ADAM LOFTUS, who was the main instrument in the foundation of Trinity College, Dublin, and who became the first Provost, was born at Swineshead, in Yorkshire, in the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII. His father appears to have possessed considerable landed estate both in that county and in other parts of England. He was educated at Cambridge at the time when John Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was a student in that University.
Thomas, Earl of Sussex, who became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at the accession of Elizabeth, made Adam Loftus his chaplain; he was presented by Royal influence to the Vicarage of Paynestown in 1561, being at the same time designated by the Queen as the successor to Archbishop Dowdall in the See of Armagh. He was consecrated for this Archbishoprick by Hugh Curwin, Archbishop of Dublin, and other bishops, in the month of March, 156 2/3, being at that time a Bachelor of Divinity. As the revenues of the See of Armagh were at that period difficult to collect the Queen granted to along with it, in 1564, the Deanery of St. Patrick's, which he then held for three years, and at the request of Elizabeth he then resigned the Deanery to Robert Weston, on being translated to the See of Dublin on August 8, 1567, in succession to Curwin, having a little before taken the Degree of D. D. at Cambridge.
Loftus occupied the position of Archbishop of Dublin for 37 years and 8 months, and died on the 5th of April, 1605, at his Palace of St. Sepulchre's, being buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Adam Loftus, besides being Archbishop of Dublin, was twice made Keeper of the Great Seal, and afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland, an office which he retained until his death. He was three times one of the Lords Justices of Ireland, in 1582, 1597, 1599.
Archbishop Loftus was nominated Provost of Trinity College in the Charter of Elizabeth, an office which he resigned, June 5, 1594, being succeeded by Walter Travers, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was elected by Henry Usher, Vice-Provost, Luke Challoner, Lancelot Money, and William Daniel, Fellows of the College. Travers was sworn Provost, December 6, 1594.
The speeches which follow have been preserved in a manuscript in the Library at Armagh, and were copied from it by the hand of the late Doctor Reeves, Bishop of Down and Connor, who shortly before he died expressed a desire that they should be printed as an Addendum to the ``History of the University of Dublin'' by Dr. Stubbs, specially as the two speeches which were delivered to the Corporation of Dublin have been incorrectly printed as if they were one, in Hearne's edition of ``Camden,'' taken by him from the Smith MSS. in the Bodleian Library, and from which they were reproduced in the Appendix to the ``History of the University,'' page 350. They had been accurately copied in the Armagh MS. which is here exactly reproduced. Internal evidence shows that it was written not long after the death of Provost Seele in 1675.
The statement made in Mason's ``History of St. Patrick's Cathedral,'' that Adam Loftus first attracted the notice of Elizabeth by a disputation which he made at Cambridge in his youth, is inconsistent with the date of the Queen's Visit to that University in August, 1564; which was after his consecration as Archbishop of Armagh. He may have disputed on that occasion in the presence of the Queen for the Degree of Doctor of Divinity to which he is stated to have been admitted before his translation to the See of Dublin in 1567, and it is probable that at this time he may have attracted the notice of the Queen as well by his dexterity as by his comely person and courtly address.
The governor of Ireland alluded to in the Latin speech of Archbishop Loftus is Sir John Perrot, who resigned his office in 1588, and died in 1592. Perrot was most desirous to found a University in Dublin out of the revenues of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and thereby incurred the hostility the Archbishop. The letter which the Queen sent to Loftus, in reference to this quarrel, is preserved in Sir John Perrot's life.