Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/335

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i. 470–73). On 9 May he was consecrated archbishop of Dublin at Antwerp by the bishop of Antwerp, assisted by the bishops of Ghent and Ferns. He was in London again in July, and in 1670 was in Ireland, where he was at once engaged in a contest with the new primate, Oliver Plunket [q. v.], about the old question of precedency as between Armagh and Dublin (ib. i. 504). Books were written by both prelates, but the primacy of Armagh has long ceased to be a matter of dispute. Talbot and Plunket were never on very good terms. When Richard Talbot was chosen agent for the dispossessed Irish proprietors, his brother, the archbishop, subscribed 10l., but the Ulster clergy refused to raise a like sum. When Plunket established a jesuit school in Dublin, Talbot denounced the enterprise as rash and vainglorious (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. App. v. 361). Talbot held provincial synods in 1670 and 1671. He used his position to persecute Peter Walsh and all who had adhered to the ‘Remonstrance’ (Carte, Ormonde, ii. 214). He was perhaps already planning the repeal of the act of settlement (King, App. p. 41).

When the bishops and regular clergy of the Roman catholic church were ordered to leave Ireland in 1673, Plunket held his ground; but Talbot went to Paris, where he was in close communication with Coleman and other conspirators. Sir W. Throckmorton thought him the ‘lyingest rogue in the world,’ and the ‘most desperate villain’ ever born (Hist. MSS. Comm. 13th Rep. App. vi. 58, 70). W. Leybourn called him a ‘foolish impertinent busybody’ (ib. p. 100). He was, however, on good terms with the Duke and Duchess of York, and had a pension of 200l. from Charles, who was favourable to his selection for the archbishopric of Dublin. He was back in England early in 1676 (ib. 7th Rep. p. 439 a), and, being protected by James, was allowed to live unmolested for two years at Poole Hall in Cheshire. Talbot returned to Ireland in May 1678, and was arrested in October for supposed complicity in the ‘popish plot.’ No evidence was found to implicate him. He had for a long time been afflicted with the stone, to which he succumbed in Newgate prison, Dublin, about 1 June 1680. Shortly before his death he received absolution from his old antagonist, Plunket, who was confined in the same building, and who, according to Bishop Forstall, burst through the reluctant gaolers to reach his side (Spicilegium Ossoriense, ii. 256). A portrait of Talbot by John Riley belongs to Lord Talbot de Malahide (Cat. Third Loan Exhib. No. 707).

Harris gives a long list of Talbot's writings, most of which he had not seen. None of them are in the Bodleian Library. The following are in Trinity College, Dublin, or the British Museum: 1. ‘Erastus Senior, demonstrating that those called bishops in England are no bishops,’ London, 1662, 16mo; reprinted London, 1844, 1850, and Sydney, 1848 [see also under Lewgar, John]. 2. ‘Primatus Dubliniensis,’ Lille, 1674, 8vo. 3. ‘The Duty and Comfort of Suffering Subjects represented in a letter to the Roman Catholics of Ireland,’ Paris, May 1674, 4to (a copy in the British Museum). 4. ‘Blakloanæ hæresis … confutatio,’ Ghent, 1675, 4to. 5. ‘Scutum inexpugnabile fidei adversus hæresin Blakloanam,’ Lyons, 1678, 4to.

The British Museum Catalogue also ascribes to him ‘The Polititian's Catechisme … written by N. N.,’ Antwerp, 1658, 8vo.

[Ware's Writers of Ireland, ed. Harris; Brenan's Ecclesiastical Hist. of Ireland; Brady's Episcopal Succession; De Burgo's Hibernia Dominicana; Cardinal Moran's Spicilegium Ossoriense and Life of Oliver Plunket; Carte's Ormonde Letters, and his Life of Ormonde, esp. bk. vii.; Peter Walsh's Hist. of the Remonstrance; Clarendon's Life.]

R. B-l.

TALBOT, RICHARD de, second Baron Talbot (1302?–1356), born about 1302, was the eldest son of Gilbert de Talbot, first baron Talbot [q. v.], by his wife Anne Boteler. Like his father, Richard sided with the Lancastrian nobles against Edward II and his favourites. He joined his father in the expedition of 1321–2 which resulted in the burning of Bridgnorth, and on 15 Jan. 1321–2 special commissioners were appointed to arrest him (Cal. Close Rolls, 1318–23, pp. 511–13; Parl. Writs, ii. 174–5). Father and son, however, escaped, and marched to join the Lancastrian lords in the north; both were captured at the battle of Boroughbridge on 17 March 1321–2. Gilbert was released on 11 July 1324, and his son either before or about the same time. Probably in 1325 he married Elizabeth, second daughter and coheir of John Comyn the younger [q. v.], by his wife Johanna, sister of Aymer de Valence, last earl of Pembroke of that line [see Aymer]. This marriage greatly added to Talbot's importance, for his wife had claims on the Scottish lands of John Comyn and also on the Pembroke inheritance. It also added to his grievances against the Despencers, for Elizabeth, who held in her own right the manor of Painswick, Gloucestershire, and castle of Goodrich, Herefordshire, had before her marriage been imprisoned by the Despencers and compelled to sell them her estates.