Percy Jocelyn1764-1843
Jocelyn, Percy, disgraced bishop, was born November 29th, 1764, third of four sons of Robert, 1st earl of Roden, and his wife Anne, née Hamilton. Educated at TCD, he graduated BA (1785). Ordained a priest in the Church of Ireland, he rose swiftly in the church, due mainly to his father’s connections. He became rector of Tamlaght, treasurer of Cork cathedral, archdeacon of Ross, treasurer of Armagh, and prebend of Lismore. Despite having no genuine interest in religion, in 1809 he was appointed bishop of Ferns and Leighlin. His first brush with national scandal occurred in 1811. Accused of homosexuality by a coach- man, James Byrne, Jocelyn sued for malicious libel and the trial took place in Dublin in October, 1811. Jocelyn’s defence pleaded that homosexuality had not yet reached Ireland from the corrupt Continent. Jocelyn denied Byrnes allegation and, as the word of a bishop was not likely to be doubted, the coachman was found guilty, stripped, tied to a cart, dragged throughout Dublin, flogged, and sentenced to two years imprisonment.
Appointed bishop of Clogher in 1820, Jocelyn became embroiled in another national scandal. On July 19th, 1822, he was found in a back room of a public house in London with a 22-year-old soldier, John Moverley. Jocelyn had his breeches down, was immediately arrested and taken by a mob to prison. Because he had been arrested before any homosexual act had been committed, he was only charged with a misdemeanour and released on bail of £1,000 (the charge of sodomy, however, was still a capital offence). Jocelyn fled to France. George Dawson, private secretary to the home secretary, Robert Peel, said the event “will sap the very foundation of society, it will raise the lower orders against the higher”. The archbishop of Canterbury said it was not safe for a bishop to show himself in the streets of London after the scandal. And when Viscount Castlereagh, the foreign secretary, had a nervous breakdown in August 1822, he confessed to the king he was guilty of the same crime as the bishop of Clogher. Byrne was vindicated and a public subscription raised £300 for him. In October, 1822, Jocelyn was deposed as bishop of Clogher, and two years’ later declared an outlaw.
From the Royal Irish Academy’s
Dictionary of Irish Biography
. See dib.ie for more details
