Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/217

---

abortive attempt was made by Sir Phelim O'Neil to represent Bramhall as implicated in the Irish insurrection of 1641. The story has an improbable air; but Derry, crowded with Scots seeking sanctuary from the rebels, and soon stricken with fever, was no safe place for him. He obeyed the warning of friends and fled to England. He was in Yorkshire till the battle of Marston Moor (2 July 1644); he sent his plate to the king, and in private, from the pulpit, and by pen supported the royalist cause. With William Cavendish, first marquis of Newcastle, and others, he hurried abroad, landing at Hamburg on 8 July 1644. The Uxbridge convention, in January 1645, excepted him, with Laud, from the proposed general pardon. In Paris he met Hobbes (prior to 1646), and argued with him on liberty and necessity. This led to controversies with Hobbes in after years. Till 1648 he was chiefly at Brussels, preaching at the English embassy, the English merchants of Antwerp having the benefit of his services monthly. He went back to Ireland, but not to Ulster, in 1648; at Limerick he received in 1649 the protestant profession of the dying earl of Roscommon (James Dillon, third earl, brother-in-law of Stratford). While he was in Cork, the city declared for the parliament (October 1649); he had a narrow escape, and returned to foreign parts. He corresponded diligently with Montrose, and disputed and wrote in defence of the church of England. It is said that he was so obnoxious to the papal powers that on crossing into Spain he found his portrait in the hands of innkeepers, with a view to his being seized by the inquisition. Bramhall himself, who reports 'a tedious and chargeable voyage into Spain' (about 1650), does not mention this incident. It would appear that Granger founds upon the story a conjecture that there was a print of Bramhall, which he describes as 'very rare,' and had not seen. He was excluded from the Act of Indemnity of 1652; subsequently to this we find him occasionally adopting in his correspondence the pseudonym of 'John Pierson.' In October 1660 he returned to England. It was supposed that he would be made archbishop of York; but on 18 Jan. 1661 he was translated to the metropolitan see of Armagh (vacant since Ussher's death, 21 March 1655). On 27 Jan. 1661 he presided at the consecration in St. Patrick's Cathedral of two archbishops and ten bishops for Ireland. Not only was Bramhall ex officio president of convocation, but on 8 May 1661 he was chosen speaker of the Irish House of Lords. Both houses erased from their records the old charges against Bramhall. Although Parliament passed declarations requiring conformity to episcopacy and the liturgy, and ordering the burning of the covenant, Bramhall could not carry his bills for a uniform tithe-system, and for extending episcopal leases. Nor was there any new Irish act of uniformity till 1667, only the old statute of 1560, enjoining the use of Edward VI's second prayer-book. The ejection of Irish nonconformists was effected by episcopal activity, and was accomplished some time before the passing of the English act of 1662. Armagh was not a specially presbyterian diocese, nor had Bramhall to deal here with the rigid temper of the Scots divines; in pursuing the process of obtaining conformity he used a moderation which contrasts favourably, in spirit and results, with Jeremy Taylor's action in Antrim and Down. Following the lines of the Irish articles, he neither impugned the spiritual validity of presbyterian orders, nor refused to make good the titles to benefices granted under the Commonwealth; but he told his clergy he did not see how they were to recover their tithes for the future, unless they could show letters of orders recognised by the existing law. Accordingly he prepared a form of letters, certifying simply that any previous canonical deficiency had been supplied. Edward Parkinson was one of the ministers whom he thus induced to conform. A very remarkable letter from Sir George Radcliffe on 20 March 1643-4 shows that Bramhall was then inclined to admit the episcopal character of the 'superintendants in Germany.' His view of the articles as terms of peace was framed when he was seeking a standing-ground for Arminianism within a generally Calvinistic church; but he did not, like Taylor, forget his old plea when the tables were turned. Presbyterians hated the name of 'bishop bramble,' and Cromwell called him the 'Irish Canterbury.' Like Laud he had no great presence; he had something of Laud's business power, with an intellect less keen and subtle. His wrangles with Hobbes furnished sportive occupation to a vigorous and busy mind; the 'Leviathan' was not refuted by being called 'atheistical.' Bramhall was defending his rights in a court of law at Omagh against Sir Audley Mervyn when a third paralytic stroke deprived him of consciousness. He died on 25 June 1663. Jeremy Taylor preached his funeral sermon. James Margetson (died 28 Aug. 1678, aged 77) was translated from Dublin as his successor. His wife was Ellinor Halley; the name of her first husband is not given. The wills of Bramhall (5 Jan. 1663) and his widow (20 Nov. 1665) are printed in the 'Rawdon Papers.' He left issue: 1. Sir Thomas Bramhall, bart., who married the daughter of