Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/114

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CON
CON

ing his remains to their resting place in the Cathedral of Valladolid. Although he was appointed Archbishop of Tuam in 1610, the proscription of Catholicism in Ireland prevented his ever taking possession of his see. Through his exertions the Irish College at Louvain was founded in 1616. His latter years were occupied in the publication of works on St. Augustine and his writings. He died 18th November 1629, in one of the Franciscan convents at Madrid, aged about 69. His remains were transferred in 1654 to the Louvain College, where they repose under a marble monument, 195 260 339

Conway, Thomas, Count, was born in Ireland, 27th February 1733. He was educated in France, entered the army, attained the rank of Colonel, and received the decoration of St. Louis. In 1777, on the recommendation of Silas Deane, he went to America to take service in the war of the revolution. He was almost immediately made Brigadier-General, and led his brigade at Brandywine and Germantown. He was Major-General the end of the same year; but resigned in 1778. Conway was one of the most active of the secret enemies of Washington, being the moving spirit of the "Conway cabal," that sought to elevate Gates to the supreme command. His course made him unpopular, and much to his chagrin his resignation was accepted. Afterwards, when, as he supposed, fatally wounded in a duel with General Cadwallader (4th July 1778), he wrote a letter of apology to Washington, containing the words: "You are, in my eyes, the great and good man." He recovered, returned to France, and in 1784 was Marechal-de-Camp, and was appointed Governor of Pondicherry and all the French possessions in India. His design, in 1788, of assisting the republican party in the Dutch settlements was effectually thwarted by the Marquis Cornwallis. When the French Revolution broke out he was obliged to fly, and his life was only saved by the efforts of the British authorities. Conway, who had been made a Count before the Revolution, is supposed to have died about 1800. 37*

Cooke, Henry, D.D., LL.D., was born at Grillagh, near Maghera, County of Londonderry, nth May 1788. He was the youngest of four children, his father being a sturdy Protestant yeoman, of "little education, and less pretence;" his mother "a woman of remarkable energy and great decision of character;" to her he was indebted for that fund of anecdotes, store of incidents in Irish history, and scraps of ballad poetry, which he was wont to recite with such pathos and power. His mother early perceived Henry's talents, and determined he should have the best education the neighbourhood could afford. It was but a rough one. "The house was a thatched cabin. The seats were black oak sticks from the neighbouring bog. A fire of peat blazed, or rather smoked, in the middle of the floor, and a hole in the roof overhead served for a chimney. The teacher was … a tall, lanky Scotchman, distinguished by an enormous nose, a tow wig, a long coat of rusty black, leather tights, grey stockings, brogues, and a formidable hazle rod, … an excellent teacher, … a Presbyterian of the strictest sect; and religious training was, in his honest mind, an essential part of a boy's education." At fourteen he entered the University of Glasgow; completed his undergraduate career in 1805; passed through the ordinary course of theological training; and in November 1808 was ordained to the pastoral care of the congregation of Duneane, near Eandalstown. He brought to the service of the ministry a highly cultured mind of the first order, and natural graces of style and manner trained upon the best models. His ministerial income amounted at first to about £25 a year. After two years he removed to the care of another congregation at Donegore, near Templepatrick, and about the same time married Miss Ellen Mann, In 1815, anxious still further to fit himself for the ministry, he obtained leave of absence, left his young wife with her father, and resumed his studies at Glasgow for eighteen months. In 1817 he entered Trinity College, attended medical classes at the Royal College of Surgeons, and walked some of the Dublin hospitals. Upon Sundays he occupied the pulpits of Presbyterian congregations in Dublin and other parts of Leinster, where his fervour, learning, and eloquence, made a deep impression. The 8th September 1818 found him installed pastor of Killyleagh, on the banks of Strangford Lough. It would be needless to specify the steps by which he rose to a pre-eminent position in the councils of the Presbyterian Church, and to mastering influence over the Protestants of Ulster. The great work to which he set himself from the first, and in which he was eminently successful, was the rooting out of the Unitarian doctrines, that in his youth had attained a considerable hold over Irish Presbyterianism. In his own congregation the contest was bitter—Captain Sydney Hamilton Rowan, one of the lords of the soil, siding with the young minister in contending with the Unitarian party,

90