Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Malone, William
MALONE, WILLIAM (1586–1656), jesuit, born in 1586, son of Simon Malone, merchant, of Dublin, by his wife Margaret Bexwick of Manchester, entered the society of jesuits at Rome in 1606, and having studied there and in Portugal he was sent to join the mission of the society in Ireland. About 1623 Malone issued a document entitled ‘The Jesuit's Challenge,’ in assertion of the antiquity of the Roman catholic church. To this a reply was published in 1624 by James Ussher, protestant archbishop of Armagh, under the title of ‘An Answer to a Challenge of a Jesuit in Ireland.’ Malone retorted in ‘A Reply to Mr. James Ussher his answere: wherein it is discovered how answerlesse the said Mr. Ussher returneth. The uniform consent of antiquity is declared to stande for the Roman religion: and the answerer is convinced of vanity in challenging the patronage of the doctors of the primitive church for his Protestancy,’ 4to. This book, extending to more than seven hundred pages in small type, bears the date of 1627, but has neither the name of the printer nor of the place of its publication, which is supposed to have been Douay. The author complained of the delays and difficulties which retarded the publication of his work, and mentioned, in extenuation of typographical errors, that the printers who executed it were unacquainted with the English language. The importation of Malone's book into England was prohibited by government, and copies of it were seized at the custom-houses. The author, however, appears to have visited London at this time under the assumed name of Morgan, and we find in his book a reference to Peter Capper, a schoolmaster, of Manchester, with which town Malone's mother was connected. Ussher did not carry out his intention of publishing an answer to Malone's ‘Reply,’ but under his patronage ‘Rejoinders’ to it were issued at Dublin in 1632 by Edward Synge and Roger Puttock, and in 1641 by Joshua Hoyle [q. v.]
Malone was for some time superior of the jesuits at Dublin, whence in 1635 he was summoned to take the office of president of the Irish College at Rome, founded by Cardinal Ludovisi. In 1641 Malone petitioned to be relieved from this post, but without success, as he was deemed pre-eminently qualified for it, from his intimate knowledge of Ireland and the Irish. In December 1647 Malone was appointed superior of the jesuits in Ireland, but his position there was rendered specially onerous owing to the conflict of opinions among both laity and clergy on political questions. Malone and some members of his society dissented in 1648 from the views of the nuncio and other prelates, and representations were in consequence addressed to Rome for his recall. He, however, was taken prisoner by the parliamentarians and sent out of Ireland. The rectorship of the jesuit college at Seville was subsequently committed to Malone, and he died in that town in August 1656. Dod, in his ‘Church History of England,’ described Malone as ‘a person of learning and conduct, well esteemed, not only by those of his own order, but by all others that had any knowledge of him.’
[Parr's Life of Ussher, 1686; Rinuccini MS.; Dod's Church Hist. of Engl. 1742; Wood's Athenæ Oxon., iii. 347, 382, 383; Works of Ussher, 1848; Gilbert's Hist. of Dublin; De Backer's Bibl., v. ‘Liège,’ 1859; Ibernia Ignatiana, 1880; Gilbert's Hist. of Irish Confederation, 1891; Foley's Collections, vol. vii. 1882–3.]