Life of Lord Chancellor Loftus.

Chapter XIX. **

Life of Lord Chancellor Loftus, from his birth to the Foundation of the University Of Dublin. **

As Weston was a very different Chancellor from his predecessor, the versatile and avaricious Curwen, so his successor, Adam Loftus, the celebrated Archbishop of Dublin, differed in many respects from both, He resembled them also in some points - Weston in his great business habits; Curwen in his unscrupulous conduct and insatiable avarice. Loftus had much more power than any of his predecessors, and though be mainly used it for personal aggrandisement, in one important matter he merits the thanks of men of letters - he established the University of Dublin. This distinguished prelate was born at Swineshead, in Yorkshire, in 1534. From an early age he showed great abilities, and, destined for the Church, entered, though somewhat later than usual, as a student the University of Cambridge. It was his fortune to have been called upon to take part in a public exhibition while at College, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth, and his graceful elocution, in addition to his comely person,

Touched the stout heart of England’s Queen,

Though French or Spaniard could not trouble it.

It requires no great stretch of imagination to fancy the scene which shaped the boy’s future destiny. It was a busy day in the University city. Studious-looking men, whose pale thoughtful faces told of many midnight vigils, and whose strained eyeballs told of severe study, wandered about in cap and gown; the curious gaze, as though the sight of the every-day world around was strange and novel to them. A busy day in the grave city, where the Sovereign Lady of the realm, attended by the pageantry which Elizabeth so much loved, made her Royal progress through the streets, turning the thoughts of the students from their books to shows and gay revelry. In the examination which ensued, Adam Loftus bore a very distinguished part, and the Queen sought him out from his fellow students. With, that quick insight into character, which was proved by her notice of Raleigh, Spenser, and others, she enquired into the circumstances of the young student, and encouraged him, by her commendations, She bade him persevere in his studies, and promised to reward his proficiency. Her Royal favour no doubt was a spur to his ambition, and Adam Loftus resolved that one day his name should be known and honoured beyond the walls of Cambridge.

When ordained, he sought a field for his ministry; Ireland was, at this time, a theatre where adventurous spirits sought renown by intellectual pursuits as well as martial prowess, and hither he turned his steps.

The Rev. Adam Loftus came to Ireland about the year 1559 as chaplain to Alexander Craike, then appointed Bishop of Kildare. This conscientious Prelate wrote on April 30 in that year to Lord Robert Dudeley, ‘that he could not preach to the people, nor could the people understand him,’ and desired to be released from his bishopric. He states that his chaplain, ‘Mr. Lofthouse (Adam Loftus) who lately came over with him, was his only help in setting forth God’s word.’ On August 5 following, the poor Bishop wrote to Cecil ‘that he was in the Marshalsea for his first-fruits,’ and imploring his intercession with the Lord Chancellor for a pardon. He had to undergo a lengthened incarceration. On October 26 he again wrote, complaining that he received no answer to his petition desiring to be discharged of the first-fruits, which was promised to be remitted before he left London, and praying to be disburthened of his bishopric, as he could not understand the Irish language. [Morrin’s Cal. Pat, and Close Rolls, vol. i. p. 435.]

While Thomas Ratcliff, Earl of Sussex, continued in the Viceroyalty of Ireland, the Reverend Adam Loftus was appointed his chaplain. During this time a Parliament was held in Dublin, by which the greater number of the Acts passed in Queen Mary’s Parliament were repealed. Seventy-six members were returned, writs having been issued for the counties of Dublin, Louth, Kildare, Meath, Westmeath, Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford, and Tipperary, and for certain towns where the English interest felt secure of being represented. It passed several Statutes for the establishment of the Protestant religion in Ireland. The care of Loftus’ Royal patroness was not remiss. In 1561, we find him appointed by Letters Patent to the rectory of Painstown in the Diocese of Meath. Further preferment was close at hand. Archbishop Dowdall’s death in the following year left the Primacy vacant, and the Rector of Painstown, at the early age of twenty-eight, was nominated to the Archbishopric of Armagh. It is stated that, through him, the Irish Protestant Bishops derive their succession, for he was consecrated by Curwen, who had been consecrated in England according to ‘the forms of the Roman Pontifical in the third year of Queen Mary.’ [Ware’s Bishop’s, p. 34.] At this period the Chancellor, Archbishop Curwen, found the business of his Court exceedingly arduous. The recent rapid advance in equitable jurisdiction caused by the Statute of Wills and the Statute of Uses, was beginning to tell upon a constitution never very robust, and the number of important suits respecting the suppressed monasteries was swelling the arrear in the cause list. His health was greatly broken, and it was doubtful if he could continue to preside in the Court of Chancery, from which be was most anxious to be released.

The revenues of Irish Sees were then unlike what they grew to be in after years. The license to hold other preferments, to supplement their incomes, had to be frequently given to the Bishops. Thus in 1564, Archbishop Loftus received Queen Elizabeth’s license to hold the Deanery of St. Patrick, to which he had been elected, together with the Primacy; his Archbishopric being a place of great charge, in name and title only to be esteemed, without any worldly endowment resulting from it. [Rot. in Canc. Hib.]

Although the State had ceased to hold communion with Rome, in the opinion of ecclesiastics, the censures of the Church ought to produce terror, for when, in 1566, the Irish chieftain, O’Neill, ravaged the Primatial city and the Cathedral of Armagh, Primate Loftus fulminated the thunders of excommunication against him, not only by himself but by the clergy of his diocese. As, however, O’Neill held fast by the Catholic faith, he utterly and ostentatiously disregarded these Protestant denunciations. [Ware’s Elizabeth, c. 9.] At, the close of this year, the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on the Archbishop by the University of Cambridge, and the Primatial See of Armagh was exchanged by him on August 8, 1567, for that of Dublin, then deemed more valuable.

The Queen required him to resign the Deanery of St. Patrick in favour of Dr. Weston, whom her Majesty appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland, which he did accordingly, though, we can readily believe, nothing but the peremptory command of Elizabeth Regina would have caused him to do so, as he derived very considerable profits from the Deanery. No doubt Archbishop Loftus had in mind the letter - short if not sweet - addressed by the Tudor Queen to a brother Prelate, which contained a memorable threat. [Letter to Bishop Cox. Vide London Society, vol. ix. p. 560]

‘Proud Prelate, - I understand your are backward in complying with your agreement; but I would have you to know that I who made you what you are can unmake you, and if you do not forthwith fulfil your engagement,’ by --- I will unfrock you.

‘Yours, as you demean yourself,

‘Elizabeth.’

By no means anxious to be favoured with a like specimen of the Queen’s epistolary style, Loftus with alacrity yielded the Deanery to Lord Chancellor Weston.

National education in Ireland was a favourite project with the Archbishop, and it was probably owing to his exertions an Act was passed in 1570, directing that free schools should be kept in the principal town of every diocese, at the cost of each diocese, the ordinary of each to pay one-third of the master’s salary, and the remainder to be contributed, in due proportions, by parsons, vicars, prebendaries, &c.

Dr. Loftus was by no means content with the revenues of his See. He made such representation of its poverty to the Queen, that, in May 1572, she granted him a dispensation to hold, with his Archbishopric, any sinecures he might obtain, not exceeding 100l. a-year in value; a license of which he very fully availed himself. [D’Alton’s Archbishops of Dublin, p. 242.]

On the lamented death of Lord Chancellor Weston in the year 1573, Archbishop Loftus succeeded him as Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Some persons might have supposed the possession of two such important dignities as the Archbishopric of Dublin and the Lord Chancellorship would have contented any man, but they failed to satisfy Adam Loftus. Harris relates that, ‘beside his promotion in the Church, and his public employments in the State, he grasped at everything that became void, either for himself or family; insomuch that the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church were so wearied with his importunities that, on August 28, 1578, upon granting him some request, they obliged him to promise “not to petition or become a suitor to them for any advowson, of any prebend or living, nor for any lease of any benefice.”’

When Sir John Perrot was Deputy, he had opportunity to see and discretion to mourn the mischievous policy by which the inhabitants of Ireland wasted their energies and means in injuring each other by internal feuds, instead of uniting to advance the common weal. Mr. Taylor well observes, [History of the University of Dublin, by Taylor, p. 3. It is singular that it is only in our day, after a lapse of nearly three centuries, statesmen are carrying out the policy of Sir John Perrot.] ”Being a man of vigorous benevolence, he made great exertions to ameliorate the condition of the people, and hoped, by the removal of unwise distinctions, to give Ireland a common feeling with a nation to which she had not been yet more politically allied. As England was rapidly rising from comparative rudeness into commercial wealth, and that state of information which foreruns a graceful prosperity, he justly concluded that mere Acts of Parliament could never produce a sincere coalition between two countries in different stages of mental progression, or rather while one was invigorated and the other repressed. It was necessary, for the real union of both, that there should be a sympathy of habits, and a perception of mutual interests.’

The Viceroy’s idea was to erect institutions, wherein learned men might raise the intellectual standard of the people, and diffuse through all classes the benignant influences of education. He also was anxious to provide better Courts for the legal profession. With this view he wrote to the then Lord Treasurer of England, ‘That whereas there is no place for the Courts of Law, save only an old hall, in the Castle of Dublin, * dangerously placed over the munition of powder*, that the Cathedral of St. Patrick, being spacious and large, would sufficiently serve for all the several Courts, and there being a want of a storehouse for grain, and other provisions, and no fit place for it, whereby the waste in victualling is the greater, that the Canon’s house environing the Church might aptly serve for an Inn of Court, to bestow the Judges and lawyers in, in exchange for which their Inns of Court, lying commodiously over the river, and hard by the bridge for loading and unloading, might aptly serve for a storehouse and granary. That there being two Cathedrals in Dublin, this being dedicated, to St. Patrick, and the other to the name of Christ, that St. Patrick’s was in more superstitious reputation than the other, and therefore ought to be dissolved.’ As the revenues of St. Patrick’s Cathedral were very large, he suggested their application to educational purposes, and to found two Universities in Dublin. He then stated the revenues at 4,000 marks, which would serve to lay the foundation of two Universities and a couple of Colleges. Six masters for each, and a hundred scholars to be instructed in learning, civility, and loyalty. This project was strenuously resisted by Archbishop Loftus, on the plea that it was an attempt to misappropriate the Church revenues; but it was generally believed the real motive which influenced him was to prevent alienations he had himself made, when Dean of St. Patrick’s, from being discovered. In Sir John Perrot’s Life [London: 1728, p. 242.] it is stated the Archbishop ‘was interested in the livings of St. Patrick by large leases and other estates thereof granted, either to hymselfe, his children, or kinsmen, for which reason the Lord Chancellor did, by all means, withstand the alienation of that livinge, and being otherwise a man of high spirit, accustomed to bear sway on that Government, grew into contradiction, and from contradiction into contention with the Lord Deputie, who, on the other side, brooking no such opposition, it grewe into some heart-burning and heate betwixt them.’

The want of cordiality between Sir John Perrot and the Lord Chancellor was highly prejudicial to Ireland. Seldom had a more efficient ruler been placed in Dublin Castle than Perrot. He was a statesman, wise in counsel, just in policy, and conciliatory in manner. He was a soldier, fit to command, prudent to order, and swift to execute. Connaught and Ulster were the scene of his military operations, and he divided the latter province with the counties of Armagh, Monaghan, Tyrone, Coleraine, Donegal, Fermanagh, and Cavan. Sheriffs, coroners, and Commissioners of the Peace, were appointed to these districts. He called a Parliament in 1585, which was probably the first ever assembled to which the name of a Parliament of Ireland might justly apply. However we may endeavour to assert the antiquity of Parliaments in Ireland from a period shortly after the arrival of the English, we must admit that for centuries the constituent Members only represented the four obedient shires, as they were called, of Dublin, Louth, Meath, and Kildare, until the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when, in addition to noblemen and commoners of English descent, Irish chiefs, and beads of septs, were also in attendance. It is curious to find one of the measures designed by this Irish Parliament was the repeal of Poyning’s Act, which was suggested by the Deputy, to enable the Parliament to pass such laws as were requisite, without the circumlocution inseparable from Poyning’s Act. The Lord Chancellor, and other Anglo-Irish Peers, opposed this, and got up such a strong party that it was rejected. on the third reading. [Rev. J. O’Hanlon’s Catechism of Irish History, p. 270.]

Finding his measures constantly thwarted, the Deputy procured his recall. His enemies caused him to be imprisoned for misgovernment, and he was called on to answer for his conduct.

The accusations against the ‘Viceroy were for high treason, but the evidence was of a trivial character. He was blunt of speech, and when excited used expressions which the Chancellor Archbishop and others at enmity with him considered tantamount to denying the authority of the Queen.

The prosecution was conducted by Sir John Puckering, Queen’s Serjeant, [This rank, analogous to that of Prime Serjeant in Ireland, put the holder over the Attorney and Solicitor-General. For a report of the trial see State Trials, vol. i. p. 1300.] a very zealous Crown lawyer, who, aware of the weak case against the prisoner, tried to convince the jury of the guilty intentions which the words disclosed: ‘For the original of his treasons proceeded from the imagination of his heart, which imagination was in itself high treason, albeit the prisoner proceeded not to any overt act; and the heart being possessed with the abundance of his traitorous imagination, and not being able to contain itself:, burst forth in vile and traitorous speeches, for Ex abundantia cordis os loquitur.’ [State Tr. 1318.]

The evidence mainly consisted of ebullitions of temper when the Lord Deputy was at the Council table. At one time he said, in reference to a letter from the Queen which he did not approve of, “Stick not so much on the Queen’s letters of commandment, for she may command what she will, but we will do what we list.’ Another time he said, ‘This fiddling woman troubles me out of measure; it is not safe for her Majesty to break such sour bread to her servants.’ In reply to the charge, that he moved to suppress the Cathedral of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, he declared, ‘that the Archbishop of Dublin was his mortal enemy, and the reason why he was moved to suppress the said Cathedral Church was to have a University founded thereon; but he was opposed by the said Archbishop because he and his children received by the said Cathedral 800 marks a-year.’

The case being closed, Serjeant Puckering, as leading counsel for the Crown, again addressed the jury and ‘prayed them to consider well of that which had, been said, and willed them to go together.’ This so excited the prisoner that he called aloud in passionate entreaty on the jury to remember ‘and have a conscience in the matter, and that his blood would be required at their hands.’ The jury then retired, and for three quarters of an hour the brave Sir John Perrot, the Court, and auditory were in suspense awaiting the verdict. Many predicted it would be the ominous word, ‘guilty.’ [Id. 1326.]

The dread sentence was passed upon Sir John Perrot, but he was not executed. The Queen was touched with compassion, and,, on reading the report of the trial, remembered the rescript of the Emperor Theodosius, which, she said, should rule this case: ‘If any person speak ill of the Emperor through a foolish rashness or inadvertency, it is to be despised; if out of madness, it deserves pity; if from malice, it calls for mercy.’ [Lord Campbell’s Lives of the Chancellors, vol. ii. p. 168.]

Her clemency did not avail the ex-Viceroy, for he died shortly after,

Elizabeth did not lose sight of the University project, and Loftus was shrewd enough to know he could do nothing more pleasing to the Queen than realise the idea of Sir John Perrot at the least possible expense to himself. He accordingly fixed his eye on the ancient and decaying Monastery of All Saints as a fit site for the University, and which might be readily obtained.

This ancient Monastery of All Saints, or All Hallows, had long been a fountain of piety and charity to the neighbourhood of Dublin. It was founded in 1168 by Dermod, son of Murchart, and endowed with broad lands and rich offerings by successive benefactors. Blessed by St. Lawrence O’Toole, fostered by Henry Fitz Empress - native saint and foreign sinner continued to protect the pious inmates. Miles De Cogan, one of Strongbow’s warrior chiefs, shared with the monks the lands he won at the sword’s point; other Norman Barons added valuable possessions in return for prayers offered for their souls’ health; and, for four centuries, the monks of the House lived in peace, going about their Master’s business. Hourly the chime of bells pealed some work of devotion. Matins and lauds, prime and vesper - the Mass for the living, the Requiem for the dead - and daily a liberal dole awaited the poor at the postern gate.

Not without some occasional show and parade lived the brethren. During the sitting of the Parliament of the Pale, the Prior rode forth to assist at the Colonial Legislature, amid the homage of burghers, on whom he bestowed his blessing as he passed through the streets. Again, in days of festival, the gorgeous procession, attended by the pomp of the Catholic ritual, with incense burning and tapers alight, impressed the rude spectators with awe and reverence for the Supreme Being to whom such tributes were paid. Then the Abbey lands were well tilled, no rude violence was displayed by the monks towards their tenants, and repaid with the assassin’s bullet. They were Christian churchmen, devoted to their creed, having no families to enrich, no temporal dignity to sustain, at the expense of their vassals. When not employed in prayer and confessional, they visited the sick, gave alms to the poor, illuminated manuscripts with artistic skill, copied the Holy Scriptures, and preserved for posterity those works of Pagan erudition popularly called classical literature.

In the days of Henry VIII. learning and sanctity was of no avail when hid beneath the cowl of the monk or the veil of the nun. Irish Abbots and Priors, dismayed by the ruthless measures taken to suppress the Abbeys in England, yielded to force what they were powerless to protect. Walter Handcocke, the last Prior of All Hallows, made formal surrender of the House on November 1, 1588, and the Priory, with all its endowments, was granted to the Corporation of Dublin. The buildings, tenantless and uncared for, soon became mere ruins, affording a precarious shelter for cattle grazing upon Hoggin Green; amid this was the site selected by Archbishop Loftus for the Dublin University.

Having proceeded so far, the Chancellor-Archbishop’s next step was to interest the citizens of Dublin in the completion of his project. He caused a meeting to be convened at the Tholsel, and addressed the Mayor, Citizens, and Common Council, in a speech in which be detailed his plans, stating the Queen’s earnest wish to found a University in Dublin, and the result was most satisfactory. The mayor and corporation complied with his request to grant the proposed site, and labourers were forthwith employed in clearing the place for the University building.

Henry Ussher, Archdeacon of Dublin, [Ussher was afterwards Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. Uncle to the celebrated James Ussher.] with Lucas Challoner, were sent by Loftus to the Queen to petition for a charter. This prayer, with a readiness which ought to serve as a precedent in modern times, was at once granted; and, by a warrant of December 29, 1591, a license was ordered to pass the Seals for the grant of the Abbey and the foundation of the college. The charter was dated the following year. [34 Eliz. a.d. 1592.]

By this charter, Adam Loftus, Doctor of Divinity, Archbishop of Dublin; and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, was named first Provost of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, founded by Queen Elizabeth, near Dublin.

The monopolising spirit which preserved the principal emoluments of the College exclusively to Protestants for several hundred years, was not the intention of the original founders. When the Lord Deputy (Fitz William) [Heron’s History of the University of Dublin, p. 21] addressed the gentry of Ireland for the purpose of raising funds for building halls and other necessary expenses of the institution, he applied to all, irrespective of creed, and besought ‘any contribution, whether in money, lands, or anie other chattels, whereby their benevolence may be shewed to the putting forward of so notable and excellent a purpose as this will prove to the benefit of the whole countrey, whereby knowledge, learning, and civilitie may be increased to the banishing of barbarisme, tumults, and disordered lyving from among them, whereby their children, and children’s children, especially those that be poore (as it were in an orphant’s hospital freely) maie have their learning and education given them with much more ease and lesser charges than in other Universities they can obtain it.’ True that, in the Act of Uniformity, passed in England the second year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Oath of Supremacy imposed on all who took degrees in any University, would, if extended to Ireland, preclude Roman Catholics taking degrees; but this Act did not extend to Ireland, and it was smuggled through the Irish Parliament in the following manner. Mr. Stanyhurst, of Corduff, then Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, being in the Protestant interest, privately assembled on a day when the House was not to sit, a few such members as he knew to be favourers of that interest; and, consequently, in the absence of all those who, he believed, would have opposed it, carried the measure through the House. But these absent members, having understood what passed at that secret convention, did soon after, in a full and regular meeting of Parliament, enter their protests against it; upon which the Lord Lieutenant assured many of them, in particular with protestations and oaths, that the penalties of that Statute should never be inflicted, which they, too easily believing, suffered it to remain as it was. [Analecta Sacra, p. 431. O’Connell’s Ireland and the Irish, p. 141.] Notwithstanding the efforts of the Archbishop, and the patronage of the Queen, the first few years of the University’s existence were far from flourishing. Students were few, owing to the general ignorance of the English language throughout the country, and the heads of the College being strangers to the soil. The Fellows did not pull well together; and, owing to the disturbed state of the kingdom the College lands, lying in remote districts, proved very unproductive and unprofitable. This, however, was but of brief duration.

Having kept the high places and emoluments of the fellowships and scholarships exclusively Protestant [The charter of King Charles I., however, removed any doubts as to the institution being exclusively Protestant.] for about two centuries and a half, a declaration is now made by the heads of the University, expressing their willingness to abolish religious tests. It is thought this may have the effect of preventing a Charter being sought for by the Catholics of Ireland, who have been long in hopes of obtaining one for the Catholic University.

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