4
January 1581 A.D. Birth of Mr. (Abp.)
James Ussher.
Buried in Westminster Abbey with an
Anglican service during, of all things, Cromwell's time and by his permission.
A man who believed, as do we, in a modification of episcopacy, that is, a
reduction to and governance by a presbytery. Give them a new name too, e.g.
"Servant Clerks" of the Presbytery. Given their love of humility and
service, they'd love the new name "Servant Clerk of the Presbytery."
James Ussher is one of those few men we would call "Bishop," of
course, by leave of a good stout presbytery of godly and learned Elders.
Ussher, a good Reformed man too.
James Ussher
James Ussher (or Usher) was born in Dublin on 4 January
1581, son of Arland (or Arnold) Ussher (died 1598) and Margaret, daughter of
James Stanihurst. He had one brother called Ambrose. At age 13 he entered the
newly founded Trinity College in Dublin and had a distinguished academic
career. He was ordained by his uncle Henry Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, in
1602. In 1614 he married Phoebe (d.1654), daughter and heiress of Luke Challoner.
He became a famous preacher and held the offices of Bishop of Meath, Archbishop
of Armagh and Primate of Ireland. During the Irish troubles of 1641 most of his
property was destroyed. He later lived in London and Oxford and with his only
daughter Elizabeth (wife of Sir Timothy Tyrrell) in Wales. For a short time,
while the Dean was imprisoned in the Tower of London, Ussher used the Deanery
at Westminster. He attended Charles I at Oxford but later also found favour
with Oliver Cromwell.
Burial
It
was Cromwell who ordered his burial in the chapel of St Paul in
Westminster Abbey and paid the funeral expenses. It is thought that this
was the only occasion at which the Anglican funeral service was read in the
Abbey during the Commonwealth period. The present Irish marble gravestone, with
brass lettering, was not put in until 1904 and the Latin inscription was
written by Dr Gwynn (Regius Professor at Trinity College) and others. It can be
translated:
"In
pious memory of JAMES USSHER who was born in Dublin in 1581, entered among the
first students of Trinity College, promoted to the archiepiscopal see of
Armagh, primate of all Ireland, the hundredth heir of St Patrick the apostle of
Ireland, historian, critic, theologian, most learned among the holy, most holy among
the learned, exiled from his own in this city of Westminster, he fell asleep in
Christ in 1656. He was expelled from his sacred see and country by those same
seditions which went on to grant him burial in this church among the most
honoured. This stone was placed by George Salmon, Provost of the same college,
1904"
His
coat of arms appears at the base of the stone, surmounted by a mitre. This
shows the arms of the See of Armagh impaling Ussher (azure, a chevron ermine
between three batons, or).
A
photograph of the stone can be purchased from Westminster Abbey Library.
Further reading:
Oxford Dictionary
of National Biography 2004 (entries for James and Ambrose);
James
Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh by R. Buick Knox, Cardiff, 1967.
There
is a portrait of James in the National Portrait Gallery, London www.npg.org.uk
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