Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/372

 presbyter, and collecting some followers he built a monastery called in his life Latinum. Colgan erroneously suggested that this was either Latiniacense in Gaul founded by St. Fursey, or Lætiense in Belgium, but these will not answer, and there can be no doubt that ‘Latinum’ stands for the Irish word ‘Letha,’ which originally meant, as it means here, Armorica or Brittany (called in mediæval usage Letavia), although it afterwards came to mean Latium or Italy. This explains the statement that his sister in going to visit him landed at a port in Britain, i.e. in Bretagne. With this correction the story of his visit and stay at Rome and of the pilgrims from Rome bringing tidings of his fame falls to the ground.

Enna on his return to Ireland landed at Inver Colpa, at the mouth of the Boyne, and engaged in missionary labours. But with the consent of Œngus, son of Nadfraoch, king of Munster, whose wife, Dairinne, was his sister, he soon took possession of the largest and most western of the islands of Arran, called afterwards Arran of the Saints, from the number of holy men buried there. The island had been occupied by heathen inhabitants from the mainland of Corcomroe in the county of Clare, all of whom fled except their chief, Corban. It is mentioned incidentally that a species of corn, far, had been introduced by divine interposition into the island, and was still to be found there in 1390, when Augustine Magraidin composed the ‘Life’ published by the Bollandists, from which these facts are taken. Enna founded ten monasteries in the island, but discussions arose about the division of the land. An angel is said to have brought him a book of the four evangelists and a casula or hood decorated with gold and silver, which were still preserved and held in the highest reverence in 1390. After one or two visits to the mainland and one to a chieftain termed Crumther Coelan or Coelan the presbyter, who lived in an island on Lough Corrib, Enna appears to have stayed at Arran for the rest of his life. He offered three prayers at the close of his life, one of which was that every contrite person who desired to be buried in the burial-ground of his monastery should have as a privilege ‘that the mouth of hell should not be closed upon him.’ The Bollandists, who do not consider this orthodox, explain that it means he should not suffer the pains of purgatory or be detained long there. The remains on the great island connected with St. Enna are Cell Enda, the parish church, Teglach Enda, where the saint is buried with 120 others (this is the privileged spot referred to in his prayer), and lastly, Tempoll mor Enda. So severe was the discipline at Arran that, in order to test the purity of the monks, St. Enna had a corrach or boat made without a hide, that is, consisting of framework and ribs only and no covering, into which each monk had to go every day, and if any water entered it he was thereby proved a sinner; ‘thus he kept up their angelic purity.’ Ussher assigns his death to 530 in the ninetieth year of his age, but he appears to have been alive up to 540, according to Colgan. Earlier than this he cannot be placed, as he belonged to the second order of Irish saints (542–599); but as the annals have no mention of his death, the actual year cannot be ascertained with any certainty. His day is 25 April.

[Bollandists' Acta Sanct. 21 March, iii. 269; O'Flaherty's Iar Connaught, pp. 77–9; Book of Hymns, Rev. J. H. Todd, i. 103; Colgan's Acta Sanct. p. 704 seq.; Ware's Antiquities, p. 249.] 

ENDECOTT, JOHN (1588?–1665), governor of New England, is supposed to have been born at Dorchester, Dorsetshire, in or about 1588, but nothing is known of his early life. On 19 March 1628 he joined with five other ‘religious persons’ in purchasing a patent of the territory of Massachusetts Bay from ‘the corporation styled the council established at Plymouth in the county of Devon for the planting, ruling, and governing of New England in America.’ Among those who almost immediately after the purchase secured proprietary rights in the ‘Dorchester Company,’ as it was called, and who became respectively governor and deputy-governor of the company in London, were Matthew Cradock [q. v.] and Roger Ludlow. Being related to both by marriage, it is probable that Endecott was selected at their instance as a ‘fit instrument to begin the wildernesse-worke.’ He was accordingly entrusted with full powers to take charge of the plantation at Naumkeag, afterwards Salem. Accompanied by his wife and some twenty or thirty emigrants, he sailed from Weymouth in the ship Abigail, 20 June 1628, and reached Naumkeag on 6 Sept. following. As a ruler Endecott lost no time in showing himself earnest, zealous, and courageous, but, considering the difficulties which he had to battle against, it is not surprising that he was occasionally found wanting in tact and temper. His conduct towards the Indians was always marked with strict justice. On making known to the planters who had preceded him that he and his associate patentees had purchased all the property and privileges of the Dorchester partners, both at Naumkeag and at Cape Ann, much discontent