CITY OF LONDONDERRY. 
or when I have excommunicated them, and procured by Writ, de excommunicato capiendo, tne 
dungeon houses of the county of Londonderry, Tyrone, and Donegall, cannot be got, to apprehend 
them and bring them to prison again.” 
John Bramhall, D. D., succeeded 1634, resigned 1660. This most distinguished prelate 
was born in 1593, at Pontefract, in Yorkshire, and was of a respectable and ancient family de¬ 
scended from the Bramhalls, of Bramhall-hall, in Cheshire. He was educated in Sydney college, 
in Cambridge, where he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts, and soon after married a young and 
wealthy widow of a clergyman (by whom he got, with other advantages, a good library collected by 
her deceased husband, which greatly facilitated the literary pursuits in which he was then engaged). 
Being put into orders, he was presented with the rectory of Elvington, or Ethrington, in Yorkshire, 
and distinguished himself highly by his controversial ability and learning. He was subsequently 
promoted by Toby Mathews, archbishop of York, to a prebend of his cathedral, and soon after to a 
stall in Ripon—and the fame of his abilities reaching the ears of lord Wentworth, afterwards lord 
Strafford, who was then about to assume the lord deputyship of Ireland, he was induced by promises 
of preferment, as well as by his zeal for the interests of the church, to throw up his livings and 
accompany him in the capacity of chaplain. Shortly after his arrival, he was presented by his 
patron with the archdeaconry of Meath, and was employed as a commissioner in a regal visitation 
through the country. His services on this occasion were of the greatest benefit to the church, 
and upon the death of Doctor Downham, he was rewarded, through the interest of the lord deputy, 
with the bishopric of Derry, and was consecrated to this see in the Castle Chapel, Dublin, on the 
26th of May, 1634, by James Ussher, primate of Armagh, and three other prelates. On his arrival 
in his diocese, he lost no time in taking the same active measures for the promotion of the interests 
of his clergy, whom he found in a very impoverished state, as he had already done in the regal 
visitation,°and such was his success, that he is said to have doubled the revenues of the bishopric 
before he was exiled by the breaking out of the rebellion. “ Many poor Vicars, says Hanis, 
“ now eat of the tree which the bishop of Derry planted, and many have their grounds refreshed 
by his care and labour, who know not the source of the river that makes them fruitful. These 
exertions could hardly fail of drawing down upon him the hatred of all those who were in any way 
interested in the perpetuation of such abuses, and in the parliament of 1640, the bishop, with Sir 
Richard Bolton, lord chancellor, and Sir Gerard Lowther, one of the chief judges, was impeached 
by Sir Brian O’Neil, and a party of Irish Roman Catholics, backed by some violent and deluded 
Protestants. He was at Londonderry when he received intelligence of this attack from his friends, 
who advised him to decline the trial; but relying on God’s providence, and on the consciousness 
of innocence, he came to town, appeared in the parliament house, and was immediately committed 
prisoner. His enemies, however, were unable to substantiate any charge against him, beyond his 
undaunted endeavours to retrieve the ancient patrimony of the church, and their malice was over¬ 
ruled by the king, who wrote to this kingdom at the instance of the Earl of Strafford, and he was 
restored to liberty without any public acquittal, the charge still lying dormant against him, to be 
awakened when his enemies should find a fit opportunity. 
He had scarcely arrived in Londonderry when the rebellion broke out, when finding himself 
surrounded by enemies, he took ship privately for England, where he was graciously received by 
the kino-, and immediately employed his vigorous mind in various ways conducive to his majesty s 
service. 0 After the fatal battle of Marston Moor he fled to the continent, where he remained till 
1648, when he returned into Ireland, where he passed safely through a succession of dangers, of 
which the most remarkable was his escape to France, though pursued by two frigates belonging 
to the parliament. He remained abroad till the restoration, when on his return to England he 
received a suitable reward for his services and zeal in the royal cause, being on the 18th of 
January, 1660, translated from the see of Derry to the archbishopric of Armagh. He died of 
apoplexy, in Dublin, on the 25th June, 1663, in the 70th year of his age, and was buried in 
Christ Church. For a more full account of this distinguished man, who is described by Grainger 
as “ one of the most learned, able, and active prelates of the age in which he lived ; an acute dis¬ 
putant, and an excellent preacher;” the reader is referred to his life, written by Doctor John 
Vesey, bishop of Limerick, prefixed to his works, published in four volumes, folio, in 1676, or 
to Harris’s Ware, among the archbishops of Armagh, from which this notice is chiefly taken. 
George Wild, or Wield, (succeeded 1660, died 1665), Doctor of Laws of the university of 
Oxford, was the son of Henry Wild, a citizen of London, and born in the county of Middlesex. 
He was educated in Merchant Taylors’ school in London, whence he was elected a scholar of Saint 
John’s college in 1628, of which he was afterwards a fellow. After taking one degree in the 
faculty of civil law in 1634, he was made chaplain to Doctor Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, 
who preferred him to the vicarage of Reading, and intended higher promotions for him, had not 
the civil wars broken out. He adhered in the rebellion to the royal cause, and suffered much in 
its service, for which he was, on the restoration, promoted to this see by letters patent, dated the 
22nd of January, 1660, and on the same day had his mandate for consecration and writ of res- 
