of the king, she struggled, mutilated as she was and enfeebled, to keep up a precarious existence. But although, on the one side, the noble Marquis of Ormonde, the lord lieutenant of Ireland, was exerting his influence to secure or recover for her all that was possible of her rights and privileges, her buildings, her benefices, and jurisdiction; on the other side, the Popish hierarchy were here assuming the titles of the episcopacy of the kingdom, and occupying the Church's palaces and temples, and claiming her possessions, and asserting a paramount dominion; and there the parliament of England was putting forth its powers for depriving her of her apostolical eminence and her beauty of holiness, and reducing her to a level with the sects and systems of human and modern invention: till at length the iron hand of Cromwell, red with the blood of his sovereign, laid its strong grasp upon her, and extinguished nearly all that remained of her spirit, and left her but the shadow of a name. bishops and March 22, 1642. The Romish clergy, who, as the lords justices say, Synod of Popish "had hitherto walked somewhat invisibly in these clergy. works of darkness," now began openly to justify that Rebellion, which they were before supposed underhand to promote. Hugh O'Neile, titular primate of Armagh, summoned the bishops and clergy of his province to a synod at Kells. They met on the 22nd of March, 1642; and, after making some constitutions against murderers, plunderers, and the usurpers of other people's estates, they declared the war, so they called the Rebellion of the Irish, to be lawful and pious, and exhorted all persons to join in support of the cause. lar Bishop of Thomas Diaz, or Desse, titular bishop of Meath, Absence of tituhad been summoned to this synod; but neither Meath. came in person, nor sent a proxy to appear for him. He had not offered so much as an excuse for his absence, nor admonished any of the dignitaries of his Church to go thither. He had laboured earnestly to keep the nobility and gentry of his diocese from embarking in the war, which he maintained to be groundless and unjust and had succeeded so well, particularly with the Earl of Westmeath, in whose house he lived, and with several gentlemen of the Nugent family, that they had not stirred. It was necessary in policy to censure a prelate, who had Censure passed done them so much mischief, and to destroy the upon him. credit which he had with his flock. They ordered him to recant an opinion, so contradictory to their own; to subscribe the acts of the synod; and to submit himself in three weeks, under pain of incurring suspicion of heresy, and of being informed General synod. against to the Pope; and in case he did not submit within that time they declared him suspended ab officio. To the authority of a provincial synod it was thought proper to add that of a general synod of all the Romish bishops and clergy in Ireland, which met on the 10th of May at Kilkenny. The three titular Archbishops of Armagh, Cashel, and Tuam, with six other bishops, and the proxies of five more, besides The war declared vicars-general and other dignitaries, were present, and declared the war to be just and lawful. just and lawful. Among other constitutions, they ordered an exact register to be kept in each province of the burnings, murders, and cruelties committed by the Protestant forces, and passed censures on such of their people as were guilty of the like outrages. They provided that no distinction should be made of old and new Irish, and that all who had taken arms should be united by a common oath of association : that all who should refuse to take the oath, or were neuters, or who assisted the enemy with victuals, arms, advice, or intelligence, should be excommunicated, and deemed enemies of the cause and betrayers of their country. They directed all ecclesiastical revenues to be received by particular collectors; and, after a competency being allowed to the proprietor, the rest to be applied for the service of the war. For the better exercise and support of their confederacy, they made several regulations with regard to the provinces; appointing provincial councils, composed of clergy and laity together, to be settled in each, and a general council of the nation to be formed at Kilkenny, to which the others were subordinate, They resolved also to apply to foreign potentates; and ordered that, in the next general assembly a prelate, a nobleman, and a lawyer should be deputed to the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of France, to solicit for assistance. These were acts purely of the clergy; but the nobility and gentry,' then at Kilkenny, joined in forming the oath of association; in naming the members of the supreme council, of which Lord Mountgarret was chosen president; and in appointing a general assembly of the whole nation to meet in that city in the October following'. Of the temper and the projects of the Popish hierarchy, with respect to the Church of Ireland, at this season, the following may be cited as specimens, which represent the objects of its ambition under various aspects, all of them, however, looking towards the same end. Possessions of clergy appro the Protestant priated, October, 1642. In 1642, the 24th of October, a general assembly of the lords spiritual and temporal, and others, the representatives of the confederates, was held at Kilkenny, where, amongst many other ordinances it was decreed, "That the possessions of the Protestant clergy, in right of the Church, shall be deemed the possessions of the Catholick clergy." And on the 14th of November they named their supreme council, which contained, together with others, the following prelates, thus absolutely de- Titles of the scribed: "Archbishop of Dublin," "Archbishop of Tuam," "Bishop of Clonfert," "Archbishop of Armagh." And to the same effect in 1650, occurs a "Declaration of the undernamed bishops, in the name of themselves and the rest of the bishops, convoked at Limerick, as deputed by them." It professes to be "from ourselves, as the sense like 9 CARTE's Life of Ormonde, v. i. p. 316. bishops assumed. |