Ussher, James

USSHER, JAMES: Archbishop of Armagh; b.

in Dublin Jan. 4, 1581; d. at Reigate (22 m. s. of

London), Surrey, Mar. 21, 1656. His father was

clerk of the Irish court of chancery; his uncle,

Henry Ussher (archbishop of Armagh 1595-1613), and his maternal grandfather, James Stanyhurst, were founders of Trinity College, Dublin, and their

young relative became one of its earliest scholars

(1594). His father wished him to be a lawyer, but

the son preferred divinity, and was free to follow his

inclination after the father's death in 1598. He was graduated B.A. probably in July, 1597, became fellow 1599, M.A. Feb., 1601, and the

Career same year was made catechist and first

Previous to proctor of his college, and preacher at

Being Christ Church, and was ordained dea

Archbishop. con and priest in December. In 1605

he became chancellor of St. Patrick's

Cathedral and rector of Finglas, County Dublin, and was graduated B.D. and appointed professor of divinity in 1607. From c. 1611 to 1620, when he

exchanged it for Trim, he also held the rectory of

Assey, County Meath. He proceeded D.D. in 1614

(incorporated D.D. at Oxford, 1626), and was

chosen vice-chancellor of Trinity College in 1615

and again in 1617, and vice-provost in 1616. He visited England to buy books for the college library in 1602, and again in 1606, and thereafter triennial ly, spending a month each in Oxford, Cambridge, and London. He became well and favorably known

to the foremost scholars and statesmen of England.

In 1615 Ussher drafted the 104 articles of the Irish

Church (see Irish Articles), which are anti-Ro manist and strongly tinged with Calvinism. In 1621 he resigned his professorship to take up the work of

a poor, unremunerative, and badly organized dio-

cese, James I. having nominated him bishop of Meath and Clonmacnoise. He attempted to win the Roman Catholics by his sermons, and possibly by more energetic measures; at any rate, the Roman Catholic Archbishop Hampton interposed a remonstrance. From Dec., 1623, till early in 1626 Ussher was in England, working on his book on the antiquities of the British Church and much of the time suffering from ill-health. He was appointed archbishop of Armagh in Mar., 1625.

His views and tendencies appear in the fact that his name stands first in a list of twelve Irish bishops who signed a protest against toleration of popery in

1626, and also in his desire, expressed in Views 1627, for the removal of grievances felt and by the non-conforming Puritans. As Tendencies. vice-chancellor, he continued to have much to do with the affairs of Trinity College. In 1628 he began a correspondence with William Laud (q.v.), which lasted till 1640; although they differed in theology, the two men had much in common, and their relations were cordial. Moreover, Ussher's acts always showed him alive to the duty of allegiance to constituted authority. In June, 1634, an old dispute between Armagh and Dublin for the primacy of Ireland was settled in favor of the former by Lord Strafford. The Irish convocation met the next month and adopted the Anglican articles without repealing the Irish articles. Ussher thereafter required subscription to both sets, and this course was followed till the Restoration. He opposed the adoption of the English canons as inconsistent with the independence of a national church, and the outcome was the adoption of 100 canons drawn up by John Bramhall, bishop of Derry, and "methodized" by Ussher. They make no concession to Puritan scruples.

In 1640 Ussher went to England and never returned to Ireland. He lived in Oxford and London, as a guest at St. Donat's Castle, Glamorganshire, Wales, and lastly with an old friend, Elizabeth Mordaunt, dowager countess of Peterborough, at her houses in London and Reigate. The Irish rebellion of 1641 well-nigh impoverished him, and the troubles in England brought him distress of

mind. He contemplated retiring to Life in the continent, but declined the offer England. of a chair at Leyden (1641) and an-

other (after the execution of Charles L) of a pension in France with religious freedom, made through Richelieu by the queen regent. He preached often and boldly. Soon after the opening of the Long Parliament (Nov., 1640) he drafted a modified scheme of episcopacy as an effort to compose the religious differences (first correctly printed at London in 1656, after Ussher's death, as The Reduction of Episcopacy unto the Form of Synodical Government Received in the Ancient Church), which was accepted by the Puritans, and which was used by Charles I. in 1648 and by Charles II. in his "Declaration" in Oct., 1660. He attended Strafford to the block, having previously advised the king to go cautiously in assenting to the condemnation of the earl. In 1642 Charles granted him the bishopric of Carlisle in commendam, and in 1643 parliament gave him a pension of £400 annually,

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although the first payment was not made till 1647. He was invited to sit in the Westminster Assembly and responded by preaching against its legality. Again in 1647 he was offered a seat in the assem bly, but he never attended. None the less the influ ence of his writings is apparent in the assembly's work. As the crisis drew near between king and parliament, Ussher fearlessly denounced the atti tude of the latter and proclaimed the doctrine of divine right. Cromwell sought his advice and promised, without according, pecuniary relief. At Ussher's death he made a treasury grant of �200 toward the expenses of an elaborate public funeral in Westminster Abbey. Ussher's contemporaries rightly held him too mild for a good administrator, but all parties found in him something with which they could agree the Puritan his Calvinistic theology, the churchman his reverence for antiquity, the royal Charac- ist his steadfastness for the king. All ter and respected his goodness and sincerity, Writings. felt the charm of his personal gifts, and marveled at his learning (character ized by Selden as " miraculous "). He wrote much (the list of first editions of his books in the DNB has 27 numbers) on topics suggested by the con troversies of his time, but with a thorough and exact use of original sources which still makes much of his work of first-rate value-notably his contribu tions to the history of the creed and to the Ignatian problem, and in the field of early British and Irish church history. His chronology was taken into the margin of the Authorized Version and is still printed in English Bibles. His complete Works, with life, were published at Dublin in 17 volumes, 1847-64 (vols. i.-xiv. ed. Charles Richard Elrington, vols. xv.-xvii. ed. James Henthorn Todd, index by Will iam Reeves). There are many editions of separate works by both English and foreign editors, the more important being A Discourse of the Religion Ancient ly Professed by the Irish (Dublin, 1623; enlarged London, 1631); An Answer to a Jesuit in Ireland (Dublin, 1625); Gotteschalci et Predestinatiance Con troversia; Historic (1631), in which he published for the first time Gottschalk's "Confessions," which he had obtained from Venice; Veterum Epistolarum Hibernicarum Sylloge (1632); Britanzzicarum Eccle siarum Antiquitates (1639; enlarged London, 1677); Polycarpi et Iguatii Epistola; (Oxford, 1644); Ap pendix Iguatiana (1647); De Romance Ecclesice Sym bolo Apostolico Diatriba (1647); Annalium Pars Prior (1650), and Pars Posterior (1654), which in 1659 were combined into the Annales Veteris Testa menti; an English translation, with additions, was published at London in 1658 as the Annals of the World to the Beginning of the Emperor Vespasian's Reign.