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Life
1643-1697; b. Dublin; ed. TCD, fellow 1662; son of Protestant Bishop of Kildare; chaplain to the duke of Ormond; appt. Bishop of Kildare, 1679; m. sis. of William Molyneux; trans. to see of Meath, and appt. Privy Councillor, 1682 - though temporarily removed by William III after the Boyne; offered to support provision of Irish-language psalms for Bedell’s Bible but ultimately failed to do so; contrib. preface to Irish New Testament; remained in Ireland during the Williamite War; vocal supporter of Church in Ireland and opponent of Tyrconnell in the ‘Patriot Parliament’, 1687-90 [viz., 1689]; instituted a Friday fast during his the Williamite War to support the Protestant cause; attended William’s triumphal procession, July 1690;
preached against leniency in the Treaty of Limerick [i.e., not to be bound by the articles]; wrote against Catholics and Presbyterians, proposing expulsion of Catholic clergy from Ireland, 1693; suggested reinstitution of Elizabethan fine for non-attendance of Protestant Sunday services; issued Modus Tenendi Parliamenta in Hibernia (1692), purporting to be an ‘ancient record’ from the age of ‘Henricus Rex Anglie, Conquestor & Dominus Hibernie’, printed together with ‘the rules of the House of Commons’ in the time of Edward VI; regarded as ultra-Protestant and credited with preserving the Church of Ireland during the Jacobite administration, but remembered as lively and entertaining; d. Dublin; his MS material is held in TCD Library; Dopping is characterised a fanatical ultra-Protestant in a novel of John Banim. ODNB OCIL FDA
Works
Speech of the Right Rev. Anthony, Bishop of Meath, when the Clergy waited on His Majesty at His Camp nigh Dublin, July 7 1690 (Edinburgh: Anderson 1690;). Modus Tendendi Parliamenta & Consilia in Hibernia (Dublin A. Crook 1692; [London] B. Took 1692), Do., new edn. (Dublin: J. Milliken 1772), 84pp.; A sermon preached ... at the funeral ... of Francis, Lord Archbishop of Dublin (Dublin 1694). MS Sermons in TCD Lib.
Criticism
John Healy, D.D., History of the Diocese of Meath (Dublin: APCK 1908), Vol. II, Chap XXIV (pp.1-11) & chap. XXV (pp.12-24); Pádraig de Brún, ‘A Seventeenth-centry Translation of the First Psalm’, in Éigse, Vol. 17 (1977-89); Roy Foster, Modern Ireland (1988) and Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland: Translation, Languages, Culture (Cork UP 1996).
See also Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland: Translation, Languages, Culture (Cork UP 1996): instead of ‘prosecuting what he designed and promised’ showed himself ‘wholly unconcerned and sat neuter.’ (Letter of Bishop Narcissus Marsh in a letter to Robert Boyle of 22 March 1685; Cronin, q.p.)
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Commentary
John Healy, D.D., History of the Diocese of Meath (Dublin: APCK 1908): ‘The See of Dublin became vacant by the death of Archbishop Francis Marsh on the i6th of December, 1693. Considering the eminent position which Bishop Dopping held, and the invaluable services which he had rendered in times of great trial, it was natural that his name should be mentioned amongst those who were likely to be advanced to the archiepiscopal dignity. King William, however, seems never to have regarded him with any great favour. Already the bishop had given offence by a sermon in which he urged that the articles of the treaty of Limerick should not be held binding, and pleaded for stricter enforcement of the laws against Roman Catholics. On that occasion the King had expressed his great displeasure, and gave orders that Dopping should be removed from the Privy Council. Acting on the advice of the Bishop of London, Bishop Dopping wrote to the King, giving explanations and apologies, and shortly afterwards received from that prelate a letter which told him that “the King is very well satisfied with your submission, and to give you an assurance that he has laid aside all his displeasure, he has given order to my Lord Sidney to restore you to all the marks of his favour at his first arrival.” / The offence was thus condoned, but it was not forgotten. Other things, too, were remembered against him, specially his adherence to the cause of King James as long as the issue of the struggle was [11] in any doubt. During that time, too, he had made enemies for himself among some of the Protestants, who were not slow now in misrepresenting his conduct. The Bishop of London tells him that “the objections made by those who were against your promotion was that you had been once very zealous for showing favour to the Papist , and afterwards for having them all hanged.”’ (Dopping Correspondence. in any doubt.’ (p.10-11.) Note: Much of the remaining chapter is concerned with Dopping’s career in which he is noted to be ‘of a particularly amiable disposition, slow to censure perhaps too slow and ready to let things pass rather than speak an angry word.’ (p.24.) He passed his last years as Bishop of Meath in a growing state of infirmity and deafness. (p.23.)
Quotations
An Eloquent Sermon: ‘Doe not all the usurers and merchants, all the labourers and tradesmen under the sun, toyle and care, labour and contrive, venter and complot for a little mony, which few get, and scarce any man desires so much as to cover five acres of ground with? And is this pitiful scume, this so poore a limited heepe of dirt, the reward of all the labor, and the end of all the care, the designe of all the malice and the recompense of all the wars in the world? [...] And can it bee Imagined that life it selfe, a long, happy, and aeternall one, a perfect and glorious Kingdome that shall never have an end, nor its joys abated with fears and jealousys, with care and sorrow, -that such a life and such a kingdome, should not be worth a few hours of seriousness?’ (Quoted in A. N. Jeffares, Anglo-Irish Literature (London: Macmillan 1982), citing Andrew Carpenter, ed., Miscellanies in Prose (1972).
Note: Jeffares remarks that such Anglo-Irish writers are not marked by any particularly Irish qualities, and that Dopping like {Archbishop James] Ussher is writing within the establish guidlines of his Church career, his sermon having a universal quality.’ note also that Carpenter, op. cit., biog. notice, characterises the sermon as ’“metaphysical” in the manner still fashionable in Ireland.’
Friday fasts: - preaching on the scriptural text, ‘In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks; I ate no pleasant bread’ (Daniel x., 2, 3) - Dopping said: ‘[...] We have likewise reason to fast and mourn because of the dismal state and condition of the kingdom wherein we live. We may take up the sad lamentation of the prophet Isaiah : ‘Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire, your land is destroyed by strangers in your presence, and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers ; and the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a besieged city.’ Our stately houses are burnt with fire, our costly and expensive improvements cut down and destroyed; some of our brethren are still under the power of their enemies, and those that are escaped them are forced to leave all behind them, and count it as an happiness that their lives are safe. ... Our treacherous and disguised friends do secretly contrive our ruin by betraying our counsels, and endeavouring to disturb the public peace. Our deliverers oppress their friends whom they came to protect, and after that they have rescued them from the power of their enemies, they reserve them to fall as a sacrifice by their own hands, and think themselves to have a just title to all that they possess, because of the deliverance which they have brought them. We are relapsed into the same sins that we solemnly renounced, and have practised the same inhumanities towards our enemies that we condemned in them towards ourselves. We called it plundering and injustice when they seized upon our goods, but we count it none in ourselves to take away theirs on the pretence of reprisals for our losses ; and now that God has put it in our power to return good for evil, and observe that excellent rule of not doing to another what we would not have done to ourselves, we are so far from being induced to practice it, that we count it a lawful prize, and think it to be as innocent a game as that of the Israelites in spoiling the Egyptians. (MS Sermon, TCD; John Healy, D.D., History of Diocese of Meath, 1908, op. cit., 1908. p.4; available online; accessed 13.09.2024.)
Want of Protestants: ‘To remedy the want of Protestants, the putting the Acts against recusants (i Eliz.) strictly into execution would be very proper. By it, every one without cause absenting from Common Prayer was to pay twelve pence a Sunday, which was executed during all her reign and the reign of King James, and some time in the beginning of King Charles I., but relaxed on reasons of state, which proved the decay of the Protestant religion in this kingdom. This would be a means to get the King money, and the penalty is so easy that the recusant would have no just reason to complain of it. Secondly, by heartily endeavouring the conversion of the natives and the bringing them over to our communion, wherein the state must concur as well as the clergy. Thirdly, by sending missionary preachers to preach to them in the Irish tongue. Fourthly, by erecting English schools, and appointing salaries to the masters of them, to instruct them gratis in the English tongue, and obliging the masters to teach them the principles of religion, as well as the English language. There was a statute passed in this kingdom to that purpose (28 H. 8, c, 15), obliging every [20] beneficed minister to keep an English school, and obliging the bishop to give them the oath about it before institution (which the bishops do); but the work is not done, partly by the clergy’s fault, who have other things to mind, but more especially by the want of a penalty in the statute, obliging the Irish to send their children to them. Fifthly, by banishing their clergy, both regular and secular, there being little hopes of converting the people whilst they are suffered in the kingdom. Sixthly, by suppressing Popish school-masters, especially such as teach Latin, for these men train up their children for very little to the Latin tongue, till they are fit to be sent abroad, where they are maintained out of charity, or by begging, till they learn philosophy, and know how to read Mass, and then they are put into Orders, and sent back as missionaries. The late Act of Uniformity (17 Car. 2, c. 6) might put some stop to this if it were pursued, but the justices of peace and the gentlemen of the country are the persons that encourage them, because they can get their children taught for little by them in their houses.’ (Healy, op. cit. 1908, pp.19-20; available online; accessed 13.09.2024.)
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References
British Library holds [1] A sermon [on 2 Cor. v. 1] preached ... at the funeral of ... Francis, Lord Archbishop of Dublin. Dublin, 1694. 4o. [2] Speech of the Right Reverend Anthony, Bishop of Meath, when the Clergy waited on His Majesty at His Camp nigh Dublin, July 7, 1690, etc. Re-printed by the Heir of Andrew Anderson: Edinburgh, 1690. s. sh. fol. [3] The Speech of the Right Reverend Father in God Anthony Lord Bishop of Meath, when the clergy waited on His Majesty at his camp nigh Dublin, July 7, 1690. Together with His Majesty’s most gracious answer. B. Took, 1690. s. sh. fol. [4] Modus tenendi Parliamenta & Consilia in Hibernia. Published out of an Antient Record [purporting to run thus, Henricus Rex Anglie, Conquestor & Dominus Hibernie, etc.] by ... Anthony [Dopping] ... Bishop of Meath ... To which is added, The Rules and Customs of the House [of Commons of England], gathered out of the Journal Books, from the time of Edward the Sixth. By H[enry] S[cobel] E[sq.] C[lericus] P[arliamenti]. MS. notes [by F. Hargrave]. [Another copy.] Modus tenendi Parliamenta in Hibernia, etc. Title [Another copy.] Modus tenendi Parliamenta in Hibernia, etc. 9, 47pp. A. Crook: Dublin, 1692. 8o. A. Crook: Dublin, 1692. 8o. Dublin, 1692. 8o. [5] Modus tenendi parliamenta in Hibernia. Published out of an antient record by Anthony, Lord Bishop of Meath. To which is added the rules and customs of the House, gathered out of the Hournal Books from the time of Edward VI. By H. S. E. C.P. [i.e. Henry Scobel, Esq., Clericus Parliamenti]. A new edition. Dublin: J. Milliken, 1772. 84pp. 8o.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, pp.985-86, reps. untitled MS sermon [TCD MS 1689, pp.53-60]; printed in Andrew Carpenter, ed., Miscellanies in Prose [Irish Writings from the Age of Swift] (Dublin: Cadenus Press 1972), pp.13-16; rep. verbatim as ‘On Salvation [...]’ [1680s].
Hyland Books (Cat. 219; Oct. 1995): Dopping’s copy of The Works of Sir James Ware, Vol. 1: The Bishops (1739), with his annotations on his f., bishop of Kildare, purchased by Dopping for £1. 10s. 6d., here listed £200.
Notes
Dopping’s Court: The Bishop of Meath occupied house in Golden Lane, in which was born Dr. Madden, fndr. of the Royal Dublin Society, and later called Dopping’s Court; see P. J. McCall, Dublin Historical Journal (March 1940), p.113.
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