Defending Calvinism: 1626–33

Abstract On 29 January 1625, James Ussher was appointed Archbishop of Armagh. Initially, he spent much of his time in England, where he was sucked in to the controversy surrounding Richard Montagu and the rise of ‘Arminianism’. Ussher made his opposition to Montagu plain, preaching an outspoken sermon before the King in 1626 attacking the toleration of such views. When he returned to Ireland he continued the fight, albeit rather obliquely, by publishing in 1631 a Latin history of the 9th-century monk Gottschalk of Orbais, who had been persecuted for his firm predestinarian views. Ussher launched a more direct attack on official policy in 1627, when he and two of his fellow Irish bishops preached publicly against the ‘Graces’ — particularly the proposal to grant toleration to Catholics. The evangelical success of presbyterian clergy within in north-east Ulster — some of whom had been accommodated within the Church of Ireland by tolerant bishops — led to further pressure upon the modus vivendi, which had been reached between nonconformists and the Church of Ireland in the early 17th century, as Henry Leslie, the Dean of Down, pressed for firm action to be taken against them by Ussher and the Irish authorities.