<« ^^<^ "Vin feG '!fe AN EPOCH IN IRISH HISTORY TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN ITS FOUNDATION AND EARLY FORTUNES 1591-1660 BY THE SAME AUTHOR (With the Collaboration of Arthur Oilman, M.A.) ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE Sixth Edition. With Maps and Numerous Illustrations. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 5^. ("The Story of the Nations" Series.) LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN. AN EPOCH IN IRISH HISTORY TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN ITS FOUNDATION AND EARLY FORTUNES, T I59I-I66O: JOHN PENTLAND MAHAFFY, D.D., Knight Commander of the Order of the Redeemer ; Dublin Mus.Doc, ; Hon. D.C.L., Oxon ; Sometime Professor of Ancient History IN THE University of Dublin ; Author of " Social Life in Greece from Homer to Menander," "A History of Greek Classical Literature," "Alexander's Empire," Editor of the Petrie Papyri, etc., etc. LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 1903 LF in 2) [Ai/ rights reserved.] Pr^honorabili GEORGIO COMITI CADOGAN DE GART. EC^. APUD NOS UTRUSQUE LEGIS HONORIS CAUSA DoCTORI QUEM PER SEPTENNIUM PRO RegE IN HiBERNIA PR-ffiSENTEM COLUIMUS NUNC ABSENTEM DESIDERAMUS D D D AMICUS AUCTOR. Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.archive.org/details/epocliinirishhistOOmaliaiala Contents IX • • Introduction . CHAPTER of the i6th I. Ireland in the Closing Years • • Century . • ^ • 60 II. The Founding of the College . • • ^^^ III. Alvey (1601-9) . • • • IV. Temple (1609-26) . • HS V. Bedell—Robert Ussher (1626-34) . 192 Statutes VI. Chappell and the Caroline (1634-40) "^ Civil War VII. The Great Rebellion and the • IN Ireland . • ^H VIII. The Protectorate—Winter (1652-60) . 293 Appendix. Bedell's Statutes . • .3^7 • • • • * 377 Index . Introduction The title of this book is intended to inform the reader that though the history of a particular Foundation fills most of its pages, the general history of the country, and its social and intellectual conditions, have been always before the author's mind. The great struggle for the education and creed of the people between the reformed Church of England and the Jesuits has been viewed from a special point of view. But the author claims to have made a contribution to the Eliza- bethan and Jacobean history of Ireland, as well as to the knowledge of the early fortunes of the great Irish University and College. He also claims, while in no way concealing his Protestant convictions, to have represented the merits and the feults of all the conflicting parties in this struggle without fear or favour. The history of Trinity College, Dublin, which up to the present includes that of the University of Dublin, has been many times written, and these essays have been at least in five cases published. It might therefore fairly be expected that each succeeding work would utilise its predecessors, and thus gradually attain to an adequate account of the origin and development of " the only English foundation that ever succeeded in Ireland." But this is not the case. The earliest systematic (though unfinished) history is that of X INTRODUCTION Provost Hely Hutchinson, composed about 1790-2. It was never printed, but was utilised by the late Dr. Todd in his historical Introduction to the first College Calendar (1833), and again by Dr. Stubbs in his History, though very inadequately.^ The many papers left by Vice-Provost Barrett, and now in the Library, show that he was accumulating materials, and making special studies, for the same purpose, but he never carried out his intention. His transcripts of many early documents were, however, very serviceable to those of his successors who were unable to read the originals. There is yet another MS. history, hitherto lying in the Bursar's office. This very neat MS., evidently a careful copy from a rougher original, especially from the Barrett papers, is probably the most valuable of all the attempted histories. It is anonymous, the only clues to its date and author being that it copies and cites Dr. Barrett, and was in the possession of Provost MacDonnell. As the writer had complete access to all the documents in the Muniment Room, or else to Barrett's copies of them, he must have been one of the authorities of the College ; the most likely author is, I think, Charles Elrington (the editor of the life and works of Ussher), who was Professor of Divinity 1829. Many original documents, some of which are now mis- laid or lost, are cited in this history, and it is far less tinged with subjectivity than the work of Hely Hutchinson, whose lifelong quarrels with his Fellows colour the accounts he gives of similar dissensions in earlier times. Unfortunately this anonymous author has not carried his work beyond the life of Winter, the Cromwellian Provost ; but he has added, in some- what random order, transcripts (Barrett's) of many of the old documents in the Muniment Room. The first published history is Taylor's (1845), a rhetorical » The original MS. has only recently been recovered by the College, and is now in the Muniment Room—a typewritten copy l)eing deposited in the Library. INTRODUCTION xi book, provincial in tone and full of bigotry, and unhandy to consult, as it has no index. Taylor must have known and used Todd's first Calendar, though he does not cite it. The mediaeval attempts at founding an Irish University are evidently described from this source ; and the false estimate of Archbishop Loftus's importance as a founder of Trinity College appears here, as it does in the subsequent History of Stubbs. Taylor's book is nevertheless useful, in that he searched the annals of the Irish House of Commons, and transcribes for us many important documents, down to the Report of the Wide Street Commission of 1800 on College Street, from these records. But of the documents in the Muniment Room, or the earlier MS. histories, he seems to have known nothing. His judgments are often partial and wrong. His estimates, e.g.^ of Provost Chappell, are entirely from the charges brought against him by his enemies in the Parliament of 1640, and ignore Chappell's personal defence, as well as the evidence in Laud's and Strafford's letters. Taylor also brought into fashion the practice of evading the more troublesome task of writing a systematic and orderly history by giving mere biographical sketches of eminent men, and the annals of special schools in the University. These digressions and supplements are often interesting, but often irrelevant to the task of the historian. The late Dr. Stubbs, when Bursar, undertook the work afresh, though untrained for it by any general historical studies. He knew Hely Hutchinson's MS. and had full access to the Muniment Room, as well as of course to the Anon, history in his own office. Here again the documents printed in his Appendix—many of them hitherto inaccessible—are of great value to the student. There was not one of them, indeed, unknown to Hely Hutchinson or Barrett, and they were apparently all given by Stubbs from Barrett's transcripts. But here many official documents relating to the founding of the College are to be found, though many still remain xii INTRODUCTION to be printed. The narrative brings us up to the year 1800. As regards the characters of the early rulers of the College, who lived in perpetual controversies, and who are described to us either by warm friends or bitter enemies among their con- temporaries, Stubbs offers us no independent judgments. He seems hardly to have looked into the Calendars of State Papers, or the documents in the Record Office, still less into the Records of the Corporation of Dublin. It was indeed unfortunate that he did not begin, instead of concluding, his work with the year 1800. For many of us remember how full he was of the traditions and the gossip of the early and middle nineteenth century in Dublin. If he had set down all the facts and stories repeated to him in his youth by garrulous seniors, he would have left us a picture of Trinity College in the days of its greatest wealth (and its greatest sloth) which is now lost for ever. At the moment of the Tercentenary Celebration (1892) two new documents concerning this history appeared, of which the smaller and less pretentious had a real and independent value. This was Urwick's Early History of Trinity College^ Dublin (i 591-1660), a little shilling book in a bright green cover. It was written to support a definite thesis. The author, a repre- sentative Non-Conformist, found that the services of the Puritan party and their importance at the founding of the College and during the Commonwealth had been ignored by Episcopalian historians. Even the characters of men like Travers and Winter had suffered from the unpopularity of their views among the Church party. In this short but most valuable tract Mr. Urwick sought to set things right. He knew where to find the proper sources, and he knew how to use them when found. His book is therefore a notable contribution to the history of the University, the more so as it gives us general views of religious politics in Ireland, and not mere contro- versies about petty internal affairs. The Book of Trinity College, published for a gift to the guests at the feast, was com- INTRODUCTION xiii piled by various hands, and in a great hurry, owing to the jealousies and oppositions then brought to bear upon it. It therefore does not represent a tithe of what could have been done with a little more generosity and sympathy on the part of the Bursar. But even in this hurried volume documents were cited and views set forth which were fresh to the public.