Fuller) may be pleaded for this Cardinal out of the Old; sure I am more must be pleaded against him out of the New Testament, if the places be paralleled. A servant will not be corrected by words, &c. Prov. xxix. 19. A Bishop must be no striker. 1 Tim. iii. 3. But grant him greatly faulty, it were uncharitable in us to beat his memory with more stripes who did suffer so much for his own indiscretion." He was buried in the English Church at Rome, where there is a monument with the following Inscription: D. O. M. CHO. ARCHIEP. EBORACEN. S PRAXED, PRESB, CARDINALI ANGLIE A JULIO II. *See Godwin. G ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN, LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND*. 1500-1567. "I cannot help that, but if I changed my religion I am sure I kept true to my principle, which is to live and die Vicar of Bray."-ANON. B UGH CURWEN and Christopher Baynbrigg (Cardinal of St. Praxede) of all Westmorland-born men, have reached the highest pinnacles in Church and State; and yet (with pain we write it) of all the least worthy of our admiration or example. In truth, their very dignity is their own degradation, their glory, our shame. Once upon a time, as common tradition hath it, a certain Divine had a cure of Souls somewhere in Berkshire, to wit, as the lawyers say, at Bray in the county aforesaid. This said Parson was a Papist under the sway of Harry the viiith; a Protestant under Edward vith, a Papist again under Philip and * See Mant's Hist. of the Irish Church 237, and Appendix, (London 1840.) Murray's Ireland and her Church, (London 1845.) Cotton's Fast. Eccl. Hib. 1 Wood's Ath., Oxon 803. Mary, and on Elizabeth's accession to the throne a Protestant again: all this while, per varios casus per tot discrimina rerum, remaining Vicar of Bray. On being reproached for his frequent apostacy he answered in the words of our text 66 I cannot help that, but if I changed my religion I am sure I kept true to my principle, which is to live and die Vicar of Bray." Hugh Curwen was first a Papist and afterwards a Reformer in the time of Henry the viiith, a Protestant under Edward vith, a Papist under Philip and Mary, a Protestant again under Elizabeth, and died (having kept true to his principle) Vicar of Bray-died Bishop of Oxford. "In other words, his course was an eternal deviation from rectitude. He either tyrannised or deceived; and was by turns a Dionysius and a Scapin. As well might the writhing obliquity of the serpent be compared to the swift directness of the arrow, as the duplicity of his ambition to the simple steadiness of genuine magnanimity*." That Hugh Curwen was Westmorland-born is a fact supported by an uniform and irresistible current of authorities; but when or where is involved in great mystery. D'Alton says he was of a family which claimed descent from Gospatric Earl of Northumberland, but assumed the name of Curwen from a place in Galloway, (that is, Culwen corrupted into Curwen, and again, as pronounced in some * Sheridan. parts Northwards now, and as Strype wrote it, into Coren*.) His armorial bearings and other matters certainly tend to prove, that Hugh was a member of this ancient family: being so, in common with Kateryn Parr, he sprung from Ivo de Talebois, and through him from the Royal House of Anjout. When he was born, the principal seat of the family was, as now, at Workington Hall in the County of Cumberland; but one moiety of the Manor of Bampton in Westmorland, that is to say, the moiety called Bampton Patric belonged to them; and it is probable (for we can place it no higher) that he was born at Bampton where the family now and then resided. A learned Antiquary, whose opinion we regard as highly as we do his friendship, thinks that Orton parish is the proper venue of Curwen's birth; but the Orton parish Registers throw no light upon it; there is no trace of such a family ever having lived there, nor of having had any property there; nor any tradition extant of such a man ever having sprung from the parish. Dr. Burn too, who it will be remembered was fifty years vicar of that parish, and not only deeply interested in the history and reputation of his parish, but thoroughly conversant with the antiquities and family history of the County at large, makes no * See D'Alton's Lives of the Irish Archs. See in Burn's Hist. "Account of the Succession to the Barony of Kendal." See Life of Kateryn Parr, p. 38; Henry III. is styled in Magna Charta Earl of Anjou. mention of him as a parishioner. To use a parliamentary phrase, Bampton has it. Satis eum Carthagini natum fuisse constat—it is clear enough that he was Westmorland-born, and that is enough for our present purpose. The same probabilities (for they are probabilities still) lead us to the belief that he was born about the year 1500. The first authentic trace of his education is in the books of Brazen-nose College, Oxford; now styled by the New Lights there, for some Bigendian reason, Brase-nose! Removing the poor little letter n from their books, but leaving, as a hatchment, no doubt for like weighty reasons, the nose of brass above the College gateway. We next find him Chaplain to Henry the viiith, and a sturdy champion of the Reformation; rather let us say the servile and devoted minion of that base slave of lust in his divorce of Catherine of Arragon, and his marriage with poor Anne Boleyn. Next in the Deanery of Hereford, which he resigned for about a month when he was Archbishop of Dublin*. Then Archdeacon of Oxford+. Next Chaplain to Queen Mary; and by a congé d'élire issued on the 22 February 1555 elected Archbishop of Dublin. To this last high office he was consecrated in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, according to the forms of the Roman Pontifical, on the 8th of September 1555. On the 12th he was created Lord Chan * See D'Alton Arch. Dub. 236. A. Wood denies this. |