Note 139 — Chapter XLIII

— James Usher[A] (1581-1656), Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, was an Anglo-Irishman, who was “learned to a miracle,” so the great English Jurist, Seldon, said. — See “Usher,” “National Dictionary of Biography.” — Usher was, through his mother, who became a Roman Catholic, a grandson of James Stanihurst (Recorder of Dublin, and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons), whose family were the patrons of Edmund Campion, when in Ireland. The great orator wrote his history of that country after leaving Oxford, and before going to Douay. Usher crossed over to England in 1602. He held in the University of Dublin, in 1607, a divinity professorship, worth £8 a year, which was founded by Mr. James Cotterell, who died in York. Now, I find from the Register of St. Michael-le-Belfrey, York, that there is a record of the burial of a “Mr. James Cotterell — in the mynster — the 29th day of August, 1595.” This, I have no doubt, was the self-same gentleman as the “Mr. Cotterell,” from whose house, on the 29th day of May, 1579, Thomas Warde made M’gery Slater “his true and honourable wife;” and the same Mr. James Cotterell as founded the Dublin divinity professorship. Dr. Usher knew personally Lord Mordaunt, the son of the Lord Mordaunt who died in the Tower in 1608; and also, according to the “National Dictionary of Biography,” Father Oswald Tesimond. If so, it is possible that Usher knew personally Lord Mounteagle and Thomas Warde, and it may be it was from them that he gathered hints upon which he founded his oracular statement. (I desire here to express my sense of obligation to the Rev. E. S. Carter, M.A., the Vicar of St. Michael-le-Belfrey, York, who most kindly and generously gifted me with a copy of his singularly valuable “Parish Register” Part I., edited by Dr. Francis Collins, from which I have obtained that item of domestic information so valuable as a leading clue for the purposes of this Inquiry, namely, the marriage of Thomas Warde, of Mulwaith.)