whom, at the time of her second marriage, she had five children living.
On the summoning of parliament in 1623 Bedell was selected, much against his will, as one of the two representatives of the clergy of the diocese of Norwich in convocation. In 1627 he was appointed, on the joint recommendation of Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, and Ussher, archbishop of Armagh, to the provostship of Trinity College, Dublin. Their testimony in his favour was warmly seconded by Sir Henry Wotton, who, however, in his letter to King Charles, declares that Bedell is best recommended ‘by the general fame of his learning, his life, and christian temper, and those religious labours himself hath dedicated to your majestie’—this reference being to ‘The Copies of Certaine Letters which have passed between Spaine and England in mattre of Religion,’ which Bedell had dedicated to Charles, then prince of Wales, in 1624. He was admitted provost, with the general consent of the fellows, on 16 Aug. 1627. During his short tenure of his new office Bedell approved himself an able administrator. He revised the statutes of Trinity College, and, while introducing not a few alterations, scrupulously abstained from anything that tended to his own pecuniary advantage or to that of the fellows. Like the founder of his own college at Cambridge, Sir Walter Mildmay, he opposed on principle the continued residence of fellows when the long curriculum of their theological studies had been completed; and he accordingly put in force a like proviso to that contained in the statute ‘De Mora Sociorum’ in the code of Emmanuel (see Mullinger, Hist. of Univ. of Cambridge, ii. 315), requiring that ‘every fellow should study divinity, and after seven years' stay should go out into some employ in the church’ (Life, ed. Jones, p. 27). He required also that those who were Irishmen by birth should cultivate their native language, in order that they might become better qualified to labour among the people. His interchange of opinions with Father Paul and other divines in Italy had rendered him inclined to insist as little as possible on the differences with respect to doctrine between catholic and protestant. These sentiments at one time seemed likely to involve him in some trouble with the extreme protestant party in the college, especially with Dr. Joshua Hoyle, the divinity professor; but his tact and conciliatory temper disarmed their opposition.
After about two years' tenure of his provostship Bedell appears as entering upon the final stage of his career by his acceptance of the united bishoprics of Kilmore (co. Cavan) and Ardagh (co. Longford), to which he was consecrated on 13 Sept. 1629. He found both his dioceses in a very unsatisfactory condition, the revenues plundered, the ‘plantations’ raw, and the churches in a ruinous state; whilst the catholic clergy held aloof from his neighbourly advances and showed no disposition to co-operate for the general good. On the other hand, as we find from a letter written by him to Laud (1 April 1630), he viewed with grave disapprobation the extortion practised by the ecclesiastical courts on the poor catholics, ‘which,’ he says, ‘in very truth, my lord, I cannot excuse and do seek to reform.’ In February 1633 he resigned the see of Ardagh, owing to his expressed objection against pluralities and his opinion that it would be better administered by a separate bishop. Domestic bereavement at this time fell heavily upon him. In 1635 his second son, John, died; and two years after, his step-daughter, Leah, in little more than a month after her marriage to the Rev. Alexander Clogie, and then his wife (26 March 1638), who was buried in the cathedral churchyard at Kilmore.
A lawsuit in which he became involved, owing to his conscientious objections to the re-appointment of his chancellor, Dr. Alane Cook, brought fresh trouble, and was regarded as of considerable importance from the fact that it was likely to furnish a precedent with respect to the rights of the civil lawyers generally in connection with the ecclesiastical courts. Cook, whose appointment rested solely on the choice of Bedell's predecessor, had approved himself a mercenary and unscrupulous official, and the bishop resolved that, if possible, another should be appointed to the post. The case was protracted over several years, and though he lost his suit, with costs against him, he preserved his conscience. No feature in the maladministration of the ecclesiastical courts appears to have arrested his attention more forcibly than the frequent employment of writs of excommunication against the poor catholics, and the cruel oppression carried on under the pretexts thus afforded. ‘The corruptions of the jurisdiction ecclesiastical,’ he writes to Dr. Despotine, ‘are such, as not only not law, but not so much as equity is kept.’ Against pluralities and non-residence he strove with unceasing effort; while in appointing new incumbents he invariably preferred those who already possessed some knowledge of the Irish language. On Wentworth's first arrival as lord deputy, he ordered an increase of the army in Ireland. Against the heavy contributions levied for this, memorials to the king were got up in various
