Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ware, James (1594-1666)
WARE, Sir JAMES (1594–1666), Irish antiquary and historian, eldest son of Sir James Ware and his wife, Mary Briden, was born at his father's house in Castle Street, Dublin, on 26 Nov. 1594. His father went to Ireland as secretary to Sir William FitzWilliam (1526–1599) [q. v.], the lord deputy, in 1588, became auditor-general, a post in which he was succeeded by his son and grandson, was knighted by James I, and was elected for Mallow in the Irish parliament of 1613. He died suddenly while walking in Fishamble Street, Dublin, in 1632, leaving five sons and five daughters.
His son James entered at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1610, and graduated M.A. in 1616. James Ussher [q. v.] encouraged in him a taste for antiquarian pursuits. He married, after leaving the university, Mary, daughter of John Newman of Dublin. He collected manuscripts and charters, and became acquainted with some of the Irish hereditary men of letters, one of whom, Duald MacFirbis [q. v.], made many transcripts and translations of chronicles and other documents in Irish for him, and communicated to him much Irish historical learning. In 1626 he published in Dublin ‘Archiepiscoporum Casseliensium et Tuamensium Vitæ,’ visited England for the first time, and examined several English libraries. In 1628 he published in Dublin ‘De Præsulibus Lageniæ,’ and was knighted by the lords justices in 1629, so that there were two Sir James Wares living in the mansion in Castle Street. In 1632 he succeeded to his father's office of auditor-general; in 1634, 1637, and 1661 was elected member of parliament for the university of Dublin, and in 1639 was sworn of the privy council in Ireland. He was attached to Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford (1593–1641) [q. v.], to whom he dedicated his ‘De Scriptoribus Hiberniæ,’ published in Dublin in 1639. He was surety for government loans in October 1641, and in June 1643 assisted the Marquis of Ormonde in the treaty with the Irish. In 1644 he was sent by Ormonde with Lord Edward Brabazon and Sir Henry Tichborne [q. v.] to inform Charles I upon the state of Ireland. He spent much time in the Oxford libraries, and was created D.C.L. On the voyage back to Ireland a parliamentary ship captured his vessel, but he had first thrown the packet of the king's letters for Ormonde into the sea. He and his fellow envoys were imprisoned for the next eleven months in the Tower of London. On his release he returned to Dublin, and was a hostage on its surrender to the parliament in June 1647 and was sent to England, but soon after returned and lived in Dublin till expelled in 1649 by General Michael Jones [q. v.], the parliamentary governor. He went to France and stayed at St. Malo, Caen, and Paris for a year and a half. In 1651 he went to live in London, where he remained till the Restoration, and became the friend of John Selden, Sir Roger Twysden, William Dugdale, Elias Ashmole, and Edward Bysshe. He published there in 1654 ‘De Hibernia et Antiquitatibus ejus Disquisitiones,’ and in 1658 a second edition, with a frontispiece representing ancient Ireland as a lady with a leash of greyhounds standing in a wooded landscape with herds of cattle and of deer. In 1646 he published ‘S. Patricio adscripta Opuscula.’ He returned to Ireland in 1660, and was restored to his place of auditor-general. He was made one of the commissioners for lands, but gave most of his time to his favourite studies, publishing in 1664 ‘Venerabilis Bedæ Epistolæ duæ,’ and in 1665 ‘Rerum Hibernicarum Annales [1485–1558],’ Dublin, 1664, 4to, and in 1665 ‘De Præsulibus Hiberniæ Commentarius’ (Dublin, 4to). He printed Campion's ‘History of Ireland’ and the chronicles of Hanmer and of Marlborough, with Spenser's view of Ireland. He remitted the fees of his office to widows and made many gifts to royalists who had been ruined during the great rebellion.
He died at his family house in Castle Street, Dublin, on 1 Dec. 1666, and was buried in St. Werburgh's Church, Dublin.
The establishment of Irish history and literature as subjects of study in the general world of learning in modern times is largely due to the lifelong exertions of Ware, and Sir Frederick Burton in his fine drawing of the three founders of the study of Irish history and literature, has rightly placed him beside his contemporaries, Michael O'Clery [q. v.], the hereditary chronicler, and John Colgan [q. v.], the Irish hagiologist. Ware's portrait was also engraved by Vertue. The Earl of Clarendon, lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1686, purchased his manuscripts, part of which are now in the British Museum (Clarendon collection) and part in the Bodleian Library (Rawlinson collection). A catalogue of them was printed in Dublin in 1688, and one in London in 1690.
His eldest son, James, who became auditor-general on his father's death, died in 1689.
His second son, Robert, married on 24 Dec. 1666, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Piers of Tristernagh, co. Westmeath. He compiled ‘The Hunting of the Romish Fox,’ an account of the change of religion and of the persecution of Roman catholics in England and Ireland, of which the title is borrowed from the book of William Turner (d. 1568) [q. v.] It was published in Dublin in 1683 by William Norman, bookbinder to the Duke of Ormonde. Ware defaced some of his father's manuscripts with controversial scribblings. He died in March 1696.
Walter Harris [q. v.], who married Ware's granddaughter, published ‘The Whole Works of Sir James Ware’ (Dublin, 1739–64, 3 vols. fol.).
[Life, prefixed to English translation of Ware's Works (most of which were published in Latin), London, 1705; Harris's edition of Ware; Cal. State Papers, Ireland, 1588–1624; Works (of the editions there is a fine series in the Bradshaw collection in the Cambridge University Library); Catalogues Clarendon manuscripts and Rawlinson manuscripts; Publications of the Celtic Soc. Dublin, 1848.]