BEDFORD, DUKE OP. 



BEDFORD, DUKE OF. 



grown to promt). He found loo the oppression of the ecclesiastical 

 OMirt* exeMiv, and pluralities and non-reddenos shamefully pre- 

 vaffiBg. Alt the*- abuse* h determined to rectify ; and having 

 rteoverwl sufficient portion of the lands of which hit MM had been 

 dUpo****ed, to enable him to subsist, he set an example for the 

 reformation of farther abate* by resigning (in 1630) the bishopric of 

 Ardagh, which he had the eaUafaction to tee followed in other instance*. 

 Upon the arrival of the lord-deputy Went worth, in 1633, Buhop 

 Bedell fell under hi* displeasure on account of a petition sent up by 

 the county of Gamut, which the bishop had signed, and in which eome 

 complaint* were made of, and some regulations proposed for the 

 army. A reconciliation however took place, and the lord-deputy 

 received him into farour. He then went on cheerfully in doing what 

 he considered his duty for the benefit of the church, and was very 

 mice jarful He loved the Christian powrr of a bishop, without affecting 

 either political authority or pomp. Whatever he did wag so visibly 

 for the good of his flock, that he seldom failed of being well sup- 

 ported by bis clergy, and such as opposed him did it with visible 

 reluctance, for he bad the esteem of the good men of all parties. In 

 September 1688 he convened a synod, in which he made many excel- 

 lent canons that are still extant; but offence was taken at this by 

 *ome who were in power, and were at first disposed to call in question 



the legality of the meeting. 

 One of hi* most remarkab 



i most remarkable innovations was the removing his lay- 

 chancellor, and taking upon himself to sit in his own courts, hearing 

 cause*, and retrieving thereby the jurisdiction which anciently 

 helonced to a bishop. The chancellor upon this filed his bill in equity, 

 and obtained a decree in chancery against the bishop, with 1002. costs. 

 Rut, by this time, the chancellor saw so visibly the difference between 

 the bishop's aitting in that teat and his own, that he never called for 

 his costs, but appointed a surrogate, with orders to obey the bishop in 

 everything, and so his lordship went on his own way. 



Though no persecutor, Bedell laboured to convert the better sort of 

 the popish clergy, and in this he had great success. He procured the 

 Common-Prayer, which had been translated into Irish, and caused it 

 to be read in the cathedral in his own presence every Sunday. The 

 New Testament had been also translated from the Greek into Irish, 

 by William Daniel, afterwards archbishop of Tuam, but Bedell first 

 procured the Old Testament to be translated by one King. He caused 

 likewise some of Chrysostom's and Leo's ' Homilies,' in commendation 

 of the Scriptures, to be rendered both into English and Irish, that 

 the common people might see that, in the opinion of the ancient 

 fathers, they had not only a right to read the Scriptural as well as the 

 clergy, but that it was their duty so to do. 



When the rebellion broke out in October 1641, the bishop was so 

 popular in his neighbourhood that he did not at first feel the violence 

 of iti effect*. But the rebels subsequently seized him, his two sons, 

 and Mr. Clogy, who had married his step-daughter, and carried them 

 prisoners to the castle of ('lough bough ter, where they put all but 

 the bishop In irons. After some time the rebels abated of their 

 severity, took the irons off the prisoners, and suffered them to be as 

 much at their ease as they could be in so wretched a place. While 

 thus confined, the bishop, his sons, and Mr. Clogy, preached and 

 prayed continually to their small afflicted congregation, and upon 

 Christmas-day the bishop administered the sacrament to them. The 

 bishop and bis family were at length removed to the bouse of one 

 Dennis Sheridan, an Irish minister and convert to the Protestant 

 religion. While Bishop Bedell remained there, and enjoyed some 

 d*fne of health, he every Sunday read the prayers and lesions, and 

 preached himself. The but Sunday he officiated was the 80th of 

 January 1641-2, ami the day following he was taken ill On the 7th of 

 February be breathed his hut, in the seventy-first year of his age, his 

 death being chiefly occasioned by his late imprisonment and the weight 

 of sorrow which lay upon his mind. He wag buried, agreeably to his 

 own direction, in the churchyard of Kilmore close to his wife's coffin. 

 Hla epitaph, as ordered by himself, was simply "Deponitum Gulielini 

 quondam eptooopi Kilmorensix." 



'The Books of the Old Testament.' translated by the can and 

 dflkrao* of Bishop Bedell into Irish, were first published, 4 to, London, 

 KM. with ODomhnuiU's translation of the New Testament, 4 to, 

 London. 1681, appended : both were again printed in the Irish cha- 

 racter, 12ura, lew. O'Dornhnnill, pronounced O'Donnell, is the Irish 

 MOM of William Daniel, archbishop of Tuam, mentioned above : his 

 translation of the Mew Testament was first published in Dublin in 

 1602. 'Some original letters of Bishop Bedell concerning tho Kt 

 taken toward a reformation of religion at Venice upon occasion of tlio 

 quarrel between that SuU and the Pope Paul V.. - were printed 1 2mo, 

 Dublin, 1742. They were found among Archbishop Usher's manu- 

 script* in the library of Trinity College then. 



BEDrOllli, DUKE OF, rUgent of France. John Plontagenot, 

 duke of Bedford, wai the third son of Henry IV. and Mary Bohun, 

 daughter of th* E*rl of Hereford. Ha was knighted at the coronation 

 of his father October 1399, teing at the time not quite ten yean old. 

 lie was great*! Duke of Bedford in the second yew of the reign of 

 hi* brother, Henry V. During the lifetime of hi* father be was 

 governor of Berwick upon-Twerd, and warden of the Scottish March** 

 and dating hi* broth*!-** absence In France, he was governor anc 

 c otnmander-in-chief of the force* in England. 



Henry V. died after a short illness in 1422, at the early age of 

 hirty-*ix yean, leaving an infant successor only nine months old, with 

 he disputed honour of king of France a* part of hi* inheritance. On 

 ii death-bed he expressed hi* earnest desire that Bedford should 

 'take up the administration of the affairs of France" during the 

 minority of the young king, leaving the lei* difficult administration of 

 affain at home to the conduct of hi* younger brother Gloucester, 

 under the title of Protector. In love of martial glory, and in military 

 talent*, the Duke of Bedford was little, if at all, iufurior to the 

 deceased hero. No greater proof indeed of the high estimation in 

 which he was held by hi* contemporaries need be given, than the cir- 

 cumstance that the Lord* and Common*, in contravention of the late 

 Ling's testament, passed an act, declaring, under certain well-defined 

 imitations, the Duke of Bedford, " or, in hi* absence beyond sea*," 

 the Duke of Gloucester, to be protector and defender of the kingdom 

 and the English church, and the king'* chief counsellor, during the 

 minority of the young king. The proceedings of the parliament on 

 ;his occasion may be referred to a* of great constitutional importance ; 

 'urniphing, as they do, the first great constitutional precedent of the 

 right of parliament, in contradistinction to the king, and in this 

 nstance in contravention to the king's will, to name a regent during 

 ;he minority of his successor ; and the equally decisive constitutional 

 precedent of the right and power of parliament to fix the limitations 

 >f that regent's exercise of the prerogative. (See UaUam'* ' Middle 

 Ages,' vol. iii., and ' Parliamentary History,' vol. i.) 



By the treaty of Troyes, which was concluded between the court of 

 France and Henry V. on the 21st of May, 1420, the English king was 

 declared to be regent of France and next heir to the French crown. 

 3n his death-bed Henry, anxious to secure this splendid inheritance 

 'or his infant son, earnestly impressed upon Bedford and his council 

 ;!ie necessity of cultivating diligently the friendship of the Duke of 

 Burgundy, and to offer to him in the first place the regency of Franco. 

 This injunction Bedford obeyed to the letter. On the death of Henry, 

 be immediately offnred the regency to the Duke of Burgundy ; and on 

 !iU n fuoal, and at the apparent solicitation of the French king, he 

 accepted the office himself. He conferred with Burgundy as to tho 

 best mode of observing the terms of the treaty of Troyes, and obtained 

 from him the warmest assurances of good faith as to its observance. 

 He also obtained the adhesion of tho Duke of Bretagne to that treaty, 

 and at a meeting which he brought about between that prince, the 

 Duke of Burgundy, and himself, at Amiens, in April 1423, he prevailed 

 upon them to affirm their professions of friendship with an oath, by 

 which they swore to love each other as brothers, and to afford mutual 

 aid against the attack of enemies. To make their union the more 

 binding, Bedford married a sister of the Duke of Burgundy, and tho 

 Duke of Bretagne married another. Bedford led his young bride to 

 Paris, which he bad made the centre of his government, and vigorously 

 applied himself to the consolidation of his infant nephew's inheritance. 



Had Henry V. lived a few months longer, he would have been, in 

 virtue of the treaty of Troyes, and the splendour and extent of his 

 conquest*, declared king of France. Charles VI., distinguished by the 

 epithet of the ' Well Beloved,' with whom he had concluded that treaty, 

 survived ' his dear son and heir' but a few months ; and at his funeral, 

 Bedford had his infant nephew, Henry VI., proclaimed 'Our Sovereign 

 Lord, King of France and England.' The south of France however 

 was still in possession of the Dauphin and his party, who summoned 

 all the adherent* of the ancient monarchy to the standard which that 

 prince, as Charles VII., had raised at Cbartres, the place of his coro- 

 nation. All the country to the north of the Loire may be said to have 

 been in the hands of tho English, while every province south of that 

 river, with the exception of Gascony, warmly espoused the cause of th* 

 heir of their native kings. The history of France accordingly for manjr 

 yean presents a aerie* of battle* and sieges, which ended in the expul- 

 sion of the English from all their conquest* in the French territory. 



In the first year of the wr Charles VII. received a great defeat at 

 O'revant. A still more signal disaster befel him next year at the battle 

 of Verneull (August 16, 1424), at which Bedford commanded in person, 

 and displayed all the qualities of a great general. The Kr. n. h 

 monarchy was only saved from ruin after this decisive battle by the 

 conduct of the Duke of Gloucester, Bedford's brother, which deprived 

 tho latter of the aiii of the forces of the Duke of Burgundy, to which 

 he was mainly indebted for the victory at Vernonil. In his capacity 

 of Regent of France, Bedford was thwarted, either by the ambition of 

 hi* brother or the jealous policy of tho English parliament, in every 

 measure which tended to effect the subjugation of that country ; but 

 which, under no circumstances, could probably have been effected 

 entirely. The administration of affair) in England turned altogether 

 upon the intrigues and contest* of two opposite parties, one headed by 

 Cardinal Beaufort [Bs>CFORT, QaBDtXaLJ, the other by the Duke of 

 Gloucester ; and as the former was the more powerful, and opposed 

 to tho destructive and impoverishing war-policy of the latter, the sup- 

 plies of men and money for the prosecution of the war in Franca were 

 doled out with so frugal a band, that the offensive operation* of the 

 Duki of Bedford were confined to besieging some town* still held by 

 the French king in the northern provinces. 



The circumstances which deprived the Duke of Bedford of the aid 

 of the Burgundian force* were these : Gloucester had married Jacquc- 

 1'n-, heiress of Hainault, Holland, Zealand, and Friesland. She had 



