as raised to the Archbishopric of Armagh and the Primacy of
the Irish Church. Usher came to England on a visit in 1640, but he never
returned to his native country, for in the next year his residence at
Armagh was attacked and plundered by the rebels, and he lost everything
he possessed except his library, and some furniture in his house at
Drogheda. In consequence of the unsettled state of the country it was
thought useless for him to return to his see, and the king therefore
bestowed on him the bishopric of Carlisle, to be held _in commendam_.
For some time he resided in Oxford, but that city being threatened with
a siege by the Parliamentary forces, in 1645 he proceeded to Cardiff, of
which town Sir Timothy Tyrrell, who had married his only child, was
governor. Some months later, when Tyrrell was obliged to give up his
command, Usher accepted an invitation from Mary, widow of Sir Edward
Stradling, to take up his abode at her residence, St. Donat's Castle,
Glamorganshire. On his way thither, in company with his daughter, he
unluckily fell into the hands of a party of Welsh insurgents, who
plundered him of all his books and papers, but these were afterwards to
a great extent recovered by the exertions of the clergy and gentry of
the country. In 1646 Usher came to London, and found a home in the house
of his friend the Dowager Countess of Peterborough, which was situated
in St. Martin's Lane, 'just over against Charing Cross.' From the roof
of the building he witnessed the preliminaries of the execution of
Charles I., but he nearly fainted when 'the villains in vizards began to
put up the king's hair,' and had to be removed. Usher was appointed
Preacher to the Society of Lincoln's Inn in 1647, and for nearly eight
years preached regularly during term-time in the chapel. He had a suite
of furnished apartments provided for him in the Inn, 'with divers rooms
for his library.' He retired in 1656 to Lady Peterborough's house at
Reigate in Surrey, and died there on the 21st of March in that year. On
the 21st of the following month he was buried in Westminster Abbey; a
public funeral being given him by order of Cromwell, who is said,
however, to have left the relations of the deceased prelate to pay the
greater part of the expense. Usher formed a large and valuable library
of nearly ten thousand volumes, which cost him many thousand pounds. Dr.
Richard Parr, his biographer, states that 'after he became archbishop he
laid out a g