Bramhall, John

BRAMHALL, JOHN: Protestant archbishop of Armagh; b. at or near Pontefract (22 m. s.s.w. of York), Yorkshire, 1594; d. at Omagh (30 m. s. of Londonderry), County Tyrone, Ireland, June 25, 1663. He studied at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (B.A., 1612; M.A., 1616; B.D., 1623; 252D.D., 1630); took orders about 1616 and distinguished himself in Yorkshire, where he received several appointments. In 1633 he went to Ireland as chaplain to Wentworth (afterward Earl of Strafford); became archdeacon of Meath, and, in 1634, bishop of Derry. He did much to increase the revenues of the Irish Church, and tried to establish episcopacy more firmly. Most of the time from the Irish insurrection of 1641 till the Restoration he spent on the Continent, was made archbishop of Armagh in 1661, and as such displayed a commendable moderation in striving to secure conformity. His works were collected by John Vesey, archbishop of Tuam, and published at Dublin in 1677; they include five treatises against Romanists, three against sectaries, three against Hobbes, and seven miscellaneous, in defense of royalist and Anglican views. The works are reprinted in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology (5 vols., Oxford, 1842–45) with life.