Jeremy Taylor at Portmore

In 1658 Edward, 3rd Baron and 1st Earl of Conway, came over to Lisburn, and soon after he induced the author of "Liberty of Prophesying" to accept a lectureship at Lisburn, and from that time he lived alternatively at Lisburn and Portmore. A very handsome cottage was erected for him and as lecturer to the loyalists Taylor settled down there, and his wife and family were delighted with their new home and all its picturesque beauties near the banks of Lough Neagh. It is pretty well known that it was greatly through Lord Conway's influence with Charles the Second that the See of Down and Connor was conferred on Jeremy Taylor. In addition to the pretty residence at Portmore, Lord Conway had fitted up for the Bishop at Maghraleave an exceedingly charming residence. That cottage is still to be seen there, and the study in which the prelate composed some of his later works -- that sacred spot, with its oaken panelings and peculiar look-out; but how few, even of the people of our town, have visited that sacred locality!

-  Recollections of Hugh McCall

“Induced”: Dr Taylor was among Conway’s more famous guests. There is a long back story (including entries in the diary of John Evelyn, again not the most reliable source) of how Taylor accepted – after, it is alleged, at first resisting – Conway’s offer of a residence with income from chaplaincy, leisure for writing, and safety from legal pursuit.

The writing included some of Ductor Dubitantium (on “the Rule of Conscience”). Even many modern readers with little time or mental room for seventeenth-century divines will see from a few paragraphs that Taylor’s prose has something peculiar: saturated with scriptural tropes and gentle, rhythmical, rhetorical phrasing, but not quite in the styles of the King James translations, nor with the trademark cadences of Thomas Browne. Alexander Gordon’s DNB article referred to the rich literary products of his retirement, unsurpassed for nobility of tone as well as for the marvellous and varied beauty of the pictorial vesture of his thought but said of the markedly unsuccessful negotiations with dissenters

The presbyterian settlers in the north of Ireland, of Scottish birth or descent, true to the monarchical terms of their solemn covenant, had synodically protested against the trial and execution of Charles I…Taylor's policy confirmed the presbyterians in rebellion against his authority; intending the reverse, he did more than any man to establish the loyal presbyterians of the north of Ireland as a separate ecclesiastical body.

The 1891 Lisburn Standard excerpt above states that Ralph Briggs the Conway retainer had some responsibility for the preparations made for Dr Taylor’s stay. But the reference to the “pretty cottage” argues against a wing or a suite of rooms in Portmore castle. Such a suite, or a nearby or attached cottage or lodge, does seem likelier as a distinguished visitor’s residence than a new building on a very small island; what “Portmore” means in this context is much debated. For example, Gordon wrote for the DNB: His residence was near Conway's splendid mansion at Portmore; he had also a study (‘amœnissimus recessus’) on Sallagh Island in Portmore Lough (Lough Beg). Edmund Gosse wrote: The legend that Taylor wrote on Ram’s Island, far out in Lough Neagh, is preposterous. All we can safely say is, that he and his family occupied a suite of rooms, from 1658 to 1660, in one of the wings of Portmore…

In any case, I have found no further evidence that Ralph (or any other Briggs) had some responsibility for the preparations made for Dr Taylor’s stay, whether they involved a handsome villa, a handsome cottage, a pretty cottage, an arbour, a summer residence, or a suite. Nor have I found contemporary evidence of such construction or refurbishment led by George Rawdon, who is more likely in the literature to be Conway’s unnamed “agent”. Conway archives are in scattered places including Kew, Warwickshire and Ireland, and a note of such expenses, or the instructions to what we would today call Rawdon’s project manager, may turn up.