Bishop of Bangor

“ Theologian and controversialist, ed. at Camb., entered the Church, and became Bishop successively of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester. He was a great supporter of the Revolution, and controvertor of the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience. His works were generally either the causes of controversy or elicited by it. One of his sermons, On the Nature of the Kingdom or Church of Christ was the originating cause of what was known as the Bangorian controversy, which raged for a long time with great bitterness. ”

“ Till the vale of Nant Francon of slates is bereft,
Nor a Lady, nor Countess, nor Duchess be left.
The see of Bangor extends over all Anglesea, and parts of Caernarvonshire, Denbigh, and Montgomery. It was most probably founded, or at all events a monastic establishment was formed here, in the year 525, by St. Deiniol, who was at first abbot, and afterwards bishop. The name Bangor may signify “the White Choir,” or the “High Choir,” and is found applied to an ecclesiastic institution in Flintshire, as well as to a famous religious house in the County of Down, in the North of Ireland. ”

“ John Ellis, a young clergyman of large independent fortune, who was wishing for a curacy under the Bishop of Bangor, Doctor Hutton—so poor Gronwy the eloquent, the learned, the meek was obliged to vacate the pulpit of his native place to make room for the rich young clergyman, who wished to be within dining distance of the palace of Bangor. Truly in this world the full shall be crammed, and those who have little, shall have the little which they have taken away from them. ”

“ Bishop William Morgan (1540?-1604) [q. v.] , in the dedication of his Welsh version of the bible (published in 1588) , acknowledges assistance from a bishop of Bangor, presumably Robinson. At any rate, Robinson may be safely regarded as one of the chief pioneers of the reformation in North Wales, and he appears to have honestly attempted to suppress the irregularities of the native clergy, though perhaps he was himself not quite free from the taint of nepotism. ”

“ We were favoured to hear the venerable Bishop of Bangor, who delivered an impressive sermon, full of Evangelical sentiment, from 1st Epistle of John, c. iii., v. 2: “Beloved now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be,” &c. A young clergyman—a stranger to the congregation—read the prayers, Psalms, lessons, and Litany.
The congregation is of course interested in the schools and charities belonging to the parent church, and contribute in a liberal degree to their efficiency and support. ”

“ Robinson was elected bishop of Bangor, in succession to Rowland Meyrick [q. v.] , after much deliberation on the part of the archbishop, under a license attested at Cambridge on 30 July 1566. He also held in commendam the archdeaconry of Merioneth, and the rectories of Witney, Northop, and Shepperton. The archdeaconry he resigned in 1573 in favour of his kinsman, Humphrey Robinson, but he took instead the archdeaconry of Anglesey, which he held until his death (Willis, pp. 139, 142) . He resigned Shepperton about November 1574. ”

“ Whatever men might have hoped from the Congress at Bruges, and from the lay ministry formed by the influence of John of Gaunt and his party, all their hopes were now disappointed. They had hoped for reform in the Church, and all they obtained was a compact with the Papacy for the maintenance of old abuses. The man who had been foremost in making this compact, the Bishop of Bangor, was rewarded by translation by Papal provision to the see of Hereford. ”

“ His baptism was put off on the expectation of the arrival of John Swaff ham, bishop of Bangor, who had been asked to be his godfather, but took place on 18 Nov., despite the bishop's absence, the Abbots of Evesham and Wigmore and the Lady Audley acting as his sponsors. Next day, however, the bishop arrived and administered to him the rite of confirmation (Monasticon, vi. 354) . His father died when he was only five years old, but left him well provided for, bequeathing him land of the yearly value of three hundred marks (NICHOLS, Royal Wills, p. 113) . ”

“ The small preferment that he actually got is known, only through the tidings of his death. There was an official letter to the Bishop of Bangor, dated 26th September 1622, “Admit Dan. Louhet to the donative of Llandinam, vice Paul de la Ravoire, deceased.” ”

“ The late Doctor Jones, Dean of Bangor, left £100. the interest of which he directed to be applied to the keeping of a School here. The Vicarage of Conway, as well as Gyffin, are in the patronage of the Bishop of Bangor. On the summit of the hill below the town, and nearly opposite to the bifurcated rock, on which stood the Castle of Diganwy, are the ruins of an ancient fortification, of a circular form, with only one entrance, and this probably is the place mentioned by Leland, in his Itinerary, and which he denominates Sinnodun, and where, he says, there are the remains of a great work ”

“ GLYN, WILLIAM (1504?–1558) , bishop of Bangor, was born about 1504 in Heneglwys parish in Anglesey. Foxe, however, says that he was forty-one years old in 1551 (Acts and Monuments, vi. 242, ed. Townsend) . ”

“ When the archbishop of Canterbury celebrated the liturgy in the presence of the bishops of his province, the bishop of Salisbury (probably in consequence of the general adoption of the “Use” of Sarum) acted as precentor of the college of bishops, a title which he still retains. The churches of Lincoln and Bangor also had peculiar “Uses;” but we are not aware that any of their books have been printed. A MS. pontifical, containing the rites and ceremonies performed by the bishop, still (we believe) remains in the church of Bangor ”

“ A change of Ministry prevented any benefit arising to him from this address; but he afterwards had bestowed on him, by the grandmother of the Duke of Bedford, the rectory of Streatham, Surrey. Soon after the accession of George I. he was made Bishop of Bangor. From thence he was successively translated to those of Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester, which last he enjoyed nearly twenty-seven years. ”

“ When the Victory was lost she had on board near one thousand souls, one hundred of whom were gentlemen volunteers.—Scheemakers, sculptor.
Bishop of Bangor.—The figure of Religion is represented in a mournful attitude, leaning on a rock, whereon is writ the inscription, holding in her hand a cross; on the other side is represented an angel pointing to the cross, as a source of consolation whereby we are saved—why weep? the rock implies firmness of faith. A mitre, crozier, &c., are at the bottom.—“Near this place are interred the remains of the Right Rev. John Warren, D.D., Bishop of St. ”

“ At the Restoration he recovered his living of Trefdraeth, received the degree of D.D. 1660) , became archdeacon of Merioneth, 24 July 1660, and in the same month 'comportioner' of Llandinam . On the death of Dr. Robert Price he was elected bishop of Bangor (8 June 1666) , and consecrated 1 July at Lambeth. He held the archdeaconry of Merioneth in commendam from July 1660 to 1666, when (23 Oct.) he was succeeded by John Lloyd (see his petition of date 21 June 1666 to be allowed to hold it in commendam, State Papers, Dom. Car. II, clix. 58) . ”

“ His dogmatic theological writings have no great merit. His political essays are clear and forcible, but they are disfigured by frequent adulation of the king and royal family. The letters to Lady Sundon show that he was well able to flatter influential personages in the state. As a bishop he was certainly negligent in the performance of his duties. He never visited the diocese of Bangor, and probably not that of Hereford; at Salisbury, however, he acted creditably on one occasion. ”

“ From this origin, the celebrated Cistercian monastery is said to have derived its establishment. Powel, in his chronicle, says, “For the first abbey or frier house that we read of in Wales, sith the destruction of the noble house of Bangor, which savoured not of Romish dregges, was the Tuy Gwyn, built the yeare 1146, and after they swarmed like bees through all the countrie.” (Powel, p. 254.) —Authors differ with respect to the founder of this abbey; some have attributed it to Rhys ap Tewdwr, prince of South Wales; and others to Bernard, bishop of Saint David’s, who died about the year 1148. ”

“ Of most of the rest we know nothing, but of some of them we know something. We know of Bishop Hughes, of St. Asaph, that he held sixteen rich livings in commendam, and left his diocese in the disgraceful condition already described in the early part of this article. We know that under Bishop Meyrick, of Bangor, there were, by his own acknowledgment, only two preachers in his diocese; and that according to the testimony of Strype, the grossest scandals were openly practised by the clergy. ”

“ He held various other livings, including one portion of the sinecure of Llandinam, and retained his preferments during all the changes and troubles of the reigns of Edward and Mary. He was a sufficiently good catholic to receive from Cardinal Pole the custody of the spiritualities of Bangor on the death of Bishop Glynne in 1558 (Reg. Pole in Add. MS. 6086, f. 78) , but he at once conformed on the accession of Elizabeth, was made archdeacon of St. Asaph, and was appointed bishop of that see on the translation of Bishop Richard Davies [q. v.] ”

“ It is said by his biographers that he was induced to abandon the pursuit of the law, to which he was educated, and to take holy orders, by Bishop Humphreys, who had recognised in his translation of the Holy Living marked ability and piety, and that he was ordained deacon and priest the same day by the Bishop, at Bangor, in 1701, and presented on the following day to the living of Llanfair-juxta-Harlech and subsequently to Llandanwg. ”

“ Anion, (or Eineon) Archdeacon of Anglesey, became Bishop about the year 1268, and is reported to have held a Synod at St. Mary’s de Garth Brannan, the ancient Parish Church of Bangor, now entirely down, since the year 1291, but which is supposed to have been about 400 yards from the Cathedral. He also christened Edward the Second, in Carnarvon p. ”

“ But the career of the great Columbanus will prove that when there was question of denouncing crime against God, or adhering to the traditions of the holy founders of the Irish Church, the monks of Bangor were men of invincible firmness, who felt the full force of the Apostolic maxim—we must obey God rather than man. In the question of celebrating Easter, according to their ancient usage, this firmness bordered on pertinacity; but it was excusable, seeing that it sprang from no schismatical spirit, but from a conscientious adhesion to the ancient practice of the Church of St. Patrick. ”

“ THE MICE
AT the place where the Irish Sea is narrowest is the town of Bangor. There the green hills of Saint Patrick's island smile over at the purple cliffs of Scotland across the lane of water where the ships pass to and fro, just as neighbors nod across a narrow street above the heads of the passers-by. And here at Bangor Saint Comgall built a monastery, thirteen hundred long years ago. ”

“ That literature, both sacred and profane, was successfully cultivated at Bangor, will be made evident from the writings of the great scholars whom it produced, even during the lifetime of its blessed founder. Humility and obedience, however, were even more dearly prized than learning. It was a rule amongst the monks that when any person was rebuked by another at Bangor, whether justly or not, he immediately prostrated himself on the ground in token of submission. They bore in mind that word of the Gospel, “If one strike thee on the right cheek, turn also to him the other.” ”

“ On the 1st of March, 1838, we entered Bangor, which at that time had a population of ten thousand. This was my birthday, I being thirty-one years of age. I visited some of the leading men of Bangor. They granted me the use of the city hall, where I preached to good audiences for two successive evenings. This was the first time a Latter-day Saint elder had preached in that town. Many were anxious to learn more about our principles, but our visits through all the towns from Thomaston to Bangor were necessarily brief, owing to our appointments upon the islands. ”

“ While the Bangorian controversy was a fashionable theme, he entered the lists on the subject of Christ's kingdom, and the authority of the priesthood: against the plain account of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper he resumed the combat with Bishop Hoadley, the object of Whig idolatry, and Tory abhorrence; and at every weapon of attack and defence the non-juror, on the ground which is common to both, approves himself at least equal to the prelate. ”

“ The cathedral church of St Davids is situated near the remote headland of St Davids in Pembrokeshire, but the episcopal residence has been fixed ever since the Reformation at Abergwili near Carmarthen, the most central spot in this vast diocese. The see of Llandaff comprises Monmouthshire, all Glamorganshire as far west as the Tawe, and some parishes in Brecon and Hereford. The diocese of Bangor consists of the counties of Anglesea, Carnarvon and large portions of Merioneth and Montgomery. ”

“ Among the rest, there was in the city of Bangor a most noble church, in which it is reported there was so great a number of monks, that when the monastery was divided into seven parts, having each their priors over them, not one of them had less than three hundred monks, who all lived by the labour of their own hands. ”

“ Edwards became dean of Bangor in 1876 and at once set about restoring the cathedral, and he promoted a clerical education society for supplying the diocese with educated Welsh-speaking clergy. He was a popular preacher and an earnest patriot ”