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THE PRIMATES OF THE 
 FOUR GEORGES 
 
William Wake 
 
 \FrontLspiecc 
 
THE PRIMATES OF 
 THE FOUR GEORGES 
 
 By ALDRED W. ROWDEN, K.C. 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 
 
 1916 
 
4.ss'^\-^^ 
 
 V^ 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The writer desires to thank the Dean of Christ Church, 
 Oxford, for giving him access to the Wake MSS at 
 Christ Church. He wishes also to acknowledge the 
 kindness shown him by the Librarian at Christ Church, 
 and the under-Librarian, Mr. Francis, during his 
 researches in the Library at Christ Church. 
 
 The extracts from the Wake MSS are published with 
 the permission of the Trustees of the MSS, the Dean of 
 Christ Church, and the Regius Professors of Divinity 
 and Hebrew, Oxford, for which permission the writer is 
 deeply grateful. 
 
 He has also to thank the Rev. Claude Jenkins, 
 Librarian at Lambeth, for much courteous assistance. 
 
 To His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury the 
 
 writer's sincere thanks are due for permission to copy 
 
 the portraits at Lambeth which appear as illustrations 
 
 of this volume. 
 
 A. W. R. 
 
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT 
 
 Queen Anne died on ist August 1714. Archbishop 
 Tenison had then been Primate for twenty years, 
 having been appointed in 1694 by William in. On the 
 1 6th September, George i. landed at Greenwich, and on 
 the 20th October he was crowned in Westminster Abbey 
 by the Venerable Tenison. The Primate survived the 
 ceremony less than two months, his death taking place 
 on Christmas Eve following. William Wake, who suc- 
 ceeded him, may therefore be fairly described as the 
 first Georgian Primate. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 William Wake (1716-1737) . 
 John Potter (1737-1747) ■ 
 Thomas Herring (1747-1757) 
 Matthew Hutton (1757-1758) 
 Thomas Secker (1758-1768) 
 Frederick Cornwallis (1768-1783) 
 John Moore (i 783-1805) 
 Charles Manners Sutton (1805-1828) 
 
 115 
 167 
 230 
 248 
 310 
 348 
 380 
 
 Index . 
 
 427 
 
LIST OF PORTRAITS 
 
 William Wake 
 
 . Frontispiece 
 
 John Potter .... 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 . 142 
 
 Thomas Herring 
 
 . 214 
 
 Matthew Hutton . 
 
 . 246 
 
 Thomas Secker 
 
 . 278 
 
 Frederick Cornwallis 
 
 . 326 
 
 John Moore .... 
 
 • 374 
 
 Charles Manners Sutton . 
 
 . 406 
 
THE PRIMATES OF THE 
 FOUR GEORGES 
 
 WILLIAM WAKE 
 
 1 716-1737 
 
 William Wake was born on the 26th January 1657, at 
 Blandford in Dorset, being the son of Mr. WilUam Wake 
 of Shipwick in that town, a man of good family and 
 comfortable fortune. The archbishop in later life 
 showed himself not uninterested in his ancestors and 
 pedigree, and wrote a brief inquiry into the " antiquity, 
 honour, and estate " of the name of the family of Wake 
 for the use of his son, which was reprinted at War- 
 minster in 1833 by his great-granddaughter, Etheldreda 
 Bennett. The archbishop's pride in the antiquity of 
 his family and the distinction of his early ancestors 
 was by no means without foundation. The family of 
 Wake or le Wake goes back to the Norman Conquest or 
 before it. The name of Wake or Wac is in the roll of 
 Battle Abbey. Brompton says that some of the family 
 were of those who asked William the Conqueror to 
 come over. But a better story is that Herewold, sur- 
 named de Wake or Le Wake, was the last of the Barons 
 to submit to William i., who came to terms with him 
 in 1076, the terms involving Wake's restoration to his 
 estates and honours. The Lordships of Brunne and 
 Depyng continued in the family for over 500 years. 
 A Chronicler of Primates should not omit to mention 
 that iji our own time a member of the Wake family 
 has been brought into close connexion with Canterbury, 
 
2 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 an elder and very dear sister of Archbishop Tait having 
 married Sir Charles Wake. From Herewold was 
 descended Baldwin le Wake, who was a baron at the 
 coronation of Richard i. Indeed our archbishop 
 claimed, and not without reason, royal affinity. 
 Baldwin's grandson, Thomas, married Blanche Planta- 
 genet, and on his death without issue the estates 
 passed to his sister, wife of Edmund of Woodstock, 
 Edward the First's youngest son, whose daughter was 
 Joan, " a lady of transcendent beauty," and known as 
 the Fair Maid of Kent. She had for her third husband 
 the Black Prince, and they were the father and mother 
 of Richard 11. 
 
 Archbishop Wake's own paternal grandmother was 
 Elizabeth Gorges, daughter of Sir Edward Gorges, 
 Knight. 
 
 William Wake, the subject of our memoir, received 
 his education at Blandford Grammar School, under 
 Curgenwen. His progress and success at school were 
 remarkable, and his father resolved on his going to the 
 University. He accordingly took him to Oxford with 
 the intention of entering him at Trinity. But father 
 and son, in making a tour of inspection of the Uni- 
 versity city, happened to fall in with Fell — the Dean of 
 Christ Church, afterwards Bishop of Oxford — who knew 
 something of the elder Wake. Father and son were 
 invited to partake of the Dean's hospitality, and, as a 
 result of a promise by the Dean to give the young man 
 a student's place. Trinity was given up, and the future 
 archbishop was admitted a student of Christ Church, 
 and matriculated on 28th February 1672, being then 
 fifteen years old. 
 
 Wake took his degree of B.A. on 26th October 1676, 
 and two and a half years later, viz., on 29th June 1679, 
 proceeded to take the degree of M.A. His father is said 
 to have designed him for trade, and to have laid out no 
 less a sum than £10,000 to put him into the clothing 
 business : but the future archbishop throughout his life 
 
1737] VISIT TO PARIS 3 
 
 was of genuine piety, and was resolved, in spite of 
 paternal schemes for worldly riches, to take orders. 
 
 Shortly afterwards he had the opportunity of being 
 introduced to a foreign Court under favourable circum- 
 stances. In 1682, Charles 11. sent Sir Richard Graham, 
 who had sat in Parliament as burgess for Cockermouth 
 in Cumberland, to Paris as his envoy extraordinary to 
 the Court of Louis xiv., having previously raised him to 
 the peerage of Scotland as Lord Viscount Preston. 
 The Envoy to Paris had himself been educated at 
 Christ Church, and requiring the services of a chaplain 
 gave the post to his Christ Church friend. Lord Preston 
 was a man of learning, and much later, being a great 
 friend and favourite of James 11., was made by him in 
 1688 , when times were getting desperate for that monarch , 
 Secretary of State in place of Sunderland. In 1690 
 he got mixed up with Henry Lord Clarendon, Turner, 
 Bishop of Ely, Ken's friend, Ashton, and Graham in a 
 Jacobite plot. How the conspirators fared may be 
 told in Evelyn's language under date i8th January 
 1691 : " Lord Preston " (being only a Scotch peer he 
 was tried at the Old Bailey) " condemned about a 
 design to bring in King James by the French. Ashton 
 executed. The Bishop of Ely, Mr. Graham, etc., 
 absconded." Turner had been one of James 11. 's 
 chaplains when the latter was Duke of York, and could 
 not give up his loyalty to him. His prominent nose, 
 " Turner's beak or hook " — known to those acquainted 
 with his picture in the Hall of New College, Oxford — 
 made him, as Archbishop Sancroft said in a letter a 
 year or so later, " a very remarkable person," who could 
 not rely for escape in any disguise : " not of late only, 
 but of old, Sancroft quaintly remarks, the Tupuff>ifjtjov of 
 the vessel the sign by which 'twas known was in the 
 Prow or Beak, Acts xxviii." Ashton played the 
 man on the scaffold, but Preston purchased his life by 
 disclosures far from creditable. But the real security 
 of the plotters lay in William iii.'s undoubted mag- 
 
4 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 nanimity. It was when Preston was being examined 
 in William's presence and was implicating public men, 
 Whigs as well as Tories, right and left, and Carmarthen, 
 the Danby of former years, was egging him on to further 
 and further disclosures, that the King touched Car- 
 marthen upon the shoulder saying, " My Lord, there is 
 too much of this." 
 
 To return, however, it is certainly to Preston's 
 credit that he should have selected as a companion of 
 his foreign residence a man of the learning and piety of 
 Wake. 
 
 Wake's time in Paris was spent in a way befitting 
 his character and habits. Bishop Fell of Oxford, his 
 old friend of Christ Church days, was at the time pre- 
 paring an edition of the New Testament in Greek, and 
 through Lord Preston got Wake to collate an important 
 New Testament manuscript The English Prelate 
 had chosen the right man for the job, as appears from 
 Wake's letter to him dated the 3rd July 1684 in or near 
 Paris : 
 
 " According to your Lordship's commands in your 
 letter enclosed by my Lord Preston, I have made it 
 my endeavour to get a sight of the MS. mentioned 
 to y"" Lordship of the New Testament. I am assured 
 by a person of great knowledge and understanding in 
 these matters, that there is not only that but 7 or 8 
 more in the same Library of the late Mons. Colbert 
 which I may have the collation of, and (that he will 
 undertake to procure me leave) which never have 
 been examined. I am assured oy a very ingenious 
 man that the collation of the MS. of St. Germain made 
 by Mons. Gazon is very imperfect : so that if your 
 Lordship has no other I believe he will furnish me 
 with those that are more exact. It is a MS. of about 
 1000 years since, belonging to the monastery of Ste 
 Genevieve, which Curcelloeus had the use of, but having 
 given no account (as was done in the Oxford Collations) 
 from what MSS he took his various lections they are 
 of little use." After offering to get copies of these 
 " and others to the number of 20 or more," Wake says : 
 ' If your Lordship desires no others than of that MSS 
 
1737] CONTROVERSY WITH BOSSUET 5 
 
 I first mentioned, and the review of that of St. Germain, 
 I hope in a fortnight's time after I shall have the 
 honour of receiving your Lordship's commands to 
 despatch them to you." 
 
 It was something which happened during Wake's 
 stay in Paris with Preston that started him in what 
 turned out to be a protracted controversy with the 
 renowned Bossuet on points of Romanist Doctrine. 
 Bossuet was Bishop of Condom, but resigned that 
 office on being appointed tutor to the Dauphin : in 
 1 68 1 he was made Bishop of Meaux. Bossuet was a 
 controversialist of the highest skill, Hallam's description 
 of him as " the eagle of Meaux, lordly of form, fierce 
 of eye, and terrible in his beak and claw," is well known. 
 It says something for Wake's learning and confidence 
 in his own learning that at thirty he should have 
 crossed swords with so doughty a foe. It fell out 
 thus : Bossuet had put forth a work called An Exposition 
 of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church, with the object 
 of grounding the celebrated Turenne in the Romish 
 creed. In its original form it wanted, as Wake 
 declares, the chapters on the Eucharist, Tradition, the 
 authority of the Church and Pope, which afterwards 
 appeared as part of it, and generally stated the Roman 
 creed in terms as little likely to offend Protestants as 
 possible. But it got the approval of the Archbishop 
 of Rheims and nine other bishops. Bossuet however 
 wanted more, and just before the general issue of the 
 work applied to the Sorbonne for its imprimatur 
 But the theologians of the Sorbonne instead of this 
 marked several passages as being so incomplete as to 
 be a perversion of the true Roman doctrine. The 
 first impression was hastily suppressed ; the defective 
 passages were omitted or corrected, and with all speed a 
 new edition was issued as if there had been no earlier 
 one. But somehow Wake had got into his hands a copy 
 of the first impression, marked, as he says, by the doctors 
 of the Sorbonne. 
 
6 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 Charles 11. died on the 6th February 1685. Preston 
 was soon recalled by James 11. for high work at home, 
 and in the course of 1685 Wake returned to England 
 with his patron. 
 
 In 1686 he pubhshed, in answer to Bossuet, his 
 Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England. By 
 way of preface to his work Wake relates the appearance 
 of the first and of the amended editions of Bossuet 's 
 work, and that Bossuet himself had been charged 
 with the change in the latter. " I (^on't hear," he 
 says, " that he has ever yet thought fit to deny the 
 relation either in the advertisement prefixed to the 
 later edition of his book wherein he replies to some 
 other passages of the same treatise or in any other 
 vindication. . . . Certainly it appears to us not only 
 to give a clear account of the design and genius of the 
 whole book, but to be a plain demonstration, how 
 improbable soever Mons. de Meaux would represent it, 
 that it is not impossible for a bishop of the Church 
 of Rome either not to be sufficiently instructed 
 in his religion to know what is the doctrine of it, 
 or not sufficiently sincere to represent it without 
 disguise." 
 
 As regards his own treatise. Wake says : "I have 
 suifered myself to be persuaded to pursue the method 
 of Mons. de Meaux 's exposition as to the doctrine of 
 the Church of England, and to oppose sincerely to 
 what he pretends is the opinion of the Roman Church 
 that form of faith that is openly professed and taught 
 without any disguise or dissimulation among us." 
 
 This work was followed by a war of pamphlets. 
 Bossuet issued a Vindication. Wake replied in a 
 Defence of his Exposition ; Bossuet followed with a 
 Reply ; then Wake had a second Defence, and Bossuet 
 a Full answer to the second Defence. 
 
 Wake wound up with a State of the Controversy, 
 giving a list of the books written on both sides during 
 its continuance. He earned at any rate the approval 
 
1737] SERMONS IN LONDON 7 
 
 of one worthy critic. Evelyn's entry in his Diary ^ 
 for New Year's Day, 1687, is : " Mr. Wake preached 
 at St. Martin's on i Timothy iii. 16, concerning the 
 mystery of Godliness. He wrote excellently in answer 
 to the Bishop of Meaux." 
 
 Wake's fame as a preacher was fast growing. A 
 volume of sermons published a few years later contains 
 one preached in Paris on 30th January 1685, and 
 another the same year preached at Gray's Inn. He 
 preached for Tenison, his predecessor in the Primacy, 
 then Rector of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and a leading 
 clergyman, and he was undoubtedly on terms of intimate 
 friendship with him. Evelyn records that on the 20th 
 March 1687 he dined after morning service at Dr. 
 Tenison's with Bishop Ken, " and that young, most 
 learned, pious, and excellent preacher, Mr. Wake." " In 
 the afternoon," he goes on, " I went to hear Mr. Wake 
 at the new built church of St. Anne, on Mark viii. 34, 
 upon the subject of taking up the Cross, and strenuously 
 behaving ourselves in time of persecution as this now 
 threatened to be." 
 
 In 1688, on the death of Dr. Clagett, he was chosen 
 preacher of Gray's Inn. The story goes that the 
 Honourable Society had been admonished by James 11. 
 not to fill up the preachership till the royal pleasure 
 was known, but they replied that they had already 
 elected Dr. Wake. 
 
 The serious position of national and public affairs 
 in the autumn of 1688, though it may have given 
 Wake, then a vigorous and rising man of just over 
 thirty, anxiety, did not prevent his taking the 
 important step of marrying. On the ist October 1688 
 he was married at St. Giles-in-the- Fields to Etheldreda, 
 third daughter and co-heiress of Sir William Hovell 
 of Hillingdon or Illington, Norfolk, — Sharp, then Dean 
 of Norwich afterwards Archbishop of York, performing 
 the ceremony. As we shall note later on, Wake had 
 
 * Evelyn's Diary, ii. 264. 
 
 a 
 
8 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 a large family, and from his own correspondence we 
 can say without doubt that his domestic Hfe was happy 
 in the highest degree. The Diary of Lady Cowper, 
 the Lord Chancellor's wife, contains mention several 
 times of Mrs. Wake, and the frequent messages from 
 distinguished correspondents of the archbishop occurring 
 in letters preserved among the Wake MSS prove her 
 to have been all an archbishop's wife should be. 
 Certainly the family into which he married connected 
 him with persons in useful, if not distinguished, public 
 service. One sister of his wife married William Folkes, 
 a lawyer of eminence whose son, Martyn Folkes, was 
 President of the Royal Society . The grandson of the other 
 sister was Sir Simeon Stewart, M.P. for Hampshire. 
 
 Wake's sympathies were throughout with the Revo- 
 lution and in opposition to James 11. He had written 
 as a very protagonist of anti-Romanism ; and now that 
 in 1689 William and Mary were well settled on the throne, 
 he went rapidly ahead on the road to distinction. On 
 the 20th June 1689 he was appointed a Canon of Christ 
 Church, Oxford ; on the 5th July following he took the 
 degrees of B.D. and D.D., by accumulation going out 
 " Grand Compounder," and about the same time the 
 King and Queen made him Deputy Clerk of the Closet. 
 
 In 1693 he published An English Version of the 
 Genuine Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers, with a Pre- 
 liminary Discourse concerning the Right Use of those 
 Fathers, — a book which has always maintained its 
 position as a standard theological work of the Church 
 of England. 
 
 In his Preface, Wake gives six reasons for giving 
 weight to the Apostolic Fathers : — 
 
 1. They were contemporary with the Apostles and 
 
 instructed by them. 
 
 2. They were men of an eminent character in the 
 
 Church, and therefore could not be ignorant 
 of what was taught in it. 
 
1737] "THE FATHERS" 9 
 
 3. They were careful to preserve the Doctrine of 
 
 Christ in its purity, and to oppose such as went 
 about to corrupt it . 
 
 4. They were men not only of a perfect piety, but 
 
 of great courage and constancy, and there- 
 fore such as cannot be suspected to have 
 had any design to prevaricate in this matter. 
 
 5. They were endued with a large portion of the 
 
 Holy Spirit, and as such could hardly err in 
 what they delivered as the gospel of Christ. 
 
 6. Their writings were approved by the Church in 
 
 those days, which could not be mistaken in its 
 approbation of them. 
 
 Wake himself published a new and largely revised 
 edition in 1710. No one seems ever to have belittled 
 Wake's edition of the Fathers, except the renowned 
 Conyers Middleton, 1683-1750. This scholar, the 
 enemy of the great Bentley — " fiddling Conyers," as 
 Bentley called him from his love of music, — to get over 
 the death of his first wife, travelled abroad, and while 
 at Rome conceived a great dislike, first for the miracles 
 of the Romish Church, and afterwards for all miracles. 
 Near the end of his life, in 1784, he published his Free 
 Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers of the Church. In 
 their answer to this, Dodwell and Church cited a passage 
 from Wake's version of St. Clement's Epistle to the 
 Corinthians as referring to the miraculous gifts of that 
 age . Wake 's is undoubtedly a free paraphrase . Clement 's 
 words are : " Let a man be faithful. Let him be 
 powerful to utter knowledge. Let him be wise in 
 making an exact judgment of words." Wake's ex- 
 planations of these are : Of the first, " that is such a 
 faith by which he is able to work miracles ; of the second, 
 " that is mystical knowledge," for to that the expression 
 manifestly relates ; of the third, " for that was another 
 gift common to those times." 
 
 Middleton, who was never silent under attack 
 
lo WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 or without a reply to those who would have strife with 
 him, admits in his reply that Wake's paraphrase asserts 
 the existence of miraculous powers in that age, but 
 avers he had knowingly omitted the passage from 
 his book through, says he, " a regard for the character 
 of that venerable prelate which made me unwilling to 
 recall into public light a paraphrase which I took to 
 be unworthy of him, and of all others that I had ever 
 observed to be the most palpably forced and dressed 
 up without any ground or colour from the text to serve 
 the point he was inculcating concerning the continuance 
 of the miraculous powers to the times of these apostolic 
 fathers." 
 
 There really seems little to cavil at in Wake's para- 
 phrase, taken as a paraphrase. Dodwell and Church's 
 use of Wake's language as a plain reference to miraculous 
 gifts in St. Clement's time seems open to more doubt. 
 
 An Act had been passed in the year 1685 in the 
 first Parliament of James 11., making part of the parish 
 of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields into a distinct parish of St. 
 James', the Act providing that Dr. Tenison should be 
 Rector of the new parish as well as Vicar of St. Martin's. 
 He held both livings till his appointment as Bishop of 
 Lincoln in January 1692, and six months after in com- 
 mendant. According to the statement by Le Neve,^ 
 a curious dispute arose as to who was to succeed Tenison 
 both at St. Martin's and St. James'. The Act founding 
 St. James' had given the next Presentation to that 
 Rectory after the death of Tenison or next avoidance 
 to the Bishop of London, who in July 1692 presented 
 Dr. Birch to it. The Crown apparently claimed the 
 right to present, and presented Wake, and the result 
 was, according to Le Neve, a quare impedit against 
 the bishop for not admitting Wake on the King's 
 presentation. On the trial of this in the King's Bench 
 the bishop lost, and again on appeal to the Lords. So, 
 on 24th January 1694, Wake was admitted to the 
 
 1 Le Neve's Protestant Bishops, 242. 
 
1737] DEAN OF EXETER n 
 
 Rectory by the Archbishop of Canterbury, by virtue of a 
 writ from the King's Bench for that purpose. 
 
 Wake was a dihgent parish priest : in the Preface to 
 the later edition of his Catechism, he says that that work 
 was originally compiled by him for the use of his parish- 
 ioners, amongst whom he was strenuous in the public 
 catechising of the young on the afternoon of Sunday. 
 
 Wake's fame as a preacher was, indeed, now well 
 established. We find him preaching a funeral sermon 
 for Queen Mary in 1694, and again preaching on a 
 Public Fast ordered for 5th April 1699 on behalf of the 
 exiled Vaudois and French Protestants. Perhaps he 
 had learned to sympathise with these latter during 
 his stay in Paris as Preston's chaplain. 
 
 On the 1 6th February 1 701, Wake was appointed 
 Dean of Exeter. 
 
 It will be remembered that in the great controversy 
 in the closing years of the seventeenth century about 
 Convocation, Wake and Atterbury had written on 
 opposite sides. It is pleasant to know that they were 
 reconciled even before either of them became a bishop. 
 Atterbury seems to have thought he had written too 
 acrimoniously, and to have been anxious for a recon- 
 ciliation. This was the more desirable, for, as he had been 
 appointed Archdeacon of Totnes in the year Wake went 
 as Dean to Exeter, they were members of the same 
 Chapter. Very properly Trelawney, Bishop of Exeter, 
 seems to have been a go-between. Writing to him in 
 1704, Atterbury says that a report had got about that 
 he had apologised to Wake for some expressions in 
 his Rights, Powers, and Privileges of an English Con- 
 vocation,^ acknowledging himself in error in some 
 points in the controversy. A few months later Tre- 
 lawney forwards a letter of Wake's to Atterbury. In 
 this letter Wake is fearful the old controversy might 
 break out in the Chapter at Exeter. " I am firmly 
 resolved," writes Atterbury, " ever to behave myself 
 
 I See Lathbury's Convocation, 462. 
 
12 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 towards the Dean with the respect that is due to his 
 station. As for the dispute about the rights of convoca- 
 tion, your Lordship may depend upon it that, if ever I 
 pursue it, it shall be in as inoffensive a way as is possible, 
 and with a due acknowledgment of the Dean's civilities 
 to me." 
 
 In the circumstances in which Anne found herself 
 on coming to the throne, it is not surprising that within 
 three years of her accession Wake was raised to the 
 Episcopal Bench. That he was pious and a theologian 
 of great learning even his enemies, if he had any, could 
 not deny : his reputation as a parish priest and preacher 
 was good. We can well understand how, when multi- 
 tudes, may we say a majority, of the better sort of 
 clergy had either nonjuror sympathies or were even 
 dallying with the hope or thought of a Jacobite revolu- 
 tion, Anne's advisers were glad to be able to promote to 
 a bishopric one who, with such qualifications for a mitre, 
 was of Whig principles, favourable to Toleration and 
 firmly anti-Jacobite. But his promotion was not a 
 matter of course. 
 
 The vacancy arose at Lincoln, where Bishop Gardiner 
 died early in 1705. Anne, though she had not for- 
 saken her Whig ministers or adopted Harley as her 
 friend — and though the great Sarah, Duchess of Marl- 
 borough, was not yet supplanted by her own relative 
 Mrs.Masham — was very devoted to her Church principles, 
 and was anxious to put Sir William Dawes, a strong 
 Tory, at Lincoln. The biographer of Archbishop Sharp 
 says : " Dawes ^ was a man of most noble presence, with 
 every grace of voice and manner ; also a man of gravity 
 and prudence, of decency and courtesy, of singular 
 presence of mind, of extraordinary resolution and 
 constancy, of exemplary regularity and exactness in 
 all parts of life." 
 
 But Dawes had to wait : in Anne's more serious 
 relapse from Whiggism three years later, he was made 
 
 ^ Biog.Brit., 4088. 
 
1737] BISHOP OF LINCOLN 13 
 
 Bishop of Chester, and ended his days at York. It was 
 not the moment then for so violent a Tory as the 
 majestic, courtly Dawes to be promoted. On the 
 30th January 1705 he had preached before the Queen, 
 and had given utterance to most uncompromising views 
 about Divine right and non-resistance. There was still 
 a Pretender over the water, and Harley and St. John, 
 moderate Tories, as well as Marlborough and Godolphin, 
 Whigs, were frightened ; so Wake was appointed. 
 
 So far back as March 1705, Tenison had written to 
 Wake, sounding him as to his acceptance of the vacant 
 see. They had been friends, as we have seen, and 
 fellow- workers in London. If Wake was generally 
 esteemed, he had no stronger admirer than the Primate. 
 
 " Your friends hope," writes Tenison from Lambeth, 
 " that you will let them know by me without loss of 
 time whether you would accept of the Bishopric of 
 Lincoln with a living in Commendam for one year if 
 they can procure it. . . .1 am in pain till I hear from 
 you, because I am press 'd by them. I hope you will 
 not say No." — Y' loving brother, 
 
 " T. Canterbury." ^ 
 
 The original letter, according to Wake's custom, 
 bears a careful endorsement in Wake's own hand : 
 ' ' The archbp proposes the Bprick of Lincoln to me 
 with ye commendam." 
 
 Letters from all quarters pressed him to accept 
 Lincoln. He seems to have demurred. Chaslett, the 
 Master of University College, Oxford, writes with what 
 seems undue severity, referring to his ' repeated ter- 
 giversations and demurs,' and goes on : " You will be 
 much reproached by all y' friends if you neglect this 
 opportunity to serve so considerable a part of the 
 English Church, so intolerably neglected by Bishop 
 Barlow." Barlow had been one of the six bishops — 
 Parker of Oxford, Crewe of Durham, Wood of Lichfield 
 (suspended for immorality), and Watson of St. David's 
 1 Wake Corr., 1705. 
 
14 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 (deprived for simony) — ^who had thanked James 11. for 
 his Declaration of Indulgence. ^ 
 
 When he had accepted, many congratulations flowed 
 in. That from Burnet of Salisbury is interesting : 
 
 " Salisbury, Michaelmas Day, 1705. 
 " My dear Lord, — I do sincerely congratulate not 
 so much to yourself as to the Church, and particularly 
 to our whole order, the honour of having you one of it. 
 And tho' you have a very laborious post in the vineyard 
 and but smaU encouragement proportioned to the 
 greatness of the labour, yet I am confident you who 
 have hitherto laboured so eminently as well as success- 
 fully in the former degree will shine as bright in the 
 higher and be an example to your brethren in it. I 
 humbly thank you for the honour you do me in desiring 
 me to assist at y' consecration, where I ani sure the 
 greater will be blessed of the lesser. I will come up as 
 soon as you tell me the day is fixed. ... I hope you 
 are to be more and more a blessing to this Church, which 
 God knows wants faithfull labourers. That you may 
 be blessed in your Labours is the earnest praier of my 
 dear Lord. — Your most obedient and most humble 
 servant and brother, G. Sarum." ^ 
 
 " Mrs. Burnet sends both 
 you and your good lady her 
 most hearty respects and 
 service, to which I crave leave 
 to join mine." 
 
 " Bp of Sarum at my consecration," is Wake's 
 endorsement. 
 
 His brethren of Ely, Carlisle, and Worcester wrote 
 him letters of congratulation. 
 
 Wake was installed on the i6th January 1706, and 
 he carefully preserves the forms used, also a note of the 
 fees amounting to £18 i6s. on his enthronisation to the 
 Dean and Chapter, the Chapter Clerk, Vicars Choral, 
 including a payment in lieu of a collation to the Vicars 
 Choral. He, after a year, took up his residence at 
 Buckden, the Bishop of Lincoln's palace. 
 
 'Here's Hist. Eng. Church, i. 19. 2 Wake MSS, 1705. 
 
1737] SAMUEL WESLEY 15 
 
 The Wake MSS, now preserved in Christchurch 
 Library at Oxford, supply evidence that Wake was 
 careful and diligent as a bishop. It seems to have been 
 his practice himself to endorse every official letter or 
 document coming to his hands with a note of its purport 
 — often a draft answer in his own writing, much cor- 
 rected and revised, is appended. Of these originals 
 twenty-five folio-bound volumes are now at Christ 
 Church, seven dealing with Lincoln and ten with Canter- 
 bury. Much of them is what any careful bishop's 
 correspondence would show — questions of tithes, repairs 
 of vicarages, contributions to churches and schools, dis- 
 pensations for non-residence, presentations to livings ; 
 many documents are of more particular interest. 
 
 Samuel Wesley, father of the great John and Charles, 
 was a beneficed clergyman in the Lincoln diocese, and 
 very early in Wake's episcopate he got into correspond- 
 ence with the bishop . Wesley, who had fallen into great 
 pecuniary difficulties, largely through his numerous 
 family, — the great Charles, the hymn- writer, was his 
 eighteenth child, — published a poem on the battle of 
 Blenheim, for which Marlborough gave him the chap- 
 laincy of a regiment ; but in June 1 705 he was imprisoned 
 in Lincoln Castle for debt, and remained there for seven 
 months. Wake preserved a long letter from him, dated 
 Lincoln Castle, 4th October 1705, which begins : 
 
 " I don't care to write to your Lordship the first time 
 from this place, but would fain have gott outt before I 
 had troubled you with these impertinences. Tho' now 
 I see, I amn't likely to stir in haste but must make a 
 winter campaign here, I can no longer deny myself the 
 Honour of congratulating your Lordship's promotion to a 
 higher order in the Church of God, and especially that my 
 own Lot is fallen under your Lordship's paternal care." ^ 
 
 Wesley goes on to attribute his troubles to the 
 Dissenters, who were angry at the books he had written 
 about them. He says : " I saw the growing power and 
 
 1 Wake MSS, 1705. 
 
i6 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 insolence of the Dissenters and their party, and that the 
 Church, the Clergy, and the Universities were every day 
 insulted in their writings." Wesley had accordingly 
 written to the Whig candidate in his constituency, who 
 happened to be a friend, explaining why he could not 
 vote for him. His friends the Dissenters and their ad- 
 herents reported that there was treason in what Wesley 
 wrote ..." and threatened to send up my letter, with 
 such a Recommendation," he goes on, "as sh^ doe my 
 business and turn me out of the Regiment which the 
 Duke of Marlborough had given me and that after this 
 they'd throw me into gaol ; and have, I thank 'em, bin as 
 good as their words in both. They disturbed me and 
 another clergyman in the Church at Divine Service, pro- 
 claimed me by name Rogue and Rascal at the head of 
 the mob, tho' I never affronted 'em, as I never shunn'd 
 'em ; shouted, huzza 'd, drum'd, and fired guns and pistols 
 night and day under my windows where my wife was 
 newly laid in childbed (of our sixteenth child) , called to my 
 children in the yard, ' Ye devils, weel come and turn ye 
 all out o' doors a-begging shortly 1 ' (what had those 
 Lambs done ?) . For the finishing stroke they threw me 
 into gaol here for a debt to a Relation of that person to 
 whom I wrote the letter which they might easily doe 
 when they had sunk what little credit my many mis- 
 fortunes had left me by taking away my regiment." His 
 adversary insisted he must pay or else go on to prison ; 
 " whither," says he, " I came with a cheerful heart and a 
 very light pocket (a little more than paid my garnish 
 and saved me from stripping). I find a gaol is not so 
 dismall a place as 'tis painted, and that one may serv God 
 as well here as at liberty and perhaps better or else I 
 believ I should never have been sent hither. ... I read 
 Prayers to my Fellow-prisoners twice a day and preach 
 on Sundays. Most of 'em are outwardly more civilised 
 than when I came hither and I hope some are really 
 better, which if I were sure of, twould make this place 
 not only tolerable but comfortable to me." 
 
1737] S. WESLEY'S MINISTRATIONS 17 
 
 He goes on to say " how his enemies had stabb'd his 
 cows so as to starve his family who had ' had but three 
 joints of meat for several weeks after his incarceration.' " 
 He winds up, " Our people in the Castle are desirous of a 
 sacrament ; 'tis exempt from any parish : if your Lord- 
 ship please to give me leave I'll administer it with due 
 caution as to the people I admit." 
 
 The letter is signed : " Sam Wesley, Prisoner." 
 Wake seems to have answered kindly, and to have 
 given directions as to the Communion Service in the 
 prison, for, on the nth November 1 705 , Wesley writes 
 from Epworth to Wake as follows : 
 
 " My Lord, — I humbly hope yr Lordship's pardon 
 for my making no speedier return to the Favour of yr 
 Lordship's which I received in prison ; which delay was 
 partly owing to the hurry of my affairs and partly to my 
 desire to send the news of my liberty and being restored 
 by the signal Providence of God and the kindness of my 
 Friends to my own Family and cure with most of my 
 debts pay'd and sufficient in good hands at least to clear 
 the rest : nor can I be more careful than I was formerly, 
 tho' I can now afford to be a better husband. 
 
 ' ' I owe yr Lordship an acct of what happened in my 
 prison in pursuance of yr Lordship's permission to me to 
 administer the Sacrament there on Mr. Chanter's con- 
 sent. I took the method which I promis'd and which I 
 wish were practicable in other places especially when 
 persons first receiv. Having read the Exhortation and 
 preach 'd twice on the Sacrament, those who were desirous 
 to communicate were with me the week before, and having 
 made myself pretty well acquainted with their circum- 
 stances I gave them the best advice I could : they reed with 
 great appearance of seriousness and devotion. ... I 
 preach 'd my last sermon wherein I took my leave of 'em 
 from 107 Psalm 15-16 v. and hope by the sorrow they 
 generally express 'd at my leaving 'em that it has not bin 
 altogether my own fault if I have had more enemys in 
 other places. The chief subject of their Lamentation 
 was that they must now be depriv'd of those constant 
 prayers and sermons which they had for some time 
 enjoy 'd. I must own my Lord ! that this did sensibly 
 affect me. ... I wish with all my heart it were in my 
 
1 8 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 power still to assist those poor creatures with what they 
 most need . . . Your Lordship says in yours you desire 
 they might have these things constantly performed. . . . 
 tho' I live at twentv miles distance and som of the way 
 is very bad I wou'd freely do my part and more gladly 
 preach my course in the Castle Four times a year than 
 in the Minster for the best Prebend there." After say- 
 ing that his chief opponent in the parish had died, 
 " this," he goes on, " left my people at liberty to shew 
 their inchnations on my return, which they did by 
 coming to meet me in considerable numbers and conduct- 
 ing me home. So tender a father as your Lordship will 
 easily guess what a meeting I had with my family." 
 
 He goes on to ask for directions as to baptizing chil- 
 dren where one or both of the parents stands excom- 
 municate. 
 
 Wake's endorsement is : 
 
 " Answer'd Jan. 3. 
 
 " Congratulate his enlargement. Thank him for his 
 service in prison. Approved his project, which I this 
 night proposed by letter to the Chaunter. Gave him 
 leave to baptize adults, keeping a particular register of 
 'em and exhibiting their names at the Bp's visitation." 
 
 ' ' Advised to baptize the children of excommunicate 
 persons not being heretics or schismatics ; but especially 
 where one of the parents was not excommunicate." 
 
 There is a letter of Samuel Wesley from Epworth, 
 4th August 1 712, to Wake, in which, after thanking the 
 bishop for visiting and confirming at Epworth, he wishes 
 that the bishop's directions had been followed at the 
 Confirmation : 
 
 " for want of requiring the names of the candidates to be 
 given in by the Clergyman great numbers were confirmed 
 here who ought not to have bin (and I know 'tis the same 
 in other places and dioceses). Many of them had been 
 before, some of them twice or thrice over, and others who 
 were no ways fit for it." 
 
 He refers to the charge which Wake had delivered at 
 his visitation, and says that he is " so unhappy as to 
 differ from your Lordship in the point of the validity of 
 
1737] LAY BAPTISM 19 
 
 Lay Baptism. . . . For this reason I earnestly wish I 
 cd see a copy of yr Lordship's arguments which it was 
 hardly possible to weigh as one ought at once hearing." 
 
 The draft or note of Wake's reply in his own hand- 
 writing is : 
 
 " For the business of my charge, it having never yet 
 been written, cannot be communicated to you. Some 
 few heads and the words of such quotations as I designed 
 to make use of were set down in a small Leaf or two 
 within the cover of my Visitation booke ; but that was 
 all. . . . 
 
 " As to the subject of my Discourse you may remember 
 that my businesse was not to enter into the merits of the 
 cause but to shew wt had been and still continues to be 
 ye sense and practice of the Ch of E in the particulars 
 spoken to by me. And I think 'tis clear even to Demon- 
 stration that she utterly forbids any but a lawful 
 Minister to baptize, yet she allows not of any to be re- 
 baptized who have been baptized with water and the 
 due form established by our Saviour, which alone she 
 declares to be the essential parts of baptism. 
 
 " For myself I openly profess 'd, as you may well 
 remember, my utter dislike of lay and schismatical 
 Baptisms. ... If the Ch of E shall think fit without 
 declaring such Baptisms to be utterly null (which is 
 merely a point of speculation and wd be contrary to 
 the sense as well as practice of the Ch confessed by Mr. 
 Dodwell from the loth century downward) to order 
 persons so baptized to be hypothetically re-baptized 
 I shall submit to her orders so made tho' I cannot join 
 in the making of such a constitution. But while instead 
 thereof her orders and practice both run the other way, 
 while she only disallows the practice of Lay Baptism, 
 but does not annull the Act, but pursuant to the whole 
 course of antiqy plainly allows of it, I think it my duty 
 to conform myself to her Directions and to give notice 
 to my clergy that I cannot consent to their Departure 
 from them." 
 
 In April 1706 he receives from the archbishop the 
 notice from the Privy Council requiring the clergy to 
 give an " exact and particular " account of the Papists 
 
20 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 and reputed Papists in every parish with their " qualities, 
 estates, and places of abode, also of the livings in their 
 gift." The Archdeacon of Leicester returns, for the 
 eleven parishes in his archdeaconry, in all thirty-five 
 Papists or reputed Papists, most of them of humble 
 station. The Archdeacon of Bedford returns for a parish 
 called Turvey three or four families tenants to Lord 
 Peterboro, in his four other parishes about five Papists 
 or reputed Papists. The Minister of St. Martin's, 
 Leicester, is very general in his return, "one feme 
 covert." 
 
 Wake's connection with Samuel Wesley was actively 
 renewed in the autumn of 1709. There exists a petition 
 of seven of the leading inhabitants of Epworth, dated 
 October 28th,^ in that year, asking the bishop's help to 
 buy a house for the " sober, religious, and industrious 
 Schoolmaster " they had in their village who had been 
 offered a school " with a house with a settled salary 
 at another place." Poor Wesley's troubles seem to have 
 continued, for the petition states " our Rector, who had 
 subscribed £s , has withdrawn his subscription since the 
 late misfortune of his House." 
 
 Wake as bishop was careful in admitting candidates 
 to Holy Orders, as appears from the two following letters, 
 the former of which is to him from a gentleman of title : 
 
 " This waits upon your Lordship on ye behalf of the 
 bearer my brother, who had the misfortune to be turn'd 
 back last ordinat". I doe not in the least doubt yr 
 Lordship's justice, but I have reason to believe my 
 brother was treated with some severity by those who 
 gave an account to you of his performance. I beg 
 leave therefore to acquaint yr Ldship with it ; and hope 
 your goodness will pardon this piece of presumption." 
 
 The annexed draft reply runs : 
 
 " Pursuant to your desire I this day sent for the young 
 gent alone into my study, Mr. Archdeacon and my 
 Chaplain being with me and witnesses of wt pass'cl. 
 
 > Wake MSS, 1709. 
 
1737] " RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES " 21 
 
 After having made a short experiment of him in the 
 Greek Testament, I proceeded to examine him in English, 
 and only in the Articles of the Apostles' Creed in order 
 as they are. I asked no questions out of the way, 
 but only the plain sense and meaning of each article 
 without entering into any further particulars concerning 
 them. Some few proofs of Sere (Scripture) I put him 
 upon where the passages were ordinary to everybody 
 who knew anything at all of these matters ; but not 
 otherwise. I am sorry to say, and upon the whole, he 
 appeared to all of us by no means qualified for Holy 
 Orders ; and Mr. Archdeacon profess 'd he could not 
 present him according to the solemn form which our 
 Ch requires ; nor indeed could I think myselfe at 
 liberty to ordain him if he would. I verily believe 
 the young gent (whom I heartily pitty) has done his 
 utmost to fit himself e for the sacred Ministry. But I 
 fear it will be difficult for him so far to overcome the 
 natural defects he has to struggle with as ever to attain 
 to any suitable qualifications for it. This makes me 
 earnestly wish some other more suitable businesse might 
 be found out for him." 
 
 The " Religious Societies " established at the close 
 of the seventeenth century in London, of which the 
 Societies for the Reformation of Manners were an 
 offshoot, had by 1712, as Mr. Hore says, spread "to 
 almost every large town of England." ^ On the 8th 
 November 1712 the Rector of Hertford writes to the 
 Bishop of Lincoln : 
 
 " I think it my duty to acquaint your Lordship that 
 there are several well disposed young men in my parish 
 members of the Ch of England who have lately begun 
 to meet together once a week as a Religious Society 
 after the manner of those in London. They desire 
 that I wd encourage them by coming amongst them, 
 and that I wd let them meet in the Church." After 
 saying that some of his parishioners and others have 
 no good opinion of these societies, he proceeds : " I 
 crave your Lordship's pardon for troubling you with 
 this and another case which is as follows. The Barbers 
 in my parish do all absent themselves from publick 
 
 "^ i. 169. 
 
22 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 worship on the Lord's Day in the mornings, having their 
 customers in the time of Divine Service. ... I am not 
 satisfied to administer the Sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper to any of these men in their sickness unless they 
 profess themselves penitent for this fault." 
 
 There is no draft of Wake's reply ; his note on the 
 letter is : " Mr. Hallows : ab* Societies : Barbers trim- 
 ming on Sundays, etc." There was; it is well known, 
 considerable opposition on the part of Churchmen to the 
 Societies. Tenison, as we have seen, supported them, 
 but so good a man as Sharp, Archbishop of York, was 
 timid about them. 
 
 Nothing Wake did was surface or " shop window " 
 work. We find him having laborious search made for 
 Precedents of Patents and Forms of Licences in his 
 Registries. Three or four of his immediate prede- 
 cessors. Barlow, Neal, Montaign, supplied no precedent. 
 There seems to have been a question as to the extent 
 and origin of his archdeacon's jurisdiction. Inquiries 
 were made of brother bishops and men of learning ; not 
 much more answer was forthcoming than that " the 
 bishop was the fountain of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction 
 and authority." 
 
 Wake held his first visitation in 1 706. His " Articles 
 of Visitation and Enquiry " were exhaustive. The 
 answers are annotated largely in his own hand. Some 
 of his clergy, as Samuel Wesley, were zealous and efficient ; 
 but there was much neglect. Over and over again the 
 note on a parish is as follows : " only a deacon," 
 " parsonage house demolished." Others are, " a very 
 litigious naughty man," " reputed an ill man." 
 " Christens children and churches women in his house ; 
 makes his clerk read prayers at church, etc.; he is much 
 afflicted with the gout, and is a rich man." 
 
 One of the archdeacons supplies general answers to 
 the visitation inquiries for his archdeaconry. After 
 having viewed, as he says, about half the churches — 
 to the inquiry about the Font, the answer is in many 
 
1737] ANSWERS TO VISITATION INQUIRIES 23 
 
 places; " Baptism is administered in a borrowed basin 
 placed in the Font." " The Communion tables are 
 generally mean and used by the Glaziers for the working 
 of their glasse and by schoolboys for writing. I have 
 discouraged the keeping of School in the Church." 
 " In some places ye Sacrament hath not been ad- 
 ministered three times a year for want of a Congrega- 
 tion, as is pretended." " The office of ye Visitation 
 of ye sick is generally complained of as imperfect; and 
 ye clergy do use a greater liberty than ye office directs." 
 There is a case of a clergyman having married his 
 deceased wife's sister, probably the one mentioned 
 later : " The Iniquity is of twenty-six years' con- 
 tinuance " is the note. 
 
 Other visitations were in 1709 and 171 2, with a 
 curtailed but still very exhaustive set of questions. 
 The notes in Wake's own handwriting show scrupulous 
 care. 
 
 There are several communications in the Wake MSS 
 from Tenison signed " T. Canterbury " or " Tho. Canter- 
 bury " — ^the archbishop's handwriting becoming in 
 the later ones almost illegible. In July 1706 he sends 
 on the Privy Council's demand for the particulars of 
 Papists and reputed Papists, especially in exempt 
 parishes ; and again in August 1 7 1 1 he endorses and 
 sends on the letter which the Queen had addressed to 
 him as " her right trusty and right entirely beloved 
 Councellor," in which she enjoined him to stir up his 
 suffragans and through them the clergy generally to 
 put " a timely stop to ye further growth of infidelity 
 and profaneness, to watch diligently over their flocks, 
 to be exemplary in their lives, and frame their public 
 Discourses to the people on such subjects as do tend 
 most to edification." Wake in September 171 1 sends 
 this on with a most urgent letter on his own behalf : he 
 does not think the clergy's " conversation " is generally 
 at fault ; he is " more doubtful " whether the Canon 
 regulating " the habit " of the clergy is as well observed, 
 3 
 
24 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 On the importance of a clergyman's family and house- 
 hold being a model he is very strong. 
 
 Wake had at this time a house in Dean's Yard, 
 Westminster ; but he was pretty constantly resident 
 at Buckden. No one reading the contemporary docu- 
 ments can fail to be struck with the frequent mention 
 of the roads being " unpassable." 
 
 A point to which Wake invariably drew the attention 
 of his clergy was the regular catechising of the children. 
 In 1708 he republished a new edition of his Principles 
 of the Christian Religion in a Brief Commentary on the 
 Church Catechism, addressing it to the Archdeacons and 
 rest of the Clergy of the Diocese of Lincoln. In the 
 preface he states the work to have been " composed 
 and published some years ago for the use of my parish. 
 It is now reprinted for the benefit of my Diocese." 
 The work is in six parts, in the form of question and 
 answer on the Catechism. It is fortified copiously with 
 Scripture texts in the margin. Points of difference 
 with the Roman Doctrine, e.g. the administration of 
 the Communion in one kind to the laity, are by no 
 means omitted. In an address circulated by one of 
 his archdeacons among the clergy he says, after em- 
 phasising the necessity of public catechising : 
 
 " Accordingly his Lordship has ordered his Book- 
 seller to print his own Catechism by way of subscription 
 at a third part of ye price any former impressions have 
 been sold at ; and has made it ye peculiar priviledge of 
 his Diocese to have ye copies at so cheap a rate that 
 it will not be difficult to provide for yr families in most 
 parishes with little charge to ye Incumbents." He 
 reports to the bishop near 2000 subscriptions. 
 
 The letter to the bishop enclosing the archidiaconal 
 circular tells how some " physick " designed for the 
 palace at Buckden had gone wrong, and a postscript says : 
 "As to ye Physick the Dose is from half a teaspoonful 
 to a whole one taken every other night in a glasse of 
 warm ale at going to bed till ye pains are removed." 
 
1737] WAKE -AS ECCLESIASTICAL JUDGE 25 
 
 The incidents of Wake's episcopate are probably 
 much like those any bishop's diary in any age would 
 record ; but they are quaint to read of. A parson has 
 a feud with his squire based on glebe and tithe questions. 
 The squire's patience is exhausted and he sends items 
 of complaint to the bishop. " He (the parson) has 
 prosecuted Labourers for profaning the Lord's Day, 
 but he himself has confess 'd yt he has killed hares upon 
 that day." The bishop, as a faTr judge, submits the 
 complaints to the vicar for his answers. " As for 
 killing of Hares upon ye Lord's Day he denys it ; he 
 owns that he and his clerk were going along once ; a 
 hare started up before them and he clapd his clerk upon 
 ye back and said, ' There she goes.' " 
 
 Nothing can give a greater idea of the careful, 
 thorough, scholarly man Wake was than the papers 
 still extant dealing with a case of one of his clergy. He 
 
 had married Mary K and had several children by 
 
 her. She died in 1680, and in 1682 he married Dorothy 
 
 K , her sister. There is in Wake's own hand first 
 
 of all a sheet containing a note of the facts, specifying 
 the witnesses to each material allegation of fact, and 
 also rough heads of the points to be dealt with by the 
 judgment. Then there is a draft, carefully corrected 
 and settled, of the judgment to be pronounced, with 
 elaborate notes of the statutes, the canons, and authori- 
 ties, all in Wake's own hand. " Suppose him married 
 yt does not excuse, rather in some respects it aggravates, 
 the offence : it adds profanation of ye Holy Ordinance 
 of Matrimony to ye ends of a most unwarrantable 
 incontinency." " Canon prohibit : maxime vero siquis 
 priore uxore demortua ejus sororem uxorem duxerit." 
 
 Wake's action in Parliament while Bishop of Lincoln 
 was on at least two occasions worthy of particular 
 note. The first and by far the most important was 
 his support of the Ministry in their attempt — ill-advised 
 as it ultimately proved — to impeach the notorious Dr. 
 Sacheverell. The Ministers, who initiated the attack on 
 
26 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 the Doctor, were Whigs . In 1 703 and 1 704 Marlborough, 
 who was interested in nothing but carrying on the war 
 with and winning his splendid victories over Louis xiv. 
 and the French, had got rid of the High Tories Rochester 
 and Nottingham. Harley and St. John came in, their 
 Toryism being sufficiently mild to enable them to 
 serve with Godolphin and Marlborough. In 1705 
 Nottingham and the High Tories had raised the cry 
 of the " Church in llanger," but without any marked 
 success, the debate in Parliament ending in 
 Rochester's motion to this effect being lost. The 
 Parliament of 1705 was more Whig than its predecessor, 
 and gradually by the end of 1709 a set of Whig 
 Ministers, Marlborough, Sunderland (his son-in-law), 
 Godolphin, Somers, and Wharton were in power. 
 
 Meanwhile what of the clergy. Twenty years had 
 passed since the Revolution. There were various 
 causes which had tended to weaken the Jacobite 
 sympathies which the clergy had shown during the 
 first half of this period. Anne was a devoted Church- 
 woman : James 11. was dead ; the cause of the Pre- 
 tender was espoused by Louis of France, with whom 
 England had fought, was fighting, and was likely to 
 fight. There were plottings ; but they were not so 
 serious as when in 1671 so good a man as Turner, 
 Bishop of Ely — Ken's schoolfellow and intimate friend — 
 had narrowly escaped with his life — only, in fact, because 
 of William's freedom from vindictiveness — for plotting 
 to bring over Louis and a French army to set up James 
 again ; or, as in 1696; when Collier and Snatt, non-juring 
 clergymen, gave public absolution to Friend and Perkins, 
 executed for plotting Williams' assassination. 
 
 But though willing to accept the Hanoverian 
 Settlement, the bulk of the clergy were not disposed 
 to show any consideration to the Dissenters. The 
 Toleration Act they grudgingly accepted : but thus 
 far and no further ; they were the backbone of the 
 High Tory party which year after year passed in the 
 
1737] SACHEVERELL 27 
 
 Commons the Act to punish occasional Conformity. 
 Of comprehension they would have nothing, and the 
 repeal of the Test Act was almost too horrible to be 
 thought of. 
 
 And yet the Whigs were bound to help the Dis- 
 senters. So it was resolved to take a step ; and that 
 step was to impeach Sacheverell. 
 
 Of course the impeachment was a failure. Somers, 
 perhaps the most level-headed of the Ministers, was 
 against it. Public sympathy was soon against it. 
 Sacheverell 's sermon was sold to the number of 40,000 
 copies in a few days. He, with but a sorry stock 
 of deserts, became a popular hero. Why was this? 
 Granted that the country clergy would like the flavour 
 of Sacheverell's doctrine, why the man in the street? 
 Probably the heavy taxation for the war, and the 
 fierce attacks of the Tory preachers had some part 
 in this result. But the fact seemed to be Sacheverell 
 had attacked the Dissenters. By attacking him, 
 Ministers took up a brief for them. Though the man 
 in the street felt no sympathy for the clergy in their 
 leanings to Jacobitism or even nonjuring, in their 
 dislike for Dissenters he was with them. The Dis- 
 senters having got Toleration, had got quite enough. 
 Now to the story itself. 
 
 Dr. Henry Sacheverell was a Fellow of Magdalen 
 College, Oxford, and Chaplain of St. Saviour's, South- 
 wark. He was and had long been a pillar of High 
 Toryism. He was not a man of great intellect, but 
 he was big in voice as he was in person, and his power 
 of invective was considerable. He had preached the 
 Assize Sermon at Derby, in the summer of 1709, and 
 on the 5 th November he preached before the Lord 
 Mayor and Aldermen. His text was " In perils among 
 false brethren," 2 Cor. xi. 26. The main points of 
 the sermon were the duty of absolute non-resistance ; 
 the sin of dissent from the Church : the evil of schemes 
 for Toleration and Comprehension. In its language 
 
28 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 it was highly seasoned. " The grand security of our 
 Government, and the very pillar upon which it stands, 
 is founded upon the steady belief of the subjects of 
 obligation to an absolute and unconditional obedience 
 to the Supreme Power in all things lawful, and the 
 utter illegality of Resistance upon any pretence what- 
 ever." Ministers were styled the false brethren, 
 putting the Church in peril — " who," said the preacher, 
 " let her worst enemies into her bowels under the 
 holy umbrage of sons who neither believe her faith, 
 own her mission, submit to her discipline, nor comply 
 with her Liturgy. To admit this Religious Trojan 
 Horse, big with arms and ruin into our Holy City, 
 the strait gate must be laid quite open, her walls and 
 inclosures pulled down, an high road made in and 
 upon her Communion and the pure spouse of Christ 
 prostituted to more adulterers than the scarlet whore 
 in the Revelation. Since this model of a universal 
 liberty and coalition failed, and these false brethren 
 could not carry the conventicle into the Church, they 
 are now resolved to bring the Church into the con- 
 venticle, which will more probably really effect her 
 ruin." 
 
 Ministers were even more pointedly struck at. V If 
 upon all occasions to comply with the Dissenters, both 
 in public and private affairs as persons of tender 
 conscience and piety, to promote their interests in 
 Elections, to sneak to 'em for Places and Preferment; 
 to defend Toleration and Liberty of conscience, and 
 under the pretence of Moderation to excuse their 
 separation and lay the fault upon the true sons of the 
 Church for carrying matters too high, ... if these, I 
 say, are the modish and fashionable criteria of a True 
 Churchman, God deliver us from all such false brethren." 
 In another passage he reviled the Statesmen who 
 sought or even accepted the support of Dissenters, 
 inveighing against "the crafty insidiousness of such 
 modern Volpones." 
 
1737] SACHEVERELL 29 
 
 This was the last straw. Volpone was a con- 
 temptible character in Ben Jonson's play of the 
 Fox. Godolphin thought he was hit at under this 
 name, and was furious. So on 13th December, Mr. 
 Dolben, member for Liskeard, whose father had been 
 Archbishop of York, made a complaint in the Commons 
 of the two sermons, extracts from which were read. 
 They were resolved to be seditious libels. Sacheverell 
 and the printer attended, and after the discussion the 
 Doctor's Impeachment by the Commons at the Bar 
 of the Lords was ordered. The usual lengthy pro- 
 ceedings of Articles of Impeachment; Answer, and 
 Replication were gone through. Counsel were assigned 
 to the accused. Sir Simon Harcourt and Mr. Phipps, 
 who were assisted by Atterbury, Smallridge, and 
 Friend as divines. Ultimately the trial began on 
 Monday, 27th February, in the presence of a huge 
 concourse. The Doctor was attended by a cheering 
 crowd from his lodgings in the Temple to Westminster 
 Hall. The Managers of the trial on behalf of the 
 Commons were Sir Joseph Jekyll, Eyre Solicitor- 
 General, Sir Peter King the Recorder, Lieut .-General 
 Stanhope afterwards Lord Stanhope, Sir Thomas 
 Parker, and Walpole. They presented four Articles of 
 Impeachment, 1 charging the Doctor — 
 
 1. With asserting that the means used to bring 
 
 about the Revolution were odious and un- 
 justifiable, 
 
 2. With condemning the Toleration granted by 
 
 law. 
 
 3. With asserting that the Church was in danger. 
 
 4. With maliciously asserting that her Majesty's 
 
 present advisers were false brethren and 
 traitors to the constitution in Church and 
 State. 
 
 The Managers were four days in opening their case ; 
 
 1 Smollett's Hist, of Eng., x. 35. 
 
30 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 then came Counsel for the accused, the defence winding 
 up with a speech by Sacheverell, said to have been 
 written by Atterbury. 
 
 On 1 6th March the Lords took into consideration 
 whether the Commons had estabUshed their articles. 
 The second article was the one which it was Wake's 
 lot to deal with, and it raised the whole question of 
 Toleration, and incidentally of Comprehension. The 
 article itself was in the following terms. It said that 
 in his St. Paul's sermon Dr. Sacheverell asserted and 
 maintained that the toleration granted by law is 
 unreasonable and the allowance of it unwarrantable, 
 and asserted that he is a false brother with relation 
 to God, religion, and the Church who defends toleration 
 or liberty of conscience : that Queen Elizabeth was 
 deluded by Archbishop Grindal, whom he scurrilously 
 called " a false son of the Church, and a perfidious 
 apostate " to the toleration of the Genevan discipline, 
 and that it is the duty of superior pastors to thunder 
 out their ecclesiastical anathemas against persons 
 entitled to the benefit of the said toleration and 
 insolently dares or defies any powers on earth to reverse 
 such sentence." 
 
 It is perhaps amusing to note that in his answer to 
 the second article the Doctor, as to so much of the 
 second Article as referred to Elizabeth and Archbishop 
 Grindal, " presumed that no words spoken of an arch- 
 bishop above one hundred and twenty years since 
 deceased will in construction of law amount to a high 
 crime and misdemeanour." 
 
 This article Wake opened on the 17th March in a 
 long and able speech which has always been considered 
 of especial interest as giving for the first time a detailed 
 account of the efforts for Comprehension made by and 
 under Sancroft. 
 
 Wake began by repudiating the idea that in defend- 
 ing toleration shown by law to Dissenters, bishops were 
 " apostates to their own order." He then refers to the 
 
1737] WAKE'S SPEECH ON COMPREHENSION 31 
 
 article, and says that he thinks " the Managers have 
 fully made it out " not by implication or piecing together 
 disjointed passages, but " by the plain words and 
 necessary meaning of a large part of the Discourse." He 
 then asks leave to point out what a strange account the 
 preacher had given of " that other popular engine 
 which he says has been made use of to pull down the 
 Church and which he calls by the name of Comprehen- 
 sion." Then comes the passage about Bancroft, which 
 is in the following words : 
 
 " The person who first concerted this supposed 
 design against our Church was the late most reverend 
 Dr. Sancroft, then Archbishop of Canterbury. The 
 time was towards the end of that unhappy reign of 
 which so much was said upon the occasion of the fore- 
 going article. Then when we were in the height of 
 our labours defending the Church of England against 
 the assaults of popery and thought of nothing else, 
 that wise prelate, foreseeing some such revolution as 
 soon after was happily brought about, began to consider 
 how utterly unprepared they had been at the restoration 
 of King Charles the Second to settle many things to 
 the advantage of the Church and what a happy oppor- 
 tunity had been lost for want of such a previous care 
 as he was therefore desirous should now be taken for the 
 better and more perfect establishment of it. It was 
 visible to all the nation that the more moderate dis- 
 senters were generally so well satisfied with that stand 
 which our divines had made against popery and the 
 many unanswerable treatises they had published in 
 confutation of it as to express an unusual readiness to 
 come in to us. And it was therefore thought worth 
 the while when they were deliberating about those other 
 matters to consider at the same time what might be 
 done to gain them without doing any prejudice to our- 
 selves. The scheme was laid out, and the several parts 
 of it were committed not only with the approbation 
 but by the direction of that great prelate to such of our 
 divines as were thought the most proper to be entrusted 
 with it. 
 
 " His grace took one part to himself. Another was 
 committed to a then pious and reverend dean, after- 
 wards a bishop of our Church (Dr. Patrick, Bishop of 
 
32 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 Ely). The reviewing of the daily service of our Liturgy 
 and the Communion book was referred to a select number 
 of excellent persons, two of which are at this time upon 
 our bench (the Archbishop of York and Bishop of Ely), 
 and I am sure will bear witness to the truth of my 
 relation. The design was in short this : to improve and, 
 if possible, to enforce our discipline ; to review and 
 enlarge our Liturgy ; by correcting of some things, by 
 adding of others ; and if it should be thought advisable 
 by authority when this matter should come to be legally 
 considered, first in convocation, then in parliament, by 
 leaving some few ceremonies confessed to be indifferent 
 in their natures as indifferent in their usage so as not 
 to be necessarily observed by those who made a scruple 
 of them ; until they should be able to overcome either 
 their weaknesses or prejudices and be willing to comply 
 with them." 
 
 What, the speaker goes on to ask, was there in such 
 a design that was prejudicial to our Church? " How 
 would our excellent Liturgy have been the worse if a few 
 more doubtful expressions had been made plainer or 
 clearer and a passage or two which, however capable of 
 a just defence, yet, in many cases, seem hard even to 
 members of our own Communion, had either been 
 wholly left at liberty in such cases to be omitted alto- 
 gether or been so qualified as to remove all exception 
 against them in any case." Even under William and 
 Mary any scheme for Comprehension was submitted 
 to the two Convocations. 
 
 Wake then goes through the sermon and calls 
 attention to such phrases as Ecclesiastical Ahitophels 
 which the preacher had used. And the Toleration 
 complained of was the Toleration of Dissenters — not of 
 Atheists, Deists, Socinians ; men of no principles, 
 perhaps of no religion. Wake quotes copiously from 
 the sermon, and moves that the second article had been 
 proved. 
 
 There was a long and confused wrangle how the 
 questions at issue were to be voted on or determined 
 by the House. It at last determined that the answer 
 
1737] VERDICT AND SENTENCE 33 
 
 to be given by each Lord should be ' guilty ' or ' not guilty ' 
 only. Against the protest of thirty-four Lords, the 
 question put was, " Is Henry Sacheverell, D.D., guilty 
 of high crimes and misdemeanour charged upon him 
 by the Impeachment of the House of Commons ? " 
 Sixty-nine voted guilty, and fifty-two not guiltj^. The 
 bishops were almost equally divided. Chester, Bath 
 and Wells, Rochester, London and Durham, and the 
 Archbishop of York voting not guilty ; seven, including 
 Wake, voting guilty. 
 
 After a day's adjournment the House considered 
 the sentence to be passed. It was first proposed that 
 he should be enjoined from preaching for seven years. 
 This was carried, three being substituted for seven. 
 
 It was next proposed that he should be made incap- 
 able of receiving any other ecclesiastical benefice for 
 three years. This was negatived. A proposal that the 
 Doctor should be imprisoned in the Tower for three 
 months and until he find sureties for good behaviour 
 was dropped. Finally it was carried that his two 
 sermons should be burned by the Common Hangman 
 at the Royal Exchange. It is not surprising that the 
 comment of some contemporary writers on the whole 
 trial should be Parturiunt monies. 
 
 The second occasion to be noted of Wake's parlia- 
 mentary conduct as Bishop of Lincoln is over Boling- 
 broke's Schism Bill in 1714. 
 
 During Anne's last days she was in the hands, as we 
 have noted, first of Oxford and Bolingbroke, and after- 
 wards of Bolingbroke alone. It was part of the policy 
 of these Tory Ministers to weaken the Whigs by re- 
 pressive legislation so as to compel the new Hanoverian 
 sovereign. Whig though he was known to be, to employ 
 Tory Ministers . 
 
 Introduced into the Commons by the celebrated 
 Tory, Sir William Wyndham, in May 1714 the Schism 
 Bill got through the House in spite of much opposition. 
 It forbade any one keeping a school without a licence 
 
34 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 from the bishop. In fact, through Queen Anne's death 
 the Act never came into actual operation. 
 
 Wake opposed the Bill, and seems to have been 
 keenly interested in the opposition, which is the more 
 surprising as a few years later he opposed the repeal 
 of the Act. He made a note in his own writing of the 
 proceedings in the Lords on the 15th June 19 14. It is 
 headed : 
 
 " The question was put whether the Bill with the 
 amendment should pass. Resolved in the affirmative, viz. 
 " 79 affirm., 71 neg." 
 
 Wake either drafted or copied out the protest 
 against the Bill in eight clauses. Number 3 says : 
 
 " If neverthelesse the Dissenters were dangerous, 
 Severity is not so proper and effectual a method to 
 reduce them to the Church as Charitable Indulgence ; 
 as is manifest by experience, there haying been more 
 Dissenters reconciled to the Church since the Act of 
 Toleration than in all the time since the Act of Uni- 
 formity to the time of the first Act of Toleration, and 
 there is scarce one considerable family in England in 
 Communion with the Dissenters. Severity may make 
 them hypocrites but not converts." 
 
 In March 1 7 1 2 we find Samuel Wesley again writing 
 to Wake. As to five points in the bishop's letter to his 
 clergy, Wesley says : "I've neither sufficient presence 
 of mind nor readiness of expression personally to dis- 
 course these matters as I ought with your Lordship." 
 As to one point, he says : 
 
 " I read Public Prayers on Litany Days and on 
 Sundays and Holy Days, but not on their eves, for which 
 I have no better excuse than the old one, Want of Com- 
 pany. My children are small, my House far from ye 
 Church, the way in winter almost impassable." 
 
 He begs Wake to visit and confirm at the Isle of 
 Oxholm in Wesley's parish. He says : 
 
 " 'Tis very populous for its extent of ground and 
 
1737] MAINTENANCE OF BUCKDEN 35 
 
 consists, I think, of about 10,000 souls. It is impossible 
 for us to get any number of our people over the Trent 
 (unless it be at an election). I had but a very few at 
 the last Confirmcon. I don't expect I can persuade 
 the loth part of my people who need it and are other- 
 wise fit for it to take the journey. Most of 'em are poor 
 and must be forc'd to foot it. . . . They seem to beseech 
 your Lordship to come over into Macedonia and help 
 them. If your Lordship is not for returning to Gains- 
 boro' at night I believe there are some gentlemen in the 
 Isle who wou'd take it as a great honour to entertain an 
 Angel in their houses — tho' not unawares." Samuel 
 Wesley had before this been elected a Proctor in Con- 
 vocation. 
 
 Wake is said to have behaved liberally in the main- 
 tenance and repair of the houses and buildings belong- 
 ing to the Episcopal and other offices he held, and it is 
 recorded that : " Budgen, the seat of the Bishops of 
 Lincoln, can boast that the Episcopal house was never 
 so well repaired and decently fitted up as while His 
 Grace was the watchful overseer of the diocese." ^ 
 When Wake became archbishop he was succeeded at 
 Lincoln by Dr. Gibson, who had been Archbishop 
 Tenison's resident Chaplain at Lambeth. There is a 
 letter from him to Wake, dated the 28th July 1716, 
 written after Gibson had been appointed Wake's suc- 
 cessor at Lincoln, and after Gibson and his wife had 
 paid a visit of inspection to the palace at Buckden 
 belonging to the bishops of Lincoln. He reports "we 
 found the house and gardens in complete repair." So 
 satisfactory was the inspection of the house at Buckden, 
 that Gibson says of it : " We had much adoe to keep our 
 servants from saying one to another that it is a more 
 desirable dwelling than Lambeth House." 
 
 Wake had a good deal to do with the finishing of 
 St. Paul's Cathedral. The Act of Parliament had 
 confided the charge of this work to a body of Com- 
 missioners. As the Cathedral approached completion 
 
 ' See Mill's Essay on Generosity and Public Spirit, dedicated to Wake. 
 
36 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 suggestions were freely made that there had been frauds 
 on the Commissioners in the course of the operations. 
 Even the great Wren was said to have misconducted 
 himself.i A sub-committee to whom the Commis- 
 sioners delegated the task of examining into these 
 charges made their report, dated the 28th June 1715. 
 The Report said they had reason to complain of Wren 
 as " obstructing the business of the Church " and 
 " suffering by a very faulty neglect great frauds and 
 abuses to be committed," yet considering his great age 
 and the reputation he has been so long possessed of 
 they were desirous to " spare his name," but made 
 grave charges of corruption and incompetence against 
 Bateman, his assistant surveyor. Informations were 
 framed against the latter, who put in an answer to 
 them. These, with the sub-committee's reply, were 
 delivered to the Bishop of London, who was desired to 
 lay them before his Grace of Canterbury. 
 
 Wake preserved among his papers a very interest- 
 ing memorial by Sir Christopher Wren, relating to the 
 adorning of the new St. Paul's Cathedral. The Com- 
 missioners had passed a Resolution that a " Balustrade 
 of Stone be set up on the Top of the Church " unless 
 Wren certified within a fortnight that it was contrary 
 to the principles of architecture. Wren said : "I 
 never designed a Balustrade. Persons of little skill in 
 architecture did expect, I believe, to see something they 
 had been used to in Gothic structures, and Ladys think 
 nothing well without an edging. A Balustrade is 
 suppos'd a sort of plinth above the upper Colonade. . . . 
 In the inward angles, where the Pilasters cannot be 
 doubled as before they were, the two voids or open 
 spaces would meet in the angle with one small Pilaster 
 between and create a very disagreeable mixture. . . . 
 There is already over the Entablature a proper Plinth 
 which regularly terminates the whole building, and as 
 no provision was originally made in my plan for a 
 
 ' See Wake MSS. 
 
1737] SUCCEEDS TENISON AS PRIMATE 37 
 
 Balustrade the setting up of one in such a confus'd 
 manner over the Phnth must apparently break with 
 the Harmony of the whole machine and in this case be 
 contrary to the Principles of Architecture. . . . My 
 opinion therefore is to have Statues erected on the four 
 Pediements only which will be a most proper Noble 
 and sufficient ornament to the whole Fabric and was 
 never omitted in the best Antient Greek and Roman 
 Architecture. ... If I glory it is in the singular mercy 
 of God who has enabled me to begin and finish my great 
 work so conformable to the Antient Model." 
 
 Wake was throughout a supporter of the Hanoverian 
 Succession. George i. arrived in London on the i6th 
 September 1714, and in October following the Bishop, 
 Dean and Chapter, and Clergy of Lincoln presented 
 their address to His Majesty, in which they state " our 
 prayers are now answer 'd, and we trust in God yt 
 our Deliverance from Popery and Slavery so happily 
 begun by yr Glorious Predecessor King William is now 
 compleated." 
 
 It was widely thought, even before Dr. Tenison's 
 death, that Wake would be Tenison's successor. On 
 15th May 1 71 5, Gibson writes to Wake : 
 
 " I was asked by a brother Presbyter, who is often 
 with my Lord Townshend, what I thought of Dr. 
 Bradford for Lincoln on supposition of your Lordship's 
 being translated, which he took for granted." 
 
 Apparently Gibson thought Bradford, who was after- 
 wards made Bishop of Carlisle in 171 9 and of Rochester 
 in 1723, a sorry successor to " a perfect master of the 
 work " like Wake. He adds : " His Grace found him- 
 self much worse yesterday by sitting up soe long the 
 day before, and my account from ye Palace this morn- 
 ing is that he has had an ill night and is much out of 
 order." 
 
 Tenison died on the 24th December 1715. It is 
 said that the Primacy was offered to Hough, Bishop of 
 
38 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 Lichfield. Hough was the man who had been elected 
 President of Magdalen by the Fellows on their rejection 
 of Anthony Farmer, James the Second's nominee, and 
 who was afterwards turned out of the Headship of the 
 College in favour of Parker, Bishop of Oxford, by James 
 the Second's Special Commission. Hough has been 
 called an "ideal bishop," ^ but he shrunk from being 
 Primate from modesty. Tenison had recommended 
 Wake, and he was appointed, his appointment being 
 confirmed on 6th January 1716. Wake was succeeded 
 at Lincoln by Gibson, then Archdeacon of Surrey, who 
 had been chaplain to, and was high in the esteem of. 
 Archbishop Tenison, and who in 1720 was translated to 
 London. 
 
 Wake was sworn in as member of the Privy Council 
 on 20th January 17 16, his election by the Dean and 
 Chapter having taken place, and been duly pubhshed 
 after morning service on the 5th. 
 
 He was widely congratulated on his accession to 
 the Primacy. His colleagues at York, Bath and Wells, 
 Chichester, Ely, Llandaff, and, of course, Carlisle wrote 
 congratulatory letters. Jno. Oxon (afterwards to be 
 Archbishop Potter, his successor in the Primacy) writes 
 to a like effect and says : " The voice of the world hath 
 already long since appointed your Lordship for his 
 (Tenison's) successor." Chaslett, Master of University, 
 who had urged him to accept Lincoln, congratulates 
 him on Canterbury. Edward Tenison writes : " If your 
 old friend that is dead had been indulg'd so far as to 
 name a successor he would undoubtedly have named 
 your Lordship." An old schoolfellow (we suppose at 
 Wakefield) sent him acrostics on his name in Latin and 
 in English. We quote the English : 
 
 "When numerous blossoms in the Spring appear, 
 It commonly portends a fruitfull year ; 
 Like which Wake's virtues, while but in their bloom, 
 Left hopes of fruits of a good Life to come. 
 
 * Lord Lyttelton in Worcester Dioc. Hist., p. 334. See Hore, i. 316. 
 
1737] THE NEW ARCHBISHOP 39 
 
 Illustrious George, who does with Justice scan 
 All men's deserts well knowing this good man, 
 Made him the Church's Metropolitan. 
 What, then, may England hope from such a choice, 
 A man approv'd by every good man's voice. 
 Known a Defender of the Sacred Truth, 
 Exemplary in Life, even from his Youth." 
 
 Lord Chancellor Cowper wishes his confirmation 
 hastened on, and will not " think of being out of town 
 should his presence for the ceremony be necessary." 
 
 With Gibson Wake was now in frequent correspond- 
 ence. He writes to the archbishop as to the necessity of 
 an entertainment to the Mayor and Aldermen of Canter- 
 bury, whether the enthronisation is in person or by 
 proxy ; he makes an " arrangement " as to the services 
 and remuneration of the gardener for the garden at 
 Lambeth, which he tells Wake covers six acres : he has 
 to recommend when the weekly doles to the poor at 
 my lord's gate should begin, whether before he " comes 
 over " or then, and gives the two last precedents. 
 
 " Tillotson appointed i May. Dole begun i October. 
 Tenison translated 16 Jany. ,, „ i April." 
 
 Somehow Tenison had let serious dilapidations to 
 occur both at Lambeth and Croydon, and the settlement 
 of these with his nephew, Edward Tenison, involved 
 friction if not litigation. The following particulars are 
 given in the notes to Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ix. 322, 
 as taken from Dr. Edward Tenison's letters on Wake's 
 demand for dilapidations. Archbishop Tenison laid out 
 above £2000 at Croydon. £200 a year was the least he 
 laid out in repairs . ' ' Disbursements for repairs in about 
 seventeen years besides what was paid by his Grace 
 himself, ;£342i, 12s." 
 
 Wake asked for dilapidations, £3469. The claim was 
 referred to Lord Chief-Justice King and Dr. Bettesworth, 
 Dean of the Arches , as arbitrators , with the Bishop of Lich- 
 field as umpire. The arbitrators awarded Wake ;£28oo. 
 
 In the latter months of 1715 all England was con- 
 4 
 
40 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 cerned with the Earl of Mar's rising in the North on 
 behalf of the Pretender. The rebellion is perhaps best 
 known to the ordinary British reader by the handsome 
 Earl of Derwentwater being beheaded for his part in it, 
 and by Lord Nithsdale escaping a like fate by the aid of 
 his wife's suit of women's clothes. Forster, a gentleman 
 of Northumberland, was at the head of the English in- 
 surgents. According to Smollett, there was a difference 
 between the Pretender's Generals at Kelso in October — 
 Lord Wintoun and the Highlanders wishing to march 
 into West Scotland, the Englishmen to cross the Tweed 
 and attack the King's forces. About half of them did 
 march under Forster to Penrith, where, says Smollett, 
 " the Sheriff, assisted by the Lord Lonsdale and the 
 Bishop of Carlisle, had assembled the whole posse 
 comitatusoi Cumberland, who dispersed with the utmost 
 precipitation at the approach of the Rebels." Forster 
 and his forces got to Preston, where he was attacked by 
 and surrendered to General Wills. On the same day, 
 14th November, Mar was defeated at Dunblane, and 
 the rebellion died out. Wake was far from the fray, but 
 the Bishop of Carlisle, William Nicholson, who had had 
 the See since 1698, was a Hanoverian though a strong 
 Churchman. He was a personal friend of Wake's, and 
 seems to have placed great reliance on the archbishop. 
 There are multitudes of letters from Rose Castle to Wake 
 among the Wake MSS ; some of them dated from Rose, 
 even after the spirited old bishop, who had complained 
 to Wake of the expense of his large family, had been con- 
 soled with the lucrative Bishopric of Derry. He ended 
 his days as Archbishop of Cashel. 
 
 We get a vivid picture of the position at Carlisle in 
 a letter dated the very day before the surrender of the 
 rebels at Preston and the battle of Dunblane : 
 
 " 'Rose, November 14th, 1715. 
 
 " My very good Lord, — Your Lordship's kindness 
 is very particular in expressing so great a concern for 
 
1737] MAR'S REBELLION 41 
 
 the safety of so insignificant a creature as I am. The 
 Rebels- had indeed once fully purpos'd (as they acknow- 
 ledg'd at Penrith) to have given me a visit ; and to that 
 end hover'd the whole day on the Banks of ye River Eden 
 five miles below Carlisle. But as Providence ordered 
 the matter the Rains had then so swell 'd the waters that 
 they were not fordable. This preserv'd my Beef and 
 Mutton for the present. They sent me word that these 
 provisions were only kept in store for the Earl of Mar. . . . 
 I begin now to fancy that he'll hardly ever bring 
 any great Retinue this way. For our last Saturday's 
 advises affirm that he has actually intrench 'd himself 
 and his Highland guards at Perth. . . . Our greatest 
 Danger as we think is from the return of the poor hungry 
 Highlanders ; should they be scatter'd into parties (as 
 'tis ten thousand to one that they will be) by General 
 Wills and left to make the best of their way to their own 
 rocky cells in the braes of Athol ... I should be pretty 
 positive in my opinion that they're under a necessity of 
 engaging with the King's forces ; and under as manifest 
 a certainty of being beaten by them. They were joyn'd 
 at Lancaster by Mr. Dalton and other neighbouring 
 papists to the number (as our last advises tell us) of 400 
 . . . but having only a mob of their press 'd tenants to 
 trust to in ye day of Battle yeir hopes of Victory cannot 
 be great." 
 
 George i. was not as prompt as he should have been 
 in getting over troops from the Continent to meet the 
 Pretender, who had landed in Scotland early in 
 December. It was a month later before the needed re- 
 inforcements reached the North. On 9th January the 
 Bishop of Carlisle is able to write to his friend, "There is 
 no doubt but that ye Dutch troops being now all arriv'd 
 the Duke of A. [Argyle] will quickly move towards Perth 
 and ye general opinion seems to be that the Highland 
 Clans will either thereupon disperse or (if they make a 
 stand) fight it out more desperately." 
 
 In the autumn of 171 5 the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 and his suffragans issued a Declaration of Adherence to 
 the new King and against the Pretender to be read in 
 churches, and on the 22nd November the Archdeacon 
 
42 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 of Bradford reports as to the attitude of the clergy 
 towards the Declaration. The Declaration, he says, 
 " appear 'd to have ye general approbation without any 
 shadow of opinion against it. . . . Whatever the effect 
 be as to ye Jacobite I have hereby set a great many of 
 the honest Clergy at Liberty who wanted and desired 
 opportunity to publish it. It is a very unhappy circum- 
 stance that of the Bishop of Bristol's refusing to join 
 with your Lordships." On the whole the non-signers 
 are few. Whilst he is writing, he says, he has received a 
 letter that it was agreed, at a meeting of the disaffected, 
 " I had almost said Jacobite clergy at ye Bell Inn at 
 Bradford not to read it without an Episcopal order to do 
 so," but he hears that " one of ye greatest Tories in 
 these parts read it in his church last Sunday." 
 
 The official of Bucks reports that his " parochial 
 clergy have signed an Association testifying their ' Ab- 
 horrence of ye present unnatural Rebellion.' " The 
 Bishop of Bristol referred to by the Archdeacon was 
 of course the doughty Dr. George Smalridge, who 
 had been put forward for the Regius Professorship 
 of Divinity when Potter obtained the appointment 
 in 1708. Atterbury, now Bishop of Rochester — ^whose 
 general views were much in accord with Smalridge 's — 
 joined him in refusing to sign the Archbishop's Declara- 
 tion. Smalridge ^ had been educated at Westminster 
 and Christ Church, and in 171 3 became Dean of Christ 
 Church. A year later he was appointed to the bishopric 
 of Bristol, one of the poorest of English sees, and wias also 
 made Almoner to Queen Anne. But for refusing now 
 to sign the Declaration he had to resign his post of 
 Almoner. At Carlisle and Christ Church he succeeded 
 Atterbury. From Smalridge's good nature he was said 
 to carry the bucket wherewith to extinguish the fires 
 which Atterbury had kindled. 
 
 By January 1716 the Rebellion was crushed and the 
 
 1 See his portrait and notes of him, Nichol's Illustrations of Litsra- 
 tme, iii. 225. 
 
1737] EXECUTION OF REBEL LORDS 43 
 
 Pretender hurrying back to France. At the end of the 
 month the rebel Lords were impeached, and except Lord 
 Wintoun pleaded guilty before Lord Cowper, the Lord 
 High Steward, in Westminster Hall. Sentence of death 
 was passed on the 9th February. Wake was appealed 
 to by many of the convicted rebels. From Orange (and 
 dated February 7, 1716) he gets an appeal from Dr. 
 Sharp, the chaplain attending on the Earl of Carnwath 
 and Viscount Kenmure, " encouraged by the just reputa- 
 tion yr Grace has amongst all good men for meekness, 
 clemency, and moderation." Of these two Lord Carn- 
 wath was kept a long time in prison, but released under 
 Sunderland's Act of Indemnity in July 1717. Kenmure 
 was executed on Tower Hill with Derwentwater on 24th 
 February 1716. There is among the Wake MSS the 
 original of the following pathetic letter from Lady Niths- 
 dale craving Wake's intercession for her husband : 
 
 " Your Grace's character is sufficient to embolden ye 
 miserable tho' not personally known to address them- 
 selves to you under wch title none can have a greater 
 right to doe it than myself who am wife to one of ye un- 
 fortunat Lds now under sentence of death wch makes me 
 humbly beg of yr Grace you will induce ye King to be 
 graciously pleas 'd to suspend ye execution of ye fatal! 
 sentence he lys under according as a petition will be pre- 
 sented from me and I shall think myself obliged during 
 life to pray for yr Grace's prosperity as becomes 
 
 My Ld, 
 
 Your Grace's most obliged and humble servant, 
 
 W. NiTHSDALE." 
 
 Was she then planning his escape in woman's clothes? 
 
 From the "Tour," 20th February 1716, Robert 
 Dalzell and Will Gordon crave Wake's intercession : 
 and about the same time come frequent appeals for 
 the archbishop's intercession signed " Widdrington." 
 Lord Widdrington, like Carnwath, after many months' 
 imprisonment, got the benefit of Sunderland's Act of 
 Indemnity. All through 1716 the trials of the rebels 
 dragged on. The unfortunate cleric Paul, who was 
 
44 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 almost the only one of the prisoners in the Tower who 
 did not escape, or to whom the royal clemency was not 
 extended, sends from the Tower a petition to the arch- 
 bishop " your Pet' (who had once the honour to be in 
 yr Grace's Dioces) is now a prisoner in Newgate under 
 conviction for being unfortunately at Preston amongst 
 the Rebells whom he left upon the first opportunity 
 before the King's forces came up." 
 
 Just before his execution he writes again : 
 
 " According to all accounts Dr. Hall and myself are 
 the only unfortunate Persons appointed to dye to- 
 morrow. I am fully sensible of yr Grace's goodness and 
 therefore flye to you and earnestly entreat your Grace 
 will be pleased to intercede with His Royal Highness the 
 Prince att this rq.y last extremity that he would be graci- 
 ously pleased to extend mercy to a humble suppliant." 
 
 Intercession failed, and he suffered the extreme 
 penalty with four or five others at Tyburn, professing 
 himself a true member of the Church of England, but 
 not of the revolution schismatical Church. 
 
 Convocation, when it met in the spring of 1716, pre- 
 sented an Address to the Crown in which both Houses 
 concurred in expressing their ' ' Abhorence of that most 
 unnaturall Rebellion." 
 
 The Bishop of Carlisle continued to supply Wake 
 with information concerning the results of the Rebellion, 
 and throughout 17 16 writes him constant letters about 
 the rebel prisoners. At the beginning of September 
 1 716 a troop of thirty prisoners was brought from 
 Edinburgh to Carlisle for trial. Their condition in 
 Carlisle Castle, according to the good bishop, during the 
 three months they were awaiting trial was pitiable ; 
 they had to lie "on bare straw," the citizens being 
 unwilling to send in bedding where it was sure to rot ; 
 " several," says the bishop, " were roaring in fits of the 
 gout and gravel." The episcopal kindliness of heart 
 got them leave to " walk by three or four at a time" 
 under " proper guard on ye Batteries of ye Castle." 
 
1737] REBEL PRISONERS AT CARLISLE 45 
 
 Among the gentlemen carried to Carlisle was one 
 John Rose, son of the Bishop of Edinburgh. The 
 bishop had been mulcted of an annuity by the Rebellion, 
 but he begs Wake to intercede for his son, who had 
 been " led away by the common example," and so was 
 found among the Pretender's forces. Wake applies 
 to his friend the Bishop of Carlisle on behalf of the 
 young man : but the good bishop is too anti-Jacobite 
 to be very sympathetic. He thinks the young man 
 has no one but himself to blame : "I will no more 
 bestir myself," he says, " for him the Bishop of Edin- 
 burgh's son than I would for my own son in like circum- 
 stances." He writes, however, to the archbishop, 
 fully and often, about how things go with the young 
 man. It is not till nearly the end of the year that the 
 Judges reach Carlisle : the prisoners were pressed to 
 plead guilty and trust to the royal mercy. Some 
 clever counsel suggested a demurrer to the jurisdiction : 
 how under the Act of Union could Scottish prisoners 
 be tried in England for a Scottish crime. Everyone 
 from the Bench downwards was alarmed at the prospect 
 of the demurrer. " You will do better to drop the 
 demurrer, plead guilty and be pardoned," was the 
 advice given to the prisoners. 
 
 On 15th December 1716 the Bishop of Carlisle writes 
 to Wake : 
 
 " John Rose the Bishop of Edinburgh's son came 
 this moment to the bar, and desir'd a present arraign- 
 ment ; pleaded guilty, and made so handsome an 
 application to the Court that his case is sure of being 
 very favourably represented." 
 
 The bishop really seems to have done his best for 
 the young man . Two days later he writes from Rose : 
 
 " Your letter came to hand when I was with Mr. 
 Justice Tracy : who had acquainted me with the like 
 application in favour of ye Bishop of Edinburgh's son 
 made to himself by the Earl of Carnarvon. Two such 
 advocates were soon agreed to be worth a whole sheeve 
 
46 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 of those from the North, and thereupon I had leave to 
 send for the young fellow forthwith to the Bar — where 
 he presently appear 'd, desir'd to be immediately 
 arraign 'd and that being granted pleaded guilty. This 
 he did in so becoming a manner and so good an appear- 
 ance of a true penitent heart that the Judge promis'd 
 to represent his case favourably to His Majesty whose 
 mercy he confidently relyse on. I had never seen the 
 young man before, but was not a little pleas 'd with his 
 modest behaviour." 
 
 Some of the clergy of Jacobitish sympathies made 
 a trouble about the Form of Prayer for ist August, the 
 day of George the First's accession. It was not univer- 
 sally observed, and on 12th March 17 16 Gibson, oculus 
 episcopi if not actually yet episcopus, and Hanoverian to 
 the tips of his fingers, writes to Wake showing how the de- 
 faulters should be brought to book, and suggests taking 
 the opinion of the Judges whether the King as supreme 
 head of the Church can direct by proclamation a form 
 of service. In the summer of 17 16 the Bishop of Wor- 
 cester writes asking the Primate's advice about parishes 
 where the prescribed service for ist August is not read. 
 
 The attitude of the country clergy towards George i. 
 and his family continued to give anxiety to the Govern- 
 ment and the leaders in the Church who supported the 
 Government. We get faithful pictures of how things 
 stood in this respect in the reports to Wake from his 
 subordinates. Speaking of his clergy, says a Midland 
 archdeacon, who had just held his visitation under 
 date isth April 1716, " they took occasion at dinner 
 to express their love of the King, even those of Sparken- 
 hoe deanery notwithstanding their being distinguished 
 as High Tories. I do verily believe they would be 
 found more obedient subjects than they may appear 
 or are represented to be did not ye indiscretion of some 
 Dissenters and Low Churchmen raise a jealousie in 'em 
 of the Government by declaring openly they wd see in 
 a little time the clergy sufficiently humbled. Such 
 friends do great disservice to the Government." 
 
1737] NEW TEXT OF GREEK TESTAMENT 47 
 
 Wake was a scholar, and scholars could count on 
 his sympathy. There is preserved a long and most 
 interesting letter to him from the great scholar Bentley 
 under date 15th April 171 6 containing a proposal by 
 the latter to publish a new Text of the Greek Testament. 
 Bentley calls attention to "ye vast heap of various 
 lections found in MSS of ye Greek Testament." After 
 saying that this was a favourite theme of freethinkers 
 and " one of Collins' Topics in his Discourse on Free- 
 thinking," and that he (Bentley) had lately been led 
 into a " new course of study," he says, " I find I am 
 able (what was once thought impossible) to give an 
 Edn of ye Greek Text exactly as it was in ye best exem- 
 plars at ye time of ye Council of Nice," so that there 
 shall not be " twenty words nor even Particles Differ- 
 ence." He asserts that the Text of the New Testament 
 had suffered more than that of most classical authors : 
 he expresses a poor opinion of the Vulgate, and says : 
 " Pope Sixtus and Clemens at a vast expense had an 
 assembly of learned divines to recense and adjust ye 
 Latin Vulgate and then enacted their new Edition 
 authentic. But I find, though I have not yet discovered 
 anything done dolo malo, they were quite unequal to 
 ye affair. They were mere theologi, had no experience 
 in MSS nor made use of good Greek copies and followed 
 books of five hundred years before those of double age, 
 nay I believe they took those new ones for ye older of ye 
 two ; for it is not everybody knows ye age of a MSS." 
 Wake received the project with encouragement, and 
 made useful suggestions to the great scholar. 
 
 In July 1 716 George i. was able to leave England for 
 his beloved Hanover, having got Parliament to set him 
 free to go. Smollett says that he went to secure his 
 German dominions against the Swedes (who were vexed 
 at his having in the interests of Hanover bought up 
 and with English money the secularised bishoprics and 
 Bremen and Verden), " and Great Britain from the 
 Pretender." Hanover was nearest his heart. Wake 
 
48 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 sent a chaplain with him in the person of Lancelot 
 Blackburne, then Dean of Exeter, afterwards Bishop 
 of Exeter, and ultimately Archbishop of York, 
 Townshend was deposed from being Prime Minister, and 
 the chief power came into the hands of Sunderland and 
 Stanhope, who were Secretaries of State. Mr. Secretary 
 Stanhope, who had thus far distinguished himself as a 
 soldier, went with his royal master. 
 
 The character of Lancelot Blackburne — ^who is not 
 to be confused with Archdeacon Francis Blackburne, 
 the Broad Churchman of " the Confessional," who 
 flourished half a century later — is not good as an 
 ecclesiastic. Horace Walpole's dict'um of him, that he 
 had been a buccaneer and was now clergyman, retain- 
 ing nothing of his former profession but the seraglio, 
 though seriously inaccurate, has fatally besmirched it. 
 His doings as a prelate fell short of our standards. But 
 Wake apparently thought not unfavourably of him. 
 There are many letters from him to Wake in the Wake 
 MSS. The later ones display too much eagerness for 
 preferment. But after reading his character as given 
 by ecclesiastical historians one finds the tone of them 
 better than one would expect. 
 
 George i. left Gravesend on gth July, and on 17th 
 July Blackburne writes from Hanover to Wake as to 
 what he calls " the voyage which your Grace has done 
 me the honour to cut out for me. Mr. Secretary Stan- 
 hope came himself on board ye next day after he had seen 
 his Majesty on board his between three and four in the 
 afternoon, and we all sail'd soon after with a very gale 
 towards ye coast of Holland. We had six men-of-war 
 for our convoy, two others having been sent before to 
 look out upon the coast of France from whence there 
 had been intelligence of " some ill design." . . . On 
 arriving off the Dutch coast he says " we could not weigh 
 till His Majesty after being very sea-sick was gone off 
 thither in his own boat." 
 
 The duties of chaplain to George i. on one of his 
 
1737] BLACKBURNE AS CHAPLAIN 49 
 
 excursions to his beloved Hanover were not severe, and 
 Blackburne winds up his letter by saying, " Mr. Secy, 
 has undertaken to know the King's pleasure as to the 
 appearance I am to make and the duty I am to do 
 here which I cannot think will be any way burthensome." 
 On 31st July he writes again : 
 
 " Lord Burford and Ld N. Pawlet were very soUici- 
 tous to know where and how they should spend the 
 Sunday. ... I said ' I shd be ready to say prayers to 
 'em in a good room at my own lodgings both in the 
 morning and evening . . . we made up a congregation of 
 above twenty.' " 
 
 He gets the offer in a day or two of both the Lutheran 
 and Reformed Churches for his services ; as to the 
 former he doubts " how far ye English here might be 
 scandalised at the crucifix on the altar," and the 
 Reformed Church is taken. " I yesterday," he says, " read 
 prayers and preach'd in the morning and read Prayers 
 also in the afternoon to a pretty large congregation who 
 made the Responses regularly, and made it so that I 
 did not much miss a Clerk." " There is no surplice here, 
 and being in doubt whether they can make one here 
 which will not be awkward," he says, " he shall not get 
 one unless the Archbishop directs him to do so." 
 
 He brings Wake into touch with the great scientist 
 Leibnitz, who sends the archbishop a parcel of his 
 books. In another letter dated in September 1716, from 
 Hanover, Blackburne says : " Both the Lutherans and 
 the Calvinists look upon Leibnitz as an unbeliever, 
 and the Laymen of the Court say he has his religion 
 to choose and was ready to turn Roman Catholic, but 
 y* they would not come up to his bargain." But this 
 is the common fate of men that have more learning or 
 a larger mind than others. Leibnitz's death is reported 
 a little later. 
 
 Blackburne was not in love with his duty at Hanover, 
 and by the end of the year he is back at his Deanery of 
 Exeter. But his stay at Hanover had tightened his 
 
so WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 connection with the Court and Stanhope, then a power- 
 ful Minister, and on the last day of the year he writes 
 to Wake that he has heard from Hanover from Stanhope 
 " that His Majesty had been pleas 'd to assure him that 
 upon his arrival in England he intends the Bishoprick 
 of Exon for me." England recovered the much-needed 
 presence of its monarch in January 1 7 1 7 , and Blackburne 
 duly got his bishopric. 
 
 A foolish quarrel between George i. and his son the 
 Prince of Wales broke out in November 171 7. The 
 Prince's wife, the great Caroline of Anspach, gave birth to 
 a son on 3rd November. The King ordered the Duke 
 of Newcastle to stand sponsor for him, the Prince of 
 Wales having designed this honour for his brother the 
 Duke of York. After the christening, the Prince of 
 Wales, says Smollett, " expressed his resentment against 
 this nobleman in very warm terms." George i. turned 
 his son and his son's wife out of St. James's, but detained 
 their children. The newly born prince languished, and 
 in a week or two died. Caroline was very ill : on 
 loth November Townshend, the Prime Minister, writes 
 to Wake : 
 
 " Whitehall. 
 
 " The Princess is much better this evening than she 
 was in the morning ; however. Sir David Hamilton 
 being of opinion that she is still in some danger, the 
 Lords think it will be proper for your Grace to order her 
 to be publickly prayed for in the Churches of London 
 and Westminster." 
 
 On 27th November 171 7 notice comes from the 
 Duke of Newcastle that His Majesty has appointed 
 the " christening of ye young Prince to-morrow between 
 seven and eight in the evening at ye Princess's lodgings in 
 St. James's." His Majesty hopes " 'twill be convenient 
 to your Grace to be there at that time." 
 
 There had been probably some tension between the 
 King and his son before, but it blazed up over the poor 
 little baby's christening. It seems hard to justify the 
 
1737] EFFORTS AT RECONCILIATION ji 
 
 King's attitude to his Son and daughter-in-law. Well- 
 wishers of the powers that were felt their cause weakened 
 by this unworthy squabble. Wake tried to smooth it 
 down, but without effect. Several of his correspondents 
 refer to it. 
 
 The Bishop of Carlisle, Nicholson, writes in December 
 1717: 
 
 " I shall least of all be able to bear up against Rents 
 and schisms in ye Royal Family. ... I trust by your 
 Grace's interposition all Blackness is already remov'd 
 from that quarter and that their Royal Highnesses are 
 return'd to St. James's in perfect peace. . . ." 
 
 And ten days later, again : 
 
 " My heart akes when (sleeping or waking) I think 
 of St. J. God grant peace ! " 
 
 Smalridge, the doughty Tory, Bishop of Bristol and 
 Dean of Christ Church, writes on the 8th December 1 7 1 7 : 
 
 " When I lately did myself the honour of congratu- 
 lating with Her R.H. upon ye birth of the young Prince 
 I had no apprehensions that there wd be so soon 
 afforded too just a ground of being afflicted for her 
 and condoling with her : but to our great surprise and 
 grief we hear that even that Birth which we esteem 'd 
 a Blessing to the whole nation and more particularly 
 to ye Royall Family has accidentally been the occasion 
 of a Breach where ye most intire Union is desir'd by 
 all sincere friends of the Government . Into the grounds 
 of that misunderstanding it becomes not private persons 
 curiously to enquire, but I am sure we may with the 
 utmost duty to all our superiors lament the terrible 
 consequences of it, and more especially the sad effect 
 we hear it has had upon Her Royal Highness 's health 
 . . . while you are permitted to attend her she cannot 
 want ye advice of a faithful! and prudent Counsellor." 
 
 The writer's prayer is that when he comes to London 
 and waits on the Prince and Princess he may find them 
 at St. James's. 
 
 On sth April 171 8, the archbishop gets news that 
 
52 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 last night, about seven o'clock, Baron Bothmar brought 
 a message from His Majesty to the governess, letting 
 her know that it was his royal pleasure that she should 
 leave her charge and dispose of herself elsewhere ; " but 
 that ye rest of ye attendants on ye young Princesses 
 were allow 'd to continue " in their respective posts. 
 
 It is not, however, until two years later that the 
 Prime Minister Sunderland is able on 23rd April to write 
 to the archbishop : 
 
 " I have the honour of acquainting y"" Grace with a 
 piece of news that I daresay will be more agreeable to 
 you than anything that has happened since the King's 
 accession to the Crown, it is the reconciliation of the 
 King and Prince which is at last happily brought about 
 with the dignity of the King and to the mutual satis- 
 faction of both sides the immediate consequence of this 
 will be the entire reunion of the Whig Party in both 
 Houses which will be attended with all other good 
 consequences honest men can desire." 
 
 Down to this time the Prince and Princess had been 
 living at Norfolk House. The Royal reconciliation 
 gladdened the hearts of all well-wishers to the Govern- 
 ment. On the 28th April, Jonathan Winchester (Tre- 
 lawney) writes from Wolvesey to the archbishop : 
 
 " I can't conclude my letter before I express ye 
 great joy I have at ye reconciliation of ye King and 
 Prince which must make the Royal Family happy and 
 ye Kingdom easy because I have ye pleasure to believe 
 you had a hand in it." 
 
 Wake's dealings as archbishop with Convocation 
 were confined to a short period of time. The Canter- 
 bury Convocation of 17 14 had terminated by Anne's 
 death, having been largely in its last session occupied 
 with the writings of Dr. Clarke. Under George i. Parlia- 
 ment and Convocation met together in March 1 7 1 5 . Both 
 Houses of Convocation concurred in an address to the 
 new monarch on 7th April, and in his reply he said :^ 
 
 ' Lathbury, History of Convocation, 440. 
 
1737] WAKE AND CONVOCATION 53 
 
 " I thank you for your very dutiful and loyal 
 address. . . . You may be assured I will always sup- 
 port and defend the Church of England as by Law 
 established and make it my particular care to en- 
 courage the clergy." 
 
 The usual sermon was preached by Gibson, then 
 Rector of Lambeth and Archdeacon of Surrey. 
 
 The royal letters to proceed to business arrived 
 on sth May. The matters included regulation of ex- 
 communications, terriers and accounts of glebes and 
 tithes, marriage licences, a form for consecrating 
 churches, titles for orders, enforcing the canons, touch- 
 ing sober conversation of ministers, the supply and 
 licensing of curates, preparation for confirmation. 
 Of these matters the bishops undertook the 3rd, 4th, 
 Sth, and Sth ; the others were left to the Lower House. 
 A form for consecrating churches, being a revision of a 
 form passed by Convocation in 171 2 and signed by 
 Tenison, was drawn up by the bishops. Attention, 
 Lathbury suggests, had been drawn to the need of 
 such a form by the fact that some of the fifty new 
 churches authorised by Parliament in 1 7 1 1 were ripe 
 for consecration. 
 
 The Lower House condemned The Difficulties and 
 Discouragements which attend the Study of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, published by Dr. Hare, then Dean of Salisbury, 
 afterwards Bishop of Chichester, the ancestor of Augus- 
 tus and Julius Hare, two very distinguished Church- 
 men of our own day.^ They also agreed to a Declara- 
 tion to make the 75 th Canon touching the sober con- 
 versation of ministers more effectual. The House of 
 Commons had replied favourably to a royal message 
 commending to the House a request from the Com- 
 missioners for building the fifty new churches for 
 maintenance of the ministers of such churches, and 
 the two Houses of Convocation in August 1 7 1 5 united 
 in an Address of Thanks to the Crown for the royal 
 
 ^ Hore, i. 326. 
 
54 - WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 liberality. The Convocation was adjourned in Sep- 
 tember following and did not meet for business till 
 January 17 16. Meanwhile Tenison had died, and Wake 
 was in the Primate's chair. 
 
 It is not surprising that Wake, who in the first 
 years of the century had taken a leading part in the 
 Convocation controversies, should, now that he had 
 become President of the Southern House, address him- 
 self with special care to matters affecting its being 
 called together. The death of the President presented 
 difficulties which required care. 
 
 Atterbury was by this time out of the way, having 
 been made Bishop of Rochester, and Dr. Stanhope, 
 Dean of Canterbury, had succeeded him as prolocutor. 
 There was consultation between Wake and Stanhope 
 in December 171 5 as to the method of reassembling the 
 Convocation, and apparently one or other of them 
 consulted Cowper, the Lord Chancellor. On the i8th 
 December, Stanhope writes, giving 
 
 " The Lord Chancellor's opinion concerning the 
 state of our Convocation affairs : who after giving up 
 as utterly impracticable any expedient for making 
 a regular adjournment from the i6th was un- 
 determined in his judgment whether the Discontinu- 
 ance be not a Dissolution and do not render a new 
 choice necessary, or whether by writ directed to me and 
 the Chapter and a Deputation from us thereupon the 
 same body may re-assemble the 9th January. I told 
 him yr Grace's opinion was that the King had power to 
 call the same together. His Lordship thought this the 
 more desireable expedient."^ 
 
 Precedents were to be looked up. Meanwhile 
 Atterbury, whose opinion Wake naturally valued on 
 Convocation questions, as any wise man values the 
 opinion of an old antagonist, is quoted by Stanhope : 
 " The Bishop of Rochester entirely agrees in the opinion 
 of His Majesty's power to reassemble us in the manner 
 I ment* before." Dean Stanhope writes again a week or 
 
 1 Wake MSS, 1715. 
 
1737] LAST CONVOCATION IN 171 7 55 
 
 two later, that the uncommon rigour of the season 
 furnishes an unanswerable argument against assembUng 
 the Convocation. Wake wrote out himself and settled 
 with great care the form of the Convocation writ, which 
 he submits for Atterbury's approval, who writes, " I 
 have no manner of exception to ye Form of Writ which 
 your Grace hath been pleased to communicate to me." 
 
 As the actual meeting of Convocation draws near, 
 Wake becomes careful that everything should be in 
 order. There is a " method of Proceeding in ye Chapell 
 of Henry vii."at the opening. The Upper House can 
 only sit in the Jerusalem Chamber by leave of the 
 Dean ; on this Atterbury, who was Dean of Westminster 
 as well as Bishop of Rochester, is consulted, and he 
 encloses a letter from Tenison, asking his (Atterbury's) 
 consent to the use of the Jerusalem Chamber " a part 
 of yr Lordship's mansion house," as Tenison calls it. 
 Atterbury is now entirely at peace with his old opponent, 
 indeed they had come together at Exeter. " Whatever 
 ye expressions are if it appears by them that ye Jeru- 
 salem Chamber is made use of by my consent the end 
 of such a letter is satisfy 'd." 
 
 We propose to deal in Archbishop Potter's life 
 with the story of the Bangorian Controversy arising 
 out of the publications of the notorious Hoadly, 
 Bishop of Bangor. The first Convocation, summoned 
 under Wake as Primate, met in 171 7. Its proceedings 
 were almost entirely devoted to Hoadly, and form a 
 part of the story of the Bangorian Controversy, and we 
 have treated them accordingly ; as we have detailed 
 in our life of Potter, they ended in the silencing of 
 Convocation for one hundred and fifty years. 
 
 Mr. Lathbury, in his classical work on Convocation, 
 says that in 1 7 1 7 Wake ' ' wished to see the Convocation 
 assembled ; and the prohibition of its meetings at this 
 period was purely the act of the Whig Ministry in which 
 the governors of the Church were in no way concerned." 
 There is a letter of Atterbury's in his correspondence, 
 5 
 
56 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 under date the 8th November 171 7, which seems to bear 
 this out. The archbishop, he says, was of opinion 
 that he should be permitted to hold the Convocation ; 
 and had told the Prolocutor (Dr. Stanhope). 
 
 " From whom I had it that he wd adjourn it to- 
 morrow till the 22nd and from thence by like inter- 
 missions till Xmas, after which the clergy shd meet 
 and act. But when I was last in Town I found from 
 good hands that he was as much mistaken on this 
 occasion as he had been on many others ; it being 
 resolved in a great Council last week at Hampton 
 Court to prorogue the Convocation by a new Royal 
 Writ till February next." 
 
 Whether the Government and Wake intended in 
 1 71 7 — and 1 71 8 — that the non-issuing of a licence to 
 do business should be chronic is uncertain. Probably 
 not ; it was sufficient for the time that it should do 
 nothing then. There is a letter in February 1719 from 
 Sunderland to Wake which seems rather to point to 
 its meeting again for effective business. The Prime 
 Minister says : 
 
 " I had the honour of yr Grace's letter and acquainted 
 the King with what you mentioned in relation to the 
 Convocation. There will be a Cabinett Councill this 
 morning at St. James where his Maj*'' will order the 
 writt for Proroguing them. The day the King intends 
 it if you approve is Wednesday the 8th of April next." 
 
 But the fact remains that after 1 7 1 7 the Government 
 were induced, as Mr. Lathbury says, " to suspend the 
 regular synodical business of Convocation." From that 
 time he adds " no royal licence was granted." The 
 Convocation assembled with every Parliament ; but 
 the meeting was purely formal. 
 
 So strongly had the dissensions in Convocation been 
 felt that even then there were found those who con- 
 gratulated Wake on its becoming silent. On the i6th 
 November 171 7 his friend, Bishop Nicholson of Carlisle, 
 still writing from Rose, says : 
 
1737] WAKE AND NONCONFORMIST RELIEF 57 
 
 " I cannot help congratulating your Grace on the 
 new Prorogation of ye provincial Synod . If ye suffragans 
 and their inferior clergy had drawn different ways (as 
 they probably would have done), no good work cd have 
 been wrought and the Bp. of B.'s worshippers would 
 have had greater occasion of triumph than I trust they 
 will now have." 
 
 Wake, as Archbishop, has been charged with taking 
 a line in Parliament inconsistent with that which he had 
 down to that time adopted. At any rate it has been 
 said by Whiston and others that any sympathy which 
 Wake had shown with Liberal principles of comprehen- 
 sion and toleration was rapidly and effectively dropped 
 when he was once seated on the archiepiscopal throne. 
 Wake was not the man to adopt principles in which 
 he did not believe to gain thereby distinction or wealth, 
 nor was he the sort of man that makes a turncoat ; apart 
 from the wretched Schism Act any change of view may 
 be defended on the ground that as Primate he m«y 
 have been justly cautious ; a Primate stands first and 
 alone ; he is no longer one of many equally clothed 
 with responsibility. George i. was certainly no better 
 friend to religion or the Church than Anne had been. 
 Wake, archbishop in 1719, may have felt a distrust of 
 change, for which Wake, bishop in 171 1, had seen no 
 need. He would justify his refusal to repeal the Schism 
 Act, as he did, on the ground that it was a dead letter 
 not worth the trouble of a repeal. 
 
 Very soon after becoming Primate he had to deal 
 with the proposals of Ministers to relieve the Dissenters. 
 The Dissenters as a body were zealous supporters of 
 the Hanoverian Dynasty, and George i., though in every 
 speech of his to Parliament he had protested his inten- 
 tion to support the Established Church, had given the 
 Dissenters reason to think they would get relief. 
 
 The Acts which especially galled them were the 
 Old Test Acts of Charles 11., the Occasional Con- 
 formity Act, and the Schism Act of Anne's later 
 
58 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 years. Of these, of course, the second grew out of 
 the first. Two Acts of Charles 11., passed in the fever 
 heat of triumphant Royalism, 13 Charles 11., and 
 25 Charles 11., required any Candidate for office — 
 municipal, military, or otherwise — to receive the Com- 
 munion according to the rites of the Church of England 
 before being admitted to office. The churchwardens of 
 his parish had to be present and certify to his having 
 duly communicated. Not unnaturally a Dissenting 
 Mayor or Alderman, having qualified for and taken 
 ofiice, resumed attendance at the chapel which he was 
 in the habit of attending. This was a shocking grievance 
 to the Tory High Churchman. And there was justice 
 in their complaint. It was disgraceful that a man 
 should participate in the holiest service of the English 
 Church when his own conduct showed, the next Sunday, 
 that his heart, ecclesiastically and religiously, was 
 elsewhere. But the disputed point was whether the 
 Test Acts which the Tories stoutly supported were 
 not the real cause of the mischief. 
 
 Letters to Archbishop Wake from clergy show that 
 in some churches the communicants who came to 
 " qualify " were treated separately from those who came 
 for devotion. However, the Tories throughout Anne's 
 reign — in the language of the Vicar of Bray — thought 
 " the church in Danger was by the Prevarication " of the 
 Occasional Conformists. Three times, with the help of 
 Anne, in 1702, 1703, and 1704, the Commons had passed 
 an occasional Conformity Bill inflicting penalties for 
 occasionally conforming. But the Whigs in the Lords, 
 especially the Whig bishops under Burnet, got it thrown 
 out. It was not till the end of 171 1 that Nottingham, 
 stoutest of Churchmen, made a bargain that if the Lords 
 would pass the measure he would give the Whigs support 
 on the war and other questions. So the Bill passed the 
 Upper House and was greedily accepted by the Commons. 
 It enacted that any person who after admission to office 
 should be " present at any conventicle " should be 
 
1737] REPEAL OF CONFORMITY ACT 59 
 
 liable to a fine of £40, to be recovered by the 
 Prosecutor. 
 
 With the passing of the third of the Acts, Boling- 
 broke's Schism Act, we have already dealt, and need 
 only repeat that Wake opposed and, with his friend Lord 
 Cowper, signed a Protest against it. By the end of 1716 
 Townshend was getting into disgrace with George i., and 
 Sunderland and Stanhope were soon to be the King's 
 Chief Ministers. Relief to the Dissenters became an 
 important item in the Ministerial programme, being sup- 
 ported by Walpole who was at difference with Sunder- 
 land and Stanhope on other points. 
 
 So far back as March 17 16 the Chancellor writes to 
 the Archbishop : 
 
 " March 14, 1716. 
 " My Lord Archbishop, — I believe yr Grace has reed 
 before this time notice of a visit from ye E. of S. and Mr. 
 Stanhope. I hope this will come soon enough to let you 
 know beforehand the business of it. 'Tis in ye King's 
 name to sound yr Grace's opinion on a Repeal of ye Act 
 against occasional Conformity. I din'd j'-esterday with 
 them and Mr. Bernsdoff and ye same mater was then ye 
 subject. I truly own'd I never liked ye Act and joyn'd 
 in passing it as it is least it should have pass'd as it 
 would have done if oppos'd in a worse maner. But to 
 my great surprise I was so fortunate as to convince them 
 both yt it was not fit to have that Bill of Repeal and that 
 about the University going at ye same time ; upon this 
 they took a sudden turn and became resolv'd to have 
 this of ye Repeal first and postpone that concerning ye 
 Universitys wch your Grace knows how lately and how 
 much ye K as they said had set his heart upon ... I 
 thought yr Grace wd be content to have a little warning." 
 
 In February 1 7 1 7 Wake gets a letter from his friend 
 Lady Cowper, the Chancellor's wife, in which she gives 
 his Grace intimation that " ye House of Commons being 
 now so empty by reason of ye members being gone into ye 
 Country this occasion is thought proper to bring in ye 
 Occasional Bill." "As," she goes on " I know yr Grace's 
 sentiments upon it I thought it my duty to give you 
 
6o WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 notice of it and beg you would not name it from me but 
 make yr own use of it." 
 
 Wake, as was natural, consulted his suffragans : from 
 the first there was considerable difference of opinion 
 amongst Churchmen, including the Episcopal Bench, 
 about the measure. 
 
 His friend, Nicholson of Carlisle, writes to him in the 
 summer of 1 7 1 7 : 
 
 " I had an opportunity of walking a good deal in the 
 Park with the Bishops of Lincoln and Exeter. The 
 former seem'd surpriz'd at my telling them that I had 
 heard (from a good hand) that ye Repeal of ye Occasional 
 Act was again upon the anvil." 
 
 After saying that the Bishop of Exeter had been 
 " sounded (that morning) upon that point " and seemed, 
 the writer thought, "to be fully resolv'd against giving 
 ground," " whether " he goes on " my Br of Lincoln 
 will be equally stout I cannot foretel . . . and yet," says 
 Carlisle, " I cannot suspect him of giving way to what (I 
 am sure) he thinks to be damnable hypocrisy." 
 
 Lincoln of course was Gibson and Exeter Black- 
 burne. 
 
 Later in November 171 7 Gibson writes to the Arch- 
 bishop : 
 
 " Yesterday the Bishops of Worcester, Gloucester 
 and myself were desir'd to be at ye Bishop of Norwich's 
 this morning at 1 1 o'clock and we found there ye Bishops 
 of Sarum and Lichfield . The occasion of ye meeting was 
 which way it wd be best to proceed in with regard to ye 
 Bill for Corporations, and tho' that of offering to receive 
 ye Sacrament and admitting such offer as a full qualifica- 
 tion was mentioned yet it appear'd to be ye sense of ye 
 whole company that ye more desireable method would 
 be to abolish the Sacramental Test so far as it concerns 
 Corporations." 
 
 The Prelates, or some of them, were keen that Wake 
 should command their attendance upon him " on this 
 subject." 
 
1737] REPEAL OF CONFORMITY ACT 6i 
 
 The Bishop of Norwich, Trimnell, had been tutor to 
 Sunderland's family, and was a leader among the Whigs. 
 
 About the same time, Carlisle again writes, putting 
 forward the more Tory views which doubtless many, if 
 not most, of the country clergy held : 
 
 " 2 1st November 1717. 
 
 " No Bishop can now without giving great cause of 
 offence consent to ye relaxing of any of the laws in 
 being for the security of our Ecclesiastical Establish- 
 ment. Most of ye Clergy and Laity of our communion 
 are justly alarm'd with a new Doctrine — that ye most 
 moderate penalties and smallest negative Discourage- 
 ments which guard conformity in religious worship are 
 unchristian — countenanc'd by those who now in His 
 Majesty's name move for such a Relaxation. . . . The 
 least infringement of the Occasional Act or ye Test 
 Law in favour of Dissenters without a previous or con- 
 current censure of ye said position, seems to be of 
 pernicious consequence to the Public Peace." 
 
 Perhaps it was counsels of friends like this that made 
 Wake in 171 8 so stoutly oppose the "Bill for strengthen- 
 ing the Protestant Interest." It must be remembered 
 too that by this time Hoadly had issued his " Preserva- 
 tive " and preached his celebrated sermon. 
 
 Throughout 1 7 1 8 foreign affairs, especially in the war- 
 like operations against Spain, occupied public attention. 
 Lord Stanhope had to go to vSpain, and though George i. 
 in his speech at the opening of Parliament had promised 
 a Bill for the greater strengthening the Protestant 
 interest, it is not till November 171 8 that we hear of 
 ministers again consulting the Primate. On 23rd Nov- 
 ember 1 71 8, Sunderland writes to Wake that the Lord 
 Chancellor, Lord Stanhope, and Sec. Craggs proposed 
 to dine with the Primate at Lambeth on the following 
 day, but having heard that he had been " something in- 
 dispos'd " wished to know whether he would give them 
 another day or stick to the day following. 
 
 As Stanhope introduced the Occasional Conformity 
 
62 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 Bill on the 13th December 171 8, it seems pretty certain 
 that that was to be the topic of the meeting. 
 
 About the same time as Ministers were contriving a 
 Repeal of the Occasional Conformity Act and other Acts 
 objected to by the Dissenters, the idea of a Royal Letter 
 to the archbishop, for communication to the bishops and 
 clergy dealing chiefly with Romish aggressions, was on 
 foot. Gibson, Bishop of Lincoln, drafted it, and it was 
 settled by Trimnell of Norwich. It dealt with the 
 " unusual Liberty divers clergymen and others had 
 lately shewn " in " maintaining and publishing several 
 Doctrines and Superstitions of the Church of Rome on 
 purpose to lessen the aversion " of the King's subjects to 
 Popery, also with a tendency in some of the clergy, 
 through dislike of Rome, " to deny all kind of Power 
 within a Christian Church." 
 
 Ministers were very anxious to get Wake's support 
 for the Occasional Conformity Bill. Perhaps they 
 thought he might be propitiated if his plan of a Royal 
 Letter were adopted ; at any rate on the 1 2th December 
 1 71 8, Sunderland deals with the Bill and the Royal 
 Letter in the same letter to Wake. He writes, he says : 
 
 " In particular by the King's order to show your 
 Grace the enclos 'd copy of the Bill about the Occasional 
 Conformity which Lord Stanhope is to bring to-morrow 
 into the House. Your Grace will see by it that though 
 it be absolutely necessary for the King's affairs to have 
 this matter brought on yet there is in ye framing and 
 shaping of all the regard had to the Dignity of the 
 Church and the case of the Clergy as was possibly 
 consistent with making it effectuall for the Public 
 Service of the Government, and indeed, I think it is 
 truely so fram'd as not to leave a reall conscientious 
 and religious objection to it. The King therefore hopes 
 it will not meet with your Grace's Disapprobation. I am 
 sure there never was a King who was more sincerely and 
 more strongly determined to support the Establish'd 
 Church and consult its honour nor who has a greater 
 desire to shew the utmost regard to yourself as the 
 Head of that Church under him. ... I have read 
 
1737] WAKE'S SPEECH ON CONFORMITY 63 
 
 to the King the draught you sent me of the letter who 
 has ordered me to tell you that whenever you think 
 proper he will order it to be prepar'd for his signing : 
 approving and liking every part of it, and to assure 
 you that he will be ready to do everything towards 
 making it effectuall which yr Grace can suggest to him." 
 
 On the copy of the Bill which Sunderland sent to 
 Wake is a note in Sunderland's handwriting ; a clause 
 is to be added to hinder " any magistrate carrying the 
 ensigns of honour to any other place of publick worship, 
 but the Established Church." This found its way into 
 the Act. 
 
 Wake did not receive the draft Bill at all kindly. 
 His endorsement on the draft Sunderland sent him is 
 " for enlarging the Act of Indulgence I suppose on 
 behalf e of Socinians, Arians, &c." He prepared very 
 elaborate notes of his speech or speeches against it in the 
 House of Lords. On these notes he has written : 
 
 " The Heads of my speech in the Hs of Lords agst 
 repealing the Occasional Conformity Bill. 
 
 " Here I was both deserted and betray'd by my 
 Brethren some of whom had encouraged me in my 
 opposition. I pray God forgive them. 
 
 " Mem. In order to the settling of this worthy 
 Bill a meeting was had Sunday night to which I was not 
 invited between the Ministry and Bps (proper for such 
 a work). 
 
 " One not in the secret asked whether the Archbishop 
 would be there. It was answered that being late and 
 a stormy night they believed not. Such was their 
 sincerity ! I had my acct . of this meeting from my 
 Lord Chancellor Cowper, and in part from the good 
 Bp of L. Cov. The Bps at the meeting are thus marked 
 (x) in the printed List." 
 
 Attached to these notes is a Printed List of " the 
 Lords spiritual and temporal " who voted for or against 
 the Repeal of the several Acts made for the security of 
 the Church of England. 
 
64 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 Under the list " for the Church," which numbers 
 seventy-eight, are the two archbishops and thirteen 
 bishops including those of London, Chichester, and 
 Lichfield. 
 
 The supporters of the Bill, according to the list, 
 numbered ninety-six, including the Bishops of Bangor, 
 Lincoln, Worcester, Salisbury, Gloucester, Peterboro, 
 and Carlisle. 
 
 Wake has marked with a small cross Lincoln, 
 Worcester, Gloucester, and Salisbury as being present 
 at the Sunday evening " Cabal," as he calls it. 
 
 The course the Bill took in the House of Lords was 
 as follows : Stanhope brought it in on 13th December 
 under the title of a Bill for strengthening the Protestant 
 interest in these kingdoms, and the second reading 
 was moved on the isth. There was a suggestion of a 
 long adjournment. A leading opponent of the Bill in 
 the Lords suggested that during a month's adjournment 
 the Lord Chancellor should write circular letters to 
 summon all the Lords to attend, upon the severest penalty 
 the House could inflict. Another Lord, though of the 
 same opinion, thought it needless to give the Lord 
 Chancellor, who had business enough upon his hands, 
 the trouble of writing circular letters, and suggested 
 that every Lord then present should write to his absent 
 friends, letters so written being, he said, " more acceptable 
 and effectual than a formal summons." 
 
 A long adjournment was, however, distasteful to 
 Ministers, and it was resolved, without dividing, that 
 the second reading should only be put off till i8th 
 December. On that day it was read a second time, 
 and on a motion to refer it to a Committee of the whole 
 House a noble Lord required the opinion of the 
 Episcopal Bench on a measure " wherein the Church 
 was so nearly concerned." Thereupon Wake delivered 
 himself of a speech against the Bill. 
 
 This speech, as it appears in the parliamentary 
 debates, is far more meagre than his notes, still extant, 
 
1737] VOTES OF BISHOPS 6$ 
 
 would lead us to expect. According to the parliamentary 
 history he said he had " all imaginable tenderness for 
 all the well-meaning conscientious Dissenters, but he 
 could not forbear saying that some amongst them made 
 a wrong use of the favour and indulgence that was 
 shown them upon the Revolution though they had the 
 least share in that event." Of the Schism Act, at the 
 close of his speech he said that though it might carry 
 a face of severity yet it seemed needless to make a law 
 to repeal it, since no advantage had been taken of it 
 against the Dissenters ever since it was made. 
 
 Sir William Dawes, who in 17 14 had been promoted 
 from Chester, to which see he had been appointed in 
 1707, to York, agreed with his brother of Canterbury, 
 urging that the Acts against Occasional Conformity 
 and Schism were proper means of self-defence and 
 preservation, and that the Dissenters were never to 
 be gained by indulgence.^ The Episcopal Bench gave 
 their views indeed fully, though with considerable 
 differences of opinion among themselves. The Bishop 
 of London, who supported the archbishops, was 
 Robinson, a diplomatist rather than a divine ; 
 Smalridge of Bristol, Gastrell of Chester, and of 
 course Atterbury of Rochester, also opposed the Bill. 
 Equally, of course, Hoadly, whom Anne would not 
 make a bishop but who had been appointed to Bangor 
 in 1 71 5, supported the Bill, maintaining that all tests 
 were objectionable, and that the Acts sought to be 
 repealed were persecuting Acts on a par with the 
 Inquisition morally : so did Willis of Gloucester, 
 Gibson, and White Kennet of Peterboro'. Next day 
 the debate was resumed. Wake spoke again against 
 the Bill, as did Atterbury, — Trimnell of Norwich sup- 
 porting the Bill. In the end the committal of the Bill 
 was carried by 86 — 19 proxies, against 68 — 18 proxies. 
 
 On 20th December, in grand Committee, the refer- 
 ence to the Test and Corporation Acts was struck out, 
 
 * See Parliamentary Debates, 1719. 
 
66 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 Lord Cowper supporting this view. The motion to 
 repeal the Act was carried by 55 against 33. 
 
 The ties that bound Wake to Gibson of Lincoln 
 and White Kennet of Peterboro', who had preached 
 the sermon at his consecration as Bishop of Lincoln, 
 were very close, and we can well understand his annoy- 
 ance at their throughout voting in support of the Bill 
 in opposition to him. The Bill was read the third time 
 in the Commons after considerable debate on loth 
 January 1719. As it passed into Law (it is 5 George i. 
 cap. i.) it is short, simply repealing the main section of 
 10 Anne, cap 3, the Occasional Conformity Act, and 
 the Schism Act, 12 Anne, cap 7. The clause fore- 
 shadowed by Sunderland, forbidding a Mayor from 
 attending any conventicle with his insignia of office, 
 found a place in the Act. 
 
 Wake was not only a man without enemies but he 
 was a man looked up to by persons of all opinions and 
 ranks. His qualities were sterling and, universally, 
 the estimate men had of him was high. We find the 
 Secretary of State, Craggs of South Sea Bubble fame, 
 writing to ask him to examine a counterfeiter of French 
 bank notes, who was willing to make a confession of 
 his plot to Wake and no one else. With Lord Cowper, 
 a Lord Chancellor of great distinction who twice held 
 the Seals — for the second time from 17 14 to 171 8 — he 
 was, as we have hinted, on terms of intimate friendship. 
 When long intrigue had driven Cowper to resign the 
 Lord Chancellorship, he communicates the fact at once 
 as to a valued friend. 
 
 On the 15 th April 171 8 he writes : 
 
 " I set down in haste to do my duty to your Grace in 
 sending you word that this day about 3 o'clock I sur- 
 rendered ye great Seale into his Majesty's hand." The 
 Chancellor intimates that he had found " that service 
 wd not consist with any tolerable degree of health. 
 ... I was so heartily weary of it on many other 
 accounts." 
 
1737] FIFTY NEW CHURCHES FOR LONDON 67 
 
 The Chancellor's lady writes Wake a most friendly 
 note to tell of her husband's retirement : 
 
 " I needn't tell your Grace what reasons have 
 indue 'd him to take this step ; many of ym are but too 
 visible, and ye rest I hope we shall chatt over as soon 
 as I come to town. ... I beg yr Grace to be assur'd 
 you have not two more faithful servants in ye world yn 
 my Lord and I and yt in all conditions of life yr Grace's 
 esteem and friendship will be ye greatest pleasure to 
 us both." 
 
 There is a warm message to " Dear " Mrs. Wake. 
 
 The friendship and correspondence between the 
 two distinguished men by no means came to an end at 
 this time. In August 1720, Wake paid Cowper a visit 
 at his country seat in Hertfordshire .^ In the following 
 year Cowper, who had had to try the Bristol waters, 
 and who, however he may have fallen out with 
 George i., or George 11. personally, was a steady sup- 
 porter of their dynasty — writes to Wake : " There was 
 not ye least madding on ye Pretender's birthday nor 
 inclination to it that cd be observed." The quotation 
 is interesting as showing that a counter Revolution 
 was never far absent from our rulers' minds down to 
 the middle of the eighteenth century. 
 
 In 1 7 1 1 the scheme for building fifty new churches 
 in and near London had been started.^ The Upper 
 House of Convocation had petitioned the Crown to 
 recommend to Parliament the great and necessary 
 work of building more churches within the bills of 
 mortality. The Commons had already instructed a 
 committee to report what churches were wanting, and 
 the Lower House of Convocation on 28th February 
 1 710 had sent a deputation, with Atterbury its Speaker 
 at its head, to the Speaker " to signify their readiness 
 to promote the work." In reply to a message from 
 the Queen recommending " so good and pious a design," 
 
 ' L. Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, calls it Colegreen. 
 * Stanhope's Queen Anne, 479. 
 
68 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 the Commons appointed a committee to report what 
 was in hand of the fund for rebuilding St. Paul's, and 
 what churches were wanting in London and Westminster. 
 Their report, which was adopted by Resolution of the 
 House on 29th March 171 1, was that fifty new churches 
 were necessary, computing 4750 souls to each church. 
 In their address to the Crown the Commons stated that 
 " Neither the long expensive war in which they were 
 engaged nor the pressure of heavy debts under which 
 they laboured should hinder them from granting what- 
 ever was necessary to accomplish so excellent a design." 
 For the supply they granted that part of the duty on 
 coals which had been devoted to the rebuilding of St. 
 Paul's Cathedral. Zeal seems to have slackened in this 
 cause. Mailland, writing in 1756, says that only ten of 
 the fifty had been built, amongst them St. John's, West- 
 minster, at a cost of £2g,2'j'j ; St. Mary Le Strand, at a 
 cost of £16,341 ; and Bloomsbury, at a cost of £9793. 
 
 No more zealous Churchman lived at the end of the 
 seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries 
 than Dr. Thomas Bray, one of the original founders of 
 the S.P.C.K. and afterwards of the S.P.G. He had 
 visited America as the commissary of the Bishop of 
 London in 1700. He wrote to Dr. Wake several times 
 about the church-building project and the maintenance 
 of the clergy of the new churches and parishes. One of 
 these letters, dated the 1 2th December 1 71 8, is interesting. 
 
 " I fear," says Dr. Bray, " we are to hear no more 
 of our fifty new churches to be built in the suburbs. 
 But that the remaining part of the Fund if continued 
 is likely to be diverted to the Rebuilding of some of our 
 old ones within the Liberties of the City. What they 
 will have to answer for, who, by their Petitions for 
 Diverting the Fund from its truly Christian and original 
 Design, seem to prefer Pompous Edifices to the Edifica- 
 tion of souls, I leave it to God to determine when the 
 Account of the numerous souls committed to our charge 
 shall be required at our Hands. As one having ' near 
 20,000 souls in my own cure,' " he recommends, to 
 
1737] " WEEK END "-ING IN BATH 69 
 
 get powers in the next Act to divide the great Parishes 
 and to settle the limits of the fifty new Parishes to be 
 taken out of them, where there are no new churches to 
 make " the Chapels pro tempore Parochial," and to 
 build new ones as temporary Tabernacles as was done 
 after the fire, which may be built on leasehold sites, 
 " there being eno' to build twenty such." 
 
 A Memorial circulated about the same time seems 
 to foreshadow the modern " week end "-ing which has 
 so affected London churches. 
 
 " There seems also a humour prevailing much more 
 of late years than formerly among many Inhabitants 
 of the Town, especially the wealthier sort, of keeping 
 country houses and lodgings, as is evident from the great 
 increase of Buildings in most of the Villages and Places 
 within ten miles of London. Besides, it may not be 
 unreasonable to suppose the Town to be more healthy 
 than formerly, there having been no Plague of late 
 years and the Openness of the new Streets as well as the 
 late great supplies of water contributing very much 
 to the Health of the Inhabitants." 
 
 Wake must have had strong recuperative power, for, 
 during his archiepiscopate, if not before, he was con- 
 stantly indisposed. In the summer of 17 19 he went — • 
 as then did all invalids or semi-invalids who could 
 afford it — to Bath and Bristol for the waters. His 
 friend Wotton writes to him in August to say that he is 
 glad his disease was at last found to be the stone. "I 
 hope," says he, " since you have so early discovered y* 
 malady, that Dr. Mead " (the celebrated physician of the 
 eighteenth century) " will set you up again so as to 
 enjoy a better state of health than y' Grace have had 
 of late years." George i. was in Hanover, and, as a 
 Lord Justice, Wake throughout August and September 
 1 719 gets constant reports from Delafaye, the Secretary 
 of the Privy Council, from Whitehall as to the doings 
 of the British forces in Sweden and North Germany, and 
 in Sicily. As to foreign affairs, Delafaye says on the 
 nth August, "the Czar by appearing at y* mouth of 
 
^o WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 the River of Stockholm with his 500 galleys and 30,000 
 men, has driven the Swedes to make peace with y" 
 King as Elector, leaving him fully in possession of 
 Bremen and Verden, and y* alliance with His Majesty 
 as King of Great Britain was forthwith to be renewed." 
 Two days later he notifies the Primate of a secret 
 treaty with the King of Prussia. In September Delafaye 
 speaks of a Preliminary Convention with Sweden, who 
 has "granted what we desired on behalf of y" King of 
 Prussia; so here is a Protestant Alliance established 
 which will enable His Majesty to preserve our Religion, 
 save y' Kingdom of Sweden, and restore peace to y' 
 North, and indeed to all Europe." 
 
 One of Delafaye's from Whitehall in September 1719 
 announces that " several Bills are come from Ireland, 
 including one inflicting the most terrible punishment 
 known to male humanity (short of Death) on ' all 
 unregistered Popish Priests and Ecclesiastics that do 
 not depart thence by a time prefixt or come after that 
 time.' " It is not strange that English statesmen 
 two hundred years later have an Irish question to deal 
 with. 
 
 In 1 72 1, Wake took an active part in promoting 
 " the Bill for suppressing blasphemy and profaneness," 
 and the documents preserved among the Wake MSS. 
 gives us a good picture of the interest he took in the 
 matter. Probably the supposed wealth to be derived 
 from the South Sea Bubble had had a bad effect upon 
 Society's morals. Smollett says, " the adventurers, 
 intoxicated by their imaginary wealth, pampered them- 
 selves with the rarest dainties and the most expensive 
 wines that could be imported ; they purchased the most 
 sumptuous furniture, equipage, and apparel, tho' without 
 taste or discernment ; they indulged their criminal 
 passions to the most scandalous excess ; their discourse 
 was the language of pride, insolence, and ostentation ; 
 they affected to scoff at religion and morality, and even 
 to set heaven at defiance." 
 
1737] THE HELL-FIRE CLUB 71 
 
 Early in the year an anonymous letter came to 
 Wake complaining of "an abominable sett of young 
 gentilemen, as they call themselves, distinguishing 
 themselves at the same time as members of a Club to 
 which they have given the name of the Hell-fire Club." 
 ..." They were very lately at a play, where they so 
 affrighted a friend of mine with they'r monstrous 
 talk as gave the agony of apprehension that Hell wou'd 
 open instantly to receive 'em." 
 
 It appears from the names the writer gives that 
 they were of good family. 
 
 Another similar letter to the archbishop says that 
 God is — 
 
 " dayly contemn 'd in most publick Companyes by 
 a company of vile wretches y' give themselves ye name 
 of ye Hell-fire Club. . . . theirs some Ladyes among 
 them . . . only they don'tt goe to y* Taverne." 
 
 In conjunction with Lord Nottingham and Lord 
 Trevor, Wake determined to move, and it was resolved 
 to frame a Bill to meet the evil. 
 
 On 27th March 1721 the archbishop gets the draft 
 Bill with a letter from the draftsman : 
 
 " My Lord Nottingham has perused and approved 
 it, but submits it to y' judgment. . . . Lord Notting- 
 ham hopes y' Grace will take the first opportunity to 
 move for leave to bring it in." 
 
 The care which Wake took in the matter is shown 
 by his extant notes on the draft Bill. There is a rough 
 set of notes on the Bill, line by line in his own writing, 
 with an amended copy of such notes also in his own 
 writing. Then he gets the Bill back from the drafts- 
 man with Wake's amendments incorporated, and a 
 letter saying that Lord Trevor and Lord Nottingham 
 have entirely approved the Bill " as modified by y* 
 Grace." 
 
 Then comes the draft of a very interesting letter 
 6 
 
72 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 by Wake, dated 22nd April 1521, to (apparently) the 
 draftsman : 
 
 " I went on Wednesday to the H. of Lords, where 
 I received the Breviat of ye Bill frorti my Lord Not., 
 and had some discourse wth his Ldship concerning it. 
 I communicated the substance of it to two of my 
 brethren and conferr'd with some of the other Lords 
 about it. But had so httle encouragement to proceed 
 with it that I thought it more advisable to defer any 
 present motion for leave to bring in such a bill than to 
 do it at such a disadvantage as I must have done had I 
 then gone on with it." 
 
 He goes on to say that he is dissatisfied with some of 
 the clauses and is consulting " a worthy and judicious 
 friend " and Lord Trevor. 
 
 There are elaborate notes for Wake's speeches (i) 
 on moving for leave to bring in the Bill, covering two 
 sides of foolscap and of which the last section is : 
 
 " All I propose is to strengthen the laws already in 
 force — not to look back, but forward ; not to 
 restrain men's opinions, but their open attempts 
 and actions — 
 
 To support the religion established agst ye 
 
 bold attempts yt are made agst it ; 
 To strengthen the Act of K. Wm., and preserve 
 the peace of Religion. 
 ^2) Upon moving for a Bill, &c., and 
 (3) After the 2nd Reading." 
 
 The Bill was not well framed. Its main provision 
 was that if anyone spoke against the being of God, the 
 doctrine of the Trinity or the inspiration of the Scrip- 
 tures, or the doctrine of the Thirty-nine Articles, he 
 should be liable to three months' imprisonment. It 
 had an unfortunate course in the House of Lords. It 
 was introduced by Lord Willoughby de Broke, who was 
 Dean of Windsor. After the second reading Wake 
 moved to have it committed, and was supported by the 
 Bishops of London and Winchester and by Wake's 
 friend, Chandler, Bishop of Worcester. But the bulk 
 
1737] THE BILL FAILS 73 
 
 of the peers opposed it, including the profligate Duke 
 of Wharton, who pulled out of his pocket and quoted 
 from an old family Bible, and Lord Peterboro' who said 
 he did not desire a Parliamentary God. Even the. 
 Episcopal Bench was not unanimous for the Bill. White 
 Kennet, another great ally of Wake, said it seemed 
 like setting up an inquisition. In the end it was put 
 off to a long day by sixty to thirty-one, and no more was 
 heard of it. 
 
 Wake's endorsement on his notes is : 
 
 " This was a new cause of offence given to the 
 Ministers, tho' I had a meeting with them about this 
 Bill and their consent to appear for it. And here I was 
 again deserted by my Brethren, as in the other Bill for 
 Repealing the Act against occasional conformity." 
 After saying that the Bill wanted amending, he goes on : 
 " To excuse themselves one of my Brethren published 
 a paper in print in which he vilely misrepresented the 
 true design both of the Bill and those who appear 'd for it. 
 I thank God for the part I had in it : to shew at least 
 my earnest desire to have some effectual care taken to 
 suppress the crying sins of Blasphemy and Profanesse." 
 
 Something that Wake said in the Debate gave 
 Ministers, especially Sunderland, much offence. He 
 complained to Wake's friend, the Bishop of Lichfield, 
 of it. Wake in his turn felt aggrieved and sent a letter 
 to the Minister, of which the draft, corrected even to 
 the point of being scarcely legible, is preserved. After 
 saying that the Minister must have " very much mis- 
 taken " what the archbishop said, or the latter must 
 have " said somewhat utterly contrary to what I 
 intended to speak," and reminding Sunderland that he 
 had often in Wake's hearing expressed his dislike of 
 the liberties " that have been taken — in opposing the 
 great and Fundamental doctrines of the Christian 
 religion," and claiming that he had expressed this in 
 his speech, goes on: " It surely must have been very 
 strange for me after this to charge the spreading of 
 these wicked doctrines upon the Ministry of which yr 
 
74 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 Lordship is the chief. I cannot certainly tell whether 
 I was not accused to have gone farther and to have 
 treated his Majie himselfe otherwise than it became me 
 in duty to do." 
 
 Of course Wake vigorously disclaims having said 
 anything of the sort, and acknowledges that he has 
 " had many obligations " to Sunderland, " which, 
 however, you may trust me, I will always thankfully 
 acknowledge." He winds up : 
 
 " Yr Lordship may have me as you please. If 
 you think fit a Friend (such I have profess'd myselfe 
 and am still willing to be) — But if I may not have that 
 Honour I will, however, for a due sense of the favours I 
 have received from you, whatever be the result of this 
 transaction, always prof esse myself, my Lord, yr Lord- 
 ship's much obliged humble servant, W. C." 
 
 Next daj'' Sunderland writes a very respectful and 
 friendly letter to the archbishop. 
 
 On the 28th April 1721 the Royal Proclamation is 
 published calling attention to " certain Scandalous 
 Clubs or Societies of young persons who meet together, 
 and in the most impious and blasphemous manner insult 
 the most Sacred Principles of our Holy Religion, and 
 making provision for their suppression and punishment." 
 
 On the 7th May 1721 there was issued the Royal 
 Letter of Directions to our archbishops and bishops for 
 the Preserving of Unity in the Church and the Purity 
 of the Christian Faith, particularly in the Doctrine of 
 the Holy Trinity. These invited attention to the Acts 
 of 13 Eliz. and 9 Will. iii. for the punishment of persons 
 preaching contrary to the Thirty-nine Articles, and im- 
 pugners " by writing, printing, teaching, or advised 
 speaking " of the Doctrine of the Trinitj'- or the 
 Scriptures. It was circulated with a letter from the 
 archbishop. He had drafted a longer letter referring 
 to the Act of Uniformity, but this seems to have dropped 
 out of the letter actually sent. 
 
 His colleague of York and his successor at Canter- 
 
1737] TRELAWNEY OF WINCHESTER 75 
 
 bury, Potter of Oxford, " gratefully ackne the receipt 
 of the Directions and Letter." 
 
 In July 1 72 1 , Wake gets news of the death of the 
 stout old Cornish baronet, Sir Jonathan Trelawney, 
 Bishop of Winchester, at the Palace at Chelsea of the 
 see of Winchester. He had written only the preceding 
 April to express his readiness to obey the archbishop's 
 " commands of being at ye Bill against Blasphemy." 
 There are few stranger figures among the bishops of 
 the early eighteenth century. It is said that in his 
 earliest episcopal days he excused himself for his much 
 swearing by saying that he swore as a baronet and not 
 as a bishop. He was urgent in 'his entreaties to get 
 some good see from James 11., and Mr. Hore suggests 
 that it was the fact of his only getting Bristol that 
 made him one of the seven bishops who were sent to 
 the Tower. He was promoted to Exeter in 1689, and 
 from thence to Winchester in 1707. 
 
 Burnet says that his promotion to Winchester " gave 
 great disgust to many, he being considerable for nothing 
 but his birth and his interest in Cornwall." His letters 
 to Wake are numerous, most of them dated from 
 Wolvesey : they express great veneration for and readi- 
 ness to follow the lead of the Primate. Trelawney had 
 not only taken the oaths to William and Mary, but had 
 become a stout supporter of the Hanoverian dynasty. 
 In a letter of his to Wake, dated the 2nd October 171 7, 
 he recounts how he had pressed on his Hampshire clergy 
 in his visitation of them their " duty to our King." 
 " I hope," he says, " I was not faint in my arguments or 
 in my utmost contempt for that weakelingye Pretender." 
 He invites from the archbishop suggestions how in the 
 rest of his visitation he may improve his charge, in what 
 directions he is to enlarge, what particular to strengthen. 
 The language of the charge seems to an ordinary reader 
 already a little inflated. After saying that George i. 
 will preserve them " from all ye devices of ye phanatics," 
 he proceeds : 
 
76 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 " And when he shall have run his course late and full 
 of yeares and honours those whp shall y° be alive have in 
 view a Prince His Royal Highness of Wales who will rise 
 upon you as ye sun with fresh glory and blessings as he 
 goes on. Every action will be crown'd with a new 
 beame of lustre ; and as he encreases so he will still 
 more rejoyce all those who love as he does our Constitu- 
 tion wch he studys and ye more he knows of it the more 
 he loves it, as he himself ye more he is known ye more he 
 is and ever will be belov'd admir'd I had almost sayd 
 adored by all true Englishmen." 
 
 Of the Princess of Wales he is equally if not more 
 flattering : 
 
 " She does not take our religion upon consent merely 
 because she finds it the state Settlement of the country, 
 she is pleas 'd to examine diligently wherein and why it 
 differs from that she hath seen profes'd in other coun- 
 tries . . . sifts it narrowly to discern whether it be 
 ye seed of ye good husbandman or the tares of ye 
 enemy." 
 
 Trelawney was succeeded at Winchester by the 
 Bishop of Norwich, Charles Trimnell, a Whig and able 
 supporter of Ministers : but he held Winchester for less 
 than two years, being succeeded in 1723 by Dr. Richard 
 Willis. 
 
 Wake was appealed to to stop the performances of 
 certain stage players within the boundaries of the old 
 archbishop's palace at Canterbury. A dramatic repre- 
 sentation, thought some of the citizens of Canterbury, ill 
 befitted a spot which, if not part of the cathedral pre- 
 cincts, was hallowed by associations such as belonged to 
 the house where Primates had once lived. The matter 
 was not free from difficulty, for apparently such rights 
 as the archbishop had in the site in question had been 
 demised to a tenant, — a lady who bore the honoured 
 name of Juxon. Wake sympathised with the objectors, 
 and wrote letters to Mrs. Juxon, strongly urging her to 
 avoid any outrage on his and the objectors' feelings. 
 Mrs. Juxon after some pressure yielded. Through Dr. 
 
1737] WHISTON n 
 
 Sydall, one of the archbishop's officials at Canterbury, Mr. 
 Jacob, " a worthy and learned gentleman " of Canter- 
 bury, and a Justice of the Peace, interviewed Mr. Toilet, 
 the master player, who asked for a night or two more, 
 and after that they would not act. To make a " quiet 
 end of this matter," Sydall reports that he gave leave 
 for two nights more. Sydall writes to the archbishop 
 stating these facts, and goes on : 
 
 " Since this I have had a message from Mrs. Juxon 
 solliciting me to intercede with your Grace for but one 
 week more after this." He urges " that Mr. Toilet and 
 his company are very civil, sober, and orderly people, that 
 they have been at great charge in coming and bringing 
 and setting up their things, and that they were incouraged 
 and invited by the Gentry to come into these parts." 
 He goes on, " Since I have stirr'd in this matter I find 
 that too many of the best people are willing to think 
 more favourably of Players and their occupation than the 
 Law does, and even the Justices are not very forward to 
 put it in Execution against them."; 
 
 Wake incurred the serious displeasure of the eccentric 
 William Whiston. Whiston was a man of learning and 
 research, his position at this time was that he accepted 
 the Doctrine of the Trinity but rejected the Athanasian 
 Creed. Wake had shown considerable kindness to 
 Whiston, but the latter complains to the archbishop in 
 the following unmeasured language : " Since you have 
 been removed from Bugden to Lambeth your sentiments 
 and conduct have been diametrically opposite to y' 
 former sentiments and conduct." In the course of a 
 very long letter, Whiston professes: "I shall sorely 
 lament your Grace's Fall from your old pure and peace- 
 able Christianity as did ye Athanasians ye Fall of ye great 
 Hosius from their moral and pernicious Heresy." 
 
 The death of Robinson, Bishop of London, in April 
 1723, caused a considerable move among the bishops. 
 Gibson's promotion to London was, as one of Wake's 
 episcopal correspondents writes, expected by everybody. 
 Wake liked and esteemed White Kennet, now Bishop of 
 
78 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 Peterborough. They had written on the same side in 
 the Convocation controversy, and he now seems to have 
 favoured Kennet's promotion. But the Prime Minister 
 writes on 14th April 1723 to the archbishop : 
 
 " I have received the favour of your Grace's Letter 
 concerning the vacant Bishopricks, and your sentiments 
 upon that subject . . . His Majesty . . . has declared 
 his intention that the Bishop of^ Bangor shall be trans- 
 lated to the See of Lincoln, and that Dr. Baker shall go to 
 Bangor." 
 
 This was carried out. Dr. Reynolds who, in 1 721, had 
 succeeded Hoadly at Bangor being appointed to Lincoln, 
 and Dr. Baker becoming Bishop of Bangor. 
 
 In the early years of his archiepiscopate. Wake had 
 part in certain negotiations, having for their object a 
 closer union between the Galilean Church and the Church 
 of England. Jansenism had considerable popularity 
 among the French during the end of the seventeenth and 
 beginning of the eighteenth centuries : and the Galilean 
 Church was not unwilling to soften off some of the ex- 
 treme doctrines of the papal creed in hope of making 
 Protestant converts. At the head of the Sorbonne, the 
 theological faculty of France, was Dr. Lewis Ellis Du Pin, 
 a learned man, and another member of the faculty was 
 Dr. Piers, who, to denote his extraction from an Irish 
 family of that name, called himself de Girardin. The 
 chaplaincy to Lord Stair, the English ambassador at 
 Paris, was held at the time by Beauvoir, a man of en- 
 lightened views, and a friend and correspondent of Arch- 
 bishop Wake. He had also made the acquaintance of 
 Du Pin and some of his colleagues at the Sorbonne. 
 
 Pasquies Quesnel had published Le Nouveau Testa- 
 ment en Francois, hoping thereby to propagate Jansen- 
 ism. It was approved by Noailles, Bishop of Chalons, 
 and afterwards Archbishop of Paris, and made converts. 
 Galilean leanings to what we may call Modernism were 
 not at all liked either by Louis xiv. or his friends the 
 Jesuits, so they got Clement xi. to issue his Bull, known 
 
1737] DU PIN 79 
 
 as Unigenitus, dated the 8th September 1 71 3. This con- 
 demned Jansenism in general, and in particular one 
 hundred and ten propositions extracted from Quesnel's 
 book. It reaffirmed the Ultra Montane faith without 
 modification or any suggestion of compromise. There 
 was much theological excitement in France. Noailles 
 and many eminent people in Church and State refused 
 to receive it, and talked of a General Council. As was 
 to be expected, the serious ecclesiastical position formed 
 the subject of talks between Beauvoir and his Sorbonne 
 friends, who were aware of his friendship and corres- 
 pondence with Archbishop^Wake. 
 
 The immediate occasion of direct communication 
 between Wake and Du Pin seems to have been a dinner 
 party at the Sorbonne, at which Beauvoir was present 
 in December 171 8, and which is thus mentioned in a 
 letter from Beauvoir to Wake, dated the nth of that 
 month : 
 
 " My Lord, — I had the honour of j^our Grace's 
 letter of the 27th ulto. last Sunday and therefore could 
 not answer it sooner. Dr. Du Pin, with whom I dined 
 last Monday, and with the Syndic of the Sorbonne and 
 2 other Doctors," gave him, says Beauvoir, some in- 
 formation about a Dictionary, and continues, " They 
 talked as if the whole Kingdom was to appeal to a 
 future General Council, &c. They wished for a union 
 with the Church of England as the most effectual 
 means to unite all the Western Churches. Dr. Du Pin 
 desired me to give his duty to your Grace." 
 
 In his reply to this letter. Wake requests Beauvoir 
 to make his compliments to Du Pin as one " by whose 
 labours he had profited for many years." 
 
 This kindly message emboldened Du Pin to address 
 Wake direct in a letter of thanks, which winds up as 
 follows : 
 
 " One thing I will add with your kind permission, 
 viz., that I earnestly desire that some way might be 
 found of initiating a union between the Anglican and 
 
8o WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 Gallican Churches. We are not so very far separated 
 from one another in most things as to preclude the 
 possibiHty of our being mutually reconciled. Would 
 that all the Christians were one fold." 
 
 Wake replies on the 24th February 171 8. Not un- 
 naturally, but perhaps owing to timidity of being too 
 positive in his advances, he enlarges upon the merits 
 of the Church of England, its purity in faith, worship, 
 government, and discipline. " There are few things 
 in it," he says " which even you would desire to see 
 changed." " There is nothing to mark us with the 
 black mark of Heresy." He urges him to go forward 
 in opposing the Pope, and says, " Perhaps this may be 
 the beginning of a new Reformation, in which not only 
 the best Protestants but also a great part of the Roman 
 Church may agree." 
 
 This rather important letter did not stop at Du Pin. 
 M. Patritius Piers de Girardin comes on the scene. 
 He, about this time, delivered an oration before the 
 faculty, in which he said that the quarrel between the 
 Galilean and Roman Churches might possibly induce 
 the Anglican Church to return into the bosom of the 
 Roman Church on the Galilean basis. Du Pin was 
 apparently so pleased at this, or at any rate so struck 
 by it, that he showed Wake's letter of the 24th February 
 1 71 8 not only to M. Girardin but even to Cardinal De 
 Noailles, Archbishop of Paris. Wake now got a new 
 correspondent, viz. Girardin, and he wrote both to 
 him and to Du Pin emphasizing what seems rather a 
 platitude in such a discussion that fundamentals were 
 to be distinguished from less important details. But 
 the Sorbonne doctors had got something to start on. 
 The Abb6 Courayer joined with Du Pin and Girardin 
 in the work they had in hand, making the subject of 
 Anglican Orders the special object of his enquiries. 
 They set to work to draw up what they called a Com- 
 monitorium de Modis ineundcc pads inter Ecclesias 
 Anglicanam el Gallicanam, showing what was of primary 
 
1737] DIVINES ON THE XXXIX ARTICLES 8i 
 
 and what of lesser obligation. This was to be ap- 
 proved by Cardinal de Noailles, and then sent to Wake. 
 There is a valuable epitome of this document in 
 Maclaine's Appendix to Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History , 
 which is also set out by Canon Perry in his Ecclesiastical 
 History in vol. iii. S7- It is a long document, with 
 what Maclaine calls a tedious Preface, and we do not 
 propose to repeat it at length. It was read before the 
 Sorbonne, approved, and sent to Archbishop Wake. It 
 takes the form of a comment on the English Thirty-nine 
 Articles. Perhaps a few points in it may be usefully 
 adverted to here. Articles 1-5 the framer of the docu- 
 ment accepts; tradition as " confirming and illustrat- 
 ing " doctrine found in the Bible is to be safeguarded 
 in 6. The Apocrypha is to be Deutero-Canonical. In 10, 
 Power must mean potentia proximo, since without a 
 remote power of doing good works it could not be 
 imputed. He has little to quarrel with in 11 and 12, 
 Justification and Good Works taken together ; 12 is 
 harsh, but a matter for theological discussion rather 
 than a term of communion. In 19 he wishes to add 
 " under lawful pastors " in the definition of the Church. 
 On the Article as to Purgatory, Du Pin observes " that 
 souls must be purged, that is purified from all defilement 
 of sin, before they are admitted to celestial bliss ; that 
 the Church of Rome doth not admit this to be done 
 by fire, that Indulgences are only relaxations or 
 remissions of temporal penalties in this life ; that 
 Roman Catholics do not worship the Cross, nor Relics, 
 nor Images, nor Saints before their Images, but only 
 pay them an external respect not of a religious 
 nature, which anyhow is a matter of indifference.' 
 Under Article 25 he wants the 5 Sacraments acknow- 
 ledged, whether instituted by Christ or not. He ap- 
 proves 26 and 27. He is willing to omit Transub- 
 stantiation from 28, and would have that part of it 
 run, " That the Bread and Wine are really changed 
 into the Body and BJood of Christ which last are truly 
 
82 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 and really received by all, though none but the 
 faithful derive any benefit from them." He would have 
 Communion in both kinds left indifferent. On 31 he 
 is stiffer, and maintains that the Sacrifice of Christ is 
 not only commemorated but continued in the Eucharist, 
 and that every communicant offers Him along with the 
 priest. On 32 he will allow priests to marry where 
 local Church Law allows. On 36, English ordinations 
 are not to be null. He denies the supremacy of the 
 Pope. Lastly, in the discipline and worship of the 
 Church of England, he sees nothing amiss. The Roman 
 Pontiff need not be consulted about the union of the 
 English and French Churches : should he be troublesome, 
 there must be a General Council. The bishops on both 
 sides must discuss details. 
 
 The project engrossed much attention in Paris .^ 
 Stanhope was over there on special business, and both 
 he and Lord Stair are said to have been congratulated 
 on it by persons of high political and social position- 
 The Abbe Du Bois was Minister of Foreign Affairs, and 
 he, as also Fleury, Attorney-General, were not un- 
 favourable to the negotiations : even the Regent, the 
 Due D 'Orleans, was not hostile. 
 
 Wake himself, with his natural and acquired habits 
 of caution, seems to have got nervous by the summer 
 of 1 718, and on 30th August we find him writing to 
 Beau voir : 
 
 " My task is pretty hard and I scarce know how to 
 manage in this matter. To go any further than I have 
 done, even as a Divine of the Church of England, may 
 meet with censure, and as Archbishop of Canterbury 
 I cannot treat with these gentlemen. This w^ only 
 expose me to the censure of doing what in my station 
 ought not to be done without the King's knowledge. 
 ... I cannot tell what to say to Dr. Du Pin. If he 
 thinks we are to take their direction what to retain 
 and what to give up, he is utterly mistaken ; . . . they 
 may depend upon it I shall always account our Church 
 
 ^ Biog, Brit; 40901 
 
1737] HIS VIEW ON REUNION 83 
 
 to stand upon an equal foot with theirs ; and that we 
 are no more to receive laws from them than to impose 
 any on them. In short, the Church of England is free, 
 is orthodox. She has a plenary authority within her- 
 self, and has no need to recur to any other Church to 
 direct her what to retain and what to do. If they 
 mean to deal with us they must lay down this for the 
 foundation, that we are to deal with one another on 
 equal terms." 
 
 Wake also wrote an important letter to Du Pin and 
 another to Girardin. These letters were in Latin : the 
 Archbishop seems to have thought the worthies of the 
 Sorbonne were lacking in information as to portions of 
 the English formularies, and he also felt safe in stirring 
 up their anti-papal ideas. 
 
 Of this letter to Du Pin he writes to Beauvoir : 
 
 " I have described the method of making bishops 
 in our Church. I believe he (Du Pin) will be equally 
 surprised and pleased with it. . . . The rest of my 
 letters both to him and to Dr. Piers (Girardin) is a 
 venture which I know not how they will take, to con- 
 vince them in breaking off from the Pope, and going 
 one step further than they have yet done in their 
 opinion of his authority, so as to leave him merely a 
 primacy of place and honour, and that merely by 
 ecclesiastical authority, as he was once bishop of the 
 Imperial City." 
 
 Wake's own view of a possible reunion and the 
 basis of it is well summed up in another letter of his 
 to Beauvoir : 
 
 " If we could once divide the Galilean Church from 
 the Roman, a reformation in other matters would 
 follow as a matter of course. The scheme that to me 
 seems most likely to prevail is to agree in the independ- 
 ence (in all matters of authority) of every National 
 Church on any others and their right to determine all 
 matters that arise within themselves ; and for points 
 of doctrine, to agree as far as possible in all articles of 
 any moment (as in effect we already do or easily may) : 
 and for other matters to allow a difference till God shall 
 
84 WILLIAM WAKE [1716^ 
 
 bring us to a union in these also. One only thing 
 sh* be provided tor to purge out of the public offices 
 of the Church such things as hinder a perfect com- 
 munion in the Service of the Church, so that whenever 
 any come from us to them or from them to us we may 
 all join together in prayers and the holy Sacraments 
 with each other." 
 
 Unfortunately for the projected union, when 
 Wake's letters reached Paris, Du Pin was dead. More- 
 over, by this time Rome was putting her foot down. 
 The Jesuits spread a report that Cardinal de Noailles 
 and the Jansenists were truckling to Heretics. De 
 Girardin was sent for to Court and, under threat from 
 the Ahh6 Du Bois of being lodged in the Bastille, had to 
 give up all Wake's letters and his own. Du Bois, who 
 wanted to curry favour enough at the Vatican to get a 
 Cardinal's hat, sent on the letters to the authorities 
 there, who sternly forbad any further negotiations. 
 
 Du Bois got his red hat, and Pope Clement xi., 
 having read Wake's letters, declared it was a pity the 
 author of such profound letters was not a member of 
 the Roman Church. And this was the end of the 
 negotiations. 
 
 But the interest of Galilean Divines in the Church of 
 England, and their esteem for and admiration of the 
 learning and wisdom of its then Primate did not drop 
 with the lapse of the reunion negotiations. Among 
 those who had been working with Du Pin and de Gir- 
 ardin was Dr. Peter Francis Courayer, a Benedictine 
 and Canon Regular and Principal Librarian of the 
 Cathedral Church of St. Genevieve at Paris. Courayer 's 
 attention had been specially drawn to the validity of 
 Anglican orders, or rather to the attacks on such validity 
 made by Romish controversialists. One Renaudot 
 had written against their validity a work which was 
 published posthumously, and to which Courayer con- 
 templated a reply. Having heard how gracious the 
 English archbishop had been to his friends at the 
 
1737] FRIENDSHIP WITH COURAYER 85 
 
 Sorbonne, Courayer on the 23rd July 1721 addressed a 
 Latin letter to Wake. The great object of his inquiries 
 was the consecration of Bishop Barlow of Nag's Head 
 fame. If the " actus " of this could be found all would 
 be well. It is not, says he in the Canterbury Registry, 
 " sed forte apud Ecclesiam aliquam e suffraganeis con- 
 secratus est Barlous et in tabulis hujus Ecclesiae Actus 
 occurret." Wake was no idler : the subject was 
 one he had studied and had near his heart. The 
 " actus " could not be found : but he sent the father a 
 Latin letter of no less than twelve sheets closely written 
 giving a satisfactory account of the certainty of Barlow's 
 consecration. The French father and the arch- 
 bishop became close friends and correspondents. In 
 the following six years Wake wrote to Courayer no less 
 than forty-five letters — many of them lengthy, learned, 
 and laborious. 
 
 The first Latin letter about Barlow was supple- 
 mented by an English one written in November 1 72 1 , 
 from which a good idea of how the archbishop dealt 
 with his correspondent may be gleaned. In it he says, 
 referring to a letter from Courayer : 
 
 " I have been ever since I received it taken up in 
 making new enquiries and further searches to satisfie 
 your new demands upon me. The time I have for 
 anything of this kind is so very little that I am forced 
 to go on slowly in these matters, and spend a week in 
 doing that which, were it not for my other engagements, 
 might be dispatched in a day. ... I cannot but look 
 on this whole controversy as a quarrell sought against 
 us by those of our own country who differ from us in 
 other matters. ... I am sorry to say our English 
 Priests have shewn themselves extremely faulty in the 
 management of this cause. ... I may venture to 
 affirm that the Episcopal succession has nowhere been 
 better preserved than in the Church of England, nor 
 do I believe any Church in the world can support it 
 with more ample or authentic Records than we have 
 done and can do." 
 
 i This is in spite of what Wake calls " several mis- 
 
86 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 fortunes in this particular." Mary, he suggests, had 
 tampered with " Acts " of Henry viii. and Edward vi. 
 In the Commonwealth " a new desolation " came upon 
 our public records. The archbishop's registers and 
 the records of Canterbury had suffered in the Fire of 
 London and another fire at Canterbury about 1690. He 
 then shows how he had searched about Barlow : 
 
 " Mr. S., Subdean of Exeter, is returned to my house : 
 he called at Wells in his return hither and made the best 
 enquiries he could about Bishop Barlow. His Register 
 was wholly destroyed in the ravage made of that church, 
 as I suppose in the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion : so 
 that there is no hope of anything from thence. I have 
 the like accounts from St. Asaph and St. David's. At 
 Chichester his register remains, but has nothing in it but 
 institutions to benefices and other the like Episcopal 
 Acts. He was buryed in his Cathedral at Chichester : 
 but no epitaph of him remains from whence to gather 
 any account of him." 
 
 Wake details further inquiries he had made of the 
 Dean of Durham, Mr. Str3'^pe, and the Bishop of Peter- 
 borough. Courayer had some idea of writing a new 
 History of the Reformation, and had asked for informa- 
 tion on other points affecting the English Church ; and 
 Wake winds up his letter by referring to Strype's then 
 recently published Ecclesiastical Memorials of Henry 
 VIII., Edward VI., and Mary, to his Annals of Elizabeth, 
 and Lives of Parker Grindaland Whitgift. 
 
 On 20th April (O.S.) 1722, Wake writes from 
 Lambeth : 
 
 " I am still of opinion that if God shd continue you in 
 life and health it wd be an usefull work out of the severall 
 histories that have been published of our Reformation to 
 draw up one Compleat History that might fully suffice 
 for all. . . .1 shall be glad to hear that the Codex of our 
 Ecclesiastical Laws which I took the liberty to send you 
 has come to your hands. You will see there the Con- 
 cordia Sacordotii et Imperii in our English Church, that 
 we are still under the same Canonical Discipline and Epis- 
 
1737] THE ANGLICAN SUCCESSION 87 
 
 copal Government we ever were ; and have done nothing 
 more than to lay aside such Canons and Constitutions as 
 we have found to be contrary to the Word of God, the laws 
 of the Realm, or the Prerogative of the Crown. The rest 
 even those that were used before the Reformation still 
 continuing in force with us. So that our succession is as 
 uninterrupted in the discipline of our Church as in that 
 of our Episcopacy, in which there never has been that we 
 know the least breach." 
 
 Wake's letters give a picture, and it is a pleasing 
 picture of himself. He writes again to Courayer on the 
 9th December 1 72 1 . After referring to the latter being 
 unable to get permission from the French Church 
 authorities to publish the book he had in hand, Wake 
 proceeds : 
 
 " I cannot but own myself somewhat scandalised at 
 this procedure. What are these men afraid of? Do 
 they apprehend that our Episcopal successions and con- 
 secrations should be made appear to be better founded 
 than they thought it had been ? But why shd they not 
 desire if possible to be convinced of this ? Why shd 
 they not wish us to be lesse irregular than they supposed 
 us to be ? ... God knows that we are as carefull 
 to continue the true succession of our Episcopacy and 
 value ourselves as much upon it as any in the Roman 
 Church. He knows that we have done it ; and to Him 
 we leave it to judge between us whether this stone of 
 offence shd not be removed and good men satisfied what 
 the true state of the matter is, and that there is no 
 obstacle on this account to our union if other points 
 could be adjusted. 
 
 " Our good friend the Abbe Girardin being still here 
 I have desired him to take care to get Mr. Strype's 
 Memoirs and Anthony Wood's Athence Oxon for you. 
 I cannot commend either of these as just histories to you, 
 but you will meet many things in both that are not easy 
 to be found elsewhere ; and must make your own use as 
 you have occasion of them. . . . While the Abb6 has had 
 the opportunity of seeing the confirmation of i bishop 
 and the consecration of 2 . When he returns he will give 
 you ^ full account of what he observed in both. 
 
 " I wish, my good father, I were more worthy of 
 
 7 
 
88 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 your good opinion than I fear I am. Report magnifies 
 men's characters at a distance : but few answer the ex- 
 pectations which from thence is raised from them. I 
 blesse God I know my own mediocrity ; and am not 
 exalted in any opinion of myself e. God has given me 
 an honest mind ; desirous to act with integrity in every- 
 thing, and having long conversed with men of all persua- 
 sions and found some to value in almost every way, I 
 have learnt not only to bear with those who differ from 
 me, but notwithstanding any such differences to love 
 them ; to think charitably of them, and to hope that a 
 God of infinite love ind goodnesse will pitty and accept 
 of us all. If in this I am mistaken I am sure I err on the 
 best side ; and as those thoughts shall never make me 
 either negligent in the search for what is agreeable to 
 God's will or prejudiced against it tho' never so contrary 
 to my present notion ; so I am persuaded that by keep- 
 ing up such a universal charity in my mind for those who 
 in the integrity of their hearts differ from me, I shall be 
 always the best prepared to submit to a reasonable con- 
 viction and to obtain God's pardon for any involuntary 
 errors I may after all happen to continue in. Cassander, 
 Erasmus, Grotius, and the like writers are, I freely own, 
 my great favourites : but as I deserve not to be compared 
 with them in anything but the like Christian and chari- 
 table dispositions, so neither wd I be thought so vain as 
 once to think myselfe (in learning or capacity) like to 
 them. My picture was some time ago finished at the 
 desire of some persons : the plate is entirely worn out 
 and the copies of it no longer to be had. I sent my last 
 by our Friend to you ; and have not one more for myselfe 
 or any other remaining. . . . 
 
 " I have added a very few strictures on the 2 sheets 
 sent me of your book, which I do, without compliment, 
 not so much approve as admire, when I consider it as the 
 work of a stranger to our Constitution. The error con- 
 cerning the restitution of temporalities only after con- 
 secration is what some of our best writers have run into. 
 The practice is no other at this time, nor I believe has 
 been in the memory of man. It is founded upon the 
 Statute law of this realm ; and I am confident you 
 might venture it without danger of being reproved for it. 
 But I wd not have Truth itself vindicated with that 
 which is not true, tho' I were sure it wd never be dis- 
 covered : and by comparing the dates of our bisTiops' 
 
1737] REFORMATION AUTHORITIES 89 
 
 consecrations as they stand in our Fasti published by Le 
 Neve, which I see you have with the writs in Rymer for 
 the restitution of temporalities, you will find many in- 
 stances of bishops who have had them by Grace from our 
 Princes before they were ever consecrated bishops." 
 
 In another letter, dated 29th October 1722, Wake 
 gives rather amusingly his opinion of the authorities 
 for a History of the Reformation : 
 
 " Strype is honest tho' not entertaining and always 
 writes upon good authority. Bishop Burnet's records 
 are faithfully collected and his History must be tryed by 
 them : Heylin is rash and often mistaken : Fuller not to 
 be relyed upon : Collier writes all for a party, but I have 
 not read enough of him to judge of his care." 
 
 We have given Wake's letters above because we 
 think a man is best portrayed historically in and by his 
 own words. Another letter from Croydon House, dated 
 9th July 1 724, gives Wake's views on points about which 
 Courayer had asked him and which are of public interest 
 at the present day. 
 
 After saying his eyes had been so indisposed with a 
 rheum that he could not for a long while read or write, he 
 says : 
 
 " The Licence granted by Archbishop Grindal's 
 Vicar-General to a Scot Presbyterian to officiate here in 
 England, I freely own it is not what I shd have approved 
 of, yet dare not condemn. I blesse God that I was born 
 and have been bred in an Episcopal Church ; which I am 
 convinced has been the Government established in the 
 Christian Church from the very time of the Apostles. 
 But I shd be unwilling to affirm that where the ministry 
 is not Episcopal there is no Church nor any true adminis- 
 tration of the Sacraments. And very many there are 
 among us who are zealous for Episcopacy, yet dare not go 
 so far as to annul the ordinances of God performed by 
 any other ministry. See for this in Bishop Andrew's 
 Opuscula his letters to Du Moulin. You will there find 
 one of the most tenacious asserters of the Episcopal 
 Government, nevertheless far from unchurching all the 
 other Reformed Churches for want of it . And in the case 
 
90 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 you mention who can say how far a Bishop may have 
 power to Ucence a person not rightljr ordained to officiate 
 in the Church committed to his jurisdiction. In the 
 meantime you know your Schoolmen have been far 
 from censuring Presbyterian ordinations; and yet their 
 opinions had no effect to prejudice the Episcopacy of 
 your Church in which they lived. And should I (errone- 
 ously) consider such an ordination in some circum- 
 stances valid, yet I do not see how thatwd affect my own 
 orders, which I must always prefer exceedingly before the 
 other. At present our constitution is otherwise settled ; 
 nor can any archbishop or bishop licence any man to 
 officiate or administer the holy Sacraments, especially 
 that of the Blessed Eucharist, who is not by an episcopal 
 ordination qualified for it." 
 
 Later on he answers Courayer's query about the 
 Sacrifice in the Eucharist : 
 
 " To your other point in your letter about the 
 Sacrifice of the Masse, I will in one word tell you what 
 I take to have been all along the sense of our Church 
 concerning it. We have from the beginning of the 
 Reformation utterly deny'd any such propitiatory 
 sacrifice as the Council of Trent establishes in it. For 
 what you call a commemorative or representative 
 sacrifice, tho' we think those terms very improper, we 
 have never that I know of made any other exception 
 against it ; and some of our writers have been over 
 zealous in their assertion of it. As to the change 
 made in our Communion office in the second book of 
 King Edward vi. from that of the first, I have two 
 observations to offer to your consideration with relation 
 to this point, (i) That Bucer, who was chiefly con- 
 sulted with by Cranmer with regard to those changes 
 in all his observations upon that first form of Edward vi., 
 nowhere that I remember makes any exception against 
 such a sacrifice as you mention or offers any change to 
 be made on that account. (See his Scripta Anglicana 
 fol.) The other observation I would make as to that 
 matter is, that in the year 1551 Cranmer published his 
 work against Bishop of Winchester upon the subject 
 of this holy Sacrament. His last part is entirely upon 
 the subject of the sacrifice. In this he fully rejects 
 and confutes the doctrine of a propitiatory sacrifice 
 
1737] RE-ORDINATION OF PRESBYTERIANS 91 
 
 in the Eucharist, but for the other he excepts not 
 either against the words or the thing. He allows of 
 Peter Lombard's explication of the Sacrifice there 
 ojRFered, which, if I remember aright, is much the same as 
 your letter expresses. Now the Common Prayer Book 
 of Edward vi. was at that very time under review. It 
 was published the next year, 1552. Cranmer had 
 the main hand in it ; and it is not likely that he had 
 any regard in the changes that were made to any 
 commemorative Sacrifice ; against which in his own 
 book, written about the same time upon that very 
 subject, he made no exception. 
 
 " These books I have in my Library at Lambeth, 
 and I hope you have them in yours. But as I am now 
 in the country and depend much upon my memory ; 
 so I flatter myselfe you will excuse me if I make any 
 mistake by trusting to it. As for myselfe I freely own 
 I have no notion of any real sacrifice that is only 
 commemorative. And for that reason do not concern 
 myselfe but for your satisfaction in that way of speak- 
 ing at all." 
 
 There is another letter of Wake's bearing on re- 
 ordination of Presbyterians. One Horner was a native 
 of Switzerland and had received Presbyterian orders 
 there. He acted in Paris as chaplain to Sir Luke 
 Schaub, with whom he came over to England. He 
 desired to qualify himself for clerical work in the British 
 Isles. Wake writes of him under date 14th January 1 722: 
 
 " I have ordained Mr. Horner both Deacon and 
 Priest and thereby received him into the ministry of 
 the Church of England. This is a work that gives the 
 most offence of any to the other Reformed Churches ; 
 but I must agree with you that I know no government 
 older than Calvin's time, but what was Episcopal in the 
 Church of Christ." 
 
 Courayer's great work, called A Dissertation on the 
 Validity of the Ordination of the English and of the Succes- 
 sion of the Bishops of the Anglican Church, was published 
 in 1723. A single quotation may be made from the 
 English translation of it : 
 
 " The validity of the English ordinations stands 
 
92 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 upon the strongest evidence, has the most authenticated 
 acts, the most express testimonies, the most uncon- 
 tested facts to oppose to fable and forgery, to mistaken 
 reasonings and unauthenticated deductions ; the 
 Roman custom of re-ordaining English priests ' is 
 contrary to all the received maxims of the Church in 
 the matter of re-ordination, and it is founded upon 
 opinions that are abandoned and upon doubts that 
 have no foundation.' " 
 
 But the task that Courayer was engaged on was doubt- 
 less known to the Roman authorities before 1723. He 
 knew he was in some peril, and his friend at Lambeth knew 
 it too, and was ready to give him asylum when needed. 
 
 On 19th May (O.S.) 1722, Wake writes : 
 
 " As for your public affairs, I trust in God that He 
 will not only defend the truth, but protect those He is 
 pleased to make use of in the defence of it. Shd the 
 case be otherwise, M. de G. (Giaradin) will tell you that 
 we are not here so narrow either in our charity or our 
 inclinations as not to know how to value such men 
 as you are, tho' they still continue to differ from us. 
 We hope, notwithstanding our differences, to be together 
 united in the glorious fellowship of the Church trium- 
 phant . Why may we not be as well united in the Church ? 
 A Catholic love and spirit may well consist with a 
 variety of judgment in respect to the doctrines of 
 Christ. In all essentials we are agreed. I am sure 
 Imd we liked at any time within the first five centuries, 
 the subscription of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan 
 Creed wd have entitled us to the common name and 
 title of Catholic Christians ; were it not for the love 
 of dominion of the Court of Rome the case might be the 
 same now. However, I will never reckon him estranged 
 from the Church of Christ here whom I hope and am 
 persuaded He will receive hereafter. My principles 
 are Catholic ; my heart is the same ; and my love and 
 prayers shall be so too. If I live, and any unhappy 
 accident drives any of you hither, I will endeavour to 
 shew you that I do not in vain pretend to this character. 
 I may err, but I will not be a heretic. I may, and do 
 separate from the Pope and his tyranny ; yet for all 
 that I neither am nor will be a schismatic. In this 
 
1737] COURAYER IN DANGER 93 
 
 disposition I live, and if in this disposition I die, I shall 
 not fear any anathemas from the Vatican fulminated 
 against me. To yourself e and all charitable and good 
 Christians I am and will ever professe myselfe, — A 
 faithful and loving friend and brother in Christ Jesus, 
 
 " W. Cantuar." 
 
 But by 1726 Courayer's position had become full 
 of risk, and Archbishop Wake writes to him on 1 2th Sep- 
 tember in that year a letter in which, after referring to a 
 report of the Father's papers having been seized, he says : 
 
 " I can hardly think the assembly of your Bishops 
 will venture for the sake of gratifying some men's 
 private resentments against you to determine a point 
 of so great moment as the doctrine of the Sacrifice, and 
 particularly to carry it to that extreme which you shew 
 your Church never yet to have defined and some of 
 your greatest Divines not to admit of." 
 
 He concludes his letter : 
 
 " My good Father, take all the care you can of 
 yourself e and your papers. Go on steadily in the course 
 you are in, God, I trust, will preserve you from the 
 hands of your enemies and make you a happy instru- 
 ment of bringing our two Churches somewhat nearer 
 to a Union than they have hitherto been. Should 
 your good endeavours herein expose you to any such 
 dangers as should oblige you even to leave your own 
 country, you may depend upon a safe and honourable 
 retreat here ; and that without changing your com- 
 munion or renouncing any principles which you think 
 to be true, tho' different from ours. . . . 
 
 " If you need any good offices in France, I have again 
 bespoke Mr. Robinson's kindnesse to you while he is 
 attending the Court at Fontainebleau. You may 
 safely apply to Mr. Tyrwhit, our Ambassador's chaplain, 
 whom Mr. Robinson entirely trusts and assures me you 
 and I may securely trust with any thing we desire to 
 have done by him. Farewell, my good friend, and 
 continue to love him who is with the truest esteem, 
 Reverend Father, your truly affectionate friend, 
 
 " W. Cant." 
 
 " Croydon, Sept. 21, (O.S.) 1726." 
 
94 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 In November and December of the same year there 
 are further letters repeating the offer of a refuge : 
 
 " If you are in danger you know where you may be 
 not only in safety but respected as you deserve. As to 
 what you propose in your letter, I cannot direct ypu 
 better than to take Mr. Robinson's advice and by him 
 Mr. Walpole's, whether you shd present your book (I 
 mean both this Defence, &c., and your former Disserta- 
 tion) to the King, Prince, and Princesse. If they think 
 it fit to be done you will pray Mr. Walpole's favour to 
 do it. He is coming speedily into England, and will be 
 your best friend at our Court should you have any 
 occasion for their favour. I would not have you by 
 any means suffer upon account of what you have written 
 in this controversie, and I hope you will not. If you 
 should, it is no harm to think beforehand whither to 
 retire for safety." 
 
 Wake seems to haVe offered to help Courayer's 
 publishing expenses. On 7th December he writes : 
 
 " I do not pretend to merit anything of you by my 
 offers of contributing towards any new corrections that 
 may be made in or additions to your books. ... I 
 hope you will meet with no occasion for either assist- 
 ance or protection, that you will continue free and un- 
 disturbed in your present retirement from the world. 
 But if it should be otherwise, and you shd be forced 
 under your doubtful circumstances to seek a refuge else- 
 where, it may not be altogether uselesse to you that you 
 know whither to go ; and enjoy both the liberty of 
 your conscience and a provision against the danger of 
 want in a strange country." 
 
 The Mr. Robinson referred to in the above letters 
 was afterwards Sir Thomas Robinson, whom Newcastle 
 made leader of the House of Commons in 1754. He was 
 a failure in that position, having been too long resident 
 as a diplomat abroad. He was made Lord Grantham 
 in 1760. He was at the time of these letters Secretary 
 to Horace Walpole. 
 
 Coura5'-er, though invited to find a home in England, 
 had expressed doubts whether it was a good country 
 
1737] AN AGED ARCHBISHOP 95 
 
 for a religious man to reside in. In his letter last quoted 
 the archbishop deals with this point, and also gives an 
 interesting picture of his own life : 
 
 " Your observation," says he to Courayer, " of our 
 country with respect to religion is but too true. Our 
 divisions are many ; and the liberty taken by men in 
 treating of matters of faith and doctrine is much beyond 
 what either our laws permit or it were to be wished our 
 government shd suffer. . . . All I can say is that no 
 care is wanting among our clergy to defend the Christian 
 Faith against all assaults, and that I believe no age or 
 nation has produced more or better writings against 
 Atheists, Deists, Socinians, Arians, and all other the 
 like libertines than our country has done and continues 
 daily to do. And for such as separate from the estab- 
 lished Church, I may boldly say nothing of argument 
 has been offered by them to justify their separation 
 that has not been often and fully answered by us. 
 This is all we can do : Iniquity in practice God knows 
 abounds too much among us, chiefly in the two extremes, 
 the highest and lowest ranks of men. The middle sort 
 are serious and religious. . . . For myself I live almost 
 a monastic life. I have a large and numerous family, 
 and I keep it under the best regulation I can. We have 
 the service of God within ourselves and that in public 
 in my Chappell and house four times a day. We live 
 orderly and peaceably together. And tho' the necessity 
 of business draws a great number of persons to me,5''et 
 I reduce even that as much as possible to certain times ; 
 and then eat openly with my friends two days in the 
 week. To the Court I seldome go, save when obliged to 
 attend my duty either in the public or cabinet Councills. 
 And when in parliament time I am rather faulty in not 
 going so often as I should to it than in attending con- 
 stantly upon it. So that I use my best endeavours to 
 live clear of the world and dye by degrees to it. My 
 age and infirmities (being now ready to enter on my 
 70th year) admonish me to look upon myselfe as a 
 citizen of another Countr}'- and ready to go from hence 
 to it. Your prayers for a happy passage to it will be a 
 seasonable and friendly help added to my own. In 
 return I shall not be wanting to wish you all happiness 
 in your longer pilgrimage upon earth. And tho' we go 
 by somewhat different paths, yet we do in effect 
 
96 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 pursue the same road, so I trust we shall meet again at 
 our journey's end." 
 
 Courayer was in high esteem with English divines, 
 and the University of Oxford conferred on him the 
 degree of D.C.L. in August 1727^ ; but the French 
 dignitaries were against him. Cardinal de Noailles was 
 no longer to be counted a friend of his cause. The 
 Bishop of Marseilles and other prelates were opposed 
 to him. So in 1728 he took refuge under Wake's wing 
 in England. He was kindly received, the Crown gave 
 him a pension. He died a Roman Catholic in 1776 at 
 the patriarchal age of ninety-five, and is buried in the 
 cloisters of Westminster Abbey. 
 
 The last letter in the correspondence gives us an 
 even later picture of the venerable Primate. Under 
 date 31st January 1727 he writes : 
 
 " I have been much out of order this winter in my 
 health and am now entered on the 70th year of my life, 
 and am by both admonished to think of my removall 
 to another and a better state." 
 
 He still hankers after a union of Churches and main- 
 tains his hostility to the Papal position : 
 
 " I heartily wish," he says, " for the Church's peace 
 to live in charity with all Catholic Christians ; and I 
 purpose by God's assistance in this disposition to die. 
 Would all men be as clear and candid in stating the 
 other matters in difference between us as you have been 
 in the Sacrifice and ordination, I believe We should soon 
 come to an agreement, or at least to a forbearance of 
 one another in love. But, alas, you have an obstacle 
 that till it be removed will frustrate all our good in- 
 tentions and desires. The Court of Rome can never 
 bear to depart from her dominion, and Christedome 
 can never be truly reformed while that exorbitant power 
 stands. ... I say no more. Let every one who reads 
 the Gospel of Christ and the History of Christianitie at its 
 first plantation and in its purest state, compare it with 
 the pomp and pride of that Court ; and say if they can 
 
 '■ Here's History of the Church of England, i. 340. 
 
1737] THE QUAKERS 97 
 
 that ever Christ appointed such a Vicar or St. Peter 
 ever dreamt of such a Successor." 
 
 As Visitor of All Souls, Oxford, Wake in 1721 made a 
 Decree establishing the absolute claim according to the 
 Founder's Statutes of the Founder's Kinsmen — though 
 related in the most remote degree — to be elected Fellows 
 of the College. Similar decrees were in fact made bj'^ 
 Wake's successors. Archbishops Potter, Herring, and 
 Seeker. 
 
 In 1 72 1 and 1722 the Episcopal Bench was well to 
 the fore in the Lords on a Bill which the Commons had 
 passed on the petition of the Quakers, asking for the 
 omission from the form of Affirmation allowed them by 
 law of the words " in the presence of Almighty God." 
 That petition set out in forcible terms the Quakers' 
 grievance that the words complained of had to them 
 the semblance of an oath which their principles would 
 not allow them to use, that by reason of their scruple 
 to use the existing Affirmation they had fallen under 
 great sufferings by imprisonment or loss of properties, 
 they not being able to answer in Courts of Equity, take 
 probates of wills, prove debts on commissions of bank- 
 ruptcy, verify their entries on the Leather or Candle 
 Acts, take up their freedom, be admitted to poll for their 
 freeholds, give evidence for others, nor to declare their 
 fidelity to the present Government . 
 
 The opposition so far as the bishops were concerned 
 in the Lords was led by Atterbury of Rochester, who 
 spoke of the Quakers as " a set of people who were 
 hardly Christians " ; and on 17th January, when the 
 House was going into Grand Committee on the Bill, 
 progress was delayed by a petition of the London Clergy 
 against the Bill. 
 
 The main grounds of the petition were danger to the 
 recovery of tithe by the clergy, the weakening of the 
 oath's sanctity, the wounding of " the minds of good 
 men," and the triumph of the enemies of Christianity 
 
98 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 at such "condescensions" by a Christian legislature 
 to those who, rejecting baptism, could not, according 
 to the uniform judgment and practice of the Catholic 
 Church, be deemed worthy of the sacred name of 
 Christian. This petition, as Townshend pointed out 
 in the debate, was presented by Dawes of York, the 
 stiffest of High Churchmen and supporter of the 
 Divine Right of Kings — not as apparently it should 
 have been by the Bishop of London or the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury. A spirited debate arose on the question 
 of receiving or rejecting the petition. Wake, as well as 
 Potter his successor, then Bishop of Oxford, voted for 
 its being received. But the Whig bishops were numer- 
 ous and opposed it, and in the end the petition was 
 rejected by sixtj'' to twenty-four. In Committee 
 Wake moved that the Quakers' affirmation might not 
 be admitted in Courts of judicature but among them- 
 selves — whatever this may have meant, — and the Arch- 
 bishop of York moved that the Quakers' affirmation 
 should not go in any suit at law for tithes ; but both 
 propositions were rejected by large majorities. Both 
 Wake and Potter voted against the Bill in its final 
 stage, but it passed into law. They, however, joined 
 in a protest against it. 
 
 In the course of 1722, Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, 
 was committed to the Tower for being mixed up in 
 a treasdnable correspondence with the Jacobites in 
 France, and a Bill of Pains and Penalties against him 
 passed the Commons. 
 
 Atterbury wrote to Wake complaining that he was 
 deprived of the consolations to be derived from the 
 religious ministrations to which he was accustomed.^ 
 
 " Tower, Sunday, January 13, 1723. 
 
 " My Lord, — In a little time after I was here 
 
 confin'd I apply'd for leave to go to the Tower Chappel, 
 
 but was deny'd it. I then desir'd yt ye Minister 01 ye 
 
 place might be allowd to give me ye Sacrament in 
 
 iWakeMSS, 1732. 
 
1737] IN THE TOWER 99 
 
 private. The Commanding Officer here comply 'd with 
 my Request, . . . but receiv'd a letter from ye Lieu- 
 tenant just as Mr. Hawkins was coming in to give me 
 ye Sacrt forbidding him to let me have it either in 
 public or private, and for this reason, Because I was not 
 so near death as to have any immediate need of it. I 
 am not sure of ye very words, but of ye sense I am." 
 He goes on to say that he has " since reed the Sacrament 
 privately, but has been refused leave to attend Church. 
 ... I do therefore," he goes on, " apply myself to 
 your Grace desiring that you wd please to interpose 
 in this matter ; and procure for me ye indulgences 
 I ask." 
 
 Wake preserved a much corrected draft of his 
 answer : 
 
 " I have the favour of your Lordship's letter and 
 will take the first opportunity to communicate the 
 contents of it to one of the Secretaries of State and be 
 yr advocate to the best of my skill to obtain wt you 
 desire. . . . Your Lordship may be assured I will not 
 be wanting in my sincere endeavours to procure the 
 liberty you desire and wch, unlesse by the folly of other 
 people, can, I think, give no offence to the Government. 
 
 "I am very glad to hear yr Lordship is able to 
 venture abroad this cold weather and heartily pray God 
 to establish yr Health, and with all true respect remain, — 
 My Lord, yr Lordship's verv affectionate Brother and 
 Servt." 
 
 The same day the Prime Minister, Townshend, writes, 
 making an appointment with the archbishop, on which 
 in Wake's hand is endosed the following : 
 
 " Memd, — On Wednesday I waited on my Lord 
 Townshend and met Lord Carteret there ; I did wt I 
 could for the Bp. of Roch. but was told this affair had 
 before been settled by his Maty. He was not allow'd 
 to go to the Chappell ; but was allow'd to have prayers 
 in his lodgings as often as he pleased ; and a con- 
 gregation to joyn with Him there on Sundays by the 
 Lt.'s order." 
 
 Wake does not seem to have taken part in the trial 
 
loo WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 of Atterbury in the House of Lords. He gets a full report 
 of what passed from one of his suffragans. 
 
 Bishop of Coventry to Wake : 
 
 " May 1723. 
 
 " Thursday and Friday were spent on ye Bp's 
 evidence. The letters in cypher were delivered to him 
 at his request, but after examining he alledged ye time 
 was too short, viz. 2 days, for his decyphers wt sense 
 they were to be taken in. The seal cutter Rawlinson 
 produc'd by Council for ye Bill was tryed for his skill 
 by others of ye same trade for ye Bp, and upon several 
 tryals by impressions of ye same and of different seals 
 made but one mistake. The Bp's Council sum'd up ye 
 evidence this morning, and then ye Bp made a very 
 moving speech 2 hours long baring 5 minutes. He 
 insisted much on his real and his legal innocency ; ex- 
 posed his sufferings, infirmities, age, &c. ; acquitted 
 himself of ambition, covetousness, and inclination to 
 meddle in business foreign to his function ; profest 
 his zeal for ye Protestant religion from first setting out 
 into ye world, and declares he was perhaps ye only Divine 
 of ye Church of Engl, that ever vindicated Mr. Luther 
 ye first reformer ; used ye words of father Paul ye 
 Venetian to go into voluntary banishment for ye quiet 
 of ye state ; and concluded with a solemn appeal to 
 God upon ye faith of a Christian yt he never dictated 
 nor was privy to any letter writ by Kelly, yt he never 
 writ nor was writ to by Ormond or Mar, yt he never 
 consulted or heard of any rising intended at either of 
 ye 3 times mentioned in ye Bill ; his last words were 
 that as he came naked into ye world he was content 
 to be sent naked into a strange country, yet had learnt 
 this lesson to say always, ' Blessed be ye Name of ye 
 Lord.' A proposal that Kelly shd be examined upon 
 oath touchmg ye Bp's dictating those 3 letters, was 
 carried by 80 to 40." 
 
 A serious point in the bishop's trial before the Lords 
 was whether certain letters put in by his accusers were 
 legal evidence against him and were sufficiently proved : 
 Cowper thought not. The bishops were divided. 
 Willis, then of Salisbury, afterwards of Winchester, was 
 on the side of Ministers and made a laboured speech 
 
1737] THE NEW TESTAMENT IN ARABIC loi 
 
 against his brother of Rochester. In the end the Bill 
 passed by 83 to 43. Atterbury was deprived of his 
 office and emoluments and rendered incapable of holding 
 office. He left England in 1723, a crowd " not more 
 than was expected," so writes Walpole to Townshend, 
 " attending him before his embarkation, and great 
 numbers of boats attending him to the ship's side." 
 He died in Paris in 1731, after eight j'^ears' exile spent 
 in furthering the designs of the Pretender. 
 
 Wake gave valuable assistance to a proposal for 
 translating the New Testament into Arabic. The 
 proposal was supported by Humphry Prideaux, Dean 
 of Norwich, and by the Society for Promoting Christian 
 Knowledge. Wake subscribed to the fund for carrying 
 out the proposal, and his friend. Lord Cowper, gave 
 twenty guineas to it. The Crown was applied to for a 
 grant. Lord Stanhope asked whether the archbishop 
 approved of the undertaking. The reply was that he 
 not only approved of it but was the principal promoter 
 of it. On the 22nd June 1726, Royal Letters Patent 
 were issued, granting £500 " without account as ' the 
 Royal ' Encouragement to the work performed or now 
 performing under the care of the Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge of printing the New Testament 
 in Arabick." 
 
 There was hardly a quarter of the globe in respect 
 of which Wake's assistance was not given towards 
 education, and particularly towards the establishment 
 of missions. He preserved among his MSS. numerous 
 papers relating to the Danish Missionaries at Tranque- 
 bar, in South India, which supply the clearest evidence 
 of his being a good friend to them and their work. 
 
 Wake had probably kindly feelings towards, though 
 he was not much brought into contact with, the Non- 
 jurors. We must remember that the Nonjurors had 
 from the first much dissension among themselves. 
 There was from the first a straitest sect of the Nonjurors 
 represented by Hickes, the deprived Dean of Worcester, 
 
I02 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 and Bishop Turner of Ely, and a militant section they 
 were too, who would have nothing to do with a Church or 
 with Churchmen who not only took oaths of allegiance to 
 usurpers, but acquiesced in filling the sees of bishops who 
 had been deprived for not taking such oaths. The 
 milder section, such as Ken, who in 1700 and 1710 advo- 
 cated a return to the Church, and Frampton, who at- 
 tended the services of his parish church, disapproved of 
 these things, but throughout maintained the position 
 that they were not worth creating a formal schism over ; 
 and when the last of the deprived bishops was dead, the 
 milder section was reinforced by men like Robert Nelson 
 and Henry Dodwell. The differences between the stal- 
 warts and the milder section of Nonjurors dealt not only 
 with outward ecclesiastical forms, but extended to 
 questions of Doctrine. 
 
 Ken was not in favour of keeping up a succession of 
 nonjuring bishops ; it looked, at any rate, too much like a 
 schism. But in 1694, Lloyd, White of Peterboro, and 
 Turner of Ely, three of the seven Nonjurors, consecrated 
 Hickes and Wagstaffe bishops. Wagstaffe died before 
 1 7 1 3 , and by then Lloyd , White , and Turner were all dead ; 
 so Hickes, stalwart of the stalwarts, got two of the 
 bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Campbell and 
 Gadderar, to join with him in consecrating Collier, Naw, 
 and Spinkes to be bishops in the nonjuring Church. 
 Hickes died a year or two afterwards. His mantle seems 
 to have fallen on Collier, a man of learning, and he with 
 Spinkes and Hawes consecrated as Bishops Gandy and 
 Brett. Brett was deeply read in liturgical and ecclesias- 
 tical subjects. He had taken the oaths to William and 
 Mary, but on the death of Anne felt no allegiance to the 
 Georges . 
 
 Shortly after this the dissension on doctrinal matters 
 became acute among the society. In 171 8, Collier and 
 Brett reprinted the Communion Office of Edward the 
 Sixth's first Prayer Book, and published a tract advo- 
 cating its use. In four points the tract put it forward 
 
1737] OBJECTIONS TO PRAYER BOOK 103 
 
 as more primitive than the English Prayer Book — the 
 mixing of water with the wine, the prayer for the Dead, 
 the prayer for the Descent of the Holy Ghost on the 
 elements, and the Oblatory Prayer. A Nonjuror, said to 
 have been Spinkes, who with Gandy, Taylor, and Bed- 
 ford were on the other side, published a reply deprecating 
 any change as likely to cause division, and not being 
 justified by the known facts. The mixing of water with 
 the wine, said they, is first mentioned in Justin Martyr, 
 one hundred and fifty years after Christ's Resurrection. 
 Intercessory prayer being so enjoined in Scripture, its 
 silence on prayer for the Dead is against the practice. 
 The prayer for the Descent of the Holy Ghost cannot be 
 traced higher than the middle of the third century. 
 With regard to the Oblatory Prayer, the author, holding 
 the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, nevertheless 
 holds it not to be necessary. It is perhaps not surprising 
 to hear that many of those who had been of the extreme 
 nonjuring section, about now became Romanists. 
 Collier's party, from holding to the usages of Edward the 
 Sixth's first Book, became known as the Usagers. 
 
 As far back as October 1 71 7, Gibson reports to Wake : 
 
 " I am inform 'd from a good hand of ye following 
 particulars which it seems proper that yr Grace shd be 
 acquainted with : ' That in two of the Jacobite Con- 
 venticles in Town they have restor'd ye first common 
 prayer book of Edward vi. in ye 4 places according to 
 Mr. Collier's proposal in ye late Pamphlet : That a young 
 man of his, my Friend's acquaintance, told him that him- 
 self and three other young men had for some time join'd 
 the Jacobite Conventicles, but that the three others were 
 actually gone over to the Papists and had press 'd him 
 earnestly to go over with them : That one of the Priests 
 declar'd lately that of a very great number of Penitents 
 which he had, one-fourth were such as had come over from 
 the Jacobite Protestants to the Church of Rome." 
 
 A little later the archbishop gets from his constant 
 correspondent. Sir Henry Wotton : 
 
 " I question not but your Grace has seen their new 
 8 
 
104 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 Communion Office which was drawn up by Mr. Collier. 
 The handle they have thereby given to their enemies is 
 exceeding great. To deny ye Sacrament to those who 
 will not go into their measures : to erect a new Church 
 among themselves : To frame 3 new offices of ye 
 Eucharist, of Confirmation, of Visitation and Communion 
 of ye Sick . . . is to me an amazing thing. Mr. Collier 
 treats Mr. Spinks very coarsly and the controversy is 
 very warm on both sides. Divide et impera, say I . Mr. 
 Sp. has the right side of this question." 
 
 It is necessary to note how far Wake was involved in 
 the negotiations which at first the Nonjurors generally, 
 and later the Collier section of them, opened, having for 
 their object union with the Eastern Church. For our 
 purpose it is sufficient to summarise shortly the course 
 of these negotiations. Arsenius, Archbishop of Theba, 
 being in London in 1716, Brett drew up a proposal for 
 union, or at least a concordat betwixt the Orthodox, and 
 Catholic remnant of the British Churches, and the 
 Catholic and Apostolic Oriental Church. Of the four 
 Eastern patriarchs who represented the latter Church in 
 the matter Jerusalem was to be acknowledged head, 
 Constantinople and Rome being placed on an equal 
 footing. The Czar, to whom the document or its pur- 
 port had been carried by Arsenius, was favourable to the 
 proposal and recommended it to the Patriarchs. Brett's 
 proposal after providing for the acknowledgment of the 
 Catholic remnant of the British Churches as part of the 
 Catholic Church in communion with the Apostles, with 
 the holy fathers of the Councils of Nice and Con- 
 stantinople, and with their successors, went on : The said 
 Catholic remnant shall " oblige themselves to revive " 
 what they long professed to wish for — the ancient godly 
 discipline of the Church — and which they have already 
 actually begun to restore. That, in order to a still 
 nearer union, be as near a conformity in worship estab- 
 lished as is consistent with the different circumstances 
 and customs of nations. 
 
 In their answer, dated 21st August 1 721, the Eastern 
 
1737] PROPOSED VISIT TO RUSSIA 105 
 
 patriarchs did not much like any preference being given 
 to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, they prefer the liturgy 
 of St. James to the English Liturgy, adhere to Tran- 
 substantiation and Images. The Nonjurors replied 
 they would have the first six general Councils next to 
 but not equal to the Holy Scripture. The seventh 
 Council of Nice, with invocation of angels and departed 
 saints and transubstantiation, they would not accept. 
 They still hope for a union liberty being accorded on 
 points of disagreement, the first four centuries, and not 
 the eighth, being taken as authoritative. 
 
 In 1722 the Czar wanted two of the Nonjurors to 
 come and confer at Moscow. But the Nonjurors were 
 poor, and the journey expensive. The friendly Czar 
 died : and so the matter dropped. Moreover, the 
 Jerusalem Patriarch somewhat indiscreetly sent copies 
 of Brett's proposal to Archbishop Wake. He did not 
 wish to expose the papers or to subject the Nonjurors 
 to ridicule and misrepresentation. So he adopted a 
 policy of masterly inactivity and did nothing. 
 
 Wake showed the same care in his visitations as 
 archbishop as he had shown in his episcopal visita- 
 tions. He framed in his own hand careful and detailed 
 dates of the matters to be dealt with, which begin with 
 these words : " It having pleased God to give me this 
 2nd (probably the last I shall ever have) opportunity 
 of visiting my diocese, I think it my duty to endeavour 
 to make the best use of it I can." 
 
 Wake seems to have taken no very prominent part 
 in the unhappy impeachment and conviction of Lord 
 Chancellor Parker, Earl of Macclesfield, in 1725. So 
 far as he intervened it seems to have been as one whose 
 desire to do justice was certainly tempered by kindli- 
 ness and mercy. A letter from the Chancellor's wife 
 to the archbishop looks like this. In it she says : 
 
 " s 1st May 1725. 
 " Lord Macclesfield has been inform 'd by very 
 good hands that something has been design 'd against 
 
io6 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 him this day in both Houses of Parliament ; what the 
 particular design is he does not know ; perhaps it may- 
 be a design immediately to vest his estate in Trustees 
 till the Fine is paid. If this should be the Design I 
 need not represent to your Grace the hardship of such 
 a proceeding, first to lay a man in prison till the Fine 
 is paid, and then, without giving him the least time to 
 raise the money, to seize his estate which will not be 
 sufficient to discharge the Fine and yet will put him 
 entirely out of a capacity to raise the money so that he 
 must be a Prisoner for life not to mention the detriment 
 it might be to me and my Family ; if -an estate and a 
 seat which was settled upon me upon my marriage shd 
 becommitted to the care of Trustees. . . . As, therefore, 
 your Grace has, my Lord, the great honour to plead in 
 his Favour, we hope you will be pleas 'd to come to the 
 House of Lords to-day, and oppose anything being laid 
 on him more severe than what he already suffers."^ 
 
 It is foreign to our purpose to discuss how far 
 Macclesfield deserved what he got — Lord Mahon 
 thinks he was a scapegoat for an iniquitous system ^ ; 
 Lord Campbell thinks his punishment just * ; bribes or 
 semi-bribes were not so studiously shunned then as by 
 English people now. Down to Lord Cowper's time the 
 Lord Chancellor used to get New Year's gifts amount- 
 ing to £2000 or £3000 from the Bar practising before 
 him and the officers of his court. There was un- 
 doubtedly great slackness in the practice of the Masters 
 in Chancery. Good judge as he had been, poor Maccles- 
 field never came back. 
 
 George i. was very fond of what were called mas- 
 querades. These were in fact masked balls. They 
 were frequented by rather loose sections of society, 
 and were thought by the stricter folk to encourage 
 immorality. The bishops were stirred to take some step 
 against this royal proclivity. Waddington, who had 
 just been promoted to the Bishopric of Chichester, on 
 
 > Wake MSS, 1725. 
 
 ^ History, ii. 106. 
 
 ' Lives of the Chancellors, iv. 536. 
 
1737] MASQUERADES 107 
 
 Sth December 1724, writes to Wake about a gathering 
 of prelates, where, says he, " every one of them exprest 
 a very hearty joy and satisfaction in yr Grace's readiness 
 to appear at the head of ye suffragan Bps in so good a 
 cause. London went so far, but wd not draw up repn 
 of case as a foundatn to debate upon when there shd 
 be a genl meetg, but wd attend genl meeting to con- 
 sider what was to be done." 
 Wake's own note is: 
 
 " This meeting was held accordingly : almost all 
 the Bps appeared and agreed to desire myselfe with 
 the Bps of London and Winchester to desire my Lord 
 Townshend in our names to request his Ma j tie to 
 forbid the Masquerades intended to be held the beginning 
 of ye year. Lord Townshend desired our memorial in 
 writing. We drew it up in the following form." 
 
 The address states that the masquerades having 
 given offence to serious and pious people, some of the 
 bishops thought that the archbishop should convene a 
 meeting of his suffragans to consider what should be 
 done. Accordingly sixteen bishops, "all promoted 
 by His Majtie and every one zealously affected to his 
 person and Government," met, but with the strictest 
 secrecy, at the House of Lords. It goes on to excuse his 
 Majesty for not realising " what offence " these assem- 
 blies " gave to good people in this countrie where they 
 had not been allow 'd of in any former reigne nor were at 
 all suitable to the Temper or Genius of this nation." 
 
 " We are far from supposing that all who go to 
 these assemblies have any wicked designs in it . We are 
 rather persuaded that many who allow themselves 
 this Libertie do it out of curiosity to see what is done 
 there ; or as thinking it to be an innocent diversion or 
 amusement, but fear at the same time that many who 
 have gone innocently thither have very much lost 
 ground in vertue there, and by seeing and hearing what 
 they cannot but see and hear in such places and in 
 such company may have had their passions raised, 
 those desires stirr'd up in them as without the par- 
 
io8 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 ticular grace of God and a present consideration and 
 care of themselves may be carried on to the utter mine 
 of their Innocence. ... 
 
 " 'Tis neither humour nor precisenesse nor a desire 
 to find fault with what is done or allow 'd by the Court nor 
 any other the like motive that influences us in this 
 affair. ... 
 
 " By suppressing these assemblies His Majtie will 
 do wht is not only pleasing to God but most agreeable 
 to the best and most serious part of his people." 
 
 Wake wrote the address himself — there are a very 
 few corrections in, I think, Gibson's hand. 
 
 Its effect is best told in Wake's own endorsement 
 on his draft of it : 
 
 " This Letter or Memorial being delivered by us to 
 my Lord Townshend, he promis'd to do his best with 
 the King to satisfie our desires. But what was done 
 by His Lordship I cannot tell : it appeared that no 
 regard was had to our advice and request." 
 
 Lord Mahon says that it was not until the earth- 
 quake at Lisbon in 1755 threw London into a panic, that 
 the masquerades were given up. 
 
 Wake was constant in his efforts to keep up a strict 
 standard in high ecclesiastical circles. We find the 
 Prime Minister writing to him on the 6th May 1 724 : 
 
 " I have acquainted the King with the conversation 
 I had with your Grace the other day. ... I have the 
 satisfaction of sending your Grace by his Majty's 
 command a copj'' of an order concerning the Disposal of 
 the Livings in the gift of the Crown. The King is 
 extremely pleased to find your Grace's thoughts concur 
 so entirely with his own." 
 
 The order is to be entered in the offices of the principal 
 Secretaries of State and copies sent to the bishops. On 
 the fly-leaf is Wake's draft of his answer. It will be 
 seen he brings up the residence of Cathedral Dignitaries : 
 
 " Everybody that wishes well to the Ch. of England 
 must be very much pleased with His Majtie 's order. . . . 
 
1737] BISHOP WILSON 109 
 
 I take the Liberty to enclose the paper wch my Lord 
 of London and I mentioned to your Lordship relating 
 to the residence of Dignitaries in their Cathedral and 
 Collegiate Chs. We are persuaded with such an order 
 and Declaration from His Majtie as is there proposed 
 would give great satisfaction to the Clergy in generall 
 and in particular to the members of those Bodies who 
 keep their residence as they ought to do." 
 
 One of the painful complications with which Wake 
 as archbishop was brought into contact was the dispute 
 between Thomas Wilson, the saintly Bishop of Sodor 
 and Man, and Lord Derby, the lord of the Isle of Man. 
 The bishop for an absurdly small stipend did much 
 good work in the island, assisting its material develop- 
 ment by cutting down forests and planting trees, 
 as well as ministering to the religious necessities of 
 the islanders. He claimed indeed and exercised the 
 right to administer spiritual penalties in a mediaeval 
 or pre-mediaeval way. For excommunicating and im- 
 prisoning an alleged adulteress he was fined j^io by the 
 civil authority, and though this fine was remitted he 
 was afterwards fined again and kept in prison in default 
 of payment. He appealed in 1722 to the Privy Council. 
 As bishop he was subject to the Archbishop of York 
 as his metropolitan, and many and urgent were the 
 appeals the northern archbishop Dawes made to his 
 brother at Canterbury for help to Bishop Wilson. 
 
 The dispute ran on for a long time : it was partly 
 patched up in 1719, and Wilson wrote to Wake in 
 November of that year: " On my return I shall dis- 
 charge my duty without failing in the respect which 
 I know to be due to the civil magistrate." 
 
 The archbishop writes in July 1722 as to the bishop's 
 appeal to the Privy Council : 
 
 " I have this day sent up to my Lord President a 
 Petn to the King in Council from the Bishop of Man 
 and his Vicars-General for relief from an unjust im- 
 prisonment which they now lie under from the Govern- 
 ment of the Island. ... I earnestly intreat your Grace 
 
no WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 to forward and support the good Bishop's Petition with 
 all >T might ; who I really think, as well as his Church, 
 is in a proper state of persecution." 
 
 And a fortnight later he writes again : 
 
 " I most humbly thank your Grace for attending the 
 Council in the good Bishop of Man's case : and am 
 abundantly satisfied that through your and my Lord 
 President's kind endeavours everything is done which 
 as yet can be legally done for his relief." 
 
 A year later on the i8th May 1723 there is another 
 urgent letter from ' W. Ebor ' to Wake : 
 
 " Understanding by the Bishop of Man that his 
 Cause is appointed to be heard before the Council on 
 the 22nd — I cannot forbear giving your Grace the 
 trouble of this earnestly to desire you to attend and to 
 use your utmost endeavours to procure that good 
 Bishop Justice and Peace and the Free exercise of his 
 Ecclesiastical authority over his Diocese." 
 
 He goes on to urge that several orders lately given 
 by the " Gov erne and subgoverne must be taken off 
 ye Records " or " branded with such a mark of Illegality 
 as may sufficiently testifie His Majestic 's and his 
 Council's disapprobation of and Displeasure against " 
 them. Provision too, he says, must be made to have ap- 
 peals to His Majesty and " not send parties aggriev'd " 
 to the Government for redress against his own officers. 
 
 It is not till 1 724 that there comes a note from the 
 Bishop of Sodor and Man of the actual trial : 
 
 " I had not an opportunity after the Council was 
 ended of giving your Grace my most humble thanks 
 for Presence there yesterday ; and take the Liberty 
 of doing it this way, and of most earnestly praying 
 your Grace will be pleas 'd if it be consistent with your 
 Grace's health and affairs to be at the Council to- 
 morrow when my adversarys will be sure to bring their 
 utmost power to hinder the execution of wt the Com- 
 mittee may think due to my sufferings." 
 
1737] WAKE AND FOREIGN MISSIONS iii 
 
 Wake's interest in Foreign Missions is attested by 
 his careful preservation among his MSS of papers of 
 every kind relating to the establishment of the Church 
 and the advancement of religion in different parts 
 of the world. His own views would incline him to 
 interest in Foreign Missions, and his duty as well as 
 his inclination made him specially attentive to the 
 needs of America and her Colonies. From his friend 
 and predecessor, Tenison, came a legacy to care for 
 the Church's children in " the Plantations " if not 
 for the heathen. One of Tenison's last acts as 
 Primate had been to put forth a letter, dated the 
 1 8th May 1714, to the Clergy of his Peculiars in 
 and about London, accompanied by a royal letter 
 craving aid for the Society for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel in Foreign Parts. On the 17th April 171 8, 
 George i. issued a royal letter which recited the 
 society's need of funds, especially the engagement the 
 society had entered into of maintaining a missionary 
 schoolmaster and interpreter among the Indians 
 bordering upon New York (which engagement alone 
 and the incidental charges would amount to near half 
 of the society's annual subscriptions), and provided 
 that publication be made thereof on the third Sunday 
 in Advent to be followed by a collection in the subse- 
 quent week. The royal letter was accompanied by a 
 letter from the archbishop, of which his own draft is 
 extant at Christ Church, dated the 20th November 
 1 71 8, from Lambeth. 
 
 In 1 72 1 South Carolina sent two representatives to 
 England with letters to the archbishop, in which they 
 state that though they have " many more difificultys to 
 struggle with " than any of the neighbouring Colonys, 
 yet . . . they are " building a church superior to any 
 yet built in America." They solicit from His Majesty 
 "a Sett of Plate and an altarpiece for the same," and 
 beg Wake to help them to " obtain that Donation." 
 
 On 17th January 1723-4, Wake gets an appeal from 
 
112 WILLIAM WAKE [1716- 
 
 Johnson, the only clergyman of the Established Church 
 in the whole Colony of Connecticut. It says : 
 
 " There are a considerable number, 5 or 6 I am sure, 
 very promising young gentlemen who — being very 
 fitted ' for want of episcopal ordination ' — decline 
 the Ministry . . . being, partly from themselves and 
 partly through the Influence of their Friends, loth 
 to expose themselves to the Danger of the Seas and 
 Distempers from Mr. Browne's case has been very terri- 
 fying. So that the fountain of our misery is the want 
 of a Bishop for whom there are many thousands of 
 souls in this country do long and pray. 
 
 " Stratford in New England, 
 Jan. 17, 1723-4." 
 
 But America had no monopoly of the archiepiscopal 
 solicitude. At Tranquebar in India were established a 
 band of Royal Danish Evangelical Missionaries. In 
 the winter of 171 8 comes a long Latin letter from 
 them to Wake, detailing their difficulties— from illness, 
 lack of means, want of buildings, etc. Even for them, 
 Wake gets a royal letter of sympathy, and to arouse 
 the sympathy of Churchmen at home ; and is, of course, 
 not wanting in help as well as sympathy from himself. 
 
 Wake's aid to religious communities all over the 
 world went far beyond what he could officially be 
 expected to do. He corresponded with the celebrated 
 Jablowsky ; with the King of Prussia and his advisors, 
 the project of a union among the Reformed Churches 
 had careful consideration. A striking monument to his 
 indefatigable industry, as well as to his excellent 
 linguistic attainments, is the folio volume among the 
 Wake MSS containing his letters from foreign corre- 
 spondents — about half in French and half in Latin, 
 each letter followed by the draft of the answer sent to 
 it in Wake's own handwriting. No draft could show 
 signs of having been the subject of more careful revision 
 than these draft replies, always in the language of the 
 letter which they answered. 
 
1737] DEATH OF WAKE 113 
 
 For the last five or six years of his Hfe, Wake was 
 prevented by the infirmities of age and bad health 
 from attending to business. The Wake MSS at Christ- 
 church — so stupendous a monument to his industry 
 and ability — stop in 1728 or 1729 : one of the latest 
 in date is : 
 
 " The Forme and maner of makyng and conse- 
 cratyng of ArcheBishoppes, Bishoppes, Priestes, and 
 Deacons, a.d. 1549," in the handwriting of Archbishop 
 Wake. 
 
 At the end : 
 
 " This book was transcribed by me with my own 
 hand from the printed copy of it in Lambeth Library 
 in 4to ; being the only copy I ever saw of it. The 
 pages exactly answer one another, and I have generally 
 followed the very spelling of the print. So that it is 
 in all respects an exact copy of it. 
 
 " W. Cant." 
 
 " May loth, 1727, Lambeth House." 
 
 His most carefullj' recorded entries stop about this 
 time or but little later. 
 
 The archbishop's copy of the Ordination Service 
 has at the beginning a list of all persons ordained by 
 him from 23rd December 1705 to 25th September 1726, 
 and a list of all bishops consecrated from i6th January 
 1715 (? 1716), when he became archbishop, to a.d. 1728. 
 At the end of the book is a list of persons preferred 
 by the archbishop from 1705 to 1728 — all in the arch- 
 bishop's handwriting. 
 
 Wake died at Lambeth on the 24th January 1737. 
 He was buried " in a private manner " at Croydon. 
 
 His wife died before him in 1730. 
 
 Wake is said to have spent nearly £1 1,000 in repairs 
 to the palaces at Lambeth and Croydon. A dozen 
 years or more before his death, the Bishop of Worcester 
 writes to him : 
 
 " I perceive you have been at vast expense in yr 2 
 Houses ; 'tis extremely visible at Lambeth, and Dr, 
 
114 WILLIAM WAKE [1716-1737 
 
 Byrche tells me (if possible) more so at Croydon, and 
 your Grace builds strong and they will stand to do 
 Honour to your memory in after ages." 
 
 A new vicarage house at Croydon is said to have 
 cost him £700. He is said to have been liberal in his 
 hospitalities at Lambeth and Croydon ; " constant 
 charities were reached out to the unfortunate and 
 distressed, a great number of the poor inhabitants were 
 clothed and fed, and liberal alms conveyed to the 
 necessitous and modest poor." 
 
 Wake left no son. His six daughters were all 
 married, the five eldest to laymen in the position of 
 country squires, and the youngest to Dr. John Lynch, 
 Dean of Canterbury. 
 
 By his will he left his books and MSS with a curious 
 collection of coins, the whole valued at £10,000, to his 
 old college, Christ Church, Oxford. His sermons and 
 charges were published in three volumes. 
 
JOHN POTTER 
 
 1 737-1 747 
 
 John Potter was born at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, 
 about theyear 1674. Hewould thus be a boy of fourteen 
 at the time of the flight of James 11. and the Revolution. 
 He was the son of Mr. Thomas Potter, a linen draper 
 of Wakefield. He is therefore another instance — 
 occurring in an epoch unpropitious for the develop- 
 ment of humble talent — of the fact that in all ages in 
 England men have been able to rise from low social 
 level to wealth and the highest offices in the State. 
 He was educated at Wakefield School — an institution 
 whose alumni include also the great scholars Bentley, 
 Bingham, and Dr. Radcliffe, founder of the Radclifife 
 Library at Oxford. Potter early showed himself both 
 industrious and clever. His progress in his studies, 
 especially in Greek, was remarkable. Indeed there is 
 more than legend that he was abnormally precocious . In 
 1842 a Northamptonshire yeoman churchwarden of his 
 parish went to his rector and said that there had descended 
 to an ancestor of his a picture, which family tradition 
 said was the likeness of a very clever little boy, the son 
 of a linen draper at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, who could 
 read the Greek Testament at 6, and had read it up to 
 the place marked in the book he holds in his hand, 
 and who afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 In the picture the boy had his hand on a book, and a 
 scroll records, cetatis suce vi, anno 1679. The picture 
 was presented to Archbishop Howley and brought by 
 him to Lambeth. The boy's face is described as being 
 full of intelligence. Unwonted precocity was always 
 
 "S 
 
1 16 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 ascribed to Potter, and as the other points in the tradi- 
 tion agree with Potter, it was preserved at Lambeth 
 as representing the archbishop when a boy. The 
 universities as late as the seventeenth century received 
 their students young ; and, when he was only fourteen, 
 the young Yorkshireman found his way to Oxford. 
 University College had then the good fortune — 
 which it has so often since enjoyed — of having for its 
 master Dr. Arthur Chaslett, an able scholar, and one 
 who patronised learning and scholarship, especially when 
 displayed in the youthful members of his College. We 
 have already come across him as a friend of Wake, who 
 urged on him the acceptance of the see of Lincoln. 
 
 In 1688, Potter entered as a Batteler at University 
 College, and in 1693 he took his B.A. degree. By this 
 time the master had formed a high opinion of his 
 scholarship and of his general promise, and in the follow- 
 ing year the youthful editor, he being only nineteen, 
 published at the University Press, by the advice and 
 at the expense of the master of his college, an edition 
 with various readings and notes of Plutarch's treatise 
 on the study of poetry, De audiendis Poetis, and of the 
 oration of Basil the Great on Greek studies, De Legendis 
 Grcecorum Libris. So highly thought the Master of 
 University of young Potter's production that he pre- 
 sented copies of it as New- Year gifts to the young 
 students of his house. In the year following, 1695, he 
 was chosen Fellow of Lincoln, and took his M.A. degree 
 on 1 6th October in the same year. He employed him- 
 self in taking pupils, and shortly after took holy orders. 
 Greek had always been the future archbishop's strong 
 point and his favourite study, and, aiming at the highest, 
 he had, even before publishing his edition of Plutarch 
 and Basil, begun an edition of Lycophron, the most 
 obscure of all the Greek authors, as he is quaintly 
 called, " the tenebrous poet " ; but difficulties occurred, 
 and the completion of this difficult work had to be put 
 off. In 1697 a very beautiful folio edition of Lycophron 
 
1747] CLASSICAL LABOURS 117 
 
 was put forth by Potter at the University Press. At 
 this time one of the first, if not the first, of European 
 classical scholars was Groevius, the Professor of Elo- 
 quence and History in the University of Utrecht. He 
 had published several editions of Greek and Roman 
 authors with notes and prefaces, and the young Fellow 
 of Lincoln, who had had the privilege of corresponding 
 with the great scholar, five years later, in 1702, repub- 
 lished Lycophron with a Dedication to Groevius. We 
 are told that he had intended Nicander's Theriaca and 
 Alexipharmaca, with the Greek Scholia on both poems 
 and his own annatations, to accompany Lycophron ; 
 but Potter was already a busy man, and his numerous 
 avocations prevented his accomplishing this plan. 
 Lycophron 's poem presented great opportunities for 
 a laborious and learned scholar. It consists of a long 
 course of predictions supposed to be uttered by Cassan- 
 dra, daughter of Priam, King of Troy, standing on a 
 mountain near the city, just as the ships of Paris are 
 about to set sail for Sparta. We are told that Potter 
 " illustrated the prophetic forebodings, mythological 
 obscurities, and historical allusions " ; there had been 
 an edition of Tzetzes, the Greek Scholiast, in 1542, and 
 a translation of Scaliger in 1584, and from these Potter 
 gave copious extracts. Lycophron, from his obscurity, 
 seems to have had attractions for young scholars. 
 Canter published a commentary in 1566 at the age of 
 twenty -f o ur ; Meursuis at Leyden in 1597 when only 
 eighteen ; Potter, who was twenty-two when his work 
 came out, quoted freely from these predecessors of his, 
 besides adding his own annotations. 
 
 Before 1702, however, Potter had given to the world 
 the results of his labours in a wider classical field. In 
 1697 he published the first volume of his Archceologia 
 Grceca, or The Antiquities of Greece, and in the year 
 following the second volume. This is a very learned 
 and elaborate work on the customs, laws, and religion 
 of ancient Greece. A Latin translation was almost at 
 
ri8 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 once undertaken at Ley den, and in 1702 was published 
 under Potter's own inspection with elaborate illustra- 
 tions and every typographical advantage known to 
 the day. The work was dedicated to Harley, then 
 Speaker to the House of Commons — afterwards with 
 Bolingbroke, leader of the Tory party — promoter of the 
 Acts to punish occasional conformity, and founder of 
 the Harleian Library, and finally Earl of Oxford. The 
 language of the address is, after the style of dedicators 
 to our notions, fulsome — attributing to Harley the 
 highest place, not only among Greek and Latin, but 
 among Hebrew, scholars, and says no one could equal 
 him in theology, criticism, or classical knowledge ! 
 The work remained a standard work for many 
 generations and went through several editions. It 
 undoubtedly established Potter's position as in the 
 front rank of classical scholars, and involved him in 
 correspondence with learned scholars abroad. 
 
 We are now to find Potter moving forward in his 
 own calling of a divine. He took his B.D. in Juty 1704. 
 He had attracted the notice of Archbishop Tenison. 
 In 1704, Tenison appointed Potter one of his chaplains, 
 and he thereupon moved from Oxford to reside with 
 the archbishop at Lambeth. Later on the families of 
 the archbishop and his chaplain became associated 
 by marriage, — Potter's eldest daughter marrying 
 Tenison 's great-nephew ; but the lady died in giving 
 birth to her first child in 1730. 
 
 Potter became D.D. in April 1706, and soon 
 after was appointed Chaplain,-in-Ordinary to Queen 
 Anne. 
 
 There is no record of Potter taking any part in the 
 momentous discussions over the Union of England and 
 Scotland, which was accomplished the year after his 
 appointment as Royal Chaplain. Living in the Prim- 
 ate's palace at Lambeth, he could not fail to follow 
 them with interest, his chief having been one of the 
 English Commissioners appointed to discuss with the 
 
1747] CHURCH GOVERNMENT 119 
 
 Scottish Commissioners 1 the terms of the Treaty, and 
 bringing into the Lords a provision for the security 
 of the Church of England to be inserted as a funda- 
 mental part of that Treaty. 
 
 Potter now turned his studies in an ecclesiastical 
 and theological direction. He had from boyhood been 
 a student, and a very diligent student. We cannot 
 doubt that in the years since his ordination, if not 
 before, he had studied deeply the Fathers and early 
 divines. In 1707 he published in 8vo his Discourse on 
 Church Government. The work is a learned one, which 
 remained for a century or more a standard work among 
 English theologians. Potter in it takes up and defends 
 the Church position and the institution of the three 
 orders of bishops, priests, and deacons as of Divine 
 origin. He explains away St. Jerome's theory of the 
 original equality of the three orders as presbyters, and 
 the subsequent promotion, in the interests of Church 
 order and discipline, of one presbyter to authority over 
 the others with the name of bishop. Jerome had 
 based his theory on the indiscriminate use of bishop 
 and presbyter in the New Testament. Potter remarks 
 that this had been noticed by Chrysostom, Theodore, 
 and other ancient Fathers, without any such inference 
 being drawn from it, a disparity of order being on the 
 contrary affirmed. He reasons that Jerome having 
 put presbyters on a level with the apostles, it is not 
 strange he should equal them with bishops. He also 
 relies on the absence of any account of any presbyter 
 taking ill the promotion of one of his brethren to sup- 
 remacy, and attributes Jerome's theory to a jealousy 
 on his part of the order of deacons, some of whom 
 claimed privileges superior to those of the presbyters, 
 and to Jerome having as a presbyter magnified his 
 order to equality with the bishops that he might the 
 better raise it " beyond the competition of the deacons." 
 His view of the Fathers, especially of the first three 
 
 1 Smollett's History, ii. 107. 
 
 9 
 
I20 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 ceuturies,is that they are " the best interpreters of the 
 Scriptures." He quaintly says : " If any of them be 
 thought to speak sometimes with less caution or to 
 carry their expression higher than might have been 
 wished, as the best men in the heat of disputation or 
 through too much zeal often do, all candid and impartial 
 readers will easily be persuaded to make a just allow- 
 ance for it." 
 
 In 1708, Potter was appointed to succeed Dr. Jane 
 as Regius Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ 
 Church, which brought him back to the University. 
 Jane had been a strong High Churchman and Tory, 
 Twenty years before, when William iii. was trying to 
 carry through a scheme for comprehension, and had 
 appointed a Royal Commission to prepare matters for 
 the consideration of Convocation with a view to revise 
 the Liturgy and make Canons, there had been keen 
 opposition between the Upper and Lower Houses of 
 Convocation over the royal proposals, and there had 
 also been a battle royal in 1689 over the election of a 
 Prolocutor, when Jane had been the champion of 
 the party of conservatism against Tillotson. Jane 
 had had as his assistant in the Professorship Dr. 
 Smalridge, a man like-minded with himself, who 
 had discharged his duties as deputy well. The 
 Queen herself was much perplexed who should have 
 the Professorship, and among those nearest to the 
 throne there was the strongest divergence of opinion 
 on the point. Two parties were just now, in fact, 
 struggling for the first place in Anne's affections. The 
 Tory, Harley , was a rival to Godolphin and Marlborough, 
 and Abigail Hill, afterwards Mrs. Masham, Harley 's 
 cousin, a soothing, placid character, was supplanting 
 the long omnipotent Duchess Sarah. " It was on 
 Church matters " {Reign of Queen Anne, 315), says Lord 
 Stanhope, " above all that Godolphin and the Marl- 
 boroughs, Duke and Duchess, mistrusted the insinua- 
 tions of Harley." " Her Majesty," he says later, " re- 
 
1747] QUEEN ANNE'S BISHOPS 121 
 
 garded some of her Ministers as latitudinarian and 
 rather inclined to the Tories, whom, according to the 
 Duchess of Marlborough herself, she usually called by 
 the agreeable name of the Church party." 
 
 Marlborough pressed that Potter should be made 
 Regius Professor, and for some weeks the matter was 
 in suspense. Potter was a Whig and a supporter of 
 William iii. and the Protestant succession. How, said 
 or thought Anne, was this consistent with the sound 
 Church views he was said to possess? Lord Stanhope 
 says that she would greatly have preferred Smalridge. 
 But she quailed before what Lord Stanhope sarcasti- 
 cally calls Marlborough's "portentous threat": "If 
 Dr. Potter has not the Professor's place, I will never 
 more meddle with anything that may concern 
 Oxford." 
 
 At nearly the same time Anne, without consulting 
 any of her Ministers, bestowed the sees of Chester and 
 Exeter on Sir William Dawes and Dr. Blackball, who, 
 though men of unblemished characters, were Tories, — 
 Divine-right men, and as such had openly condemned 
 the Revolution. So strong a step had to be neutralised 
 a little, and thus Potter, and not Smalridge, got the 
 Regius Professorship. 
 
 Godolphin and the Marlboroughs were, however, 
 much upset at Blackball and Dawes' promotion : 
 Harley was at the bottom of it, they were sure, and the 
 Queen had to clear herself. She writes to Marlborough, 
 who was abroad : "I believe you have been told, as I 
 have, that these two persons were recommended to me 
 by Mr. Harley, which is so far from being true that he 
 knew nothing of it till it was the talk of the town. I do 
 assure you these men were my own choice. They are 
 certainly very fit for the station I design ; and, indeed, 
 I think myself obliged to fill the Bishops' Bench with 
 those that will be a credit to it and to the Church, and 
 not always to take the recommendations of the Whig 
 Government." 
 
122 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 ' But the Whigs were, as Lord Stanhope says, only 
 half appeased, and to quiet them Anne made Trimnell, 
 a thorough Whig and a former tutor of Sunderland, 
 Bishop of Norwich. Smalridge was Dean of Christ 
 Church, and, it is interesting to note, was made Bishop 
 of Bristol in 1714, holding his bishopric, which was a 
 poor one, with his deanery. He was for many years a 
 leader of Oxford Toryism, and so stuck to his principles 
 that, in 1 716, when George i. came back from his first 
 visit to Hanover, he opposed an address of welcome 
 to the King on the ground, among others, that there 
 would be no end of addresses should one be presented 
 every time His Majesty returned from Germany ! 
 He and Atterbury were, as we have said, the only 
 bishops who refused to sign the Archbishops' Declara- 
 tion against the Pretender and in favour of the 
 Hanoverian Dynasty in 171 5. 
 
 Shortly afterwards. Potter married, and had by 
 his wife a numerous family, of some of whom par- 
 ticulars are given below. His wife is said by Wood, 
 the Oxford antiquary, in his Athence, to have been a 
 granddaughter of Thomas Venner, the fifth monarchy 
 man. 
 
 1709 saw the trial of Sacheverell with its immense 
 popular excitement, and in this and the following years 
 the popularity of the Church was at its height in the 
 House of Commons and in the country. 171 3 saw the 
 devotion of the coal duties to the building of fifty new 
 churches in London and Westminster. 1714 saw the 
 triumph of Atterbury and Bolingbroke in the passing 
 of the Schism Act, which forbade a Nonconformist to 
 keep a school without a licence from the bishop, and 
 which was repealed early in George the First's reign 
 without its provisions ever having been put into opera- 
 tion .^ 
 
 In 1715 Potter completed and published in two 
 volumes an edition of the works of St. Clement of 
 
 1 Perry, ii. 285. 
 
1747] BISHOP TALBOT 123 
 
 Alexandria. This, again, is a work of learning embody- 
 ing the corrections of Sylburgius in 1592, and Heinsius 
 in 1616. 
 
 Burnet, the celebrated Bishop of Salisbury, died on 
 the 17th March 1715. There seems to have been a 
 little dispute among the dispensers of patronage who 
 should succeed him at Salisbury. The day following 
 Burnet's death, the Lord Chancellor writes to 
 Wake: 
 
 " Hearing by accident yesterday very early the 
 death of the late Bishop of Sarum, and not knowing 
 your Lordship's thoughts concerning that Bishoprick, 
 I immediately did what I could to help the Bishop of 
 Oxford to it, knowing he had lately been under some 
 disappointment ; and yesterday about one o'clock in 
 the House of Lords I was told from a good hand that 
 ye King had given it to the Bishop of Oxford, and the 
 Bishoprick of Oxford to Dr. Potter. This pleased me 
 till I had the honour of yr Lordship's, which hath made 
 me dissatisfied yt my little endeavours were not bound 
 ye way most agreeable to you . I yet hope for another 
 opportunity of repairing this misfortune, being, with 
 perfect sincerity, my Lord, 
 
 yr Lordship's most faithfull 
 
 humble servant, 
 
 COWPER C. 
 
 " I will not be sure that the E. of N.'s endeavours, wh 
 I hear are very pressing, may not make some alteratn 
 in this disposition." 
 
 The Bishop of Oxford here alluded to was William 
 Talbot. He was related to Lord Shrewsbury, and this 
 fact hastened his promotion. He had preached the 
 sermon at George the First's Coronation, and had made 
 a telling speech in Ministers' favour in 1707 on the 
 Union with Scotland Bill. He was the father of Lord 
 Chancellor Talbot. He is reviled in some quarters 
 for his friendliness to Clarke, who, though accused of 
 Arian views, was a man of high character, and Rundle, 
 
124 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 a liberal theologian afterwards Bishop of Derry. We 
 shall tell in our Life of Archbishop Seeker how, through 
 his second son, Talbot became the patron and friend 
 of the great Butler as well as of Seeker and Benson, 
 Bishop of Gloucester, three of the best bishops of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 So Talbot went to Salisbury, and Potter was raised 
 to the Episcopate. The Marlborough interest, weakened 
 from what it had been, was still on his side, and his 
 Whiggism, High Churchman though he was, was beyond 
 question. 
 
 He retained his Regius Professorship, and, we are 
 told, filled both his important stations with great 
 reputation, seldom failing to preside in person over 
 the disputations in the schools, and regularly holding 
 his triennial visitations in St. Mary's Church, where 
 his charges were " forcible and adapted to the circum- 
 stances of the times." 
 
 For some years at this period of his life Potter 
 suffered from a severe affection of the eyes. There 
 were printer's errors in his edition of Clement which were 
 excused on the ground that he had from the state of 
 his eyes to entrust the correction of the proofs to other 
 hands, and in his letter from Cuddesden to Wake in 
 1 71 7 we shall see that he refers to his dependence on 
 other men's eyes. 
 
 Not unnaturally Potter was a frequent preacher at 
 Court now. He was apparently notified by the arch- 
 bishop or his official that he had been put in the list 
 of royal or Whitehall preachers, but he writes, to beg 
 off, from Cuddesden, a letter dated 20th December 1716 : 
 
 " This afternoon I receiv'd the honour of yr Grace's 
 letter. I would not omit this first opportunity of 
 troubling your Grace with my answer tho' I am at 
 present sick of a feyour . My wife expects to be brought 
 to bed some time in January, on which account I am 
 in hopes His Majesty will be pleas'd to excuse my 
 attendance till the middle or later end of February, and 
 
1747] CORRESPONDENCE WITH WAKE 125 
 
 I have some time since desir'd the Bishop of St. Asaph 
 to take my proxy. Here in the country I have rather 
 more company and rather less leisure than at Oxford : 
 beside that one who hath lectures to compose for every 
 term, to say nothing of other business, cannot be sup- 
 pos'd to have much time to spare. But as there are, 
 beside several of my senior Bishops, two of the juniors 
 now in town, who never appear 'd on this occasion, and 
 having for many years been constant Preachers cannot 
 be unprovided, I hope yr Grace will not be under the 
 least difficulty."! 
 
 The next year he is more easily induced to come to 
 his Parliamentary duties. His eyes were still bad : he 
 writes to Wake : 
 
 " The state of my own health and that also of my 
 family hath of late been such as would rather have 
 inclined me to continue some time longer in the country, 
 but the notice which your Grace was pleas 'd to send by 
 Dr. Castro, and the letter which I had the honour to 
 receive from you by the last post, having determin'd me 
 otherwise, I have this day sent to a friend in London to 
 take a house for me as soon as possible. Just before 
 the Session of Parliament began the Bp. of Norwich sent 
 me the form of a Proxy desiring me to sign it, which 
 accordingly was done ; but if any urgent occasion should 
 happen, I could go to London from this place in a day's 
 time . 
 
 " CuDDESDEN, igth MttTch 1716." 
 
 Potter was on good terms with Archbishop Wake, 
 and there are in the Wake MSS many letters from 
 Potter to the Primate. Potter's attitude throughout 
 the correspondence is one of respectful submission to 
 his ecclesiastical chief. Wake was the bigger man of 
 the two, but in their opinions on Church matters they 
 were not widely separated from each other. Both 
 were mild Whigs, with a Whiggism not increasing with 
 advancing years. Both were scholars and would-be 
 students. One letter in particular from Potter to Wake, 
 dated the i8th September 171 7, and written from 
 
 iWakeMSS, 1716. 
 
126 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 Cuddesden, gives us an insight into the type of mind 
 that Potter had, learned, scholarly, believing in a 
 scholar's methods, fully trusting that men would be 
 swayed by arguments rather than by emotion or 
 feeling. We can understand how such qualities might 
 in a man raised to the Primacy give rise to the charge 
 made against Potter of dignified coldness and lack of 
 sympathy . The letter runs : 
 
 " There is no man who doth more heartily concur 
 with yr Grace in lamenting the present unhappy state 
 of the Church than myself when so many of chief note 
 even among the clergy do either openly oppose or even 
 covertly undermine as well her principal Doctrines as 
 the most essential parts of her authority : but as to 
 the power of requiring all persons who are admitted 
 into Holy Orders or Eccl Benefices to give proper 
 assurances of their sincerity and orthodoxy in the 
 Xtian Faith, this is so clear in itself and so universally 
 practis'd in all churches both of the present and all 
 former ages that I can scarce conceive it to be deny'd 
 by any sensible man unless on one of these two accounts, 
 viz. either that he thinks the church to be no true 
 society nor to have any power over its own members ; 
 or that he disbelieves some of the doctrines to which 
 his assent is required. As to the former of these, I 
 have said a good deal in my book of church government ; 
 and tho' in the writings of the Bp of Bangor and others 
 there may be several tacit objections to some parts of 
 it, I have not yet seen any one of so much weight but 
 that I should willingly leave it to the judgment of any 
 impartial reader who would be at the pains of com- 
 paring my book with it. As to the later sort, among 
 whom I reckon Dr. Clarke because his book against 
 the Xtian Trinity is introduc'd with a prevaricating 
 method of eluding his subscription, it seems to me 
 wholly in vain to endeavour to answer them any other 
 way than by confuting their false Doctrines ; for 
 whatever opinion such men may have of the Church's 
 authority to require subscriptions, they will never be 
 easy while they look upon these Doctrines to be false 
 to which their subscription is required. If Dr. Clarke 
 had not first disbeliev'd the doctrine of the Trinity or 
 some others received in the Church, it seems probable 
 
1747] " A SHORT PLAIN DISCOURSE " 127 
 
 to me that we should never have heard anything of 
 his peculiar way of subscribing. I confess it seems 
 to me no small disgrace to us that after the Doctrine of 
 the Trinity (to say nothing of others) hath been so 
 publickly attacked for several years together, tho' some 
 replies have been made which perhaps neither Dr. 
 Clarke, Mr. Whiston, nor any other can fully answer, 
 yet no just treatise hath been published on that subject ; 
 and tho' I am highly sensible of my own inability, I 
 could hardly have allowed myself to be silent on this 
 and perhaps several other occasions if I could have 
 hoped to complete any Treatise which would have been 
 of the least service to the Church by the help of my own 
 eyes, but the depending on other men's eyes is a 
 disadvantage so great as hath discouraged me from 
 undertakings of this nature, tho' your Grace cannot 
 suppose me to be wholly at leisure who, besides the 
 business of my Bishoprick and all other affairs, do 
 constantly read Lectures and preside at all Theological 
 Disputations while I am in the country. . . . 
 
 " I shd humbly propose to your Grace whether it 
 may not be convenient that some person should write 
 a short and plain discourse which should not exceed 
 the length of an ordinary sermon to show how reason- 
 able and necessary it is that all clergymen before their 
 admission to any place of trust in the Church should 
 give some proof as well of their sincerity in believing 
 the Xtian religion and its chief doctrines as of their 
 good life and behaviour. ... I should rather incline 
 to this method because the controversy concerning the 
 Church's authority having been sufficiently treated of 
 by several writers now many years since, there seems 
 the less reason to renew it at this time, especially since, 
 considering the present disposition, it ought to be 
 manag'd with the utmost prudence and tenderness, and 
 many will sooner be influenc'd by other arguments 
 than those which are fetch'd from the Church's power, 
 which they do not love to hear much of . . . . 
 
 "There are also several other subjects which, if 
 treated on in a familiar and popular way as some of the 
 Occasional Papers were formerly written under the 
 direction of yr Grace's predecessor, might probably do 
 good service at this time." 
 
 He was prepared to support the archbishop on the 
 
128 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 repeal of the Occasional Conformity Bill, though he does 
 not seem to have been present at the debates in the 
 Lords. In the very midst of the parliamentary struggle 
 over it he writes : 
 
 " The last week I was preparing to go to London 
 after my Ordination as well in obedience to your Grace's 
 commands as because I was willing to give my Testi- 
 mony on the occasion which now, it seems, is pass'd 
 sooner than was expected. I shall, however, be ready 
 to follow yr Grace's direction whenever my presence 
 shall be thought wanting ; tho' my own health and 
 inclination might lead me to remain here in the country. 
 
 " Mr. Maurice, a young Master of Arts of Jesus 
 College, having in a Sermon before the University said 
 several things relating to the Succession authority and 
 Divine Commission of the Clergy, Negative Discourage- 
 ments as used amongst us, etc., which, tho' perhaps 
 fashionable in some places, were very displeasing to 
 that audience, was called before the Vice-Chancellour 
 on Wednesday last, and, upon his persisting to defend 
 all that he had said, was forbidden to preach any more 
 within the University till he shd acknowledge that 
 several expressions in his sermon were disagreeable 
 to the Doctrine and discipline of the Church of England 
 and had given just cause of offence to the hearers." 
 
 Meanwhile, in 1 7 1 8 , Potter had held his first triennial 
 visitation, and in his charge warned his clergy against the 
 errors without mentioning the name of the notorious 
 Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor. He thus became involved 
 in the great Bangorian Controversy, of which and of 
 its author, the Bishop of Bangor, we propose here to 
 give some account. 
 
 Hallam, in his Constitutional History, says: "After 
 turning over forty or fifty tracts and consuming a good 
 many hours on the Bangorian Controversy, I should 
 find some difficulty in stating with precision the pro- 
 position in dispute." In fact, every principle that has 
 ever been at issue between High Churchmen and Broad 
 Churchmen was at issue. Hallam's difficulty was not 
 caused by any defect in Hoadly 's literary style. He 
 
1747] HOADLY 129 
 
 was a clear and logical writer and a first-class con- 
 troversialist. Visitors to Winchester Cathedral may 
 know the rather heavy features depicted in Hoadly's 
 tablet on the north-west pier of the Central Tower, 
 but for nearly half a century no one in the Church of 
 England was a more conspicuous figure, and the 
 Bangorian controversy occupied a large portion of the 
 theological and ecclesiastical field in England. 
 
 Benjamin Hoadly was born in 1676 at Westerham 
 in Kent. His father became Master of Norwich Grammar 
 School, where he was educated. His younger brother 
 John rose also to very high office in the Church, ending 
 as Archbishop of Dublin and then of Armagh. Benjamin 
 became a Fellow of St. Katherine's Hall at Cambridge, 
 where he was contemporary with Bishop Sherlock. 
 He had to postpone his degree for seven terms from 
 illness ; and the small-pox and a mismanaged strain 
 while at Cambridge made him a partial cripple all his 
 life, using a stick abroad and crutches at home, and 
 always obliged to preach in a kneeling posture. But 
 he is an instance — many may be found in history — 
 of a man whose health improved as he got older. 
 
 He became Lecturer of St. Mildred's, Poultry, in 
 1 70 1 . He ' ' preached it down " to ^^30 a year, as he himself 
 observed, and thought it high time to quit it. In 1704 
 he was made Rector of St. Peter le Poer, London, and 
 in 1 710, Rector of Streatham, which last living he 
 retained during his episcopates of Bangor and Hereford. 
 
 He seems to have started as a stalwart Churchman, 
 publishing in 1703 the reasonableness of Conformity 
 to the Church of England against Calamy's loth Chapter 
 of the Abridgment of the Life of Baxter. He averred 
 of himself, " I can with a pure conscience conform," 
 and as a parish priest he never omitted the Athanasian 
 Creed when it was ordered to be read in Church. 
 But he did work for the Whigs, and in 1710 the 
 Sacheverell year, the Commons presented an address 
 to the Queen, " to bestow some dignity of the Church 
 
I30 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 on him for his eminent services both in Church and 
 State." Anne's answer was that she would take a 
 proper opportunity to comply with their desires, but 
 it was not till the Crown had passed to George i. that in 
 1 71 5 he was made Bishop of Bangor. In spite of his 
 long ailing as a younger man, he lived to be eighty- 
 five, dying in the Bishop of Winchester's Palace at 
 Chelsea, after a few hours' illness, in 1761. His 
 biographer attributes his green old age to his driving 
 every day in the open air. His picture by his first wife, 
 a portrait painter of some reputation, — as is believed, 
 touched up by Hogarth, — is in the National Portrait 
 Gallery. 
 
 To complete our character of Hoadly, he could 
 only be called a good bishop when the standard of 
 episcopal efficiency was very low. During his six 
 years' tenure of the see of Bangor he never set foot in 
 his diocese. Though Bishop of Hereford for two years 
 it is doubtful whether he ever, as bishop, visited that 
 diocese. Of his three sons, two were incurably addicted 
 to writing and performing plays : yet one of them, the 
 bosom friend of Garrick, in view of his father's extensive 
 patronage as Bishop of Winchester, took orders, and 
 his father saw nothing wrong in presenting him within 
 a few months to four or five livings in his diocese, and 
 making him Chancellor of the diocese and Prebendary 
 of the Cathedral. 
 
 It is fair, however, to say that there is a letter from 
 him to Wake, dated the 20th November 1720, which 
 puts him in a better light as chief over a Welsh diocese. 
 He speaks of a clergyman as " the only person I know 
 or can hear of in town upon whom we can depend 
 for a good and faithful translation of the Prayers into 
 Welsh. I have seen him to-day, and find it all in great 
 forwardness, and likely to be done with so exact direc- 
 tions, that the Clergy may not be at a loss in the per- 
 forming the office." He seeks Wake's directions as 
 to the " No. to be printed." — " I have press'd the 
 
1747] " A PRESERVATIVE " 131 
 
 matter," he says, " and hasten 'd it as much as I possibly 
 could." 
 
 With Wake's privity, if not by his direction, the 
 Bishop of St. Asaph undertook Confirmations in the 
 Diocese of Bangor. We find him writing to the Arch- 
 bishop on 6th August 1720 : 
 
 " I had the honour to receive yr Grace's letter with 
 another enclosed from my Lord of Bangor, and shall 
 very readily comply with your Grace's desire as far as 
 conveniently I can. I am afraid I shall not be able 
 to go this year into ye remote parts of ye Diocese of 
 Bangor : but shall be willing to go into such places 
 as are not very far distant ones, and if the same occasion 
 shd require it another year, I shall be ready to go, God 
 willing, and do ye same office in ye remoter parts of 
 that Diocese. I write this post to my Lord of Bangor, 
 to direct him to order his Chancellor, or some other 
 proper person, to call upon me that we may agree upon 
 such times and places as shall be judg'd most proper for 
 me to confirm in this year." 
 
 The immediate occasion of Hoadly's publishing the 
 first of his works that caused a stir, called A Pre- 
 servative against the Principles and Practices of the 
 Nonjurors both in Church and State, or an appeal to 
 the Consciences and Common Sense of the Christian 
 Laity, was the publication of some posthumous papers 
 by Hickes, which set forth " the constitution of the 
 Catholic Church and the nature and consequences of 
 Schism." Hickes was a man of learning, and the 
 leader of the militant nonjurors. All the original 
 nonjuring bishops were dead by 171 2, in which year 
 Wagstaffe, who had been consecrated with Hickes as 
 suffragan bishops, died. Hickes himself died in 1715. 
 The Whig Ministers objected, as was natural, to Hickes' 
 sentiments. Who was more fitted to answer them than 
 the Whig clerical protagonist recently promoted to 
 the episcopal bench ? Hoadly complains that the 
 nonjurors showed little gratitude for the thirty years' 
 toleration they had enjoyed, "Now," says he, " they 
 
132 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 open the scene for which they have been long preparing 
 in a more covered and private way, . . . the establish- 
 ment is now openly and directly charged with the want 
 of all right. The nonjurors' cause is now publicly 
 declared to be the cause of God. The Church is made 
 a principal part of the argument. The words unity, 
 schism, altar, excommunication, damnation, and the 
 like, are thrown about in such a manner as to confound 
 the understanding of honest men of low capacities." 
 
 He considers the foundation of the difference 
 between the two parties. In the year 1688, says he, 
 " the whole nation of Protestants, universally and 
 equally, felt and saw themselves on the brink of 
 destruction . . . after having warded off the present 
 threatening ruin, nothing remained but to secure us 
 from the return of the same evils of popery and 
 slavery." . . . "This was done with the greatest 
 regard to the constitution of the kingdom, and with 
 the least deviation from the common rule. The popish 
 branches of the royal family were set aside upon no 
 other consideration than the safety of the whole nation. 
 And the very first Protestant branches in the same 
 royal family were declared heirs." He goes on to say 
 that from the refusal to take the oaths and the depriva- 
 tion of some of the bishops and clergy, arose these two 
 main principles that our princes upon this Protestant 
 establishment can have no right to the Crown, and hence 
 two points of practice, the one the adhering to the popish 
 line, the other the adhering to the communion of the 
 deprived bishops, and the treating of our churches as 
 no churches. 
 
 On 31st March 171 7, Hoadly preached before the 
 King, in the Chapel Royal at St. James's, his sermon 
 on St. John xviii. 36 : " My Kingdom is not of this 
 world." It is said that Government suggested if not 
 invited following up the Preservative by a public 
 utterance on the same lines, as they wanted public 
 opinion just then roused in favour of the repeal of the 
 
1747] CONVOCATION ON HOADLY 133 
 
 Schism and Test Acts. In his sermon, Hoadly's 
 position was that individual sincerity was the sole 
 requirement of a Christian ; a visible church and 
 membership of it were unimportant if not misleading. 
 The High Church clergy were furious, and a good many 
 who were thoroughly loyal to the Hanoverian Suc- 
 cession were shocked at the bishop's attitude to the 
 visible Church. The Lower House of Convocation ap- 
 pointed a Committee, consisting of Sherlock, Dean of 
 St. Paul's, and eight other divines, to report on the 
 Preservative and Sermon. They drew up a Representa- 
 tion, in which they stated that the tendency of the two 
 works was conceived by them to be : 
 
 " First, to subvert all government and discipline in 
 the Church of Christ, and to reduce His Kingdom to a 
 state of anarchy and confusion. 
 
 " Secondly, to impugn and impeach the regal 
 supremacy in cases ecclesiastical, and the authority of 
 the legislature to enforce obedience in matters of religion 
 by civil sanction." 
 
 The document was called the Representation of the 
 Lower House. Hoadly took the point that it was the 
 work of a Committee only, and whether it was ever 
 adopted by the House seems doubtful. That it repre- 
 sented the view of a majority of the House is not doubt- 
 ful, but Stanhope and his colleagues were not going to 
 have their episcopal champion condemned even by 
 the Lower House. 
 
 The report was ready on the loth May, but before it 
 was presented to the Upper House, Convocation was 
 prorogued, Mr. Hore says, by special order of the King 
 until the 22nd November. Hoadly was charged with, 
 but indignantly denied, having applied for this proro- 
 gation. But Convocation never got any further licence 
 to proceed to business, and remained in abeyance till 
 its revival in the middle of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Outside Convocation the controversy continued 
 
134 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 and was conducted with great bitterness, and feeling 
 ran very high. The Court stuck by Hoadly, and he 
 received his final promotion, viz. to Winchester in 1734. 
 Quite early in the course of the strife Snape and Sher- 
 lock, as two of his leading opponents, were struck off 
 the list of Royal Chaplains. 
 
 Our friend, Bishop Nicholson of Carlisle, got himself 
 involved, and involved deeply, in a quarrel which arose 
 out of the controversy. Snape in a published letter 
 suggested that Hoadly before preaching his sermon 
 showed it to a friend, to satisfy whom some qualifying 
 words were introduced into the discourse. Hoadly 
 denied this, and asserted that the sermon was preached 
 without the knowledge of any living man. Pressed, 
 Snape asserted that the Bishop of Carlisle knew the 
 individual who had suggested the modification. On 
 further pressure this came out to be White Kennet, 
 Dean and then Bishop of Peterborough. This White 
 Kennet indignantly denied ; on the ist July 171 7 
 he solemnly declares in a letter to Wake : 
 
 "It is my duty to assure yr Grace, as I solemnly 
 do in the presence of God, that I knew nothing of the 
 late sermon of the Bishop of Bangor before the preach- 
 ing of it : that I never read or saw the MSS notes or 
 it, and that I never was advis'd with nor ever offer 'd 
 my advice about any matter or any one word in it. 
 And therefore it is amazement and grief to me that the 
 good Bishop of Carlisle should at last fancy me to be 
 the author of such a story as is couch 'd in an Advertise- 
 ment dated Eton, 28th June 1717." 
 
 For a month or two clerical circles were deeply 
 stirred over the question of the suggested amendments 
 in the sermon. The High Churchmen and some of 
 the Moderates sided against Hoadly and credited 
 Nicholson's story. On the 13th July 171 7, Gibson 
 gives Wake his view : 
 
 " Some conversation there probably was between 
 the Preacher and the Dean, The sermon afterwards 
 
1747] HOADLY'S PROMOTION 135 
 
 when it came out appear 'd to be duly guarded ; and 
 ye Dean might naturally think and say that the guard- 
 ings were the effect of ye conversation . 
 
 " I think there are two things still wanting on ye 
 part of the Dean : the first, to declare honestly what 
 he meant by telling ye Bishop of Carlisle that he could 
 point out the occasion of his mistake ; the second, 
 what was ye conversation between ye Bishop of Bangor 
 and him after preaching and before printing. 
 
 " By ye Bishop of Bangor's advertisement we 
 seem to be far from ye end of this foolish squabble. 
 The disservice it does ye whole order is soe very great 
 that one would hope the Bishop of Bangor and ye rest 
 shd be persuaded to let drop it and let it dye on that 
 consideration. At present he seems to be ye warmest 
 of all ye four Combatants." 
 
 On the 15th July 171 7 he writes again : 
 
 " Methinks some of ye great men at Court shd be 
 prevail 'd with to lay their commands on ye favourite 
 Bishop to put an end to it." 
 
 Feeling ran so high between the Bishop of Carlisle 
 and the Dean of Peterborough that on their happening to 
 be on the same day at Gibson's Palace at Buckden, they 
 had to be kept apart, and one of them to be persuaded 
 to take his dinner at the inn. 
 
 The honours given or wished to be given to Hoadly 
 by the Court made his brother bishops, even the Whigs 
 amongst them, a little jealous. Even the level-headed 
 Gibson writes to Wake on 25th July 1717 : 
 
 " Can ye Ministry find noe way to content my Bro. 
 ^[oadly and his friends but by affronting the whole 
 Bench of Bishops at once ? . . . Is it possible for men 
 that think to hazard ye loss of nine parts in ten of ye 
 Whig clergy by an unaccountable fondness for one 
 man?" 
 
 Nor after the lapse of four or five years did Hoadly's 
 advancement from Bangor to Hereford in 1721 fail to 
 rouse some resentment among his critics : the Bishop 
 10 
 
136 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 of Peterborough writes on the 9th September 1721 to 
 the Archbishop : 
 
 " The vacancy of Hereford, if our papers be true, 
 will put the friends of the Bishop of Bangor upon 
 solliciting His Majesty to doe a not popular thing." 
 
 The rest of the letter is of public interest as showing 
 the popular feeling about that time. " The people," 
 says the writer, " are very easy, not at all inclin'd 
 to any new Government, not much desirous of a new 
 Ministry, and even very indifferent about a new 
 Parliament." 
 
 The task of confronting Hoadly must have been 
 a congenial one to Potter. For Hoadly 's attack on 
 the political principles of the Nonjurors, Potter, as a 
 consistent Whig and upholder of the Protestant Han- 
 overian Succession, may have felt sympathy ; but the 
 principles of the sermon were opposed to the system 
 of teaching Potter valued . At the request of his clergy 
 his charge of 1718 was published. Hoadly found no 
 difficulty in fitting on the cap though, as we have said, 
 neither his name nor the title of his publications was 
 mentioned in the charge ; and immediately published 
 an answer in which he recriminates his brother of 
 Oxford, against whose charges he seeks to vindicate 
 himself. Potter, in a letter to his clergy in 1719, re- 
 plied to the reply and severely reprobated Hoadly's 
 treatment of him, particularly as Potter had reprobated 
 principles, not individuals. So the merry fight waxed 
 on. It was six or seven years before the fires of the 
 Bangorian controversy had smouldered out. Mean- 
 while Hoadly was an invaluable ally to Ministers in 
 the Lords. With the Commons, however, he was not 
 popular, and, in 171 7, they invited Snape of Eton, his 
 antagonist, to preach before them. It is to be re- 
 marked that in his answer Hoadly declares that Potter 
 gave him more concern as an adversary than any one. 
 
 Potter's attitude in the Bangorian controversy 
 
1747] DEANERY OF CHRIST CHURCH 137 
 
 approved itself to the orthodox and High Church clergy. 
 In the course of the next year Archbishop Wake, while 
 taking the waters at Bath, gets from his chaplain, the 
 Rector of Lambeth, a report of matters of interest. 
 
 " The Lord Bishop of Oxford in his charge to his 
 Clergy on his visitation this summer spoke very fully 
 and excellently against the false notions of the Bp. of 
 Bangor and Dr. Clarke. No discourse was ever heard 
 on such an occasion with more general satisfaction and 
 applause in all parts of his Diocese. His Lordship was 
 earnestly desir'd to print it : but he hath hitherto 
 modestly excusd himself from complying with this 
 Request." 
 
 In September 1719 the Deanery of Christ Church 
 fell vacant by the death, after a short illness, of that 
 stout old Tory, Smalridge, who held the Bishopric of 
 Bristol, worth then only £700 a year, with his deanery. 
 Potter writes on the 29th September announcing the 
 dean's death to the archbishop. The Christ Church 
 men did not want an outsider to be made dean ; 
 Fell had been both dean and bishop together, and 
 very soon the suggestion was made that Potter, 
 remaining Bishop of Oxford, should be made Dean of 
 Christ Church. Wake thought highly of Potter, and 
 wrote from Bristol, where he was taking the waters, in 
 support of the proposal. Atterbury, who was a Christ 
 Church man, and had been dean before Smalridge, 
 wrote expressing the opinion that Potter was the best 
 man. Potter himself seems to have favoured the pro- 
 posal but mildly ; on the 2nd October 1719 he wrote 
 to Wake, giving him, as he says, " my own thoughts 
 about it." " On Sunday," he goes on, " the following 
 letter was brought to me by Mr. Brooks, the Chapter 
 Clerk of Christ Church : 
 
 " ' May it please yr Lordship. 
 
 " ' Since it hath pleas 'd God to take away the Bishop 
 of Bristol our Dean of Christ Church, we make it our 
 
138 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 humble request for the good of ye House, yr Lordship 
 will be pleas 'd to use yr utmost interest to succeed 
 him in that Deanery.' " 
 
 This was signed by the sub-dean, the treasurer, and 
 two of the canons. They were all the canons then in 
 the college, but were prepared to answer " for the sense 
 of those which were absent." 
 
 Potter expressed his own idea that his health was so 
 uncertain that he doubted his sufficiency for the task of 
 maintaining discipline. The Chapter asked him, should 
 he decline the deanery, to support Egerton — a canon 
 and one of the signatories of the letter — as a candidate 
 for the post. From his letter Potter seems to have 
 been pressed by the Ministry to accept the deanery. 
 He says : " There are three considerations which might 
 move me in it. These are the profit, the convenience in 
 other respects, and the good which may be done in it." 
 As to the first, he calculates that the deanery is better 
 by £300 a year than the Regius Professorship, which 
 would be swallowed up in the extra entertaining required 
 of one who was at once bishop and dean. On the 
 second head, Cuddesden was more healthy than " to 
 be cloyster'd up in a College." Lastly, he " feared 
 much lest the discipline of this great college shd suffer." 
 
 One can hardly understand the shrinking from the 
 responsibilities of the headship of a large college on the 
 part of one who, when he was nearly twenty years 
 older, accepted the limitless labours of the Anglican 
 Primacy. How the matter fell out is recorded in a 
 letter from Hanover from the Prime Minister, the Earl 
 of Sunderland, to Wake, dated 27th October 1719 : 
 
 " I have the honour of yr Grace's letter from BristoU, 
 which I laid before the King, who has order'd me to 
 acquaint yr Grace that having receiv'd the post before 
 the account of the Bishop of Bristol! 's death he had 
 allready declar'd his intention of making Dr. Boulter 
 Bishop ; and considering the smallness of the Bishop- 
 rick, of making him also Dean of Christ Church, which 
 
1747] BILL AGAINST BLASPHEMY 139 
 
 post requires a man of integrity and courage ; the 
 Bishop of Oxford is certainly very honest and very 
 well qualified ; butt the King thought it not so proper 
 to have the same person Bishop and Dean of the same 
 Church, especially since the Bishop of Oxford is full 
 as easy in his present preferments ; otherwise the 
 King would be very glad to shew the regard he has to 
 him both upon his own meritt as well as your Grace's 
 recommendation." 
 
 In March and April, as we have recorded. Wake was 
 busy over the Bill against blasphemy and profaneness. 
 He could count on Potter's support, though the latter 
 seems to have been anxious not to leave his diocese. 
 He writes to the archbishop from Cuddesden on the 
 1 4th April : 
 
 " I have here enclos'd my Proxy, wh I humbly 
 desire your Grace to accept. Nevertheless, if by my 
 personal appearance I could in the least contribute to 
 the service of the Church or of His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment and the Protestant Succession, or to relieve the 
 Sufferers in the South Sea, especially the Proprietors 
 of the Redeemable Annuities, of whom I have been 
 sometimes sorry and indeed surpriz'd to hear great men 
 speaking with so little regard, I should not fail on a 
 very short notice to return to London. But as these 
 and all other good ends may for anything which appears 
 to me be as well answer'd by your Grace having my 
 Proxy as by my own presence; I hope that, unless any- 
 thing unexpected happens, I may be permitted to attend 
 my Duty here in my Diocese." 
 
 On 4th May 1721, referring to the archbishop's 
 failure to carry the Bill, Potter writes : 
 
 " I perceive that yr Grace had no opportunity to 
 make use of my name, and am therefore sorry that I 
 could not attend in person to bear my Testimony on 
 this memorable occasion, but I am glad to find that you 
 cannot say, as another good Bishop did. No man stood 
 with me. May God forgive those who forsook you." 
 
 Three days later he writes again : 
 
 " I am very sensible that several clauses in the Bill 
 
I40 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 might have been amended, but your Grace, I doubt not, 
 apprehends that no such alteration wd have made it 
 pass ... I rather hope that this attempt, tho' unsuc- 
 cessful!, will create in them " (the opponents of the Bill, 
 persons " averse to the doctrine of the Church ") " a 
 fear that something of the kind will be brought to pass 
 on the first favourable conjuncture. ... I expect, 
 tho' absent, to have a small share in any ill-treatment 
 wh your Grace may meet with on this occasion, neither 
 shall I think it for my credit to escape it." 
 
 Potter followed Wake's lead in the Quakers' Affirma- 
 tion Bill in January 1722, the proceedings on which we 
 have referred to in Archbishop Wake's Life. 
 
 The glimpses we get of Potter from his letters to 
 Wake in the course of 1722 show him a zealous Diocesan. 
 He excuses himself from attending Parliament on the 
 I ith March, saying, that he had been obliged to return 
 the preceding week to his diocese, " where," says he, 
 " there waited for me between thirty and forty candi- 
 dates for orders whom I could not oblige to come to 
 London without great inconvenience." He adds that 
 he is obliged to attend the exercises in the Divinity 
 School at least three days in the next week. 
 
 Although another dozen years or more elapsed 
 before he was moved from Oxford, there can be no 
 doubt that he was by this time high in the favour at 
 any rate of the Princess of Wales and indeed of 
 Ministers. 
 
 On the 23rd Apiil 1722 he writes again to Wake 
 from Cuddesden, to know whether he should come to 
 town at the opening of Parliament. Lord Sunderland 
 had died suddenlj' a few days before. Potter goes on 
 to say, " Before I left London the Lord, who hath 
 since paid his debt to Nature, very much pressed 
 me to take the place formerly mentioned chiefly 
 on account of His Majestj'^'s service ; on my refusal, 
 made a general offer of anything else which would be 
 more acceptable, to which I only reply'd that I had 
 always left things of that nature to my superiors." 
 
174/1 ATTERBURY 141 
 
 The latter part of 1722 was full of rumours of a con- 
 spiracy against the Hanoverian Dynasty. Atterbury, 
 Bishop of Rochester, was charged with treasonable 
 correspondence with the Pretender and his supporters 
 in France. He was seized with his papers, examined 
 by a Committee of the Council and lodged in the Tower. 
 In the year before a very learned and interesting corre- 
 spondence had passed between Potter and Atterbury 
 respecting the time when the four Gospels were written. 
 When he came to prepare his Defence on his im- 
 peachment before the Lords, Atterbury wished to use 
 the fact of his having been engaged in questions of this 
 kind at the time his enemies said he was deep in treason- 
 able schemes, and asked Potter's testimony on the fact 
 of their correspondence. 
 
 Potter, on the 29th April 1723, writes to Wake : 
 
 " I think I acquainted your Grace that in summer 
 last I receiv'd several letters fromthe Bishop of Rochester, 
 containing (besides matter of form and ceremony) 
 nothing but inquiries relating to the Holy Scriptures 
 concerning which he desir'd to have my thoughts . . . 
 the producing these letters will in the bishop's condition 
 much contribute to his justifican, they being a proof 
 that at the time of writing them, that is in June, July, 
 and August last his time and thoughts were employed 
 in studies agreeable to his sacred character, and he 
 therefore desires I would be present at the House of 
 Lords to testify my having receiv'd them. As to this 
 last I have excused myself, but that I may not be blamed 
 for having suppress 'd anything which the Bishop 
 thinks necessary for his Defence, I have thought my- 
 self oblig'd to send my Secretary with the original 
 letters except one whereof I have sent a ' copy,' the 
 original having been returned." 
 
 He does not wish the archbishop to be surprised 
 when he hears his name mentioned. As a matter of 
 fact, Atterbury did refer to his communications with 
 Potter in his speech to the Lords. 
 
 Potter does not from the Parliamentary Reports 
 
142 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 appear to have taken any further part in the impeach- 
 ment or condemnation of his brother of Rochester. 
 
 In observance of ecclesiastical rules, Potter was for 
 strictness. 
 
 On 8th October 1723 he writes to Wake complaining 
 of Letters Testimonial given to clergy not complying 
 with the Rules promulgated by the archbishop in 1716. 
 The writer hopes he has made those given at Oxford 
 better than they were, though " this has given him 
 trouble, many men being tenacious of their custom 
 whether good or bad." He complains of the Cam- 
 bridge Testimonials. One given him by a Candidate 
 at his last ordination has " not only the College seal 
 wanting but the date " ; they do not " certify of their 
 personal knowledge," nor give the occasion on which 
 the Testimonial was given, nor " specify any time of the 
 person's good behaviour." A few days later there is 
 another letter from Cuddesden, in which he says : 
 
 "As to my coming to Parliament ... I shall be 
 and always have been ready to do so when there was 
 the least appearance of occasion for my being there ; 
 and should that be really true which the Princess has 
 said not only to me but to Mrs. Potter and perhaps 
 also to others oftener than once, that I am usually the 
 last to come to town and the first to leave it ; I say, 
 should this be so, the true reason has been that for 
 several years past I have found I could be altogether 
 as serviceable both to the Church and State whilst I 
 remain 'd here in the country as in town." 
 
 At the beginning of the next year he republished 
 his Church Government. He reports : 
 
 " My Discourse of Church Government having been 
 so much out of Print that scarce a single Copy could 
 be found in any of the Shops, and the West Indians 
 have desir'd that a considerable number should be sent 
 to their Plantations, the Booksellers who have the 
 property of the Copy have again reprinted it. There is 
 no material alteration in this Edition." 
 
John Potter 
 
 \To face p. 142 
 
1747] MACCLESFIELD 143 
 
 Bishop Potter took part, and apparently was inter- 
 ested, in the trial of Lord Chancellor Macclesfield in 
 1 72 s , to which we have referred in the Life of Archbishop 
 Wake. We may add here that he was impeached by 
 the Commons, tried for thirteen days before the Lords, 
 found guilty by a unanimous vote of ninety-three Peers, 
 and condemned to pay a fine of £30,000, having, of 
 course, before his trial resigned his Chancellorship. 
 The charges against him were chiefly selling, or con- 
 niving at the sale of Masterships in Chancery, by 
 himself when the office was vacant, by one master to 
 another, and conniving at the irregular if not fraudulent 
 practices of 'masters with funds in court. His defences 
 were, no personal corruption, that the law, as inter- 
 preted by what was the practice, " allowed what I did." 
 
 No doubt the South Sea Bubble had turned 
 people's heads by ideas of utterly extravagant profits 
 to be made. But the sentence against him was 
 unanimous ; and though the proposal made just after- 
 wards, that he should stand disqualified for any 
 public employment, was lost, the voting on it being 
 equal, forty-two on each side, he never came back 
 to public life. 
 
 Potter as well as Wake, according to the Parlia- 
 mentary Reports, voted for his conviction, as did fifteen 
 other bishops. The question was put to the Peers 
 on the 25th May ; two days before, we find Potter 
 sending Wake the order of the House giving the terms 
 in which the question was to be put — as to which Potter 
 seems to have felt some difficulty. His letter runs : 
 
 " Is Thomas, Earl of Macclesfield, guilty of High 
 crimes and misdemeanour charged on him by the 
 Impeachment of the House of Commons ? And the 
 answer thereto shall be pronounced by each Guilty or 
 Not Guilty, upon His Honour laying his right Hand 
 upon his Breast. 
 
 " My Lord, — I have here sent your Grace the 
 order of the House wherein there may seem to be 
 
144 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 some ambiguity ; but the Impeachment being ante- 
 cedent to the Articles dehver'd in by the Commons, 
 I submit it to your Grace whether the Lord may not be 
 guilty of the crimes in the Impeachment tho' innocent 
 of several articles. 
 
 ' ' Your Grace also will observe that it is High Crimes, 
 etc., and not the High crimes. 
 
 " May 23, 1725." 
 
 Wake's endorsement is : 
 
 " In Sacheverell's tryall the Articles are made the 
 charge. After reciting ym, they say, All wch crimes and 
 misdemeaners the Comms are ready to prove, — and that 
 the sd H S by preaching the sermons and publishing the 
 Books (in wch these articles are contd) hath most 
 grievously offended. 
 
 " And they pray that he may, be put to answer all 
 the premises and such proceeding had thereon as is 
 agreeable to law and Justice." 
 
 Still referring to the very articles, two letters from 
 Cuddesden to the archbishop, dated respectively the 
 29th August 1725 and the 19th July 1726, though of no 
 grave importance, give us an insight into Potter's 
 habits of thought, and show his respect for his chief. 
 
 " I have not troubled your Grace since I left London. 
 . . . Some time since I finish'd the visitation of my 
 Diocese, the hurry whereof, together with a cold, gave me 
 a small fever. At Oxford I had a very good sermon 
 preach 'd by one of the Proctors of the University, who 
 hath a living in my Diocese in defence of the Church's 
 authority to impose subscriptions, which, if it be printed 
 as it was intended to be, will, I doubt not, meet with 
 your Grace's approbation. 
 
 " Perhaps your Grace may not yet have been informd 
 that one of the Physicians lately chosen into one of 
 Dr. Radcliffe's Fellowships, was oblig'd to leave a 
 considerable Foundation, whereof he was a member 
 because he would not make the Subscription requir'd 
 by Law. Whether he can hold this Fellowship without 
 Subscribing as is directed by the Act of Uniformity, 
 your Grace can far better judge than I am able to do ; 
 
1747] A STRICT RULER 145 
 
 but if on the account of his nonconformity he hath 
 exchang'd a Fellowship of fifty or sixty, for another 
 of three hundred pounds per annum, it is easy to see 
 what encouragement this will give to others who are 
 less modest and sincere than this young man is said 
 to be." 
 
 His strictness in matters of Ecclesiastical Rule is 
 illustrated by the following : 
 
 " CuDDESDEN, igth July 1726. 
 
 "Dr. Bertie of All Souls, having a friend who 
 intends to present him to a living vacant ever since the 
 twelfth of April, as soon as he shall be qualified for it, 
 hath desir'd me to admit him into Deacon's orders 
 extra tempora, and afterwards into that of Priests. It 
 hath never been my practice to ordain privately without 
 your Grace's approbation." 
 
 So he asks for Wake's consent, or the refusal of it. 
 
 George i. died in June 1727, and on the nth of the 
 following October, George 11. and his consort. Queen 
 Caroline, were crowned at Westminster with great 
 pomp. Potter had by this time become a prelate of 
 known learning, honesty, and discretion, and a favourite 
 of the Queen. As such he was selected to preach the 
 Coronation sermon, which was published by special 
 Royal Command. He was evidently the object of 
 the Queen's special favour, and marked out for further 
 promotion. There was a good deal of commotion in 
 Episcopal circles in 1734, caused by the death of Willis, 
 BisTiop of Winchester. Hoadly had been much used 
 by Ministers and the Court, to prevent the Presby- 
 terians revolting from Walpole on his refusal to repeal 
 the Test and Corporation Acts ; and if we are to believe 
 Hoadly's letter to Lord Hervey, he had been promised 
 Winchester as a reward. Potter, Lord Hervey 's Memoirs 
 states, " a great favourite of the Queen's, strongly 
 solicited it," and, as Walpole told Hervey, would certainly 
 have attained it, had not the promises to Hoadly 
 
146 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 been so strong. Anyhow, Hoadly got it, and Potter 
 remained at Oxford. 
 
 We are now approaching Potter's appointment to 
 Canterbury, and the circumstances attending his 
 appointment require our attention. They are gathered 
 mainly from Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the reign of 
 George ii. Hervey was a man of strong Hkes and 
 disUkes, not favouring Church principles, rather a 
 gossip, and allowance must be made accordingly ; but 
 his position at Court, and his intimacy with the King 
 and Queen, enabled him to know the facts. 
 
 On the Episcopal Bench, as it existed in 1737, a 
 leading figure undoubtedly is Gibson, Bishop of London. 
 We have seen and heard much of him in Wake's Life, 
 and as we know he had been chaplain to Archbishop 
 Tenison, and on Wake's promotion to Lambeth, had 
 succeeded him at Lincoln, being in 1720 moved on to 
 London. Gibson was a strong Churchman, a learned 
 and scholarly man with great influence among the 
 clergy. For some years before his death. Archbishop 
 Wake was too old and infirm to attend to business, 
 and Gibson was Walpole's chief adviser and helper in 
 ecclesiastical affairs. His influence with the clergy 
 enabled him to keep them quiet ; and Walpole, who 
 had a keen recollection of the noise and smoke of the 
 Sacheverell trial, desired nothing less than to revive 
 those fires, and was grateful to Gibson accordingly. 
 Walpole was reviled at for making him a Pope. " And 
 a very good Pope he is," replied the Minister. Gibson's 
 Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani is, says Mr. Hore, the 
 established repertory of the statutes and usages affect- 
 ing the English clergy. His pastoral letters, says the 
 same author, were those of an earnest and profoundly 
 religious prelate. His orthodoxy was beyond question : 
 " he prevented Dr. Rundle," says the Editor of Nichols' 
 Illustrations of Literature (iii. 478), " though strongly 
 patronised by Lord Chancellor Talbot, from being an 
 English bishop, on account of some unguarded expres- 
 
1747] HIS QUARREL WITH WALPOLE 147 
 
 sions he had used, relating to Abraham's offering of his 
 son Isaac." No one can have read over the large 
 number of letters to the archbishop from Edmund 
 Lincoln, beginning in 1716 till 1723, when the signature 
 in the clear handwriting changes to Edmund London 
 and goes on thus for five or six years, without being 
 struck with the clear headedness and grasp shown by 
 the writer. It was generally expected that on Wake's 
 death, Gibson would go to Canterbury. But before 
 that he had fallen out with Walpole over the Quaker 
 Relief Bill, and his promotion to the primacy was 
 not to be. 
 
 It had been the policy of the Whigs and Walpole 
 to help the Dissenters, but not too much. Walpole 's 
 view, however, was that the Quakers had a strong 
 grievance. Parliament had given them some relief 
 despite the opposition of Atterbury, but it was 
 thought that it was still unjust to proceed against them 
 in the Ecclesiastical Courts for the non-payment of 
 tithes and ecclesiastical dues and to fine and imprison 
 them. What they wanted was not to get out of paying 
 tithes, but as they could only pay under compulsion, 
 to have that compulsion of the least uncongenial kind — 
 a justice of the peace instead of the Ecclesiastical Court. 
 Walpole thought so. The Bishop of London then 
 lived in Whitehall and Walpole had just moved to 
 Downing Street. Hervey's story is that Gibson called 
 to thank Walpole for his assistance in defeating the 
 Test Act, and, without mentioning the Quakers' Bill, 
 went to a meeting of the bishops, where it was resolved 
 to rouse the clergy throughout the country to petition 
 against the Quakers' Bill. The Bill passed the Commons 
 but was thrown out in the Lords by fifty-five to thirty- 
 five. Walpole never forgave Gibson this, and com- 
 plained bitterly to the Queen of his conduct and of that 
 of Sherlock who had supported him. 
 
 Sherlock, then Bishop of Salisbury, had been a 
 favourite of the Queen, though, like Gibson, a strong 
 
148 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 Churchman. Hervey says that Sherlock had counted 
 if Gibson had gone to Canterbury on succeeding him in 
 London, and when Gibson was out of the way seems to 
 have even thought he might have the Primacy himself ; 
 but Sherlock had offended in the same way as Gibson, 
 and Walpole ruled them both out, telling the Queen, 
 according to Lord Hervey, that the feeling of the House 
 of Commons was so strong against Sherlock as likely 
 to carry Church power very high, that should she send 
 him to Canterbury she must call a new Parliament. 
 Walpole himself had leanings towards Hare, who 
 had been his tutor, but Hervey, according to his own 
 account, advised against him and constantly urged both 
 on the Queen and Walpole the claims of Potter. When 
 Walpole had expressed to Hervey ^ the difficulty of 
 selecting a Primate, the latter, according to his own 
 account, said : " Sure, sir, you have had enough of 
 great geniuses ; why can you not take some Greek or 
 Hebrew blockhead that has learning enough to justify 
 the preferment and not sense enough to make you 
 repent of it." " Potter is a man," said Hervey to 
 Walpole about this time, " of undoubted great learning, 
 of as little doubted probity. He has been always, 
 though reckoned a Tory in the Church, uninterruptedly 
 attached to this faniily without the lure or reward of 
 any preferment but this poor Bishopric of Oxford, where 
 he has stuck for twenty years. The Queen loves him, 
 his character will support you in sending him to Lambeth, 
 and his capacity is not so good nor his temper so bad 
 as to make you apprehend any great danger in his being 
 there." 
 
 So Potter got the Primacy. One of Potter's first 
 duties as archbishop was to attend on her death-bed 
 the illustrious Queen to whom he so largely owed his 
 elevation to the Primacy. We are indebted to Lord 
 Hervey's voluminous memoirs for our knowledge of the 
 details of Queen Caroline's ten days' illness. Lord 
 * Hervey's Memoirs, io8. 
 
1747] QUEEN CAROLINE 149 
 
 Mahon sees some reason for mistrusting some of Hervey 's 
 strange stories of this period, and they should prob- 
 ably be taken with reserve. The Queen's malady was 
 painful and steadily increased in gravity. Had its true 
 nature been known even the crude surgery of the i8th 
 century would probably have relieved her. But she 
 had a strange wish for keeping it a secret, and by the 
 time the surgeons knew about it, they could do little 
 but add to her pain and discomfort by small operations. 
 George 11 . had two good points only : ( i ) freedom from 
 personal cowardice ; (2) his love and esteem for his clever, 
 superior wife. So far as a man such as he was — a 
 husband habitually unfaithful, after the manner of his 
 time and upbringing — selfish, stupid, and conceited, 
 could love and esteem a wife such as she was, he did so. 
 He was thoroughly grieved and alarmed at her serious 
 illness, but he bullied her and scolded her nearly the 
 whole time she lay dying : " Why can't you lie still ? " 
 
 Caroline was a religious woman. She had not been 
 brought up a Churchwoman : she had felt difficulty 
 about conforming entirely to the rule of the Church of 
 England in the matter of receiving the Communion. 
 She was intellectually strong ; on some points her 
 religious faith may have wavered, and the abstract 
 theological discussion she loved may not have removed 
 her doubts. But she met death as a Christian woman 
 would. A few days before her death some persons 
 about the Court suggested that she ought to have some 
 clergyman to praj^ with her. Through her daughter. 
 Princess Emily, the suggestion that the Archbishop 
 should be sent for was carried to the King and Queen. 
 Potter came, and continued afterwards to praj^ by her 
 morning and evening; "at which ceremony," says 
 Hervey, " her children always assisted." According to 
 a letter from Charles Ford to Swift, she received the 
 Sacrament at Potter's hands : but this is not beyond 
 doubt. Whether she felt that she could not sincerely 
 receive it as a sincere and convinced Churchwoman, 
 
ISO JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 or whether the want of an outward reconciliation with 
 her ill-conditioned son, the Prince of Wales, caused a 
 difficulty, we cannot say : the conclusion of Mr. Croker, 
 the editor of Hervey, is that she did not receive it. 
 Certain it is that the archbishop continued to attend 
 her morning and evening, and that the last word she 
 ever spoke was " Pray." 
 
 Less than a year after Queen Caroline's death the 
 archbishop, as an official personage, attended the birth 
 of George iii. The Prince of Wales, Frederick, had been 
 turned out of St. James's Palace by his father the year 
 before, and was then living at Norfolk House, St. James's 
 Square. The house in which George iii. was born was 
 pulled down in 1742, when the present house was built 
 on its site. Here the monarch whose wisdom, or the 
 lack of it, was to affect for so many years the well-being 
 of millions of people of British birth, first saw the light, 
 arriving with such improvident haste that the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury was the only great personage of 
 State who was in time to be present at the birth. 
 So little promise did the royal infant give of long life 
 that he was privately baptized at 1 1 o'clock the same 
 evening by Seeker, Bishop of Oxford, then Rector of St. 
 James's, afterwards archbishop. 
 
 Perhaps, having regard to their having been com- 
 petitors for the Primacy, there remained a little tension, 
 if not jealousy, between Potter, while archbishop, 
 and Gibson, Bishop of London. In the summer of 
 1 740 a marriage was arranged between Prince William 
 of Hesse Cassel and the Princess Mary, daughter of 
 George 11., and a question arose at the Council as 
 to the solemnisation of the marriage. The archbishop 
 and the bishop each claimed the right to officiate. 
 George 11. refused to have the bridegroom over here, 
 though he favoured the marriage. If there were an 
 actual marriage in London, the Bishop of London, 
 as Dean of the Royal Chapel of St. James's, would 
 officiate. If there were merely a solemn contract of 
 
1747] THE GIN ACT 151 
 
 espousals this would be a matter really for a Secretary 
 of State. Prayers, a Benediction, and a Latin address 
 might be added, but these would properly fall to the 
 archbishop as head of ecclesiastical affairs. The 
 archbishop's view seems to have prevailed. 
 
 The interference of the Episcopal Bench in the 
 debates of the House of Lords at this period appears to 
 have been infrequent. In the Parliamentary Proceedings 
 for 1737, 8, and 9, only Bishop Hoadly of Salisbury is 
 reported as a speaker. He spoke on two occasions — (i) 
 on the case of Porteous, so well known to readers of 
 Scott's Heart of Midlothian ; (2) in support of the 
 convention with Spain. In the three succeeding years 
 he is almost the only bishop who is reported to have 
 intervened. I cannot find that Potter ever spoke in 
 the House of Lords during his Primacy nor during his 
 twenty -two years' tenure of the Bishopric of Oxford. 
 
 In 1 742 a series of animated debates took place in the 
 House of Lords on a Bill introduced by Ministers, dealing 
 with the sale of and duties on gin and other spirituous 
 liquors. Potter does not appear to have spoken, but 
 he voted with all the other bishops present against the 
 Bill. The matter stood in this way. In 1731, Parlia- 
 ment, at the instigation of Sir Joseph Jekyll, had passed 
 the Gin Act. At this time drunkenness had increased 
 among the lowest orders, especially the drinking of gin, on 
 which hitherto only a very small duty had been imposed, 
 and which was sold without licence by persons whose 
 ordinary trade was unconnected with the liquor traffic. 
 The Justices of Middlesex had petitioned Parliament 
 against the evils arising from this widespread consumption 
 of gin or Geneva. So, on the motion of the benevolent 
 Jekyll, a heavy — for the lower orders, a prohibitive — 
 duty was put on gin. Walpole had and expressed mis- 
 givings about the measure. So heavy a duty would be 
 evaded, he thought — and the revenue would be a loser. 
 
 Alas, as sometimes happens, philanthropic intentions 
 failed. Walpole 's somewhat chilling anticipations were 
 II 
 
152 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 realised ; informers were afraid to inform and justices 
 would not convict. The consumption of gin increased 
 and was more shameless than ever ; no licences were 
 obtained and no duty paid. Retailers set up painted 
 boards inviting people to be drunk for a penny, dead 
 drunk for twopence, and have straw for nothing. The 
 drinking dens were haunts of hideous immorality 
 and bestial vice. To stop this, ministers brought in a 
 Bill to reduce the licences and to have the duties also 
 reduced. Their idea was to have a small duty per 
 gallon on spirits at still head and a licence at 20s. By 
 these it was hoped the price of gin by retail would be 
 moderately but really raised. Thus the law would be 
 enforced and the revenue would gain. Two bishops, 
 Seeker of Oxford and Sherlock of Salisbury, spoke 
 against it, asserting that it would mean a return of the 
 worst sights which had been common before the Gin 
 Act of 1736, and all the bishops opposed it. The Bill 
 passed, however, by a great majority. Smollett remarks 
 (xi. 141) : " We cannot help owning that it has not been 
 attended with those dismal consequences which the 
 Lords in the opposition foretold." 
 
 In 1742 the great Walpole fell, and the direction of 
 foreign affairs passed into Carteret's hands. He was a 
 capable but not a successful Minister. Europe was 
 unfortunately embroiled in the war of the Austrian 
 Succession. The main dispute of the war was to 
 determine whether Maria Theresa should be allowed, 
 oh the death of her father, the Emperor Charles vi., 
 to succeed to his dominions. France supported the 
 Elector of Bavaria's claim to part of them, and 
 Frederick 11. of Prussia took the opportunity of claiming 
 Silesia. George 11., if not the English people, was 
 warmly interested in Maria Theresa's cause. He was 
 Elector of Hanover as much as King of England, and 
 dreaded France getting the upper hand in Germany. 
 In 1743 he took the field against the French, and won 
 a victory at Dettingen on 27th June iri that year, for 
 
1747] THE BROAD BOTTOMED MINISTRY 153 
 
 which Handel wrote his Dettingen Te Deum. He 
 returned to England after a few months, and on the 
 17th November we find Potter, whose health had begun 
 to fail and who was hard on seventy, writing to him : 
 " y poor subject and servant, unable to pay his personal 
 attendance, most humbly begs leave to congratulate 
 y' Majesty on y"^ happy arrival after your ever memor- 
 able and glorious campaign." ^ 
 
 The glorious campaign had, however, by no means 
 finished the war on the Continent . The English were sus- 
 picious that, to please the King, Carteret was spending 
 English money for Hanover rather than England's sake. 
 The war was a visitation from which deliverance should 
 be sought ; and Potter, with the piety which was sincere 
 in him, and reflecting the national feeling, writes, on 
 1 5th December 1 743, to the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary 
 of State, that he is still unable to pay his personal attend- 
 ance, and asks him " to put the King in mind that every 
 year since the war began there had been a Day of 
 Publick Fasting and that the same is again generally 
 wished and expected . " ^ In 1 744 , Carteret was succeeded 
 by Henry Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle in the Broad 
 Bottomed Administration. The war on the Continent 
 continued to give Ministers anxiety, and Potter rightly 
 reminds Newcastle, on ist October 1744," of the Annual 
 Fast for the following winter or spring."^ 
 
 In 1744 we may mention that during a debate on a 
 Bill to prevent correspondence with the Pretender's sons, 
 a pointed appeal was made to the Episcopal Bench for 
 their views — mainly, it would seem, on the issue whether 
 the sins of a father should be publicly visited on his 
 children ; but it was Seeker of Oxford who responded 
 to the appeal, answering the question in the affirm- 
 ative. 
 
 In 174s, of course, the position was aggravated, and 
 the question became not whether the English or the 
 
 1 Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32701, f. 264. 
 s Ubi supra, f. 314. ° Ubi supra, t. 337. 
 
154 JOHN POTTER [i737~ 
 
 French were to win a victory in the Netherlands, 
 though Marshal Saxe's victory at Fontenoy on the 
 ist May 1745 stimulated our enemies, but whether 
 Britons at home were safe from invasion, and was the 
 Government which Parliament had set up nearly fifty 
 years before to be maintained or overthrown. In 
 reading the history of the period we must remember 
 that, though the vast majority of Englishmen were 
 resolved to uphold the Hanoverian Dynasty and the 
 Protestant succession, there were people, and not a few 
 in such a place as Oxford, who were not loyal to the 
 King. There was a King's cause to be supported, and 
 when you made a bishop or a judge you had to consider 
 whether your nominee was the King's friend. As we 
 read the correspondence of Newcastle — for twenty-five 
 years or more the arch-dispenser of patronage — we are 
 struck how repeatedly the claim of the applicant for 
 some preferment is based on his being " stanchly favour- 
 able to the person and government of the King," and 
 on the fact that by his appointment the cause of the 
 King's friends will be strengthened in the county or the 
 district . 
 
 We have described in the Life of Archbishop 
 Herring Charles Edward's Rebellion in 1745, since he 
 had so active a part in crushing it. It is sufficient here 
 to say that before the summer of 1 746 began the Rebellion 
 was over. The archbishop, in May 1746, encloses to 
 Newcastle the form of address which Convocation seeks 
 to present to the King, saying that the whole clergy 
 having in their several dioceses addressed His Majesty 
 at the beginning of the Rebellion, the Minister thought 
 an address from Convocation " would be enough now."^ 
 
 The Scottish peers who had taken part in the Rebel- 
 lion and who had not been pardoned. Lords Kilmarnock, 
 Cromarty, and Balmerino, were to be tried for treason in 
 the House of Lords. At the end of July 1746, Potter's 
 age and infirm health made him anxious to be excused 
 1 Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32707, f. 204. 
 
1747] BISHOPS FOR AMERICA 155 
 
 attendance at the trial. " I do indeed go abroad," he 
 says, " but am not able to pay so long an attendance as on 
 such an occasion may perhaps be requisite." ^ A day or 
 two later he writes that, " the Duke being now returned 
 and the Rebellion ended, a day of Solemn Thanksgiving" ^ 
 should be appointed. 
 
 In regard to appointing bishops for the American 
 colonies, a burning Church question for the first three- 
 quarters of the eighteenth century. Potter took a sound 
 Church view. He writes to Newcastle on loth March 
 1 745/6: 
 
 " The bishops last year requested your grace ' that 
 the members of our Church in the American Plantations , 
 where they are very numerous and do probably con- 
 stitute a much larger body than all the other inhabitants 
 of those Provinces together considered, might be per- 
 mitted to have bishops and thereby favoured with an 
 opportunty of receiving Confirmation and Holy Orders 
 in their own country without the necessity of coming 
 to England, which many of them have attempted to do 
 to their great hazard and expense and some to the loss 
 of their lives.' " ^ 
 
 The ten years of Potter's archiepiscopate, 1 737-1 747, 
 were very important years in the lives of John and 
 Charles Wesley, and in the development of Methodism 
 as a separate ecclesiastical organisation. In 1738 
 John Wesley returned from, and Whitfield went to, 
 Georgia ; in 1739 John Wesley built his first chapel 
 at the Foundry ; in 174 1 he first regularly employed 
 unordained licensed preachers ; in 1744 the first 
 Wesleyan Conference met at the Foundry Chapel, 
 London. It was, no doubt, not till 1 760 that his licensed 
 lay preachers began to administer the sacrament at 
 Norwich ; but this, which Charles Wesley called 
 " the Rubicon," was but the inevitable result of what 
 had been long in preparation, and John Wesley seems 
 
 ' Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32707, £. 480. 
 * Ubi supra, i. 561. ' Ubi supra, 32706, i 282. 
 
156 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 to have been the only leading man who was blind to 
 the goal for which he was making. 
 
 The account of Potter's interview with John and 
 Charles Wesley is well known. The brothers had 
 about this time, 1738, an interview with Gibson, the 
 Bishop of London ; they, in fact, voluntarily waited on 
 him to justify their conduct. One of the main points 
 discussed was the doctrine of Assurance, on which the 
 learned and pious bishop had, and could have, no 
 objection to the view that a Christian man, after ex- 
 amining his life and weighing his own sincerity, might 
 be conscious that he was in a state of salvation and 
 could hardly be without such an assurance ; but this 
 hardly satisfied his interviewers, who required a more 
 enthusiastic confidence. There was also much dis- 
 cussion on the Wesleys' right, without episcopal per- 
 mission, to baptize, and particularly to re-baptize. Dis- 
 senters. The bishop was against such re-baptism, 
 and the interview ended with the bishop giving them 
 leave to come again. A few weeks later Charles called 
 on the bishop to tell him he had so re-baptized a woman 
 who was dissatisfied with her baptism by a Dissenter. 
 The bishop disapproved, and a sharp discussion fol- 
 lowed. In the end the bishop had to remind Charles 
 that he had no licence to officiate in the diocese at all, 
 and was liable to inhibition. " Do you now inhibit 
 me? " was the rather bad-tempered reply. " Oh, why 
 will you push matters to an extreme ? " answered the 
 bishop ; and he had to cut short the interview by say- 
 ing, " Well, you knew my judgment before, and you 
 know it now." Soon afterwards they waited on Potter 
 without a summons to justify themselves. " He showed 
 us," says Charles, " great affection, and cautioned us 
 to give no more umbrage than was necessary for our 
 own defence, to forbear exceptionable phrases and to 
 keep to the doctrines of the Church." We told him 
 we expected persecution would abide by the Church 
 till her articles and homilies were repealed . He assured 
 
1747] POTTER'S HAUTEUR IS7 
 
 us he knew of no design in the governors of the Church 
 to innovate ; neither should there be any innovation 
 while he lived. It was probably at this time that this 
 " great and good man," as Wesley calls the archbishop, 
 gave him advice for which he acknowledged many 
 years afterwards that he had ever since had occasion 
 to bless God. " If you desire to be extensively useful, 
 do not spend your time and strength in contending 
 for or against such things as are of a disputable nature, 
 but in testifying against open notorious vice, and in 
 promoting real essential holiness." ^ S. T. Coleridge's 
 note on this is interesting : " I cannot think highly of 
 a maxim better calculated to soothe and justify a 
 Socinian in his Pelagian self-redemption than to direct 
 a minister of the gospel in preaching the whole truth in 
 Christ." 
 
 Potter is said to have had while archbishop only 
 four chaplains ; of these. Chapman, afterwards Arch- 
 deacon of Sudbury, and Dr. Tunstall, Fellow of St. 
 John's College and public orator at Cambridge, were 
 two ? 
 
 We have not much available material for an accurate 
 picture of Potter as a man. No intimate friend, as with 
 his successor Herring, has left us a correspondence with 
 him which might portray to us from his own words what 
 was his real personal character. He was throughout 
 the friend of Walpole and of Lord Hervey. He was a 
 hard worker and methodical in his work throughout 
 his life. His biographer. Dr. Anderson, says that when 
 he applied his businesslike habits of particularity to 
 the numerous tasks that fell to him as archbishop, it 
 " gave him an air of stiffness and importance which he 
 did not formerly show." Hence he was charged with 
 having his head turned by his exalted position, with 
 " assuming great pontifical state, and submitting to 
 flattery of even the grossest kind." " It is generally 
 
 * Southey's Life of Wesley, i. 190. 
 
 * Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ii. 167. 
 
158 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 believed, indeed," says his biographer, " that there 
 was some ground for the charge." 
 
 The main witness against him on this head is the 
 clever and learned, but highly eccentric and certainly 
 unorthodox, Whiston, Professor of Mathematics at 
 Cambridge. In his memoirs he says that he spoke 
 favourably to Queen Caroline of Potter as a candidate 
 for the Primacy ; that he had thought him an excellent 
 pastor of a parish, without any marks of pride or vanity ; 
 and proceeds: "I then little dreamed that this Dr. 
 Potter by going to Lambeth would take high and ponti- 
 fical state upon him ; that he could bear the kneeling of 
 even bishops before him when, at a solemn meeting of 
 the members of the Society for Propagating the Gospel 
 in Foreign Parts, he gave the blessing, which myself 
 saw ; that he would procure half a dozen footmen 
 to walk bareheaded by him when he was in his coach, 
 three of a side besides his train-bearer, at such his 
 appearances." 
 
 Nichols {Literary Anecdotes, i. 176) says of the arch- 
 bishop : " He was a learned and exemplary divine, but 
 of a character by no means amiable ; being strongly 
 tinctured with a kind of haughtiness and severity of 
 manners." 
 
 He is said to have had, beyond the ordinary in- 
 firmities of old age, no warning of his approaching end ; 
 but was seized with an apoplectic fit and died at Lam- 
 beth, loth October 1747, in his seventy-third year. He 
 was buried in Croydon Church, where there is a monu- 
 ment to his memory. 
 
 Potter died a rich man. His biographer. Dr. 
 Anderson, says that he left a fortune of £90,000 ; The 
 Gentleman's Magazine gives it at £70,000. Anyhow, 
 having regard to the then value of money, it was a very 
 large sum. 
 
 Potter had a large family, but only two sons and 
 two daughters survived him. His eldest son, John, 
 was at Christ Church, Oxford, and took Holy Orders . He 
 
1747] HIS FAMILY 159 
 
 was liberally provided for by his father, according to 
 the custom of the day, with Church preferment. The 
 Vicarage of Blackburne in Lancashire was his first 
 preferment, followed in 1739 by the "valuable sine- 
 cure " of Elme-cum-Emmett in the Isle of Ely. Two 
 years later his father made him Archdeacon of Oxford. 
 Richer things followed — the Vicarage of Lydd in Kent, 
 the 12th prebend of Canterbury, and the rich benefice 
 of Wrotham in Kent, which he retained with Lydd. 
 In connection with this a story is told. The canon 
 provides that two benefices may be held in the same 
 county provided they be not more than 30 miles apart. 
 A clergyman applied to Archbishop Potter for a dis- 
 pensation to hold two livings in the same county more 
 than 40 miles apart. Quoth the archbishop, "They 
 are out of distance." The applicant replied, " If your 
 Grace will look at the map of Kent, you will find they 
 are nearer than Lydd and Wrotham." The applicant 
 got the dispensation. 
 
 But family life had its vexations and disappoint- 
 ments even for an eighteenth-century archbishop, and 
 John, to his father's disgust, married a domestic servant 
 in the archiepiscopal establishment. So, beyond his 
 rich benefices, he got no more from his father. In 1766 
 he was made Dean of Canterbury, when he resigned 
 his archdeaconry. 
 
 The archbishop's large fortune went to his second 
 son, Thomas, who went to the Bar, being a member of 
 the Inner Temple. He seems to have inherited his 
 father's wits, and perhaps his good looks, but certainly 
 not his good morals. He was Registrar of the Province 
 of Canterbury, and Recorder of Bath. Like many 
 successful barristers, he went into Parliament, and 
 was member for St. Germans, then for Aylesbury, and 
 afterwards for Okehampton. In 1757 he was ap- 
 pointed Joint Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. Writing in 
 1750, when the Prince of Wales was supporting the 
 opposition to Walpole, Horace Walpole says: "The 
 
i6o JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 Prince has got some new and very able speakers, par- 
 ticularly a young Mr. Potter, son of the last arch- 
 bishop, who promises very greatly : the world is already 
 matching him against Mr. Pitt. His two most cele- 
 brated speeches were on the Seaforth election and on 
 the contest between Aylesbury and Buckingham for 
 the summer assizes." He is said to have been intro- 
 duced into Hogarth's cartoon of an election. He was 
 a member of the witty but profane set that met at 
 Medmenham, and is charged by Wilkes' biographer with 
 having poisoned Wilkes' morals. He died in 1759 
 without apparently fulfilling his early promise. Of 
 him Nichols, in his Literary Anecdotes, says that 
 " the youngest son, the favourite Jacob whom he 
 thought more worthy of his estate, was highly exception- 
 able in his moral character, however distinguished by 
 his abilities, and in particular his behaviour both 
 before and after his marriage to his first lady. Miss 
 Manningham, whom his father obliged him to marry, 
 is well known and remembered."^ 
 
 The archbishop's daughters made clerical, almost 
 episcopal, marriages. One married Thomas Tanner, 
 D.D., a son of Bishop Tanner of St. Asaph, one of the 
 most learned antiquaries of the day. He was Prebend- 
 ary of Canterbury and Rector of Hadleigh and Monks 
 Eleigh, Suffolk. Another married Dr. Milles, for whom 
 his father-in-law got the United Rectories of St. Edmund 
 the King and St . Nicholas Aeon ; he held also the 
 Rectory of Merstham, Surrey, and the sinecure of W. 
 Tarring, Sussex. He was a man of great culture, who 
 succeeded Bishop Lyttelton as President of the R.S. 
 He finally was made Dean of Exeter, with which he held 
 his other preferments except W. Tarring. 
 
 One of the dispositions in Potter's will formed the 
 subject of a litigation which excited interest in legal 
 as well as ecclesiastical circles at the time, and is of 
 interest now because we realise as we read about it how 
 
 ' Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ii. 63. 
 
1747] " OPTIONS " i6i 
 
 notions of Church patronage as property have changed, 
 and how such a litigation on such a subject-matter could 
 hardly proceed nowadays. It related to the arch- 
 bishop's options. By ancient ecclesiastical law in this 
 country every bishop appointed to a see, whether newly 
 consecrated or translated, had to give to the archbishop 
 of his province the next right to present to any ecclesi- 
 astical preferment in the bishop's gift upon its next 
 becoming vacant, which the archbishop chose to select. 
 Hence the name " option." Let us illustrate. The 
 Bishop of Chichester had a piece of patronage in his 
 gift, viz., the right to appoint to the office of Treasurer 
 of Chichester Cathedral. S. was appointed Bishop 
 of Chichester, X. being then Treasurer, and P. Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. The archbishop as his " option " 
 chose the next presentation to the Treasurership, and 
 the bishop duly conveyed it to him. Death deter- 
 mined how the thing worked out. If Bishop S. died 
 first the option failed, as it was held that the bishop 
 could only give and convey to the archbishop his own 
 right to fill the Treasurership and this never was effec- 
 tive. But the fact that Archbishop P. died, leaving 
 the bishop and the Treasurer, did not matter. What the 
 archbishop got was property and passed as part of his 
 personal estate to his executors and through them to 
 his legatees. 
 
 In 1840 options were done away with, the 
 Act carrying into effect the Fourth Report of the 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners having by S. 42 prohibited 
 the conveyance by any spiritual person of any right or 
 property belonging to him as such. 
 
 The clause in Potter's will dealing with his options 
 was as follows : 
 
 " I give and bequeath to my executors all my 
 options in trust, nevertheless that in disposing of the 
 said options regard be had according to their discretion 
 to my eldest son Mr. Potter, Archdeacon of Oxford, to 
 my sons-in-law, the husbands of my daughters, to my 
 
i62 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 present and former Chaplains, and other domestics, 
 particularly to Dr. Tunstall my Chaplain, and to Mr. 
 Hall my librarian ; also to my worthy friends and 
 acquaintance, particularly to the Rev. Dr. Richardson 
 of Cambridge, who " (the archiepiscopal testator 
 naively adds) " ' will I hope in due time find some 
 opportunity to rectify those mistakes in his printed 
 accounts of my dear and most honoured patron 
 Archbishop Tenison of which he has been by me 
 advertized.' " 
 
 Dr. Paul and Dr. Chapman, two of the three 
 executors named in the will, survived the archbishop 
 and proved the will. When the matter came into 
 litigation it was alleged in the suit, and was not — 
 and probably could not be — denied that in his life- 
 time the archbishop had amply provided for his son 
 John, for his sons-in-law, and for Dr. Tunstall, and 
 had also " promoted " Chapman — -who, as we have 
 said, had been his chaplain — to the value of about 
 ;£5oo a year. 
 
 After the archbishop's death three of his options 
 fell in, i.e. the occupiers of three of the offices of which 
 he had acquired the next presentation died ; of these 
 one was a rectory with cure of souls . For this — perhaps 
 because it had the semblance of a duty, a" cure " — 
 there was no scramble and no dispute about it. The 
 other two were the Treasurership of Chichester and the 
 Precentorship of Lincoln. The Chichester office fell 
 vacant first. Chapman liked it, and his co-trustee, 
 Paul, presented him to the post. When challenged, 
 Paul justified the appointment on the ground that 
 Chapman, having been a chaplain, was under the clause 
 in the archbishop's will an object to benefit by an 
 option ; that being also a trustee, were Paul to die 
 before the other options fell in, Chapman as surviving 
 trustee could not present himself and so might come 
 off without any option-benefit, and said that he was 
 willing as the other options fell in to give them to the 
 son, sons-in-law, and persons named in the will other 
 
1747] ANOTHER LAWSUIT 163 
 
 than Chapman, who, provided he got the Chichester 
 Treasurership, disclaimed all further benefit. 
 
 However, John the archbishop's son and his brothers- 
 in-law, husbands of his sisters, were not satisfied. 
 " We come first in order in the clause in the arch- 
 bishop's will," in effect they said, " and no one else ought 
 to get anything till our hunger for preferment is satiated, 
 which it is not." They went to the Court of Chancery : 
 and here they failed, the redoubtable divine Chapman 
 being confirmed in his Treasurership . The victory may 
 have been a doubtful boon to him, if it whetted his 
 appetite for more preferment and more ecclesiastical 
 litigation. Before the next option the precentorship 
 of Lincoln fell in, Paul was dead, and Chapman sole 
 trustee. In justice we have to look at what was done 
 through spectacles of the eighteenth century, when 
 Church patronage was looked upon as a form of 
 propierty of which every cleric got and was entitled 
 to get as much as he could, within the four corners 
 of the law ; but even when so regarded. Chapman's 
 conduct merits condemnation. In the first place, 
 he thought of taking the precentorship himself — ^so 
 the Lord Keeper found as a fact in his judgment ; he 
 approached the Bishop of Lincoln to see if the matter 
 could be got through, with a proposal thrown in, to make 
 it more presentable, that one of the objects mentioned 
 in the will should get one of the livings already held by 
 Chapman as a sort of exchange. This was too much 
 for the bishop , who was uneasy and asked for time to 
 consider it. 
 
 Mrs. Potter, the archbishop's wife, had a nephew 
 a clergyman named Venner. The archbishop, who had 
 been fond of the young man, had helped his education 
 and given him a living in Kent of £100 a year not very 
 far from Merstham, one of Archdeacon Chapman's 
 own livings. Chapman now formed a plan by which 
 through Venner 's co-operation he might retain for 
 himself the coveted Lincoln precentorship. Venner 
 
i64 JOHN POTTER [i737- 
 
 seems to have been a persona grata to the Potter family, 
 and even the pluraUst and archdeacon, the archbishop's 
 eldest son, had suggested he should be helped out of 
 the options. So Chapman approached him ; told him 
 he had long desired to serve him ; told him of the Lincoln 
 option by which Chapman said he thought Venner 
 might be benefited. " You might not care for the 
 Lincoln precentorship with its canonry attached," 
 quoth the covetous archdeacon, " but suppose we 
 had a mutual giving up : you give up to me the 
 Lincoln offices and I give up to you my living of 
 Merstham, which is commodious to your present 
 living." It would have been too much to expect a 
 young cleric in the year of grace 1760 to scout a sug- 
 gestion of the kind when made by one in the position 
 of an archdeacon. 
 
 The bishop required Chapman to make a presentation 
 to the vacant office : so he executed a presentation of 
 Venner thereto. Then the report quaintly goes on : 
 Venner signed a certificate to the bishop that Chapman 
 had offered him the precentorship but that he chose in 
 lieu thereof and in the way of exchange certain other 
 preferment more suitable to him then in the possession 
 of Chapman, and humbly requested the bishop to 
 admit Chapman to the precentorship. 
 
 But Naboth was not long left in possession of his 
 vineyard. A new actor appeared on the scene. Our 
 readers may remember as one of the persons specially 
 named to be benefited under the "options" clause in 
 the archbishop's will the Rev. Dr. Richardson of Cam- 
 bridge. He was Master of Emmanuel, Cambridge, and 
 had been a great friend of the archbishop's, and had, 
 at his request and that of the learned Bishop Gibson 
 of London, undertaken a new edition of Godwin de 
 Praesulibus. It seems not unlikely that among his 
 friends were lawyers of eminence : perhaps Mr. Yorke, 
 afterwards Lord Hardwicke, was a friend and advised 
 him that Chapman's position could be successfully 
 
1747] THE LORD KEEPER'S JUDGMENT 165 
 
 attacked. At any rate, Richardson filed his bill in 
 Chancery to restrain either Venner or Chapman from 
 being inducted or installed . Everyone was a defendant 
 — Chapman, Venner, the archbishop's son, sons-in-law, 
 chaplains, and the bishop. Richardson's case was that 
 he had altered Tenison's life as the will directed, and 
 that everyone named in the clause had from the arch- 
 bishop in his lifetime or since his death, by means of 
 the options, received some benefit or preferment except 
 him, Richardson. The defendants, of course, according 
 to the old Chancery practice, had to put in sworn 
 answers to the bill turned into interrogatories ; and 
 when Chapman and Venner 's answers (particularly 
 Chapman's) came to be settled, their counsel was in 
 difficulties how to meet on oath the suggestion that when 
 Venner was presented by Chapman to the precentorship 
 and canonry there was a bargain or promise that he 
 should give it up to Chapman in exchange. The 
 sailing was certainly very near the wind. They both 
 denied any agreement or promise for the exchange. 
 Chapman admitted having had for more than twelve 
 months the intention of making the exchange if Venner 
 having got the offices should be willing, that he believed 
 Venner was willing, but that he Chapman was not 
 absolutely determined within himself and therefore 
 could not say whether, if Venner having got the pre- 
 centorship and canonry should offer to exchange, 
 he Chapman would accept the offer, and so would not 
 say whether the intention was at an end . 
 
 Venner said that had he got possession of the pre- 
 centorship and canonry he would have been willing, 
 and did intend, to exchange them for Merstham, and that 
 he was inclined to believe that he still intended to carry 
 out the exchange if Chapman consented. 
 
 The case was heard for four days before Lord Keeper 
 Henley, afterwards Lord Northington, a by no means 
 incapable judge. 
 
 There were undoubted weaknesses in the cases of 
 
i66 JOHN POTTER [i 737-1747 
 
 Chapman and Venner. The judge said had he thought 
 it proved that there was a bargain between them he 
 would have set it aside. " I own," said he, " there is 
 strong foundation of suspicion and jealousy," but 
 he accepted their oath that there was no bargain. 
 There were, however, difficulties in the plaintiff Richard- 
 son's way. The executor had a discretion, and if he 
 was not the object of that discretion, where did his 
 claim come in ? So the Lord Keeper dismissed the bill, 
 but, according to the report, without costs against all 
 the defendants except the bishop, who got 40s. costs. 
 But Mr. Yorke, the friend of Dr. Richardson, advised 
 him to appeal to the House of Lords — thinking so well 
 of the case that, according to Mr. Nichols' Literary 
 Anecdotes, v. 158, he offered to plead it gratis. 
 
 There was a three-days' hearing in the House of 
 Lords, at the close of which the Lord Keeper's decree 
 was reversed. Chapman was ordered to present Dr. 
 Richardson to the Lincoln precentorship and canonry, 
 and to pay Dr. Richardson's costs in the Court of 
 Chancery. 
 
 The case is reported in Burn's Ecclesiastical Law 
 under the heading of " Bishops' options," and in 2 
 Brown's Reports of Cases in Parliament. 
 
THOMAS HERRING 
 
 1 747-1757 
 
 In passing from Potter to Herring we come, it appears 
 fair to say, to a somewhat lower level. As we have 
 said so often, it is idle to judge an archbishop of 1750 
 by the standard of 1900. Potter had imperfections : 
 he was stilted and starchy ; did too well for himself 
 and his belongings out of the emoluments of the Church, 
 the draper's son leaving at his death £90,000, the 
 equivalent of £200,000 nowadays ; showed scant sym- 
 pathy with the efforts of Wesley and Whitfield to bring 
 the degraded masses to the salvation of Jesus Christ. 
 But withal. Potter was a man of parts and industry ; 
 possessed of first-class abilities, he was from boyhood 
 a diligent student, a good Latin and Greek scholar. 
 When he wrote of Church Government and the Fathers 
 he wrote of matters which he had studied deeply. His 
 conviction that it was for the good of religion in this 
 country to proceed and to proceed only on settled 
 Church lines perhaps saved the English Church from in- 
 novations which a man like Hoadly might have thought 
 improvements, but which would have been highly 
 offensive to multitudes of Churchmen since, if not 
 then. 
 
 It is more difficult to point out the conspicuous 
 merits of Herring. If he owed his preachership at 
 Lincoln's Inn and much of his subsequent preferment 
 to Lord Hardwicke, as seems probable, it is not likely 
 the Great Chancellor promoted thus a man of no merit. 
 The writer of his Life in the Preface to his published 
 collection of seven sermons (repeated in the Biographica) 
 12 
 
i68 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 is, in the style of biographers at that day, so profuse 
 with his epithets of flattery that it is hard to dissect 
 out the real man and his real virtues. The best means 
 we have of getting at his true character is from his 
 correspondence with William Buncombe. With this 
 gentleman, an author and a man of high intelligence ,1 
 the archbishop had a lifelong friendship, and main- 
 tained throughout life a constant correspondence, be- 
 ginning in 1728, and continuing to within a few months 
 of the archbishop's death in 1757. 
 
 Thomas Herring was a son of the Church, his father 
 being the Rev. John Herring, rector of Walsoken, in 
 the county of Norfolk, where the future archbishop 
 was born in 1693. He received his early education 
 at Wisbech School, and in June 1710 was admitted at 
 Jesus College, Cambridge. Here he continued till he 
 took his B.A. degree, but in July 1714, seeing no pros- 
 pect of a Fellowship, he removed to Bennet College, 
 of which he was chosen a Fellow in April 1716. He 
 was ordained deacon in the same year.^ 
 
 For seven years he joined Dr. Denne, afterwards 
 Archdeacon of Rochester, in taking pupils. Herring 
 undertaking the classical coaching. Herring was a 
 man to remember old friends, and he, when archbishop, 
 gave preferment to Denne's son. In 171 7 the future 
 Primate became M.A., and in 1719 was ordained priest. 
 
 He was successively minister of Great Shelford, 
 Stow cum qui, and Trinity, Cambridge. In 1722, Dr. 
 Fleetwood, then Bishop of Ely, made him his chaplain, 
 and later in the year gave him the livings of Rettingdon, 
 in Essex, and Barley, near Royston, in Hertfordshire. 
 Herring seems to have resided at the latter place, from 
 which several of the Buncombe letters are addressed. 
 
 Bishop Fleetwood had a high opinion of his chaplain. 
 Bown to 1763 the London residence of the bishops of 
 Ely was, and for centuries had been, in Ely Place, 
 
 • See his Life, Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, viii. 267. 
 
 * Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 451. ^ 
 
I7S7] PREACHER OF LINCOLN'S INN 169 
 
 Holborn. Under an Act passed in the third year of 
 George iii., the house in Dover Street, which is now the 
 Albemarle Club, was purchased for them. Bishop 
 Fleetwood generally preached in the winter season in 
 the chapel belonging to his Palace in Ely Place, but 
 he was now an old man in bad health, and accordingly 
 employed his chaplain to occupy his pulpit in the 
 episcopal chapel. He declared to his friends that he 
 never heard a sermon from his chaplain but what he 
 should be proud to be the author of himself. But 
 Herring, whether from the exertions of influential friends 
 or as the result of his own exertions and merits, was on 
 the way to further honours and preferments. He seems 
 to have maintained touch with his university, took his 
 degree of B.D. in 1724, and about the same time was 
 presented by the King to the London living of All 
 Hallows the Great. It seems, however, that he gave 
 this up before institution. In 1726, probably under 
 the influence of Sir Philip Yorke, then Attorney-General, 
 afterwards Lord Hardwicke, who was Treasurer of the 
 Inn in 1725, on the death of Dr. Lupton, the Honour- 
 able Society of Lincoln's Inn elected him their Preacher — 
 a post which down to quite recent days has frequently 
 been the stepping-stone to the highest preferments in 
 the Church. This post Herring retained many years. 
 His sermons are said to have been received by his legal 
 and other auditors with the highest approbation, and 
 to have been marked by " manly sense," " most bene- 
 volent principles," " happy elocution," and " unaffected 
 delivery." He is said to have avoided the disputes 
 canvassed among Christians, but to have enforced with 
 clearness and warmth the fundamental duties of the 
 Christian life. On one occasion only the preacher's 
 homiletics seem to have given offence and created 
 clamour. There stood in those days not far from 
 Lincoln's Inn a theatre known as The Lincoln's Inn 
 Play-House, and in the year 1728 The Beggar's Opera, 
 a composition of the poet Gay, was being performed 
 
I70 THOMAS HERRING [t747- 
 
 there. In this the performances of a band of street 
 robbers and their punishment on the gallows were re- 
 presented with musical accompaniments, the leader 
 of the band, Macheath, being the hero of the piece. 
 There was complaint about this time that night rob- 
 beries with violence were especially prevalent in London. 
 On the 30th March 1728 a letter signed " Philopropos " 
 was sent to the Whitehall Evening Post, one of the 
 London evening papers of the day, containing the 
 following passages : 
 
 " How shocking then would it have appeared to 
 bring upon the stage as a proper subject for laughter 
 and merriment a gang of highwaymen and pickpockets 
 triumphing in their successful villainies, and braving 
 the ignominious death they so justly deserved, with 
 the undaunted resolution of a Stoic philosopher. The 
 courage expressed in the following lines would have 
 become a Seneca or a Raleigh, but seems not so suitable 
 to the character of a criminal. 
 
 ' The charge is prepared, the lawyers are met, 
 The judges all ranged (a terrible show), 
 I go undismayed, for death is a debt, 
 A debt on demand, so take what I owe.' 
 
 " How far a late celebrated entertainment may have 
 contributed towards those daring attacks, which are 
 daily committed on the property of the subjects in the 
 streets of our capital in defiance of all law ... I will 
 not pretend to say ; but I am sure nothing can be 
 more likely to ferment these violences than such lines 
 as these : 
 
 ' See the ball I hold. 
 Let the chy mists toil like asses, 
 Our fire their fire surpasses 
 And turns all their lead to gold.' 
 
 " The detestableness of the entertainment and its 
 being adapted to the taste of the vulgar and set to easy 
 tunes (which almost everyone can remember), makes 
 the contagion spread wider." 
 
 This was written by William Buncombe, afterwards 
 Herring's friend, who was one of his congregation. 
 
1 757] CHAPLAIN TO THE KING 171 
 
 Herring, in a sermon at Lincoln's Inn Chapel, also 
 condemned the performance as injurious to public 
 morals, and his condemnation was thought to be 
 justified by the fact that several thieves and robbers 
 afterwards confessed in Newgate that they raised their 
 courage at the playhouse by the songs of their hero 
 Macheath before they sallied forth on their desperate 
 nocturnal exploits. Buncombe backed up the preacher's 
 remonstrance with a letter in the London Journal, 
 signed " Benevolus," in which he commended " the clear 
 reasoning, good sense, and manly rhetoric, the judicious 
 criticism, as well as the Christian oratory " of the 
 preacher. Swift, however, in the Intelligencer, vol. iii., 
 praised the play as " having done eminent service both 
 to religion and morality, and said that it would probably 
 do more good than a thousand sermons by so stupid, so 
 injudicious, and so prostitute a divine as Dr. Herring." 
 Of the approbation thereby given by Buncombe to the 
 preacher's condemnation of the play, Herring in one of 
 his letters speaks as a favour which stands distinguished 
 in his memory as " one of the most generous and dis- 
 interested offers of friendship which ever he received 
 from anyone since he had been acquainted with the 
 world." 
 
 Herring himself was throughout his life modest as 
 regards the merits of his sermons, and deprecated the 
 printing and publication of sermons generally. In a 
 letter written not many years before his death, he says : 
 " I never printed a sermon but upon compulsion, 
 except one " (his sermon at York on the Highland 
 rebellion). " There is eno' and too much of that sort 
 of work. . . . Better discourses on morality cannot be 
 had than hundreds which the world is in possession of." 
 
 About the same time as he was appointed to the 
 preachership of Lincoln's Inn, George i. appointed 
 him one of the King's Chaplains in Ordinary. In the 
 same year, while hurrying to his beloved Osnabruck, 
 George i. died. The last years of his reign had been 
 
172 THOMAS HERRING [i747- 
 
 marked by the growth of the power and influence of 
 Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of England. 
 
 In ecclesiastical affairs, as perhaps in political, 
 Walpole 's maxim was quieta non mover e. His own 
 morals were lax, and neither from temperament nor 
 habits was he likely to support strict or strong Church 
 views. He conceived himself to have received support 
 from the Dissenters in Norfolk, and was in principle 
 favourable to the repeal of the Test Act desired by 
 them, but contrived to put them off. Herring seems 
 to have been on friendly terms with Walpole, and the 
 former's churchmanship was of the type which would 
 commend itself to Walpole for promotion .^ 
 
 His friendship with the Attorney-General, Sir Philip 
 Yorke, continued, and was confirmed no doubt by the 
 great lawyer frequently if not regularly in term-time 
 " sitting under " him as Preacher of Lincoln's Inn in 
 the Chapel of the Inn. There is published in Lord 
 Hardwicke's Life a letter to Walpole, which shows 
 what an advocate of Herring's claims the Attorney- 
 General was : 
 
 "Lincoln's Inn, iS^/s/aw. 1730. 
 
 " Sir, — As you have been soe good as to honour my 
 friend Dr. Herring with assurance of yr favour, I canriot 
 help acquainting you that the Dean of Norwich is 
 supposed to be in a dying condition, and likely to hold 
 out but a little while. If you shou* think this prefer- 
 ment proper and he could succeed in it, the obligation 
 woud be very great ; and as I know the relation it has 
 to ye county in which you have so just an influence, 
 I dare answer for him that you would find nobody 
 more attached to your interest and service. I am 
 ever with the greatest truth and respect. Sir, Your 
 most obliged and most obedient faithful servant, 
 
 " P. Yorke. 
 
 " Sir R. Walpole." 
 
 Having taken his degree of D.D. in 1728, Herring 
 was, in 1731, presented by Sir William Clayton to the 
 
 ' Cox's Walpole, 436, 
 
1757] DEAN OF ROCHESTER 173 
 
 valuable living of Bletchingley, in Surrey. With this 
 change Herring seems to have been pleased, and on the 
 23rd September 1731 he writes from Bletchingley to his 
 friend Buncombe : 
 
 " I thank you most heartily for y' very kind con- 
 gratulatn upon my promotion to this good living : I 
 am, I own, pleased with it, and hope I may say I am 
 sure I ought to say contented. I bless providence 
 for so ample a provision for me, and leave it entirely to 
 his goodness as to the future enjoyment of it, but tho' 
 I am contented myself you, I find, with the solicitude of 
 a friend, will be extending yr care for me still further 
 and prophesying I know not what promotions." 
 
 Whether through Buncombe's intervention or Sir 
 R. Walpole's, the next step came soon. A few months 
 later Herring was made Bean of Rochester, where he 
 was installed 5th February 1731-32. For the next five 
 years Herring divided his time between Bletchingley and 
 Rochester. We get a peep of the inner sentiments of 
 the man in his letters. His friend and correspondent 
 Buncombe lost his wife at the beginning of 1735, and in 
 a letter of condolence to his friend Herring writes : 
 
 " The finest sayings of the finest moralists are flat 
 and unaffecting upon these trying occasions. The only 
 thing that can give the mind any solid satisfaction is a 
 certain complacency and repose in the good providence 
 of God, under a sincere conviction that he orders every- 
 thing for the best." 
 
 Shortly before this. Herring's friend, Sir Philip Yorke, 
 who had by now blossomed into a peerage and the 
 Chief Justiceship, got him to recommend a tutor for 
 Philip Yorke, his eldest son. It seems that the Judge 
 made it a sine qua -non that the tutor should be a good 
 Whig as well as a good scholar. 
 
 1737 saw Herring's elevation to the Episcopate. 
 It may be well here for a moment to take stock of the 
 general position of English public afeirs in that year. 
 
174 THOMAS HERRING [i747- 
 
 Sir Robert Walpole was still in power, and for the 
 ten years George ii. had reigned had been so. His 
 ally, the intelligent and sagacious Consort of George ii., 
 Queen Caroline, was still alive, it not being till the 
 autumn of that year that she was compelled to take 
 to her bed by the illness from which she died on 20th 
 November 1737. Four years before Walpole had been 
 compelled to withdraw his Excise Bill. The eloquent 
 but unprincipled Bolingbroke was back again, having 
 got his attainder reversed in 1725, and with Pulteney, 
 afterwards Earl of Bath, also an excellent speaker, 
 stirred up popular feeling by misrepresentations of the 
 effects of the measure, and the Minister had to drop it. 
 But in spite of this he had emerged from the Elections 
 of 1 734 with nearly as many supporters in the House of 
 Commons as before. 
 
 The preceding year had seen the affair of Porteous 
 of Edinburgh, so well known to readers of Scott's Heart 
 of Midlothian ; and the fires of excitement caused by 
 the affair were still smouldering. 
 
 As to foreign affairs, the war of the Polish Succes- 
 sion, with Austria and perhaps England on the one 
 side, and France and Spain on the other — one of those 
 foolish little wars in which in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries Europe was so easily involved by 
 dynastic jealousy or personal ambition — -was just over, 
 peace having been signed at Vienna. To his high 
 credit, Walpole, always for peace, had kept England 
 out of the quarrel, but the feeling in England against 
 Spain was strong, and " Jenkin's ear " was not far off. 
 
 1737 was, as has appeared in our Life of Archbishop 
 Potter, a busy year in ecclesiastical matters. It was 
 the year in which death ended Archbishop Wake's 
 long decrepitude. 
 
 In forming an estimate of Herring's religious and 
 ecclesiastical standpoint our best material will be 
 what he says himself, and here his letters to Dun- 
 combe are of great use to his biographer. During 
 
1757] HERRING AND LATITUDINARIANISM 175 
 
 all his life the Church of England had been open to 
 attacks — some of which were attacks not only on the 
 Church's tenets, but on the whole fabric of Christi- 
 anity itself. In 1 71 8, Hoadly (of whom we have given 
 some account in Potter's life), then Bishop of Bangor, 
 preached his sermon on the Kingdom of Christ, the 
 general tenor of which was that religious sincerity 
 alone was to be the object of the Christian, and that 
 little or no importance was to be attached to any 
 visible Church or organisation of Christians. It found 
 favour at Court, but provoked great opposition in Con- 
 vocation and outside, and Canon Perry says the publica- 
 tions due to it approached two hundred. A little later 
 Clarke, the Rector of St. James's, Piccadilly, published 
 a Reformed Common Prayer Book, with alterations 
 made in it to favour Arian views, and in 171 8 a 
 collection of hymns with the Doxology altered to an 
 Arian form. 
 
 Between 1700 and 1750 Collins had attacked the 
 Prophecies, Woolston the Miracles, of our Lord, and 
 Tindal wrote advocating Natural Religion in place of the 
 Christian Faith. These were answered by Churchmen 
 such as Bishop Chandler, Sherlock, and Waterland, 
 and by Nonconformists such as Chandler and Lardner. 
 In 1733, Hoadly, the hero of the Bangorian controversy, 
 published, but anonymously, A Plain Account of the 
 Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. 
 In this work he took a low or Zwinglian view of the 
 Sacrament, regarding it as a mere memorial rite of 
 no special value. In the middle of the century Hume 
 put out his well-known attack on Miracles, and in 1754 
 the religious world was shocked by the publication of 
 the posthumous works of Bolingbroke. There was 
 hardly any part of the Christian faith which was not 
 attacked, sometimes with ridicule, in these pages. 
 
 Herring must have been, and we know that in 
 fact he was, familiar with these attacks or most of 
 them. The problem how such attacks are to be best met 
 
176 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 presents itself differently to different minds . There are 
 always some who, deeming certitude to be the one in- 
 dispensable factor in a religion that is to be of use to 
 a man, place a set of doctrines beyond doubt or ques- 
 tion, and regard all who are not in total agreement 
 with them as to all of such doctrines as — to use the 
 language of Sacheverell's famous sermon — "false 
 brethren." Others with a less unquestioning faith, yet 
 with a deep sense of the value of religion, like to minimise 
 the number of points open to attack, and accept as allies, 
 so far as they will go, those who champion some only 
 of the dogmas they themselves are prepared to support. 
 Herring firmly believed it was better to leave the vital 
 truths of Christianity to defend themselves than to have 
 them badly defended. He has been called a Latifud- 
 inarian, even an Arian. He was undoubtedly not a High 
 Churchman — less so distinctly than his predecessor 
 Potter or his successor Seeker. To the Church of Rome 
 he had strong political as well as theological repugnance. 
 Horace Walpole calls him " a harmless, good man, 
 inclined to much moderation, and of little zeal for the 
 tinsel of rehgion " ; after recounting his death, the same 
 writer calls him " a very amiable man to whom no 
 fault was imputed tho' the gentleness of his principles, 
 his great merit, was thought one." Herring himself 
 professed that he had never any taste for metaphysical 
 studies, nor indeed did he make any profession of 
 being a learned theologian. We have an instance of 
 this in his attitude towards Bishop Law. Bishop 
 Edmund Law of Carlisle is an interesting figure in 
 ecclesiastical history in the middle and towards the end 
 of the eighteenth century. He was the father of Lord 
 Ellenborough, the Lord Chief- Justice. He favoured 
 " decent freedom of inquiry," and was the friend of the 
 celebrated Archdeacon Blackburne, but was a man of 
 " great softness of manner," and of the mildest and 
 most tranquil disposition. Law took his Divinity degree 
 at Cambridge in 1749, and in his public exercise he 
 
I7S7] DR. CLARKE 177 
 
 defended, it is said, what is usually called " the sleep of 
 the soul," a tenet according to which our Saviour 
 will at His second coming by an act of His power restore 
 to life and consciousness the dead of the human species, 
 who by their own nature and without this interposition 
 would remain in the state of insensibility to which the 
 death brought upon mankind by the sin of Adam had 
 reduced them. Divines discussed Law's position on 
 this and other dogmas. Archbishop Herring, on hear- 
 ing of his thesis at Cambridge, said, "I neither justify, 
 nor condemn you. If your doctrine be right, I am no 
 loser ; if wrong, I am but as I was : I am in the hands 
 of a just and merciful God, to whom I wholly commit 
 myself. I believe His Gospels, and am persuaded you 
 do as much as I, though we may have different senti- 
 ments about some particulars. We shall both of us, 
 I hope, meet in Heaven." 
 
 The charge of Arianism against Herring is based 
 mainly on the opinions he expressed on Hoadly's 
 Plain Account and Clarke's Prayer Book. In a letter, 
 written after his appointment to the Deanery of 
 Rochester, to Duncombe, dated 9th November 173S, he 
 says : 
 
 " I see no reason for such a prodigious outcry upon 
 the Plain Account, etc. I really think it a good book, 
 and as to the Sacrament in particular as orthodox as 
 Archbishop Tillotson ; his prayers are very long, but 
 in my poor opinion some of the best compositions of 
 the sort that ever I read, and if I could bring my mind 
 to that steady frame of thinking with regard to the 
 Deity that is prescribed by him, I believe I should 
 be so far happy as my nature is perhaps capable of 
 being. There is something comfortable in addressing 
 the Deity as the Father, not the Tyrant of the Creation. 
 
 Herring's opinion of Clarke's Prayer Book is in a 
 letter to Dr. Jortin, which, though later in date, we may 
 deal with at this point. Clarke's theology was open to 
 question, but he was a man of high principle. In 1727,^ 
 
 1 Hore, ii. 17. 
 
178 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 onthedeath of Sir Isaac Newton, herefused the Mastership 
 of the Mint, worth £1 200 to £1 500 a year, on the ground 
 that a clergyman ought not to accept a secular appoint- 
 ment ; and it is thought that he refused perhaps more 
 than once a bishopric offered to him because of his 
 objection to subscription. Of Clarke's Prayer Book 
 Herring wrote to Dr. Jortin : 
 
 " I have seen Dr. Clarke's Common Prayer Book.i 
 I have read it, have approved the temper and the 
 wisdom of it. But into what times are we fallen after 
 so much light and so much appearance of moderation 
 that we can only wish for the success of Truth. The 
 world will not hear it, and the proof is very evident 
 from this abominable spirit that rages against the 
 Jews. I expect in a little time they will be massacred. 
 What a thin covering of embers had kept down the 
 fire of High Church. We are now treating the Jews 
 just as the Mahometans kept the Christians, who can 
 afford them no other epithet than Christian Dogs." 
 
 Herring was nominated Bishop of Bangor at the 
 end of the summer of 1737. He was a persona grata to 
 the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, but there 
 seems little doubt that it was his friend Lord Hard- 
 wicke, who was now Lord Chancellor, to whom he 
 owed his promotion. Of the two letters, the bishop- 
 elect to the Chancellor and the Chancellor to the bishop- 
 elect, which passed on the occasion and which are 
 given in Lord Hardwicke's Life, we confess we like 
 the Chancellor's the better.^ The bishop is too unctuous 
 and flattering, even cringing. 
 
 " I shall remember," he says, referring to the Chan- 
 cellor's favour to him, " to my latest breath, with a 
 quick sensibility that the happiness and honour of 
 my life, whatever it is or may be, has been owing to 
 the distinction with which you have been pleased to 
 treat me and to the assistance by which you have 
 raised me." 
 
 • Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, in. 465. 
 ' Life of Lord Hardwicke, i. 405. 
 
1757] CONSECRATION 179 
 
 Later he says that he only wishes " to act in such 
 a manner as may become the station I am going to be 
 placed in, and to do as little discredit as may be to 
 your Lordship's recommendation of me." 
 
 The Chancellor is perplexed, as humbler persons 
 have been since, how to address a bishop-elect, and 
 begins : 
 
 " Dear Sir, or by what other name must I call 
 you." He goes on later : "I will be vain enough to 
 avow that I feel a real comfort in my own breast in 
 having cast in my mite towards giving to the Church 
 a worthy and able pastor who will religiously and 
 vigorously defend the cause of revealed religion without 
 injuring that of natural ; and not by giving up or 
 depreciating the latter lay a sandy foundation for the 
 former." 
 
 The Bishopric of Bangor was a small one, usually 
 only held as a stepping-stone to something more promi- 
 nent and lucrative. 
 
 Herring was a man who appreciated quiet and seems 
 to have had misgivings as to the advantages of his new 
 dignity. He writes from Bletchingley, the living he 
 had retained with his deanery, to Buncombe : 
 
 " You are extremely kind in your congratulations 
 upon the King's favour to me. . . . To say the plain 
 truth, I am in no sort of raptures about it, nay indeed not 
 without apprehensions that I am making work for re- 
 pentance. ... I have thought much of the affair and 
 can form to myself no new felicities it can bring me, 
 unless it be the opportunities it may possibly be 
 attended with of living more among such friends as 
 you are and some time or other doing them some good." 
 
 He was confirmed at Bow Church, 14th January 
 1738, and consecrated at Lambeth the day following. 
 
 There are but scanty materials available for giving 
 any picture of Herring as a diocesan bishop. He 
 accepted the standards of episcopal activity generally 
 adhered to in his day. If he did little to raise them 
 
i8o THOMAS HERRING [i747~ 
 
 there is no reason to think that he fell far below them. 
 Unlike Hoadty, who preceded him at Bangor but 
 never entered his diocese as bishop, and that very able 
 man Bishop Richard Watson, who, after being a very 
 high Wrangler, was Bishop of Llandaff for thirty-four 
 years and fixed his home in Westmorland, Herring was 
 at some pains to visit his diocese. In the autumn of 
 1738 he took a trip in North Wales. He comments to 
 his friend Buncombe on the ruggedness of the scenery, 
 but makes no mention of ecclesiastical or professional 
 affairs . 
 
 A year later, however, he makes what he calls a " very 
 romantic and most perilous " journey to his diocese. 
 He says : " It was the year of my primary visitation, 
 and I determined to see every part of my diocese : to 
 which purpose I mounted my horse and rode intrepidly 
 but slowly thro' N. Wales to Shrewsbury." He set out 
 accompanied by his chancellor, his chaplain, secretary, 
 two or three friends, and his servants. He is satisfied 
 with one of the inns at which he stayed, and says : 
 " I slept well, tho' by the number of beds in the room 
 I could have fancied myself in a hospital. The next 
 morning I confirmed at the church, and after dinner 
 set out for the metropolis of the country called Dolgelley ; 
 there I stayed and did business the next day." 
 
 In July 1 74 1 he seems to have made another tour 
 through his diocese, and wrote to his friend the Chan- 
 cellor, giving an account of the sickness and death then 
 prevalent throughout the kingdom. 
 
 His asthmatic tendency made him live, when 
 attending Parliament, at Kensington, and Nichols 
 preserves a letter from Kensington in the following 
 year to the Vicar of Ruthyn : 
 
 " Kensington, 2gth April 1742. 
 
 " I intend if it please God to visit the diocese this 
 
 summer, and beg the favour of you to give me a sermon 
 
 at Ruthyn Church. I have not yet absolutely fixed 
 
 the day, but think it will be about the middle of June." 
 
I7S7] ARCHBISHOP OF YORK i8i 
 
 In his patronage he seems to have been careful even 
 in his Welsh diocese. His predecessor at Bangor in 
 1734 was Sherlock, afterwards Bishop of London. He 
 had wanted to " prefer " a curate in his diocese of 
 whom he had formed a good opinion, and whom after 
 he had become Bishop of Salisbury he recommended 
 to Herring when the latter had gone to Bangor . Herring 
 writes to the curate in February 1741 giving him a 
 rectory : 
 
 " I am sincerely glad," he says, " of this opportunity 
 of performing my intentions. I pray God send you 
 health and long life ; that your family may feel the 
 benefit of your removal as well as the parish, which 
 I am confident you will take a very honest and religious 
 care of." 
 
 At the end of the same year he writes : 
 
 " I have heard something indistinctly of the dis- 
 tresses of the clergy in some parishes and of your 
 own ill-usage in particular in that respect ; which 
 I should be glad to be acquainted with with more 
 certainty and preciseness." 
 
 In April 1743, on the death of Archbishop Blackburn, 
 Herring was appointed to York. Horace Walpole's ill- 
 natured comment is : " Herring of Bangor, the youngest 
 Bishop, is named to the see of York. It looks as if the 
 Church were going out of fashion, for two or three of 
 them have refused this mitre." In a note he gives 
 Wilcox of Rochester and Sherlock of Salisbury as those 
 who had so refused. There can be no doubt that again 
 it was the Lord Chancellor who procured his promotion. 
 
 On loth June he wrote to Lord Hardwicke giving 
 an account of his journey into the North and taking 
 possession of York, where he says : " I am placed by the 
 King's favour through your Lordship's friendship." 
 Later he says in another letter : " Your Lordship had 
 so great a share in placing me in this situation." His 
 description to Buncombe of his first visit to York 
 
182 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 and his entrance on his archiepiscopal duties are 
 worth transcribing : 
 
 ' ' I was above a fortnight on the road (from London) 
 before I reached Bishopthorp and immediately entered 
 here upon a round of comphments and entertainments 
 from which I retreated after ten days by changing the 
 scene and fulfilhng my second plan of visitat". After 
 a short recess I entered upon a third, and at a proper 
 distance of time upon a fourth, which ended a fortnight 
 ago and completed my visitat". I bless God for it I 
 have finished the work not only without hurt but with 
 great pleasure to myself, and I returned home with 
 great satisfaction of heart for having done my duty 
 and acquired a sort of knowledge of the diocese, which 
 can be had by nothing but personal inspection . . . 
 what may give you by the rules of proportion a great 
 idea of the importance of this district of England, I 
 am confident I have confirmed above 30,000 people." 
 
 Herring's letters show him to have maintained a 
 keen interest in public affairs. We have described 
 in the Life of Archbishop Potter how England was 
 involved under Carteret in 1742 in the war of the 
 Austrian Succession, how George 11. got his victory at 
 Dettingen in 1743, and how in 1745 England had not 
 only on her shoulders the war against France, but had 
 her hands full at home with the Rebellion under the 
 Pretender, Charles Edward. 
 
 On the 23rd September 1744, Thos. Ebor writes to 
 the Duke of Newcastle from Bishop Thorpe : 
 
 " I fear you will find a session of some trouble from 
 the untoward conduct of this Northern Prince, but I am 
 pleased to find it the general sense of the King's friends 
 in this great county that His Majesty's and the PubHc 
 affairs can't be in better hands than Pelham and the 
 Duke of Newcastle, an opinion that I am extremely 
 zealous to cultivate." ^ 
 
 On the 2Sth July 1745, Charles Edward landed with 
 the " seven men of Moidart " in Scotland. 
 
 » Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32703, f. 319. 
 
I7S7] REBELLION OF 1745 183 
 
 It was a crisis in Herring's life, and only those who 
 have read with care the correspondence which passed 
 from the summer of 1745 to the following spring between 
 the archbishop and the Lord Chancellor can realise — (i) 
 how gravely the throne of George 11. was threatened 
 by the rebellion ; (2) what a leading part Herring took 
 in fighting against it. The English public, though 
 slowly reconciled to the Hanoverian Succession, perhaps 
 had a sneaking affection for Jacobitism and were very 
 apathetic. Herring, who was every inch a Whig and 
 an ti- Jacobite, is said to have been the first man who 
 gave the alarm, the rebels' friends having concealed 
 their movements so artfully that the news of Prestonpans 
 was the first intimation to many Englishmen that the 
 Highlanders were in arms. 
 
 Frequent and important communications passed 
 between the Archbishop of York and his friend the Lord 
 Chancellor on public affairs. Indeed, on Lord Hardwicke 
 a very large part of the active duties of government 
 devolved. George 11. was — as he generally was when 
 he ought to have been in England — at Hanover, and all 
 his care and interests were there. To please him, and in 
 defence of Hanover, a large body of troops, who should 
 have been available for the British Government and 
 who had they been in England would have crushed 
 the rebellion at the beginning, were tied up on the Con- 
 tinent until Lord Hardwicke and his colleagues Henry 
 Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle made George 11. send 
 for them. The Chancellor writes on 31st August to 
 his archiepiscopal friend, and says in his letter : " Arch- 
 bishops of York have before now drawn the secular as 
 well as the spiritual sword, and I hope your Grace will 
 stand between us and danger " ; and his P.S. is : "Is 
 it not time for the pulpits to sound the trumpets 
 against Popery and the Pretender ? " 
 
 On the 12th September the Chancellor again writes 
 to the archbishop incidentally complaining of how his 
 long vacation was being sppilt, but showing grave anxiety 
 13 
 
184 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 as to the indifference of the public to the rebeUion and 
 fears as to the competence of Sir John Cope, the EngHsh 
 Commander. The Chancellor's fears on the last head 
 were well founded. Nine days later, on 21st September, 
 Cope was utterly defeated at Prestonpans. The news 
 of the defeat soon reached York, and the archbishop 
 writes to Lord Hardwicke : " I own I conceive terrible 
 apprehensions from the aifair at Prestonpans," and, 
 after describing the formidable character of the rebels' 
 attack and failing to find a fit adjective for the English 
 General's behaviour (" I won't give it the right 
 name," he says), he goes on : "I hope in God all this 
 is known above much better than it is here, and 
 that it is now seen that this rebellion is not to be 
 quashed by small pelotons of an army, but must 
 be attended to totis viribus." In the same letter he 
 gives the Chancellor an account of the archbishop's 
 own exertions. 
 
 " We are all in motion," he says, " from one end of 
 the county to the other, and the Lords will certainly do 
 their duty. The city is so much in earnest that they 
 will make of themselves a considerable purse and put 
 between two and three troops into action. The Lord 
 Mayor told me yesterday that the lowest of the citizens 
 contributed something." 
 
 An association was formed at York, and a subscrip- 
 tion proposed for money to raise troops for the defence 
 of the kingdom. 
 
 On the 22nd September the archbishop preached a 
 rousing sermon in York Minster, and two days later the 
 neighbouring noblemen, gentry, and clergy met at York 
 Castle, where they were addressed by his Grace in a 
 speech of which the following are some of the leading 
 passages : 
 
 " I am desired by the Lords Lieutenant of the 
 several ridings to open to you the reason of our present 
 assembling. . . . 
 
 "It was some time before it was believed (I would 
 
1 757] HIS SPEECH AT YORK 185 
 
 to Grod it had gained credit sooner), but now every child 
 knows it, that the Pretender's son is in Scotland, has 
 set up his standard there, has gathered and disciplined 
 an army of great force, receives daily increase of numbers, 
 is in possession of the capital city, has defeated a small p* 
 of ye King's forces, and is advancing with hasty steps 
 twds Eng. . . . 
 
 "But the great mischief to be feared, which ought 
 to alarm us exceedingly and put us immedly on our 
 defence, is ye certain evce wh opens every day more 
 and more that these commotns in ye N. are but pt of 
 a gt plan concerted for our ruin. They have begun 
 under the countenance and will be supported by ye 
 forces of France and Spain, our old and inveterate and, 
 let me add, our savage and bloodthirsty enemies, a 
 circe that shd fire the blood of every honest Englishman. 
 If these designs shd succeed and Popery and arbitrary 
 power come in upon us under the influence and diron 
 of these 2 tyrannical and corrupted Cts, I leave you to 
 reflect what wd become of everything that is valuable 
 to us. We are now blessed under the mild admon of a 
 just and Protestant King who is of so strict an adherence 
 to the laws of our country that not a single instance can 
 be pointed out during his whole reign wherein he hath 
 made ye least attempt upon ye liberty or ppty or 
 religion of a single pson. But if the ambition and 
 pride of France and Spain is to dictate to us, we 
 must submit to have a man to govern us under their 
 hated and accursed influence who brings his relign 
 from Rome and the rules and maxims of his govt 
 from Madrid. 
 
 " As to you, my rev. brethren, I have not long had 
 ye honour to preside among you, but from the experience 
 I have had, and what I have always heard of yr honest 
 love for yr country (if you permit me to say so), I will 
 be yr secy to the public that you will decline no pains 
 to instruct and animate yr people, nor expense accdg 
 to your circumstances to stand up agst Popery and 
 arbitrary power under a French or Spanish Govt. 
 
 " Let us unite then, Gentn, as one man to stop this 
 dangerous mischief." ^ 
 
 The speech had the desired effect, and £40,000 was 
 immediately subscribed for the purpose. 
 
 . 1 Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32703, f. 319. 
 
1 86 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 Herring's activity earned approval in high quarters. 
 Horace Walpole writes : 
 
 "Dr. Herring, the Archbishop of York, has set an 
 example that wd rouse the most indifferent . In two days 
 after the news arrived at York of Cope's defeat " (Cope 
 was the English general at Prestonpans), " and when 
 they every moment expected the victorious rebels at the 
 gates, the Bishop " (he means the Archbishop) " made 
 a speech to the assembled Company that had as much 
 true spirit, honesty, and bravery in it as ever was penned 
 by an historian for an ancient hero." 
 
 George 11. seems to have expressed himself as very 
 pleased with what the archbishop had done. In a 
 letter to him from the Chancellor, dated the 28th 
 September 1745, the latter tells Herring how he had 
 made it his especial business to bring Herring's martial 
 activities to his Sovereign's notice. This is how the 
 conversation ran : 
 
 " Lord Hardwicke :^ Your Majesty will give me leave 
 to acquaint my Lord Archbishop that you approve his 
 zeal and activity in your service ? 
 
 " The King : My Lord, that is not enough ; you must 
 also tell the archbishop that I heartily thank him 
 for it." 
 
 But the position remained gravely serious all through 
 the autumn. Troops sadly wanted in England were 
 still in Flanders, and it took time and trouble to fetch 
 them and dispatch them to Scotland. Charles Edward 
 held Court at Holyrood, and was threatening Carlisle 
 and the towns in the north of England. Meanwhile, 
 Herring was a right hand to the Government at York, 
 prepared to house and feed generals, and even giving 
 them wise counsel as to their manoeuvres. On the 
 6th October he writes to Lord Hardwicke a long letter 
 of news, in which he says : 
 
 " I purposed to have set out for London on Wednes- 
 day next, but I have had a sort of remembrance from 
 
 "■ Life of Lord Hardwicke, ii. 170. 
 
1757] A MILITANT CLERGY 187 
 
 the city here that it will create some uneasiness. There 
 is a great matter in opinion, and if my attendance at 
 Bishop Thorpe serves to support a spirit, or to preserve 
 a union, or that the people think so, I will not stir. 
 I have therefore put off my journey but order my 
 affairs so that at the least intimation from your Lp. 
 can vasa conclamare and set out in an hour. To talk 
 in the style military (tho' my red coat is not made yet), 
 the first column of my family went off a week ago, the 
 second moves on Wednesday, the third attends my 
 motions." 
 
 In the Chancellor's reply, dated seven days later, 
 he says : 
 
 " I think your Grace has determined quite right in 
 staying for the present at Bishop Thorpe, and every- 
 body here thinks so too. 
 
 " I find your Grace has learned the style military, 
 and presume tho' the paragraph about your red coat 
 was not true yet you are by this time skilled in the 
 exercises and can give the word of command." 
 
 Towards the end of October York itself was threat- 
 ened by the Pretender's advance southwards. The 
 archbishop's spirits rose as danger got nearer, and 
 there is an amusing letter from him to the Chancellor 
 written at this time in which he says : 
 
 " I find I must get into regimentals in my own 
 defence in a double sense ; for an engraver has already 
 given me a Saracen's head surrounded with a chevalier 
 in chains and all ye instruments of war and the 
 hydras of Rebellion at my feet ; and I see another 
 copper plate is promised where I am to be exhibited in 
 the same martial attitude with all my clergy with me. 
 But by my troth as I judge fro' applications made to me 
 every day, I believe I cd raise a regiment of my own 
 order ; and I had a serious offer ye other day from a 
 Welch curate fro' the bottom of Merionethshire who is 
 6 foot and J high, that hearing I had put on scarlet he 
 was ready to attend me at an hour's warning if ye 
 Bishop of Bangor did not call upon him for ye same 
 service. 
 
1 88 THOMAS HERRING [1747' 
 
 " Well, my Lord, I hope in God we shall one day- 
 laugh at these things in full leisure." 
 
 A contemporary letter from Thomas Bentham — a 
 Yorkshire clergyman belonging to a clerical family 
 well known in the North, and whose brother was 
 printer to the University of Cambridge — gives us a good 
 picture of Herring's activities at this juncture. It is 
 dated 6th November 1745 : 
 
 " Our Archbishop has indeed bestirred himself on 
 occasion of the present state of affairs with a zeal 
 becoming a Protestant Bishop, which has drawn upon 
 him the resentment of the Pretender, from whom he 
 has received two Letters, one with orders to disperse 
 his Declaration contained therein among his clergy, etc. ; 
 the other commanding him not to attend the Parlia- 
 ment of the Elector of Hanover (for so the King is 
 styled), but to stay and promote his interest in his 
 Diocese — this you may depend upon as fact. He does 
 indeed stay here himself (though his family is gone to 
 town awhile longer), but that I am told is by order of 
 the King and Council to promote His Majesty's interest 
 in these parts. . . . The King's army, I mean the Foot, 
 marched through this place about a fortnight ago in 
 number about 9000, say some ; but I hardly think 
 there were above 7000 English, Dutch, and Swiss . . . 
 they encamped that night on Clifford Moor, whither 
 we followed to see the encampment. ... I never before 
 knew how to pity these poor people under the fatigue 
 of long and dirty marches and (what must often happen) 
 hard fare by day and a cold lodging and little sleep 
 by night. ... I trust the same good Providence which 
 visibly interposed on our behalf by preventing the 
 Rebels from marching Southward immediately after 
 the defeat of our forces, when there was nothing to 
 oppose their march and the whole country was in the 
 utmost consternation, every day expecting the enemy 
 at their doors, will be still our defender, and give us 
 the victory over all the disturbers of our peace." ^ 
 
 All through November things continued to look 
 threatening. Many of the soldiers in the English force 
 
 1 Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ix. 397. 
 
1 757] CARLISLE FALLEN 189 
 
 could not be trusted, and Herring in his letters com- 
 plains of their Dutch allies and wishes they were quit 
 of them. 
 
 There were dissensions in Parliament, and on loth 
 November the archbishop writes : 
 
 " The great consolation I reed at this fearful junc- 
 ture arose from the prospect of our hearty unanimity, 
 which certainly if kept up to its first appearance would 
 have done ye work without bloodshed ; but that 
 prospect is over, and long before this our enemies are 
 convinced from London that there are still people now 
 that are either so weak or so designing as to help their 
 cause much better than their faithful ally fro' France 
 can do." ^ 
 
 Carlisle surrendered to the rebels ; and on the 
 22nd November the archbishop writes to Lord 
 Hardwicke : 
 
 " It is not to be conceived how frightfully ye hurry 
 was in ye city of York on Wednesday while ye appre- 
 hension was strong that they (the rebels) wd take this 
 road. They are a little quieted to-day by the hopes 
 that they are turned towards Lancashire. If the next 
 express differs from this, and they come this way, not a 
 soul will stay in York that can move from it. 
 
 " Had I my royal Master's ear I shd think it the duty 
 of an honest man and good subject to tell him that his 
 crown was in danger of being shaken. 
 
 " I stand ready to escape at half an hour's warning, 
 and shall endeavour to do so." 
 
 Early in December the archbishop had a visit from 
 the English commander. General Oglethorpe, who com- 
 plained bitterly of his Dutch allies. 
 
 On the 1 8th December there was a general fast, and 
 a grand service in Westminster Abbey attended by the 
 House of Lords. 
 
 London was frightened. Hogarth's celebrated 
 
 ^ Life of Lord Hardwicke, ii. 185. 
 
I90 THOMAS HERRING [i747- 
 
 picture of the "March to Finchley" commemorates 
 the Guards being sent to defend London on the north 
 side. 
 
 A change, however, was now at hand. The Pretender 
 got as far as Derby, and there a council of his leading 
 men was held. They had to face the fact that the 
 country, if it had not risen in fury against them, had 
 certainly not risen in their favour. If they continued 
 southwards they must fight a battle in which their 
 success was doubtful. The Highland chiefs and their 
 followers were unhappy in central England. So, much 
 against Charles Edward's will, retreat was resolved on, 
 which began on 5th December, and when begun was of 
 a very rapid character. The Duke of Cumberland 
 advanced into Scotland with 8000 men, and on i6th 
 April 1746 defeated the Highlanders at CuUoden. 
 
 The Rebellion, and with it the last hopes of the 
 Young Pretender, were extinguished for ever. On the 
 Duke of Cumberland's return to York on 23rd July 1746 
 the archbishop, at the head of the dean, chapter, and 
 cathedral clergy, presented an address to the victorious 
 prince in the following terms : 
 
 " Permit me. Sir, in the name of my brethren the 
 clergy of this diocese and province (the King's ever- 
 faithful subjects), to testify to Your Highness their 
 exceeding joy at your happy and victorious return 
 from the North. 
 
 " I want words to express the fulness of our grate- 
 ful hearts on this occasion, and therefore I shall not 
 attempt it. 
 
 " Your conduct, Royal Sir, has been glorious ; and 
 though the things you have done for the nation are 
 singularly great, your manner of performing them 
 is still more to be admired. You have restored the 
 public tranquillity at a very critical season, and done it. 
 Sir, as became, your high character, in every amiable 
 light. 
 
 " Courage is almost natural to a young Prince, and 
 is inherent in your royal blood ; activity and industry 
 are often constitutional ; but to plan a great design 
 
I7S7] " BUTCHER " CUMBERLAND 191 
 
 maturely, at a perilous juncture, to execute it with 
 all the coolness and caution and providence of an 
 old general, actuated with the fire and exertion of 
 a young one ; to use moderation and modesty in 
 success, and in the midst of victory (where obdurate 
 perfidy did not call for exemplary punishment) to treat 
 unnatural and unprovoked rebels to the best govern- 
 ment in the world as deluded subjects ; these things, 
 Sir, which truth obliges me to say (though unpolitely 
 in the hearing of your Royal Highness), show the 
 greatness of your understanding and the goodness of 
 your heart, which make every subject of Great Britain 
 not only to admire and love and serve you as their 
 royal master, and the brother of their beloved Prince, 
 but trust and depend upon you, as the happy instru- 
 ment of Heaven, to save and protect and raise the 
 honour of the nation. 
 
 " Go on as you have begun, Great Sir, in the paths 
 of virtue and glory : and may the good providence of 
 God always go along with you, direct all your councils, 
 cover your head in the day of battle, and, as you fight 
 the cause of truth and liberty, give uninterrupted success 
 to all your undertakings." 
 
 Cumberland was a skilled, though not by any means 
 a first-class, general. When it is remembered that he 
 spent the time from April to July in crushing with 
 merciless severity the luckless Highlanders who had 
 been his opponents; that, as Mr. Gardiner says," wounded 
 were dragged from their places and shot, and a build- 
 ing in which twenty disabled Highlanders had sought 
 refuge was burnt to the ground with the wretched 
 fugitives inside it " ^ ; and that Cumberland by his con- 
 duct after his victory gained the name of " the Butcher," 
 we may think that the archbishop's language was too 
 strong. But he felt no qualms, and in a letter to 
 Buncombe says : 
 
 " I little thought I shd have been the subject of 
 so much observation at this juncture, my meaning 
 being only to discharge my duty in my proper sphere 
 
 ^ Sttidents' History of England, p. 743. 
 
192 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 and station ; but be the event what it will, I hope I shall 
 have the grace never to repent of doing my best service 
 to my country." 
 
 All through 1746 the punishment of the rebels 
 occupied the attention of English Ministers. The 
 Earls of Kilmarnock and Cromarty and Lord Balmerino 
 were tried and condemned in Westminster Hall on 
 28th July. Herring had been near the scene of danger, 
 and seems to have approved of strong measures for 
 the complete extinguishment of the rebellion. In a 
 letter to Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, written as late as 
 the 1 6th September 1746, he says : 
 
 " I pray God grant the King and his friends pene- 
 tration and opportunity to get to ye bottom of the 
 evil and inspire into them safe and just means to 
 prevent the return of it. Here are great and general 
 apprehensions expressed, and strongly too in this 
 county, that the King's mercy may give spirit to his 
 enemies and dishearten his true friends." 
 
 Before Herring's next step there had been a change 
 of Ministers. The Duke of Newcastle and his brother 
 had pressed the King to bring William Pitt, afterwards 
 Lord Chatham, into office ; the King refused, whereupon 
 the Ministers resigned. George 11. asked Carteret, now 
 Lord Granville, whom the King fancied to be favourable 
 to his Hanoverian predilections, to form a ministry, 
 but he could not, and after forty-eight hours the Pelhams 
 were back again with Pitt. 
 
 From whatever cause. Herring was on the side of the 
 Pelhams, and on the loth March 1746 he writes from 
 Bishop Thorpe to Buncombe, who had congratulated 
 him upon the failure of Lord Granville and the return 
 of the Pelhams : 
 
 " Your congratulation upon a late turn of affairs 
 was perfectly agreeable to me and to the general senti- 
 ment of this country. There is no bad conseq[uence 
 that was not to be dreaded had the resignations " 
 (of the Pelhams and their friends) " been accepted." 
 
1757] HERRING PROPOSED AS PRIMATE 193 
 
 The summer of 1747 saw a General Election. Pel- 
 ham and Newcastle were to be continued in office even 
 though what Mr. Gardiner calls " unblushing corrup- 
 tion " kept them there. Herring, whose efforts had 
 made him influential in the North, had no doubts whom 
 to support, and on 15th June 1747 writes to Newcastle : 
 "As to our Yorkshire election I have as yet heard of 
 no conference about it among the Lords .... I own I am 
 for a peaceful scheme in a county where the great 
 people were so lately and so usefully unanimous." ^ 
 
 On the loth October 1747, Archbishop Potter died 
 suddenly .2 His see was offered to Gibson, Bishop of 
 London, but he was too old and infirm to accept it. 
 It was then offered to Bishop Sherlock, then Bishop of 
 Salisbury, who had been Bishop of Bangor, an able 
 prelate, who declined it on the plea of bad health, 
 though he afterwards recovered sufficiently to move 
 to London on the death of Gibson in 1748. Meanwhile 
 Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, who was on the best of 
 terms with the Pelhams, had very definite ideas of his 
 friend Herring's promotion, and on the 13th October 
 wrote to him of His Majesty's intention to move him 
 to Canterbury. 
 
 The correspondence which passed on the subject, 
 all preserved among the Hardwicke MSS, is interesting, 
 but one fact stands out clearly, viz. that Herring not 
 only did not seek, but was sincerely averse to the Primacy. 
 
 On the 17th October he writes to the Chancellor a 
 letter which, though too full of adjectives and super- 
 latives, makes what we have said plain : 
 
 " I have considered the King my best friend and 
 my most honoured lord with all the coolness and 
 deliberation and compass of thought that I am master 
 of ; and am come to a very firm and most resolved 
 determination not to quit the see of York on any account 
 or on any consideration ; and I beg it of your lordship 
 
 ' Newcastle Corn, addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 3271 1, f. 369. 
 ' Parliamentary History, ix. 11 67. 
 
194 THOMAS HERRING [i747- 
 
 as ye most material piece of friendship yet to be exerted 
 by you to prevent the offer of Canterbury if possible, 
 or to support me in the refusal if the other cannot be 
 prevented . 
 
 • • • • • • • 
 
 " I am really poor. I am not ambitious of being 
 rich, but have too much pride with, I hope, a small 
 mixture of honesty to bear being in debt ; I am now 
 out of it and in possession of a clear independency of 
 that sort. I must not go back and begin the world 
 again at fifty-five. 
 
 " The honour of Canterbury is a thing of glare and 
 splendour, and ye hopes of it a proper incentive to 
 schoolboys to industry ; but I have considered all its 
 inward parts and examined all its duties ; and if I 
 should quit my present station to take it, will not answer 
 for it that in less than a twelvemonth I did not sink 
 and die with regret and envy at the man who should 
 succeed me here, and quit the place in my possession 
 as I ought to do to one wiser and better than myself." 
 
 The following are the crucial parts of the next two 
 letters in the correspondence : ^ 
 
 " Powis House, 20th October 1747. 
 " My dear Lord, — I never received a letter from 
 your Grace which gave any real concern till yesterday, 
 and in truth the anxiety that has created in me is not 
 easy to be described." 
 
 After describing the Bishop of Sahsbury's refusal, 
 Lord Hardwicke continues : 
 
 " To this refusal his lordship has adhered in another 
 letter by yesterday's post. On Sunday noon before 
 this last letter the King acquainted me with his resolu- 
 tion that you shd go to Lambeth, for which I thanked 
 him as became me ; not in the least suspecting (as I 
 am sure I had no reason for it) that you would decline 
 it; and yesterday noon His Majesty declared his 
 pleasure in form to ye Duke of Newcastle to ye same 
 effect. In this state ye affair stood at ye time I received 
 your two letters, which your Grace will have the good- 
 
 ' Life of Lord Hardwicke, ii. 347. 
 
1757] FORCED TO ACCEPT 195 
 
 ness to forgive me in saying did to the last degree 
 surprise and grieve me." 
 
 On the Chancellor hinting a doubt to the Duke of 
 Newcastle and Pelham whether Herring would accept, 
 they both said it was " impossible that a bishop in the 
 vigour of his age, not quite fifty-five, of such a char- 
 acter, so much obliged to the King and so well esteemed 
 and beloved in ye world, should decline it." They 
 asserted " that it would have the worst appearance and 
 create ye worst impression — make people doubt of the 
 stability of His Majesty's Government, give a new 
 triumph to the Jacobites, as if nobody of merit wd 
 venture to accept the highest and most important 
 dignity in the Church." 
 
 The Chancellor adds : 
 
 " For God's sake, for ye sake of ye King, ye country, 
 and yr friends, don't decline. . . . 
 
 " You are called by ye voice of ye King and of ye 
 best intentioned men, and in this limited sense vox 
 populi est vox Dei.'' 
 
 The archbishop writes : 
 
 " My good Lord, — If you had been a witness of my 
 agonies when the express came and could have seen me 
 tossing in my bed afterwards in quest of what the great 
 ones often want, you would have pitied me and repented 
 of this last instance of yr excellent friendship. But 
 about an hour agoe I took my resolution, and as I have 
 no reason to repent of two removes yr Lp gave me I 
 will hope ye best of ye third, and am now stepping to ye 
 fire to burn three letters of refusal. 
 
 " And now, my lord, after having said so much, and 
 with a little spirit, give me leave to say that if his Majesty 
 could be prevailed on to alter his arrangement by keeping 
 me, and letting Hutton take ye chair pontifical, I will 
 still leap for joy and send you ten thousand thanks." 
 
 Enclosed in the above letter was a copy of the arch- 
 bishop's to the Duke of Newcastle, accepting the 
 Primacy. 
 
196 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 Herring was installed accordingly. He duly received 
 the congratulations of his old college on his promotion, 
 and his reply is preserved in Nichols' Illustrations of 
 Literature : 
 
 " Kensington, ^rd December 1747. 
 " Dear Master, — Your Fellows have been with me 
 to-day, and delivered me a most obliging compliment, 
 which has been rendered the more acceptable and, I 
 will say, honourable to me by being penned by yourself. 
 The fine things you say of me, I put to the score of your 
 friendship ; but will lay them up safely as an honour- 
 able testimony of your regard to me ; and will now 
 and then peruse as a polite instruction of one that 
 means me well. The virtue of constancy which you 
 are pleased to mention, I will most certainly practice 
 in one instance, which is my friendship for you ; for 
 I long for nothing more than to show, by some real 
 service to you, that I am, dear Sir, — Your most assured 
 friend, 
 
 " Thos. Cantuar." ^ 
 
 Two letters are extant written shortly after Herring's 
 promotion to the Primacy. The first is in reply to the 
 celebrated Whiston, Professor of Mathematics at Cam- 
 bridge, who had written complaining of" the mean com- 
 position of the Forms of Prayer for the days of Fasting 
 put out in Archbishop Potter's time, and begging that in 
 the next Form for the Fast, 17th February, some serious 
 Collect might be inserted on the occasion of the long and 
 sore murrain among the horned cattle." Whiston also 
 asked for a copy, if at Lambeth, of the Thanksgiving and 
 Prayer on occasion of the Great Storm, 27th November 
 1703, " an excellent pattern for future forms." In his 
 reply the new Primate says : 
 
 " I will do the best I can in this stat° to which 
 indeed I have been forced. And as neither pride nor 
 ambition nor covetousness tempted me to desire it, so 
 it is my daily prayer to God that in the use and exercise 
 of this great office I may keep my heart and my hands 
 
 * Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 454. 
 
1757] AN EMINENT NONCONFORMIST 197 
 
 free from those sad temptations. I think it happy that 
 I am called up to this high station at a time when spite 
 and rancour and narrowness of spirit are out of counten- 
 ance ; when we breathe the benign and comfortable air 
 of liberty and toleration ; and the teachers of our 
 common religion make it their business to extend its 
 essential influence and join in supporting its true 
 interest and honour. No times ever called more loudly 
 upon Protestants for zeal and security and charity." 
 
 The second letter to which we wish here to refer, 
 and which was written about this time, was addressed 
 to an eminent Nonconformist divine, Dr. George Benson. 
 Benson had lived for some time in the family of Dr. 
 Calamy, and then ministered first at Abingdon and 
 afterwards in London. Benson was a student,^ and 
 an author as well as a preacher, and Aberdeen Univer- 
 sity made him D.D. in 1744. Glasgow contemplated 
 a similar conferring of honour, but a rumour of theo- 
 logical unsoundness stopped the project. In 1747 he 
 published a volume of sermons on various subjects. 
 He presented the new archbishop with a copy of these, 
 and congratulations on his elevation. Herring's reply 
 is dated the 2nd February 1748. In it he says : 
 
 " Reverend Sir, — I cannot satisfy myself with 
 having sent a cold and common answer of thanks for 
 ye volume of most excellent and useful sermons. I do it 
 in this manner with great esteem and cordiality. I thank 
 you at the same time as becomes me to do for your 
 very obliging good wishes. The subject on which my 
 friends congratulate me is in truth matter of constant 
 anxiety to me. I hope I have an honest intention and 
 for the rest I must rely on the good grace of God and 
 the counsel and assistance of my friends." 
 
 The editor of Dr. Benson's Memoirs publishes Her- 
 ring's letter in the Preface to Benson's Life of Christ, 
 and praises it as breathing " that Christian charity which, 
 did it prevail generally in the governors of the Christian 
 Church, would produce most extensive good effects 
 
 ' Wilson's Dissenting Churches, i. 114. 
 
198 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 in regard to the present as well as the past happiness 
 of mankind." There is also a letter from Herring to the 
 Rev. Thomas Pyle, who was chaplain to the celebrated 
 Bishop Hoadly and a man of note among Churchmen 
 in the middle of the eighteenth century/ and this dis- 
 closes further how Herring regarded his elevation. In 
 it, writing from Kensington under date 1 7th December 
 1 747, he says : 
 
 " Your kind wishes for me g^ve me spirit and make 
 my heart glad ; for, in good faith, I have been teased 
 and terrified with this exaltation ; and thus much I will 
 venture to say for myself, it shan't make me proud, 
 it shan't make me covetous, it shan't make me ungrate- 
 ful or unmindful of my friends : but it frights me 
 and I fear has robbed me of the most precious thing in 
 life, which is Liberty : but I will assert as much of it 
 as I can, and not be for ever bound to the trammels 
 of a long tail and ceremony, which my soul abhors." 
 
 In September 1748 the important See of London 
 became vacant by the death of Gibson. 
 
 Newcastle was attending George 11. in Hanover ; 
 and Herring, who fully felt his newly acquired responsi- 
 bilities as Primate and wanted a Bishop of London on 
 whose help and support he could rely, writes to him from 
 Kensington, under date the 1 2th September 1 748. After 
 reporting the Bishop of London's death, he intimates that 
 it is of the highest importance to introduce a man upon 
 the Bench of most distinguished character. " I have 
 before me," he goes on, " very particular, and I think 
 I may call it alarming, evidence that some business 
 on the scheme of Reformation of our Establishment 
 in its Doctrines, Discipline, and Liturgy is now on foot 
 and ready for publication, and it will require the assist- 
 ance of men of the best characters and tempers on the 
 Bench of Bishops to conduct the affairs of the Church 
 in such delicate circumstances. The scheme is now 
 in the Lord Chancellor's hands ... it appears to be 
 very serious . . . and is proposed as the united sense of 
 1 Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ix. 438. 
 
1 757] PROMOTION OF BISHOP BUTLER 199 
 
 some of the best of the clergy or laity in the kingdom, 
 and is found in the shape of a Petition to both Houses of 
 Convocation." ^ 
 
 The archbishop modestly expresses his wish " to 
 procure to himself such assistance in the discharge of 
 that high office as may enable him in the approaching 
 times of trial to do his duty. What is intended was 
 known, he says, " to the late Bishop of London, who 
 appriz'd me of very busy times approaching." 
 
 Newcastle's reply and its enclosure give us a picture 
 of how a place of such importance as the Bishopric of 
 London was filled in the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, and the parts which the King, the Minister, and 
 the Primate respectively had in the business. 
 
 The movement referred to in Herring's letter appears 
 to be the agitation started by Jones of Alconbury and 
 supported by Francis Blackburne, which, according to 
 Mr. Hore, " advocated a trenchant review with altera- 
 tions in the Church services and Ritual."^ It was 
 in 1749 that Jones, a man of real piety, published his 
 Free and Candid Disquisitions relating to the Church of 
 England. 
 
 As to the vacancy in the See of London one thing 
 seems clear, that George 11. — and it is much to his credit 
 — wanted to give it to the great Bishop Butler. Queen 
 Caroline almost on her death-bed had asked her husband 
 to see to Butler's advancement, and had also recom- 
 mended him to Archbishop Potter, and the year after 
 his wife's death the King had made Butler Bishop of 
 Bristol. Bristol was a poor bishopric, worth about £700 
 a year, and was nearly always held with a deanery, 
 St. Paul's, or Christ Church. Butler was made Dean of 
 St. Paul's in May 1740. Now George 11., faithful to 
 his wife's wish, meant Butler to be advanced — to 
 London he would prefer — if not to Durham ; for 
 Durham was likely to be vacant soon, Dr. Edward 
 
 1 Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32716, f. 213. 
 ^ Here's Ch. of Eng,, from Will. III. to Victoria, ii. 22. 
 
 14 
 
200 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 Chandler, the Bishop of Durham, lying ill in London of 
 the illness of which he died on the 20th July 1750. 
 But Newcastle wanted Sherlock for London . Sherlock, 
 who had succeeded Hoadly at Bangor in 1728 and at 
 Salisbury in 1734, was a leading Churchman, had been 
 Master of the Temple, and had written against Hoadly, 
 and more actively as a Christian apologist against 
 Collins and Woolston. He had declined the Primacy 
 on the score of health. Newcastle respected his ability 
 and piety ; perhaps he was also anxious to clinch 
 him as a supporter of the Government. For Sherlock 
 had been a waverer ; his father had been a nonjuror, 
 and when he recanted got the Deanery of St. Paul's. 
 The son hesitated about supporting the Hanoverian 
 Succession, so that the rhymster of the day wrote : 
 
 " As Sherlock the elder with his jure divine 
 Did not comply till the Battle of Boyne, 
 So Sherlock the younger still made it a question 
 Which side he should take till the Battle of Preston." 
 
 He seems in spite of his piety to have been of a 
 rather quarrelsome temper. He had a difference with 
 Herring about " an option," which almost prevented 
 their speaking to one another soon after his removal to 
 London, and as to which Herring says to Newcastle, 
 " I will support my right with half my income," but as 
 to which fortunately he can report two months later 
 that he can " see some hopes of accommodation in the 
 affair of the option." ^ 
 
 To return to the appointment of a Bishop of London, 
 Newcastle writes to his brother, Pelham, from Hanover, 
 and after mentioning the vacancy arising by Gibson's 
 death, says : " The King designs it for Butler, but as I 
 have a notion Sherlock may like it, I have got leave to 
 offer it to him. If Sherlock accepts London, Llandaff 
 will have Salisbury of course, and Durham be open for 
 Butler." 2 
 
 * Newcastle Corr,, addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32718, ff. 47, 80. 
 » Ubi supra, 32716, f. 278. 
 
1757] PHILIP DODDRIDGE 201 
 
 He encloses the proposals he had made to the King, 
 at the head of which is Dr. Butler, Bishop of Bristol, to 
 be Bishop of London, and then follow proposals con- 
 sequent on the first change, including one that Hayter, 
 who was afterwards Bishop of London, and who was a 
 Yorkshireman of position and influence, should succeed 
 Butler at Bristol and St. Paul's. Almost on the same 
 day he writes to Herring " to know Your Grace's 
 thoughts on these proposals," ^ and Herring writes back, 
 on the 29th September 1748, approving Dr. Hayter 
 " to succeed the Bishop of Bristol in both his Prefer- 
 ments." Courtier like he says he is glad now to retract 
 as " needless and impertinent to your Grace " the exhor- 
 tations he had given in his letter of the 12th September. 
 
 Contrary to expectation, Sherlock accepted London, 
 so there was no immediate move for Butler ; but 
 George 11. remained firm that he should have Durham, 
 for in June 1750 Newcastle writes to the archbishop: 
 " The Bishop of Durham is dying. The translation of 
 the Bishop of Bristol to Durham is already determined 
 by the King."^ 
 
 In October 1748 Archbishop Herring received a 
 valuable addition to the Library at Lambeth. Teni- 
 son had bequeathed all his MSS, not before deposited 
 at Lambeth, to Gibson and Dr. Ibbot, his librarian. 
 Gibson was the survivor, and under the directions in 
 his will his collection,' including what was the chief 
 part of it, that of Archbishop Tenison, filling fourteen 
 folio volumes, was delivered to Herring and placed 
 in the Library at Lambeth. It was indexed and 
 bound by Archbishop Seeker's orders. 
 
 With Dr. Philip Doddridge, author of the well- 
 known hymns, " My God and is Thy table spread," 
 " Ye servants of the Lord," " Hark the glad sound 
 the Saviour comes," Herring had some friendly corre- 
 spondence. Doddridge was one of the most eminent 
 
 • Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32716, f. 281. 
 
 " Ubi supra, 32721, t. 53. ' Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, v. 289. 
 
202 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 Nonconformist divines of the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, and until the autumn of 1751 was minister of 
 the congregation at Northampton. He fell a victim 
 to consumption, and at the end of that year went 
 abroad, but soon died. There is an interesting account 
 of an interview which Doddridge had with Herring, 
 contained in a letter of Doddridge to his wife, dated 
 the 4th August 1748. He says : 
 
 " I sat a full hour with him, i.e. the archbishop, 
 alone, and had as free a conversation as I could 
 have desired. It turned . . . especially on the affair 
 of a comprehension, concerning, I very evidently per- 
 ceive, that tho' his Grace has most candid sentiments 
 of his Dissenting Brethren, yet he has no great zeal 
 for attempting anything in order to introduce them 
 into the Church, wisely foreseeing the difficulties with 
 which it might be attended ; but when I mentioned 
 to him (in the freedom of our discourse) a sort of medium 
 between the present state and that of a perfect coalition, 
 which was that of acknowledging our clergy as unschis- 
 matic by permitting their clergy to officiate among us 
 if desired, which he must see had a counterpart of per- 
 mitting Dissenting Ministers occasionally to officiate 
 in churches, it struck him much as a new and important 
 thought, and he told me more than once that I had 
 suggested what he should lay up in his mind for further 
 consideration."! 
 
 Herring writes to him from Lambeth under date 
 the 2 1 St July 1749 : 
 
 " Reverend Sir, — I have been since I received 
 your letter in a very disagreeable situation moving 
 my family to Lambeth. I have a very true regard 
 and honour for you ; and shall be most sincerely glad 
 to see you whenever your affairs bring you to London. 
 ... I am always at home, and the sooner my friends 
 call upon me in the morning, so much the better. I 
 am at leisure constantly by nine. ... I cannot go to 
 settle at Croydon this summer for reasons very appar- 
 ent to a man that knows anything of cleaning and fur- 
 
 > Doddridge's Correspondence, v. 75. 
 
1757] WHIGS AT OXFORD 203 
 
 nishing houses called Palaces. — I am, with most sincere 
 esteem, Reverend Sir, Your obliged and assured friend, 
 
 " Tho. Cantuar." 
 
 A letter to the same divine, written in June 1751, 
 says : 
 
 " I am always glad to see you. I shall be at home 
 on Saturday morning, and remember I am an early 
 man." 
 
 It is not generally known that during a long period 
 a tortoise had been an occupant of the garden at 
 Lambeth. The first archbishop that introduced one 
 was Laud, and it lived till about 1749. Herring in- 
 stalled a successor, and wrote to the Lord Chancellor : 
 
 " It is a very trifling thing to tell y' Ldship that I have 
 put a tortoise in my garden here. Not that I purpose to 
 live against him, but to keep up to the full ye number of 
 old domesticks. I hope he will like my coleworts as 
 well as those of St. Kits, his native country. His house 
 is a curious dome and painted by the best hand in the 
 universe. I have no forebodings from the circumstance 
 that the first Archbp that introduced a tortoise here lost 
 his head." 1 
 
 We refer in the Life of Archbishop Seeker to Herring's 
 efforts to get him some preferment after his long tenure 
 of the See of Oxford, but in one of his letters on the 
 subject, written in July 1750, he also recommends the 
 Dean of Christ Church, Dr. Coneybeare, for a bishopric, 
 and adds some remarks which are interesting as showing 
 what a Whig archbishop felt towards the Tory univer- 
 sity of Oxford. " It will be," he says, " a work of 
 time to bring that University into a wise way of thinking 
 and acting— to pick out and distinguish those valuable 
 men who are friends to His Majesty and the Protestant 
 Succession." ^ 
 
 By the summer of 1751 the question of naturalising 
 the Jews was being stirred, though but faintly. The 
 
 ^ Life of Lord Hardwicke^ ii. 401 . 
 
 ' Newcastle Cok., addl. ^SS, Brit. Mus., 32721, f. 424. 
 
304 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 Government of Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle on 
 the whole favoured it ; they thought it would bring 
 wealth and wealthy people into the country, though, 
 strangely enough, the Corporation of London and the 
 merchants and traders petitioned against it .^ We have 
 detailed later in Archbishop Seeker's Life the disastrous 
 course the Bill had ; passed one session and repealed 
 the next by its promoters in the Ministry in an im- 
 portunate hurry — the bishops supporting both its 
 passing and its repeal. The sentiments of the clergy 
 as to the passing, at any rate, of such a measure, 
 required attention, and were the subject of communica- 
 tions between the archbishop and the Secretary of 
 State. In a letter to Newcastle, dated the sth March 
 1751, Herring says : " I have desired the bishops to meet 
 here on Friday to consider the Hop, the Quaker, and the 
 Naturalisation Bill so far as concerns the admission of 
 the Jews." He suggests that instructions may have to 
 go to the clergy, who may perhaps be " factious." He 
 hopes the Hop Bill " will miscarry." He thinks it hard 
 to alter the law " to the distress and detriment of the 
 Clergy," in relief of the Quakers whose " reasonable com- 
 plaints against the Clergy are few or none," and pro- 
 ceeds : " As to the admission of the Jews I am constitu- 
 tionally prone to indulgences, but great difficulties 
 occur to one's mind. In the first place they are a 
 peculiar people and one knows nothing of their turn at 
 home, the spirit of their economy, the true influential 
 Principles of their religion, the nature of their con- 
 nections and private engagements,- the degree of their 
 reverence for any Laws or Government but of their 
 own cast, their sentiments of Christians and their 
 obligations to live well with them." He suggests it a 
 wise thing " to know more of them before we let 
 them into privileges " which once given can't be 
 easily taken away. Other Governments had been 
 cautious about it. Oliver Cromwell " and his strait- 
 ' Smollett's Hiifpry, xii. 144. 
 
1757] REPEAL OF JEW NATURALISATION 205 
 
 laced " divines considered the matter, but it went 
 off. In America even Locke had required a belief 
 in the Christian Religion as essential. If Jews 
 are naturalised, why not Mahometans with all their 
 apparatus of Mosques and MoUahs ? He asks the 
 Minister to communicate such thoughts to him as may 
 serve for his direction, and winds up with a sentiment 
 well befitting a Whig archbishop under a Minister who 
 followed Walpole's precept, quieta non mover e. " In 
 this country there is no rest for the soles of our feet but 
 by standing upon a good-natur'd establishment with a 
 legal Toleration appendant."^ 
 
 We may anticipate a little by showing here, how, when 
 the clamour against the Jew Bill had risen to its greatest 
 height by the autumn of 1753, Herring showed himself 
 as having little keenness for the maintenance of the 
 Act or its repeal. He says : 
 
 ' ' One is ashamed for the spirit of our country when 
 we consider the inveterate and widespread prejudice 
 which attends the Jew Bill, a Bill innocent at least, if 
 not useful in policy, but as to our Religion and 
 Church Establishment utterly unconnected with it. 
 However, faction, working upon the good old spirit of 
 High Church, has made wild work with the nation. 
 As the obtaining the Bill was really worth no hazard, 
 so the repealing it seems hardly worth a Debate unless 
 any danger may arise from the Government giving way 
 to a most unreasonable popular clamour."^ 
 
 It must be confessed that Herring's views as to the 
 consecration of bishops for the American colonies were 
 less sound from the Churchman's point of view than 
 those of Potter or Seeker. He writes to Newcastle on 
 20th June 1750 : 
 
 " I say nothing to Your Grace about a matter 
 relating to American Episcopacy because I know you 
 have had the history of it. It was transacted at two 
 
 ' Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32724, f. 161. 
 ^ Ubi supra, 32733, f. 162. 
 
2o6 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 meetings. I was accidentally absent from the first, 
 from the second by design, not from resentment. When 
 the King commands me to consider that affair I will 
 do so with my best judgment and with a principal 
 regard to the tranquillity of his Government, but not 
 before." 1 
 
 But if unsound on the American Episcopate, Herring 
 seems to have done his duty as President of the S.P.G. 
 He writes to Newcastle on the 17th September 1751 : 
 "As I am to meet the Society for Propagating the 
 Gospel, I expect some enquiries about our application 
 to the King for a General Collection. November is the 
 latest month for settling about this truly important 
 business. They wish to be assured of His Majesty's 
 favour to them now."^ And on the 21st October 1751 
 he writes his thanks for procuring Royal Warrants for 
 a General Collection. He asks Newcastle to try and 
 procure the Royal Bounty, and adds : ' ' There is necessity 
 for this. We are in truth quite reduced ; a speedy 
 assistance would be as good almost as the Bounty itself." 
 
 Later, in 1754, doubtless at the archbishop's request, 
 the Duke of Newcastle, who, by the death of his brother, 
 Henry Pelham, had become Prime Minister, becomes a 
 subscriber of 20 guineas to the S.P.G. , and Herring 
 writes to him under date the 24th July 1754 : 
 
 " I shall never teaze the Administrat" on the Foot 
 of Episcopacy in America, as our Society was formed 
 with great wisdom and goodness, the execution of its 
 design has been conducted with integrity, and I will 
 hope to good purpose in a politicall as well as a religious 
 light. I have hitherto endeavoured and shall continue 
 so to do to keep clear of the rancour of High Church 
 and govern our affairs so far as in me lies by the gentle 
 methods of Christian moderation." 
 
 " High Church " is here used by the archbishop, 
 we think, in its eighteenth-century sense. 
 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32721, i. 132. 
 ' C7bi supra, 32725, ff. 186, 327. 
 
1 75 7] HERRING AND COMPREHENSION 207 
 
 Even before his health broke down in 1753, Herring 
 seems to have felt the burdens of his Primacy heavy. 
 Anthony Ellys, afterwards Bishop of St. David's, was 
 a man of whose wisdom he thought highly. He writes 
 to the Secretary of State, on the i6th July 1752, re- 
 commending Ellys for promotion, and says he desires 
 the appointment of some " friend of more particular 
 confidence " : "it is not unreasonable," he says, 
 " for me to wish for a sort of coadjutor Bishop ; I know 
 how much I want one. Two of my best Predecessors 
 since the Revolution, Tenison and Wake, were indulged 
 in this sort of advantage, tho' they less wanted it, having 
 got abilities as well as integrity. I claini a title only 
 to the last quality."^ 
 
 As regards Herring's attitude to and treatment of 
 Church questions, what may be called the Broad 
 Churchmen of his day worked especially in two 
 directions: (i) comprehension of Dissenters, and (2) 
 an easier subscription for the clergy. The first in- 
 volved a relaxation of the formularies of the Church, 
 which would have allowed some at any rate of the 
 Nonconformists to come within the pale of the National 
 Church. In this effort the Broad Churchmen were, 
 of course, only carrying on what had been afoot 
 ever since the Restoration. So far the High Church- 
 men had always been successful in defeating any 
 such relaxation. Sheldon outmanoeuvred Baxter. The 
 Commission of William iii. and Tillotson had been a 
 failure. Herring would probably have favoured such 
 an admission of Dissenters. It must be remembered 
 that throughout the middle of the eighteenth century 
 Nonconformity had some excellent representatives 
 among its ministers. It would have been difficult 
 to find men of greater learning, piety, and spiritual 
 power than Doddridge the hymn-writer, or Dr. Samuel 
 Chandler the Presbyterian, who preached for forty years 
 at the Old Jewry, where was, according to Wilson, 
 
 1 Addl, MSS, Brit. Mus., 32728, f. 278. 
 
2o8 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 " one of the most respectable congregations in London." 
 Poor Chandler, having lost his wife's fortune in the 
 South Sea Bubble, had had to open a bookseller's shop 
 in the Poultry, still retaining his pastoral duties. But 
 he attained great eminence as a religious writer, especi- 
 ally in a work on Miracles in opposition to Collins the 
 Deist. So far back as 1725 he presented Archbishop 
 Wake with a copy of this work. Wake, in a letter of 
 thanks, highly commended the book, by which he said 
 he had been not only " usefully entertained but edified," 
 and knowing the author at the time only as a bookseller, 
 advised him to spend his " time in writing books 
 rather than in selling them." ^ Chandler had been the 
 schoolfellow at Gloucester and Tewkesbury of Bishop 
 Butler and Archbishop Seeker, and he retained through 
 his life his friendship with these eminent Churchmen. 
 Mr. Wilson, in his work on the Dissenting Churches, says 
 that Dr. Chandler's " dignified appearance and gentle- 
 manlike deportment, connected with his superior endow- 
 ments of mind, contributed to give him great weight 
 with the body of Dissenters." Perhaps these qualities, 
 as well as his friendly relations with men high in the 
 Church, made him the representative of Nonconformity 
 in negotiations for Comprehension which took place in 
 1748, and were favourably regarded by Archbishop 
 Herring. In the letter written to Mr. Pyle on his 
 appointment to Canterbury, from which we have 
 already quoted. Herring says of Chandler : 
 
 " I saw Sam Chandler the other day. I really 
 affect and honour the man, and wish with all my soul 
 that the Church of England had him ; for his spirit 
 and learning are certainly of the first class." 
 
 The story of the negotiations is given in Doddridge's 
 Letters and Wilson's Dissenting Churches as follows : 
 
 Chandler being on a visit to friends at Norwich 
 happened to hear Gooch, then Bishop of Norwich, 
 * Wilson's Dissenting Churches, ii. 363. 
 
1 75 7] A MEETING 209 
 
 charge his clergy in the cathedral. All England was 
 at the time agog with the Pretender's late landing in 
 Scotland, to which we have so often referred. Gooch 
 charged the leaders of the rebellion with Nonconformist 
 sympathies, and proved it by pointing to the condemned 
 lords in the Tower being attended by Presbyterian con- 
 fessors. Chandler politely remonstrated with the bishop 
 for this statement. His remonstrance was very civilly 
 rephed to, and the result was a friendly meeting of the 
 bishop and Chandler, when Comprehension was discussed. 
 Yet another friendly meeting followed, Sherlock, then 
 Bishop of Salisbury, being also present. " Our Church, 
 Mr. Chandler," said Sherlock, " consists of three parts, 
 doctrine, discipline, and ceremonies ; as to the last two 
 he suggested there might be no difficulty, but as to the 
 first, what is your objection?" Chandler wished the 
 Articles to follow more closely scriptural terms, and 
 the Athanasian Creed to be discarded. To neither 
 requirement were the bishops insuperably opposed, but 
 asked what should they do about re-ordination of 
 Nonconformist ministers . Chandler afiarmed that none 
 of his brethren would renounce his Presbyterian 
 ordination ; " but," said he, " if yr Lordship mean only to 
 impose your hands upon us and by that rite recommend 
 us to public service in your Society or Constitution, 
 that perhaps might be submitted to."i The two 
 bishops at the conclusion of the visit requested 
 Chandler to wait on Archbishop Herring, which he 
 did, and met Bishop Gooch there, Wilson says, " by 
 accident." The archbishop met Chandler well, and 
 being told by Bishop Gooch what Mr. Chandler and he 
 had been talking about, namely, a Comprehension, 
 said, " A very good thing " ; he wished with all his 
 heart, and the rather because this was a time which 
 called upon all good men to unite against infidelity 
 and immorality, which threatened universal ruin. To 
 Chandler's request to have the Articles in Scripture 
 
 * Wilson, ii. 373. 
 
2IO THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 words : " Why not ? " said Herring. "It is the 
 impertinence of men thrusting their own words into 
 Articles instead of the words of God which have occa- 
 sioned much of the divisions in the Christian Church from 
 the beginning to this day." The archbishop added 
 " that the bench of bishops seemed to be of his mind ; 
 that he shd be glad to see Mr. Chandler again, but 
 was then obliged to go to Court." ^ 
 
 We have this account from Mr. John Barker, an 
 eminent divine of the Presbyterian denomination and 
 the bosom friend of Doddridge the hymn-writer, 
 who adds that Chandler incurred the displeasure of some 
 of his Dissenting friends for his conduct in the affair, 
 chiefly, it seems, for having said that he asked for the 
 Articles to be expressed in Scripture language for others, 
 not for himself. Herring naturally gets great praise 
 from Mr. Wilson, the Nonconformist biographer, for 
 his conduct in the affair. The archbishop's " truly 
 Christian principles added greater lustre to his character 
 than the adventitious honours of the world." 
 
 In 1752 Dr. Birch published his Life of Archbishop 
 Tillotson and dedicated it to Archbishop Herring, who 
 writes to thank Dr. Birch on the 14th November 1752 : 
 
 " Dear Sir, — Though you have said a great deal 
 too much of me I must thank you for your book and 
 Dedication too ; for I think myself extremely honoured 
 by having my inconsiderable name connected with that 
 of the best of my Predecessors . 
 
 " I feel the disparity of the characters, and must sub- 
 mit to the censure which will arise from a comparison 
 so infinitely to my disadvantage ; but as posterity when 
 the real object is out of sight may imagine from your 
 picture that there might be some distant shadow of a 
 resemblance, I think I ought to enjoy the contemplation. 
 
 " Your Book will certainly be an acceptable present 
 to the Publick, and it is well judged by you to connect 
 with the Archbishop's life some account of his acquaint- 
 ance and friends. They serve to illustrate his character, 
 receive honour from their relation to him, and to ex- 
 
 ' Hore, ii. 22. 
 
I7S7] OLD PALACE AT CROYDON 211 
 
 plain the religious and civil history of a very important 
 period of our time ; and the domestic enemies of our 
 country (yet subsisting in the same shape) may be 
 ashamed to see their narrow principles exposed, not by 
 reproach or censure, but a narration of plain facts. 
 
 " The Master of Lambeth House has good hopes that 
 you have not done with his libraries. Libraries are 
 collected for such folk as you ; and the doors of these, 
 and indeed every door in this house, will be at all times 
 open to you."^ 
 
 Herring was by this time settled at Croydon. The 
 old archiepiscopal palace there was very dear to Herring ; 
 and well it might be, for no building had associations 
 more interesting to an English Churchman. The tie 
 between Croydon and the archbishops dated at least 
 to the Conquest, for William i. is said to have given 
 the Manor of Croydon to Lanfranc. Mr. Pelton, in his 
 History of Croydon, says, " that a house or palace existed 
 at Croydon in 1273 appears from a mandate dated from 
 there by Archbishop Kilwardby," and for nearly 500 
 years after that the old palace was a principal residence 
 of the Primates. Katherine of Arragon lived there 
 for a time ; Queen Elizabeth stayed there ; James i. 
 of Scotland was a prisoner there. The buildings which 
 can be seen now comprise the Guard Chamber, the 
 Great Hall with a fine chestnut wood ceiling, the Chapel, 
 and the Long Gallery. Archbishop Arundel erected 
 the Guard Chamber, Archbishop Stafford's escutcheon 
 is on the corbels in the Great Hall — on the knobs of the 
 old benches in the chapel are Laud and Juxon's arms. 
 The river Wandle flowed out near Croydon old church, 
 hard by the palace, and watered its extensive gardens 
 and grounds now covered by rows of streets. Herring 
 at considerable expense repaired the old buildings and 
 laid out the gardens. He seems to have paid especial 
 attention to strengthening the Great Hall and its roof. 
 On a beam may still be seen " T 1748 H " — and fine 
 lead pipes outside marked with his initials bear witness 
 
 'Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 463. 
 
212 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 to his repairing hand. Herring's attachment to the 
 palace is testified by the language he uses in a letter 
 to Dr. Ducarel from Croydon, dated 24th April 1 754. " I 
 love this old House," he says, " and was very desirous of 
 amusing myself, if I could find means to do it, with the 
 history of its buildings ; for the house is not one, but 
 most certainly an aggregate of buildings of different 
 tastes and ages. . . . You compliment me more 
 than is due to me ; for a very great repair was done 
 here by Archbishop Wake, who lived here several 
 summers and has a title to a large share of your com- 
 mendation." ^ 
 
 Besides Dr. Anthony Ellys, who on Herring's 
 recommendation was at the end of 1752 made Bishop 
 of St. David's, an intimate friend of Herring was 
 Dr. John Jortin. Bishop Newton puts Jortin on a 
 level with Warburton, and says : " They were really 
 two very extraordinary men . . . both men of great 
 parts and abilities." He had been at Jesus, Cam- 
 bridge, with Herring, and though their friendship was 
 interrupted before Jortin came up to London, they 
 renewed their intimacy when Herring became Primate. 
 The archbishop and Bishop Sherlock got him appointed 
 Boyle Lecturer. He preached the consecration sermon 
 when Zachary Pearce, Rector of St. Martin-in-the- Fields, 
 was made Bishop of Bangor, and by Herring's order 
 published it. Herring gave him unsolicited the rec- 
 tory of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, summoning him, it 
 is said, during a banquet of the Sons of the Clergy, and 
 without any previous notification pulling the presenta- 
 tion out of his pocket.^ He also gave him in 1755 
 the degree of D.D. Jortin 's best-known works were 
 his Life of Erasmus and his Ecclesiastical History. 
 Perhaps the preferments Jortin got from Herring 
 makes his judgment of the archbishop not to be over- 
 much relied on ; but in his Erasmus he says that 
 
 • Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ix. 305. 
 
 * Ubi supra, ii. 561. 
 
I7S7] POOR FOREIGN PROTESTANTS 213 
 
 in the picture of Archbishop Warham drawn by 
 Erasmus he contemplates that of Herring, his late 
 patron, " who," he goes on, " besides the good qualities 
 in which he resembled Warham, had piety without 
 superstition and moderation without manners, an open 
 and liberal way of thinking, and a constant attach- 
 ment to the cause of sober and rational liberty both 
 civil and religious." ^ 
 
 England on many occasions in the eighteenth 
 c-entury championed the cause of suffering Protestants 
 on the Continent, and Herring seems to have been 
 fairly active in this respect. 
 
 As far back as October 1749, he reminds Newcastle in 
 a letter that the Minister had asked him when made 
 archbishop, to keep up useful correspondence with the 
 Protestant Churches abroad. The archbishop says that 
 he has done this in general, and recommended the poor 
 Hungarians for relief .^ 
 
 Among the papers of Lewis Majendie, Esq. of 
 Hedingham, is a folio volume containing, under the years 
 1753 and 1754, letters from Herring to the squire of 
 Hedingham of that day, on the subject of an applica- 
 tion by the persecuted and oppressed Hungarians for 
 aid, pecuniary and otherwise.* 
 
 In a letter, dated the 22nd September 1754, Herring 
 says he has received a representation of their case which 
 he promises to consider, and if necessary to amend : 
 he would ask the Bench of Bishops to help, but they are 
 all in the country, so that nothing effectual can be done 
 for the Hungarians till winter. In December 1754, 
 Herring writes again to Majendie that he is much con- 
 cerned about the poor Hungarians. " The Bench," 
 he says, " are pressed upon these applications from 
 abroad and many others at home beyond their abilities " ; 
 but, later, Herring sends his own and the bishops' 
 
 • Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ii. 567. 
 
 "Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32719, f. 261. 
 
 » See Fifth Report of Historical MSS Comtn., App. p. 322. 
 
214 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 subscriptions and approves collections at Oxford and 
 Cambridge for the suffering University at Debritzen. 
 
 In the early summer of 1753, Herring, while at 
 Lambeth, was seized with a violent " pleuretic " fever. 
 He nearly died. He seems to have had a first attack 
 early in May, for on the 13th he writes to Newcastle : 
 " I thank God, the Fever and inflammation are removed." 
 According to the custom of those times, he was violently 
 bled by his medical advisers, one of whom was Dr. 
 Heberden, the celebrated physician of the day — to the 
 extent, it is said, of eighty ounces of blood. But on 
 ist June he was taken very ill again. Ministers receive 
 a report from the doctors : " We were suddenly sent 
 for this morning on account of a shortness of breath as 
 great as ever. We thought proper to bleed his Grace 
 again 7 ounces." In a week he moves to Croydon, 
 writing to Lord Hardwicke on the 8th : " I go this 
 afternoon to try the experiment of the Surrey air. . . . 
 I am fatigued with drugs, my breath is extremely short." 
 His biographers, however, seem to take too gloomy a 
 view of the effects of this illness on the archbishop. 
 " He recovered, they say, in some measure, yet from 
 that time he might rather be said to languish than to 
 live. He retired to Croydon, declined, as far as possible, 
 all public business, seeing little company but his rela- 
 tions and particular friends."^ However, as early as 
 the 19th June, one of Lord Hardwicke's sons writes to 
 his brother : " The Archbishop is a vast deal better, 
 and has even been on horseback, and rid on Banstead 
 Down with great pleasure and no inconvenience. He 
 writes in great spirits " ; and a few days later the same 
 writer to the same says : " The Archbishop grows 
 better every day, drinks ass's milk, and rides on horse- 
 back, and expresses great hopes of his own case. I 
 can tell you nothing that you will be better pleased to 
 hear." 
 
 He certainly maintained his correspondence with 
 
 ^ Life of Lord Hardwicke, ii. 449. 
 
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 Thomas Herring 
 
 (From the Portrait by William Hogarth) 
 
 [To /ace p. 214 
 
1 757] CONVALESCENCE 215 
 
 Buncombe, and writes shortly after his arrival at 
 Croyddn : 
 
 " Blessed be God for it. I have mended in health 
 since my arrival here and continue to mend gradually. 
 In so acute a disorder as mine was, it was not to be 
 expected I cd jump into health (jumping is too much 
 for me), but I ought to be contented and thankful too 
 if I can walk leisurely into it." 
 
 Perhaps his weakened health increased Herring's 
 dislike to theological controversy. Five months after 
 his last letter, he writes to Buncombe in reference to a 
 friend of his, one Br. Carter, a clergyman of St. George's 
 Chapel, Beal, who had been presented the year before 
 by one of his chapel wardens at the instigation of the 
 rector for not reading the Athanasian Creed. The 
 archbishop refers to his improved health, and need 
 of " quiet, the great balm of life," and proceeds : " Your 
 friend Br. Carter is grievously teased by folks who call 
 themselves the ' orthodox.' I abhor every tendency 
 to the Trinity Controversy. The manner in which it is 
 always managed is the disgrace and ruin of Christianity." 
 
 The archbishop's health improved with fluctuations 
 during the summer of 1 75 3 . He was a fixture at Croydon, 
 and on 29th July invites Newcastle to dine with him 
 there : " Your Grace shall find concha salts puri, a clean 
 tablecloth, good mutton, and " (here Herring allows 
 himself a liberty which a bishop or archbishop of to-day 
 would not feel was open to him) " the best claret I can 
 procure." 
 
 By October he was well enough to pay a visit to the 
 Princess Bowager of Wales — whose husband had died 
 in March 1751 — and to the King-. The only reference 
 the archbishop makes to his health is when he says 
 how the widowed princess did him the honour to walk 
 round the garden and show him the orangerie. " What 
 added to the favour was, she was pleased to go my 
 snail's pace."^ 
 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32732, f. 377. 
 IS 
 
2i6 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 Still he remains largely an invalid, and writes to 
 Newcastle : " I wish I could say better things of myself 
 than I can. I think my breath has of late grown 
 easier, but have so frequent indisposition in so various 
 shapes that' I believe I puzzle my doctors. Wilmot 
 advised me to spend the winter here, but in plain truth 
 I cannot come into publick without being more ruffled 
 and hurried than my present health will bear." 
 
 Certainly there was an improvement in the arch- 
 bishop's health in the course of 1754 ; and we read 
 of a poetical curate of Croydon named Fawkes, in that 
 year publishing " an ode on his recovery."^ The ode 
 was rewarded by a living, and on Herring's death, the 
 poet, in 1 763, printed a " pathetic elegy " on his patron.^ 
 
 On the 6th March 1754, Henry Pelham, the Prime 
 Minister, died. There was serious trouble in carrying 
 on the Government, and especially in selecting a new 
 First Lord of the Treasury. Pelham's brother, the 
 Duke of Newcastle, who had been Secretary of State, 
 was much his inferior, and quarrelsome into the bargain. 
 He did not like Pitt, who had been Pelham's colleague 
 in the Commons. In fact, the whole weight of the 
 Premiership seems for some time to have devolved on 
 Lord Hardwicke, whose idea, as we shall see from the 
 letter next quoted, was to split up the offices Pelham 
 had held, and make some peer First Lord of the Treasury, 
 with a Chancellor of the Exchequer under him in 
 the Commons. Who that Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 was to be was a very difficult question. It certainly 
 raises our opinion of Herring's capacity to find the 
 Lord Chancellor not only writing to him giving full 
 information of the difficult position of affairs, and 
 asking him to send a statement of what he thought 
 ought to be done to be submitted to the " lords of 
 the Cabinet," but also asking for a separate private 
 letter giving the Chancellor the benefit of his own 
 
 » Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32732, f. 613. 
 2 Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, iii. 52. 
 
1757] HARDWICKE CONSULTS HERRING 217 
 
 views and sentiments. We cannot forget that the 
 head of the English Church is a great State official 
 whose views on political affairs would at any rate in 
 the middle of the eighteenth century have great weight 
 with the Government as such. But that a man of the 
 capacity of Lord Hardwicke, one of the greatest Chan- 
 cellors that ever adorned the Woolsack, should ask and 
 seriously rely on (as he evidently did) Herring's advice 
 in a difficult State situation, makes us think Herring 
 must have been a man of bigger and of stronger 
 mental calibre than we should have thought from 
 the record of his conduct whether as bishop or primate. 
 In his letter to the archbishop, written five days 
 after Pelham's death, Lord Hardwicke says : 
 
 " Powis House, nth March 1754, 
 Monday 8, at night. 
 " My dear Lord, — The late melancholy event has 
 greatly affected us all. . . . I have been forced in the 
 midst of a broken attendance of the Court of Chancery, 
 to be continually running about to the King, and to have 
 meetings with the principal persons in the administration. 
 
 " Your Grace has heard that the first candidate at 
 Court is Mr. Fox." 
 
 As a matter of fact, there had been some person- 
 alities over Lord Hardwicke 's Marriage Act between 
 him and Fox, and they were not friends, but Hardwicke 
 assures the archbishop that he is going " to consider 
 personalities no further than to maintain and save the 
 point of honour. In the several audiences which I have 
 had of the King, His Majesty has declared that he 
 has no favourite for this succession ; but he hopes the 
 Lords of the Cabinet ' would not think of recommend- 
 ing to him anyone who had flown in his face.' " This 
 seems to refer to Pitt. The Chancellor proceeds : 
 
 " The opinion, therefore, which I with my friends in 
 the Cabinet have formed, is that there is at present no 
 
21 8 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 person in the House of Commons fit to place entirely 
 in Mr. Pelham's situation with safety to this adminis- 
 tration and the Whig party. Upon this they have 
 proceeded to think of advising His Majesty to place 
 some peer at the head of the Treasury with a Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer in the House of Commons under him. 
 . . . He must be one who will carry on the election of 
 the next Parlt upon the same plan on which Mr. 
 Pelham had settled it." 
 
 After saying that the best plans seemed to be for the 
 Duke of Newcastle to go to the head of the Treasury, 
 he goes on : 
 
 " The Lords of the Cabinet are to meet at my house 
 to-morrow evening at seven o'clock. There is no 
 expecting to see your Grace here at that hour, nor do 
 the Duke of Newcastle or I incline that you shd run 
 any risque. But we both wish to know your senti- 
 ments, and humbly hope that your Grace will authorise 
 me to say something in your name." 
 
 The archbishop is then invited to write a short letter 
 " by this messenger," recommending the appointment 
 of Newcastle as First Lord of the Treasury, with a 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Commons. 
 
 " Besides such an ostensible letter," the Chancellor 
 adds towards the end of his rather lengthy epistle, " I 
 shall be much obliged for a separate private letter, to 
 convey any particular sentiments and observations 
 which your Grace shall honour me with. But that 
 must be a separate letter."^ 
 
 The archbishop did as he was requested ; the 
 Cabinet meeting accepted the Lord Chancellor's views, 
 and the latter, according to a Minute of his, " laid before 
 the Lords a letter which he had received that day from 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury acquainting him with 
 his Grace's opinion to the like effect." 
 
 Newcastle became Prime Minister — and but a sorry 
 one. He could not at first agree with either Fox or 
 
 ^ Life of Lord Hardwicke, ii. 514. 
 
1 757] HERRING ON THE METHODISTS 219 
 
 Pitt to lead the Commons ; but the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, Sir Thomas Robinson, who was appointed, 
 was a failure, and after a year Fox took the post. 
 
 Both Herring and his friend Buncombe shared the 
 dismay of the religious world at the posthumous works 
 of Bolingbroke, and Buncombe had and communicated 
 to the archbishop the idea of attempting some counter- 
 blast in which Cicero was to be called in aid. Herring 
 sensibly insists on the reply, if any, being wise, 
 " knowing," as he says, " that several weak pens are 
 at work upon Bolingbroke. I own," he adds, " I have 
 my fears on this head that more harm may be done 
 than good. . . . This work shd not be trusted to 
 bunglers." 
 
 Whatever his views of " the orthodox " Churchmen 
 who complained of the omission of the Athanasian 
 Creed, Herring had and showed the smallest possible 
 sympathy with Whitefield and Wesley and the rising tide 
 of Methodism. The turning-point in the history of 
 Methodism in relation to the Church was not reached 
 till 1 760, when the Wesleyan lay preachers got authority 
 to preach and administer the Sacraments in their own 
 chapels. But it was not far off. Herring's views on 
 this subject are best expressed in his own language. In 
 a letter from Croydon House, written little more than a 
 year before his death, he says : 
 
 " Whitefield is Baniel Burgess redivivus, and, to be 
 sure, he finds his account in his joco-serious addresses. 
 The other author (John Wesley), in my opinion, with 
 good parts and learning is a most dark and saturnine 
 creature. His pictures may frighten weak people 
 that at the same time are wicked, but I fear he will 
 make few converts, except for a day. I have read his 
 serious thoughts on the earthquakes at Lisbon, but for 
 my own part I think the rising and setting of the sun is 
 a more durable argument for religion than all the 
 extraordinary convulsions of nature put together. . . . 
 For myself I own I have no constitution for these 
 frights and fervours ; and if I can but keep up the 
 
220 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 regular practice of a Christian life upon Christian 
 principles I shall be in no pain for futurity. . . . The 
 subjects you mention of the Methodist preaching are 
 excellent in the hands of wise men (not enthusiasts). 
 Religion for the practice of the world must be plain 
 and inteUigible to the lowest understanding. ... As 
 to their notion that men are by nature devils, I can tell 
 it by no other name than wicked and blasphemous, 
 and the highest reproach that man can throw upon his 
 good and wise Creator." 
 
 The last years of Archbishop Herring's life were 
 years of great public anxiety. The King's only thought 
 was for the safety of Hanover, and he agreed to treaties 
 giving subsidies to foreign states who would find troops 
 to defend it. The tension between England and France 
 in North America was of the acutest, and Newcastle 
 was not the man to conduct a great war against a great 
 nation. 
 
 We get one or two notes on current events in 
 Herring's correspondence with Dr. Nathanael Forster, 
 who had been Domestic Chaplain to the great Bishop 
 Butler, and was his executor, and who was afterwards 
 one of Herring's chaplains.^ 
 
 In the summer of 1755, George 11. went abroad to 
 see after and enjoy his beloved Hanover, and at the 
 same time Boscawen sailed with a fleet from Portsmouth 
 with half-hearted instructions to attack the French 
 fleet should it descend on Canada. Hawke was in 
 command of some of Boscawen 's ships, and he managed 
 to engage the Frenchmen, capturing the Alcide and 
 another French vessel. The British transports got into 
 St. Lawrence. December saw the disastrous defeat at 
 Fort Duquesne of General Braddock — a brave but 
 unintelligent officer who underrated the American 
 levies because their efficiency in drill did not equal that 
 of the Guards in Hyde Park. 
 
 In a letter from Croydon House, dated 7th July 
 i7SS> Herring says : 
 
 * Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ix. 294. 
 
1757] WAR WITH FRANCE 221 
 
 " I can send you no news from hence ; nor will 
 anything arise, I apprehend, till we hear of Boscawen. 
 Nothing can be wiser than to avoid a war in Europe if 
 possible ; and yet it will be an ugly thing if we suffer 
 as James i. used to do by our obdurate patience. They 
 say the French Martinico fleet are returning ; and our 
 citizens will grumble if they get safe into port under 
 the cover of our negotiation, while Hawke lies at top 
 and top-gallant at Spithead." 
 
 Again, on 21st July, he writes : 
 
 " You have seen the particulars of the American 
 skirmish. The issue of it pleases the City and is of 
 credit to us. . . . The cash on board the Alcide was 
 under £8000. There were some of their best engineers ; 
 and this circumstance and the number of soldiers on 
 board, and men that got into Lewisburgh, may prove 
 a weakening and a present disappointment. The 
 worst is, I doubt, the expedition is at an end : there 
 is reason to think the transports got into St. Lawrence, 
 and our men are rich ; but don't tell this to your 
 Jacobites." 
 
 A month later, on 3rd August, he writes : 
 
 " We are very alert here ; and, as the statesmen say, 
 with good reason on the success in Nova Scotia, and 
 if Braddock and his associates do well, and our Boston- 
 eers can have the honesty and resolution to starve the 
 garrison at Lewisburgh, I think Monsieur must keep 
 quiet." 
 
 " But no Te Deums before a victory," wisely adds 
 Herring. 
 
 There were unusual storms in the fall of 1755; there 
 was great anxiety as to the operations in America 
 against the French with whom we were fast drifting 
 into war ; though a small success under Johnson was 
 welcomed as wiping out Braddock 's disaster. Pitt was 
 not yet in the saddle, nor Fox, only the Duke of New- 
 castle, who was unequal to the task. 
 
 On ist November all western Europe was startled 
 
222 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 by the earthquake at Lisbon, causing thirty thousand 
 deaths. London was frightened. A " general and 
 pubUc " Fast was ordered by Proclamation issued on 
 the 20th November, which recited the manifold sins 
 and wickedness of these kingdoms had deserved 
 punishments, how the Almighty had protected us 
 " especially at this time when some neighbouring 
 countries have been visited with a most dreadful and 
 extensive earthquake." The Fast was fixed for 
 6th February.^ Herring had to prepare a Form of 
 Prayer, and he writes to his chaplain, Forster : 
 
 " 7 th December 1755. 
 " I have thoughts of attending the House on 
 Wednesday, and shall then talk fully with you on the 
 subject of the Fast. In the meantime I beg the favour 
 of you to look out for the Form of Prayer on account 
 of the Great Storm, 1703, and see whether anything 
 of this kind was done when Port Royal at Jamaica 
 sunk into the sea." 
 
 The wording of the Form caused anxiety, and he 
 writes twice more to Forster : 
 
 " 2 t,th December 1755. 
 " The little wits found fault once with Rock of 
 Defence coming so near our Fleets. Is it worth while 
 to change the words Rock of into never-failing Defence ? 
 or does any other Scripture expression occur to you 
 to insert instead of Rock of?" 
 
 " 2'jth December 1755. 
 " I only meant in my title to specify the reason of 
 the Fast ; and left the Printer in other respects to 
 follow the usual form, which you will be so good as 
 to see to. You will be pleased to make the alteration 
 by the words never-failing Deliverer. The Bishop of 
 Lincoln accepts the duty of the Fast Sermon." 
 
 This was Dr. John Thomas. The Fast was duly 
 observed. Forster preached before the Court, the 
 Bishop of Lincoln before the Lords, and Terrick before 
 
 • Gentleman's Magazine, xxv. 570. 
 
1 757] MASQUERADES GIVEN UP 223 
 
 the Commons. " There were the greatest crowds," 
 says the Gentleman's Magazine,^" at most of the churches, 
 both in London and Westminster, ever known on any 
 occasion." The Lord Mayor had to send and re- 
 monstrate with some Quakers in the city who would 
 keep their offices open. 
 
 Lord Mahon says that the Masquerades, which the 
 archbishop had in vain tried to stop, were given up 
 through the panic. Horace Walpole in his worst 
 style says on the 22nd January 1756 : "We were to 
 have had a masquerade to-night, but the Bishops, who, 
 you know, have always persisted in God's hating 
 dominoes, have made an Earthquake point of it and 
 postponed it till after the fast." 
 
 1756 saw Pitt dismissed because he would not fall in 
 with the King's Hanoverian ideas, and Minorca lost. 
 The archbishop was well enough to give a grand 
 breakfast party at Croydon to the young Prince of 
 Wales, his mother and brother, but about the time 
 he writes to his old friend Hardwicke : 
 
 " It is now a real pain to me to walk a few yards, tho' 
 I confine myself to the slow pace of the tortoise in the 
 garden. ... To your Lordship and all my friends in 
 private I shall be the same, that is, always receiving such 
 cheerful sensations from my correspondence with them 
 as may be supposed to arise in the breast of a most 
 affectionate friend." 
 
 The end was approaching, and the archbishop met 
 it with calmness. 
 
 On 22nd June 1756 he writes to Buncombe : 
 
 " I continue extremely out of order, I think in a 
 confirmed dropsy. ... I have now been half a year 
 in this dismal way . . . everything I take feeds the 
 distemper for 
 
 ' Ready oft the port t' obtain, 
 I'm shipwrecked into life again.' 
 
 '■ xxvi. 89. 
 
224 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 " I know who sent me hither and how much it is 
 my duty to attend his summons for a removal, but 
 Ufe is over with me ; and I sometimes in my airing 
 repeat two pretty Hues of Parnell, 
 
 ' But what are fields or flowers or air to me ? 
 Ah! tasteless all, if not enjoyed with thee, 
 O health." " 
 
 The autumn of 1756 saw the retirement of Newcastle. 
 The war was more than he could manage. Herring 
 consoles him on i8th November : " It is not possible for 
 me to wait upon your Grace. Your Grace has found it 
 necessary to withdraw yourself from public business ; 
 you have seen this nation distracted before and have 
 had your share in preserving it from impending ruin. . . . 
 Your Grace can never lay aside the character of a 
 faithful subject to your King and country." 
 
 Herring's patriotism remained unquenched to the 
 last. The latest letter in the Buncombe correspondence 
 relates how a regiment of Hessians, either mercenaries 
 or allies in the Seven Years' War against France 
 which had just begun, under Colonel Canitz, was 
 quartered at Croydon and Bromley. The law at the 
 time — perhaps wisely, we should say — made no pro- 
 vision for quartering foreign troops. But the arch- 
 bishop would not have them go short ; and so he sent 
 them a " Yorkshire pye," which had been sent as a 
 present to him, and a parcel of wine ; " they should 
 have," said he, " every accommodatn he cd procure 
 them."i 
 
 There is one more letter to Newcastle, who, though 
 fallen, had all the power his pocket boroughs could 
 give and still dabbled in patronage. The poor arch- 
 bishop says on 8th March 1757 : " Though my extream 
 illness confines me almost to my bedchamber, I will do 
 all I can to oblige your Ldship." 
 
 On 13th March 1757, Herring died. He was 
 aged sixty-four. A scholarly author of the time, Dr. 
 > Addl. MSS. Brit. Mus., 32869, i. 84. 
 
1757] BURIAL BEQUESTS 225 
 
 Jortin, the biographer of Erasmus, says : " Few great 
 men passed through this malevolent world better be- 
 loved and less censured than he."^ 
 
 By his will he directed that he should be buried in 
 a private manner, and forbade any monument ; and 
 accordingly he was buried quietly in the vault of 
 Croydon Church, with a plain black stone and the 
 inscription, " Here lieth the body of the Most Rev. Dr. 
 Thomas Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died 
 Mar. xiii. A.D. MDCCLVII., aged LXIV." Croydon 
 Church was burnt down on 5th January 1867. A tablet 
 on the wall in the N.W. corner of the Southern Chapel 
 of the new Parish Church records that Herring's remains 
 lie buried near. 
 
 Compared with his predecessor. Herring died a 
 poor man, his fortune being given in the Gentleman's 
 Magazine of the time at £10,000. The same authority 
 says he was very charitable. By his will, beyond his 
 directions against funeral pomp and a monument. 
 Herring made two dispositions of interest. The first, 
 in favour of the great Lord Chancellor to whom he 
 owed perhaps much, is in the following terms : " I 
 beg the favour of the Earl of Hardwicke, my ever 
 honoured friend, to accept my topaz seal engraved 
 by Yeo and the head of Bishop Fleetwood of Ely 
 painted by Richardson." The latter he mentions in a 
 letter written not long after his appointment to Canter- 
 bury that he had bought from the artist's son in Queen 
 Square. Bishop Fleetwood had been his early patron. 
 
 Herring had always maintained his interest in his 
 old college. The master, Mr. Castle, had been his 
 guest at Bishop thorpe, three of his relations had been 
 fellows ; and Heaton, another fellow of the college, was 
 one of his domestic chaplains at Lambeth, and re- 
 warded by the archbishop after the manner of those 
 days with a rectory, a vicarage, a prebend, and a 
 mastership of a hospital. By his will the archbishop 
 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32870, f. 249. 
 
226 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 left £1000 to the Sons of the Clergy Corporation, and 
 to his old College at Cambridge, £1000. South Sea 
 annuities towards rebuilding the college, with a pro- 
 vision that should there be no prospect of rebuilding 
 the college after the lapse of a competent number of 
 years, the income was to be applied to the necessary 
 repairs of " the old house," or in acts of charity as 
 helping poor scholars or honest servants, of which the 
 master was to give an account " not subject to control " 
 at every usual audit. 
 
 For his servants, by whom, we are told, he was 
 " carefully obeyed and cordially lamented," he made a 
 handsome provision by his will. He did not fail in 
 his archiepiscopal charities. In his time the " dole " 
 regularly given at Lambeth was distributable at the 
 gate of Croydon Palace. The dole was given to thirty 
 poor people three times a week to ten persons at a time, 
 each receiving 2 lb. weight of beef, a pitcher of broth, 
 a half-quartern loaf, and twopence in money. Herring 
 was never married. An amusing story is told of him 
 in this connection. During his severe illness in 1753, 
 Count Zinzendorif , the leader of the sect of the Moravians 
 then active in England , and with whom John Wesley 
 from 1738 to 1740 was in close alliance, wrote to the 
 archbishop a letter in which he not only wished him 
 a perfect recovery, but tendered him ghostly absolution, 
 notwithstanding the " great sin of omission " of which 
 he had been guilty. This letter the archbishop showed 
 to a friend, professing that though doubtless guilty of 
 many sins of omission as well as commission he had no 
 idea of the particular sin the Count referred to. " Your 
 Grace, I perceive," replied the friend, " is not much 
 acquainted with the tenets of the Moravians ; if you 
 were, my lord, you must have known that with them 
 the great sin of omission is celibacy. Your Grace is a 
 bachelor." 
 
 Herring's views on publishing sermons we have 
 given. He adhered to them. In his last illness, in 
 
1757] PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 227 
 
 what his friend Duncombe calls " a languid moment," 
 he destroyed all his MSS, sermons, etc. In 1763, 
 Duncombe collected and published in one volume the 
 Seven Sermons on Public Occasions, which had been 
 printed (all but two by command) by the archbishop 
 in his lifetime. But one of his three nephews writes 
 after his death to Dr. Ducarel, who was contemplating 
 publishing some Memoirs of the archbishop : ^ 
 
 "As to printing a thing of this kind, or anything 
 else relating to him, or even reprinting his sermons, it 
 would be so expressly contrary to his injunctions and 
 dying request to us that I am persuaded no -true friend 
 of his Grace's when informed of it would desire to 
 do it." 
 
 He thinks, however, that what Ducarel proposes 
 would not be objected to by the family. 
 
 In appearance Herring is described by his friend 
 Bishop Squire of St. David's as tall and comely in 
 person. He sat to Hogarth for his picture, but the 
 result was thought by his friends much too severe. 
 So far from the os placidum moresque benigni char- 
 acteristic of Herring, the picture rather depicted 
 features expressive of a Bonner who could burn a 
 heretic. 
 
 "Lovat's hard features Hogarth might command, 
 A Herring's sweetness asks a Reynolds' hand." 
 
 Throughout life he had delicate health and a ten- 
 dency to asthma, which made him prefer to sleep out of 
 London. He suffered from the age of twenty from 
 " disagreeable palpitations," for which he prescribed 
 himself " exercise (riding) and good company." Much 
 of his delicacy he attributed to his being put to sleep 
 in damp sheets when at college. 
 
 To those who asked him for preferment, his kindness 
 of manner is said to have aided the anxiety of the 
 petitioner and removed his suspense as soon as possible. 
 i^Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ix. 312. 
 
228 THOMAS HERRING [1747- 
 
 Bishop Squire was indebted to Herring for pro- 
 motion . Squire had been chaplain and private secretary 
 to the Duke of Newcastle as Chancellor of the University 
 of Cambridge in 1749/ and in the following year Arch- 
 bishop Herring gave him the Rectory of St. Anne's, 
 Westminster. The transaction had a truly eighteenth- 
 century flavour ; for Herring had the presentation as 
 an " option " from the Bishopric of London, and Squire 
 gave up the living of Topsfield in Essex in favour of a 
 relation of the archbishop. Squire attained eminence 
 both as an author and cleric, and was made Bishop of 
 St. David's in 1761, but his character of Herring is too 
 unctuous and fulsome to be of much use to a biographer. 
 It may be found in Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ii. 357. 
 We give a few extracts from it : 
 
 " His distinguished application to the business of 
 his function, his learning, his warm attachment to the 
 Constitution in Church and State, and his pathetic 
 eloquence in the pulpit having recommended him to the 
 early notice of the great ; he ever afterwards main- 
 tained himself in the possession of their favour, esteem, 
 and affection by his ingenuous conversation and by his 
 singular candour, temper, and moderation. . . . 
 
 "So kind and obliging was his Grace's manner in 
 conferring favours that it added a double pleasure to 
 the receiver. He felt the anxiety of the doubtful 
 petitioner and removed his suspense as soon as possible ; 
 and when forced to deny a request he always seasoned 
 the refusal with every circumstance of benevolence 
 which might render the disappointment less grievous. 
 
 " Conscious of the uprightness of his own heart, and 
 of the sincerity of his belief of the doctrine and precepts 
 of the Gospel, he was wiUing to think the best of other 
 people's prmciples and to live the friend of mankind." 
 
 With the estates of his sees he is said to have dealt 
 handsomely. He improved the gardens at Bishop- 
 thorpe and gave a new clock to the turret . He restored 
 the archbishop's house at Croydon, and beautified 
 
 ' Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ii. 348. 
 
1757] EXPENDITURE ON LAMBETH 229 
 
 the gardens, laying out altogether between £6000 and 
 £7000 on the houses at Lambeth and Croydon. His 
 work at Lambeth included alterations in the little or 
 inner cloisters— part of the magnum claustrum and 
 parvum claustrum mentioned in the steward at Lam- 
 beth's accounts for 1224 and 1443. These lay on the 
 north side of the chapel supported by twelve pillars, 
 and were taken down by order of Herring. It had 
 been called the burying-ground. Herring had it dug 
 and the weeds removed, but no bones were found. 
 
MATTHEW HUTTON 
 
 1757-1758 
 
 Matthew Hutton, Herring's successor at Canterbury, 
 enjoys the unique distinction of having, as Archbishop 
 of York, been the Hneal descendant of another Matthew 
 Hutton, Archbishop of York, one hundred and fifty 
 years before. 
 
 The archbishop 's father was the great -great-grandson 
 of the archbishop of Queen Ehzabeth's days ; and the 
 family seems to have been settled at Marske for a 
 considerable part of the time. Marske is about four 
 miles from Richmond, and there is in Richmond Church 
 a monument with a long inscription and figures of 
 Sir Timothy Hutton and his lady , and their twelve 
 children. Sir Timothy was son of the first arch- 
 bishop . 
 
 Matthew Hutton the second was bom at Marske in 
 Yorkshire on 3rd January 1693, being the second son 
 of John Hutton of Marske, his mother being Dorothy, 
 daughter of William Dyche or Dyke of Trant, in Sussex. 
 When eight years old he was sent to school at Kirby 
 Hill near Richmond, the master of which was Mr. Loyd 
 of Jesus College, Cambridge, and on the latter being 
 moved in 1704 to Ripon, Hutton followed him to the 
 Free School there, where he remained till 1710. On 
 22nd June 1 710, Hutton was admitted to his master's 
 college, Jesus, at Cambridge, where he took his B.A. 
 degree in 171 3, and was ordained deacon by Bishop 
 Fleetwood of Ely. 
 
 The Duke of Somerset was at the time Chancellor 
 of the University ; and Hutton seems to have attracted 
 
I7S7-I7S8] ATTENDS GEORGE II 231 
 
 the favourable attention of the Chancellor, for the 
 latter having appointed one of his chaplains, Dr. Grigg, 
 Master of Clare — the appointment falling to the Chan- 
 cellor through default of the fellows to elect — His 
 Grace filled up his own chaplaincy by appointing 
 Hutton to that office . He was elected Fellow of Christ's 
 on 8th July 171 7, and in that year proceeded M.A. He 
 was again Grigg's successor, for, on Grigg's death in 
 1726, the Duke of Somerset appointed Hutton to the 
 Rectory of Trowbridge in Wiltshire, which Grigg had 
 held. Having taken his D.D. in 1728, he was the next 
 year further advanced, being presented by his patron 
 to the valuable living of Spofforth in Yorkshire. He 
 was also appointed a Prebend of York by Archbishop 
 Blackburn. He was afterwards appointed one of the 
 King's Chaplains in Ordinary, and as such attended 
 George 11. on his visit to Hanover in 1736. He seems 
 to have ingratiated himself with the King, for in 
 1737 he was made Canon of Windsor, which he 
 exchanged a year later for a prebend of Westminster, 
 vacant by the resignation or flight of R. Thistle- 
 thwaite. 
 
 Hutton seems now to have begun his series of suc- 
 cessions to Herring. While Prebend of Westminster 
 he bestirred himself to get preferment, at least we judge 
 so from his language in a letter written when he was 
 trying for and seemed unlikely to get a bishopric that 
 was vacant, and talks of " meeting with another dis- 
 appointment." In March 1743 Bangor was or was 
 likely to be vacant through Herring's promotion to 
 York. Newcastle was Hutton 's friend and was an 
 arch-dispenser of ecclesiastical patronage : with smaller 
 ecclesiastical places he could do pretty much as he 
 liked, but bishoprics on most, if not all, occasions were 
 for the monarch to give away. Hutton had, as we have 
 said, attended the King as his chaplain on a visit to 
 Hanover, and ought to have been sure of no hitch 
 with his royal master. We are surprised, therefore, 
 16 
 
232 MATTHEW HUTTON [i7S7- 
 
 to find Newcastle writing to Hutton under date 30th 
 March 1743 : 
 
 " I this day recommended you to the King in the best 
 and most earnest manner I was able, but to my great 
 surprise received such an answer from His Majesty to 
 my application that makes it highly improper for me 
 to mention it to him again." ^ 
 
 The Minister advises Hutton to wait upon the arch- 
 bishop and lay " the unprecedented hardship " of his 
 case before him, and desire his Grace's interposition 
 with His Majesty in his favour. 
 
 Next day Hutton writes back referring, as we have 
 said, to the chance of " another disappointment," and 
 saying that he is going to get Newcastle's " very kind 
 recommendation seconded by the Archbishop."^ But 
 George 11. seems at this time to have been indifferent, 
 if not hostile, to Hutton's claim to go to Bangor, and 
 not to have recognised " the unprecedented hardship " 
 of his case, whatever that may have been. For on the 
 7th April the Archbishop writes to Newcastle : "I 
 acquainted Mr. Pelham that I had again moved for 
 Dr. Hutton without much effect. Your Grace may 
 still find better success."' 
 
 In the end all difficulties were overcome, and by 
 the end of the year Hutton was Bishop of Bangor, 
 being consecrated in Lambeth Palace, 13th November 
 1743, by commission from Archbishop Potter, then 
 indisposed, directed to the Bishops of Rochester, Exeter, 
 Worcester, and Bristol. Upon his elevation to the 
 Episcopate, he resigned his stall at Westminster. 
 
 Horace Walpole in his Memoirs, speaking of Hutton 
 a few years later, describes him as " well bred and 
 devoted to the Ministry." He was a friend of the 
 Duke of Newcastle, and to this friendship and to his 
 being a whole-hearted Ministers' man he probably owed 
 his further preferment. 
 
 • Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32700, f. 87. 
 ' Ubi supra, f. 91. ' Ubi supra, i. 100. 
 
1758] MADE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 233 
 
 But in 1 747, when Herringwentto Canterbury, Hutton 
 succeeded him at York, being confirmed Archbishop of 
 York, loth December 1747, in the Parish Church of St. 
 Mar tin-in-the- Fields. It would appear from Herring's 
 correspondence with Lord Hardwicke, that if Herring 
 had allowed his reluctance to take the primacy to 
 overcome his desire to please his patron, Hutton 
 would have gone to Canterbury in his place in 1747. 
 The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 brought the 
 war of the Austrian Succession to an end. Prussia 
 got Silesia ; otherwise the great Powers stood much 
 as they had been before the war. The Peace was 
 popular, as so often, in England. Hutton's early ex- 
 periences as Archbishop of York are described in the 
 following letter to Newcastle under date the 28th May 
 1748: 
 
 " After passing through the largest part of my 
 diocese, finding nothing disagreeable in my task or the 
 people with whom I have to do, and resting two or three 
 days in a very pleasant dwelling, I should be ungrateful 
 not to thank you in being the instrument of placing me 
 in so happy a situation." ^ 
 
 He says he found " at six considerable towns " he 
 had already visited " everything easy and the clergy 
 in good temper. The prospect of peace is everywhere 
 agreeable, and he heard it nowhere spoken against 
 except at Wakefield. They had had a glorious trade 
 for their cloth during the last years of the war and did 
 not like losing it." 
 
 George 11. had by this time quite forgotten anything 
 like disfavour to Hutton, and Newcastle, writing to 
 communicate to him the episcopal changes consequent 
 on Bishop Gibson's death, says that the King of himself 
 intended to make Hutton Almoner. " It is a trouble- 
 some office," says Newcastle, " the manner of the 
 King's doing it arising singly from himself show'd to 
 
 ^ Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32715, f. 126. 
 
234 MATTHEW BUTTON [i7S7- 
 
 me so true a regard for your Grace that it has given me 
 great pleasure." ^ 
 
 Hutton was undoubtedly on very friendly terms 
 with the Duke of Newcastle. There is an interesting, 
 almost amusing, letter from the newly appointed arch- 
 bishop to the Minister, who asked for the preferment 
 of a gentleman of good family whom Ministers wanted to 
 please. " An objection," says the archbishop, " occurs 
 to me which I cannot get over. How can it be expected 
 that I shd lay myself under a promise to give one of 
 the best prebends in my Church to an entire stranger 
 unconnected with me or my diocese, already provided 
 of a prebend of Chester with other preferment and a 
 pretty good temporal estate, — son-in-law to a bishop 
 who has as many prebends to dispose of in the church 
 of Litchfield as I have at York. Can it be thought 
 reasonable that I shd give the preference to this gentle- 
 man before every one of my own chaplains, friends, and 
 relations, and baulk the expectation of some of the 
 Principal Gentlemen and friends of the Government in 
 Yorkshire with whom I have lived in esteem from my 
 infancy? "^ 
 
 True to Horace Walpole's character of him as 
 " dev6ted to the Ministry " of Pelham and Newcastle, 
 Hutton writes to the latter on nth July 1750 : 
 
 " Nothing has occurred in this country worthy of 
 your Grace's notice unless it be that everything goes 
 well. The gentlemen seem to be in general harmony 
 with one another ; and the flourishing state of the 
 woollen trade makes them support the Government." 
 
 George 11. had recovered from an attack of the gout ; 
 Hutton sympathises. After rejoicing at the King's 
 good health, he adds : " If I may judge by myself a 
 gentle fit of gout in the foot will be a probable means 
 of making it more perfect." ^ 
 
 » Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32717, f. 233. 
 ' Ubi supra, 32718, t. 35. ' Ubi supra, 32721, f. 307. 
 
I7S8] ACTS FOR THE PRIMATE 235 
 
 As he had followed Herring in his other promotions, 
 he was named his successor at Canterbury, being con- 
 firmed Archbishop of Canterbury at St. Mary-le-Bow 
 on 29th April 1757. Horace Walpole gives no details 
 of the selection of Hutton as successor to Herring, his 
 only comment being that the latter was " succeeded by 
 Hutton, Archbishop of York, a finer gentleman, except 
 where money was concerned." 
 
 But the Newcastle correspondence seems to make 
 it clear that it was Newcastle who was responsible for 
 the choice of a new Primate, though in form another 
 nominated him. Newcastle had, in fact, resigned the 
 Prime Ministership in the autumn of 1756, but, as we 
 have said, retained his voice in the disposal of patronage. 
 It is probable, too, that during Herring's last illness, 
 Hutton had to some extent filled the Primate's place. 
 As far back as October 1753, Herring writes to New- 
 castle that with none of the bishops could Ministers 
 communicate during the Primate's absence " with so 
 much propriety and safety as with the Archbishop of 
 York," saying that " in matters of debate which relate 
 to public affairs " the Archbishop of York " has great 
 judgment and equal integrity."^ Again, in the spring 
 of 175s, when affairs in America were very strained 
 between England and France, and the Government 
 tried to rouse the S.P.G. missionaries in America to 
 exert themselves on behalf of George 11. 's government, 
 we find it is the Archbishop of York who encloses to 
 Newcastle a copy of the very strongly worded instruc- 
 tions to their missionaries which a Special Committee 
 of the S.P.G. had prepared. These spoke of the French 
 as " wicked and barbarous aggressors," compassing 
 the " compleat ruin of all the British settlements " 
 and "to change the happy condition of our American 
 fellow - subjects under the best of Kings for certain 
 tyranny, wretched superstition, and Popish idolatry." 
 In the absence of a formidable competitor these things 
 » Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32733, f. 162. 
 
236 MATTHEW HUTTON [i7S7^ 
 
 may have indicated Hutton as the man to go to Canter- 
 bury. At any rate, we find Newcastle writes to him 
 on the 24th March 1757. " His Majesty," says the 
 Minister, " has been pleased that day to order the Duke 
 of Devonshire to propose to your Grace the translation 
 to Lambeth, which I conclude from what your Grace 
 had said to me on that subject, your Grace has accepted." 
 He goes on to claim the real credit of the appointment, 
 speaks of " the constant and uninterrupted regard I 
 have endeavoured to show your Grace," and also of 
 " what your Grace knows pass'd with his Majesty just 
 before I left his service."^ 
 
 Hutton 's reply, fulsome as it is, certainly treats 
 Newcastle as the author of his advancement. He 
 speaks of " his gratitude to one who brought me into the 
 view of the world and has led me by the Hand to what 
 I am now arrived at." " I am," he says, " a little 
 diffident of myself how far I may be able to answer 
 expectation in this new Promotion ; but shall endeavour 
 to make good the defect of abilities by a strict and steady 
 attention to the interests of Religion, of the Publick, and 
 of my real Friends." Hutton was afterwards elected 
 President of the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy 
 and of the S.P.G. ; a Governor of the Charter House, 
 and sworn of the Privy Council. He confirmed Gilbert, 
 Bishop of Salisbury, on his appointment as Archbishop 
 of York, and in September of the same year consecrated 
 at Lambeth Terrick, Bishop of Peterborough. 
 
 Hutton had a dispute with Herring's executors about 
 the dilapidations at Lambeth Palace ; and in consequence 
 of this never went into residence there. He lived, how- 
 ever, for two or three months in the summer at Croydon 
 Palace, and when in town lived at his own house in Duke 
 Street, Westminster. 
 
 The latter part of 1757 found Britain with trouble 
 on every hand. Dearth of corn to feed the masses of 
 the people led to riots : the Seven Years' War with 
 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32870, f. 327. 
 
I7S8] A NAVY BILL AND HABEAS CORPUS 237 
 
 France — or rather with all the continental Powers 
 except Russia — had begun, and badly with the defeat 
 of Cumberland at Hastenbeck : invasion was feared, and 
 Hessians and Hanoverians poured into England to avert 
 it. Happily the elder Pitt was again in office jointly 
 with Newcastle. The archbishop rightly thought 
 National Humiliation fitting, and writes to Newcastle 
 on 22nd November 1757: "My business was to know 
 chiefly yr Grace's commands as to a Public Fast, which, 
 if there be no material objection, seems to be a necessary 
 duty."i 
 
 Hutton's tenure of the primacy was very brief, 
 lasting less than a year. And the end seems to have 
 been unexpected, coming in the midst of his ordinary 
 avocations as Primate. 
 
 In the session that began in December 1757 under the 
 Newcastle-Pitt coalition, two of the principal measures 
 brought forward were a Navy Bill and an Act to amend 
 the Habeas Corpus Act. They were both good measures. 
 As regards the former the law as it then stood was based 
 on the rule that no good work, perhaps no work at all, 
 could be got out of a sailor while he had any money in 
 his pocket. Of the purposes for which Parliament 
 voted money for the Navy, paying the seamen was 
 the last fulfilled. His pay was always in arrear. Mr. 
 Grenville, on the 24th January 1758, introduced a Bill 
 establishing a regular method for the punctual, speedy, 
 and certain payment of the seamen's wages, and for 
 enabling them more easily and readily to remit the 
 same for the support of their wives and families. 
 
 The Habeas Corpus Act of Charles 11. applied only 
 to persons under detention for an alleged criminal 
 offence. A husband might lock up his wife in a room in 
 his house ; angry relatives might confine a troublesome 
 old man or old woman without any proper Lunacy 
 authority sanctioning the detention. It was proposed 
 to apply the Protection of Habeas Corpus to persons 
 » Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., f. 329. 
 
238 MATTHEW HUTTON [1757- 
 
 other than those arrested on criminal charges, and to 
 extend the power to order the writ in vacation. 
 
 The House of Commons was under Pitt's leadership* 
 though he seems to have been busier with the war than 
 with legislation. However, the two Bills passed the 
 Commons. Horace Walpole says : " A Navy Bill of Mr. 
 Geo. Grenville rejected last year by the Lords and' 
 passed again by us has by Mr. Fox's underhand manage- 
 ment been made an affair by the Lords ; yet it will 
 pass. The extension of the Habeas Corpus of forty 
 times the consequence is impeded by the same dealings 
 and is not likely to have so prosperous an issue." ^ The 
 Lords did not much favour the Bills ; certainly New- 
 castle and Hardwicke did not like the suggested amend- 
 ment of the Habeas Corpus or the way Pratt had 
 brought it in. 
 
 On Saturday, the nth March 1758, Newcastle sends 
 a memo to the archbishop. " I lay before your Grace," 
 he says, " Lord Hardwicke 's sentiments and my own 
 upon the conduct we should hold upon the Bill now 
 depending for payment of seamen's wages." After 
 saying they would not have any change in Habeas 
 Corpus, he goes on : " If your Grace does us the honour 
 to agree with us in our opinion, I should submit it to your 
 Grace whether it might not be proper for you to give 
 notice to the bishops, such, I mean, as your Grace usually 
 sends to, to attend the House on Thursday next when 
 the Navy Bill comes on. Let your Friends upon the 
 Bench know your thoughts upon the two Bills — Navy 
 Bill and Habeas Corpus." ^ 
 
 Hutton had had two attacks of the gout in the course 
 of the winter, but is said to have been for some time 
 before his death remarkably well. He duly obeyed 
 Ministers' directions about attending Parhament. On 
 the 1 6th March 1758 he heard a sermon before the 
 Governors of the London Hospital, from thence he went 
 
 • Letters by Toynbee, iv. 128. 
 
 ' Addl. MSS. Brit. Mus., 32878, f. 177. 
 
1758] SHORT ILLNESS AND DEATH 239 
 
 to the House of Lords, where he stayed till nearly nine. 
 He supped heartily and rested well, and went the next 
 day, Friday, 17th March, to the House of Lords, where 
 he stayed till past eight at night. Hardwicke, from his 
 letter quoted in Seeker's Life, thought his fatal illness 
 was not unconnected with his zeal in Parliament. The 
 Navy Bill was debated on the Thursday and Friday. 
 It was ultimately passed after the Lords had summoned 
 some of the Commons and examined them as experts 
 on its provisions. The Habeas Corpus Bill was not 
 discussed till May in the Lords, when it was thrown 
 out, the Judges being instructed to prepare a Bill on 
 the subject for next Session. When the archbishop 
 retired on the Friday evening he complained of being 
 fatigued. The next morning early he was taken 
 extremely ill with an inflammation of the bowels, 
 occasioned most probably by an old rupture from 
 which he had long suffered. All possible methods 
 were used to save his life ; but he grew worse in the 
 evening, and continued so all the next day till towards 
 ten on Sunday night, when he expired at his house, 
 Duke Street, Westminster. 
 
 He had always wished to be buried quietly either 
 at Croydon or Lambeth, and his widow and two 
 daughters, whom he appointed his executrices, caused 
 his body to be brought to Lambeth Palace, and he was 
 buried privately in the Chancel of Lambeth Church 
 on Easter Monday, 27th March, in the evening between 
 nine and ten. He lies in a vault near the altar, with 
 the following inscription on a marble stone : 
 
 H S E 
 
 Reverendissimus in Christo Pater 
 
 MATTHOEUS HUTTON S T P 
 
 Cantuariensis Archiepiscopus 
 
 Ob 19 Mart. A D 1758 
 
 OEtat 65. 
 
 A handsome monument of a pyramidal form in 
 
240 MATTHEW HUTTON [1757- 
 
 white and veined marble, with a large urn at the top, 
 is thus inscribed : 
 
 Infra conduntur reliquioe 
 MATTHAEI HUTTON S T P 
 Episcopi Bangoriensis A D 1743 
 Deinde Archiepiscopi Eboracensis 1747 
 tandem Cantuariensis 1757 
 qui obiit 19 Martii AD 1758 
 oetat 65 
 Et Marioe uxoris ejus 
 quoe obiit 13 Maii AD 1779 
 oetatis suoe 86 
 duabus relictis filiis 
 quoe pietatis ergo monumentum 
 hoc utrique Parenti posuerunt 
 AD 1781. 
 
 Hutton's mother came from Sussex, and he sought 
 his wife from the same county, he having married, in 
 1732 while Rector of Spoiforth, Mary, daughter of 
 Mr. Lutman of Petworth, by whom he left, as the monu- 
 ment records, two daughters. 
 
 His widow, according to the monument, survived 
 him nearly twenty years. 
 
 Hutton's Primacy was of course so brief that this 
 alone would have prevented him making a great mark 
 as archbishop. The Wesleys were stirring, but, apart 
 from them. Church and State were in George the 
 Second's closing years somewhat torpid. Horace 
 Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann on the 21st March 
 1758: "Our new Archbishop died yesterday; but 
 the Church loses its head with as little noise as a ques- 
 tion is now carried or lost in Parliament."^ Two days 
 later he writes to his friend Charles Lyttelton, then Dean 
 of Exeter, an ancestor of the distinguished family of 
 Lyttelton of to-day, and a great antiquary : 
 
 " Well, there is another archbishop dead. Will 
 
 none of their deaths operate to your Deanery. It is 
 
 believed that St. Durham goes to Canterbury, and St. 
 
 Asaph to follow him. I don't fancy St. Asaph for you." 
 
 ' Letters, iv. 128. 
 
I7S8] CHARACTER 241 
 
 Walpole's prognostications were wrong. Seeker, 
 as we know, went from Oxford to Canterbury. The 
 Hon. Robert Drummond went three years later to 
 York.^ Lyttelton himself was made Bishop of Carlisle 
 in 1 76 1 . 
 
 About half a dozen of Hutton's sermons were pub- 
 lished. One preached before the House of Commons on 
 30th January 1741, while he was Prebendary of West- 
 minster and Royal Chaplain ; one preached before 
 the Lord Mayor and governors of the hospitals of the 
 City of London at Easter, 1 744 ; one in aid of promoting 
 English Protestant working schools in Ireland, at St. 
 Mary-le-Bow on the 28th March 1745 ; two before the 
 House of Lords in 1744 and 1746, and one before the 
 S.P.G. in 1746. All these last were preached while he 
 was Bishop of Bangor. Dr. Andrew Coltee Ducarel, 
 who, at the request of the archbishop's brother, John 
 Hutton of Marske, compiled some incomplete memoirs 
 of the archbishop, seems from Nichols' Illustrations of 
 Literature, iii. 466, to have been responsible for the 
 following statement : "This great prelate had a very 
 extensive knowledge of men and things, was endowed 
 with very quick parts, and blessed with a tenacious 
 memory. He was an excellent scholar, whose learning 
 was well digested, and a polite and elegant writer." 
 Ducarel with becoming deference declines to add to 
 his memoir any character of his Grace. He says that 
 his picture may give posterity some idea of his person, 
 but would never be able to convey with it either the 
 sweetness of his countenance or his many excellent 
 qualities. " His abilities were," he says, " very great 
 and known to be so," and he adds, " I believe few of 
 his predecessors were better qualified for the high and 
 important stations to which it pleased Providence to 
 advance him." He adopts the account of the arch- 
 bishop from the Gazette of 21st March 1758 as being 
 strictly true in all respects : " He is a gentleman of 
 
 * Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 313. 
 
242 MATTHEW HUTTON [i7S7- 
 
 sound learning, clear understanding, of great humanity 
 and politeness and easy access to all who had any 
 occasion to apply to his Grace either on business or 
 advice, and his loss is most regretted by those who 
 knew him best." 
 
 We have another and fuller description of Arch- 
 bishop Hutton by Dr. Thomas Wray in a letter to Dr. 
 Ducarel, dated the 2nd September 1758. Hutton had 
 been Wray's patron, having appointed him his chaplain. 
 The portrait is for this reason, like the characters we 
 have already given, not very analytical and profusely 
 laudatory, reading almost like a modern testimonial .^ 
 
 " As you desire my sentiments of the late arch- 
 bishop, and I cannot well defer any longer sending them, 
 I shall give you them now, though I could wish to have 
 had a little more leisure for recollection. During the 
 time I had the honour to be in his Grace's family, which 
 was about a year and a half, the amiable qualities and 
 accomplishments that rendered him the agreeable com- 
 panion in so extraordinary a manner and enabled him 
 to appear with so much advantage abroad in all com- 
 panies, showed themselves also at home where his 
 behaviour was always polite and gentlemanlike. 
 Though he was always very cheerful, chatty, and face- 
 tious, he had a particular regard for decorum ; he never 
 forgot the to xptToii; he never let himself down below 
 the dignity of the Archbishop. I need not tell you 
 that he was very happy in being able to attract your 
 love and esteem while he was commanding reverence. 
 He was happy also in enjoying a regular and constant 
 flow of spirits notwithstanding the infirmities of his 
 constitution — so constant a one that I have heard him 
 say that he could not recollect the time when he wanted 
 any. He was an affectionate husband, a very tender- 
 hearted parent, and a kind master. How sincere he was 
 in his professions of friendship those that he admitted to 
 any degree of intimaicy will declare. It will be needless to 
 mention that he wanted not abilities to make a con- 
 siderable figure in the high station he filled, when his 
 health would permit him to exert them ; that he was 
 very ready in the despatch of business ; that, as I fancy 
 * Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 473. 
 
1758] A YORKSHIREMAN 243 
 
 none of his predecessors excelled him in a graceful and 
 majestic mien, few had a clearer head or could com- 
 municate their thoughts with more readiness or greater 
 perspicuity. He had a very extensive knowledge of 
 men and things, and his knowledge of books was very 
 well digested. He was a person of very quick parts 
 and had a tenacious memory. 
 
 " His being a little ad rem attentior, I attribute 
 entirely to his having a family, as I have not heard that 
 he ever discovered such a turn in his younger days ; 
 and I believe he was above doing anything little, mean, 
 or dirty." 
 
 The chaplain's account of his patron, flattering as 
 we should expect it to be, gives us one or two hints from 
 which we can make our picture of the archbishop better. 
 There is certainly some delicacy of health, since this is 
 twice mentioned in the letter. Some overcarefulness 
 about money there must have been, or Wray would not 
 have called him a little ad rem attentior ; and as Hutton's 
 family consisted only of two daughters, the chaplain's 
 excuse for this failing seems hardly made out. 
 
 Archbishop Hutton came of a good old Yorkshire 
 family, and he had at least one ancestor, his namesake 
 and predecessor in the See of York, to be proud of, and 
 he was careful, like other archbishops, of his family and 
 pedigree. Dr. Ducarel had shortly before the arch- 
 bishop's death completed a pedigree of the Huttons 
 of Marske, and had received certain corrections in it, 
 as he says, from Hutton's own mouth. The archbishop 
 and his brother thought that their archiepiscopal an- 
 cestor or his family should be cleared from an aspersion 
 thrown by Dr. Drake in his Lives of the Archbishops of 
 York. The work was continued by Dr. Ducarel, after 
 our archbishop's death, for his brother. 
 
 But little, of Hutton's correspondence has been 
 preserved ; not enough, nor was his tenure of the 
 Primacy enough to give us a real insight into his 
 character and personality. Two or three letters to 
 Ducarel are preserved in Nichols' Illustrations of 
 
244 MATTHEW HUTTON [i7S7- 
 
 Literature. These show him to have been interested 
 in and a careful guardian of the Lambeth Library. 
 
 " Croydon House, 28^/t August 17S7. 
 " Sir, — I am glad to hear that the Register Books 
 of this see are removed and placed to yr mind in the 
 Library. It will be an additional pleasure to hear you 
 have succeeded in your application to St. John's College 
 for Laud's Diary. If the President perseveres in his 
 silence, the best advice I can think of will be to get 
 some friend to wait on him to know whether your letter 
 was received ; whether he acknowledges the possession 
 of the Diary ; and if so, to signify to the President and 
 the College that the Archbishop would take it for a 
 singular favour if they would allow it to be replaced 
 in the Library at Lambeth, to which it appears formerly 
 to have belonged. We shall know by the answers what 
 further step it may be prudent to take in order to 
 recover the MSS. — I am your affecte friend and servant, 
 
 " Matt. Cantuar." 
 
 " Croydon, loth September 1757. 
 " Sir, — My thanks are due to you for two Letters and 
 for the two volumes of the Indices and Archbishop's 
 Registers, etc., which came safe to me yesterday. 
 
 " I very seldom dine from home on a Sunday ; and 
 if on Sunday next about two o'clock you will give me 
 your company it will be very acceptable to, — Your 
 affectionate friend and servant, 
 
 " Matt. Cantuar." 
 
 Judging from the Parliamentary Reports, Hutton 
 was entirely without ambitions as a Parliamentary 
 orator. He had little opportunity during his one year 
 as Primate ; and as Archbishop of York he was silent 
 in the House of Lords, even when Canterbury was away 
 through illness. When in 1754 Ministers wished to 
 repeal the Jews Naturalisation Act they had passed 
 the year before, and sought help from the Episcopal 
 Bench in doing so, it was Seeker, as we shall see, who 
 seconded the ministerial motion for the Repealing Bill. 
 ^ Hutton is generally stated to have been Latitudin- 
 
1758] ARCHDEACON BLACKBURNE 245 
 
 arian in his opinions. Politically he was without doubt 
 a Whig, free from any taint of Jacobitism, a convinced 
 upholder of the Protestant succession — with no sym- 
 pathy with the principles of divine right or passive 
 obedience — the friend of Lord Hardwicke, of Pelham, 
 and of Newcastle, the opponent of the Non-jurors in 
 England as well as in Scotland. 
 
 Button's patronage of Blackburne, whom he, while 
 at York, appointed to act as one of his chaplains, and 
 whom he afterwards made Archdeacon of Cleveland and 
 Prebendary of Bilton in York, is one of the best avail- 
 able pieces of evidence of his Church views. Blackburne 
 was throughout the middle of the eighteenth century 
 a leader of what would now be called the extreme 
 Broad Church Party. He was educated at Catharine 
 Hall, Cambridge, but owing to his political principles 
 could not get a foundation fellowship at his college, 
 and went to reside in Yorkshire. He was a native of 
 Richmond in that county, and, as Hutton's family 
 lived at Marske only a few miles off, the future arch- 
 bishop knew him personally and his character with 
 his neighbours. Blackburne was also recommended 
 to Hutton while Bishop of Bangor by his friend John 
 Yorke. By the time Herring's primacy closed, some- 
 what of a change had come over English Church 
 Latitudinarianism. The first half of the eighteenth 
 century had seen the era of Clarke, Rector of St. James', 
 and the eccentric Whiston. Clarke was a favourite 
 of Queen Caroline, and was a man of high principle, 
 but he had been unsettled in his views about the Divine 
 nature, and particularly about the doctrine of the 
 Trinity . He had in 1 7 1 9 published a Reformed Common 
 Prayer Book, in which he had altered the Doxology to an 
 Arian form. Against this Robinson, Bishop of London, 
 had solemnly protested, though even the S.P.C.K. 
 seems to have patronised unsuspiciously some of the 
 Clarke publications. There seem, in fact, to have been 
 three main heads or points in the Broad Churchmanship 
 
246 MATTHEW HUTTON [1757- 
 
 of the day : ( i ) Latitude in interpretation of the Church's 
 formularies . This was the basis of what was known as 
 Arian subscription. " A man," said Clarke, " could 
 honestly use the formula of the Prayer Book and yet hold 
 Arian or semi-Arian opinions as to the nature of our 
 Lord ." (2) Alteration of the Church's formularies . The 
 work on Spirit, brought out in 1750 by Clayton, Bishop 
 of Clogher, though written by a young clergyman of his 
 diocese, advocated revision of the Prayer Book with its 
 doctrinal statements as to the Trinity, and in 1756 
 Clayton moved in the Irish House of Lords the omission 
 of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. (3) Freedom 
 of the clergy from subscription. It was on the first 
 point that Clarke was strongest ; every person, said he, 
 might reasonably agree to forms imposed by Protestant 
 communions whenever he can in any sense at all 
 reconcile them with Scripture. Clarke died in 1729, 
 and Waterland in 1740. Five or six years later came 
 the new phase ; in 1 746, Jones of Alconbury, a well- 
 meaning man and no heretic, published his Free and 
 Candid Disquisitions relating to the Church of England — 
 a collection of essays suggesting reforms in the Church 
 of England. It was this book which first led Blackburne 
 to publish any controversial work. By the advice of 
 Dr. E. Law, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle, a man of 
 sound piety, Jones submitted his MSS to Blackburne, 
 who was a friend of Law. But it did not go far enough 
 for Blackburne, who thought it too milky, and wished 
 those in power in the Church to be addressed more 
 sharply and sternly. Jones, however, met with many 
 antagonists among the Higher Churchmen, principal 
 among which was one Bosworth, who published 
 remarks on the Disquisitions ; as an answer to 
 Bosworth, Blackburne took the field with an " apology " 
 for them. In July 1750, Hutton gave Blackburne his 
 archdeaconry and prebend. Blackburne asserted that 
 Hutton knew his opinions, that when he went to Bishop- 
 thorpe to be collated to the archdeaconry, and was 
 
Matthew Hutton 
 
 YTo face p. 246 
 
n 
 
1758] BLACKBURNE 247 
 
 shown into the chaplain's room, the first thing he saw 
 lying on the table was his Apology, and says that he 
 was not a " stranger to the Archbishop's liberal notions 
 on ecclesiastical affairs." Blackburne himself felt 
 difficulty about strained or unnatural subscription, and 
 thought the condition and work of the clergy would be 
 improved by their being freed from subscription, and if 
 some alterations in the formularies were made. In 1754 
 he published a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 
 which he finds much fault with the clergy. It consists, 
 excepting a very inconsiderable number, of " men whose 
 lives and ordinary occupations are most foreign to their 
 profession." There is the ignorant herd of poor curates 
 and " the most ignorant common people that are in any 
 Protestant, if not in any Christian, society." He con- 
 tinued his activity ; his sermon on Christmas Day, 1753, 
 raising further objections to such things as Church 
 Festivals, which he put as in the nature of " beggarly 
 elements." But there was a thread of sincereness about 
 his plans for Church Reform which makes his unsoundness 
 the more to be regretted. He angered Seeker — partly 
 by saying that Butler died a Roman — but he had sym- 
 pathisers at Cambridge — Law, Paley, and Watson, 
 afterwards Bishop of Llandaff ; Jebb, and even Bishop 
 Lowth, were his friends. In 1 766 came out his "magnum 
 opus " TheConfessional, though anonymously, in which he 
 questioned the right of a Church, calling itself Protestant, 
 to require its ministers to subscribe to its formularies. 
 But this work, which met with stern opposition from 
 Seeker, Hutton's successor at Canterbury, was not 
 published till some years after Hutton's death. Black- 
 burne continued his efforts in favour of relaxation 
 of subscription for some years, though he repudiated 
 when the suggestion was made any sympathy with 
 Arian or Socinian opinions. But the fair result of 
 his patronage of Blackburne is that Hutton's own 
 opinions in Church matters were Latitudinarian in 
 character. 
 17 
 
THOMAS SECKER 
 
 1758-1768 
 
 Thomas Secker, Hutton's successor in the Primacy, 
 was born in 1693 at a small village called Sibthorp or 
 Sibthorpe, near Newark, in the vale of Belvoir, in the 
 county of Nottingham. His father was a Dissenter. 
 Bishop Porteous speaks of him as a " pious, virtuous, 
 and sensible man." Having a small patrimony of his 
 own he had no profession or trade. The future arch- 
 bishop's mother was the daughter of Mr. George Brough 
 of Shelton, in the county of Nottingham, a substantial 
 gentleman farmer. Young Secker was sent to school 
 first at Chesterfield, in Derbyshire. There can be no 
 doubt that from the first he was a very promising 
 pupil. When industry and ability joiii forces they 
 are hard to beat, and Secker had a good stock of both. 
 Mr. Brown, his pedagogue at Chesterfield, if the 
 anecdote told in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1768 be 
 true, was a Churchman ; for the boy having done well 
 in his classical exercises, his master patted him on the 
 head and said, " Secker, if thou wouldst but come over 
 to the Church, I am sure thou wouldst be a bishop." 
 When archbishop he is said to have given his old 
 master's son, a worthy clergyman with a long family 
 and a short income, a living in Yorkshire. Whether 
 Mr. Brown died or retired we cannot say, but in 1708 
 young Secker was moved to a Dissenting Academy at 
 Attercliffe, near Sheffield ; but his stay here was short, 
 for in about a year's time he was moved to Gloucester- 
 shire to a school at Gloucester, afterwards shifted to 
 
 248 
 
1758-1768] HIS MASTER 249 
 
 Tewkesbury. This school seems to have been kept by 
 one Warner, afterwards by a Mr. Jones. 
 
 There is a very interesting letter from Seeker to the 
 great hymn-writer, Dr. Watts, published in Dr. Watts' 
 life and dated the i8th November 1711, giving an 
 account of the life at Mr. Jones' academy, from which 
 it may be gathered that it was to Dr. Watts that Seeker 
 owed his introduction to Mr. Jones. Jones had been 
 ejected from a living in Wales, and doubtless enjoyed a 
 high reputation among the Nonconformists. The letter 
 says : 
 
 " Jones I take to be a man of real piety, great 
 learning, and an agreeable temper, one who is very 
 diligent in instructing all under his care, very well 
 qualified to give instructions, and whose well-managed 
 familiarity will always make him respected. He 
 is very strict in keeping order, and will effectually 
 preserve his pupils from negligence and immorality ; 
 not many academies are freer from those vices than we 
 are. . . . Hebrew and Logic are our morning's work. 
 We are obliged to rise at five o'clock every morning, 
 and to speak Latin always except when below stairs 
 among the family. The greatest inconvenience that 
 we suffer is that we fill the house rather too much, 
 being sixteen in number besides Mr. Jones. I suppose 
 the increase of his academy will oblige him to move 
 next spring. We pass our time very agreeably betwixt 
 study and conversation with our tutor, who is always 
 ready to discourse freely of anything that is useful, and 
 allows us either then or at lecture all imaginable liberty 
 of making objections against his opinion and prosecut- 
 ing them as far as we can." ^ 
 
 At this school came about one of the turning-points 
 of Seeker's life ; for among his fellow-scholars was 
 Joseph Butler, afterwards Bishop of Durham and author 
 of the celebrated Analogy. The two boys were alike 
 in their love of study, in industry, and in intellectual 
 ability, and it is not surprising that a close friendship 
 sprang up between them, which continued throughout 
 ^ Memoirs of Isaac Watts, by^T. Gibbons, p. lo. 
 
2SO THOMAS SECKER [i7S8- 
 
 their lives ; At Mr. Jones' school at Tewkesbury he is 
 said to have had also as a schoolfellow, and even as a 
 chamber-fellow, the eminent Nonconformist divine, 
 Mr. Chandler. It was while still at Tewkesbury that 
 Butler got into correspondence with Dr. Samuel Clarke 
 over his work called A Demonstration of the Being 
 and Attributes of God ; young Butler in a letter put 
 before Dr. Clarke some reasons against the soundness of 
 certain of Clarke's arguments.^ These were so properly 
 expressed that Clarke considered and replied to the 
 points of the youthful critic, though personally a 
 stranger to him ; a friendship sprang up between them, 
 and the letters were afterwards printed at the end of 
 Clarke's Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religions. 
 Seeker was privy to the interesting correspondence; in 
 fact, to him was committed in confidence the task of 
 taking his friend's letters to the post office at Gloucester 
 and bringing back Dr. Clarke's replies. It is a mis- 
 fortune for any boy to have his school often changed, 
 but Seeker mastered the misfortune, and the list of his 
 attainments by the age of nineteen is almost staggering. 
 He had by that age, we are told, read the best and 
 most difficult writers in Greek and Latin, acquired a 
 knowledge of French, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac, had 
 learned geography, logic, algebra, geometry, conic 
 sections, and gone through a course of lectures on 
 Jewish antiquities preparatory to the critical study of 
 the Bible. 
 
 To the eye of his father the young Seeker was in 
 every way fitted for the Nonconformist Ministry, and 
 for eminence and usefulness in it, and, whatever he 
 had studied before, between nineteen and twenty- three 
 he " read " almost exclusively Divinity. The Greek 
 Testament, Eusebius' History, Whiston's Primitive 
 Christianity , and other theological works were read 
 and re-read ; nor is it to be wondered at that the 
 issues between Church and Nonconformity and the 
 
 * Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, iii. 748. 
 
1768] PARIS 251 
 
 writers thereon were the subjects of careful study. The 
 result, if Bishop Porteous is to be believed, is equally not 
 to be wondered at : such a process and its sequel have 
 ever since been repeated, and are now repeated every 
 day with the sons of many an English home, clerical 
 and lay. In the main, as a result of his studies, young 
 Seeker was prepared to accept fully the Christian 
 faith, though on some abstruse and speculative doctrines 
 his views remained uncrystallised and nebulous. On 
 the controversies between Church and Dissent his mind 
 was not fully made up. According to Mr. Jones, as 
 cited by Nichols,^ while a young man, he preached to a 
 small Dissenting congregation in Derbyshire, but was 
 " thought by the more elderly and grave people there 
 to be rather too young and airy for such a charge." 
 He, however, resolved, as Bishop Porteous says, like a 
 wise and honest man, " to pursue some profession which 
 should leave him at liberty to weigh these things more 
 maturely in his thoughts, and not oblige him to declare 
 or teach publicly opinions which were not yet thoroughly 
 settled in his own mind." Accordingly, about the end 
 of 1 716, he began to study physic, and for this purpose 
 he came to London, where he read science and attended 
 lectures for two years. In January 171 8-19, to improve 
 himself still more, he went to Paris. Here he certainly 
 seems to have given himself the best chance possible. 
 He lodged at Cloitre St. Benoit Rue des Mathurins in 
 the same house with Mr. Winslow, the famous anato- 
 mist, whose lectures he attended. Surgical operations 
 at the Hotel Dieu, lectures on Materia Medica, Chemistry 
 and Botany at the King's Gardens were followed with 
 careful regularity ; and he also attended for some time 
 M. Gregoire, the famous accoucheur. While at Paris 
 also young Seeker made some good friendships. Among 
 oth«r persons of learning and eminence, he became 
 acquainted with Albinus, afterwards Professor at Leyden, 
 and Father Montfaucon ; and here too he first knew 
 
 1 Literary Anecdotes, iii. 748. 
 
252 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 his future brother-in-law, Martin Benson, afterwards 
 Bishop of Gloucester, a man of high character and great 
 personal charm, with whom much of Seeker's after life 
 was so intimately connected. 
 
 The zealous student of medicine seems, while in 
 Paris, to have retained his affection for his first love, 
 and to have continued more or less his divinity studies. 
 But much more important, he retained quite unimpaired 
 his intimate friendship with Joseph Butler, and constant 
 correspondence passed between them. Butler by this 
 time had taken Orders, having been ordained Deacon 
 in October, and Priest in December 171 8 by William 
 Talbot, then Bishop of Salisbury, afterwards Bishop of 
 Durham. Bishop Talbot seems to have been a man 
 of genuine goodness, though he has been charged with 
 avarice.^ One of his sons was Charles Talbot, who was 
 Solicitor-General, and afterwards succeeded Lord King 
 as Lord Chancellor. The bishop had another son, 
 Edward, who intended to take Orders, and of whom 
 the highest expectations were formed by his friends. 
 He, like Seeker, was an intimate friend of Joseph 
 Butler, but it does not appear that, prior to his return 
 from Paris, Seeker had ever met Edward Talbot. The 
 latter had influence not only in ecclesiastical circles 
 as his father's son, but through his brother with the 
 lawyers ; and about this time Joseph Butler was ap- 
 pointed on his recommendation, backed up by those 
 of Butler's old correspondent. Dr. Clarke, Preacher of 
 the Rolls ; the appointment being made by Sir Joseph 
 Jekyll. 
 
 Butler had firmly impressed on his mind the merits 
 of his friend in Paris, and, unknown to Seeker, in the 
 course of conversation with his friend, Edward Talbot, 
 mentioned him in such a way as to arouse the friendly 
 interest of Talbot. The interests of religion and of the 
 English Church in particular were very near young 
 Talbot's heart, and we can well understand how the idea 
 
 * Hore, i. 449. 
 
1768] INCLINED TO ORDERS 253 
 
 took hold of him that Seeker was a man who should be 
 secured for the sacred calling. Whether Edward Talbot 
 talked the matter over with his father or not, we cannot 
 say. The elder Talbot was no unworthy bishop, and the 
 close intimacy between him and a son minded as Edward 
 Talbot was can be easily surmised. In the result 
 Edward Talbot felt himself justified in promising, and 
 did promise Butler that if Seeker took Orders in 
 the Church his father would provide for him. Butler 
 now, as ever, a willing correspondent, wrote, in May 
 1720, a letter to Seeker telling him of Edward Talbot's 
 proposal and promise. At the time of the letter 
 reaching Seeker he had not abandoned the idea of 
 practising medicine, but was overwhelmed by the 
 small prospect of doing so with success. His mind, 
 according to Bishop Porteous, had been much running 
 on his old theological lines ; his doubts were weaker ; 
 his sense of the internal divisions of the Noncon- 
 formists — then very keen — more, and his difficulties 
 as to Conformity less acute. So that the situation 
 was very opportune for the suggestion. For two 
 months he thought the proposal over — and in the end 
 accepted it, and came over to England in the end of 
 July or beginning of August 1720. 
 
 Nothing could be more natural than that one of 
 Seeker's first acts on reaching England was to make 
 acquaintance personally with Edward Talbot ; and 
 we are told that they became close friends . Noscitur 
 a sociis ; and when we come to judge Seeker's personal 
 character and to form our judgment on Horace Walpole's 
 ill-natured sneers at him, it is a point in Seeker's favour 
 that he formed one of a very interesting group of young 
 men which included Butler, Talbot, and Martin Benson. 
 
 About the same time Edward Talbot married, with 
 every prospect of a happy and distinguished career 
 before him. But trouble and bitter disappointment 
 were in the near future. We of the twentieth century 
 do not realise — it is only the very old who have had 
 
254 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 the smallest experience of its horrors — what a scourge 
 the smallpox was two hundred years ago to every class 
 of our countrymen. In December 1720, only a few 
 months after his marriage, Edward Talbot caught it. 
 He was only twenty-nine at the time, but to the grief 
 of his wife and friends he succumbed to the complaint. 
 He was able on his deathbed to remember his trio 
 of friends, Butler, Seeker, and Benson, with whom 
 he had hoped to do good service for the Church, and to 
 commend them to his father's notice. Seeker was 
 advised, and well advised, before taking Orders, to get 
 an Oxford degree, and also that the latter would be 
 made easier by his first becoming a Doctor of Physics 
 of Leyden. Accordingly, a few days after his friend's 
 death, he went via Rotterdam to Leyden, and on 7th 
 March 1721 took his degree, publishing as his exercise 
 on the occasion a treatise De Medicina Statica, which 
 Bishop Porteous says was thought by the gentlemen 
 of the medical profession " a sensible and learned 
 performance." ^ 
 
 On the I St April 1721, Seeker entered himself a 
 gentleman commoner at Exeter College, Oxford, and 
 about twelve months later was admitted, we are told, 
 " without difficulty in consequence of the Chancellor's 
 recommendatory letter to the Convocation " to the 
 degree of B.A. 
 
 Seeker's life now for a time at any rate lay in London. 
 Here he was admitted to friendship with learned and 
 literary men : Dr. Clarke, rector of St. James', was 
 already his friend and they saw much of one another ; 
 with the great Bishop Berkeley, then Dean, he 
 became intimate. But the household where Seeker 
 was perhaps the most frequent visitor was that of 
 the widow of Edward Talbot. A daughter was born 
 to her five months after her husband's death, and the 
 baby's sickly health required every care. To help in 
 providing this, Mrs. Talbot had joined forces with Miss 
 
 ' Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 498. 
 
1768] CHAPLAIN TO BISHOP TALBOT 255 
 
 Catherine Benson, sister of Seeker's friend, Martin 
 Benson. They had been close companions before Mrs. 
 Talbot's marriage, and in the early days of her widow- 
 hood the society of Miss Benson, whose tastes and 
 feelings were similar to her own, had been the greatest 
 support and comfort to Mrs. Edward Talbot. Now 
 the two ladies shared a home and the charge of the 
 delicate little girl. Seeker was the intimate friend of 
 both, and, as we shall see later, towards one of the 
 ladies his feelings became of an even tenderer 
 kind. 
 
 Bishop Talbot was in November 1721 translated to 
 Durham ; and a year later, in December 1722, Seeker 
 was ordained Deacon by him in St. James' Church, 
 Piccadilly. Bishops were then less strict than now in 
 requiring a year to elapse before giving a deacon 
 Priest's Orders, and Seeker's ordination as priest by 
 Bishop Talbot followed in March 1723 in St. James' 
 Church. Here the future archbishop preached his 
 first sermon on 28th March 1723. Bishop Talbot 
 seems never to have forgotten his late son's recom- 
 mendation of his friends. They were, we may well 
 believe, well backed up by what the bishop personally 
 saw of the young clerics. The bishop had a domestic 
 chaplain, one Rundle, a very amusing and witty talker 
 — more amusing and witty apparently than a bishop's 
 chaplain ought to be. The chaplain made enemies 
 by what he said, and produced what good Bishop 
 Porteous calls " disagreeable consequences." We can 
 well understand that the good bishop sought to 
 neutralise the acid of Rundle's vivacity, by the 
 solidity and learning of Seeker. At any rate they 
 went down to Durham in July 1723 as filling jointly the 
 office of bishop's domestic chaplain. The bishop had 
 by no means overlooked his son's other friends. He, 
 about this time, gave Joseph Butler the Rectory of 
 Haughton, near Darlington, and gave Martin Benson 
 a prebend of Durham. Seeker was within a year 
 
2S6 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 made Rector of Houghton-le- Spring, a rich living in the 
 Bishop of Durham's gift. 
 
 Seeker was now able to provide a home for a wife ; 
 he had no doubt who she was to be ; he proposed 
 marriage to Catherine Benson, was accepted, and they 
 were married by good Bishop Talbot in King Street 
 Chapel in October 1728. But all parties wished the 
 home which had been Miss Benson's till her marriage 
 not to be broken up. Mrs. Talbot agreed to bring her 
 little girl to Houghton, and the two families from that 
 time became one. 
 
 Meanwhile Joseph Butler was not altogether happy 
 at Haughton ; there was a parsonage house to be 
 rebuilt, and Butler, who was getting ready the first 
 edition of his celebrated Sermons, had no mind what- 
 ever for builders' estimates or bricks and mortar, nor 
 was the requisite cash at hand for so heavy an expense. 
 By Seeker's intervention, Haughton was exchanged 
 for Stanhope, a more valuable benefice, and from 
 Stanhope shortly afterward the Sermons, and a little 
 later the Immortal Analogy — so dear to Gladstone — 
 were given to the world. Seeker helped his friend 
 in both these publications, his efforts being especially 
 directed to making Butler's style more familiar, and 
 his meaning more obvious. 
 
 Seeker now devoted himself to his duties as a country 
 parson. He seems to have been a very good one, 
 suiting his sermons to the bucolic taste and under- 
 standing, visiting the poor and showing the hospitahty 
 of the rectory to those in easier circumstances. The 
 medical knowledge acquired in Paris even came in 
 useful, and was placed at the service of the poorest. 
 Houghton, though very remote, suited Seeker's studious 
 ways, and here, as he often said in after life, were 
 spent some of the happiest hours of his life. But 
 Houghton was damp and relaxing, and Mrs. Seeker 
 was delicate ; and Seeker's friends and he himself had 
 to seek a change. A plan was put forward by Martin 
 
1768] COMES TO COURT 257 
 
 Benson, who himself held the prebend of Sarum at 
 Durham, that one Dr. Finney, who was old and infirm, 
 but held the Rectory of Ryton and another prebend at 
 Durham, should resign these, and Seeker should receive 
 them in exchange for Houghton. But difficulties 
 arose, apparently through some one else having a claim 
 to Ryton. The kind Benson generously gave up his 
 own prebend to satisfy this claimant, and Seeker's 
 exchange went through. On 3rd June 1727 he was 
 instituted to the third prebend in the Cathedral Church 
 of Durham, and to the living of Ryton, near Newcastle, 
 and for the following two years he lived chiefly at 
 Durham, going over every week to officiate at Ryton, 
 and spending two or three months there in the summer. 
 Seeker was indebted for his next promotion to Bishop 
 Sherlock, a learned and able prelate, if of the broad 
 opinions in Church matters common in the eighteenth 
 century, Sherlock was then Bishop of Salisbury, and 
 some years later, in 1748, succeeded Gibson in the 
 Bishopric of London. Sherlock heard Seeker preach at 
 Bath, and was much impressed with his ability. He 
 brought him to the notice of the Duke of Grafton, then 
 Lord Chamberlain, who in July 1732 appointed him one 
 of theroyal chaplains. In the following month, George 11. 
 was on one of his visits to Hanover, but Seeker preached 
 before the Queen. Queen Caroline, as we have already 
 said, was much interested in theological discussion, 
 and loved discussing the problems of religion with 
 divines, particularly those of Latitudinarian leanings. 
 A few days after his sermon Seeker was summoned 
 to the Queen's presence, and had a long talk with her. 
 It was on this occasion that he brought forward Butler's 
 name, the Queen remarking that she thought he had 
 been dead. It was from Lancelot Blackburne, Arch- 
 bishop of York, whom the Queen afterwards asked if 
 Butler were not dead, that she received the well-known 
 answer : "No, madam, but he is buried." Buried he 
 was in the country at Stanhope, but largely through 
 
258 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 Secker's exertions he came out into life again, being 
 appointed chaplain to the Lord Chancellor Talbot, 
 and later Clerk of the Closet to Queen Caroline. 
 
 Seeker now had influential friends, and the chance 
 of displaying his gifts and industry before those with 
 whom place and power lay. Butler's old correspondent, 
 Dr. Samuel Clarke, had been succeeded in the Rectory 
 of St. James', Piccadilly, in 1829, by Tyrwhit, who had 
 married a daughter of Gibson, Bishop of London. 
 But the church was too large for Tyrwhit 's voice, 
 and Gibson proposed that the latter should be given a 
 canonry at St. Paul's, and Seeker should take St. 
 James'. The authorities agreed, and, on i8th May 
 1733, Seeker was instituted rector, and two months 
 later he took his degree of D.C.L. at Oxford, preaching 
 as his Act Sermon his discourse on the advantages 
 and duties of university education, which attained 
 great notoriety, went through several editions, and is 
 to be found in the second collection of his Occasional 
 Sermons. The Weekly Miscellany calls attention to 
 the absence of Scripture quotations from the sermon, 
 and Horace Walpole, as we shall see later on, in one 
 of his sneering references to Seeker, makes a like charge 
 on his sermons in general. Bishop Porteous says that 
 the only notice Seeker took of the Miscellany's censure, 
 was that he contributed for many years very liberally 
 towards supporting the author of it. 
 
 Seeker beyond question was a very active and 
 efficient rector of St. James'. His parishioners num- 
 bered persons of rank and position, many of whom 
 attended his church. 
 
 In 1736, Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of 
 George iii., married the Princess of Saxe-Gotha, the 
 sister of the reigning duke, and the young couple lived 
 at Norfolk House, St. James' Square. The Prince of 
 Wales, a good-natured though silly young man, about 
 this time, following paternal example, quarrelled with 
 his father, King George 11., and even went so far as to 
 
1768] A ROYAL PARISHIONER 25^ 
 
 pose as the opponent of Sir Richard Walpole, the King's 
 Prime Minister, and as Leader of the Opposition. 
 The Prince regularly attended St. James' Church. 
 The first time he did so, the quarrel between the King 
 and the Prince of Wales then occupying a large portion 
 of the public attention, much interest, not to say 
 amusement, was caused by the officiating clergyman 
 beginning the service with the words : " I will arise 
 and go to my Father," etc. ; and some one wanting to 
 cap the story, declared that the rector followed with 
 a sermon on the text " Honour thy father and thy 
 mother." Bishop Sherlock was anxious to defend his 
 proteg^. Seeker, from the charge of indiscretion, and 
 affirmed that if that were Seeker's text, he must have 
 been giving a course on the Ten Commandments, and 
 could not avoid the fifth in its turn. But the story was 
 a figment. Seeker's text and subject being quite different. 
 
 Seeker was on good terms with his royal parishioner, 
 and baptized all of his children except two. He was 
 even employed as an emissary to the King, with a view 
 to patching up the quarrel. In this he failed, and 
 thereby incurred the touchy little monarch's displeasure ; 
 for some years Seeker had to submit to the royal silence 
 as a penalty for his want of success as mediator. 
 
 According to Horace Walpole, George 11. disliked 
 Seeker, and on one occasion when he was to preach at 
 Court refused to go to church. But for some reason 
 Horace Walpole was the inveterate foe of Seeker, 
 and makes charges against him without foundation. 
 He says of him that he had been " bred a Presby- 
 terian and Man-midwife, which sect and profession he 
 had dropt for a season." This seems a spiteful and 
 unfair reference to the facts we have narrated, viz. 
 that his father was a Nonconformist and that he had 
 attended Gregoire's lectures on midwifery while studying 
 medicine at Paris . More serious is the charge that he 
 had been president of a very free-thinking club. This 
 seems to have referred to something during his residence 
 
26o THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 at Leyden, but the evidence which Walpole gives is 
 very unsatisfactory, and is contradicted by his friend- 
 ship with men Hke Joseph Butler and Martin Benson. 
 The Reverend Mr. Wintle, a divine of learning and good 
 character, a Bampton Lecturer who for a time was 
 one of Seeker's domestic chaplains, besides vindicating 
 Seeker's character from strictures passed on it by 
 Bishop Hurd in his Life of Warburton, also took up the 
 cudgels on Seeker's behalf against Walpole 's suggestions. 
 He says: "Having myself been acquainted with the 
 archbishop for several years, having lived some time 
 in his family, and having had occasion to enquire with 
 much care into the history of his life, I conceive myself 
 entitled to no small degree of credit in the present case, 
 and from the best opportunities which I have had, of 
 knowing. I do aver that he never was in the midwifery 
 line, nor ever practised that or any other branch of 
 surgery, and that he never was President of an atheistical 
 Club."^ St. John Loveday, a scholar of repute of the 
 same date, supported what he calls " Wintle's satis- 
 factory vindication of a great and venerable character."* 
 
 Even Walpole has to admit that when Rector of St. 
 James' it is incredible how popular he grew in his 
 parish. Walpole 's suggestion that " his sermons were 
 by a fashion that Seeker introduced a kind of moral 
 essay and as clear from quotations of Scripture as 
 when he presided in a less Christian Society, but what 
 they wanted of Gospel was made up by a tone of fanatic- 
 ism in that he still retained," seems nothing but a 
 spiteful sneer, and is contradicted by an examination 
 of his published sermons. 
 
 There seems equally little foundation for Walpole 's 
 suggestion that he acted in any way discreditably in 
 connection with the marriage of Lord Chancellor 
 Hardwicke's son and the heiress of the Duke of Kent, 
 who became Marchioness de Grey. 
 
 * Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 477. 
 _ ^ , ' Ibid., iii. 478. 
 
1768] BISHOP OF BRISTOL 261 
 
 Queen Caroline seems, however, to have been pleased 
 with Seeker, and took occasion to express to him her 
 pleasure with his Oxford Act Sermon, which assisted his 
 further promotion. Certain it is that such promotion 
 soon followed. Bishop Gibson was still Walpole's 
 Pope, and it was through him that Seeker received, in 
 December 1734, the news that he was to be the new 
 Bishop of Bristol. Other episcopal appointments were 
 made about the same time. Fleming was appointed to 
 Carlisle. Gloucester was vacant, and Lord Chancellor 
 Talbot had designed this for his father's chaplain, Dr. 
 Rundle. But Rundle's indiscreet tongue was his enemy. 
 Gibson was led, by report of some " imprudences of 
 speech " relating to Abraham's offering of his son 
 Isaac, to oppose the appointment, and Martin Benson, 
 the early friend of Butler and Seeker, was after much 
 hesitation and persuasion appointed Bishop of Glou- 
 cester .^ 
 
 Seeker, Benson, and Fleming were all consecrated 
 together in Lambeth Palace Chapel on 19th January 
 1 735) the sermon being preached by Thomas, Bishop 
 of Winchester. 
 
 Bristol was a poorly endowed bishopric, and Seeker, 
 according to what was expected at the time, retained 
 with his bishopric the Rectory of St. James'. 
 
 The average Englishman likes a parson who is a 
 good man of business. The parish accounts at St. 
 James' were in much disorder when Seeker came. He 
 reorganised them, and while rector kept his eye on 
 them. He carefully prepared in the vestry the candi- 
 dates from his parish for the Confirmations which he 
 held yearly ; he distributed tracts, and prepared for his 
 parishioners a course of Lectures on the Church Cate- 
 chism. These he read on Sunday evenings, and at 
 stated times in the week as well. They were well 
 attended, and attained universal approbation. At the 
 present day they would be considered an ordinary 
 1 Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 478. 
 
262 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 performance ; but when they were pubHshed they 
 appeared to be, and in fact were, an almost unique effort 
 to put before Church people of no special learning or 
 attainments a plain statement of their religious duties. 
 
 Seeker was not stingy in money matters ; and we 
 are told that he provided out of his own income a 
 salary for reading morning and evening prayers, which 
 had been paid out of the Church offertory. 
 
 With his sermons he took great pains ; and he 
 acquired much reputation as a preacher. Bishop 
 Porteous says he excelled in " saying the most familiar 
 things without being low, the plainest without being 
 feeble, the boldest without giving offence." We rather 
 expect in an early eighteenth-century sermon a well- 
 composed but dull essay — moral reflections almost 
 amounting to truisms, well-balanced if elaborate 
 sentences, and by no means overmuch doctrine. Seeker 
 is much better than this. His subjects are practical; 
 his sentences short. Nor is a sense of humour wanting. 
 In his sermon on the text, "Take heed how ye hear," 
 some of his comments on the behaviour of certain of 
 his hearers seem to have a distinctly humorous vein. 
 " Not a few," says he, " are engaged so deeply in 
 observation of what they see- at church that they have 
 no room left for taking notice of what they hear. There 
 are persons too who have so much to say one to another 
 that they lose and make those around lose much of 
 what the preacher hath to say to them all." Better 
 still is the next : " Frequent mutual informations, it 
 seems, are of such importance and necessity to be com- 
 municated immediately that even the duties of hearken- 
 ing to God's Word in the lessons and singing His praises 
 in the psalms must give way to them." Things in 
 church were much as when early in the nineteenth 
 century the fashionable Rules of Deportment for a 
 Lady gave as a direction on entering church, " Bow 
 to your acquaintances, pass on, and compose yourself 
 to prayer." 
 
1768] A PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER 263 
 
 As we shall see later on, Seeker was a by no means 
 indifferent speaker in Parliament. But from the Parlia- 
 mentary History he does not appear to have spoken 
 in the Lords while Bishop of Bristol. He, however, 
 attended in Parliament, and from a few months after his 
 consecration began his notes or reports of the speeches 
 which he heard there. With characteristic industry- 
 he had learnt shorthand ; and the Prefaces to the 
 Parliamentary History of the period show that these 
 notes of Seeker were the basis of some of the very earliest 
 verbatim reports of parliamentary proceedings . The first 
 of Seeker's reports is of a debate on the quartering of 
 soldiers at Elections, and is dated 15th April 1735. 
 Of the same date is the report of another debate on 
 applying part of the Sinking Fund to the service of the 
 current year. These notes were first taken down in short- 
 hand and afterwards written out at large. They strike 
 the reader as being most skilfully and usefully taken. 
 There is a break in the notes after the two debates 
 mentioned above till May 1738, by which time Seeker 
 had become Bishop of Oxford, but they were continued 
 thence till 1743. 
 
 As Bishop of Bristol, Seeker' at once set about a 
 visitation of his diocese, and preached and confirmed 
 in many places. But he was not to be long at Bristol. 
 In those days the personal conveniences of the men high 
 in the Church as well as in the State counted for much. 
 We have told, in the life of Archbishop Potter, how it 
 was that he was removed from Oxford to Canterbury. 
 Seeker was offered Potter's place at Oxford, but at first 
 declined it. The influential Sherlock, however, wanted 
 Bristol for his brother-in-law. Dr. Gooch ; and Seeker 
 was prevailed on to make the change, being confirmed 
 in May 1737 as Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 When in the fall of the same year Queen Caroline 
 
 died, Seeker occupied the Court pulpit on the following 
 
 Sunday ; his sermon pleased the Princesses, and is said 
 
 to have been read even by the royal widower ; but the 
 
 18 
 
264 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 latter's hostility to Seeker seems not to have been 
 entirely removed by the perusal. Oxford, like Bristol, 
 was a poorly paid bishopric, and there was no suggestion 
 that Seeker should give up his Rectory of St. James', 
 Piccadilly. After his move to Oxford, Seeker seems 
 not only to have continued his taking notes of the debates 
 in the House of Lords, but occasionally to have shared 
 in those debates. No doubt, it was generally felt — and 
 he himself must have known — that his intellectual and 
 moral equipment was quite as good as if not better than 
 that of most of his episcopal colleagues. And he seems 
 not to have felt the shyness in parliamentary speaking 
 which troubled some spiritual Peers. In the Life and 
 Anecdotes of Bishop Newton, author of Prophecy, it is 
 said that he " never attempted to speak in Parliament, 
 for he, as well as most other bishops, entered into the 
 House of Lords at atime too late to begin such exercises." 1 
 "Some previous practice," the author goes on, "is 
 requisite, which renders lawyers so much readier and 
 abler speakers than the generality of divines. While 
 the convocation was allowed to sit it was a kind of 
 School of Oratory for the clergy, and hence Atterbury 
 and others became such able speakers in the House of 
 Lords." Seeker at any rate by the time he was Bishop 
 of Oxford had found his feet among the Peers. His 
 first effort was when he vigorously opposed the Bill 
 put forward by Walpole and his Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer, Sandys, to lower the heavy duties on spirituous 
 liquors imposed by the Act of 1731, of which we have 
 spoken in Archbishop Potter's life, when three eminent 
 doctors at the archbishop's suggestion attended the 
 House of Lords to tell its members how bad ardent spirits 
 were for human beings. All his episcopal colleagues 
 followed Seeker's lead in opposing the Bill. A short 
 time afterwards the established clergy of Scotland tried 
 to get a Bill through the Lords setting up a scheme for 
 the maintenance of their widows and children. Con- 
 
 * Newton's Life and Anecdotes, p. 137. 
 
1768] DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH 265 
 
 trary to the Scots' expectations, the English bishops, 
 and particularly Seeker, proved their friends, not op- 
 ponents. 
 
 As Bishop of Oxford, Seeker became the neighbour 
 of the celebrated Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. At 
 her request he visited her at Blenheim. The great lady 
 seems to have been struck with his capacity and in- 
 tegrity, and after a few interviews asked him to be one 
 of her executors, reading to him at the same time the 
 clause in her will giving her executors £2000 apiece. 
 Seeker was on very friendly terms with Lord Chancellor 
 Hardwicke ; and perhaps like a wise man he consulted 
 the great lawyer before accepting the office of executor ; 
 but Hardwicke, who was also a friend of the Duchess, saw 
 no objection, and he consented and afterwards proved the 
 will. Seeker seems to have spoken straightly and acted 
 in an upright manner to the wealthy testatrix. He dis- 
 couraged the legacy to himself, telling her what was not 
 true, that he was as rich as her Grace, and opposed 
 also her leaving so much to non-relations — it may be 
 remembered that the elder Pitt owed his independence 
 largely to an ample legacy from her. Seeker is said to 
 have been surprised at her death to find himself left 
 in as an executor. 
 
 Though a sound Churchman, Seeker supported Whig 
 ideas, and was on terms of friendship with Sir Robert 
 Walpole and his great Chancellor, Lord Hardwicke. 
 In Oxford, the seat of his see, he found Tories in abund- 
 ance and even some Jacobites ; but he avoided falling 
 foul of them, and perhaps his zealousness in the dis- 
 charge of his episcopal duties helped him in this respect. 
 The great Minister Walpole fell in February 1742. It 
 was shortly before this, when he was tottering, that 
 Seeker was employed by him to try and bring the Prince 
 of Wales to terms with his father.^ The Prince was 
 bitterly opposed to Walpole, as apparently his father's 
 friend, and helped the Opposition headed by Boling- 
 
 ' Life of Lord Hardwicke, i. 532. 
 
266 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 broke as much as he could. The message to the Prince 
 conveyed through Seeker ^ was that if the Prince 
 would write a letter of condescension to the ■ King he 
 should be taken into favour, his debts paid, and his 
 revenue increased by £50,000. But the ambassage 
 failed : the Prince insisted that Walpole must go • 
 and with George 11., who thought Seeker might have 
 done more, he remained in disgrace. 
 
 In the Young Pretender's Rebellion of 1745 Seeker 
 was to the fore. He preached a great sermon full of 
 loyalty to the reigning dynasty, and fury and thunder 
 for its enemies in St. James' as soon as the royal 
 message to Parliament (composed, we learn from Lord 
 Hardwicke's Life,"^ by him) announcing the meditated 
 invasion of Britain by Charles Edward was received. 
 The Commons passed almost without discussion a Bill 
 preventing correspondence with the Pretender's sons. 
 But in the Lords, Lord Hardwicke moved amendments 
 attainting of high treason the Pretender's sons if they 
 should attempt to land, and extending the attainder 
 to the children of those convicted under the Act, 
 or, to be more exact, suspending an Act of Anne which 
 would have restricted the forfeiture on attainder to 
 the person convicted. On the last proposal there was a 
 big debate. The text in Ezekiel, " the son shall not 
 bear the iniquities of the father," was really the text 
 on which what we may call the Liberals of the day, 
 the Duke of Bedford, Lord Hervey, Lord Talbot, and 
 others, preached in opposing the amendment. The 
 Lord Chancellor Hardwicke made a great speech in 
 support of it, and foremost among its other supporters 
 was Seeker, who spoke extempore but with great force. 
 He sent a circular letter on it to his clergy on the subject 
 of the Rebellion, and headed an address from them to 
 the Crown. He furbished up his sermon preached 
 at St. James' with alterations and amendments, preached 
 it again more than once, and after attending a county 
 
 1 Mahon's History, iii. 98. ^ Life of Lord Hardwicke, ii. 65. 
 
1768] THE SCOTTISH EPISCOPATE 267 
 
 meeting at Oxford presented it in its improved shape 
 to the King. 
 
 Seeker had two powerful friends in Newcastle and 
 Hardwicke. In 1747 York fell vacant through the 
 promotion of Herring to succeed Potter. It is said 
 that Newcastle and Hardwicke recommended Seeker 
 to George 11. for the northern archdiocese, but the 
 old King seems to have thought that Seeker had been 
 in opposition at Oxford and said, " I will have no 
 Seeker." 
 
 Early in 1748 Seeker had the misfortune to lose 
 his wife. In spite of her ill-health throughout nearly 
 the whole of their twenty years' married life, Seeker's 
 home life had been happy. He was fond of her, and 
 her intellectual gifts made her a fit wife for him. He 
 is said to have " attended her in all her long illnesses 
 with the greatest care and tenderness," and to have 
 been " always ready to break off any engagement or 
 any study " if his company could ease or cheer her. 
 
 The Rebellion in 1745 made Englishmen bitter 
 against things Scottish, and in 1748 the Speech from 
 the Throne recommended certain regulations relative 
 to Scotland which were embodied in a Bill for disarming 
 the Highlanders and restraining the use of Highland 
 costume. The Bill also contained provision with 
 respect to the episcopal clergy that only letters of 
 orders granted by an English or Irish bishop should 
 be deemed valid in Scotland in spite of registration 
 according to a former Act. No doubt many of the 
 Scottish episcopal clergy, like the nonjuring bishops, 
 were secretly " promoters," as Lord Hardwicke said, 
 " of disloyalty and rebellion " ; but the prelates in 
 the House of Lords, including Herring, Sherlock, Seeker, 
 and Butler, treated the clause as an attack upon 
 Episcopacy. The clergy in question, said they, have 
 been duly ordained by persons holding the office of 
 bishops, who, even though deprived of their sees by 
 the State, would remain bishops and capable of con- 
 
268 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 ferring valid orders. If willing to take the oaths of 
 fidelity they should be allowed to minister, and to refuse 
 them permission to do so was to ruin them unjustly. 
 Seeker led off the opposition to the clause enforcing 
 these arguments in a speech of half an hour. He was 
 answered by his friend, and shall we say patron. Lord 
 Hardwicke, in what is said to have been one of his 
 happiest efforts, and in Committee the clause was 
 rejected by 32 to 28. But on report Lord Hardwicke 
 exerted himself to the uttermost, expressing his appre- 
 hensions of the dangerous wound which would be given 
 to His Majesty, and to the Constitution, if that House 
 should show the least tenderness for any authority 
 temporal or spiritual set up in opposition to them. 
 
 Seeker's opposition to Hardwicke on this occasion 
 seems to have been certainly creditable to him. Seeker's 
 emoluments were still moderate ; and the Chancellor 
 had sounded him a little before about his having 
 the rich Deanery of St. Paul's in exchange for his 
 Prebend of Durham and Rectory of St. James'. 
 
 There was a general impression among those in 
 authority that Seeker deserved a move, and upward.' 
 At the end of 1749 Archbishop Herring had written to 
 Newcastle suggesting that he should recommend the 
 Bishop of Oxford for Lichfield, which was vacant. It 
 was time, he thought, Seeker should give up St. James', 
 he having spent " a long course of years in the most 
 laborious and important cure in the kingdom," and, 
 sound Whig as he was, the archbishop suggests that 
 Seeker deserves reward or solatium for having been 
 " used ill by the disaffected Oxonians." 
 
 A few months later the archbishop writes again. 
 Bishop Chandler of Durham was lying seriously ill ; his 
 recovery was not expected. Butler was designed to 
 have Durham, and his promotion would set free the 
 Bishopric of Bristol and the much more lucrative 
 Deanery of St. Paul's. The letter runs : 
 
 '■ Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32719, f. 326. 
 
1768] HIS FAREWELL SERMON 269 
 
 " It was a great pleasure to me to find yr Grace 
 favour so much the removal of the Bishop of Oxford to 
 the Deanery of St. Paul's on the demise of Durham. 
 It will be otium cum dignitate and an handsome retire- 
 ment to him from a Life and Station of more than 
 ordinary labour." ^ 
 
 As soon as Durham was actually vacant the arch- 
 bishop renews the suggestion to Newcastle, " whether 
 St. Paul's as a Dignity of great honour and ease and of 
 a handsome revenue would not be well bestow'd on a 
 man so sincerely affected to His Majesty as the Bishop 
 of Oxford has approved himself, who is of so distinguished 
 abilities, has taken so much pains in a great parochial 
 cure, and who begins to be upon the Decline of Life."^ 
 
 The Chancellor at once wrote to the Duke of Newcastle, 
 who was with his truant master at Hanover, recom- 
 mending Seeker for St . Paul 's . George 11 . consented, and 
 he was installed in December 1750. Seeker was now 
 free from his onerous duties as parish priest. He was 
 fifty-seven, and had been seventeen years at St. James'. 
 He had worked hard, and even his malevolent critic, 
 Horace Walpole, says, referring to his time there : " It is 
 incredible how popular he grew in his parish." We are 
 told by Bishop Porteous that " when he preached his 
 farewell sermon the whole audience melted into tears." 
 The sermon is one of those published in his works, 
 and it strikes us as a remarkably successful effort. In 
 pithy, practical sentences the preacher dwells on the 
 points requiring attention on such an occasion, how his 
 parishioners had dealt with him, how and with what 
 results he with them ; how were they going to greet 
 his successor ? It is better for him to go before he is 
 past work ; they have had the best years of his working 
 life. " It is better," he says, " you should be grieved 
 at my departure than weary of my stay." Money 
 had no part in bringing him to or in removing him 
 from St. James'. " I had a large income in the Church," 
 *Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32720, f. 217. * UU supra, 32721, f. 424. 
 
270 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 he says, " when I came hither ; I have not enriched 
 myself by my abode here ; I shall not enrich myself 
 by going from hence." There is a practical tone which 
 is pleasing in the following passage, addressed, be it 
 remembered, to a fashionable congregation, though the 
 words he uses in reference to the Holy Communion 
 rather grate on our ears. " Surely you may prevail 
 on yourselves if need be to alter your usual hour of 
 eating or visiting once or twice a week in order to 
 come the oftener and adore your Maker, to hear His 
 Word, and give your servants time to do the same 
 thing. Nay, why may not many of you so regulate 
 your affairs as to frequent daily prayers in the church ? 
 Few of you, I fear, have them in your families ; I speak 
 this to your shame. Nor must I fail to remind you, 
 as you know I have often done, of that highly useful 
 and by no means terrible or difficult duty of receiving 
 the Lord's Supper — enjoined on all Christians and yet 
 absolutely slighted by most." 
 
 With his greater leisure Seeker became busier with 
 his pen. Since the days when he corrected the proofs 
 and amended the draft of the great Butler, he seems to 
 have been a great hand at assisting other authors whose 
 opinions he shared. Dr. Church published a Vindica- 
 tion of the Miraculous Powers against Dr. Middleton 
 in 1751, and an analysis of Lord Bolingbroke's works 
 a few years later. Seeker helped much in the pro- 
 duction of these treatises. About the same time he 
 assisted Archdeacon Sharp in bringing out some con- 
 troversial works against the Hutchinsonians, a set of 
 Christians of almost exaggerated orthodoxy, who con- 
 demned the Newtonian philosophy as being unscriptural, 
 and, having in general the most profound reverence 
 for Holy Scriptures, held, as Canon Perry says, some 
 singular theories "as to Hebrew roots and the arche- 
 typal character of the Hebrew language." 
 
 In 1751 Seeker lost, to his great grief, his two bishop 
 friends, Benson, Bishop of Gloucester, and Butler, 
 
1768] DEATH OF BISHOP BUTLER 271 
 
 Bishop of Durham, with whom he had been on terms 
 of affectionate intimacy from boyhood. Benson, in fact, 
 lost his life through going, at Seeker's request, to Bath 
 to visit Butler, who was ill there. He was obliged to go 
 hurriedly from Bath on horseback to hold a confirmation 
 in the northern part of his diocese, and the fatigues of 
 the journeys brought on an inflammation of which he 
 died. 
 
 In a letter, dated the 8th August 1752, written from 
 Cuddesden, Seeker says : 
 
 "Dr. Irwin" (a celebrated Oxford physician of the 
 day, whose bust is in the Library at Christ Church) 
 " thinks the Bishop of Gloucester's case to be a 
 rheumatism occasioned by an excessive fatigue when he 
 went to see the poor Bishop of Durham at Bath and 
 by a cold took afterwards ; and hopes he will soon be 
 better." 
 
 But ten days later he gives a less favourable account : 
 
 " The good Bishop of Gloucester is in a very weak 
 and, I fear, dangerous condition. His pains continue, 
 and several paralytic symptoms have appeared since I 
 wrote to you last. I had a letter from him on Friday, 
 in which he speaks of his case as one who thinks it 
 desperate ; but writes with much cheerful composure, 
 as well he may ; and introduces a variety of subjects. 
 We have all asked leave to come to him, but cannot 
 obtain it . And whether we shall ever see him more in 
 this world, God knows, and His will be done. Dr. Irwin 
 had once advised his going to Bath ; but hath changed 
 his mind." 
 
 Within the same twelve months Seeker had also to 
 lament the death of the celebrated philosopher, Bishop 
 Berkeley, who was his friend. 
 
 The next year, 1753, saw Seeker busy in Parliament 
 over what was known as the Jew Bill, to which we 
 have already referred ; and on this measure his conduct 
 may be thought less free from question than it usually 
 was. An Act was passed in the summer of 1753 per- 
 
2/2 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 mitting Jews to be naturalised. There seems not to 
 have been much debate on it. Some business people 
 supported it as likely to bring money into the country. 
 But it had a clause in it which prevented a Jew from 
 being the patron of a living or ecclesiastical office. 
 Newcastle and Hardwicke, however, had under- 
 estimated the power of anti-semitism. During the 
 recess there was such a clamour against the measure 
 that on the very first day of the next Session the Prime 
 Minister, the Duke of Newcastle, brought forward a Bill 
 repealing the Act of the preceding Session. Here was 
 a difficult situation ! There were no new facts ; apart 
 from the merits a good rule fieri non debet factum valet 
 forbade the repeal. As Earl Temple said, it was 
 beneath the dignity of Parliament to pass a law one 
 Session and repeal it the next. Seeker came to the 
 Government's help and made a successful speech for 
 the repeal ; though one noble lord said that for the 
 greater part of the speech he thought the bishop was 
 opposing the repeal, he having advanced more in favour 
 of the Bill than he had ever heard before. Seeker 
 wanted to preserve the clause about patronage of 
 livings, but the House would be satisfied with nothing 
 but complete repeal. 
 
 As Dean of St. Paul's, Seeker attended the Cathedral 
 service morning and evening every day ; and arranged 
 with the other residentiaries to preach in turn on 
 Sunday afternoons. His good business qualities and 
 habits were very useful to him as Dean. There was a 
 fund vested in trustees appropriated towards repairs 
 of the Cathedral . The accounts of this fund had got into 
 confusion. Seeker overhauled them and got the trustees 
 to agree to a proper apportionment of the expenses. 
 The inhabitants of St. Faith's, a city parish near the 
 Cathedral, had or claimed a share of, or at any rate rights 
 over, St. Paul's Churchyard. It was a thorny question. 
 Seeker cleared it up and brought the men of St. Faith's 
 to an agreement. He indexed the old Cathedral 
 
1768] A WHIG IN OXFORD 273 
 
 documents, made extracts of what was material from 
 the registers and books in the chapter-house for the 
 use of himself and his successors, and corrected with 
 the original the copy of the ancient statute book then in 
 use. 
 
 As diocesan, Seeker maintained his character of 
 being no idler. When in residence at Cuddesden, where 
 he spent the summer months, he generally preached 
 in the parish church every Sunday morning, and read 
 a lecture on the Catechism in the evening. His 
 episcopal charges received attention and general 
 approval. His proximity to Oxford doubtless caused 
 him from time to time anxiety. " The home of lost 
 causes " had within its walls men, and men of learning 
 and weight, who hankered after a Stuart King and all 
 that a Stuart King meant in Church and State. In 
 1746 two students of the University were tried in the 
 King's Bench for disloyalty and for having openly 
 proposed the Pretender's health : they were convicted 
 and fined, and had, according to the sentence, to "walk 
 immediately round Westminster Hall with a title affixed 
 to their foreheads denoting their crime and sentence " ; 
 and for the personally attractive Pretender the first 
 two Georges were a poor set off. Seeker was known to 
 be an out-and-out supporter of the reigning dynasty ; 
 nay more, not only was he a supporter, but a friend of 
 the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke. In the 
 General Election of 1754, shortly after the death of 
 Henry Pelham, the ablest of the Ministry, party feeling 
 ran high. It was thought the best course to make his 
 less able brother, the Duke of Newcastle, Premier, 
 though in the Lords. Fox refused, and Pitt was as yet 
 not asked to lead the Commons. The Government 
 was doubtful of the Elections, and Seeker felt it his duty 
 to support them. This must have chagrined his Tory 
 neighbours at Oxford. But he managed to keep good 
 friends with the University as a whole, and even his 
 opponents respected him as learned and industrious. 
 
274 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 Archbishop Hutton's death on 19th March 1758 was 
 sudden. 
 
 The vacillations, the jealousies, the intrigues which 
 in 1757 had left the country for eleven weeks without a 
 Ministry were over. Newcastle had resigned in 1756 
 from sheer incapacity to steer the country through its 
 foreign complications. But he loved his patronage as 
 Minister, and was jealous any one else should have it ; 
 and the majority of the House of Commons were, as the 
 result of his corrupt methods, " his men." The Ministry 
 of Devonshire and Pitt which followed Newcastle's 
 resignation was a failure. The King was always think- 
 ing of Hanover, and did not want Pitt, for it was the 
 " being thought an enemy to Hanover " that was, as 
 Lord Waldegrave says, " the solid foundation of Pitt's 
 popularity."^ 
 
 So by the second half of 1757, all other expedients 
 having failed, and though, as Lord Waldegrave says, 
 " the Duke of Newcastle hated Pitt as much as Pitt 
 the Duke of Newcastle,"^ the Pitt-Newcastle coalition 
 was formed on terms of Newcastle managing the 
 patronage, and Pitt, as Mr. Gardiner says, " the business 
 of politics and the war." * 
 
 The account which Horace Walpole gives of Seeker's 
 elevation to Canterbury is as follows : 
 
 " On Hutton's death the Duke of Newcastle had 
 great inclination to give Canterbury to Dr. Hay Drum- 
 mond, Bishop of St. Asaph, a gentleman, a man of parts 
 and of the world, but Lord Hardwicke's influence carried 
 it for Seeker, who certainly did not want parts or 
 worldliness."* 
 
 Dr. Drummond, who was of aristocratic birth, being 
 second son of the eighth Earl of Kinnoul, had attended 
 George 11. in the campaign of 1743, and preached the 
 
 * Memoirs of Lord Waldegrave, 130. 
 
 " Ubi supra, 130. ^ Student's History, 751. 
 
 * Walpole's Memoirs of Geo, II., iii. 107, 
 
1768] "THE MAN" FOR CANTERBURY 275 
 
 thanksgiving sermon at Hanover for the Dettingen 
 victory .1 
 
 In the letter to Lyttelton which we have already 
 quoted, written three days after Archbishop Hutton's 
 death, Horace Walpole says : " It is beHeved that St. 
 Durham goes to Canterbury." "St. Durham " was 
 Trevor, Bishop of Durham. 
 
 But from the letters of those most intimately con- 
 cerned with the appointment of a Primate there never 
 seems to have been a shadow of doubt about Seeker 
 filling the vacancy. The King, of course, had to be 
 reckoned with, but beside him Hardwicke and New- 
 castle were the men with whom the appointment lay. 
 Poor Archbishop Hutton died on the evening of Sunday, 
 19th March, and the very next day Lord Hardwicke 
 writes to Newcastle, the Prime Minister : 
 
 " I did not hear that the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 was ill till late last night, and am now extremely sorry 
 for the loss of so considerable and valuable a man. 
 I conjectured that his illness just at this time might 
 be owing to the fatiguing attendances of last week. . . . 
 
 " Who shd be his successor is undoubtedly a question 
 of the greatest importance in every respect. I am 
 clearly of opinion that the Bishop of Oxford ought to 
 be the man, for all kinds of reasons, and I hope the 
 King will in his wisdom make no difficulties about 
 it."2 
 
 On the same Monday, Newcastle writes to Seeker, 
 and says that he had told the King that morning that 
 it was " absolutely necessary in the present situation 
 of the King and the kingdom. His Majesty shd make 
 choice for the See of Canterbury of one of the greatest 
 eminence in his profession, of dignity, weight, and 
 authority, which person I humbly thought shd be 
 the Bishop of Oxford, and I suggested nobody 
 else." 
 
 iWalpole's Geo. III., i. 73. 
 
 "Newcastle Corr.. addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32878, f. 278. 
 
276 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 The fateful Monday saw yet a third letter — Seeker 
 to the Minister, dated from the Deanery of St. Paul's : 
 
 " I received your Grace's letter in the midst of 
 company just going to dinner with me, and have but a 
 moment's time to say that I am quite terrified at the 
 unexpected contents of it, that I shall have great 
 cause to be pleased if His Majesty thinks of some 
 worthier person, that if he should pitch on me I must 
 endeavour thro' God's help to appear as little unworthy 
 as I can." 
 
 Seeker was confirmed archbishop at Bow Church on 
 the 2ist April 1758. 
 
 George 11. was now becoming old and possibly in- 
 different to everything except the charms and interests 
 of Hanover, but it is to his credit that he fell in with 
 what was a proper appointment. Indeed, it is said that 
 in the short period that remained of George 11. 's life he 
 treated the new archbishop with much more kindness 
 than he had shown him before. 
 
 Seeker was soon busy in making a visitation of his 
 new archdiocese. It seems from his first charge to 
 the Diocese of Canterbury that many of the clergy 
 were non-resident, giving as a reason the unhealthi- 
 ness of their livings or parsonages. Seeker seems to 
 have taken a sensible if rather indulgent line with such 
 cases. Where the parson made out that he really 
 could not reside, the archbishop said, " Then get a good 
 curate, and in paying him remember what a nasty place 
 you put him in " ; if the parson said, " My stipend is 
 too small and my children too many for me to pay any 
 curate highly," Seeker said, " Then I will pay your 
 curate something extra out of my own pocket " ; and 
 the more unwholesome the curate's cure the more 
 quickly was he remembered by the archbishop for 
 preferment when some ecclesiastical place was a-begging. 
 
 1759 was a year of victories for the British; Wolfe 
 at Quebec in September, and Ferdinand at Minden 
 about the same time ; Hawke wound up the year with 
 
1768] A NEW KING 277 
 
 a splendid defeat of the French fleet at Quiberon Bay. 
 Seeker writes to the Prime Minister on 30th November 
 1759, how Providence is " blessing H.M.'s army in this 
 extraordinary manner with one victory after another," 
 and hopes a day or two later he may propose the 
 immediate use of a Collect of Thanksgiving for our 
 late happy victory : " a publick acknowledgment will," 
 says he, "I am persuaded be extremely agreeable to 
 the King and expected by the Nation." '^ 
 
 George 11. 's health had been failing for some time 
 before his death ; he said he saw everything as through 
 crape. But on 25th October 1760 he died after not 
 more than a few minutes' illness. It fell to Seeker's 
 lot to take part in proclaiming the new monarch. He 
 was indeed no stranger to the archbishop, who, when 
 Rector of St. James', had baptized him. Seeker has 
 given an account in some MS Court Papers,^ preserved 
 at Lambeth, of his interview with his new master two 
 days after the old King's death. 
 
 " The King," he says, " sent for me into a room 
 where he was alone, and told me that as the Royal 
 Family was numerous and he was unwilling to put in 
 any of his brothers and leave out his uncle, and many 
 names might hereafter make confusion, he thought it 
 would be best to insert only the Princess Dowager of 
 Wales in particular. I assented to it ; and then I took 
 the opportunity of assuring him of my duty and best 
 services. He said very graciously that he had no doubt 
 on that head, and that I was one of his oldest acquaint- 
 ance, having baptized him on the day he was born after 
 once doubting whether he was alive, as Mrs. Keryaon 
 the midwife had often told him." 
 
 The archbishop reports another conversation on the 
 following Sunday : 
 
 " The King hoped the proclamation against vice 
 and profaneness would be regarded and have a good 
 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32879, S. 219, 272. 
 'Court Papers MSS, Lambeth, No. 1130. 
 
278 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 effect. I answered that such proclamations had been 
 apt to be considered as matters of course, but that his 
 example, I was persuaded, would give life and vigour to 
 this. He replied that he thought it was his principal 
 duty to encourage and support religion and virtue." 
 
 George 11. was buried on nth November in Henry 
 VII. 's Chapel at Westminster in the evening, the abbey 
 being lighted with numerous torches. Seeker says : 
 " I went to the great door of Westminster Hall in my 
 coach, which was allowed to remain there all the time. 
 They who walked first in the procession filled the stalls 
 before they who walked last came, so that I and the 
 Lord Keeper and Lord Privy Seal, etc., stood for some 
 time in the middle of the choir, but afterwards we 
 went to a bench in the N.E. corner and stayed there. 
 I got home to Lambeth at eleven ." Horace Walpole has 
 a horrid story of Newcastle going into hysterics and 
 being plied by the archbishop with smelling-salts. 
 
 Seeker gives an account of his view of the position 
 in a letter to Dr. Johnson, President of King's College, 
 New York. He speaks, perhaps, with overmuch kind- 
 ness and charity of the dead King. He says : " We 
 have lost our good old King, a true well-wisher to his 
 people, and a man of many private virtues.^ His suc- 
 cessor is a regular and worthy and pious young man, 
 and hath declared himself, I am satisfied, very sin- 
 cerely to have the interest of religion at heart .... God 
 keep him in the same mind, and bless his endeavours. 
 He continues the same ministry which his grand- 
 father had with as few changes as possible ; and I know 
 not„ whether this nation was ever so much at unity in 
 itself as it is at present." 
 
 It was quite in accord with Seeker's tastes that he 
 should take, as he did, a leading part in searching the 
 precedents and settling the proper ceremonial to be 
 followed at the new King's coronation. Of course he 
 performed the ceremony himself. There was a difficulty 
 
 1 Chandler's Life of Dvi Johnson of New York, i8i. 
 
Thcmas Secker 
 (From the Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. 
 
 [To /ace p. 278 
 
1768] GEORGE III.'s CORONATION 279 
 
 whether the King should take off his crown when he 
 received the Communion. Seeker says : "At the 
 Communion the King asked me if he should not take 
 off his crown. I said the office did not mention it. 
 He asked if it would not be more suitable to such an 
 act of religion. I said ' Yes ' ; but the Queen's crown 
 could not be taken off easily. When I had put on the 
 crown, the ladies pinned it to the Queen's head-dress 
 or hair. The King then asked what must be done? 
 I said as the ladies' heads are used to be covered it 
 would not be regarded.^ He put off his crown im- 
 mediately, and all the Peers that saw it took off their 
 coronets." Archbishop Wake's MS directs both the King 
 and Queen to take off their crowns . His printed form does 
 not. Bishop Newton, who was present as a prebendary, 
 gives a similar account. He says that when the young 
 King approached the Table to receive the Communion, 
 he inquired of the archbishop whether he should not 
 lay aside his crown while receiving the consecrated 
 elements. The cautious Seeker asked the Bishop of 
 Rochester, but neither of them knew or could say what 
 had been the usual form. Thus they left the point to 
 His Majesty's own judgment. The King determined 
 within himself that humility best became such a solemn 
 act of devotion, and took off his crown and laid it aside. 
 Seeker resided during almost the whole of his archi- 
 episcopate at Lambeth. It is not strange that to one 
 who was nothing if not a scholar the library at Lambeth 
 was of the greatest interest. He is said to have spent 
 more than £300 in arranging the MSS there, and having 
 the old registers of the see ^ duly catalogued. Finding 
 that since Tenison's days it had received no additions 
 of new books, he spent much money and trouble in 
 collecting books in all languages from all over Europe 
 for it,* and to it he by his will bequeathed the greater 
 
 ' Stanley's Memorials of Westminster Abbey, loi. 
 2 Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 482. 
 8 Allen's Lambeth, 188. 
 
 19 
 
28o THOMAS SECKER [i7S8- 
 
 part of his own very valuable collection of books . Of 
 the religious wants of his Lambeth neighbours he was 
 careful, giving ;^Soo, a large sum in those days, to build 
 a chapel at Stockwell, in the parish of Lambeth, besides 
 giving the communion plate and what the Gentleman's 
 Magazine calls the " furniture for the pulpit reading- 
 desk and communion table." 
 
 To the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 
 he was a liberal benefactor. He zealously supported 
 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
 Parts, founded in 1701 by Dr. Bray. Its beginnings 
 were during the first century of its existence small. 
 Seeker writes of it to his friend Johnson of New York 
 in 1752 : " Our fund is reduced at present very low ; 
 and the last year's benefactions have been very small." ^ 
 
 In one sphere of its operations, the American 
 Colonies, the archbishop took particular interest, being 
 a strong advocate for the appointment of bishops to 
 govern the Episcopal Churches there. It was indeed 
 on this question that he met with the largest measure 
 of abuse and invective that he ever encountered. 
 
 Of the thirteen states, all or nearly all on the fringe 
 of the Atlantic, which constituted the British Colonies 
 destined to become the United States, Virginia was 
 Cavalier and High Church, New England Puritan and 
 Independent, Maryland Roman Catholic, Pennsylvania 
 Quaker. At the end of the seventeenth century, 
 Maryland became Anglican, and it was to Maryland 
 that Dr. Bray was sent out by the Bishop of London 
 as his commissary. The story of the Anglican Church 
 in America during the first half of the eighteenth 
 century is one of growth and development. Keith, 
 the first S.P.G. missionary in Boston, laboured with 
 such zeal that in 1703 his companion wrote, " Churches 
 are going up amain where there were never any before." 
 In South Carolina the negroes came into the Church 
 in thousands ; by the middle of the century there were 
 
 ' Chandler's Life of Johnson, 175. 
 
1768] AN EPISCOPATE FOR AMERICA 281 
 
 twenty parishes in the Province with settled clergy, 
 and the Legislature allowed £100 a year stipend to 
 each clergyman. In North Carolina the Church had a 
 hard fight with the Quakers ; but in 1732 Boyd, and in 
 1742 Clement Hall, came over and were ordained by 
 the Bishop of London for the American ministry. 
 Before this an heroic effort had been made by certain 
 Fellows of Trinity, Dublin, under the auspices of the 
 great Berkeley, then Dean of Derry, to carry out a 
 proposal of his for establishing a Training College at 
 Bermuda, but Sir R. Walpole played Berkeley false 
 over a grant he had promised, and the scheme failed. 
 In 1748 there were in New England thirty-six 
 episcopal clergy. 
 
 With the best of English Churchmen, the proposal to 
 appoint bishops for America had long found favour. 
 Archbishop Tenison by his will left £1000 to the S.P.G. 
 towards founding two such bishoprics ; and thirty or 
 forty years later his example in this respect had been 
 followed by the great Bishop Butler of Durham, and 
 by Seeker's great friend Benson, Bishop of Gloucester .^ 
 Seeker strongly favoured the proposal, and in 
 1750-51 addressed a letter on the subject to Walpole. 
 It was not published during his life, but pursuant to a 
 written direction left by Seeker was published by his 
 executors.^ The occasion of it seems to have been 
 as follows : Sherlock, Bishop of London in 1 748, applied 
 to the Government for the appointment of two or three 
 bishops for the plantations, keeping clear of New England, 
 where dissent was strong. Walpole, always anxious 
 to keep the good-will of the Dissenters, who were especi- 
 ally strong in his own county of Norfolk, rejected the 
 proposal, and sent Seeker a copy of his reply to Sherlock. 
 This drew from the Bishop of Oxford and Rector of 
 St. James', " a letter to Walpole concerning bishops 
 in America." The proposal it supported was a modest 
 one, " that two or three persons should be ordained 
 
 * Hore, ii. 92. * See voL vi. of Seeker's works. 
 
282 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 bishops and sent into our American Colonies to administer 
 Confirmation, and to give deacons and priests orders 
 to proper candidates, and to exercise the jurisdiction 
 of the late Bishop of London's commissaries." 
 
 No one was more sensible than Seeker of the diffi- 
 culties in the way. There was, as we have said, at the 
 head of King's College, New York, as its first president, 
 a Dr. Samuel Johnson, with whom Seeker maintained 
 a frequent and intimate correspondence. He showed 
 great interest in Johnson's College, discussing with 
 its president the merits of, and himself interviewing, 
 candidates in England for professorships and tutorships 
 there.^ In a letter to Johnson, written in February 
 1752, nearly one and a half years after his letter to 
 Walpole, he says : " Concerning the important scheme of 
 establishing bishops abroad, I can at present give no 
 encouraging prospect . . . indeed, religion continues 
 to decay most lamentably." 
 
 And Seeker had a good case. As he pointed out, 
 the Church of England is in its constitution episcopal ; 
 the episcopal clergy being numerous needed supervision 
 at a less distance than 3000 miles. They would need 
 ordained successors, and candidates for the ministry 
 should be saved the " trouble, cost, and hazard " of 
 coming to England for ordination . Granted that there 
 were saints and heroes among those ministering in 
 America, and that Seeker's description in his letter 
 to Walpole of them as " men of desperate fortunes, 
 low qualifications, bad and doubtful characters, and a 
 great part of them Scotch Jacobites, was exaggerated 
 and cynical " — there was a tendency for black sheep 
 to come in where there was no shepherd's correcting 
 hand. 
 
 There were to be no Lord Bishops, only chief Pastors, 
 and none except in episcopal colonies. 
 
 One of the points put forward is of interest to us 
 twentieth-century folk, who start to cross the Atlantic 
 
 * Chandler's Lift of Johnson, 175, 
 
1768] NONCONFORMIST OPPOSITION 283 
 
 in monster, floating hotels, making less of it than our 
 grandfathers did of going to Bath in a postchaise. It 
 was alleged that of those who crossed the Atlantic to 
 obtain ordination, near a fifth part had actually lost 
 their lives on the voyage. They were also found to be 
 especially susceptible to smallpox when they arrived in 
 England. 
 
 But there was a violent opposition from Dissenters 
 both in England and America . And at home the Broad 
 Churchmen backed up this opposition. It would have 
 been strange if the American Dissenters had not been 
 frightened at the suggestion to introduce bishops into 
 the land to which their fathers had banished themselves 
 in quest of religious freedom. All the worst features of 
 Episcopacy at its worst were conjured up by the 
 alarmed imagination of the Dissenters ; Peer prelates 
 carrying with them pomp and palaces, ecclesiastical 
 courts claiming jurisdiction in matrimonial and testa- 
 mentary matters, the exaltation of the Church over the 
 Nonconformist communities and vigorous proselytising 
 from these communities. All these were read into the 
 proposal. A Dr. Mayhew, a Congregational minister 
 in Boston, was a Protagonist against having bishops 
 in America. He published a pamphlet of much bitter- 
 ness against the promoters of the scheme, the S.P.G. in 
 particular. He inveighed against bishops as " the 
 mitred, lordly successors of the fishermen of Galilee." 
 
 To this pamphlet Seeker published a lengthy reply. 
 He writes to Johnson on the 19th March 1754 his desire 
 that " the ministers of our Church in America by 
 friendly converse with the principal Dissenters could 
 satisfy them that nothing more is intended than that our 
 Church may enjoy the full benefit of its own institutions, 
 as all others do. For so long as they are uneasy and 
 remonstrate regard will be paid to them and their 
 friends here by our Ministers of State." ^ Mayhew had 
 to admit that if what was intended was only what 
 
 1 Chandler's Life of Johnson, 176. 
 
284 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 Secker put forward, his strictures were too severe. But 
 great bitterness was roused against Seeker for his atti- 
 tude on this question. 
 
 Blackburne poured his utmost contempt on the 
 plan of sending bishops to America, calUng it " a mere 
 empty, chimerical vision." If episcopal ministrations 
 be vital to the Church, why were they so omitted in 
 England? How, for instance, could Confirmation be 
 really indispensable when " in several dioceses there are 
 no Confirmations for several years " ? Blackburne had 
 a great friend, Thomas Hollis, who had been an admirer 
 of Seeker, but who took up the cudgels against him on 
 the American bishops' question. Hollis seems to have 
 been a queer person of independent means ; he was, and 
 advertised himself as being, of " Whig if not republican 
 principles." Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, iv. 52, 
 speaks of him as " the strenuous Whig who used to 
 send over Europe presents of democratical books with 
 their boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty." 
 He devoted himself to literature and was a liberal 
 benefactor to, amongst other institutions, Harvard 
 University. Blackburne published a Memoir of him, 
 which shows that though he attended no church he was 
 " a man of unusual piety." He was at one time an 
 admirer if not a friend of Seeker," and presented him, 
 while Bishop of Oxford, with a head of Socrates in green 
 jasper ; but over this question of bishops for America 
 he waxed furious, and charged Seeker in a letter to 
 Mayhew with leaving popery untouched, with perse- 
 cuting one Annet, with showing no affection to liberty, 
 but " treading with glee the mitred court paths." 
 These charges are without proof. Annet was an 
 atheistical schoolmaster who for a book called Free 
 Enquirer was sent to Newgate. Seeker had no hand in 
 the prosecution, 1 and is said to have relieved the 
 necessities of Annet while in prison. Seeker, however, 
 continued to the end of his life to take the greatest 
 
 ' Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 480. 
 
1768] A PREBEND INSTEAD OF A HOUSE 285 
 
 interest in and press for, with all the powers at his com- 
 mand, the suggested appointment of some bishops in 
 America. But the eagerness and piety of many of the 
 Nonconformists of the day, if nothing else, gave them 
 power, and they did not like the step. So the struggle 
 was long, and many and many a time Seeker had to 
 advise perseverance as Well as patience. As late as 
 1763 we find him writing to Johnson, " We must try 
 our utmost for bishops. Hitherto little has been said 
 to ministers and less by them on the subject." 
 
 The approach of the war with the United States 
 made any prospect of appointing bishops for America 
 hopeless. Seeker could get after " earnest and con- 
 tinued endeavours " nothing but promises to consider 
 and confer about the matter. The King favoured the 
 scheme,^ and suggested sending a bishop to Quebec if 
 other places were objected to. 
 
 Bishop Porteous says : " Posterity will stand amazed 
 when they are told that on this account his memory 
 has been pursued in pamphlets and newspapers with 
 such unrelenting rancour, such unexampled wanton- 
 ness of abuse as he would scarce have deserved had he 
 attempted to eradicate Christianity out of America, and 
 to introduce Mahometanism in its room." 
 
 We must not expect even in so good a man as Seeker 
 was perfect freedom from an eighteenth-century view 
 of Church patronage — something out of which you were 
 justified in providing for those of your own household 
 if not bound so to do. 
 
 On the 31st March 1761 he writes to Newcastle to 
 ask for a prebend, one of nine belonging to the King, 
 for his brother's son. " I have," he says, " no house 
 or lodging at Canterbury, and yet am expected to 
 entertain much company in a very expensive manner 
 when I am there. For these reasons I presume it hath 
 been usual for the Crown to indulge the archbishops 
 with leave to recommend to a vacant place in the Church. 
 1 Chandler's Life of Johnson, 199. 
 
286 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 Archbishop Wake obtained the Deanery for his son-in- 
 law, and Archbishop Potter a prebend for his son."^ 
 
 But Seeker was not without conscience in patronage 
 matters. He could even dare to say " No " to his omni- 
 potent friend Newcastle. The latter wrote to tell him 
 his relative, James Cornwallis, brother to Seeker's 
 successor at Canterbury, wanted a Fellowship at Merton. 
 Newcastle gave as his reason, " My niece, Lady Corn- 
 wallis, and her son, my Lord Cornwallis, have acted 
 towards me with so much regard and affection." 
 Seeker replied that as Visitor of Merton it would be 
 improper for him " to recommend any one for a fellow- 
 ship." ^ 
 
 It must have been with all his heart that Seeker 
 took up the task of contradicting the report published 
 in a pamphlet in 1 767 that the great Bishop Butler had 
 died a Roman Catholic. In three articles in the 
 Gentleman's Magazine signed " Misopseudes," Seeker 
 denied the truth of the report, and his denial seems to 
 have been ultimately accepted. 
 
 Though he was charged by his enemies with being 
 a hanger-on of the Court, and of course knew the young 
 King George iii. better than his grandfather, according 
 to Bishop Newton he was never very acceptable at 
 Court. 3 On George iii.'s accession twenty new chaplains 
 were appointed, and, contrary to established practice, 
 without consulting the Primate. Seeker's friends 
 would have had him demur : but, according to Bishop 
 Newton, he thought his opportunities for doing good 
 in the future would be diminished, not augmented, 
 should he have a breeze with the new monarch ; and 
 he complained not. At any rate his more personal 
 knowledge of the new King as well as a more congenial 
 moral atmosphere made Seeker come to Court more 
 often than in the old King's days. Lord Mahon says 
 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32921, f. 236. 
 ' Ubi supra, 32949, fE. 391, 401. 
 ' Newton's Life and Anecdotes, 117. 
 
1768] APPEAL AGAINST MASQUERADES 287 
 
 it was " observed with satisfaction that the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, proud of so promising a pupil, and 
 having no longer a Lady Yarmouth to encounter, had 
 become frequent in attendance at Court." ^ 
 
 We have recorded in Archbishop Wake's Life how in 
 1725 a protest against the masked balls or " masquer- 
 ades " that were held in London was made to George i. 
 Lord Mahon records that London was so frightened 
 by the Lisbon earthquake in 1752 that masquerades 
 were given up. It seems, however, that they survived 
 in sufficient strength to shock pious minds, and in 1766 
 an energetic appeal was made to Archbishop Seeker 
 about them. Some passages from the appeal are worth 
 quoting. After referring to the archbishop as being 
 both from his position and virtues " the natural patron 
 of the following Proposal " which is to help " to check, 
 and if your Grace's wise deliberations may be further 
 improved, to remedy all or any of the evils resulting 
 from the too frequent resort of the middling and lower 
 class of people to public diversions which in the general 
 opinion are but real allurements to idleness and 
 vice. ..." " To support these modish entertainments 
 great numbers of both these classes squander away their 
 time, health, and substance." The appeal goes on to 
 suggest, as a remedy, to oblige " the proprietors of 
 all licensed and unlicensed diversions whether balls, 
 masquerades, operas, plays, concerts, amphitheatres, 
 breakfastings, etc., throughout the Kingdom to hold 
 them by tickets stamped by authority, and over and 
 above the usual prices that a tax be laid on each 
 ticket according to its present value not exceeding 
 four shillings in the pound." " For London it is esti- 
 mated this would produce over ;£20,ooo a year, which 
 might be given to the Foundling Hospital," between 
 which and the Masquerades the appeal sees a con- 
 nection .^ How Seeker responded to the appeal we 
 have not been able to ascertain. 
 
 * Mahon's History, iv. 210. * Gentleman' a Magazine, xxxviii. 523. 
 
288 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 Secker's attitude to the revival of Convocation is 
 not easy to define. " I spoke to Lord Hardwicke," he 
 writes to the Duke of Newcastle on the 19th October 
 1 76 1, " some time ago about the Convocation, who 
 agreed perfectly with your Grace in the opinion that I 
 ought to have some proper notification of His Majesty's 
 pleasure upon the question of laying Heads of Business 
 before that assembly."^ 
 
 But there was a synodical meeting of the clergy at the 
 beginning of George iii.'s reign, and for it Seeker pre- 
 pared an oratio synodalis, though he was too ill to 
 attend the meeting. In this he says that the nature 
 of the time and the position of affairs are not realised 
 by those who favour the revival of Convocation. The 
 Deists, infidels, Romanists, and Dissenters would strive 
 for confusion : if they did little their inactivity would 
 be derided, if they did much all men would fear their 
 restlessness and love of change. Many, and those not 
 unwise persons, think, and will always think, that had 
 Convocation met and put forward a judicious utterance 
 on such points as Conversion or Personal Assurance 
 many Methodists might have been retained for the 
 Church : for 1760 first saw Wesley's preachers taking 
 out licences as Dissenting preachers and to administer 
 the Sacraments, and Charles wrote to John Wesley: 
 " We are come to the Rubicon." It was a critical time. 
 Dis aliter visum. 
 
 Seeker maintained his intimacy and a constant 
 correspondence with the Duke of Newcastle after the 
 death of Lord Hardwicke in March 1764, and seems 
 to have been employed in the summer of 1765 to assist 
 in the arrangements which were being made for forming 
 the Cabinet of Lord Rockingham, under whom New- 
 castle returned to ofBce as Privy Seal. 
 
 It was desired to appoint the unhappy Charles Yorke 
 to office. Seeker was employed to get over his scruples. 
 The archbishop writes from Lambeth at eleven o'clock 
 » Addl. MSS, BrifMus., 32929, f. 377. 
 
1768] PITT AND ROCKINGHAM 289 
 
 at night, on the 12th July 1765, to Newcastle and 
 reports a long conversation with Mr. Yorke. What the 
 archbishop said had made " a considerable impression 
 on him, though acceptance would be attended with 
 some disagreeable circumstances— but he must have a 
 little more time to consider."^ 
 
 Seeker seems to have shared the suspicions which 
 almost all the statesmen of the day felt about the elder 
 Pitt. The latter did not form his short-lived Cabinet 
 till July 1766, but for months before this the Ministry 
 of Lord Rockingham, under whom Pitt would not serve, 
 was in difficulties with the King. On the i6th February 
 1766, in reply to a letter of Newcastle, who spoke of 
 Mr. Pitt's assistance and service as absolutely necessary, 
 the archbishop writes : 
 
 " How many more caprices he (Pitt) may have 
 private and publick if he gets into power again no one 
 can foresee. But he hath shown abundantly formerly 
 and of late that nothing less than full power will suffice 
 him — and I dread to think what in that plenitude he 
 may attempt. . . . His passions and his haughtiness 
 are such that I doubt whether he himself can be sure 
 of what he will do." 
 
 The Rockingham Ministry repealed the Stamp Act 
 which Lord Grenville had passed in 1765, and which 
 caused such fury in the American Colonies. Seeker 
 approved the repeal, though he does not seem to have 
 taken a very clear or far-seeing view on the American 
 question, and writes on the 2nd February 1766 : " The 
 dangerous consequences of the Stamp Act appear so 
 much more plainly now than they did when it was 
 passed." 
 
 During the last ten years of his life Seeker suffered 
 much from bad health. The gout attacked him often 
 and badly. He writes to Johnson in December 1761 : 
 " I have had a severe fit of the stone, and am now under 
 a second fit of the gout within these six months " ; and 
 
 »Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32967, f. 361. 
 
290 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 a year and a half later to the same correspondent, on 
 1 8th August 1762 : "I have had the gout near three 
 months in my right hand, which is still very weak and 
 stiff, and it hath now seized my left and I write in great 
 pain." 
 
 Two years later he writes that the gout had 
 seized both his hands and both his feet. " It made," 
 says he, " several attacks on my right hand, and dis- 
 abled me from making almost any use of it for two or 
 three months." His gout increased greatly in the 
 following years of his life, and the attacks after they 
 passed off left him with rheumatic pains of great 
 severity. He seems also to have suffered again from 
 stone, and recovered with difficulty from an attack 
 of it in January 1767. 
 
 A sharp attack of gout in the winter of 1766-7 
 left him with a pain in his shoulder. This lasted a 
 twelvemonth and the pain then shifted to the opposite 
 thigh. Here it was almost continuous, and of great 
 severity, and as it hindered his taking exercise the poor 
 archbishop declined rapidly in health. He was extra- 
 ordinarily patient and cheerful before his family, but to 
 his physicians he complained of pains so excruciating 
 that he thought it would be impossible to support 
 them long. 
 
 He says in a letter to Newcastle from Lambeth, 
 dated the 26th May 1767 : "I am not able and have 
 not been able for some sessions past to bear the heat 
 and the fatigue of long days in the House of Lords." ^ 
 And in a letter two months later calls his suggestions 
 " the low-spirited imaginations of a man in very great 
 pain." 2 
 
 On the 28th January 1768 he says : " I am obliged 
 to give a worse account of myself. I am lifted into and 
 out of my Bed by four men." ^ The Duke of Grafton of 
 " lounging opinions," whom we shall say something of 
 
 » Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32982, f. 138. ' Ubi supra, 32983, f. 242. 
 ' Ubi supra, 32988, f. loi. 
 
1768] DEATH 291 
 
 in Cornwallis' Life, had become Premier, and the poor 
 archbishop complains that he had never asked him a 
 single question or " communicated to him a single in- 
 tention or even actual Disposition relative to ecclesiastical 
 affairs." 
 
 On the 13th July 1768 he writes from Lambeth to 
 Dr. Nathaniel Lardner, the Nonconformist divine, a 
 letter in which he says : 
 
 " It hath pleased God to afflict me for many months 
 with so constant and severe a pain in one of my hips 
 that I am almost incapable of attention to anything 
 else. Become quite useless and almost worn out, I 
 beg you will pray God to give me patience and such 
 degree of ease as He shall think fit : and can only add 
 that as I hope my spirit is truly Christian towards all 
 who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity so I am with 
 particular esteem and thankfulness for the whole of 
 your obliging behaviour to me through life.— Yr 
 faithful friend and servant, 
 
 " Thomas Cant." 
 
 On Saturday the 30th July 1 768 he was seized with 
 sickness while at dinner. On the evening of the follow- 
 ing Sunday, while lying on his couch and being attended 
 by his doctors and servants, he suddenly cried out that 
 his thigh bone was broken. 
 
 He lay in great agony for some time. Attempt was 
 made to set the bone, but without substantial benefit 
 to the patient. He fell into a kind of delirium on the 
 Tuesday following, with some ease of the pain, and 
 passed away about five on the Wednesday afternoon. 
 A post-mortem examination showed that the thigh bone 
 was carious, its substance being almost destroyed in 
 parts by the disease. Hence the excruciating pains he 
 had experienced. 
 
 Seeker was seventy-five when he died. He was 
 buried by his own desire in a covered passage leading 
 from the garden door of the Palace to the north door of 
 Lambeth Church. He expressly forbade any monument 
 
292 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 or epitaph to be put up for him anywhere. A black 
 marble slab with the simple inscription, 
 
 THOMAS SECKER, 
 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 
 Died Aug. S. 1768, aged 75, 
 
 marks his last resting-place. 
 
 Seeker's will is of interest. He appointed as his 
 executors, Dr. Burton, a scholarly friend and Canon of 
 Christ Church, and Mrs. Talbot, his wife's friend, who 
 with her daughter had been, as we have said, from his 
 marriage for forty-two years inmates of his house and 
 members of his family. For these two ladies, the 
 younger of whom did not long survive him, he provided 
 by vesting £13,000 Consols in his two chaplains, one of 
 whom, Dr. Beilby Porteous, was his biographer and 
 afterwards Bishop of London, in trust for the benefit of 
 the two ladies and the survivor of them. When they 
 were both dead he gave the fund in charity. The dis- 
 positions of the will included, among others, £1000 to 
 S.P.G. for general purposes. 
 
 ;£iooo to S.P.G. for establishing a bishop or bishops 
 
 in America. 
 £500 to the S.P.C.K. 
 
 £500 to each of the archbishop's three hospitals, 
 viz. : Croydon, St. John at Canterbury, and 
 St. Nicholas at Harbledon. 
 
 To St. George's and the London Hospital and the 
 Lying-in Hospitals £500 each, and £300 each to the 
 Magdalen Hospital, the Lock Hospital, and the Small- 
 pox and Inoculation Hospital. The list winds up 
 with £2000 towards repairing and rebuilding the Houses 
 belonging to Poor Livings in the Diocese of Canterbury. 
 
 His gifts to the library at Lambeth we have 
 mentioned. Bishop Porteous, who as chaplain must 
 have had opportunities of judging, records that Seeker 
 set a very good example to the flock under him by his 
 treatment of his household and domestic servants : 
 many of them, we are told, he suffered to continue with 
 
1768] HIS CRITICS 293 
 
 their families in his house after they were married. 
 None of them were discharged on account of sickness 
 or infirmity, but were assisted with the best advice that 
 could be had at a great yearly expense. By his will he 
 left ^(Jiooo — a large sum in those days — to be distributed 
 amongst his servants, besides £200 to such indigent 
 persons as he had assisted in his lifetime. The last 
 sermon he preached was at Stockwell Chapel in the parish 
 of Lambeth, to which, as we have said, he had been a 
 very great benefactor. 
 
 To Seeker must be assigned a very high, if not the 
 highest, place among the English primates of the 
 eighteenth century. With the exception possibly of 
 Wake and Tenison he was the ablest and best of them. 
 
 He had critics, perhaps we should say enemies ; 
 as what man, certainly what good man, in a prominent 
 place has not? Among them were Thomas Hollis, 
 whose attitude towards Seeker we have already dealt 
 with, Horace Walpole, Francis Blackburne, William 
 King, Principal of St. Mary Hall, a strange man of 
 Jacobite sympathies, who delivered a Latin oration 
 at the opening of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford in 
 1749, and published in his old age a book of " political 
 and literary anecdotes of his own times." He disliked 
 Presbyterians, and spoke against Seeker and also 
 Chandler, Bishop of London, who are, he says, " both 
 converts from presbytery. They are frequent preachers," 
 he goes on, " but the cant of their education renders 
 their discourses very disagreeable to a good ear. Their 
 parts are moderate, and nearly equal ; but their 
 characters are very different."^ He then goes on to 
 praise Chandler. But this criticism seems accounted 
 for by dislike of one who started life as a Nonconformist ; 
 and the fact that he finds fault with Seeker's sermons 
 — his strongest point — makes the criticism of little 
 weight. Gilbert Wakefield calls Seeker " an imperious 
 and persecuting prelate," but, as Dr. Stoughton 
 ' King's Anecdotes, p. xiv. 
 
294 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 remarks, he and King " are prejudiced witnesses." ^ 
 According to Horace Walpole, Seeker was a syco- 
 phant, a hanger-on to princes and potentates ' royal 
 and otherwise, of the world worldly. Even so good 
 a man as Bishop Hurd in his Life of Warburton decries 
 him. But the testimony of Walpole is not to be relied 
 on, as we have shown elsewhere. The sneer that his Act 
 Sermon was without citations of Scripture may be 
 admitted : this, however, may be accounted for by the 
 special subject of the discourse ; if intended to mean that 
 his sermons generally were so, it is untrue. In one 
 of his published sermons taken by chance the writer 
 found twenty-five quotations from Scripture, in another 
 fifteen. Of Bishop Hurd's criticism of Seeker the follow- 
 ing is a history. In 1738 Warburton, the great contro- 
 versialist and Defender of Christianity, afterwards Bishop 
 of Gloucester, published his Divine Legation of Moses, 
 the thesis of which was that the absence from the 
 Mosaic precepts of any future state of reward and punish- 
 ment proved those precepts to be of Divine origin. 
 Warburton was a widely read man, of almost cumbrous 
 learning ; but his spirituality was small and his ideas 
 on Church matters on a low and inadequate level ; 
 and his combativeness was tremendous. Dr. Johnson 
 says : " Warburton by extending his abuse rendered it 
 ineffectual . " * Hurd was a man of a more genial kind , but 
 he owed his advancement to Warburton and became his 
 champion. Canon Perry * suggests that some of the apo- 
 logetics for Christianity of Warburton and his like did 
 more harm than good. Certainly the Divine Legation 
 found many critics. Seeker, in his usual exhaustive 
 style, published some notes on the book ; Warburton 
 reprinted the Divine Legation in 1758, a year or two 
 before his elevation to the episcopate, with answers to 
 these or such of them as he thought deserving of answer. 
 It is these notes which Bishop Hurd has thought fit to 
 
 ' Religion in England under Queen A nne and the Georges, i. 262. 
 * Boswell's Johnson, v. 69. » History of English Church, iii. 37. 
 
1768] HIS CHARACTER 295 
 
 insert in his Life of Warburton, prefixed to the voluminous 
 edition of Warburton 's works. "Dr. Seeker," he says, 
 " was a wise man, an edifying preacher, and an exem- 
 plary bishop. But the course of his life and studies 
 had not qualified him to decide on such a work as that 
 of the Divine Legation. Even in the narrow walk of 
 literature he most affected, that of criticizing the Hebrew 
 text, it does not appear that he attained to any great 
 distinction. His chief merit (and surely it was a very 
 great one) lay in explaining clearly and popularly in 
 his sermons the principles delivered by his friend 
 Bishop Butler in his famous book of the Analogy, and 
 in shewing the importance of them to religion." 1 It 
 must be remembered that Dr. Lowth, Bishop of 
 London, whom Mr. Hore calls " a Prelate, equalled by 
 few, and surpassed by none of his time,"^ certainly 
 proved by his work on Isaiah to have been a very 
 learned divine — perhaps because he had fallen foul of 
 Warburton — ^is criticised and vilified by Hurd. Seeker 
 was a good Hebrew scholar, and was acknowledged as 
 such not only by Lowth, but by Kennicott and Merrick, 
 and on the whole Hurd's criticism is not worthy of 
 much attention. 
 
 In personal appearance Seeker's biographers de- 
 scribe him as " tall and comely," in early life slender 
 and rather consumptive. But in later life he gained 
 in portliness, though " never to a degree of corpulency 
 that was disproportionate or troublesome." If Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds' picture at Lambeth is to be trusted, 
 his expression was genial and intelligent. But his 
 biographers have to admit " that he was not always 
 equally affable and obliging." He was sometimes 
 reserved and cold.^ It is fair to remark that there 
 are persons towards whom an attitude of this character 
 in a Primate would be appropriate. Those who fell foul 
 of Seeker charged him with pride. His biographers, who 
 
 * See Life of Warburton, i. 69. * Hore, i. 594. 
 
 ' Porteous' Life of Seeker, p. Ixi. 
 20 
 
296 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 as his chaplains knew him well, attribute his hauteur to 
 very different causes, sometimes to bodily pain, which 
 he often felt when he did not own it, sometimes to 
 fatigue, sometimes to " accidental uneasiness arising in 
 the course of business." 
 
 The Gentleman's Magazine, of contemporary accounts, 
 is too flattering to be as useful as it might. It says : 
 
 " His Grace's person was tall and graceful ; his 
 countenance open and benevolent ; his conversation 
 cheerful, entertaining, and instructive ; his temper 
 even and humane. He was kind and steady to his 
 friends, liberal to his dependants, a generous protector 
 of virtue and learning. He performed all the sacred 
 functions of his calling with a dignity and devotion 
 that affected all who heard him. He was a most 
 laborious and useful parish priest, a vigilant and active 
 bishop, and presided over the Church in a manner that 
 did equal honour to his abilities and his heart. He 
 was particularly eminent as a plain, pathetic, practical 
 preacher ; and well knowing the great ability of so 
 excellent a talent he was not sparing in the exercise 
 of it, but continued preaching and catechising whenever 
 his health would permit him to the latest period of his 
 life." 
 
 As we have stated, his more violent critics hint that 
 Seeker was a humbug. There are weighty facts on 
 the other side. Martin Benson, Bishop of Gloucester, 
 would be counted a saintly man in any age ; it is 
 unlikely that his lifelong bosom friend should be a 
 religious humbug. May not the same be said in 
 respect to the friendship between Seeker and the 
 great Bishop Butler? Seeker's friend, chaplain, and 
 biographer, Porteous was a man of piety and the 
 highest goodness and no fool withal. His panegyric 
 of Seeker may be so universal as to make it difficult 
 for a critical mind not to discount his estimate some- 
 where, and to some extent. But it would be impossible 
 for Porteous to have written of Seeker as he has if the 
 archbishop were the faulty person his enemies would 
 have us account him. 
 
1768] KENNICOTT 297 
 
 He was a scholar and the friend and patron of * 
 scholars. Of the Latin that he had read as a young 
 man enough remained to enable him, after forty years' 
 disuse, and when nearly seventy, to compose a Latin 
 oration for Convocation when it met in 1761 to present 
 an address to the new King. 
 
 He was the first promoter and throughout a liberal 
 supporter of Dr. Kennicott's learned Collation of the 
 Hebrew Manuscripts of the Old Testament. Newcastle 
 had written to the archbishop about the work of 
 Kennicott, who applied for help from the Government. 
 Seeker replies : " His scheme is to compare exactly 
 together all the MSS of the Hebrew Bible which are at 
 Oxford and Cambridge and in the British Museum, 
 amounting at least to one hundred and ten, in order to 
 the publication of a more accurate text. A work of 
 this kind hath been long desired by the friends of 
 Religion and Learning throughout Europe." After 
 mentioning Father Houbiganti's work, he says : " But 
 Dr. Kennicott's if completed will outdo not only his 
 but all the rest of the same nature put together, and 
 will lay the groundwork of a standard edition of the 
 Old Testament for the future." He asks that His 
 Majesty will " make Kennicott partaker of his Royal 
 Bounty, as Queen Anne did Dr. Mill for his work on 
 the New Testament." ^ 
 
 The archbishop a few days later, through Newcastle, 
 asks the patronage of Cambridge University for Ken- 
 nicott's work.^ If the Church or any other good cause 
 wanted something written on its behalf and his own 
 pen was not, as it often was, available. Seeker could 
 put his finger on the best man for the job and made 
 him do it. 
 
 Seeker was a High Churchman — in the eighteenth- 
 century sense, if not exactly in the sense which the 
 closing decades of the nineteenth century have at- 
 tached to the title. To him the Church was no mere 
 
 > Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32902, i 104. * Ubi supra, 32902, f. 147. 
 
298 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 • congeries of believing men and women but a divinely 
 appointed organisation, of which Episcopacy was the 
 essential element, and whose ministrations and sacra- 
 ments were God's normal way of salvation. The sects 
 were not fellow-workers moving on lines converging on 
 the same goal, but wanderers. In his first charge as 
 archbishop he said: "The main support of piety and 
 morals consisted in the parochial labours of the clergy : 
 and if this country could be preserved from utter profli- 
 gateness and ruin it must be by these means." These 
 were his tenets, though we shall see that in practice he 
 was on most kindly terms with individual Dissenters. 
 It was his views of the validity and sanctity of Episcopal 
 ordination that guided his conduct with reference to 
 appointing bishops for America, and that made him the 
 champion of the Scottish Episcopal clergy, when it was 
 sought in 1748 to invalidate their clerical status 
 unless they could produce Letters of Orders from 
 an English or an Irish bishop. As archbishop, 
 he was careful of the clergy, to encourage the 
 deserving and to keep out the undesirable. In his 
 first charge as archbishop he dwells on the importance 
 of strictness in giving testimonials to candidates for 
 Orders. " We must," he said, " depend on regular 
 testimonials — every part of which ought to be con- 
 sidered before it is given, and no consideration paid to 
 neighbourhood, acquaintance, friendship, compassion, 
 importunity, when they stand in competition with truth." 
 He is said to have insisted on curates being licensed in 
 the diocese, and to have had a black book and a white 
 book : once in the black book no influence however 
 powerful could get you preferment from him. Young 
 clergy of good character he encouraged. A relative 
 left him a library of Divinity ; he had it divided by 
 the archdeacon and one or two more into three 
 parts, and these were given to three " studious and 
 regular " young clergymen for their encouragement in 
 study. 
 
1768] NO LATITUDINARIAN 299 
 
 He was a strong opponent of the Latitudinarians. 
 The Christian faith embodied in the Creeds, as Seeker 
 believed, was to be accepted — not pared down, even 
 though such paring removed difficulties from some 
 minds. For instance, any proposal to relax the doctrine 
 of the eternity of punishment met with but cold support 
 from Seeker. In one of his letters written in 1744-5, 
 while Bishop of Oxford, to thank the great Dr. Isaac 
 Watts for a copy of his Discourses on the World to Come, 
 after commending Watts' great services to religion 
 and saying he had made a valuable addition to them 
 in the book he had then been pleased to send him, he 
 goes on : " particularly by what you have written in so 
 strong and awful, yet so compassionate and good- 
 natured a manner in defence of the Scripture doctrine 
 concerning the duration of future punishments." ^ 
 
 He distrusted the forsaking of dogma. In one of 
 his letters to his " good " friend Johnson, at New York, 
 from Lambeth, he says : 
 
 " The distinguishing doctrines of the Gospel which 
 we in this country have neglected too much and dwelt 
 disproportionately on morality and natural religion, 
 whence the Methodists have taken advantage to decry 
 in us and gain followers." 
 
 He had no sympathy with Bishop Hoadly, and 
 spoke of some Broad Church writers as being Christians 
 if at all only secundum usum Winton : Hoadly being 
 Bishop of Winchester at the time . 
 
 Unlike his predecessor Hutton, he was no friend 
 to the leading Broad Churchman of the period. Arch- 
 deacon Blackburne. Bishop Butler's charge in 1751 
 lamenting the decay of external religion had been met 
 by the publication of A Serious Enquiry into the Use 
 and Importance of External Religion, in which many 
 Church usages were called superstitious. It came out 
 anonymously, but Seeker's vigilance discovered Black- 
 1 Gibbon's Memoirs of Dr. Watts, p. 355. 
 
300 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 burne as the author. In 1766 Blackburne published, 
 also anonymously, his great work, The Confessional. 
 It sought to show that subscription, i.e., the requiring 
 by the Church of England of assent by its members cleri- 
 cal or lay to a body of propositions on religion expressed 
 in human language, could not be justified. 
 The author expresses himself as follows : 
 
 " The sum of the whole matter is this : place your 
 Church-authority in what hands you will and limit it 
 with whatever restrictions you think proper, you cannot 
 assert to it a right of deciding in controversies of faith 
 and doctrine, or in other words a right to require assent 
 to a certain sense of Scripture, exclusive of other senses, 
 without an unwarrantable interference with those 
 rights of private judgment which are manifestly secured 
 to every individual by the scriptural terms of Christian 
 liberty and thereby contradicting the original principles 
 of the Protestant Reformation."^ 
 
 Canon Perry says that The Confessional was " a 
 thorough exposition and elaborate defence of the Lati- 
 tudinarian movement." It attacked, curiously enough, 
 the Broad Church position that subscription was a 
 general assent only to Church doctrine as a whole, and 
 went on to object to authoritative confessions of faith 
 and Subscription of any kind. There were honourable 
 names, such as Dr. Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle, 
 and Paley, among Blackburne 's allies and supporters. 
 But to Seeker's orthodoxy The Confessional was 
 utterly repugnant. He procured answers to be written 
 to the book, one by Dr. Gloucester Ridley being pro- 
 minent. He is even said to have written one of the 
 "Three Letters to the Author of The Confessional" 
 himself. 
 
 For work Seeker had an insatiable appetite. " He 
 
 rose at six," says Bishop Porteous, " all the year 
 
 round, and had often spent a busy day before others 
 
 began to enjoy it." Bishop Newton, who succeeded 
 
 * The Confessional, 3rd ed., 1770, p. 50. 
 
1768] REGISTER OF HIS DIOCESE 301 
 
 him both at Bristol and St. Paul's, says : " He was not 
 only a most learned divine, but was likewise a most 
 indefatigable and exact man in all kinds of business."^ 
 Speaking of Bristol, Newton says that in his day all 
 knowledge of the diocese was derived from his books 
 and accounts. 
 
 There is in the library at Lambeth a Register of 
 Visitation Returns from the parishes in the arch- 
 diocese of Canterbury which gives strong proof of what 
 a hard worker he was and how scrupulously careful a 
 diocesan. The parishes are arranged under deaneries ; 
 particulars are given of the churches, the accommoda- 
 tion they supply, the numbers of inhabitants, the 
 services on Sundays and other days ; the frequency 
 of communions and numbers of communicants, and 
 many other details. Scarcely anything could be im- 
 agined more useful to a succeeding diocesan or vicar : 
 and this all, or nearly all, in Seeker's own excellent 
 handwriting. 
 
 He is said to have been fond of riding ; and to 
 have been very moderate in eating and drinking. Of 
 personal idiosyncrasies one was the habit of calling 
 every one he addressed " Good." A lord about the 
 Court of very evil life being so addressed by the arch- 
 bishop, answered : "I am a very wicked fellow ; why 
 do you call me good ? " It is curious that in the 
 selection of letters from Seeker, published by Nichols in 
 his Illustrations of Literature,^ in a considerable number 
 the person addressed is called " Good Dr. Birch " or 
 "Good Madam." 
 
 He was undoubtedly generous with his money. He 
 was hospitable, as a bishop should be, but is said to 
 have thought it right " to discountenance as far as he 
 could all luxurious elegancies." He would never give 
 into " several fashionable accommodations," nor admit 
 extraordinary delicacies to his table, nor even accept 
 them when offered to him. 
 
 * Newton's Life and Anecdotes, p. 117. * Vol. iii. 488, 492. 
 
302 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 He bestowed many benefactions in the county of 
 Kent and elsewhere ; giving large sums towards the 
 repair of decayed vicarage houses and for relief of the 
 distressed. When asked to support a useful public 
 subscription he gave, say his chaplains, "much more 
 than they expected ; and they were frequently with- 
 held from repeating their solicitations through fear not 
 of being denied but of trespassing too far on a liberality 
 that knew no bounds." ^ His private charity was very 
 great. He gave eight pounds to the church or chapel 
 at Sheerness towards purchasing proper communion 
 plate ; " which had before," says the Chronicler, " been 
 usually borrowed from a public-house in the neigh- 
 bourhood." 
 
 A story is told of him that a German divine of the 
 Calvinistical profession who had applied for relief to 
 build a church abroad to the Kirk of Scotland and to 
 Dissenters in England about 1762 with little success, 
 applied at last to the archbishop. " He received him 
 with so much civility and humanity, accosting him in 
 a familiar manner in French, of which language he was 
 a perfect master, that it raised the foreigner's admira- 
 tion." The archbishop assisted him, it is said, more 
 effectually than the kirk had done. 
 
 Seeker was a consistent supporter of the Revolution, 
 and, in spite of his strong Churchmanship, had no trace 
 of Jacobitism in his composition. His sermon on the 
 victory over the Pretender at Culloden is full of fire. 
 It is one of Hollis' charges against him that he left 
 popery unnoticed — ^widespread, intolerant, overturning 
 popery. But this is without foundation ; his pub- 
 lished sermons contain a course of five against popery 
 — as vigorous as any of his discourses. Rome was to 
 him dangerous civilly and religiously, and he opposed 
 it by speech and action. He supported Lord Radnor's 
 motion for an inquiry into the Roman Catholic numbers 
 in the kingdom. He is glad to write to Newcastle that 
 * Porteous' Life of Seeker, p. be. 
 
1768] FRIENDSHIP FOR DISSENTERS 303 
 
 only two hundred and seventy-one were returned in the 
 two hundred and forty -nine parishes of his own diocese, 
 and only sixty-eight thousand for all the dioceses .1 
 
 But in spite of his love for rigid orthodoxy, Seeker 
 was friendly with many individual Dissenters. He 
 distrusted, like so many good men of his time, the 
 enthusiasm of the Methodists, fearing lest it should be 
 evanescent and thin ; and in his second archiepiscopal 
 charge he advised his clergy as to their attitude towards 
 them. 
 
 A letter of advice to a clergyman on his son's becom- 
 ing a Calvinist gives a picture of his ideas on such 
 matters : 
 
 " Lambeth, ^rd November 1767. 
 " Sir, — I am very sorry that your son hath given 
 you cause of uneasiness ; but as a zeal of God, though 
 in part not according to knowledge, influences him his 
 present state is far better than that of a profane or 
 vicious person, and there is ground to hope that through 
 the divine blessing on your mild instructions and afifec- 
 tionate expostulations he may be gradually brought into 
 a temper every way Christian. Perhaps he and you 
 differ even now less than you imagine ; for I have 
 observed that the Methodists and their opposers are 
 apt to think too ill of each other's notions. Our clergy 
 have dwelt too much upon mere morality, and too little 
 on the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel ; and hence they 
 have been charged with being more deficient in this 
 last respect than they are, and even with disbelieving, 
 or however slighting, the principal points of revelation. 
 They in turn have reproached their accusers with en- 
 thusiastic imaginations, irrational tenets, and disregard 
 to the common social duties of which many of them 
 perhaps are little if at all guilty. . . . — Yr loving brother, 
 
 " Tho. Cant." 
 
 With men like Watts, Doddridge, his old school- 
 mate Chandler, and Lardner, the correspondence still 
 extant shows him to have maintained over many years 
 an intimate friendship. He seems to have received 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32986, f. 323. 
 
304 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 from time to time from the author copies of the books 
 that emanated from the fruitful pen of Isaac Watts. 
 The following letter was written to thank for a copy of 
 Watts' Improvement of the Mind ; or, A Supplement to the 
 Art of Logics : 
 
 " CUDDESDON, NEAR OxFORD, 
 
 June 19, 1 741. 
 " Sir,- — I am extremely obliged to you for the agree- 
 able present of your book, which is peculiarly adapted for 
 the direction and improvement of students in the Uni- 
 versity, where your Logic is by no means the only piece 
 of yours that is read with high esteem. You have been 
 a diligent promoter of useful and especially religious 
 knowledge of Christian faith and Christian morals. On 
 these accounts I have always respected you from the 
 time that I had so many years ago the advantages of 
 your conversation, and always rejoiced in the just 
 honour that has been universally paid you ; and as this 
 Opportunity of expressing my regard gives me much 
 pleasure, so if the favour of letting me see you next 
 winter will not be inconvenient to you it will be a great 
 satisfaction to, Sir, Your affectionate humble Servant, 
 
 "Tho. Oxford." 1 
 
 Two years later Seeker writes again to Isaac Watts 
 to thank him for his Essay towards the Encouragement 
 of Sunday Schools : 
 
 " CuDDESDON, September 14, 1743. 
 
 " Sir, — I heartily thank you for your obliging letter, 
 and had I known that you had printed a sermon on the 
 subject, I should not have failed to enrich my own from 
 it . I hope the things I have said in favour of our Charity 
 Schools are true. I hope the Christians of this nation 
 in general are grown much milder towards each other, 
 and I am sure we have great need to gain in this virtue 
 what we lose in others and become a more united body 
 as we become a smaller, which I apprehend we do. But 
 fear not, little flock. May God direct and bless us all in 
 our poor endeavours to serve Him ! May He give you 
 every needful support under your long sickness, and 
 restore you speedily to your former usefulness if it be 
 * Gibbons' Memoirs of Watts, 353. 
 
1768] PHILIP DODDRIDGE 305 
 
 His holy will. I am with great esteem, Sir, Your affec- 
 tionate and faithful, humble Servant, 
 
 " Tho. Oxford." 
 
 Two letters written to Philip Doddridge in 1 743 and 
 174s give us a pretty good idea of Seeker's feelings and 
 opinions on the question of closer reunion with Non- 
 conformity. 
 
 In the former of these, dated from Cuddesden, 29th 
 September 1743, he says : 
 
 " Indeed, it must and ought to be owned in general 
 that the Dissenters have done excellently of late years in 
 the service of Christianity ; and I hope our common 
 warfare will make us chiefly attentive to our common 
 interest and will unite us in a closer alliance." ^ 
 
 To the same correspondent he writes, 21st February 
 
 1 744-5 : 
 
 " Your favourable opinion of the Church of England 
 gives me no surprise but much pleasure. And as I agree 
 with you heartily in wishing that such things as we 
 think indifferent, and you cannot be brought to think 
 lawful, were altered or left free, in such a manner as that 
 we might all unite ; so I have no reason to believe that 
 any one of the Bishops wishes otherwise ; and I know 
 some that wish it strongly whom, I fear, many of the Dis- 
 senters take to be of a different spirit ; nor, perhaps, were 
 the body of the Clergy ever so well disposed to it as now. 
 But still I see not the least prospect of it ; for they who 
 should be most concerned for it are most of them too 
 little so . And of others few that have influence think it 
 can be worth while either to take any pains or spend any 
 time about matters of this nature ; and too many judge 
 the continuance of a separation useful to their particular 
 schemes. Among these last the enemies of Religion are 
 apt to consider the Dissenters as their allies against the 
 Established Church. But as I hope they will never 
 have cause to join in any designs against it, so I am 
 fully persuaded they will never think a combination 
 with such persons justifiable either in point of prudence 
 or of conscience." ^ 
 
 * Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, 484. 
 ' Doddridge's Correspondencs, iv. 270, 381. 
 
3o6 THOMAS SECKER [i7S8- 
 
 In a letter to Lardner, dated 5th December 1 750, he 
 thus discusses the terms of Communion with Noncon- 
 formists : 
 
 " What the terms of Communion thus necessary and 
 requisite are, all Churches and, so far as they are con- 
 cerned, all persons must judge for themselves ... he 
 who thinks more things necessary should neither treat 
 those ill who believe fewer nor rank them with total 
 unbelievers. . . . On the other hand, he who believes 
 fewer things to be necessary should neither censure 
 those who believe more to be so as tyrannical or un- 
 charitable merely because they dare not acknowledge 
 him to be what according to the best judgment they 
 can form he is not."^ 
 
 " To several foreign Protestants," says Bishop 
 Porteous, " he allowed pensions, to others he gave 
 occasional relief, and to some of their universities was 
 an annual benefactor." 
 
 We have mentioned that Dr. Mayhew of Boston 
 wrote a pamphlet expressing strongly the repugnance 
 of the American Dissenters to the appointment of 
 bishops for the American Colonies. Perhaps the 
 following passage from almost the end of his answer 
 to Mayhew deserves to be quoted as showing Seeker's 
 real feeling and line of thought towards Nonconformists : 
 
 " Our inclination is to live in friendship with all 
 the Protestant Churches. We assist and protect those 
 on the Continent of Europe as well as we are able. We 
 show our regard to that of Scotland as often as we 
 have an opportunity and believe the members of it are 
 sensible that we do. To those who differ from us in 
 this part of the kingdom we neither attempt nor wish 
 any injury ; and we shall gladly give proofs to every 
 denomination of Christians m our Colonies that we are 
 friends to a toleration even of the most intolerant as 
 far as it is safe ; and willing that all mankind should 
 possess all the advantages religious and civil which 
 they can demand either in law or reason." 
 
 ^ Lardner's Life, p. cl. 
 
1768] HIS CHARGES 307 
 
 Seeker's episcopal and archiepiscopal charges deserve 
 a word from his biographer. There are eight of them — • 
 five delivered while Bishop of Oxford, and three as 
 Primate. In the first, delivered in 1738, he takes a 
 gloomy view of the position of religion in general. 
 " An open and profess 'd disregard of religion is become 
 the distinguishing character of the present age." He 
 urges study on the clergy. What may be a very good 
 beginning is by no means a sufficient stock to go on 
 with. This charge Seeker liked and thought well of. 
 It was reprinted and distributed from Canterbury in 
 1758. From his charge of 1741 it seems that choirs 
 were a trouble to the clergy even in those days. " If," 
 says the bishop, " in order to instruct your people in 
 the way of singing, meetings to practise out of Church 
 time be requisite, you will keep a strict watch over 
 them that they be managed with all possible decency 
 and never continued till candle-light if they be of 
 both sexes. You will likewise discountenance at least 
 all frequent meetings between the singers of different 
 parishes and making appointments to sing alternately 
 at one another's churches ; for this wandering from 
 their own, which by law they ought to keep to, usually 
 leads them into excesses and follies." 
 
 The next three charges deal with simony, resignation 
 bonds, tithes, and repairs of churches and parsonages. 
 He alludes to the duty of the clergy at county elections, 
 " seasons of epidemical unreasonableness and licentious- 
 ness." 
 
 We get a picture in his 1762 charge, delivered after 
 he was archbishop, of the evils attendant on the private 
 baptisms so common among the upper classes at that 
 time. He says : " Baptism when administered in 
 private houses without necessity is too often treated 
 even during the administration rather as an idle cere- 
 mony than Christian sacrament ; or, however that be, 
 is close followed by very unsuitable if not otherwise 
 also indecent levity and jollity. They should support 
 
3o8 THOMAS SECKER [1758- 
 
 the solemnity of the ordinance and either prevent 
 improprieties in the sequel or, if it be doubtful, whether 
 he can excuse himself with a civil intimation of the 
 unfitness of them from being present." 
 
 On clerical dress he says, " a habit, visibly a clergy- 
 man's, must have no effeminacy or love of finery in it." 
 The archbishop condemned in his clergy, " softness 
 and delicacy of manner, skill in the science of eating 
 and the perfection of liquors." We are reminded of Dr. 
 Young in Mansfield Park. 
 
 The advice on sermons of such a master of preaching 
 is in two of his later charges and is worth quoting : 
 
 " Make your sermons extremely clear ; employ the 
 lowest expressions, provided they are not ridiculous, 
 rather than not be understood ; let your sentences 
 and the parts of them be short where you can ; never 
 multiply beyond necessity, for they will only tire ; 
 abstam from weak ones for they will only discredit 
 the strong ; employ no arguments to prove things 
 which need not be proved, for you will only make them 
 doubtful." 
 
 Extempore preaching he touches on wisely : 
 
 " What we say in such a manner as to make it seem 
 the present desire of our own hearts will much better 
 make its way into the hearts of others, than if our eyes 
 are fixed all the while on a paper from which we visibly 
 recite the whole. . . . But there must be a long and 
 diligent preparation to do this well. Some will scarce 
 ever attain sufficient presence of mind or readiness of 
 expression, and others will acquit themselves hand- 
 somely in a good flow of spirits, but meanly when these 
 fail them. If some get the faculty of being always able 
 to say something plausible, it will tempt them to neglect 
 the improvement of their understandings and discourses, 
 and to be content with digressing whensoever they 
 are at a loss from their text and their subject to 
 any point on which they can be copious ; to utter 
 offhand such crudities as they could not bear to write 
 down." 
 
1768] LEARNING SERMONS BY HEART 309 
 
 He is not opposed to preaching a sermon several 
 times with revision : " by looking over it a few times 
 when you are about to use it you may deliver it almost 
 without being observed to read it." He favours 
 preaching from notes : " perhaps, duly managed, the 
 best plan of all." He alludes to the practice common 
 among foreigners of learning their sermons by heart. 
 The plan is " not only," he says, " unreasonably 
 laborious, but subjects persons to the hazard of stopping 
 disagreeably and even breaking off abruptly for want 
 of memory ; or if they escape that danger, there still 
 remains another, of saying their lesson with ungraceful 
 marks of fear and caution." He would like to add 
 some " occasional instructions," but adds sadly, " my 
 strength will not suffice." 
 
 He printed some instructions given to candidates 
 for Orders after their subscribing the Articles. They 
 had a phenomenal popularity. No less than fifty 
 editions were published in half a century. 
 
 His other literary remains are considerable. Two 
 volumes of occasional sermons were published in his 
 lifetime ; his lectures on the Church Catechism, his 
 charges and four volumes of sermons after his death ; 
 he also left to the Lambeth Library a number of learned 
 manuscript pieces, including an interleaved English 
 Bible with many suggestions for improvement of the 
 English Version ; a Hebrew Bible with comparisons 
 of the ancient versions and emendations ; two folio 
 volumes of notes upon Daniel, and many other pieces 
 such as we should expect from a prelate who was at 
 once so learned and so industrious. 
 
FREDERICK CORNWALLIS 
 
 1 768-1 783 
 
 Before Seeker died England had come under the rule 
 of George iii., who succeeded his grandfather on the 
 25 th October 1760. For the purposes of the ecclesi- 
 astical historian this change of monarch is of great im- 
 portance. The position which George iii. took up as 
 regards the Church, and as regards the appointment 
 of archbishops and bishops, was quite different from 
 that of his predecessors. Personally, he was widely 
 different from them. George i. had a certain sly 
 sharpness : he was immoral : he was a German. 
 George 11. had some courage as a soldier, though not 
 so much as he credited himself with, and he obeyed his 
 able wife ; otherwise he was immoral ; and his heart 
 was throughout his life, like his father's, in Hanover, 
 and he was stupid. George iii. was an Englishman : 
 he was obstinate, and his intellectual outlook was 
 narrow; he lost England the American Colonies, though 
 we of the twentieth century may doubt if she could 
 ever have kept them : he upheld slavery ; but his 
 domestic and personal morality was high. He set a 
 good example in his home, and to his subjects . His ideas 
 of his duty towards God and his neighbour were strong 
 and right, and he regarded the Established Church of 
 England as supplying the best, if not the only effective, 
 aids to the discharge of these duties, and the British 
 Constitution of King, Lords, and Commons as the best 
 mode of government the world had known. To his 
 mind no duty was of higher importance than the 
 selection of the Church's chief officers. 
 
1 768-1 783] CHURCH PATRONAGE 311 
 
 And yet it is a melancholy truth that in the first and 
 second Primates of George iii. we reach the lowest point 
 in the period of which we are chroniclers. It is a descent 
 from Seeker — a vast descent from Wake — to Corn- 
 wallis and Moore. At the same time it would not be 
 fair to blame George iii. entirely for the inferiority of 
 these two prelates. When Cornwallis was appointed, 
 the King was still very young and largely in the hands 
 of Ministers perhaps uncongenial to him. It was the 
 system or rather the prevalent views of Church prefer- 
 ment or patronage that were to blame. As has been 
 well said, "Britain in the eighteenth century was ruled 
 by a Venetian oligarchy ... a few family clans com- 
 posed the governing classes of the period — the leaders 
 of the great families were found constantly in the higher 
 and their relatives in the lower posts of each Govern- 
 ment."^ And to this regime the Church, alas 1 was no 
 exception. If a scion of a great family had no taste for 
 war or diplomacy, the Church should provide for him. 
 It was almost avowedly a department of the State. 
 Any idea of an organisation of spiritual forces and of 
 its officers, as those who should develop, promote, and 
 guide those forces, was wholly wanting alike in the 
 givers and in the recipients of Church patronage. Learn- 
 ing in a bishop had been known to give trouble : zeal 
 was certainly dangerous. This idea of the highest 
 offices in the Church had a degrading effect on the 
 bishops and archbishops themselves ; Cornwallis, as we 
 shall see, not only asked for a particular bishopric, but 
 was angry that he did not receive exactly the bit of patron- 
 age he wanted. Moore developed a shameful nepotism, 
 hurrying on his possession of the archiepiscopal tempor- 
 alities that he might give a good archbishop's living, 
 that was dropping, to his sister's husband. 
 
 We shall deal hereafter in detail with what can be 
 ascertained regarding Cornwallis' appointment to the 
 archbishopric of Canterbury. Canon Perry, in his 
 
 ^ Warner and Martin's Groundwork of British History, 479. 
 21 
 
312 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768^ 
 
 History of the English Church, says : " Archbishop 
 Cornwallis appears to have had no Churchmanhke 
 scruples, and was simply of the character of a great 
 nobleman about the Court." Making due allowance for 
 the religious laxity of the second half of the eighteenth 
 century, it is hard to challenge seriously this verdict. 
 
 Frederick Cornwallis was the seventh son of Charles, 
 fourth Lord Cornwallis. He was brother to the first Earl 
 Cornwallis, and uncle to the celebrated first Marquis 
 and to James, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. He 
 was a twin-brother of General Edward Cornwallis, and 
 Cole relates that the twin-brothers were so alike when 
 at Eton that it was difficult to know them asunder. 
 
 The family of Cornwallis, or as it was anciently 
 spelt Cornwallys or Cornwaleys, was established at 
 Brome Hall near Eye in Suffolk in the fourteenth 
 century. The founder of the family in England was 
 Sheriff of London in 1378. He settled in Suffolk, and 
 his son and grandson represented the county in Parlia- 
 ment. A successor, Sir Frederick Cornwallis, who had 
 followed the fortunes of Charles i. and Charles 11., was 
 in 1 66 1 created Baron Cornwallis of Eye. 
 
 Charles, the fourth lord, the father of the arch- 
 bishop, was Lord Lieutenant of the county of Suffolk, 
 and postmaster-general and paymaster of the Forces. 
 He had many sons, of whom three were Charles the 
 fifth lord, Frederick the archbishop, and his twin, 
 Edward. The fifth lord married, in 1722, Elizabeth, 
 daughter of Charles, second Viscount Townshend, 
 brother-in-law and for many years colleague of the 
 Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. We shall see 
 that between the families of Cornwallis and Townshend 
 there were several ties of marriage. The fifth Lord 
 was in 1753 created Earl Cornwallis. His sixth child, 
 but eldest son Charles, was a man of very sound common 
 sense, with a strong sense of justice, and rendered 
 most distinguished service to his country all over the 
 world. He commanded the English forces in America 
 
1783] SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 313 
 
 in the War of Independence, and, more from bad luck 
 than his fault, was compelled to surrender at Yorktown, 
 thus finally disposing of any hope of crushing the 
 American people into subjection. As Governor-General 
 of India he defeated Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali, 
 and — more important — made the permanent settlement 
 of land in Bengal. Under his Vice-royalty in Ireland 
 the Act of Union was passed. Hundreds of his letters 
 are extant, in which none are more delightful than 
 those from the Viceroy of India to his son at Eton. 
 He became first Marquis Cornwallis on 15th August 1792. 
 Archbishop Cornwallis was thus of noble birth, as 
 well as connected with the great, being brother to an 
 earl and uncle to a marquis, to say nothing of uncle 
 to a bishop. He is said to have been the first 
 Primate of high birth since Cardinal Reginald Pole.^ 
 The archbishop was born 22nd February 171 3, and 
 educated at Eton. While at Eton he had among his 
 friends Charles Pratt, afterwards Lord Chancellor 
 Camden, and Dr. Sneyd-Davies, a scholar and poet 
 whom when bishop he appointed his chaplain, and 
 with whom he corresponded and maintained a friend- 
 ship throughout his life. Cornwallis was afterwards 
 Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge.^ Here he was 
 pupil to Dr. Edmund Law, a divine who made a good 
 deal of stir in the eighteenth century, and who was 
 successively archdeacon of Stafford, being appointed 
 by his former pupil when Bishop of Lichfield, and in 
 1769 Bishop of CarUsle. The archbishop became B.A., 
 1736. When a young man at Cambridge, Cornwallis 
 had a paralytic stroke, or, as it was called in the 
 medical language of that day, a stroke of the palsy 
 on his right side, from which he never recovered the full 
 use of his right hand, and was obliged to write with 
 his left, which he did very expeditiously, and, says 
 Cole, " I have often had the honour to play at cards 
 
 1 Cave Browne's Lambeth, i6o. 
 
 ' Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, i. 501. 
 
314 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 with him when it was wonderful to see how dexterously 
 he would shuffle and play them." 
 
 Cornwallis took his D.D. degree in 1748. He was 
 evidently marked out for preferment. He was ap- 
 pointed one of H.M.'s chaplains and a canon of Windsor. 
 Archbishop Herring in writing to the Duke of New- 
 castle on the 8th January 1 749 speaking of his promotion, 
 says of him: " By the character Dr. Cornwallis bears 
 one has nothing more to wish but that his health may 
 equal the goodness of his heart and understanding." ^ 
 
 In the winter of 1749-50, Cornwallis received the 
 Bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry ; the Duke of 
 Newcastle was at the time the great dispenser of sees 
 and judgeships, and was a connexion of the Cornwallis 
 family. The fifth lord, shortly to be an Earl, was a man 
 to be propitiated. The new bishop writes to Newcastle 
 on the 6th January 1750 : " I want words to express how 
 much I am obliged to your Grace for the fresh instance 
 of your regard and kindness to me." He will endeavour 
 to please our friends in that diocese and to promote 
 His Majesty's interest in those parts. . . . " I am sure," 
 says the new bishop, " my brother will always remember 
 that his obligation is solely to your Grace for this 
 Bishopric." 2 
 
 The times were sleepy ; and in a letter to his old 
 schoolmate, Sneyd-Davies, written a few years later 
 and dated 31st June 1756, the bishop, after saying, as 
 so many travellers about that time did, that in a 
 journey through England he had never known the 
 roads so bad in his life before, says : " There really 
 is no stirring news. We are indeed preparing for war, 
 which seems now to be inevitable, — but when or how 
 or where it will be is not so certain."* 
 
 On 2nd June 1757 he writes to the same corre- 
 spondent : " I believe there never was so extraordinary a 
 
 1 Newcastle Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32700, f. 29. 
 
 ^Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32720, f. 17. 
 
 * Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 500. 
 
1783] A JOURNEY TO LONDON 315 
 
 winter as the last ; no division in either House, no 
 Ministry, no business done ; and this at a time when 
 the best counsels seemed most necessary. The Parlia- 
 ment adjourned till Monday next ; by which time it 
 is thought there will be a new Ministry fixed — though I 
 do not find that anything is yet certain except that 
 the Duke of Newcastle will be at the head of the 
 Treasury again." In this the bishop's prognostication 
 was fulfilled, for though Pitt was in power as Secretary 
 of State, Newcastle returned to the Treasury. It takes 
 the bishop three days to get down from London to 
 Eccleshall. The bishop goes up to the meeting of 
 Parliament in November 1758, reaching London " in 
 good time " on the fourth day after losing one of his five 
 horses — " poor Squeaker " — who dropped dead in his 
 harness at Dunstable Hill. " Having a seventh horse," 
 says Cornwallis, "it retarded us but little." The 
 episcopal coach when loaded was presumably heavy. 
 Of the new Session he says : " We met on Thursday 
 with but thin houses. The speech was a good one, I 
 think. ... It is likely to be a quiet Session ; as, it is 
 said, we are all unanimous." 
 
 George 11. was nearing his last short but fatal attack, 
 but the writer was able to say : " The King has had a 
 regular fit of the gout in his foot, and is now quite well ; 
 a strong instance of a hale constitution at 75 ; and in all 
 probability it will prolong his life many years." 
 
 On the 8th February 1759 Cornwallis married 
 Caroline, daughter of William Townshend, third son of 
 Charles, second Viscount Townshend. He writes on 
 I St March 1 759 to his friend Sneyd-Davies : " I return you 
 many thanks for your kind congratulations upon my 
 marriage ; I shall be much mistaken, indeed, if it 
 should not greatly advance my future comfort and 
 happiness in life."^ The new wife was a great lady, 
 and his marriage brought the bishop, if he were not 
 there already, into the highest social circles. The lady 
 
 1 Nichols" Illustrations of Literature, iii. 502. 
 
316 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 survived the archbishop for twenty-eight years, till 
 September 181 1, but he had no child by her. It is 
 probable that in the eighteenth century, though the 
 Primates included sons of tradesmen like Potter and 
 Moore, a larger proportion of prelates were connected 
 with the nobility than at the present time. In 1783 
 there were one baronet, three honourables, and a son of a 
 duke or marquis on the Episcopal Bench . Birth and good 
 family at least gave a promising man his opportunity. 
 The families of Cornwallis and Townshend were closely 
 connected by marriage — one aunt of the archbishop's 
 wife having married the archbishop's elder brother, 
 the first Earl Cornwallis, and another aunt having 
 married the archbishop's twin-brother. Charles Town- 
 shend, of whom it was said he is the orator, the rest are 
 speakers, and who was Chancellor of the Exchequer under 
 Chatham in 1766, was first cousin of the archbishop's 
 wife. 
 
 In September 1759 we get an interesting picture 
 of life in the district of Eccleshall in a letter from the 
 bishop to his old school friend. Apparently a supine 
 movement had spread from Parliament to the country at 
 large. " We have been endeavouring," says the bishop, 
 " to establish a County Hospital, but I fear it will not do. 
 There is money enough subscribed, but then there is a 
 supineness and inactivity towards the executive part 
 of it that must frustrate it." 
 
 It is a disagreeable feature of the disposal of Church 
 patronage at this period — consequent on the views 
 prevalent touching such matters to which we have 
 alluded — that posts were often asked for long before 
 the holders of them were dead. Cornwallis was not 
 satisfied with his Bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry, 
 and on the 26th September 1759 he writes to Newcastle : 
 
 " The Bishop of Worcester is very ill. I hope your 
 Grace will pardon my troubling you with this, barely 
 to mention without importuning that a removal to that 
 
1783] ELECTION OF A HIGH STEWARD 317 
 
 see would be most agreeable to your Grace's most 
 obliged and most humble servant, 
 
 " Fred Lich. and Cov."^ 
 
 Newcastle replied a week later that he had to give 
 Worcester to the Bishop of Gloucester. Cornwallis was 
 angry at this, as we shall see, and spoke of the " loss 
 he had sustained." 
 
 In May 1762 the Duke of Newcastle fell out with 
 Bute, and for the first time resigned. Horace Walpole, 
 in a letter to Geo. Montagu, remarks sarcastically that 
 " all bishops are prophets, they foresee that he will 
 never come into place again, for there was but one that 
 had the decency to take leave of him " (at his parting 
 levee) " after crowding his rooms for forty years 
 together. It was Cornwallis." 
 
 There are but few traces of Cornwallis' activities at 
 Lichfield ; but we find him helping the efforts of 
 Archbishop Seeker to improve the collection of Diocesan 
 Records at Lambeth by sending particulars of en- 
 dowments of vicarages in the Diocese of Lichfield and 
 Coventry. 
 
 In March 1764 the great Lord Hardwicke died, and 
 Cambridge was excited over the election of a High 
 Steward in his place. Lord Mahon says "that no sooner 
 was his dangerous illness known than two candidates 
 declared themselves : the first was Lord Hardwicke 's son, 
 Lord Royston, the second Lord Sandwich. It grew to be 
 in some measure a trial of strength between the Opposi- 
 tion and the Government." ^ At the head of the Govern- 
 ment was Lord Grenville, who had succeeded Bute as 
 Prime Minister in 1 763. John Wilkes and General War- 
 rants were the topics of the day. Lord Sandwich was a 
 Minister , having been at the Admiralty and then Secretary 
 of State. The Opposition included Pitt, who had de- 
 clined office. Of Sandwich, Professor Laughton says 
 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32896, ff. 122, 218; 32940, f. 239. 
 * History, v. 60. 
 
31 8 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 though admitting that he was esteemed and loved by his 
 subordinates at the Admiralty : " No public man of the 
 last century was the mark of such bitter, such violent 
 invective." He certainly does not seem to have been 
 the man to be Lord High Steward of the University 
 of Cambridge. The way he got his nickname of "Jimmy 
 Twitcher " shows this. Wilkes had composed a parody 
 on Pope's " Essay on Man," which he called an " Essay 
 on Woman," and which he inscribed to Sandwich, as 
 Pope had inscribed his " Essay on Man " to Bolingbroke. 
 Sandwich called attention to this, as a scandalous libel, 
 in the House of Lords, and the House asked for a prose- 
 cution. But popular feeling was against Sandwich. 
 His private life, says Lord Mahon, was known to be fully 
 as irregular as Wilkes's, with whom he had been 
 associated in the Licentious Brotherhood of Medmenham. 
 In the Beggars' Opera, Macheath, at the crowning scene, 
 says " that Jimmy Twitcher " (one of his confederates) 
 " should peach does surprise me." When the play was 
 performed at Covent Garden, the audience, with a 
 unanimous shout of applause, applied the passage to 
 Sandwich, and the name stuck to him. Of his 
 opponent, the second Lord Hardwicke, Cooper's 
 Annals of Cambridge says he was " Lord Lieutenant of 
 Cambridgeshire, a Trustee of the British Museum, and 
 honourably distinguished by his classical and historical 
 learning." Cornwallis, who was interested in the affairs 
 of his University, and was for the new Lord Hardwicke, 
 seems to have been on the right side, and wrote to his 
 friend Mr. Evans, who was arranging something like a 
 " pair " with one Harwood. The bishop was cautious. 
 Under date 20th March 1 764 : 
 
 " I received yours," he writes to Evans, " dated Win- 
 chester, the 14th inst., and approve very well of your 
 compromise provided you can depend fully and securely 
 upon your man. I do not know Mr. Harwood, but am 
 aware that tricks have often been played upon such 
 and though I can have no reason to suspect 
 
1783] A TIE AND A LAWSUIT 319 
 
 him, yet think it necessary to use particular caution 
 upon the present occasion from the arrangements that 
 have already been made use of by our antagonist. If, 
 therefore, you are sure Mr. Harwood is for Lord Sand- 
 wich, and will stay away, I shall be very glad to excuse 
 you so long and fruitless a journey, and shall think 
 myself equally obliged to you as if you had taken it. 
 The election is put off till the 30th." 
 
 Horace Walpole having said in a previous letter 
 that the election at Cambridge was to be on the 24th, 
 writes on Tuesday, 27th March : " The busier world are 
 devoting attention to the election at Cambridge, which 
 comes on next Friday ; and I think now Lord Sandwich's 
 friends have little hopes. Had I a vote it would not be 
 given for the new Lord Hardwicke."^ The election 
 ended strangely .^ The votes appeared equal ; each 
 proctor, they being of different sides, claimed a majority 
 of one. In fact it was found that Hardwicke had a 
 majority in the non-Regents of two, the Regent House 
 being equally divided. He applied for a mandamus to 
 the K.B., and said " one Pitt, who voted against him 
 among the Regents, ought to have voted as a non- 
 Regent, having been an M.A. for five years and more." 
 His opponents objected, and also to five other Regent 
 votes of squires, bedals, and others. There was a law- 
 suit, which gave the post to Lord Hardwicke.* So 
 Cornwallis was on the winning side. Horace Walpole 
 says that " the indecent arts and applications of the 
 Twitcherites " roused the undergraduates to great 
 enthusiasm for Lord Hardwicke. 
 
 At the end of 1765 a vacancy at Salisbury — con- 
 sidered a desirable bishopric — seemed imminent. New- 
 castle was embarrassed by his wife having in an un- 
 guarded moment promised it to Hume, Bishop of 
 Oxford ; but in a letter to Archbishop Seeker, dated 
 the 23rd December, he admits " the much superior 
 
 '■Letters, vi. 35. 'Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, iv. 335. 
 
 * Burrow's Reports, iil 161 7. 
 
320 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 pretensions to it of the Bishop of Litchfield, which, in 
 a very modest manner and with the utmost respect to 
 the Bishop of Oxford, he states in a very strong tho' 
 very true Ught."^ The vacancy at Sahsbury did not 
 come till six months later, in July 1766. Newcastle 
 was then on the eve of giving up the Privy Seal, and 
 Chatham was becoming Prime Minister, but Newcastle 
 does not think this ought to hurt Cornwallis' chances ; 
 for on the 21st July he writes again to the archbishop 
 that " the Bishop of Salisbury was dead, that the 
 Duchess of Newcastle had been promised it for the 
 Bishop of Oxford " ; and adds, "Mr. Pitt, from my Lord 
 Cornwallis' attachment to him, would, to be sure, be 
 ready to serve his uncle the Bishop of Litchfield." 
 Some one suggested that should Salisbury go to the 
 Bishop of Oxford, the Deanery of St. Paul's, which 
 Hume held or would be released, would be a solatium 
 to Cornwallis. Seeker seems to have been employed 
 to sound the young King how he wished the posts 
 filled, and on the ajth July the archbishop writes to 
 Newcastle, " I am just come from Court. The King gives 
 with the greatest cheerfulness and strongest expressions 
 of regard for your Grace, Salisbury to Hume, Oxford to 
 Lowth, St. David's to Moss, and the Deanery of St. 
 Paul's to Cornwallis." Cornwallis was annoyed at not 
 getting the Bishopric he wanted, angry with Newcastle, 
 and at first refused the Deanery. Newcastle did not 
 like the enmity of Cornwallis or of his family. From 
 July 1765 to August 1766 he had the Privy Seal, 
 and he was more or less in a position to give away 
 ecclesiastical appointments. He thought he saw 
 a way to restore Cornwallis' good humour. Ely 
 was likely to be vacant, and Newcastle as Chancellor 
 of Cambridge University had a special interest in the 
 filling of that see. He writes to the archbishop on the 
 27th August ; after mentioning the probable vacancy 
 at Ely, he goes on : " The person wished for by the 
 
 'Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32972, f. 320. 
 
1783] MADE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S 321 
 
 University and intended by me was the Bishop of 
 Litchfield, and tho' the bishop and his whole Family 
 have broke off all correspondence with me, that does 
 not alter my opinion of his general merit. . . . The 
 family of the Cornwallis's and Townshends are so 
 attach 'd to my Lord Chatham that I shd not think 
 that he wd be against the Bishop of Litchfield." Seeker 
 sees the Prime Minister and reports that Chatham 
 expressed a " great regard for the Cornwallis family, 
 and understood the bishop to be a very worthy man." 
 " I cannot," says the archbishop, " entertain the least 
 doubt of his being fixed upon." 
 
 However, something went wrong, and somewhat 
 sulkily Cornwallis fell back on the Deanery of St. Paul's 
 in commendam, to which he was appointed on the 
 28th November 1766. 
 
 Newcastle was not usually wanting in tact, but, 
 in an unwise moment, he congratulated Cornwallis on 
 his Deanery. This was more than Cornwallis could 
 stand, and he gave Newcastle a " bit of his mind " in a 
 letter which is a disappointment to those who wish to 
 form a high estimate of the future Primate. 
 
 " You say," says the angry prelate, " you are much 
 rejoiced at my having accepted the Deanery of St. 
 Paul's. For what reason I know not. As to myself 
 I have no joy in it, I am not fond of expedients. Had 
 the recommendation to it come from your Grace by 
 way of atonement I shd have rejected the Deanery. 
 After the hard treatment I had met with I could not 
 with honour have accepted it. It is by no means a 
 preferment either agreeable or suitable to me. It 
 would have been kind of your Grace not to have kept 
 me so long in suspense with regard to the Bishopric 
 of Sahsbury. Had you told me it was a real promise, 
 it wd at least have mitigated the severity of the dis- 
 appointment. You say it is the only instance, but 
 seven years ago you gave Worcester to the Bishop of 
 Gloucester. Surely, my Lord, the disregard then shew'd 
 
322 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 to me may be allow 'd to have given just cause of some 
 dissatisfaction, at least not only to me but to my Family 
 and Friends. It certainly did. You begged forgive- 
 ness : it was immediately granted, and the hardship 
 forgotten. The late unfortunate circumstance brought 
 it back to my mind." ^ 
 
 Cornwallis seems to have owed his elevation to the 
 Primacy to the friendship of the Duke of Grafton — one 
 writer has suggested — for his nephew, Earl Cornwallis, 
 but more probably for himself and his family generally. 
 At any rate there is some evidence of a personal friend- 
 ship between Grafton and the archbishop. In his auto- 
 biography, Grafton speaks of him as " my friend " ^ ; and, 
 as we shall see, the account which Bishop Thomas Newton 
 of Bristol, author of Newton on Prophecy, gives, clearly 
 attributes Cornwallis' elevation to the Duke of Grafton. 
 Augustus Henry, third Duke of Grafton and Prime 
 Minister after Chatham, is a difficult character to gauge 
 with complete fairness, though the late Sir Wm. Anson's 
 edition of his autobiography has thrown much light 
 on the man.* If half what Junius says of the Duke 
 of Grafton be true, he was certainly not fit to 
 nominate the head of any Church. He had at this 
 time separated from his wife and formed an immoral 
 connexion with Nancy Horton or Parsons. This he 
 maintained for a time and was not ashamed to flaunt 
 by appearing with her at the Opera while Prime 
 Minister. But Sir Wm. Anson thinks he has not been 
 treated with complete fairness by his biographers or 
 historians. He thinks he was a nobleman with a high 
 sense of public duty, with a real desire to use his powers 
 and his position for the good of his country. His auto- 
 biography shows him, says Sir William Anson, " a man 
 whom no biographer's enthusiasm could describe as a 
 statesman of the first rank, and yet it sets before us a 
 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32976, f. 458. 
 
 ' Autobiograpy, 274. 
 
 ' Autobiography, by Sir Wm. Anson, Bart., 1908. 
 
1783] CANDIDATES FOR CANTERBURY 323 
 
 character not very common in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury." 
 
 In spite of his profligacy he took a strange interest 
 in reUgious questions. Indeed, after his retirement 
 from office in 1783 and for the last twenty-five years of 
 his life Sir William Anson speaks of their having en- 
 grossed him. He was throughout unorthodox. He 
 had rejected, when Chancellor of Cambridge, the degree 
 of LL.D. through unwillingness to subscribe the 
 Thirty-nine Articles. He tells himself in his auto- 
 biography, as we shall notice later, how he sympathised 
 with the Feathers Tavern petition. On his retirement 
 he became a professed Unitarian and was a regular 
 attendant at Essex Street Chapel. 
 
 When Seeker died the Duke was Prime Minister for 
 the second time. Chatham had resigned his place as 
 leader through illness, and North had not yet come into 
 power ; and in default of a first Minister to the mind of 
 George iii., Grafton held the post. Of candidates for 
 the Primacy, Terrick, Bishop of London, was cer- 
 tainly in the eyes of some, if not of the public generally, 
 one. Even before Seeker's death, viz., in July 1768, 
 Lyttelton, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle, a very learned 
 antiquarian, writing to Dr. Ducarel of Lambeth, says : 
 " The account you give me of the poor archbishop's 
 condition makes me expect to hear of his death every 
 post. I understand London will certainly remove to 
 Canterbury." 1 Horace Walpole says rather spitefully, 
 after Cornwallis had been appointed, " Terrick, Bishop of 
 London, the most time-serving of the clergy, was sorely 
 disappointed in missing the first mitre in England." 
 
 Bishop Newton, in his Life and Anecdotes, gives — 
 though he says " not upon his own certain knowledge 
 but upon as good authority as can usually be had in 
 cases of this nature " — the following account of how 
 Cornwallis got the Primacy: "When Mr. Grenville," 
 who was a friend and patron of Newton, " heard of the 
 
 ^Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 313. 
 
324 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 death of Archbishop Seeker he said upon it that if 
 the Bishop of London, as then seemed most probable, 
 should be translated to Canterbury, he was pretty- 
 confident Newton would go to London. The Duke of 
 Grafton was at that time the first Minister, and he was 
 determined to promote his friend Dr. Cornwallis, Bishop 
 of Lichfield and Dean of St. Paul's, and proposed him 
 for the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The King would 
 have it first offered to his old preceptor the Bishop of 
 Winchester." This was Dr. John Thomas, who in 1761 
 had been appointed Bishop of Winchester, and must 
 not be confused with the other Dr. John Thomas, who 
 in 1 774 became Bishop of Rochester. "This," Bishop 
 Newton goes on, " was readily complied with, as it was 
 thought that Winchester would even be more agreeable 
 to Bishop Cornwallis than Canterbury. But the Bishop 
 of Winchester was unwilling to change his situation, 
 and then mention was made of the Bishop of London, to 
 which nothing was objected, as it was conceived that 
 Bishop Cornwallis might make as good a Bishop of 
 London as Bishop Compton, who was a very good one. 
 But the King added that the Bishop of Bristol should 
 succeed the Bishop of London. This would have dis- 
 concerted the whole plan of the Ministry, which was 
 on the Duke of Grafton's part that Bishop Cornwallis 
 should be promoted to either Canterbury or Winchester 
 or London, and on Lord Gower's part that Bishop 
 Egerton should succeed him as Bishop of Lichfield and 
 in the Deanery of St. Paul's ; and the best game there- 
 fore they had to play was to resume their original 
 design and to push Cornwallis for Canterbury, which 
 was no sooner assented to than proposed." 
 
 The King insisted on Newton having St. Paul's. 
 Bishop Cornwallis was thereupon declared Archbishop 
 of Canterbury. 
 
 Poor Newcastle had wanted to make up his quarrel 
 with the Cornwallis family. A year before he had 
 written to the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry that 
 
1783] AN " UNEXPECTED PROMOTION " 325 
 
 he would ' ' take every opportunity to make amends for 
 an incident " (meaning the failure to give Cornwallis the 
 Bishopric of Salisbury), " tho' at that time unavoid- 
 able, which gave him (Newcastle) as much concern 
 as it did to " Cornwallis.^ And now on the 12th August 
 1768 he writes again : "No one rejoices more in your 
 promotion to Lambeth . . . acquaint the Duke of 
 Grafton how much I approve the measure. I don't 
 mean to take any merit to myself, for I have none." 
 
 Cornwallis answers : "I must own I feel myself 
 very unequal to so high a station, and wish I could 
 have declined it with propriety, but found I could not 
 as things were circumstanced. All that can be done 
 now is to exert my utmost endeavours to answer in 
 some degree the favourable expectations my friends 
 have entertained of me." ^ In some epochs — the present 
 perhaps — a letter acknowledging an appointment to 
 the high office of a bishop would be overful with pious 
 and religious sentiments and expressions : Cornwallis' 
 letter errs in our judgment on the other side. It would 
 have suited without altering a word an appointment 
 to a chief-justiceship. 
 
 On the 12th August, Dr. Cornwallis kissed hands 
 on his appointment.* The appointment does not seem 
 to have been looked for. Cornwallis himself, in a letter 
 to his friend, Sneyd-Davies, written in September 1768, 
 speaks of it as " my unexpected promotion." Mr. 
 Charles Godwyn, a learned Fellow of Balliol, of episcopal 
 descent, writing to a friend in August 1768 after com- 
 mending some of Seeker's literary work, says : " What 
 learned works are we to expect from his successor ? 
 He himself is a person quite unexpected."* 
 
 He was succeeded at Lichfield by his nephew, James 
 Cornwallis. Lord Stanhope in his Life of Pitt, ii. 128, 
 gives as an instance of the " unsatisfactory condition " 
 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 32990, f. 411. ^ Ubi supra, i. 419. 
 
 ' Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, i. 837. 
 * Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, viii. 255. 
 
326 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 at that time of the Church of England and " the low 
 tone of feeling " which prevailed, the letter of this same 
 Bishop James to Pitt demanding, almost peremptorily, 
 a particular piece of preferment. Pitt's answer, 
 stating that " further intercourse was impossible 
 until the letter was recalled," brought the bishop to 
 his senses. Public opinion had but little opportunity 
 in those days of expressing itself in the press ; but the 
 appointment seems to have excited a certain amount 
 of unfavourable comment. In the number of the 
 Gentleman's Magazine for September 1768, it says that 
 " the clergy cannot be otherwise than idle if they see 
 the boys of yesterday, if the sons or brothers of lords 
 and others unknown in the republic of letters, fill the 
 dignities of the Church " . . . ; and the writer adds, " it 
 may be said without offence that except the Bishops of 
 Gloucester (Warburton), Bristol (Newton), and Oxford 
 (Lowth), I do not recollect one dignitary of any rank, 
 either bishop, dean, or prebendary, promoted within 
 that period (the last seven years), that has ever obliged 
 the world with one page of their writings." 
 
 But Cornwallis soon disarmed criticism by his polite- 
 ness. Within two years of his coming to Canterbury one 
 of the dignitaries there writes : ' ' The archbishop gives 
 great satisfaction to everybody here ; his affability and 
 courteous behaviour is much taken notice of as very 
 different from his predecessor's." The same letter 
 records that : " He marked his first visit to the city 
 of his see by conferring three degrees immediately on 
 alighting at the deanery." ^ We get a picture of Corn- 
 wallis just after his appointment in a letter from 
 Dr. Ducarel to Bishop Lyttelton, dated nth August 
 1768. After congratulating him on the appointment of 
 Lyttelton's particular friend to Canterbury, Ducarel, 
 who was also an Etonian, says of the new Primate : 
 " The first Etonian (I think) who has attained to that 
 high dignity. I paid my respects to him last night, and 
 
 ' Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iv. 647. 
 
Frederick Cornwallis 
 
 \To face /. 326 
 
1783] FEATHERS TAVERN ASSOCIATION 327 
 
 he has been generously pleased to continue me librarian 
 at Lambeth and received me with the greatest civility 
 and friendship." The two went on to talk of the 
 appointment of secretary to the archbishop — an office 
 Ducarel told the new archbishop was worth between 
 two hundred and three hundred a year, paid by fees — 
 " generally executed by a deputy who received a third 
 part for his trouble " — the principal being generally 
 a relation or a friend — the last two were both nephews 
 of Archbishop Seeker. " How happy," says the rather 
 greedy Ducarel, " such an office to be executed by the 
 same deputy would render me, I leave your Lordship 
 to judge." 
 
 The early years of Archbishop Cornwallis' Primacy 
 were disturbed by the petition to Parliament against 
 Clerical Subscription, which was the result of Arch- 
 deacon Blackburne's work. The Confessional, which 
 we have already mentioned. As a High Churchman, 
 Seeker had been opposed to Blackburne, and had been 
 even credited with writing the first of the " Three 
 letters to the author of the Confessional" ; but the 
 tendency of the times and, perhaps, the low standard 
 of zeal and learning prevalent among the most highly 
 placed clergy were favourable to broad and lax theo- 
 logical views. At any rate, in 1771, Blackburne 
 published Proposals for an application to Parliament 
 for relief in the matter of subscription, humbly 
 submitted to the consideration of the learned and 
 conscientious clergy. The plan proposed was to 
 prepare a petition, circulate it in the country for 
 eight, six, or ten months, and present it to Parlia- 
 ment.^ 
 
 A meeting of London clergy was held at the Feathers 
 Tavern on 17th July 1771, when an association called 
 the Feathers Tavern Association to support the proposed 
 application to Parliament was formed, and a petition 
 to Parliament drawn up by Blackburne was agreed on 
 
 * Anson's Grafton's Autobiography, 268. 
 
328 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 and was circulated for signature. The petition in its 
 main part ran as follows : 
 
 "Your petitioners apprehend themselves to have 
 certain rights and privileges which they hold of God 
 alone — of this kind is the exercise of their own reason 
 and judgment. They conceive they are also warranted 
 by those original principles of reformation from popery 
 on which the Church of England is constituted, to 
 judge in searching the Scriptures, each man for himself, 
 what may or may not be proved thereby. They find 
 themselves, however, in a great measure precluded 
 the enjoyment of this invaluable privilege by the laws 
 relating to subscription whereby your petitioners are 
 required to acknowledge certain articles and confessions 
 of faith and doctrine, drawn up by fallible men to be 
 all and every one of them agreeable to the said Scriptures. 
 Restored to their undoubted rights as Protestants of 
 interpreting Scripture for themselves without being 
 bound by any human explanation thereof."^ 
 
 About two hundred and fifty signed the petition, 
 mostly clergymen, but some doctors and lawyers. The 
 signatories were doubtless what would be called now 
 Broad Churchmen, but their number included many 
 men of high character and of learning, such as Law. 
 Lord North was interviewed, but could promise no 
 support to the petition. The Methodists and Selina, 
 Countess of Huntingdon, opposed it. It came on upon 
 the 6th February 1772, and there was a full-dress debate 
 on it. Sir Wm. Meredith introduced it, and it was 
 supported by Thos. Pitt, nephew of Chatham, Dunning, 
 Wedderburn, and Sir George Savile. The opposition 
 was led by Sir Roger Newdigate, the doughty member 
 for Oxford University, who was supported by Lord 
 North, Fox, and Burke. The notes to the Parlia- 
 mentary Debates give an account of the debate from 
 a letter written by John Lee, afterwards Solicitor- 
 General, to a friend in the country, from which the 
 
 'Anson's Grafton's Autobiography, 267. 
 
1783] THE PETITION 329 
 
 following is an extract : "Nobody but Sir Roger Newdi- 
 gate defended the articles, and all the House explicitly 
 declared it was foolish to require subscription at the 
 universities, and expressed a wish it might be laid 
 aside there. After a very firm debate the House 
 divided, the numbers for not receiving the petition 
 were 217, for receiving it 71, which, considering the 
 influence of the bishops and ministry, and the character 
 and weight of the minority, was thought a very great 
 affair. This scene was acted yesterday, beginning at 
 3 and ending at 11 o'clock." 
 
 There is little direct evidence of Archbishop Corn- 
 wallis taking any part in the above proceedings. The 
 Duke of Grafton in his autobiography, after stating that 
 the supporters of the movement were not unanimous 
 as to the best mode of approaching Parliament, the 
 meeting at the Feathers Tavern, which consisted of 
 some hundreds, preferring to petition the Commons 
 directly, and that part which met at Tenison's 
 Library, with Mr. Wollaston of Chiselhurst, thinking it 
 to be more proper to address the bishops to bring the 
 business before Parliament, goes on : " From the Arch- 
 bishop (Cornwallis) Mr. Wollaston met with a gracious 
 reception, though no answer was given to him. But from 
 his Grace, with the Bishop of Peterboro' and some other 
 of the bishops, we, who most interested ourselves for 
 reasonable relief to the clergy, received the fullest 
 expectations from their Declaration, and assurance 
 that the Bench itself would take the matter under 
 consideration trusting that they might be able to 
 bring about the object desired in that manner which 
 was thought to be most judicious in a civil and religious 
 view." From the above we may surmise what seems 
 probable on general grounds that Cornwallis would be 
 opposed to the petitioners ' proposals . He seems however 
 now or a very little later to have intimated that he 
 would receive favourably a petition for the revision of 
 the Liturgy; at any rate, such a petition in 1772 was 
 
330 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 presented to him, and the idea of it is said by the 
 eminent Toplady to have emanated from Lambeth.^ So 
 orthodox and evangeUcal a person as Porteous, after- 
 wards Bishop of London, signed it.^ The archbishop 
 however found that his fellow-bishops were not 
 favourable to the petition.^ The petitioners were not 
 unanimous as to the relief they sought. Some thought 
 only the primary doctrines of the Christian creed 
 should be subscribed to ; others suggested a general 
 assent to the Prayer Book. The authorities in State 
 had still the fear of Sacheverell before them, and loved 
 peace, which they thought meant letting things alone. 
 Blackburne said there was a new 40th Article of the 
 Church of England, Peace, and so nothing was done. 
 On nth February 1773, Cornwallis, having been 
 applied to for his final decision, announced : "I have 
 consulted severally my brethren bishops, and it is the 
 opinion of the Bench in general that nothing can in 
 prudence be done in the matter that has been sub- 
 mitted to our consideration." 
 
 Horace Walpole says that in 1770 Cornwallis was 
 persuaded by Lowth, Bishop of London, to remonstrate 
 against masquerades. "That knave," says Walpole, 
 " the Bishop of London, persuaded that good soul the 
 archbishop to remonstrate ' against ' masquerades ; but 
 happily the age prefers silly follies to serious ones, and 
 dominoes comtne de raison carry it against lawn sleeves." * 
 But it is well known he fell under the censure of the 
 celebrated Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, for the 
 routs which he or his wife gave at Lambeth. The 
 Countess' remonstrances were ill received by the arch- 
 bishop, and she thereupon sought an interview with 
 the King, which resulted in his addressing the following 
 letter to the Primate : 
 
 1 Anson's Graf ton' s Autobiography , 258. 
 
 * English Church in the Eighteenth Century, ii. 442. 
 ' Mahon's History, v. 301. 
 
 * Walpole's Letters by Toynbee, vii. 381. 
 
1783] GEORGE III.'S REMONSTRANCE 331 
 
 " My Good Lord Primate, — I could not delay 
 giving you the notification of the grief and concern 
 with which my breast was affected at receiving authentic 
 information that routs have made their way into yr 
 palace. At the same time I must signify to you my 
 sentiments on this subject, which hold those levities 
 and vain dissipations as utterly inexpedient, if not 
 unlawful, to pass in a residence for many centuries 
 devoted to divine studies, religious retirement, and the 
 extensive exercise of charity and benevolence. I add 
 in a place where so many of yr predecessors have led 
 their lives in such sanctity as has thrown lustre on 
 the pure religion they professed and adorned. 
 
 " From the dissatisfaction with which you must 
 perceive I behold these improprieties — not to speak in 
 harsher terms — and on still more pious principles, I 
 trust you will suppress them immediately, so that I 
 may not have occasion to show any further marks of 
 my displeasure, or to interpose in a different manner. 
 
 " May God take your Grace into His Almighty pro- 
 tection. — I remain, my Lord Primate, your gracious 
 friend, G. R."i 
 
 In a contemporaneous letter, Mr. Cole, who was a 
 great scholar and litteratur of the time, says : " No 
 doubt you have seen in the London Evening Post of the 
 last fortnight several scurrilous squibs and reflections 
 on our Primate, not for his routs at the palace, but for 
 his endeavouring to bring folks to a sense of their duty 
 and decency. In the last week's paper it is repeated, 
 and the archbishop's lady taxed with routs on a Sunday. 
 Though I had formerly the honour of a decent famili- 
 arity with his Grace while at college, and have all the 
 veneration that is due tanto patri ; yet if the fact is 
 true, and it is boldly and confidently asserted in the 
 Presbyterian manner, I cannot help thinking but ah that 
 is said is proper enough for such anti-episcopal carriage. 
 I have myself, as William Cole, no particular objec- 
 tion to a game of cards even on a Sunday evening ; 
 but as vicar of a parish I should think myself highly 
 
 1 Jesse's Geo. HI., ii. 58. 
 
332 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 blameable to do so in my parish, or as a clergyman 
 anywhere in a country where the prejudice is so 
 vehement against it — so that I cannot believe the 
 assertion." 
 
 Dr. Wickham Legg, in his recently published work, 
 English Church Life from the Restoration to the Tractarian 
 Movement,^ raises the question whether the real offence 
 of which George iii. complained was the having routs 
 at Lambeth or the having them on Sunday, and points 
 out that in the royal letter no mention is made of 
 Sunday, and that George iii. himself had, and stoutly 
 upheld, Sunday bands at Windsor, Weymouth, and 
 Kensington. Dr. Legg seems to doubt the precise 
 authenticity of the royal letter. But in the Lives of 
 the Countess of Huntingdon the day as well as the 
 place of the routs is made a point .^ 
 
 The year 1 773 raised the question of giving relief to 
 the Dissenters. The course of legislation during the pre- 
 ceding ten years is not one of which Churchmen nowadays 
 can feel very proud. No doubt quieta non movere was 
 the statesman's dearest rule about this time, and the 
 great majority of High Church officials considered it 
 one of their first duties to resist any encroachments 
 on the property or on the dignities of the Estabhshed 
 Church. Walpole in Anne's days had repealed the 
 Schism Act, but had shrunk, as we have stated, from 
 touching the two Test and Corporation Acts passed in 
 Charles 11. 's reign, when the nation was crazed to restore 
 in Church matters the pre-Commonwealth regime ; and 
 also was frightened by James 11., then Duke of York's 
 Roman Catholic proclivities. Those Acts required any 
 person before taking any municipal ofiice, however 
 humble, to receive the Communion according to the rites 
 of the Church of England within a short time of his tak- 
 ing office. The penalties were heavy. A defaulter was 
 
 ip. 241. 
 
 ^ Painter, Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon, ii. 283 ; Pitman, 
 The Countess of Huntingdon and her Circle, 125. 
 
1783] RELIEF TO DISSENTERS 333 
 
 heavily fined and was practically outlawed. He could 
 not take a legacy or be a plaintiff in the courts. The 
 Government as an irony passed a Bill annually to 
 indemnify offenders against these penalties. In 1773 a 
 Dissenters' Relief Act, which gave them relief in another 
 way, was before the Commons. To obtain the benefits 
 of the Toleration Act of William and Mary, a dissenting 
 body had to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles of the 
 Church of England . This, not unnaturally, the Dissenters 
 felt a grievance, and proposed to substitute for Sub- 
 scription a Declaration that they took the Scriptures of 
 the Old and New Testaments as the rule of their faith 
 and practice. In the Commons the proposed relief 
 was opposed by that sound old Tory, Sir Roger Newdigate, 
 the member for the University of Oxford, as an infringe- 
 ment of the rights of the Established Church and a 
 blow at the foundations of religion ; but Burke spoke 
 in favour of the Bill, and it passed the Commons in all 
 its stages by large majorities, 70 against 9. In the 
 Lords, however, it had worse luck. The bishops were 
 in a bellicose mood. Some months before an attempt 
 had been made in the Commons to repeal the Nullum 
 Tempus Act ; in other words, to quiet the possession 
 of subjects to property against dormant claims of the 
 Church. A little earlier Parliament had quieted the 
 possession of subjects against dormant claims of the 
 Crown, and the Church it might be thought could have 
 submitted to a similar restriction, but Lord North saw 
 great danger ahead, and the Bill was lost by 141 to 
 117. This attempt, however, had frightened the 
 bishops. When the Dissenters' Relief Bill came up 
 from the Commons on 19th May 1773, Lord Chatham 
 spoke in support of it. Cornwallis does not seem to 
 have spoken. Markham, the Archbishop of York, 
 was an extreme Tory. He had preached a sermon 
 practically upholding the divine right of Kings and 
 denouncing the founders of the American Republic 
 as rebels gf the worst kind. When Burgoyne 
 
334 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 surrendered and the British cause was admitted to be 
 lost by every one except by the obstinacy of George iii., 
 he was fairly castigated by the Elder Pitt in the 
 House of Lords. But Terrick of London opposed the 
 motion. Watson, Bishop of Llandafif, one of the ablest 
 and fairest of the prelates, quoted from the celebrated 
 Dr. Priestley's publications to show that religion was 
 in danger of being swept away root and branch. It 
 would seem that Chatham was horrified by the state- 
 ments quoted, and ejaculated " monstrous," " horrible," 
 " shocking." At any rate the Bill was lost in the Lords 
 by 102 to 29. 
 
 Cornwallis defended, as was natural, the strong 
 anti-Papal feelings of Englishmen of that day in the 
 matter of public worship. In 1773 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 offered the Dean of St. Paul's that the Royal Society 
 should at its own expense decorate the interior of St. 
 Paul's Cathedral with pictures by himself. West, and 
 other artists. But Cornwallis and Terrick, Bishop of 
 London, thought that the people might regard it as an 
 artful introduction of Popery, and opposed the scheme.^ 
 But we must not hastily set him down as an ultra- 
 Protestant . 
 
 The year 1776 saw the determination by the Courts 
 of a question affecting Cornwallis as well as his pre- 
 decessors and successors, viz., whether Lambeth Palace 
 was chargeable with poor-rate. There was a feigned 
 issue, the archbishop being plaintiff, and one Suter, a 
 Lambeth parish official, being defendant. The point 
 seems to have been, was it extra-parochial ? The 
 palace, it was said, was part of the diocese of Canter- 
 bury.. Lambeth parish was in the diocese of Win- 
 chester. If the palace were part of the diocese of 
 Canterbury, it could not be part of the diocese of Win- 
 chester.^ Porteous, who had been rector of Lambeth, 
 was a witness for the plaintiff, and testified that he 
 
 ' Newton, Life and Anecdotes, 141. 
 
 » See Archbishop v. Suter, Burrow's Reports. 
 
1783] A THEATRE FOR MANCHESTER 335 
 
 never got tithe from the archbishop. There was a 
 learned and elaborate argument. In the end the arch- 
 bishop won, and the parish was condemned in costs 
 amounting to £150, raised by assessment on all the 
 inhabitants and paid to the archbishop. Though rich, 
 he was not stingy, especially in matters affecting the 
 dignity of his office. He seems to have been the sort of 
 litigant one would like to be opposed to — for though 
 victorious all along the line, he, a few months later, 
 presented the whole amount of the costs to the parish 
 and paid his solicitor's bill out of his own pocket. 
 
 Archbishop Cornwallis does not appear to have 
 intervened very frequently in the debates in the House 
 of Lords. In the hearing of a case about tithes the 
 reports show him to have spoken, it being in those 
 days, and for many years afterwards, the right and 
 practice of every peer, though not a law lord, to speak 
 and vote in the hearing of legal causes in the House 
 of Lords. 
 
 In 1775 we find him taking part in a debate which 
 can be read with interest even by readers of to-day. 
 A Bill was introduced for enabling His Majesty to 
 license a playhouse in the town of Manchester. Four 
 years before a Bill had been brought forward for a 
 similar license for Liverpool and had been passed with 
 a protest by the Earl of Radnor. The same peer 
 opposed the Manchester Bill, and from his speech on 
 the second reading it appears that when the latter Bill 
 was going through the Commons he applied to Corn- 
 wallis and to two other bishops to see if he could count 
 on their support to his opposition. He was told they 
 were resolved to give it every opposition in their 
 power. But on the first reading they failed to oppose .^ 
 On the second reading Lord Radnor complained af 
 the bishops' conduct, but Terrick, Bishop of London, 
 and the archbishop justified themselves on the ground 
 that the second and not the first reading was the 
 
 1 Parliamentary Reports, xviii. 634. 
 
336 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 proper stage on which to oppose a Bill. Cornwallis 
 said that whatever might be urged for theatres 
 being established in London, he was perfectly con- 
 vinced that they tended to idleness, and all the train 
 of evil idleness is productive of, among those who 
 were destined to live by labour and industry. " I 
 remember," proceeded his Grace, "when I resided in 
 the last diocese I had the care of, I went to a great 
 trading town (Birmingham) to attend an ordination; 
 and having a curiosity to inspect the manufacture 
 carried on by a Mr. Taylor, upon examining the works 
 I inquired how many men he employed ; he answered 
 five hundred. ' And where are they ? Is this a holiday ? ' 
 ' No,' says he, ' but we have a playhouse here ; 
 men were at the play last night, and it is impossible 
 to get them to their business for two or three days 
 after they have been there.' I am convinced," said 
 the archbishop at the close of his speech, "that in 
 trading and manufacturing towns its effects are im- 
 mediate and pernicious ; I am, therefore, strenuously 
 against committing the Bill." But the Bill passed. 
 
 Cornwallis published little if anything ; but in 1 778 
 Dr. Ducarel, who was at one time librarian at Lambeth, 
 published a list of the various editions of the Bible 
 and parts thereof in English from the year 1626 to the 
 year 1776, and the archbishop bore the cost of an 
 edition (two hundred and fifty copies) of this work. 
 
 Cornwallis is said to have supported Porteous, 
 just made Bishop of Chester and afterwards Bishop 
 of London,^ in his efforts in 1777 to get Good 
 Friday better observed. This was met by a cry of 
 " No Popery." The closing of shops would soon, so 
 it was said, be followed by the elevation of the 
 host and crucifix to prostrate crowds in dirty streets. 
 Mr. Hore says that for many weeks the Presbyterian 
 newspapers were full of abuse of Archbishop Cornwallis 
 and his family. One paper complained of the shutting 
 
 ' Hore, i. 452. 
 
1783] VISITATIONS 337 
 
 up of the city shops on Good Friday as " a sanctified 
 hypocritical triumph over both reason and Scripture — 
 the civil and religious right of EngHshmen — which could 
 not but be highly acceptable to tyrant and hypocrite 
 of every denomination, particularly at Court." ^ 
 
 The Gentleman's Magazine for 1778 records that 
 Archbishop Cornwallis held visitations of his clergy at 
 Sittingbourne, Canterbury, Ashford, and Dover, and, 
 assisted by his Suffragan of Rochester, confirmed at 
 those places, and at Ramsgate, Sandwich, Hythe, Rom- 
 ney, Cranbrook, and Maidstone. The same journal prints 
 a curious incident which shows that archbishops of 1900 
 are free from some of the annoyances of their prede- 
 cessors of a century and a half ago . The archbishop and 
 his wife while visiting Dover stayed at the London 
 Tavern, and were much alarmed at midnight by the 
 door of their room being burst open by a drunken 
 English squire just arrived from France, who persisted 
 in taking possession of their apartment, which his Grace 
 for peace 'sake resigned. " Next morning," the chronicler 
 adds, " when sober he offered to make any submission, 
 but his Grace would not see him." 
 
 In 1778 one of the savagest Acts against the Roman 
 Catholics, that which enabled a son, entitled after his 
 father's death to the estates of which his father was 
 tenant for life, by turning Protestant, to dispossess 
 his Roman Catholic father during the latter 's life, was 
 repealed, one bishop, Hinchcliffe, the Bishop of Peter- 
 borough, being found liberal-minded enough to speak 
 in its favour in the Lords. 
 
 In 1779 the Relief of Dissenters came up again. On 
 loth March, Sir Henry Hoghton moved that the House 
 should resolve itself into Committee to consider a 
 measure for the relief of Protestant Dissenting ministers 
 and schoolmasters.^ Stout old Tories like Sir Wm. 
 Bagot opposed the motion. The University of Oxford 
 
 • London Evening Post, 29th May 1777. 
 
 * Gentl&man's Magazine, Dec. 1779, p. 57J. 
 
338 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 petitioned against the Bill, which was circulated and 
 which brought Dissenters within the Toleration Act of 
 William and Mary on their making a solemn declaration 
 that they believed the Scriptures to contain the revealed 
 will of God, and received the same as the rule of their 
 doctrine and practice ; and their representative, Sir R. 
 Newdigate, opposed the motion. The argument that 
 Dissenters had as good a title to relief as had been acted 
 on in reference to the Roman Catholics in the last Session, 
 found favour with the House, and almost unanimously 
 it was resolved that the House should resolve itself 
 into Committee, to consider means for giving relief 
 to Protestant Dissenting ministers and schoolmasters. 
 On the recommendation of the Committee, leave to 
 bring in a Bill was given, a postponement for four 
 months being lost by a great majority. The Bill 
 was read a first and second time without debate. In 
 Committee, the University of Oxford, true to Toryism, 
 petitioned against the Bill unless some clause should 
 be inserted in it declaratory of the Christianity of 
 those who were to be relieved by it . Lord North sup- 
 ported the petition and suggested a Declaration as 
 follows : " I, A. B., do solemnly declare that I am a 
 Christian and a Protestant Dissenter, and that I take 
 the Holy Scriptures both of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments as they are generally received in Protestant 
 countries for the rule of my faith and practice." Fox 
 opposed the Declaration, which was supported by 
 Burke ; but the Declaration was carried by 88 to 58, 
 and on Report by 95 to 59. The Bill having been 
 read a third time in the Commons, was carried through 
 the Lords without debate, the Bishops showing silence 
 instead of opposition as in 1773, and on the i8th May 
 received the Royal assent. 
 
 Perhaps the public trouble which existed in 1779 
 tended to make citizens more peaceably inclined 
 towards their fellow-citizens even though differing in 
 their forms of worship, and ready, if possible, to 
 
1783] GORDON RIOTS 339 
 
 relieve their scruples. It was indeed a black year for 
 England. 
 
 Towards the end of Cornwallis' Primacy, London was 
 disturbed by the Gordon Riots. Two years before Sir 
 George Savile had carried the measure we have mentioned 
 relieving the Roman Catholics of some of their disabilities. 
 We of this later age have forgotten the severity of 
 the laws then existing against Papists. A Roman 
 Catholic keeping a school was liable to perpetual im- 
 prisonment. Roman Catholics were incapable of taking 
 by descent if any Protestant next-of-kin claimed the 
 mheritance. A Roman Catholic child by becoming 
 Protestant could deprive his non-recanting parent 
 of his estate. They are said to have been elated by 
 Savile 's relieving legislation : at any rate the " No 
 Popery " cry was raised and caught on well with the 
 mob. Mustering, on 26th June 1780, in St. George's Fields 
 they marched in three parties over London Bridge, Black- 
 friars' Bridge, and Westminster Bridge to the Houses of 
 Parliament , where they arrived about half -past two . The 
 members of the Legislature, particularly the members of 
 the House of Lords, were very roughly handled by the 
 mob. It is doubtful how far Cornwallis was a sufferer at 
 the hands of this particular mob. A contemporary print 
 says that he was saluted with hisses and groans, and when 
 he got out of his carriage to avoid greater mischief the 
 crowd compelled him to cry out (which he did in a 
 feeble voice) " No Popery, no Popery." A later issue, 
 however, of the same journal says this is a mistake, 
 and that his Grace was " so far from being ill-treated 
 by the mob, and forced to cry whatever they would 
 have him, that he never went from Lanlbeth that day." 
 But his house, if not he himself, got attention from 
 the mob. Indeed the palace at Lambeth narrowly 
 escaped destruction. The first alarm was given on 
 Tuesday, 6th June, when a party to the number of five 
 hundred or more who had previously assembled in St. 
 George's Fields came to the palace with drums and fifes, 
 
340 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 and colours flying, crying " No Popery." Finding the 
 gates shut, after knocking several times without obtaining 
 any answer, they halloed out that they should return in 
 the evening. A party of guards one hundred in number 
 arrived at twelve under Colonel Deacon, but the mob 
 paraded round the house, and continued to do so the 
 following day. In this alarming situation Archbishop 
 Cornwallis with his lady and family were with great 
 difficulty prevailed Upon to quit the palace, whither they 
 did not return till the disturbances were entirely subsided. 
 Soldiers remained till nth August; two hundred, 
 sometimes three hundred, men being quartered in the 
 palace. Officers were lodged in the best apartment 
 and entertained in the handsomest manner at the arch- 
 bishop's expense by two of his chaplains, Drs. Vye and 
 Lort. The " soldiers attended chapel morning and 
 evening, and with their wives and children had their 
 meals," so the Chronicler of Lambeth goes on, "of the 
 best provisions in the great hall.' During their stay 
 at Lambeth, from 6th June to nth August, " not the 
 least complaint could be made of irregular behaviour in 
 any individual." Mobs, it should be remarked, were not 
 unknown at Lambeth : they had been there — ^whether 
 they were for the Irish or not — in 1 736. 
 
 In the summer of 1780 when the country was astir 
 with the panic caused by the Lord George Gordon Riots 
 there were proceedings in both Houses of Parliament with 
 reference to the suggested repeal of the Act of 1 778 by 
 which toleration was extended to Roman Catholics. 
 Sir George Savile introduced a Bill, which passed the 
 Commons, prohibiting Roman Catholics from teaching or 
 undertaking the education of the children of Protestant 
 parents. In the Lords Cornwallis professed himself 
 favourable to toleration even of Roman Catholics, and was 
 ready to support the Bill if it were shown that Romish 
 schools had increased in number. He stated that in- 
 quiries directed by him showed that the total number of 
 Roman Catholics had not increased throughout the 
 
1783] BISHOP WATSON OF LLANDAFF 341 
 
 kingdom generally, and that there was only one new 
 school for boys at Hammersmith. The Lord Chancellor 
 suggested that it would be enough to forbid Roman 
 Catholics keeping boarding schools, and this was agreed 
 to, but the next day the archbishop said he had agreed 
 to this inadvertently and required day schools to be pro- 
 tected. The Bill seems in the end to have been lost. 
 
 A sensible speech by Cornwallis in opposition to Lord 
 Thurlow, in which the archbishop upheld the privileges 
 of the University press, is reported in the Parliamentary 
 Debates for 1781. 
 
 In 1782 the celebrated Bishop Watson of Llandaff 
 published a letter to Archbishop Cornwallis ^ recommend- 
 ing a new disposition of Church revenues by which the 
 bishoprics should be rendered of equal value, and the 
 smaller livings be increased at the expense of the rich 
 endowments. The letter was answered and caused 
 some stir, but resulted in nothing : nor was Cornwallis 
 the man from whom any drastic interference with 
 Church property was to be expected. Watson had 
 been second wrangler, and was a prominent man in 
 the second half of the eighteenth century. He was 
 Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge, and withal a 
 theologian. One of his pupils at Cambridge so admired 
 him that he left him ;^20,ooo, a reward not often falling 
 to a successful don. He made a remarkable speech in the 
 House of Lords in favour of the Union. Though bishop 
 of a Welsh diocese he resided, and defended his residing, 
 permanently at the Lakes. 
 
 Watson's pamphlet, says Dr. Lort, made much noise. 
 " All the friends of the Established Church hang their 
 heads at it, and all its enemies triumph in it." Speaking 
 of this pamphlet ,2 Dr. Lort writes on i8th March 1783 : 
 "The poor archbishop to whom it is addressed was 
 taken very ill on Sunday ; he is better to-day, but I 
 do not think him out of danger. Pray God, preserve 
 
 1 Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, viii. 142. 
 
 * Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, vii. 449. 
 
342 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 him a little longer to ward off the storm that seems 
 gathering around us." 
 
 As he advanced in years, Cornwallis felt the 
 infirmities of old age. In the spring of 1783 he was 
 confined by a gouty complaint in one of his legs. But 
 this so passed that he was able to go to Court on 
 Thursday, 14th March, and to attend the House of 
 Lords next day. It was noted as curious that his 
 penultimate predecessor, Archbishop Hutton, who died 
 on the same day and month, twenty-five years beforCj 
 had also attended the House of Lords the Friday before 
 his death. On the Sunday morning Cornwallis attended 
 prayers in Lambeth Chapel, and though slightly unwell 
 afterwards, by evening had apparently regained his 
 usual health. On Monday morning, however, he was 
 seriously unwell. The celebrated Dr. Heberden, a 
 great physician of the day, with other doctors were 
 summoned to his aid. Blisters, the favourite remedy 
 of the age, were freely applied, but though more hope 
 of recovery was felt on Tuesday, he sank, and died on 
 Wednesday evening. He was buried at Lambeth — 
 not at Canterbury — following in this the example of 
 his predecessors since the Reformation, Cardinal Pole 
 having been the last archbishop buried at Canterbury. 
 His family and friends chose as his resting-place a 
 vault under the altar in Lambeth Church. This was 
 the holiest spot near at hand. But it was already 
 occupied. The sexton's men in digging the grave 
 reopened the Reformation struggles. They, without 
 intending it, knocked into a leaden coffin of " horse- 
 shoe " shape, we are told, and in this were found the 
 remains of Dr. Thomas Thirlby, Bishop of Ely, but 
 deprived in 1559. Thirlby had a somewhat remarkable 
 history. He is said to have been the only Church of 
 England Bishop of Westminster, Henry viii. having 
 designed to make Westminster Abbey into a Cathedral. 
 He gave a conge d'elire to the chapter in favour of 
 Thomas " Thirlebye," and he was consecrated Bishop of 
 
1783] CORNWALLIS' CHARACTER 343 
 
 Westminster on 19th December 1543. Edward vi. 
 removed him to Norwich in 1SS3, and in 1554 Mary- 
 appointed him Bishop of Ely.^ But he could not 
 swallow the Reformation doctrine, the faith and 
 practice of his youth and early manhood having 
 too strong a hold of him. So after Mary's death he 
 was deprived by Elizabeth and put in the Tower. 
 He must have been a peacefully minded man withal, 
 for Parker, Reformer as he was, consented to take 
 him, as well as Tunstall, in at Lambeth and to feed 
 and house him there till his death. The flesh, the face, 
 and white beard were, we are told, in a wonderful 
 state of preservation, having been subjected to some 
 preservative. A cap of silk adorned with point lace — 
 but which had lost its black colour — was on the head, 
 resembling those seen in the pictures of Archbishop 
 Juxon. A slouched cap with strings and the crown 
 sewn in was under the left arm. 
 
 Cornwallis seems to have been a kindly man of no 
 great talents or learning, and with no special qualifica- 
 tions for high ecclesiastical office. Horace Walpole 
 calls him a prelate of inconsiderable talents, but a 
 most amiable, gentle, and humane man, and in a letter 
 to Sir Horace Mann on his being made Primate, " a 
 quiet, amiable, good sort of man without the hypocrisy 
 of his predecessor " (Walpole was always the enemy of 
 Seeker), " or the abject soul of most of his brethren." ^ 
 In another letter he says, "he is no hypocrite time- 
 server nor high priest. I little expected so good a 
 choice." Bishop Newton, the author of the work on 
 Prophecy, in his Memoirs, written while Cornwallis was 
 still archbishop, speaks of him as " the not unworthy 
 successor of Seeker , " and says , " he has greatly improved 
 Lambeth House ; he keeps a hospitable and elegant 
 table ; has not a grain of pride in his composition, is 
 easy of access ; receives every one with affability and 
 good nature ; is courteous, obliging, and condescending, 
 * Allen's History of Lambeth, iii. * Letters, vii, 21^ 
 
 23 
 
344 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 and as a proof of it he has not often been made the 
 subject of censure even in this censorious age." His 
 biographer says that he discharged the duties of 
 Primate with attention, punctuaUty, and decorum. 
 His idea was to support the existing constitution in 
 Church and State. " In shining talents and extensive 
 learning other prelates may have been superior to 
 him," — but good solid sense, prudence, affability, 
 candour, and hospitality are claimed for him. Dr. 
 Samuel Denne gives the following character of him — 
 which, he says, is " the spontaneous effusion of a country 
 vicar, who never sought or received His Grace's 
 patronage, but who admired and loved him for his 
 amiable and endearing manners." He says : " There 
 may have been Metropolitans superior to the late 
 archbishop in the profoundness of their erudition. 
 His Grace, and his predecessor, Archbishop Herring, 
 had a very competent share of human learning. But 
 they had each of them something better. To the 
 utmost purity and benevolence of heart they added 
 the most affable and engaging deportment." After 
 saying that Cornwallis had been respected and beloved 
 at Lichfield, and that his move to Canterbury 
 had made no change in " his liberality of soul," 
 his biographer proceeds : "At Lambeth House from 
 the instant that he entered its walls, that odious dis- 
 tinction of a separate table for the chaplains was 
 abolished. It remained for an archbishop of high 
 birth to declare that they should be constantly seated 
 at the same board with himself. His board upon 
 public days was princely. His hospitality was in 
 general as noble as his own moderation in the enjoy- 
 ment of it was exemplary. The courtesy with which 
 he received those who had occasion to approach him 
 was not the affected politeness of a Court. It was the 
 courtesy of religion and morality. It was the evident 
 result of a good understanding, and a consummately 
 benevolent heart." 
 
1783] CROYDON PALACE TO BE SOLD 345 
 
 Cornwallis died rich. " He made no will," writes 
 his chaplain Lort to Bishop Percy, " since he came 
 to Lambeth. His options devolve, of course, to Mrs. 
 Cornwallis, but whether he left any verbal directions 
 to her concerning them I have not learnt." His 
 portrait by Sir Thos. Lawrence is at Lambeth. 
 
 Cornwallis, like Seeker, never occupied the old palace 
 at Croydon. Why Seeker gave it a wide berth we 
 know not. The ecclesiastical, almost monastic, style 
 of its old buildings, restored by Herring, would not 
 have been distasteful to a man of Seeker's tastes. It 
 was reputed unhealthy. The ladies of Seeker's family 
 were delicate, if not actual invalids. Perhaps the 
 reason lies here. 
 
 With Cornwallis the reason for forsaking Croydon 
 may have been different. Its neglect since Herring's 
 days would not tend to increase its attractions. The 
 archbishop's lady was a leader in society, and may for 
 this cause have found Lambeth ten miles nearer the 
 centre of the world than Croydon. Indeed, during 
 Cornwallis' reign the movement for altogether severing 
 the connection between the Primates and Croydon old 
 Palace must have gathered force either from Cornwallis' 
 initiative or elsewhere, for in 1780 a Private Act of 
 Parliament was passed (20 George iii. c. 57) for vesting 
 the old palace and two closes adjoining in the Lord 
 Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 
 and the Bishops of London and Winchester in trust 
 to sell the same and apply the money arising thereby 
 and from dilapidations and other money for the pur- 
 poses therein mentioned. The Act then states that the 
 situation was bad and inconvenient ; that there was 
 1^5403 » 3s. 3d. of South Sea Annuities which had been 
 purchased with money allowed by the Commissioners 
 for building Westminster Bridge as a compensation for 
 the horse-ferry from Lambeth to Milbank, the dividends 
 of which were received by the archbishop for his own 
 use; there was £1584, 4s. iid. Consolidated 3 per 
 
346 FREDERICK CORNWALLIS [1768- 
 
 cents purchased by the archbishop in 1 769 with money 
 received by him for dilapidations, and which with ac- 
 cumulated dividends amounted to £3360, os. 3d., and 
 that the archbishop had lately purchased the leasehold 
 interest in a farm called Park Hill belonging to the 
 see within half a mile of the town, and very proper 
 for building thereon a new palace ; the Act then em- 
 powered the trustees to sell the palace and two closes, 
 or pull the house down and sell the materials and pay 
 the money to the Accountant-General of the Court of 
 Chancery to be laid out in £3 per cent. Consols, and 
 added to the money already in that stock and a palace 
 to be built on Park Hill, the dividends in the mean- 
 time to accumulate. The venerable pile at Croydon 
 was accordingly sold on the 17th October 1780 to 
 Abraham, afterwards Sir Abraham, Pitcher for £2520.^ 
 The palace on Park Hill seems never to have been 
 completed, and three years later Archbishop Corn- 
 wallis died. During Archbishop Moore's twenty- two 
 years' Primacy, the question of a new country-house 
 for the Primate seems to have slumbered. Perhaps 
 for some reason or other Moore did not want a new 
 house. 
 
 It was not till 1808, as we shall see, three years after 
 Manners Sutton had become archbishop, that Addington 
 was bought. 
 
 The subsequent history of Croydon old palace, with 
 the deeply interesting historical associations which we 
 have noted in Archbishop Herring's life, is not alto- 
 gether creditable to the zeal of Englishmen generally 
 for historical monuments. The purchaser in 1780 
 granted a long lease of it. In the hands of the lessees 
 and their under-tenants, some of the buildings were 
 pulled down, what was left was used for business 
 purposes, especially in connection with linen bleach- 
 ing. On the grounds houses were built. Laud's 
 chapel was for some time a girls' national school — 
 
 I Manning and Bray's Surrey, ii. 537. 
 
1783] GIFTS TO LAMBETH LIBRARY 347 
 
 round holes being cut in the desks of the stalls to hold 
 the girls' ink-pots ! ^ Near the end of the nineteenth 
 century the lease fell in, and the then Vicar of Croydon, 
 all praise to him, sought to secure the old palace site 
 and buildings for the church as the site of a vicarage, 
 etc. But his efforts were unsuccessful ; a museum 
 was attempted without success. Only the munificence 
 of the Duke of Newcastle, who has presented the palace 
 to the Kilburn Sisters, saved the historic buildings from 
 further desecration. 
 
 The archiepiscopal library at Lambeth was much 
 benefited by the generosity of Archbishop Cornwallis, 
 who, besides adding thereto many valuable books in his 
 lifetime, caused a very curious collection of old printed 
 tracts and pamphlets (from the reign of Henry vii. to 
 that of Queen Anne) which long lay in the library un- 
 digested to be bound in sixty volumes .^ 
 
 It is said that a valuable set of prints of all the 
 Archbishops of Canterbury from 1 504 was collected at 
 Lambeth by Cornwallis .^ After the archbishop's death 
 some valuable articles were presented by his accom- 
 phshed lady, who took great pleasure in the library at 
 Lambeth, which she is said to have visited almost 
 every day. 
 
 ^ Pelton's Croydon. 'Allen, 1809. 
 
 ' Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, iii. 505. 
 
JOHN MOORE 
 
 1 783-1 805 
 
 John Moore was born at Gloucester in 1730. His 
 father is generally said to have been a butcher at 
 Gloucester, but he is entered as " Mr. " in freehold 
 registers, and as " gent" " in the records. So it seems 
 probable that he may have been a substantial 
 grazier. 
 
 John the son's name appears in the Freemen's Roll. 
 He was brought up at the Free School of his native city — 
 and as he showed signs of ability he was sent by friends 
 to Pembroke College, Oxford, whence he later removed 
 to Christ Church. 
 
 He graduated M.A. in 1751, B.D. and D.D. in 1763.^ 
 He seems in early life to have formed a friendship with 
 Dr. Grey, the Rector of Hinton, and his wife, who was a 
 daughter of Mr. Thicknesse. In the Memoirs published 
 by Philip Thickn-esse, the son, an account is given of 
 the somewhat romantic marriage between Dr. Grey and 
 Miss Thicknesse. Mr. Thicknesse had a living near 
 Steane, where resided a proud stately prelate. Lord 
 Crewe, Bishop of Durham, one of whose chaplains was 
 Mr. Grey. Grey was sent by the bishop to ask why 
 Thicknesse, unlike all his neighbours, clerical and lay, 
 had failed to present himself at Steane. Grey on his 
 visit saw Thicknesse's daughter, a very beautiful girl, 
 in the courtyard, and said to Thicknesse, " Bless me it 
 made my heart leap to see so fine a girl in such a country 
 village I " Grey repeated his visits, and the pair were 
 married. The chronicler says that in early life young 
 
 ' Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, viii. 94. 
 348 
 
1 785-1805] A DISCREET TUTOR 349 
 
 John Moore became a gargon de famille at Hinton, much 
 esteemed by Dr. Grey and his wife. 
 
 By some lucky circumstance he was introduced to the 
 Duke of Marlborough as a tutor to his son, Lord Bland- 
 ford. According to Mr. Thicknesse he owed this intro- 
 duction to Dr. Grey ; but Mr. Nichols says this state- 
 ment is not correct, and gives another account which he 
 believes is authentic . While at Pembroke, Moore had as a 
 tutor a Mr. John Hopkins, who was afterwards chaplain 
 to the Bishop of Oxford and Vicar of Cropredy. The 
 story is that " a gentleman (perhaps the steward) who 
 was employed to look out for a fit person in the uni- 
 versity to be private tutor to the family at Blenheim, 
 after some disappointments applied to Mr. John 
 Hopkins of Pembroke ; and, as he was talking with 
 him on the subject in the window of his apartments in 
 Pembroke College, Mr. Hopkins said, ' I do not think you 
 can find a more proper person in the whole university 
 than the gentleman who is walking across the quad- 
 rangle ; and I dare say he will be glad of the offer.' He 
 was called up, and accepted the proposal — which led to 
 consequences well known and honourable to all." ^ The 
 pride of the Duchess, it is said, required that the tutor 
 should not sit at the same table as herself, and he was 
 degraded to the second table. His revenge came, how- 
 ever, for on the death of the Duke the haughty dame fell 
 a victim to the tutor's charms, and courted him to 
 receive her hand. Moore's honour and good feeling 
 compelled him to decline, and we are told that so 
 sensible was the Duke, the son, of the generosity of his 
 conduct that, as the first token of his gratitude, he settled 
 an annuity of £400 upon him and rapidly obtained for 
 him very valuable Church preferment. 
 
 In 1766 he was made a Prebendary of Durham, and 
 
 in 1 771 Dean of Canterbury. Moore, from the time of 
 
 his marrying as his second wife, Miss Eden, was on 
 
 terms of affectionate intimacy with her brother, Sir Wm. 
 
 1 Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ix. 693. 
 
3SO JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 Eden, afterwards first Lord Auckland, a man of great 
 ability, who was several times a Minister, and several 
 times employed on important foreign missions. The 
 Auckland Correspondence now at the British Museum 
 contains many dozens of letters under the signatures 
 successively of J. Moore, J. Bangor, and J. Cantuar. 
 They are the letters of a man of good wits, but they do 
 not show any appreciation of piety or spiritual endow- 
 ments of any kind. From his own words here recorded 
 we judge Moore on one point, and that an important 
 one. His view of high office in the Church is that of 
 the darkest period of the eighteenth century. Church 
 preferment is something to provide a man with high 
 station and a good income, and, almost above all, with 
 the means of providing for his sons and relatives. He 
 discusses the merits of different bishoprics, deaneries, 
 livings, always with the view of the advantages temporal 
 and social to be got from them ; of the opportunities 
 they may afford for religious or spiritual work to 
 the persons, if any, to be ministered to, not a word. 
 He is a great State official, and according to his 
 opinions does his duty as such : nothing more. He 
 becomes a nepotist and a very bad one. Throughout 
 his career he had the Marlborough interest and the 
 Eden interest to back him. And no doubt he con- 
 sidered from the first that with his gifts and his con- 
 nections he was the man to receive high ecclesiastical 
 preferment. 
 
 Further than this a man like Moore, who felt a 
 mitre his due, having already a good prebend at 
 Durham, and a good deanery at Canterbury, was 
 in a position to make terms if not to barter. " How 
 much already in possession must be given up ; there 
 are bishoprics and bishoprics — ' small,' ' middling,' 
 and ' pretty good ' — what is to be the net gain on a 
 change? " 
 
 In 1772 he writes to Eden : "It ought to be, I 
 suppose, my Deanery and a small Bishopric, or Durham 
 
1 80S] A BISHOPRIC WON IF NOT SOUGHT 351 
 
 and a middling one, or, if both Preferments are to 
 be given up, a pretty good one. . . . Lord North must 
 understand I will not be a Bishop unless he contrives 
 I may live with some degree of comfort, I mean without 
 such an income as may enable me to support my 
 station." 1 
 
 In January 1 775 he is astir again and writes to Eden : 
 " It is thought the Bishop of Rochester can last but a 
 very short time : if the Duke of Marlborough will 
 move on this occasion it will at least bring me 
 forward."^ 
 
 He further says : " I assure you upon the word of an 
 honest man that no consideration but the duty I owe my 
 children should make me take a seat on that same 
 Bench ; nolo episcopari is an old story, but if I know 
 myself what I have said is true. The more I know of 
 the world, the less I expect of personal satisfaction in 
 entering into the bustle of it."* 
 
 In a later letter he says : " I am pleased at the Duke's 
 entering into my affair with cordiality. I never can 
 deserve the warmth from any man upon earth that 
 I have deserved from him." 
 
 However, his hopes were fulfilled, and in 1775 he 
 mounted the Episcopal Bench— his see (Bangor) being so 
 often in the eighteenth century a bishop's first and the 
 precursor of higher, if not the highest , dignities . The well- 
 known Dr. Hurd was consecrated Bishop of Worcester 
 at the same time as Moore in Lambeth Chapel, 
 the sermon on the occasion on the subject of the 
 Respective Duties of Ministers and People being 
 preached by Dr. Balguy, Archdeacon of Winchester, 
 who was named as successor to Bishop Warburton at 
 Gloucester. 
 
 It was an age of verse, and the promotion occasioned 
 the following jeu d' esprit : 
 
 1 Auckland Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 34412, f. 281. ,i 
 " Ubi supra. 34412, f. 292. 
 » Ubi supra, 34412, f. 298. 
 
352 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 " A Word of Comfort from Bangor to Canterbury cm 
 the Loss of her Dean " — 
 
 Cease, Canterbury, to deplore 
 
 The loss of your accomplished Moore, 
 
 Repining at my gain, 
 I soon may have most cause to mourn. 
 To you he'll probably return, 
 
 With me will scarce remain. 
 
 Bangor. 
 
 which was thus answered : 
 
 To me you prophesy our mitred Moore 
 Revolving years may probably restore. 
 
 And thus in vain attempt my tears to dry. 
 I scarcely know my masters, but by name. 
 Triennial visits and the voice of fame, 
 
 For ah! my Palaces in ruins lie. 
 
 Canterbury.' 
 
 The reference at a time of deadness in the Church, and 
 a century and a quarter before the restoration of the 
 archbishop's palace at Canterbury, to the absence of any 
 home for the archbishop there is interesting. 
 
 One thing is to be said in Moore 's favour . He did not, 
 as some other Bishops of Bangor of the eighteenth 
 century, leave his diocese unvisited. There are several 
 letters from Bangor ; its quiet is remarked on. He was 
 looking to move from there — upwards if it might be. 
 Meanwhile he gives a pleasant description of his existence 
 there under date the 6th September 1782. " My life," 
 he says, " is filled up by looking round' my diocese and 
 endeavouring to civilize it a little and by another em- 
 ployment not of a very frequent kind, lucubrations on 
 the elements of Greek with my two boys." After re- 
 ferring to expectations from Lord Shelburne, he con- 
 tinues : " I am doing a wiser thing than encouraging 
 expectation. I am preparing or rather prepared not 
 to be disappointed . At the same time, shd better pros- 
 
 * Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, iii. 219, 220. 
 
1 80S] CANTERBURY REFUSED 353 
 
 pects rise, I am not unprepared for them neither. But 
 I will not pay the price of self-reproach for any."^ 
 
 Moore seems to have found favour at Canterbury. 
 Dr. Beau voir, of whose father we have read in narrating 
 Wake's correspondence with the heads of the Gallican 
 Church, and who became one of the six preachers at 
 Canterbury, writes in March 1775:" When are we to have 
 a new Dean ? Send us Moore back again with his mitre." * 
 
 The year 1781 was a time of distress. War with 
 France. The Revolt of the American Colonies, resulting 
 in the War of Independence, the demands of Grattan's 
 Parliament in Dublin made English statesmen anxious. 
 A General Fast was decreed on the 21st February 1781, 
 and Dr. Moore, the Bishop of Bangor, preached before 
 the House of Lords on the occasion. 
 
 Just after Cornwallis' death. Fox and North had 
 formed the Coalition Ministry, the Duke of Portland 
 being Prime Minister, and shortly afterwards brought 
 in and passed through the Commons their India Bill 
 which proposed to take the Government of India from 
 the East India Company and give it to seven com- 
 missioners appointed by Parliament. George iii. 
 thoroughly disliked the Bill, and, as is well known, got 
 it thrown out by the Lords, and a few months after- 
 wards made the younger Pitt, at the age of twenty-five, 
 his Prime Minister. By the desire of the King, who took 
 great interest in his ecclesiastical appointments, the 
 Primacy was offered to Kurd, Bishop of Worcester, 
 whom George 111. called the most naturally polite man 
 he ever knew, but who was the disciple, almost the 
 slave, of the ungenial Warburton, and then to Lowth, 
 Bishop of London. Kurd thought himself too old, and 
 was also influenced by his love of scholarly ease. The 
 Bishop of London was too much attached to and inter- 
 ested in his diocese. 
 
 Nichols says that Bishop Kurd had " the offer of the 
 
 » Auckland Corr., addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 34419, i- 26. 
 » Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ix. 356. 
 
354 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 archbishopric from His Majesty with many gracious 
 expressions, and was pressed to accept it ; but honestly 
 begged leave to decline it as a charge not suited to his 
 temper and talents, and much too heavy for him to 
 sustain especially in these times." " I took the liberty," 
 says Bishop Hurd, " of telling His Majesty that several 
 much greater men than myself had been contented to die 
 Bishops of Worcester, and that I wished for no higher 
 preferment." The King was pleased not to take offence 
 at this freedom, and then to enter with him into some 
 confidential conversation on the subject. It was offered 
 to the Bishop of London, Dr. Lowth, and refused by him, 
 as was foreseen, on the ground of his ill-health.^ George 
 III. is said thereupon to have asked each of these two 
 distinguished prelates to recommend one of the bishops 
 to him as being in their judgment the fittest for the 
 Primacy, and each of them without consulting the 
 other named Moore as the fittest man.* 
 
 There is a concise description of the affair by the 
 Rev. Daniel Watson, a Yorkshire rector, whom the great 
 Bishop Butler patronised : " Lowth and Hurd have 
 both refused the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and 
 joined in recommending Moore (Eden's brother-in-law) 
 to the King, who in the present interregnum of admin- 
 istration has some will of his own." * Moore was accord- 
 ingly appointed. His election by the Dean and Chapter 
 was confirmed at Bow Church on the 26th April 1783, 
 and on the loth May he was installed and enthroned at 
 Canterbury. It is interesting to note, and shows in 
 what a different aspect such ceremonies were viewed 
 a century and a half ago, to learn, as we do from the 
 Gentleman's Magazine for the current date, that all these 
 latter ceremonies, though performed with due solemnity, 
 were all performed by proxy, — the vice-dean, acting the 
 part of the archbishop, being placed successively in the 
 
 * Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, vi. 490. 
 
 ^ Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, vii. 449. 
 
 • Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, viii. 336. 
 
i8os] TOO KEEN ON PATRONAGE 355 
 
 archiepiscopal throne, the patriarchal chair, and the 
 dean's stall, and afterwards receiving from all the mem- 
 bers of the Church the usual profession of canonical 
 obedience in the chapter house. 
 
 Two days later we read of Moore attending the 
 Latin sermon at the annual meeting of the London 
 clergy at Sion College, of which the journal of the day 
 quaintly says : " The composition was strictly classical, 
 pronounced with such a pleasing familiarity as delighted 
 a most respectable auditory." 
 
 Shortly after his promotion appeared "Bangor's Word 
 of Comfort to Canterbury — No Prophecy." It ran : 
 
 An impartial and competent judge of desert. 
 
 At such a conclusion must have needs been expert, 
 
 And to baffle distraction I'll venture thus far. 
 
 If Moore rose Uke a meteor he'll shine a true star. 
 
 Two letters of this date are such as a biographer of 
 Moore would like, but does not dare, to suppress. 
 
 " 26th April 1783. 
 
 " It is a critical moment for me. Dr. Stinton, who has 
 a very large living in the archbishop's gift, is in so much 
 danger that his death is probable every day. I shall be 
 confirmed this day, but there being no Court can't do 
 Homage or have the Temporalities restored till Wednes- 
 day. Say nothing of the circumstances of Dr. Stinton, 
 but if you see Lord North be so good as to apprize him 
 that I wish to do homage certainly on Wednesday. 
 
 " J.Cantuar, Elect."! 
 
 " 28th April 1783. 
 
 " I have been with Lord North, and my business 
 will be finished on Wednesday morning. In the mean- 
 time should Dr. Stinton drop, his Preferment in the 
 Archbishop's Gift will, I fear, be in hasard, though, as my 
 confirmation is passed, the measure would be somewhat 
 violent on the part of a Government to which I don't 
 owe the situation . . . what interests my feelings is 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 34419. f- 183. 
 
356 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 that the preferment would at once reach the utmost 
 wishes of my sister's husband. 
 
 " J. Cantuar."! 
 
 He writes on Monday, " I kiss hands to-day." He 
 seems to have felt the troublous character of the times. 
 Pitt had not yet commenced his long premiership : Fox 
 and North's coalition was struggling on. In a letter 
 to be found among the Egerton papers, and written in 
 the week he was appointed Primate, Moore says, " I have 
 been answering some scores of letters." ^ " Had I a ray of 
 hope to send your Lordship that could in any degree 
 brighten the prospect of public affairs, or could I say one 
 comfortable word on that subject," he would continue 
 his letter tired though his fingers were of writing. 
 
 One of Moore's first acts as archbishop was to give 
 his vote in the House of Lords in favour of reversing 
 the judgment of Lord Loughborough in the cause of 
 Fytche v. Bishop of London. The point at issue in the 
 cause was the validity of a bond to resign when called 
 upon given to a patron by the incumbent of a living 
 on presentation. It had been a common practice of 
 patrons to ask for and take such a bond, and Churchmen 
 of the better sort had frequently lamented the evils 
 arising from the practice. Archbishop Seeker had said : 
 " The true meaning of a bond to resign is to enslave the 
 incumbent to the will and pleasure of his patron whatever 
 it shall happen at any time to be. So that if he demands 
 his legal dues ; if he is not subservient to the schemes 
 political or whatever they are which he is required to 
 promote; if he reproves such and such vices; if he preaches 
 or does not preach such and such doctrines ; if he 
 stands up for charity and justice to any one when 
 he is forbidden, the terror of resignation or the penalty 
 of the bond may immediately be shaken over his head." 
 It might also be made to give the patron the same results 
 
 » Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 34419, f. 185. 
 2 Egerton MSS, Brit. Mus., 2^136, f. 221. 
 
i8os] RESIGNATION BONDS 357 
 
 as if he sold the next presentation while the living was 
 empty. 
 
 The case is an interesting one to the Churchman, 
 as well as to the lawyer and politician : to the Church- 
 man because a great triumph was gained for purity of 
 Church administration over the fetters of real property 
 law ; for the lawyer because the opinions of the judges 
 of the courts below and also of the judges who were 
 summoned to advise the House of Lords were over- 
 ruled by that House ; to the politician because the 
 decision of the House was arrived at on votes of lay 
 lords and bishops as well as law lords and on a majority 
 of I ! The facts of the case were simple and undis- 
 puted. There was a living of Woodham Walter in the 
 Diocese of London, of which a Mr. Fytche, in right of 
 his wife, was patron. The incumbent, one Dr. Gower 
 (oddly enough an M.D., not a D.D.), died. Fytche had 
 a friend, one Eyre, to whom he wished to give the living, 
 provided Eyre gave him a bond to resign the living at 
 any time, which Eyre was willing to do, and did. Eyre 
 was then presented to the Bishop of London for institu- 
 tion and induction. The existence of the resignation 
 bond was admitted, and thereupon the bishop refused 
 to institute or induct. The patron brought a suit 
 known as quare impedit against the bishop for this 
 refusal, to which the bishop pleaded that the bond was 
 simoniacal and the presentation accordingly void. The 
 Court of Common Pleas decided against the bishop, 
 and on appeal the Court of King's Bench also decided 
 against him. Like all common law actions of that 
 date, except to a very trained pleader, the issue is some- 
 what obscured in the report by the technicalities of 
 pleading, but the substantial issue appears from the 
 Report in the House of Lords undoubtedly to have 
 been, was the bond a benefit to the patron so as to 
 taint the presentation with simony ? The brave bishop 
 brought his writ of error by way of appeal to the House 
 of Lords, and what happened there is curious and 
 
3S8 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 interesting. The judges were summoned to advise 
 the House, and after full argument questions were put to 
 them, of which the chief were as to the bond being a 
 benefit to the patron and the bargain accordingly void 
 under the Statute against simony, 31 Eliz. Eight judges 
 attended : six of them answered all the questions in 
 favour of the bond, holding it not to be a benefit to 
 the patron. One held it was a benefit, but not corrupt ; 
 the eighth held it a benefit, but that on the plead- 
 ings the bishop could not raise its invalidity. Thus 
 all the judges were against the bishop, and in favour ' 
 of the decision of the courts below. Those were the 
 days, however, when all the peers, legal and, as Lord 
 Courtney calls them, " unlearned," voted on judicial 
 appeals just as on political questions, and on a division 
 nineteen — including the two archbishops and a dozen 
 bishops — voted for reversing the judgment of the King's 
 Bench, and eighteen in favour of affirming it. Thus 
 by a majority of one, and against the voice of all the 
 judges who heard the case, the Church was purged from 
 the scandal of Resignation Bonds. 
 
 On 28th June 1784, the chapel at Lambeth was the 
 scene of a very Episcopal wedding. We have alluded 
 several times to Markham, Archbishop of York : per- 
 haps many of our readers can picture him and his 
 vigorous features from the fine bust in the vestibule of 
 the library at Christ Church, Oxford. His daughter 
 now married a son of Dr. Edmund Law, Bishop of 
 Carlisle, a divine often referred to in these pages, the 
 ceremony being performed by the Primate, to whom it 
 was doubtless a pleasure to ofiiciate at the wedding of 
 his college tutor's daughter. 
 
 In June 1 786 we find Moore speaking in the House 
 of Lords against and defeating a Bill for preventing 
 frivolous and vexatious suits in the Ecclesiastical 
 Courts and for the more easy recovery of small tithes .^ 
 In spite of Moore's success, a Bill to amend the 
 
 * Pari. Hist., xxvi. 128, 
 
i8os] TEST AND CORPORATION ACTS 359 
 
 proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Courts was reintro- 
 duced into the Commons the following session, and 
 reform seems certainly to have been needed. On the 
 Regency Bill constituting George iv. Regent during 
 the King's illness, Lord Stanhope moved to prevent 
 the Regent giving the royal assent to any Bill inter- 
 fering with, among other Acts, the Act of Uniformity .^ 
 Moore appears to have opposed the amendment and 
 to have upheld the provisions of the Acts attacked, and 
 the amendment was withdrawn. 
 
 In 1787 Moore had as Primate to deal with the claim 
 of the Protestant Dissenters against the Test and Corpora- 
 tion Acts. Half a century had now elapsed, says Lord 
 Stanhope, since the Protestant Dissenters had applied to 
 Parliament for the repeal of the Test Acts. Most of 
 them had supported Pitt at the General Election, and 
 they now thought they had some claim on his favour. 
 They circulated among the members of the House of 
 Commons, a paper entitled " The Case of the Protestant 
 Dissenters with Reference to the Corporation and Test 
 Acts," which is set out in vol. xxvi. of the Parlia- 
 mentary History, p. 781, and they chose as their spokes- 
 man, Mr. Beaufoy, a Churchman and a supporter of 
 the Government.^ 
 
 Pitt appears to have felt a disposition to support 
 their claim, says Lord Stanhope, if he could do so with 
 the assent of the Church of England. Moore, at the 
 request of Pitt, as the bishops were informed, summoned 
 a meeting of the bishops at the Bounty Office. The 
 question was asked of them, " Ought the Test and 
 Corporation Acts to be maintained ? " Fourteen bishops 
 were present . Only two, Watson of Llandaff and Shipley 
 of St. Asaph, said No ; and Pitt was informed of the 
 meeting's decision. 
 
 Moore does not appear to have altogether favoured 
 the proposal. He writes to his brother-in-law, Lord 
 Auckland, and, after discussing the chances of Pitt 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., xxvii. 1282. " Stanhope's Life of Pitt, i. 336. 
 
 24 
 
36o JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 supporting the repeal, says that he " has good reason to 
 be sure he has not as yet at least made up his mind to 
 do so " ; in which he perhaps refers to Pitt's request 
 to him to summon the bishops to discuss the matter, 
 and goe& on : " The Speaker and Hatsell tell me they 
 have no idea of its not being rejected upon the first 
 motion. . . . My anxiety on this subject makes me 
 doubt this." 
 
 On the 27th March 1 787, Mr. Beaufoy in the Commons 
 moved for such repeal, and in a speech of burning 
 eloquence emphasised the degradation of the sacred 
 rite of the Holy Communion involved in making it 
 the test for civil offices even of a humble grade, calling 
 it " a monstrous attempt, as irrational as it is profane, 
 to strengthen the Church of England by the debase- 
 ment of the Church of Christ."^ The motion was 
 opposed by Lord North, but supported by Fox. 
 
 Pitt said he could not with decency give a silent 
 vote. The members of the Church of England part 
 of the Constitution would be alarmed if not seriously 
 injured, and their apprehensions were not to be 
 treated lightly. It must be conceded to him that 
 an Established Church was necessary. No means 
 could be devised of admitting the moderate part 
 of the Dissenters and excluding the more violent ; 
 the bulwark must be kept against all, but at the 
 end of his speech he expressed the highest opinion 
 of the present race of Dissenters and of their claim to 
 the protection of the Government. Neither he nor any 
 of the speakers against the motion said anything about 
 the profanation of the Communion involved in the Act. 
 Mr. Beaufoy 's motion was lost by 98 to 176.^ 
 
 Moore's reference to the affair in his letter to Auck- 
 land is not very clear or very large-minded. Under 
 date 6th April 1787 he writes : " You will observe that 
 the Dissenters are firing away in the papers at Mr. Pitt. 
 
 1 Annual Register 87, p. 114. 
 
 ' Parliamentary History, xxvi. 831, gives Nos. as 98 to 176. 
 
iSos] AMERICAN BISHOPS 361 
 
 That contest was an ugly thing to happen, and fur- 
 nished no small uneasiness to me during the suspense 
 of it. Had it ended favourably for them the effects 
 would soon have been serious indeed — would lead me 
 too far." 1 
 
 It was during Moore's Primacy that the efforts — 
 the patient, persevering efforts — of Churchmen in 
 America for the appointment of bishops in such of the 
 American Colonies as were, speaking broadly. Epis- 
 copalian were crowned with success. We have called 
 attention to the raising of this question from time to 
 time during the eighteenth century. We have seen 
 how Tenison, Sherlock, Butler, Potter, and Seeker had 
 advocated, even pressed, the step, and how it had 
 been opposed by the Nonconformists both in England 
 and America, mainly because they feared the intro- 
 duction into America with bishops of the temporal 
 privileges which in the long course of ages, and as the 
 result of the course of English history, had gathered 
 round an English or an Irish bishop. Now we have to 
 record how the wishes of Churchmen received fulfilment . 
 
 American Independence had increased the difficulty . 
 of the Bishop of London supplying America with clergy- 
 men. They could not swear allegiance to the British 
 Crown, which every one ordained by an English bishop 
 had to ; so Lowth, to whom some candidates for orders 
 from the Southern States had applied for ordination, 
 asked for and in 1784 obtained an Act to meet the 
 difficulty. It is described in a contemporary letter by 
 one of Moore's chaplains, who says : 
 
 " His Grace showed me the short Bill which receives 
 the royal assent to-morrow, empowering the Bishop 
 of London, or any other bishop he may appoint, to 
 ordain Americans or others belonging to foreign juris- 
 diction without taking the oath of allegiance now 
 required."^ 
 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 34424, i. 284. 
 
 * Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, vii. 465. 
 
362 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 As far back as April 1783 a convention of clergy of 
 Connecticut had applied to the Archbishop of York, 
 Canterbury being vacant, to consecrate Seabury Bishop of 
 Connecticut. They urged that failing such consecration 
 a plan was on foot " to constitute a nominal episcopate 
 by the united suffrages of presbyters and laymen." ^ 
 Trinity Church, New York, even then richly endowed, 
 supported the petition of Connecticut. But the oath 
 of allegiance created a difficulty. A bishop ordained 
 in England must take the oath of allegiance to the 
 English Crown. Seabury was a subject of the United 
 States, and would take no such oath. So recourse had 
 to be had to the Scottish bishops, by whom he was con- 
 secrated on 14th November 1784. 
 
 On i7th September 1785 a General Convention 
 of the Church was held at Philadelphia, when the 
 Constitution of the Church and the revision of the 
 Liturgy were discussed. Clerical and lay deputies 
 attended the Convention from the states of New 
 York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mary- 
 land, Virginia, and South Carolina. The Convention 
 first made up a " Proposed Book," being the Book 
 of Common Prayer with such modifications as seemed 
 requisite. These included the omission of the Nicene 
 and Athanasian Creeds and of the Descent into Hell 
 in the Apostles' Creed. The omission of the first four 
 petitions in the Litany was proposed by a layman, the 
 Hon. Mr. Page, afterwards Governor of Virginia, on the 
 ground that the word " Trinity " was unauthorised by 
 Scripture. But even the mover was half-hearted in 
 support of his motion, and it was lost without a division. 
 They also addressed to the archbishops and bishops of 
 England a formal request, dated 5th October 1785, 
 for the consecration of bishops for the American 
 Churches. " The petition which we oifer to your vener- 
 able body is that from a tender regard to the religious 
 interests of thousands in this rising empire — professing 
 
 ' Life of Bishop White, 325. 
 
i8os] THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION 363 
 
 the same religious principles with the Church of England 
 — you will be pleased to confer the episcopal character 
 on such persons as shall be recommended by this 
 Church in the several states here represented." True 
 to their democratic constitution, the Convention placed 
 on record its " desire and plan that the bishops asked 
 for should have no temporal honours as the English 
 archbishops and bishops had as Lords of Parliament, 
 and that their reputation and usefulness would con- 
 siderably depend on their assuming no higher title 
 or style than would be due to their spiritual employ- 
 ments " ; and the Convention wished that the bishops 
 appointed should " have no other title than the Rt. 
 Rev. A. B., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 in C. D., and might not use any such style as is 
 usually descriptive of temporal power and pre- 
 cedency." 
 
 But rumours reached the ears of the archbishops 
 and bishops of the Mother Church that views Presbyr 
 terian and almost Socinian in their character had found 
 favour in the Philadelphia Convention. The arch- 
 bishops and bishops, as the authorities of an Estab- 
 lished Church are rightly wont to be, were cautious. 
 They addressed a reply to their suppliants, dated 24th 
 February 1786, in which they said that the address of 
 5th October 1785 had been received and considered 
 with that true and affectionate regard which the Enghsh 
 Episcopate had always shown towards their episcopal 
 brethren in America. They went on to say that while 
 making every allowance for the difficulties of the applic- 
 ants' situation, they could not help being afraid that in 
 the proceedings of their Convention some alterations 
 may have been adopted or intended which the 
 difficulties of the situation did not seem to justify. 
 The archbishops' and bishops' knowledge of these 
 alterations was no more than what had reached them 
 through private and less certain channels. The reply 
 went on : " While we are anxious to give every proof 
 
364 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 not only of our affection, but of our facility in forward- 
 ing your wishes, we cannot but be extremely cautious 
 lest we should be the instruments of establishing an 
 ecclesiastical system which will be called a branch of 
 the Church of England, but afterwards may possibly 
 appear to have departed from it essentially either in 
 doctrine or discipline." This reply was signed by 
 Moore, his colleague at York, and seventeen of the 
 bishops. 
 
 The Philadelphia Convention replied on 26th June 
 1786. This enclosed a copy of the American proposed 
 Ecclesiastical Constitution and Book of Common 
 Prayer, and repeated the request of the Convention for 
 the consecration of two bishops. 
 
 This communication seems to have crossed another 
 letter from the two archbishops. This, after stating 
 the rather piecemeal receipt in England of the American 
 Liturgy, went on : " Not to mention a variety of 
 verbal alterations, of the necessity or propriety of which 
 we are by no means satisfied, we saw with grief that 
 two of the confessions of our Christian faith, respect- 
 able for their antiquity, have been entirely laid aside : 
 and that even in that which is called the Apostles' Creed 
 an article is omitted which was thought necessary to 
 be inserted with a view to a particular heresy in a very 
 early age of the Church, and has ever since had the 
 venerable sanction of universal reception." 
 
 The letter went on to say that in the hope that these 
 defects would be remedied the archbishop had prepared 
 a Bill to enable them to consecrate American bishops, 
 and detailed the safeguards required to secure that 
 proper persons only should be offered for consecration. 
 Moore duly obtained from Parliament an Act (26 
 Geo. iii. c. 84), empowering him to consecrate " to the 
 office of a bishop persons being subjects or citizens of 
 countries out of His Majesty's Dominions," and on 
 4th July 1786 he sent this with the following letter to 
 the deputies in America : 
 
i8os] WHITE AND PROVOOST SAIL 365 
 
 " Canterbury, 4th July 1786. 
 
 " Gentlemen, — The enclosed Act being now passed 
 I have the satisfaction of communicating it to you. It 
 is accompanied by a copy of a letter and some forms 
 of Testimonials which I sent you by the packet of last 
 month. It is the opinion here that no more than three 
 bishops shd be consecrated for the U.S. of America, who 
 may ' consecrate others on their return if more be found 
 necessary. But whether we can consecrate any or 
 not must yet depend on the answers we may receive 
 to what we have written. — I am yr humble servant, 
 
 " J.Cantuar." 
 
 The Convention met again at Wilmington on loth 
 October 1786. The conveners felt the importance of 
 the situation. " We sat up," says one of them, " the 
 whole of the succeeding night digesting the determina- 
 tions in the form in which they appear in the journal." 
 
 "When they were brought into the Convention, little 
 difficulty occurred in regard to what was proposed con- 
 cerning the retaining of the Nicene and the rejecting of 
 the Athanasian Creed. But a warm debate arose on the 
 subject of the Descent into Hell in the Apostles' Creed." 
 Its retainer was at last carried. " But," says the writer, 
 " the result was not owing to the having a majority of 
 votes ; but to the nullity of the votes of those Churches 
 in which the clergy and the laity were divided."^ 
 
 The Convention elected three divines, William 
 White, Samuel Provoost, and David Griffith, for conse- 
 cration as bishops. Griffith was ill, but on Thursday, 
 2nd November, White and Provoost embarked at New 
 York with the necessary testimonials and an official 
 copy of the Act of the Convention modifying the proposed 
 Prayer Book. White wrote from England to his com- 
 mittee letters telling how the travellers fared, and from 
 these we get the following : 
 
 " After a passage in which we had some tempestuous, 
 although for the most part pleasant weather, we made 
 1 Life of Bishop White, 133. 
 
366 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 the lights of Scilly on Monday, 20th November, and the 
 next day landed in good health at Falmouth." ^ 
 
 Owing to " sundry incidents " they did not reach 
 London till 29th November. On 3rd December, under 
 the friendly auspices of Mr. Adams, the American 
 Ambassador, they paid their respects at Lambeth, where 
 they had " a polite and condescending reception " from 
 Moore — such as they felt " entirely answerable to the 
 sentiments which we had been taught to entertain of 
 this great and good archbishop." 
 
 On 2 1 St December the two ' ' dined at Lambeth with 
 Moore — having every reason to be satisfied with their 
 reception and entertainment. Moore asked for a short 
 delay, to make sure all his brother bishops approved 
 of what he was doing." 
 
 The Americans visited Lowth, the learned Bishop 
 of London — but he was infirm and ill, and was seized 
 the following day with the attack of illness of which he 
 died. 
 
 On 19th February they attended Moore again at 
 Lambeth ; he waived the omission of the Athanasian 
 Creed, being satisfied that the doctrine of the creed is 
 retained in many places of the Prayer Book. 
 
 He was nervous about the easy manner in which 
 the degradation of bishops had been originally proposed, 
 and when that article had been altered said," Yes, and 
 much for the better." He excused his being " circum- 
 spect," as there had been" reports and apprehensions." 
 
 He was frightened at the proposed selections from 
 the Psalms ; and when pressed whether he objected 
 to the omission of some portions of the Psalms from 
 public worship rather evaded an opinion, saying that 
 he had not fully considered that subject — but feared the 
 sense being broken by omissions .^ 
 
 They dined again at Lambeth on a public day, 
 and before dinner followed the archbishop through a 
 suite of rooms till they found themselves in the chapel, 
 
 ' Life of Bishop White, 139. * Ibid., 149. 
 
i8o5] CONSECRATION AT LAMBETH 367 
 
 in which were the two chaplains in their surpHces. One 
 of them read the Litany. Dinner followed. 
 
 On 2nd February Moore introduced the two " to 
 Geo. III. They thanked him for his licence to convey 
 the episcopal succession to the Church in America." 
 Geo. iii.'s reply was, " His Grace has given me 
 such an account of the gentlemen who have come over 
 that I am glad of the present opportunity of serving the 
 interests of religion." 
 
 On the 4th February 1787 they were consecrated in 
 Lambeth Chapel by Moore, Markham of York and the 
 Bishops of Bath and Wells and Peterborough assisting. 
 Moss, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the two new 
 bishops were specially glad to have joining in the cere- 
 mony, as he was credited with having felt the most 
 strongly about the American omission of the Descent 
 into Hell. Drake, one of Moore's chaplains, preached, 
 his text being " Let all things be done decently and 
 in order." Moore had asked a particular friend to 
 preach and had given him a sketch of the sermon the 
 archbishop wanted. But domestic calamity prevented 
 the friend coming, and the chaplain had at short 
 notice to preach. White and Provoost were styled 
 respectively Bishop of New York and of Philadelphia. 
 They were, says the Gentleman's Magazine, " elegantly 
 entertained by His Grace." Their own account is that 
 they spent the remainder of the day with the arch- 
 bishop and bishops, and that the leave-taking was 
 " affectionate on both sides." 
 
 The Americans insisted on paying their own fees, 
 £14, 3s. id., which were not allowed by Moore to in- 
 clude the fees which an English bishop would have paid 
 to persons of the Archbishop's Court and of his household. 
 
 The newly consecrated bishops left London on 
 Sth February, reached Falmouth on loth February. 
 The wind was not favourable for sailing for seven days ; 
 but they landed at New York on the afternoon of Easter 
 Day, after exactly seven weeks' voyage. 
 
368 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 Those who are interested in the earlier parts of the 
 story we have just told can see at Lambeth a book 
 containing facsimiles of the Documents — issued by the 
 Historical Club of the American Church. 
 
 The year 1787 saw also the consecration by Moore of 
 the first English colonial bishop. There had been for 
 many years a flourishing Church in Nova Scotia, and its 
 numbers had been increased by the arrival of many 
 American loyalists during and after the War of Inde- 
 pendence. In the summer of 1787, Nova Scotia was 
 created by Letters Patent a see, and Dr. Charles Inglis, 
 Rector of Trinity Church, New York, who had been 
 obliged to fly to England during the war, was appointed 
 Bishop of Nova Scotia, and on the 12th August he was 
 consecrated by Archbishop Moore at Lambeth Chapel, 
 the assisting prelates being the Bishops of Rochester 
 and Chester, and the preacher White, the Laudian Pro- 
 fessor of Arabic at Oxford .^ 
 
 There is little or nothing on ecclesiastical or religious 
 matters in Moore's correspondence with his brother-in- 
 law. , The letters are those of one public servant of the 
 State to another, full of keen comments on passing 
 events, and the conduct of Ministers ; for his brother-in- 
 law especially when he is away on a foreign mission the 
 archbishop always holds a brief. 
 
 His incidental comments, however, on such events as 
 Warren Hastings' trial are interesting. He writes before 
 the trial had begun on 22nd May 1787 : 
 
 " It was a melancholy sight yesterday to see Hastings 
 at the Bar. The general appearance in a very full 
 House was that of a man very indifferent and uncon- 
 cerned about what was going on, and his appearance 
 was proper, neither daunted nor insolent."* 
 
 Moore earned a good word, and it must be counted 
 to his credit, from William Wilberforce. That great 
 
 ' Gentleman's Magazine, 1787, pp. 735-830. 
 » Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 34424, f . 460. 
 
i8o5] THE SLAVE TRADE 369 
 
 philanthropist was endeavouring in 1787 to get a Royal 
 Proclamation against Vice and Immoralities issued, and 
 to form a Society in London for the further execution 
 of the laws against these things. Wilberforce writes 
 to one of his sympathisers in the North on the 29th May 
 1787 : " It would give you no little pleasure could you 
 hear how warmly the Archbishop of Canterbury ex- 
 presses himself ; the interest he takes in the good work 
 does him great credit, and he assures me that one still 
 greater to whom he has opened the subject in form," 
 approves the plan.^ 
 
 Moore's attitude on the Slave Trade, which began to 
 be a burning question early in his Primacy, is disappoint- 
 ing, and seems to point to his being dominated by a 
 dread of change even when it meant the abolition of a 
 tremendous evil. 1788 was an important year in the 
 development of the Abolition movement. In February 
 Wilberforce gave notice of his intention to move the 
 House on the subject, and Pitt set up a Privy Council 
 Committee of Inquiry on it. In May, in Wilberforce 's 
 absence through illness, Pitt moved that the House would 
 next session take the whole question into consideration. 
 On this occasion Sir Wm. Dolben called attention to the 
 horrible sufferings of the slaves on their passage from 
 Africa to the West Indies. He said that each morning 
 the overseers had to unchain the carcases of those who 
 had died from their sufferings from the bodies of their 
 fellow-sufferers to whom they had been fastened. Such 
 an impression was made on the House that very shortly 
 afterwards Dolben introduced a Bill to regulate the 
 transit of slaves from Africa to the West Indies. It 
 required the numbers to be limited, surgeons to keep 
 accounts, and captains to take sanitary precautions. 
 Pitt supported the Bill, and it became law. Moore com- 
 ments on it to Auckland, and contents himself with 
 saying, " It is a cursed trade, but too deeply rooted to be 
 forcibly and at once eradicated." In 1789 Wilberforce 
 * Lije of Wilberforce, i. 130. 
 
370 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 moved his celebrated twelve Resolutions touching the 
 whole slave traffic. 
 
 The proposal to repeal the Test and Corporation 
 Act was brought forward again in the session of 1 789 ; 
 but the French Revolution had frightened people, and 
 postponed the granting of this as of so many other 
 reforms for about thirty years, the proposal of 1789 being 
 lost by 122 to 102.^ 
 
 In May 1789 Lord Stanhope tried to introduce a 
 Bill to relieve members of the Church of England from 
 old ecclesiastical penalties ; he sought to abolish the 
 laws imposing penalties on not going to church, on not 
 fasting, on excommunication, and also to abolish penalties 
 under the canons of the Church. On the second reading 
 Moore spoke and saw great danger in the repeal of the 
 statutes imposing penalties for not going to church and 
 in allowing free discussion of religious matters. Though 
 some statutes wanted repealing, he objected to this 
 Bill going any further, and it was lost ; Lord Stanhope 
 observing in reply " that if the right reverend bench 
 would not let him load away their rubbish by cartloads 
 he would endeavour to carry it off in wheel-barrows ! " 
 
 Of the kind we have noted are Moore's comments 
 about the King's health on his first attack of mental 
 disturbance in the winter of 1788-89. The dislocation 
 of public affairs caused by the King's temporary in- 
 capacity was made all the more acute by the tension 
 which existed between the Prince of Wales, afterwards 
 George iv., and his father. Fox, of course, was the 
 Prince's friend. If the King was non compos there 
 must be a Regent : that must be the heir to the throne, 
 as if the King were dead : should such Regent have the 
 full powers of the Crown, or what restrictions should 
 be placed on them ? All these were points on which 
 Ministers and Parliament had to adjudicate, and the 
 fact of there being a King's party and a Prince's party 
 made the adjudication more painful. Even when the 
 
 ' Pari. Hist., xxviii. i. 
 
i8os] ILLNESS OF GEORGE III 371 
 
 poor monarch was examined by physicians, there was 
 Warren representing the Opposition, and Francis WilHs 
 representing the Government. 
 
 Fortunately George iii.'s recovery in January 1789 
 from his first attack of illness got rid of a very difficult 
 situation. 
 
 It was in the preceding November and December that 
 the King was worst — feverish, deranged, sick in body 
 and mind. There is a letter in the Egerton MSS in the 
 British Museum from the archbishop, dated the 8th 
 November 1788, in which he says : " My anxieties are 
 very great indeed, and every moment increasing from 
 the distance I am at from the subject which engrosses 
 my whole heart and from the doubt I feel about the 
 propriety of my attending in person at Windsor. I am 
 led by every principle of attachment and respectful 
 affection, as well as by that duty which peculiarly be- 
 longs to my situation, to make a humble offer of my 
 personal attendance and services in any possible situa- 
 tion in which they may be acceptable." He speaks of 
 his " fear of increasing public alarm." ^ 
 
 On the 29th January 1789, Moore writes : 
 
 " Dr. Willis insists that the symptoms of the malady 
 are become much more favourable than at his former 
 examination, that the time when a recovery may be ex- 
 pected no mortal man can say, but that the patient 
 will completely recover he has in consequence of his 
 experience and observations the strongest ground of 
 hope — ^that he reads with attention and diligence and 
 converses with more of both than he could a few 
 months ago." 
 
 In the course of February the archbishop reports : 
 
 " I saw Mr. Pitt while I was out. He was just come 
 from Kew, and brought from thence everything that can 
 encourage hope. 
 
 " The King walks with the Queen daily, converses 
 and lives much with her and the princesses : has seen 
 
 1 Egerton MSS, Brit. Mus., 2182, f. 58. 
 
372 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 others of ordinary rank, and some of higher, and all 
 this with perfect calmness, moderation, and accurate 
 recollection." 
 
 Some of our readers may like to be reminded that 
 Dr. Francis Willis who had the chief charge of the 
 King was a clergyman, not a doctor at all. He was 
 Rector of Wapping, and during twenty-eight years kept 
 an asylum for insane persons in Lincolnshire. His two 
 sons, one of whom. Dr. John Willis, was by profession a 
 physician, were associated with him in charge of the 
 royal patient, but the father was in chief charge. He 
 had very successfully treated the mother of the wife 
 of one of the equerries. General, afterwards Earl, 
 Harcourt, and she brought forward his name. Willis 
 was all for a kind treatment of the case, no " pretences, 
 vexations, or unnecessary restraints." ^ The King had 
 been denied a razor at his toilet, and a knive and fork 
 at his table. Willis at once restored them, and with 
 the best results. 
 
 In May 1791 Moore found himself able to support 
 both by his voice and by his vote the measure which 
 Sir John Mitford, afterwards the first Lord Redesdale, 
 introduced to remit certain penalties to which Roman 
 Catholics were exposed. Both Pitt and Fox supported 
 the measure. The penalties were so many that the 
 mere enumeration of them in Burns ' Ecclesiastical Law 
 took up seventy pages. Mitford proposed by his Bill 
 not to enable a Roman Catholic to sit in Parliament or to 
 fill any office from which he was then excluded, but 
 that such of them as took an oath in the form provided 
 by the Bill should be exempted from the severe penalties 
 which a series of statutes imposed . The Bill passed the 
 Commons unanimously. In the Lords Moore cautiously 
 approved the Bill in its general principle, though he 
 did not wish to " destroy wholesome regulations re- 
 specting the Protestant Religion." Old Thurlow, the 
 » stanhope's Life of Pitt, ii. 2. 
 
i8os] TITHE COMMUTATION 373 
 
 grim Chancellor, happened to be away ill that day, and 
 the Bill got through. 
 
 In 1 791 Moore was the recipient of a letter from Pitt, 
 proposing a scheme for the Commutation of Tithes. 
 The subject is a technical one, and for the benefit of 
 our readers who are neither landowners, farmers, nor 
 lawyers we add a note of explanation. Tithes repre- 
 sented the one-tenth of the produce of the soil which 
 the Mosaic Law devoted to the service of God. This 
 involved an agreement between the landowner and the 
 titheowner what the land had produced and what was 
 the value of such produce. Two difficult questions these 
 on which quarrelling was easy. So even in early days 
 the tithe was very commonly " commuted " or ex- 
 changed for a money payment either fixed or readily 
 capable of being fixed. It was not t^l 1836 that an Act 
 of Parliament substituted for the tithes in kind a rent- 
 charge, the amount of which was determined by a 
 seven years' average of the wheat, barley, and oats pro- 
 duced. 
 
 Pitt 's letter ran : 
 
 " December 16, 1791. 
 " My Lord, — I took the liberty of mentioning to 
 your Grace not long since that some suggestions had 
 been brought under my view respecting a General Com- 
 mutation of Tithes for a corn rent conformably to a 
 plan which was adopted in the instance of two or three 
 parishes by separate Enclosure Bills in the course of 
 the last Session. A paper has been drawn up at my 
 desire stating shortly the principal considerations 
 which seem to arise out of this proposal, and accord- 
 ing to your Grace's permission I have the honour of 
 enclosing it."^ 
 
 After reserving his final opinion on the merits of 
 the new plan, Pitt goes on that the whole subject seems 
 of the most serious importance, and " there are appear- 
 ances which but too strongly indicate that it is likely 
 > stanhope's Life of Pitt, ii. 131. 
 
374 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 to be agitated in different parts of the country." He 
 invites the early attention of those who wish well to the 
 Establishment to the proposal, and concludes : " Poss- 
 ibly, as the Archbishop of York is now at Bath, your 
 Grace may have an opportunity of conversing with him 
 and showing him the papers which I should be very 
 desirous of his seeing. — I have the honour, etc., 
 
 " W. Pitt." 
 Lord Stanhope says : 
 
 " I do not find the archbishop's reply among Mr. 
 Pitt's papers. Since, however, the measure in question 
 was no further pursued, it is plain that the answer must 
 have been discouraging. All friends of the Church will, 
 I think, join in lamenting the error of judgment that 
 was here committed. Why should the general Com- 
 mutation of Tithes — a measure accomplished with such 
 general assent aad such excellent result some forty 
 years later— have been without necessity and through 
 many scenes of strife laid aside when a public-spirited 
 Minister proposed it? " 
 
 On 8th April 179S, Moore married the future 
 George iv. to the unfortunate Caroline of Brunswick. 
 He thus describes the ceremony. The evidence by 
 which the archbishop satisfied himself that the bride- 
 groom had not previously married Mrs. Fitzherbert 
 seems to us weak. He says : 
 
 " The crowd at St. James' last night was immense 
 and the heat intolerable. I felt my business a very 
 solemn one indeed, and never said my prayers in my 
 life under more impression and fervency. The Prince's 
 mind was certainly and very seriously affected both in 
 the service and after the service, but not in that part of 
 the service from which one might be led to fear he had 
 upon his mind a feeling that he had before bound him- 
 self by solemn engagements. There I saw no embar- 
 rassment."^ 
 
 fit was natural that Archbishop Moore should be 
 much interested in the suggested marriage — for matters 
 
 1 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 34453, f. 230. 
 
JOHiNf Moore 
 
 (From the Painting by Gkorge Romnky) 
 
 \ro/ai 
 
1 80S] PITT AND MISS EDEN 375 
 
 at one time almost reached that point — between Pitt 
 and Miss Eleanor Eden, Lord Auckland's eldest daughter. 
 Pitt at Holwood was a near neighbour of the Aucklands 
 at Beckenham. Miss Eden was beautiful and of superior 
 mental qualities. At the end of 1796 Pitt was in love, 
 but he was pecuniarily embarrassed and not in a 
 position to make an adequate provision for a wife. So 
 the matter came to nothing, and not unnaturally a 
 slight estrangement followed between the Prime 
 Minister and Lord Auckland and his family. The 
 archbishop regretted this, and on the 17th February 
 1797 wrote to Lord Auckland : 
 
 " I am not easy at the separation which prevails 
 at present, and which may too probably continue to 
 prevail if not speedily put an end to by increasing 
 reluctance on each side to take the first step. I de- 
 precate this particularly on account of the very critical 
 state of public affairs which makes it, to my feelings, of 
 importance to the country that such a separation should 
 be immediately put an end to. And besides that 
 consideration I am persuaded that it will be a relief to 
 both your minds to meet, though the first moment will 
 be unpleasant. . . . You wait for him to begin : I 
 think he can't do it : he does not know what he is to 
 expect in the meeting. I think after what the Speaker^ 
 said it may be easily and naturally set right in 
 that medium without any step on your part unfit for 
 you to take or that your feelings ought to revolt at. 
 I think what the Speaker said of your talking together 
 some morning was in its intention a proposal, and its 
 effect rests with you. He is a right-minded and honour- 
 able man. ... I feel what I am saying is a duty to 
 the country and to the individuals concerned in whose 
 happiness I am also heartily interested." ^ 
 
 1800 was a year of great anxiety and distress. 
 War with France, anxiety about Ireland, Habeas 
 Corpus again and again suspended, a bad harvest, riots, 
 great distress. 
 
 1 Mr. Addington knew the secret of Mr. Pitt's attachment. 
 
 2 Addl. MSS, Brit. Mus., 34454, i. 112. 
 
 25 
 
376 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 On the 20th February 1800, Moore proposed in the 
 House of Lords an agreement to be signed voluntarily 
 with the object of relieving the prevalent want. After 
 referring to the scarcity of corn and the inconveniences 
 and distress of the lower orders, he said " that he did 
 not recommend direct legislative interference." He 
 proposed an agreement by which the signatories should 
 bind themselves not to consume or permit to be con- 
 sumed in any week within their respective families 
 more wheaten bread than in the proportion of one 
 quartern loaf for each individual, and to discontinue 
 within their families all pastry. This agreement 
 was carried in the form of a Resolution and ordered 
 to be laid on the table for signature by any 
 lord. 
 
 Moore became more and more opposed to change as 
 old age came on. His views generally fell in with those 
 of his distinguished brother-in-law, Lord Auckland ; 
 and while the latter was a colleague and supporter of 
 Pitt, the archbishop supported Pitt. But there is no 
 doubt that he interfered at the end of 1800 to stimulate 
 and strengthen George iii.'s opposition to Catholic Eman- 
 cipation. Though there was no engagement that the 
 Union of Great Britain with Ireland passed in 1800 
 should be followed by Emancipation of the Roman 
 Catholics, there was an understanding to this effect, and 
 Pitt wished it. George iii. had, of course, an insuperable 
 objection to any such measure. Through the autumn of 
 1800 the Chancellor, Lord Loughborough, was staying 
 with the King at Weymouth and, disloyally to Pitt and 
 his colleagues in the Cabinet, was bolstering up the 
 monarch's obstinate opposition to Catholic Relief. Lord 
 Auckland seems to have worked with the Chancellor. 
 Perhaps he called in his brother-in-law's help. Lord 
 Stanhope says : " Certain it is that in the course of 
 this autumn the archbishop received from some quarter 
 a private hint that a Roman Catholic Relief Bill was 
 in contemplation, and addressed a letter to the King 
 
i8os] MOORE'S CHARACTER 377 
 
 at Weymouth strongly deprecating any such design."^ 
 Backed up by his Primate, George in . grew more obstinate 
 than ever, and on the 5th February 1801 Pitt's splendid 
 administration of more than seventeen years came to 
 an end .2 Lord Stanhope's reflections on the great 
 benefits that would have accrued to the nation if Catho- 
 lic Emancipation had been allowed to pass in 1801, and 
 not been postponed till 1 829, will now command almost 
 general assent. Our point is to record that in 1801 
 our archbishop intervened, and not with a statesman- 
 ship marked by any great wisdom. 
 
 Moore died on the i8th January 1805, in his seventy- 
 fourth year ; and, like so many of his recent predecessors, 
 was buried at Lambeth, the funeral being conducted 
 with great solemnity, with a long procession of archi- 
 episcopal domestics, male and female, and the con- 
 course of a large crowd. Moore had had friends among 
 the Royal Family, and Royalty was represented by the 
 Duke of Cambridge. 
 
 His biographer says of Moore that while archbishop 
 he " avoided all other activity but that of Christian 
 piety and spiritual duty. He scarcely took any part 
 in political disputes ; neither did he adopt any steps 
 to inflame the minds of the Dissenters on the one hand, 
 nor to alarm the friends of Orthodoxy on the other." 
 
 He only printed two sermons : one preached before 
 the Lords in 1 771, and the other on the Fast Day in 1781. 
 
 Moore was well spoken of by the great Bishop Beilby 
 Porteous of London. Writing to Bishop Percy of 
 Carlisle on 23rd January 1805, he says : " If you was at 
 all acquainted with Archbishop Moore, who was a very 
 amiable and worthy man, you would be concerned to 
 hear of his death. No successor is yet appointed, but 
 it will probably be either the Bishop of Lincoln or the 
 Bishop of Norwich."^ 
 
 Moore was twice married. Plis first wife was the 
 
 1 Life of Pitt, iii. 267. * Ibid., iii. 281. 
 
 ' Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, viii. 379. 
 
378 JOHN MOORE [1783- 
 
 sister of Sir James Wright, Chief Justice of S. Carolina, 
 and afterwards resident at Venice. His second wife 
 was the sister of Sir Wm. Eden and Lord Auckland, 
 and, we are told, a very celebrated beauty. Two of his 
 daughters died of consumption : he left five sons, for 
 most of whom — according to the ideas then and for 
 many decades afterwards prevalent — he provided, by 
 means of posts at his disposal as archbishop. Three of 
 his sons, George, Charles, and Robert, were Joint-Re- 
 gistrars of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. George 
 was Rector of Wrotham ; Robert, Rector of Latchingdon, 
 Essex. Two other sons, John and William, were Joint- 
 Registrars of the Vicar-General's Office. One of his sons 
 died in 1865. Mr. Hore, in his History of the Church 
 of England^ says that he held two sinecure rectories. 
 He was Rector of Hunton, Rector of Eynesford, Rector 
 of Latchinford, Canon of Canterbury, and Registrar 
 in the Will Office in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. 
 
 The greatest amount of the Archiepiscopal Revenue 
 in any one year during Moore's tenure of office is stated 
 to have been £13,000, the average £11,000. The first- 
 fruits to the Crown and fees of office payable by Moore's 
 successor are said to have amounted to £ 1 2 ,000 . His son, 
 who died in 1865, is said to have received from the 
 Church in all £753,647 and his average income to have 
 been not less than £12,000. 
 
 Even granting that £13,000 in 1800 was in income 
 the equivalent of £25,000 nowadays, the archbishops of 
 the eighteenth century were great potentates, if not 
 princes. A coach and six horses, a private State barge 
 on the Thames, with its liveried crew, properly belonged 
 to such a dignitary. His hospitalities were on almost 
 a royal scale, ordinary as well as private. Much that St. 
 Paul would have enforced on a bishop may have become 
 blurred, but not the apostolical hospitality. There is a 
 note in the Library at Lambeth that in the olden days 
 when the presentations at Court numbered only 400, 
 
i8os] DINNERS AT LAMBETH 379 
 
 any gentleman who had been presented at Court could 
 come wearing full Court dress on Tuesdays, put their 
 names down before 11 a.m., and dine at Lambeth 
 Palace. In Archbishop Howley's time, when the number 
 of presentations had so largely increased as to make 
 this privilege impossible, it was given up. 
 
 Not much of Moore's work is left at Lambeth. Allen 
 says ^ to the Great Gallery he added a bow window. 
 
 1 AUen, 185. 
 
CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON 
 
 1 805-1 828 
 
 In Moore's successor, Manners Sutton, we revert to the 
 aristocratic type of Primate, of which Cornwallis, 
 Moore's predecessor, had been a specimen. Though he 
 had married a wife of very good family, Moore himself 
 was, as we have said, of humble birth. In the line of 
 archbishops he is flanked on either side by one born 
 in the nobility. 
 
 Manners Sutton, as we shall detail later on, seems 
 to have owed his appointment to Canterbury entirely 
 to the personal liking of George in. for him, and, as 
 we shall tell, also for his wife. The two men had 
 much in common, and on questions of policy, such as 
 Catholic Emancipation, Sutton's views were entirely 
 his monarch's. Like Moore, Sutton held the Primacy 
 for nearly a quarter of a century. In home affairs it 
 was a period — at least in the early part of it — of marking 
 time, if not of absolutely standing still. The great 
 lawyer, John Lord Eldon, a great favourite of George iii. 
 — -when he pulled the Great Seal out of his inner coat 
 pocket and gave it to Eldon, he told him he gave it 
 him from his heart, and it was true — was chief Home 
 Minister, and disliked change of every kind, and he 
 had the memory of the French Revolution, which had 
 thoroughly frightened the average Briton, to back him. 
 To every suggestion of reform or improvement two 
 arguments were put forward : (i) In the British con- 
 stitution and in the British laws and customs as now 
 existing Providence has given you the best machine 
 
 for producing general happiness that the world has 
 
 380 
 
i8os-i828] EARLY MARRIAGE 381 
 
 seen : there is a risk in changing any part of it. (2) If 
 you concede this reform for which there is much to 
 be said, where are you going to stop ? 
 
 There are intelligent persons who think that in 
 these reasonings both premises and conclusions are 
 open to question in every part ; but there are other 
 persons, as or perhaps even more intelligent, who in 
 the twentieth century use the same arguments in 
 slightly different dress. 
 
 Charles Manners Sutton was born on the 14th 
 February 1755. He was the fourth son of Lord George 
 Manners Sutton, the third son of the third Duke of 
 Rutland. His mother was Diana, daughter of Thomas 
 Chaplin, Esq., of Blankney, Lincolnshire. The arch- 
 bishop was one of a family of twelve, seven sons and 
 five daughters, of whom one son and one daughter 
 died young. The sixth of the seven sons. Lord Manners, 
 became Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The third son 
 was blown up in H.M.'s ship Ardent in 1754. 
 
 Charles Manners Sutton and his younger brother. 
 Lord Manners, were both educated at Charterhouse, 
 and both went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. 
 Both brothers took their degree in 1777, the younger 
 brother in honours outstripping the elder, being fifth 
 wrangler, while the future archbishop was only fifteenth. 
 
 The archbishop was a believer in early marriages. 
 The year after taking his degree, when he was only 
 twenty-three, he married Mary, daughter of Thomas 
 Thoroton of Sonviton in Nottinghamshire. The lady 
 was his kinswoman, and there is ground for thinking 
 the young pair ran away. The following anecdote 
 is in Lord Eldon's anecdote book, and was told 
 by him. On one occasion, says he, I and the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury (Sutton) and many other 
 lords were with George 11 1. when His Majesty ex- 
 claimed, " I dare say I am the first king whose Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury and whose Chancellor had both 
 run away with their wives. Was it not so, Chancellor ? " 
 
382 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 " May it please Your Majesty, will you ask the arch- 
 bishop that question first?" answered I. It turned 
 the laugh to my side, for all the lords were beginning 
 to titter. If this story be well founded — and certainly 
 John Scott ran away with Bessie Surtees — Sutton's was 
 a runaway match. She seems to have made him an 
 excellent wife ; and Sutton, in this respect rivalling, if 
 not outstripping his own father, had by her three sons 
 and ten daughters. 
 
 He proceeded M.A. in 1780, and was ordained priest 
 and deacon by Markham, who was afterwards Archbishop 
 of York during three of the years that Manners Sutton was 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. Markham had an excellent 
 reputation as a scholar at Oxford, but while archbishop 
 put forward some Divine right opinion in a sermon. 
 This gave rise to severe comment, the elder Pitt being 
 especially critical of the archbishop's utterances. In a 
 speech made after the news of the English disasters in 
 America in the War of Independence had reached 
 England, Chatham went so far as to blame Markham for 
 the false sentiments which were so widely held as to 
 England's duty to her American colonists. Markham, 
 who professed himself no orator, but like Manners 
 Sutton was of commanding physical presence, hinted 
 that, though archbishop, he might be driven to resent 
 by outward action some insults that might be levelled 
 at him. He seems, however, to have confined his 
 vengeance to voting with three other peers a few 
 years later against a public funeral being given to 
 Chatham . 
 
 In 1785 Sutton succeeded another Sutton in the 
 family livings, the Rectory of Averham with Kelham, 
 where the family seat was situate in Nottinghamshire, 
 and Whitwell in Derbyshire, his brother being the 
 patron of the former and the Duke of Rutland of the 
 latter. 
 
 In 1 79 1 he was appointed Dean of Peterborough, 
 and in the following year he was raised to the Episcopal 
 
1 828] POPULAR AT NORWICH 383 
 
 Bench on the death of the excellent Bishop Home, 
 being made Bishop of Norwich. 
 
 The revenue of the See of Norwich was small, and it 
 was reckoned an expensive see. In 1794 the patrons 
 and friends of Manners Sutton obtained the Deanery 
 of Windsor for him in commendam. Notwithstanding, 
 Sutton, while at Norwich, got into debt. Of the three 
 causes to which his biographer in the Gentleman's 
 Magazine attributes this condition, the first two are 
 innocent if not creditable, viz. " the diocesan's dis- 
 position " and " the claims of a numerous family." 
 The third is more questionable, " the habits of high 
 life." The biographer naively adds that these embar- 
 rassments " must have been painful to one who knew 
 that it was the duty of a Christian, and much more of 
 a Christian bishop , ' to owe no man anything ' ; and 
 on his subsequent promotion to Canterbury he adopted 
 with a becoming energy of character a system which 
 enabled him to discharge all his incumbrances." 
 
 While still Bishop of Norwich, Manners Sutton seems 
 to have attained popularity as a bishop. Mathias, 
 publishing his satirical poem " Pursuits of Literature," 
 in 1797, says, " Sutton ceased to claim the public love," 
 and in a note says : " The Right Rev. Charles Manners 
 Sutton, Bishop of Norwich, a prelate whose amiable 
 demeanour, useful learning, and conciliating habits of 
 life particularly recommend his episcopal character. 
 No man appears to me so peculiarly marked out for the 
 highest dignity of the Church sede vacante,as Dr. Sutton." 
 
 While at Norwich, Manners Sutton made his only 
 appearance in print. He preached at Westminster 
 Abbey before the Houses of Parliament on the Fast Day, 
 1 794, which was held to mourn over the horrors of the 
 French Revolution as well as the successes of the French 
 army, and he preached before the Societyfor the Propaga- 
 tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in 1 79 7 . Usage required 
 each of these sermons to be printed and published. 
 
 In 1797 he contributed to the Transactions of the 
 
384 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 Linncean Society, vol. iv. p. 173, " A Description of Five 
 British Species of Orabanche." In his work on Bishop 
 Blomfield and his Times, the late Dr. Biber alludes some- 
 what sneeringly to the fact of an archbishop printing 
 little or nothing but a treatise on an obscure kind of 
 plant ; but if his duties were not thereby neglected, is it 
 a disgrace to a clergyman, even of archiepiscopal rank, 
 to be a competent botanist ? 
 
 Planted at the Deanery at Windsor, Sutton was 
 close to his royal master ; and, if they were not so before, 
 they soon became fast friends. As we have said, there 
 was much about Sutton to please and attract George iii. 
 Sutton was a gentleman, and a pleasant one ; he was of 
 good reputation, without enough genius or learning to 
 make him angular or unpleasant, and a stout supporter 
 of things as they were. He was of fine dignified appear- 
 ance, and when he was Archbishop of Canterbury and 
 Markham of York, it was remarked that the two arch- 
 bishops were at the same time the most exalted and the 
 tallest prelates of the Church of England. It is even 
 possible that the steady replenishment of the nursery of 
 his neighbour at the Deanery by the periodical arrival of 
 little daughters may have interested the domestically 
 minded King, who was himself the father of a very large 
 family, and no Malthusian ; and may have pointed to the 
 advantages of an increase in the happy father's income. 
 The presence of the large family in the royal mind 
 seems shown by the conversation with Pitt detailed below, 
 and that George iii. showed interest in his archbishop's 
 numerous progeny is told by another of Lord Eldon's 
 anecdotes, in which he relates that the King, speaking to 
 Sutton of his large family, used the expression, " I 
 believe your Grace has better than a dozen. "No, 
 sir," replied the archbishop, " only eleven." " Well," 
 replied the King, " is not that better than a dozen ? " 
 
 Archbishop Moore's long illness ended in his death in 
 January 1805. Of 1805 it is sufficient to say that it was 
 the year of Trafalgar, which was fought on the 21st 
 
1 828] PRETYMAN 385 
 
 October. All through the early part of the year Napoleon 
 was collecting his armies at Boulogne and threatening 
 the invasion of England, while in England some three 
 hundred thousand volunteers had been driUing for home 
 defence. Pitt, the saviour of England, if not of Europe, 
 was for the second and last time Prime Minister. He had 
 the highest opinion of Bishop Pretyman, who had been 
 his tutor at Cambridge. Pretyman was a first-rate 
 mathematician, and a high wrangler. From his Cam- 
 bridge days to the very end of his life, Pitt main- 
 tained an intimate friendship with his old tutor. They 
 corresponded by letter frequently. On his ecclesiastical 
 appointments Pitt consulted Pretyman, and used and 
 valued his help in the framing of the Government's 
 financial measures . He had been made Bishop of Lincoln 
 by Pitt in 1787, and in 1803 had taken the name of 
 Tomline on acquiring valuable estates from an old gentle- 
 man whose acquaintance he made on a casual visit during 
 an episcopal progress. The bishop's tender solicitude 
 for his distinguished pupil extended to ministering to 
 him on his death-bed . As was stated by Bishop Porteous 
 in the letter we have quoted, many thought that he would 
 be Moore's successor in the Primacy. There is no doubt 
 that Pitt wished it . There is equally no doubt the King 
 wanted the Bishop of Norwich to be advanced . Before 
 Moore's death we find Lord Henley on the 7th December 
 1804 writing out to Lord Auckland at Calcutta: "Lady 
 H . . . gives a good account of the archbishop. I 
 understand that His Majesty is desirous should he die 
 that Sutton should succeed him, but that Mr. Pitt insists 
 on it being Lincoln, and that the question has been in 
 debate between them." 
 
 According to a letter in the Croker MSS cited by Mr. 
 Jesse in his Memoirs of George ///., the actual appoint- 
 ment of Sutton to Canterbury was made as follows : 
 
 The King received a message from Pitt that Arch- 
 bishop Moore was dead, and that he would wait upon 
 His Majesty next morning. The King suspecting the 
 
386 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 cause, ordered his horse and rode over to Bishop Sutton, 
 then residing at Windsor. He found he was at dinner 
 with some friends, and sent in the servant to say a 
 gentleman wished to speak to him. The bishop said 
 immediately he could not go ; but something in the 
 servant's manner made him change his determination. 
 When he came out he found the King standing in a little 
 dressing-room near the hall door. The King took him by 
 both hands. " My Lord Archbishop of Canterbury," 
 he said, " I wish you joy. Not a word ; go back to your 
 guests." On Pitt's arrival the next day the King said 
 to him he was sure he would be glad to have an oppor- 
 tunity of providing for a most deserving friend and 
 relative. " A friend indeed," replied Pitt, " but your 
 Majesty is mistaken as to there being any relationship." 
 The King not minding him talked on, and then said," It 
 is such a good thing for his twelve children." This was 
 quite too much for the Premier ; and he said, " Bishop 
 Pretyman I am certainly most anxious to promote ; 
 but he is not any relation, nor has he such a family." 
 " Oho ! oho ! " said the King, " it is not Pretyman 
 whom I mean, but Sutton." " I should hope," said Pitt, 
 " that the talents and literary eminence ..." "It 
 can't be — it can't be ; I have already wished Sutton 
 joy, and he must go to Canterbury." Pitt, it seems, 
 was exceedingly angry at having been over-reached by 
 the King. Lord Sidmouth told Dean Milman that he 
 believed such strong language had rarely ever passed 
 between a Sovereign and his Minister. 
 
 There is another account in a royal letter from Pitt, 
 undated, but probably written in December 1804 : 
 
 "Mr. Pitt took the liberty of stating to yr Majesty, 
 when he had last the honour of attending yr Majesty 
 at Windsor, his anxious wish with a view to the ex- 
 pected vacancy of the archbishopric, to be allowed to 
 recommend the Bishop of Lincoln as the fittest person 
 to succeed to that most important station. As there 
 continues to be great reason to suppose that the vacancy 
 
1 828] PITT OUT-WITTED 387 
 
 will speedily take place, he requests yr Majesty's in- 
 dulgence shortly to state the grounds on which that 
 wish is founded. In doing so he hopes he shall not 
 be misunderstood as wishing in the slightest degree to 
 disparage the qualifications of the Bishop of Norwich, 
 for whom he entertains a very high regard and a sincere 
 friendship ; and whom he considers to be highly worthy 
 of any mark of yr Majesty's favour and approbation." 
 
 The letter then goes on to enumerate Pretyman's 
 merits during his nearly twenty years' tenure of the See 
 of Lincoln, and also dwells on the close and uninterrupted 
 friendship which has subsisted between the Bishop of 
 Lincoln and Pitt himself for above thirty years . In the 
 final draft of the letter which is still in existence the 
 word " uninterrupted " is substituted for " intimate." 
 
 Pretyman was Dean of St. Paul's as well as Bishop 
 of Lincoln, and the anxious minister closes his letter 
 with a bait to his royal master or rather to his friend. 
 " Should your Majesty," he winds up, " be pleased to 
 accede to his earnest request, the Deanery of St. Paul's 
 (which he understands to be now worth between three 
 and four thousand pounds per annum) would, if your 
 Majesty approves of it, furnish the means of placing 
 the Bishop of Norwich in a very advantageous situation." 
 
 Perhaps Pitt did not realise that this latter course 
 might have meant the monarch losing a congenial neigh- 
 bour without adequate advantage to that neighbour. 
 
 However true or untrue Jesse's story may be in its 
 details, George iii. undoubtedly stuck to his friend, and 
 Pitt was seriously annoyed. 
 
 He writes to the King on 22nd January 1805, after 
 Moore's death, a letter on which from the numerous 
 corrections and alterations in the draft in his own 
 handwriting he seems to have bestowed much care : 
 
 " Downing Street, 
 
 January 22, 1805. 
 "It is with great reluctance that Mr. Pitt at any 
 time reverts to any proposal which does not appear to 
 
388 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 meet your Majesty's wishes, but he considers it on 
 every account his duty not to disguise from yr Majesty 
 how deeply his feehngs are wounded and his hopes of 
 contributing to your Majesty's service impaired by 
 your Majesty's apparent disregard of his recommenda- 
 tion of the Bishop of Lincoln to succeed to the Arch- 
 bishopric of Canterbury. He entreats yr Majesty 
 humbly to reflect that such a recommendation appears 
 uniformly to have been graciously accepted for a long 
 course of time in every instance but that of the nomina- 
 tion of the last archbishop which, he says, took 
 place in the interval between the resignation of one 
 administration and the appointment of another. The 
 King's refusal to comply with his request can hardly 
 be understood by himself, and will certainly not be 
 understood by the public in any other hght than as a 
 decisive mark of your Majesty's not honouring him with 
 that degree of confidence which his predecessors have 
 enjoyed." 
 
 The letter winds up : 
 
 "Mr. Pitt still flatters himself that when yr Majesty 
 is fully aware of these considerations it cannot be 
 your Majesty's intention to reduce him to so mortify- 
 ing a condition. The sense of what he feels due to 
 your Majesty's service and to himself, has made him 
 anxious to submit this representation previous to his 
 having the honour to attend your Majesty at the 
 Queen's House to-morrow." 
 
 We do not know how things went at the Queen's 
 House meeting of King and Minister, but George iii. 
 answered Pitt's letter at once. Lord Ashbourne calls 
 the answer " polite but not very encouraging." Per- 
 haps his mother's advice to George iii. when he came 
 to the throne, " Be a King, George, be a King," had 
 sunk deep. 
 
 The royal letter ran : 
 
 {Private.) 
 
 "Windsor Castle, January 23, 1805. 
 " The King is ever hurt when he cannot bring 
 himself to concur with Mr. Pitt in any matter which 
 
1 828] ADDINGTON BOUGHT 389 
 
 Mr. Pitt seems to have at heart ; this he feels strongly 
 on the present occasion, and has therefore continued 
 silent on the vacancy of the Archbishopric of Canter- 
 bury ; indeed, it is but this morning that Lord Auckland 
 is to deliver up the Seal of the late possessor, therefore 
 it would scarcely have been proper to have taken any 
 steps towards filling up the vacancy sooner. The King 
 will certainly this day at the Queen's House hear what- 
 ever Mr. Pitt chooses to say on the subject ; but His 
 Majesty by no means can view the Archbishopric in the 
 light of a common Bishopric. It is the person on the 
 bench on whom he must most depend, and of whose 
 dignity of behaviour, good temper, as well as talents 
 and learning he feels best satisfied ; the Archbishop as 
 well as the King are for life. 
 
 " George R." 
 
 This letter appears to have been sent on to Prety- 
 man, for it is in an envelope addressed " Private. To 
 the Bishop of Lincoln. W. Pitt." 
 
 It is pleasant to learn that the Bishop of Lincoln 
 took the matter quite calmly. He was blessed with 
 an excellent, clever, and devoted wife, and it appears, 
 says Lord Ashbourne, that she had no desire for the 
 change. 
 
 Soon after Manners Sutton's elevation to the Primacy, 
 matters began to move with regard to the acquisition of 
 a new country palace for the see, in substitution for 
 the old palace at Croydon. The site at Park Hill had 
 not turned out well ; and during Moore's archiepiscopate 
 for some reason or other the matter had slumbered ; but 
 soon after Sutton's appointment Addington Manor, about 
 three miles from Croydon, was suggested as a suitable 
 property to form the archiepiscopal country home. 
 The authorities were favourable . In 1 807 the property 
 was purchased from William Cole, Esq., and in April 
 1808, the Chancellor gave his consent. Addington 
 Manor lies east-south-east of Croydon, about fourteen 
 miles from London. From Croydon it forms a pleasant 
 walk for a Londoner. Some high open land known 
 as Addington Hills is passed on the way. The property 
 
390 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 itself has a ma^ision house built by Alderman Trecothick 
 in 1772, and about 1200 acres of land. The park is 
 undulating and pretty : there are fine walled kitchen 
 and fruit gardens sloping to the west, and generally the 
 place has the air of a nobleman's country-seat of a 
 pleasant and attractive kind . Archbishop Howley was 
 very fond of it, greatly improved the park, and added 
 chapel, library, and other rooms. Readers of Arch- 
 bishop Tait's Life will remember how large periods in 
 his anxious archiepiscopate were spent there, some of 
 these times when the archbishop was gravely ill . The 
 place remained the archbishops' home for just under a 
 century, but in Archbishop Benson's time the question 
 of getting rid of it was mooted. The desirability of 
 the Archbishops of Canterbury having some house in 
 Canterbury, more central for the diocese, which had 
 largely lost its purely agricultural character, was in- 
 sisted on. The quiet, shall we say the inaccessibility, 
 which may well have constituted a charm of Addington 
 in Manners Sutton's or Howley's eyes, was not at all 
 what Archbishop Temple wanted. He took up the 
 question strongly, refused as archbishop to pass even a 
 single night there,^ and in July 1878 Addington Manor 
 was sold. In the beautiful village church or church- 
 yard five archbishops — Manners Sutton, Howley, 
 Sumner, Longley, and Tait — are buried, and many 
 members of their families and households. The 
 burials begin in the church, but as time goes on, 
 get farther from it — to quiet corners of the church- 
 yard. 
 
 It must be recorded — and we do not see how it can 
 be recorded without shame — that in 1810 the arch- 
 bishop and six other prelates voted against the Bill 
 promoted by Sir Samuel Romilly, by which the death 
 penalty ceased to be exacted for the offence of stealing 
 privately to the amount of five shillings in a dwelling- 
 house, and assisted in the rejection by the Lords of 
 
 ' Life of Archbishop Temple, ii. 212. 
 
1828] OPPOSES ROMILLY'S REFORMS 391 
 
 such Bill which the Commons had passed. The great 
 lawyer and philanthropist says : " I rank these prelates 
 amongst the. members who were soHcited to vote 
 against the Bill, because I would rather be convinced 
 oif their servility to Government than that, rejecting the 
 mild doctrines of their religion, they could have come 
 down to the House spontaneously to vote that trans- 
 portation for life is not a sufficiently severe punishment 
 for the offence of pilfering what is of five shilling value, 
 and that nothing but the blood of the offender can 
 afford an adequate atonement for such a transgression." 
 Lord EUenborough was a strong opponent of the 
 change ; " there was no knowing where this was to 
 stop." Crime was common at this time : Heath, a 
 good judge, had ninety -nine prisoners just about now 
 at Maidstone, of whom he took credit to himself that 
 he only left four to be hanged, three of them because 
 they could bring no witnesses to character. In 
 reading the public journals of one hundred and 
 twenty or one hundred years ago nothing startles the 
 reader of to-day more than the number of executions 
 which were carried out. At Newgate or Tyburn from 
 eight to twelve times a year, from six to a dozen persons 
 were hanged — not infrequently including women, and 
 the wretches were kept on the scaffold in the public 
 gaze for three-quarters of an hour or more, while the 
 Ordinary of Newgate went through the Devotions 
 considered appropriate. Twenty-five years before, 
 Burke, in the House of Commons, said that the 
 number of convicts sentenced to transportation was 
 estimated at not less than one hundred thousand. 
 Newgate had five hundred and fifty-eight prisoners. 
 Since 1820 many gaols have been closed, though the 
 population has so largely increased. 
 
 On Court occasions Sutton's imposing presence 
 appeared constantly. He married the Duke of Cumber- 
 land in 1815 ; in 1816 the Princess Charlotte of Wales, 
 and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester; in 181 8 
 26 
 
392 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 the Princess Elizabeth, the Duke of Cambridge, and 
 the Duke of Clarence . 
 
 He crowned George iv. in 1821. 
 
 He was a constant attendant at the royal funerals. 
 
 In Parliament, Manners Sutton seems to have 
 spoken on Church matters, and matters akin thereto, 
 but rarely if ever on purely political questions. His 
 first reported intervention in debate was in March 
 1805 on a Bill to repeal the provision of the Mortmain 
 Act, which restrained the colleges at Oxford and 
 Cambridge from buying advowsons. The main argu- 
 ment in support of the Bill was that the colleges 
 had not enough livings to provide for all their members 
 who were kept waiting a long time for college livings. 
 The main argument against it was that the restraint 
 was the legislative child of a very mighty man. Lord 
 Hardwicke, and ought to be very cautiously interfered 
 with. The well-being of the parishioners and the 
 claims of the non-clerical fellows on the college revenues 
 do not seem to have been much discussed. The arch- 
 bishop on the motion to go into committee supported 
 the Bill. He thought the colleges would be better 
 patrons than the ordinary purchaser of an advowson, 
 the succession to livings of college fellows would not 
 be too rapid, and enough patronage would still be left 
 to noble members of their Lordships' House, who 
 dispensed it so well. It is of interest to note that 
 the Bishop of London, Porteous, complained in the 
 course of the debate that in the west of London there 
 were chapels of ease, but few parish churches. The 
 Bill was passed. 
 
 In the same year, the Roman Catholic petition 
 from Ireland was presented by Lord Granville. Sutton 
 spoke against the relief prayed for by the petitioners. 
 He considered the petition the natural sequel of the 
 numerous statutes in relief of the Roman Catholic 
 disabilities passed during George iii.'s reign. " It was 
 for their lordships to determine in their character as 
 
1 82 8] ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF 393 
 
 statesmen and legislators to what extent these con- 
 cessions could with safety be carried. The substance 
 of the petition was compressed into one sentence, 
 an equal participation on equal terms of the full 
 benefits of the British Laws and Constitution. It 
 was no less than a request on the part of the Roman 
 Catholics to legislate for a Protestant country. He 
 was as attached to genuine toleration as any of their 
 lordships. To destroy the fences which the wisdom 
 and experience of their ancestors had erected round 
 the Established Church was to do all in their power 
 to excite that bad spirit of animosity and religious 
 intolerance that disgraced the worst pages of history 
 since the Reformation. He accordingly opposed the 
 petition." The motion to proceed with the petition 
 was lost in the Lords by 178 to 49. 
 
 In the Commons Fox introduced the petition, but 
 it was lost by 336 to 124. 
 
 On the Bill to improve the position of stipendiary 
 curates — in the course of the debate on which the Earl 
 of Suffolk mentioned a case in the county of Lincoln 
 when the duty of twenty parishes was in general 
 performed by three curates — the Primate does not 
 seem to have spoken ; but though passed by the Lords, 
 it was thrown out by the Commons. 
 
 The following year the archbishop interposed in 
 the House of Lords on a matter not wholly without 
 interest even now. Apparently the Custom House 
 retained a number of hohdays or ecclesiastical festivals ; 
 on days when business was in full swing elsewhere, 
 as Lord Grenville pointed out, the merchant found 
 to his inconvenience the doors of the Custom House 
 shut. The archbishop, like a good Churchman, though 
 deprecating the excessive number of hoUdays of Pre- 
 reformation times, thought three or four, but at any 
 rate two, more hoUdays particularly commemorative of 
 the history of our Saviour might be retained, and moved 
 an amendment supporting a holiday on the Epiphany. 
 
394 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 The Bishop of St. Asaph claimed four — The Epiphany, 
 The Annunciation, The Ascension, and St. John the 
 Baptist's Day. But the archbishop's amendment was 
 lost. 
 
 In 1808 the Bishop of London, Bishop Porteous, 
 made another effort in the House of Lords with a view 
 of improving the position of curates where the rector 
 or vicar was non-resident . An Act of 1 796 had allowed 
 to the curate of a non-resident rector his house and 
 £7S ^ year. But where the living was well endowed this 
 was thought too much for the idle rector and not 
 enough for the curate. The main object of the Bill, 
 as expressed by Porteous, was to " take from those 
 who did nothing a reasonable allowance for the curate 
 who performed the whole of the service, for which the 
 living itself was at first granted." The Bill proposed 
 that where the living amounted to £400 or upwards, one- 
 fifth of it should be allowed to the curate until he 
 received ;£2 5o. Sutton supported the principle of the 
 Bill, and got it a second reading, though it was denounced 
 as a violation of private property, a hardship on a man 
 who had bought a living on the faith he should receive 
 the full revenue of it, a weakening of the incitements 
 to a young curate to work hard and rise in his pro- 
 fession . On the third reading Porteous failed to get the 
 support not only of the mighty John on the Woolsack 
 • — this might have been expected — but also of several of 
 his brother bishops ; Sutton deserted him — weakly saying 
 that though he was satisfied with the principle of the 
 Bill, he thought some clauses might produce vexation — 
 apparently to the non-resident rector ! — and voted for 
 the rejection of the Bill, which was rejected without a 
 division . 
 
 Sutton's next parliamentary effort seems to have 
 done him credit. Once or twice the question of the 
 remarriage of persons divorced by Act of Parliament 
 had come before the Lords, and they had indeed passed 
 Bills forbidding the marriage af a woman whose marriage; 
 
1828] REMARRIAGE OF THE DIVORCED 395 
 
 had been dissolved for her misconduct with the partner 
 of her guilt. But the Commons had thrown them out. 
 Lord Auckland proposed a new standing order that 
 every Divorce Bill should forbid the person whose 
 marriage with the petitioner should be dissolved thereby 
 to intermarry with the offending party on account of 
 whose adultery with such person the marriage was so 
 dissolved. Sutton supported the motion in what the 
 report calls a very argumentative and eloquent speech, 
 quoting Holy Writ in Greek and English, and dealing in an 
 exhaustive manner with the whole question of marriage 
 and divorce, though the reporter had to confess that 
 he " made a variety of remarks and used many argu- 
 ments with which we are unable to deal." The order 
 was carried. Some years afterwards on the considera- 
 tion of a particular Divorce Bill, the archbishop on 
 the highest grounds opposed the omission of the clause 
 prohibiting the guilty parties from remarrying. 
 
 A year or two later Manners Sutton had to deal with 
 the question of the licences granted under the Toleration 
 Act of William and Mary, and the Amending Act of 
 19 Geo. III. c. 44, to Dissenting Ministers and Preachers. 
 The matter was taken up by Lord Sidmouth, who, 
 before his elevation to the peerage, had been Henry 
 Addington and Speaker of the House of Commons. He 
 was a man of honesty, industry, and good intelligence, 
 though probably not gifted with the highest order of 
 statesmanship . The Amending Act provided that every 
 Dissenter making a declaration against Popery and 
 declaring himself to be a Christian and a Protestant, 
 on paying sixpence for his certificate was entitled to all 
 the privileges granted by the Act of William and Mary 
 to Dissenting Ministers, and was exempted from service 
 in the MiUtia and in all parochial offices. Under this 
 Act licences to preach were obtained at quarter sessions 
 by persons of no education, by persons not of full age, 
 and as to whose moral qualifications for the office of 
 preacher or teacher little or nothing was known. As a 
 
396 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 proof of the want of education of applicants, and 
 particularly of their bad spelling, a return was published 
 of eighteen different ways in which the words " dis- 
 senting minister,"" teacher,"" preacher," and" gospel " 
 had been misspelt by the applicants in the case of two 
 hundred and eighty-five licences taken out at Middlesex 
 Sessions : 
 
 Preacher of the Gopel, 
 
 Preacher of the Grosple, 
 
 Precher of the Gospel, 
 
 Precher of the Gospell, 
 
 Pracher of the Gospell, 
 
 Preach of the Gospell, 
 
 Precher of the Gosple, 
 
 Precher of Gospell, 
 
 Miniaster of the Gospel, 
 
 Preacher of the Ghosper, 
 
 Preacher of teacher the Gospel Bappist, 
 
 Preecher of the Gospel, 
 
 Teacher of the Geouspel of Jesus Christ, 
 
 A discenting teacher , 
 
 Disenting teacher, 
 
 Decenting teacher, 
 
 Prashr of the Gospell, 
 
 Preicher of the Gospel . 
 
 A case was brought forward of an applicant for a 
 licence who admitted he could neither read nor write, 
 and being asked by the magistrate whether it was not 
 strange to take the important office of a teacher when 
 he was not able to peruse the Bible, said, " If you don't 
 know what inspiration is, I do, for I have felt it." 
 
 Sidmouth proposed certain certificates of fitness 
 from householders and others as to the respectability 
 of candidates for licences and as to their fitness for 
 being preachers or teachers. He had been told by 
 many Dissenters that the evils then existing required • 
 amendment, and in 1809 the House of Lords without 
 
1 828] JOSHUA WATSON 
 
 397 
 
 opposition granted Returns of the Licences granted 
 since 1760 as supplying information on which a Bill 
 could be framed. Sutton on this occasion supported 
 him. But when in 181 1 he brought in his Bill, the 
 Dissenters had — wrongly as it appears — got the idea 
 that he threatened their Uberties under the Toleration 
 Acts. About seven hundred petitions from Dissenters 
 were presented against it : Whigs like Lord Holland, 
 Lord Erskine, and Lord Grey spoke against it. There 
 was nothing to make the Tory Churchmen support it, 
 and it was negatived without a division. This course 
 Sutton, posing as having kindly feelings for the Dis- 
 senters, recommended as being their wish. Sidmouth 
 unquestionably was hardly treated in the matter. 
 
 In Church matters generally Sutton was the friend 
 of the men who represented the best part of the religious 
 laity of the day — men like Joshua Watson. Watson 
 may indeed be said to have been for the first quarter 
 of the nineteenth century, or a great part of it, the 
 lay archbishop — chief guardian and overseer — of the 
 English Church. 
 
 The central decade of Sutton's primacy, from, say, 
 1 810 to 1820, saw remarkable movement in three im- 
 portant branches of Church work : religious education, 
 foreign missions, and church building. Each movement 
 was connected with a great Church society : of each 
 Watson was, if not the originator, a very leading 
 promoter. 
 
 Englishmen are suspicious, perhaps unduly sus- 
 picious, of clerically minded laymen. But Watson was 
 indeed a man of the most genuine piety and of very 
 sound abilities. In truth, for many years he was — 
 and no one would have acknowledged it more than the 
 archbishop — Manners Sutton's right hand. The son 
 of a wine merchant on Tower Hill, he became at twenty- 
 one his father's partner, and in due course was estab- 
 lished as a partner in a house of the same kind in Mark 
 Lane. Here, chiefly by executing Government con- 
 
398 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 tracts, he made a good fortune. But Joshua Watson's 
 heart was in rehgious and philanthropic work, and that 
 work he thought could best be done — perhaps could 
 only be rightly done — by the Church established in 
 this country. Though he had made a fortune out of 
 it, he did not like business or its ways. His views 
 thereon, expressed in a letter he wrote several years 
 after his retirement to a young man who had been in 
 his 'employ, after saying that many a thing which 
 perhaps the custom of trade never allowed one to 
 scruple about, or which the arts of competition in a 
 market seemed to make a necessary part of self-defence, 
 might after retirement possibly appear in more question- 
 able colours, he says : " In my own case I rejoiced when 
 the snare was broken ; and I can truly add that the wish 
 to make my escape, and to be secure against the risk 
 of being again entangled therein and overcome, pre- 
 vailed much in my early retirement from the profits 
 of Mark Lane.''^ 
 
 Noscitur a sociis. They were a goodly band : " the 
 Hackney phalanx," keen Churchmen, lavish of their 
 wealth and of their time and energy for charity, and 
 very capable men withal. Watson's brother was 
 rector of Hackney, and he himself took a house there ; 
 James Allan Park, one of the best of judges — who that 
 knows his statue in the vestibule of Lincoln's Inn can 
 doubt his power ; Richardson, another judge — linked 
 with our own day by his daughter being the wife of 
 the great Bishop Selwyn ; Stevens, the founder of 
 " Nobody's Friends " ; and of clerics, Henry Handley 
 Norris and WiUiam Van Mildert. 
 
 Watson retired from business in 1 814 at the age of 
 forty-three : but he had learnt businesslike methods 
 and how to keep accounts. Sir George Rose — long at 
 the Treasury — said of his accounts of the fund for 
 relief of the distressed Germans that they were the 
 most clear and exact he had ever seen. 
 
 'Churton, l.ife of Watson, 145. 
 
1828] EDUCATION 
 
 399 
 
 In 1 8 1 1 Manners Sutton was concerned with the 
 educational efforts on the part of Churchmen which 
 resulted in the formation of the National Society. 
 The eighteenth century saw the foundation of a certain 
 number of charity schools — some of which not only 
 taught, but housed and fed their children. But these 
 were the work of a few persons of exceptional 
 charity and enlightenment. The ordinary citizen — 
 none the less that he called himself a member of the 
 Church of England — was satisfied that in a few country 
 villages there was a dame school, and save that, that 
 there should be no general education at all. Hannah 
 More was prosecuted in the Ecclesiastical Court for 
 instituting a village school at Wedmore.^ A bishop 
 preaching at St. Paul's in iBio said that nearly two- 
 thirds of the children of their labouring poor in this 
 kingdom had little or no education.^ 
 
 The attention of Churchmen seems to have been 
 particularly called to the question by improvements in 
 the method of education which in the first decade of 
 the nineteenth century were brought before the public. 
 
 About 1790 a certain Dr. Andrew Bell had been 
 employed as one of the East India Company's chaplains, 
 and he had noticed that the Hindoos in their schools 
 saved an enormous amount of time and labour by 
 teaching their children not only, or chiefly, one by one, 
 but in classes, and by employing some of the children 
 as monitors to instruct their fellows. A class meant 
 that there was a top of the class and there was a rivalry 
 to get there : the correction of one child's fault was 
 the instruction on that point of the whole class.' Bell 
 introduced a system based on these principles into the 
 male military orphan school at Madras. It worked 
 well and the Indian authorities approved it. Bell 
 returned to England in 1797 and published his educa- 
 tional efforts and their results. Joseph Lancaster, 
 a remarkable man, either got hold of Bell's ideas or 
 » Hore, ij. 219. ^Peny, Chwreh History, iii. 165. = perry, iii. 165. 
 
400 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805-^ 
 
 about the same time evolved ideas similar to Bell's 
 from his own consciousness. There was a contest for 
 some years as to who was the original inventor. The 
 better opinion gives these honours to Bell.^ Lancaster's 
 mother, a Baptist, kept a small shop at Bristol. The 
 boy was wayward and ran away to sea : but Elizabeth 
 Fry and some of her relations got hold of him, and 
 finding in him an aptitude for teaching, started him 
 with a school for thirty boys. This he carried on with 
 his proper trade of a shoemaker. His principles of 
 teaching by classes and monitors grew upon him : he 
 began to lecture on them. In 1807 the British and 
 Foreign School Society was founded to give effect to 
 Lancaster's ideas. 
 
 With his Nonconformist parentage and Quaker 
 associations, it is not surprising that he called himself 
 a Quaker and "advocated a national system of unde- 
 nominational education, in which methods like Bell's 
 should be followed. Even the Church Catechism he 
 shut the doors of his school against. Leading Church- 
 men like Watson, Norris, and Bowles were roused. 
 They appreciated two things — how slack the Church 
 had become in education, and the value of the new 
 methods of teaching. A wise Churchman, Davis, had 
 established a "Bell" school at Leytonstone. Norris 
 paid it a visit and told his friends what he saw. 
 Marsh — then Lady Margaret's Professor at Cambridge, 
 afterwards Bishop of Peterborough — ^joined the bene- 
 volent caucus and did much to rouse public opinion 
 by a sermon preached at St. Paul's before the Society 
 of Patrons of Charity Schools on 13th June 1811. In 
 this he pleaded earnestly for the setting on foot of 
 national schools in which Church teaching should have 
 a place. The S.P.C.K. printed and widely circulated 
 this discourse. 
 
 At a meeting at Watson's the formation of such a 
 Society as the National Society had been resolved on. 
 * Churton, Life of Watson, io8. 
 
1828] THE NATIONAL SOCIETY 401 
 
 Manners Sutton was appealed to. He gave his approval 
 and declared his readiness to attend the first meeting 
 of the Society. Of more, or perhaps less, importance, the 
 countenance of the first gentleman in Europe, the Prince 
 Regent, was obtained for the new Society, though in pro- 
 mising his support the Prince, according to a letter from 
 Bowles to Watson, " speaking of the Church, called it an 
 establishment interwoven with the constitution of the 
 country." But an indifferent Churchmanship this ! 
 
 By the end of September matters were ripe for a 
 meeting of the Primate and the bishops in or near London 
 with Watson, Norris, and their friends to arrange the 
 details for launching the new Society on the world. 
 Watson had drafted a prospectus . On 8th October Judge 
 Allan Park writes to him : 
 
 " I would give the world to see vou. I shall go 
 to Bartlett's Buildings (the office of the S.P.C.K.) at 
 12 on the chance of seeing you. ... I have just had a 
 second letter from the Duke of Gloucester desiring that 
 he may be one of the first subscribers, leaving it to me 
 to decide whether fifty or a hundred guineas." 
 
 On 1 3th October Marsh writes from Cambridge : 
 
 " As we shall have many propositions to arrange and 
 discuss preparatory to the meeting, I propose that we 
 should dine together in a private room of some coffee- 
 house near the Royal Exchange about half-past five on 
 Tuesday. ... In this interior cabinet we can arrange 
 the propositions which are to be brought forward at the 
 Cabmet Council." 
 
 A day or two before Mr. Justice Richardson had 
 written rejoicing that the archbishop is disposed to take 
 the lead and act the part that belongs to him. 
 
 The meeting so much prepared for was held on 
 Wednesday, i6th October 181 1. Manners Sutton took 
 the chair, and the formation of the Society was resolved 
 on. On Monday, 2 ist October, he again presided over a 
 general meeting of the Society at- Bow Church. Rules 
 
402 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 were passed, and at the request of the meeting the arch- 
 bishop undertook to ask the Prince Regent, who had 
 promised general support, to be Patron of the Society. 
 A circular letter signed " C. Cantuar " was issued 
 giving particulars of the formation of the Society, and 
 inviting suitable persons to join the committee. The 
 Bar, prone to good works, was represented in the new 
 Society by its auditors, Richards, afterwards Chief Baron, 
 and Plumer, Master of the Rolls, and by Sir Vicary Gibbs, 
 A.-G. Manners Sutton nominated Joshua Watson as 
 the Society's first treasurer. 
 
 From the first, teaching teachers how to teach was a 
 prominent part of the Society's work. In May 1812 
 premises were bought in Baldwin's Gardens, Holborn, 
 and a central school fitted for six hundred boys and four 
 hundred girls established. Admiral Lord Exmouth got 
 a teacher from the Society for his flagship, and each 
 battalion in the army had a sergeant as schoolmaster 
 trained to teach according to the new system.^ 
 
 The work of the National Society increased apace, 
 and when in 1 833 the Government for the first time made 
 a grant — a small one — to the cause of education, it was 
 found that the National Society had caused six hundred 
 and ninety schools to be erected, the British and Foreign 
 Society, the successors of Lancaster's society, a very 
 much smaller number. 
 
 In the following year, 181 2, Sutton was concerned 
 with the proposals of the Government in aid of the 
 Dissenters. Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, intro- 
 duced a Bill relieving Dissenters from the annoying and 
 vexatious provisions of the Five Mile Act and the Con- 
 venticle Act, and also giving some relief in respect of the 
 Toleration Act.^ The archbishop was, of course, con- 
 sulted by the Premier before the Bill was brought in, and 
 his general consent obtained. Sutton wanted to make 
 one or two of the clauses more stringent, but Lord 
 Liverpool declined. One of the archbishop's sugges- 
 
 ^ Churton, ii8. < * Life of Lord Sidmouth, iii. 112. 
 
1 828] NON-RESIDENT CLERGY 403 
 
 tions is interesting : he wanted to make the Bill apply- 
 in terms to " Dissenters." In reply Lord Liverpool 
 wrote that the proposal would exclude the great body of 
 Methodists from the benefits of the Bill, that a* large 
 proportion of these men professed to be members of the 
 Church, attended its services, but claimed the privilege 
 of meeting and associating for rehgious purposes in 
 other places, and at other times, and pressed against any 
 measure which, at any time, and more particularly under 
 the then existing circumstances, would drive them to 
 become professed Dissenters from the Church of England. 
 The Act passed on 29th July 1812.^ 
 
 In 1 81 3 the archbishop spoke on a Bill making pro- 
 vision for the curates of small livings with a non-resident 
 rector. Strangely enough Sutton opposed the Bill, but 
 unsuccessfully. One speaker said : " Curates discharg- 
 ing the duties of four parishes and galloping about from 
 church to church was what brought the Church into con- 
 tempt." ^ 
 
 In 1 814 we find the archbishop promoting a measure 
 to relieve the clergy who, by inadvertence, had incurred 
 penalties for non-residence. He professed to help two 
 classes of clergy : ( i ) those who having two livings had 
 omitted to notify the bishop of their non-residence on 
 one of them ; (2) those who having had a licence for 
 non-residence had omitted to renew it. Perhaps now- 
 adays we should think archiepiscopal activity in legis- 
 lation might be better employed ; but Lord Eldon told 
 a curious story to the House in the course of the debate 
 of a clergyman who went down to his living in the 
 country and found a handsome parsonage house much 
 larger than he wanted , as he had no family . An attorney 
 in the place with a large family was living in a small 
 convenient house which he proposed to exchange with 
 the clergyman and reside at his parsonage. At the end 
 of twelve months, when the attorney was applied to for 
 
 1 Yonge, Life of Lord Liverpool, i. 433. 
 
 2 Parliamentary Debates, xxxi. 299. 
 
404 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 the difference of the rent, his answer was : " I owe you 
 nothing, but you owe me £110, the penalty for non- 
 residence," which he actually sued for and recovered !^ 
 
 The year 18 14 saw the consecration by Archbishop 
 Manners Sutton of Dr. Middleton as the first Bishop of 
 Calcutta. He was a distinguished man, of great piety 
 and excellent scholarship. The latter he had shown 
 by a memorable work on The Doctrines of the Greek 
 Article ; the former by a very zealous career as a London 
 clergyman, being Rector of St. Pancras. For the 
 establishment of such a bishopric, Joshua Watson and 
 kindred spirits had for some years laboured. The pre- 
 cedent of the bishops in America was cited in its favour. 
 
 He was consecrated by Manners Sutton on the 
 8th May 1 814. Mr. Hore, in his History of the Church of 
 England, says that, in proposing the health of the newly 
 appointed bishop, the archbishop wound up with the 
 following paternal advice : " Remember, my Lord 
 Bishop, that your Primate on the day of your conse- 
 cration defined your duty for you, that duty is to put 
 down enthusiasm and to preach the Gospel ." ^ 1 8 1 4, the 
 year of his retirement from business, saw Watson's 
 election to be treasurer of the S.P.C.K. There was, 
 as Archdeacon Cambridge, a prominent divine, said, 
 " a universal request of archbishops, bishops, priests, 
 and deacons " to him to accept the office. Manners 
 Sutton presided over a very full meeting of the Society 
 held at its then offices in Bartlett's Buildings, Holborn, 
 when the election took place, and supported it in a 
 speech of — as Watson's biographer expresses it — 
 " dignity and grace." He spoke of Watson's " talents 
 and unwearied zeal for whatever was most dear and 
 valuable," and from no one could praise of Watson 
 more fittingly come than from the Primate who was so 
 often, and so long, indebted to him for help and advice. 
 
 The establishment of Bishop Middleton at Calcutta 
 and the appointment of Watson as treasurer of the 
 
 • Parliamentary Debates, xxvii. 866. • ii. 239. 
 
1828] INDIAN MISSIONS 405 
 
 S.P.C.K. were the occasions of the Church taking up a 
 new position as regards missionary work in India. And 
 in these steps Manners Sutton took a leading, if a cautious, 
 part. The eighteenth century saw practically the only 
 mission in India, that which had been founded by 
 the Danish Missionary, Bartholomew Zeigenbalq, at 
 Tranquebar. The Dutch East India Company had, 
 before 1700, a missionary college in Ceylon ; but when 
 Zeigenbalq started his work in 1706 he, from the first, 
 got liberal support from England. England and Den- 
 mark were on good terms. Queen Anne's husband 
 was a Dane : Wake presented Zeigenbalq at the English 
 Court in 1716, and students of Archbishop Wake's life 
 know how voluminous are the communications between 
 him and the Tranquebar missionaries. Later on there 
 was no doubt an ecclesiastical department of the Board 
 of Control ; but till the middle or end of the eighteenth 
 century the East India Company was limited in its 
 domains. Since 1701 there had been the S.P.G., but, 
 as Churton says, it was " rather a board for furnishing 
 aid and administration to the funds which the Govern- 
 ment supplied to the clergy in the North American 
 Colonies than a Missionary Society for the Church at 
 large." Its annual voluntary subscriptions and dona- 
 tions were less than £1000. So what England gave 
 over a period of half a century to the poor Dutch mis- 
 sionaries at Tranquebar came to be held by the S.P.C.K. 
 Its new treasurer thought that now there was a bishop 
 of Calcutta, the missionary funds should be held by 
 the missionary society. Wordsworth, Rector of Lam- 
 beth, afterwards Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 father of a great English bishop and grandfather of 
 another, agreed with him and thought it was a good 
 time to arouse interest in the missionary cause among 
 English Churchmen. He even hoped to consoUdate 
 the S.P.G. and the C.M.S. Watson and Wordsworth 
 went to Manners Sutton, who was favourable to their 
 ideas, which included a royal letter for a general col- 
 
4o6 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 lection in parish churches. " Draw up a memorial," 
 said the archbishop, " and I will present it to the 
 Prime Minister."^ So a letter and a memorial to the 
 archbishop were prepared. An East India director 
 approved the drafts. The letter hoped that Middleton's 
 " sound discretion " would overcome any jealousies 
 that the new establishment had aroused (some of the 
 chaplains had, in fact, preferred a Governor-General's 
 to episcopal control), and suggested a college for training 
 native clergymen, but especially asked for the transfer 
 to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel of 
 the missionary department of the S.P.C.K. " Then, 
 my lord," the memorial wound up, " the Church of 
 England, strong in her three chartered and ancient 
 societies, each with undivided energy pursuing its own 
 single and simple object and having a common centre 
 of union in your Grace's presidency, might in her Educa- 
 tion Society, her Bible and Religious Tract Society, and 
 her Missionary Society boldly offer to her members all 
 that the most zealous of her communion need desire in 
 the great concern of religious and moral instruction at 
 home and abroad." 
 
 The memorial was more specific : it extolled the 
 Dutch Tranquebar mission ; twice Middleton's liberality 
 had saved it from ruin ; the Christians in Ceylon had 
 recently been placed under an archdeacon at the re- 
 quest of the Governor ; they numbered 600,000 or 
 700,000 ; money was needed. If Manners Sutton 
 favoured the application, " a small Parliamentary 
 bounty " as in British North America might be given ; 
 or if even this were too much, a general appeal " from 
 all the pulpits in the country " might have good 
 results. 
 
 By a resolution passed at a full meeting, the S.P.C.K. 
 handed over its India Fund to the S.P.G. The arch- 
 bishop got the S.P.G. to vote the new Bishop of Cal- 
 cutta £5000 to help his work. Lord Liverpool did 
 
 •Chnrton, 173. 
 
Charles Manners Sutton 
 
 [To face p. 4c6 
 
1 828] CHARITY TO DEVASTATED EUROPE 407 
 
 what Manners Sutton asked him ; and the archbishop 
 was able to announce the first of the royal letters to 
 be issued by the Prince Regent authorising collections 
 in all churches for the S.P.G. This produced ;^so,ooo, 
 and as a result of the effort the good Middleton was 
 able to start Bishop's College at Calcutta. "^ 
 
 In 1 814 the widespread distress extending over the 
 portions of Germany which Napoleon's conquests 
 had devastated aroused the charity of England. We 
 read nowadays with interest Lives of Napoleon and 
 admire the greatness of the man ; the misery he spread 
 is not so present to us. In Dantzic 1761 buildings 
 were left demolished, 4420 damaged, and a great 
 number of the inhabitants lost their all. An orphan 
 house was set up at Pirna " in the midst of nearly 
 fifty miles of totally destroyed villages and towns." 
 
 Manners Sutton was largely concerned with stimu- 
 lating and giving effect to the charity of England. A 
 fund was raised as usual in the City of London. But 
 this was not enough. Watson was jealous of the 
 honour of the Church, and, appealed to by him, Manners 
 Sutton started a subscription which was liberally 
 responded to, the archbishop's only condition being 
 that Watson should manage the details. The favourite 
 form in those days of a charitable appeal to Churchmen 
 — a King's letter read in the churches — produced a 
 large collection. Parliament granted ;£ioo,ooo, and 
 showed on what good terms Ministers were with the 
 Primate by making the £100,000 payable to the arch- 
 bishop. Manners Sutton — wise man as he was— 
 trembled at becoming a public accountant ; and it 
 was only reliance on Watson's skill in finance and the 
 excellent arrangements ^ he made with the Bank of 
 England that prevented Manners Sutton from declining 
 the trust. Prussia got about £8000, Silesia £11,500, 
 Saxony £21,009, Hanover £12,200, from the Parha- 
 mentary Grant . When the fund closed in 1 8 1 6, Watson 
 
 1 Churton, i8l. = Churton, 152. 
 
 27 
 
4o8 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [iSoj- 
 
 got a unanimous vote of thanks for his services as 
 secretary, accompanied by a personal letter from the 
 archbishop, in which he spoke of " the many personal 
 obligations " he owed to Watson, " for the assistance 
 he had unremittingly afforded " him " in the whole 
 of this business." 
 
 The years 1817 and 181 8 saw a great impetus to the 
 work of church building . Sutton as Primate took a fitting 
 part in the movement. But the driving force came 
 from laymen like Joshua Watson and clerics like Van 
 Mildert and Archdeacon Daubeny, who seems to have 
 been the first man to insist on a new church, in the 
 building of which he was interested, containing free 
 seats. 
 
 No doubt things had got pretty bad as regards 
 church accommodation. Without the consent of the 
 parson of the parish it was an ecclesiastical crime to 
 build a church, and the parson did not always want 
 another built or his parish subdivided. According to 
 Mr. Hore, only twenty-four churches were built or 
 rebuilt in England and Wales between 1800 and 1807, 
 though new populations were springing up everywhere 
 and old ones trebling their numbers. In the first 
 twenty years of the century there were only ninety-six. 
 In the following ten years the number went up to three 
 hundred and eight. 
 
 An important factor was the starting of the In- 
 corporated Church Building Society. Its first name 
 was the Church Room or Free Church Society, and 
 Joshua Watson notes in his diary, under date 4th July 
 1 81 7, that he was appointed to prepare an address to 
 the public to precede rules, etc. Watson duly drafted 
 rules with the aid of Archdeacon Daubeny. On 
 1 8th February 181 8 a large and influential meeting of 
 the supporters of the new Society was held, over which 
 Manners Sutton presided, and at which he delivered 
 what the Gentleman's Magazine calls " a luminous and 
 energetic address . ' ' Christ Church , Oxford , contributed 
 
»828] NEW CHURCHES 409 
 
 £1000,^ and Daubeny, with scruples that it were not 
 anonymous, £500 to the Society. Wordsworth, brother 
 of the poet, had just been brought back by the arch- 
 bishop to his side, having been appointed to the Rectory 
 of Lambeth. 2 He set on foot the building of four new 
 churches in his parish. 
 
 Meanwhile the Government were prepared to co- 
 operate in providing church accommodation. Lord 
 Liverpool, the Prime Minister, was on excellent terms 
 ■with the archbishop, who had the cause at heart. In 
 Anne's time Parliament had provided for the building 
 of fifty churches in and near London, and had devoted 
 the coal duties to the purpose, but not one-quarter 
 of the fifty had ever been built. The number is given 
 at nine or eleven.^ The Royal Speech at the opening 
 of the Session in 181 8 had invited attention to the 
 deficiency, and in March the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer brought the matter before the House of Com- 
 mons. In his speech he said London had a population 
 of 1,129,451, but the church and episcopal chapels 
 oould scarcely contain more than the odd numbers. 
 The clergy of the sparse churches that existed were 
 overworked. One curate, so the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer said, affirmed that on a recent Sunday on 
 which he had taken a friend's duty, he had performed 
 two morning services and one evening service, having 
 assistance only for one sermon. He had married so 
 many couples that he had forgotten the precise number ; 
 he had read the Churching of Women twice ; he had 
 christened seventeen children and had read the Burial 
 Service five times over seven bodies — a separate funeral 
 having been found impossible. The Chancellor pro- 
 posed to raise £1,000,000 by the issue of Exchequer 
 Bills, and to vest the administration of the fund in 
 Commissioners. 
 
 The measure passed the Commons without dissent ; 
 and on 21st March, Lord Liverpool writes to Lord 
 
 » Churton, i. 201. » Perry, iii. 175. ' Hore, i. 240. 
 
4IO CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON .[1805- 
 
 Harrowby, a keen Churchman and supporter of the 
 measure, urging that the matter should be pressed 
 forward. " I have written to this effect," he says, " to 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is to have a 
 meeting of the bishops on the subject on Easter Tues- 
 day." Lord Liverpool moved the second reading of 
 the Bill himself in an elaborate speech in which he 
 stated that the Church ought to provide accommodation 
 for one in three of the population. With the sub- 
 scriptions the grant would evoke it was hoped to build 
 150 to 200 churches. Marylebone was to have 5, 
 Pancras 4, Shoreditch 4, Bethnal Green 4, Lambeth 3, 
 Manchester 7, Sheffield 4, Stockport 3 , Birmingham 3 or 4. 
 
 Sutton spoke in support of the measure and con- 
 gratulated the Lords on it passing practically un- 
 opposed. In Committee there was a little breeze over 
 the architecture of the proposed churches, but in the 
 end Whigs and Tories agreed that though accommoda- 
 tion was to be the first point, they would not neglect, 
 as the archbishop put it, an adherence to that mode of 
 buildings which characterised the reformed Church of 
 England from churches where that reform was carried 
 too far. In the course of his speech he said that he 
 held in his hand a letter from Perceval, written a few 
 days before his assassination, stating that he hoped 
 shortly to furnish the archbishop with full details 
 required of the scheme for providing new churches .^ 
 
 The Bill as it passed into law became the Act 5^ 
 Geo. m. cap. 45. It was strictly a Church Building 
 Bill. The commissioners it appointed were to examine 
 parishes and have regard to the amount of population, 
 and the disproportion between the number of in- 
 habitants and the present church accommodation. 
 Some of its provisions sound strange to our ears. By 
 the Statute, in the churches to be built under it, part 
 was directed — not empowered — to be " arranged in 
 pews to be disposed of or let under the Act, and part 
 
 • Parliamentary Reports, 8i8, ii. 719. 
 
1828] CHURCH BUILDING ACT 411 
 
 not so arranged to be free seats." Manners Sutton and 
 his coadjutors believed in the potency of preaching. 
 Where there was an excessive population the Act, 
 sec. 8s, provided for a third service being either 
 morning or evening service with a sermon as the 
 bishop should direct. Section 75 showed that the 
 framers of the Act had in mind the Scriptural 
 injunctions with reference to a clergyman's " own 
 house." It enacted that there should be a " seat or 
 pew sufficient to hold six persons contiguous or near 
 to the pulpit for the use of the minister and his family " ; 
 also " seats not less than four — not among the free 
 seats — for the use of the minister's servants." Perhaps 
 nowadays such points would be left to the church- 
 wardens for the time being ; but they are a picture of 
 the feelings of the leading Churchmen of the day. 
 
 Some anxiety was felt whom the Government would 
 appoint as commissioners. Manners Sutton had no 
 doubt a powerful voice in selecting them, and foremost 
 among his lay advisers was Joshua Watson. Arch- 
 deacon Cambridge, a bosom friend of Watson's and 
 joint-treasurer with him of the newly-formed National 
 Society, and Archdeacon Pott, as well as Watson 
 himself, and Dr. Wordsworth, afterwards Master of 
 Trinity, figure in the first list. 
 
 They had an office in Great George Street, West- 
 minster, but their preliminary meetings were held at 
 Lambeth Palace under Manners Sutton's immediate 
 supervision, and we get the names of the commissioners 
 in a letter from Pott to Watson under date ist August,^ 
 remonstrating with Watson for his non-attendance. 
 
 " What happened yesterday to deprive us of your 
 aid at Lambeth ? I need not say how much we missed 
 you. The Commission Committee met at Lambeth as 
 was determined — Lord Grenville, the Speaker, Wo Uaston, 
 Wordsworth, Mant, and myself, and alas ! an empty 
 chair for J. W." 
 
 1 Churton, i. 200. 
 
412 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 The Speaker was Addington. 
 
 Manners Sutton seems to have been especially 
 careful in the selection of his chaplains. Van Mildert 
 was for many years one ; later the archiepiscopal 
 chaplains included Lonsdale, a foremost Churchman of 
 the first half of the nineteenth century, preacher of 
 Lincoln's Inn, and later Bishop of Lichfield. Richard 
 Mant, afterwards a bishop, named in Pott's letter, 
 and George D'Oyley, afterwards rector of Lambeth 
 and biographer of Seeker, were now two of the 
 chaplains. Mant was author of a famous com- 
 mentary, and was especially trusted by Manners Sutton. 
 The S.P.C.K. about 181 5 projected a Family Bible. It 
 was originally to be double-barrelled — one for students , 
 one for cottage readers ; and the notes were to be 
 from the fathers or acknowledged Church of England 
 divines. There was a little uneasiness that by these 
 rules the scope of divines quoted would be too narrow.^ 
 Manners Sutton altered the plan of the designers of 
 the work and entrusted the preparation of the com- 
 mentary to Mant or D'Oyley. 
 
 The first church completed by the aid of the com- 
 missioners under theJAct was that of Bitton in Gloucester- 
 shire. The then Bishop of Gloucester was Henry- 
 Ryder, a friend of Simeon of Cambridge and a man 
 of great piety .^ He had been a supporter of the 
 building of the new church. In a letter to Watson,. 
 dated 1 7th September 1 82 1 , he describes the new church 
 and its consecration ceremony : 
 
 " In spite of one or two slight defects in archi- 
 tectural taste it is a fair Gothic structure. In situation 
 ' set upon a hill,' indeed observed and admired by the 
 people for several miles round." 
 
 Of the consecration he says : 
 
 " From 1500 to 1600 crowded the area, which , 
 however, will contain from 1000 to 1200 persons, 1 
 
 ^ * Churton, 126. * Churton, 230. 
 
i8a8] ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF 413 
 
 understand, conveniently. Many of the Dissenters and 
 some of the wildest practical infidels of the neighbour- 
 hood were present. Great decorum, attention, and some 
 degree of apparently deep interest were observable in 
 the congregation. I preached upon the text, ' Where 
 two or three, etc' " 
 
 The bishop goes on to tell of a " Lancastrian " 
 school near, the pupils of which, it is hoped, may 
 attend church. " The Wesleyan chief," he says, " has, 
 I understand, shown a very favourable disposition." 
 
 Sutton is found in 1819 speaking on the Catholic 
 question, which then absorbed so much public interest. 
 In June Lord Grey proposed to relieve candidates for 
 office and for Parliament from making the Declarations 
 against Transubstantiation and Invocation of Saints 
 as idolatrous and superstitious. His argument was : 
 " You exclude Roman Catholics from the franchise 
 because their religion requires them to give allegiance 
 to a foreign potentate, the Pope. The doctrines 
 abused by the Declaration have nothing to do with 
 foreign allegiance. Why require persons to declare 
 things which they imperfectly understand as idolatrous 
 and superstitious ? Good Churchmen, such as Arch- 
 bishops Herring and Sheldon had held transubstantia- 
 tion to be false but not idolatrous." Lord Grey was 
 seconded by the Bishop of Norwich in a speech of 
 great power. 
 
 The archbishop, as we might expect, was against 
 giving the Romans any rope. " In this dangerous age 
 of experiments," said he, "when so many innovations 
 had been made — when in a neighbouring country 
 morality, social order, and good government had been 
 overthrown, and even Christianity annihilated " — 
 (what a Godsend to speakers on the Conservative side 
 was the French Revolution for fifty years !) — " should 
 this nation in the pursuit of a political experiment throw 
 away the blessings of a constitution which had saved 
 us from so many perils." Majority against the Bill, 59. 
 
414 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 George iii. died on the 29th January 1820, and the 
 Regent became King. The unhappy position of things 
 between l;iini and his wife caused urgent and serious 
 questions at once to arise as to the status and rights 
 of the latter lady. It is not strange that the chief 
 officer of the Church of England found himself involved 
 to some extent in the handling and solution of these 
 questions. 
 
 We may remind our readers that George iv.'s 
 first days as King were marked by his own severe 
 illness, — it is believed that he would have died within 
 forty-eight hours of his father had not Sir Matthew 
 Tierney bled him almost to death, — and the Cato 
 Street Conspiracy under Thistlewood for the en masse 
 assassination of the Cabinet attracted attention, but 
 subject to this the case of the Queen became the 
 absorbing topic of attention for Ministers and for the 
 public. 
 
 We may also remind our readers that Caroline, 
 then Princess Royal, had left England in 1814; that 
 she had since lived abroad in Italy and on the 
 Mediterranean under circumstances which gave rise 
 to suspicion ; that in 1819 George iv., then Prince 
 Regent, who wanted to marry again, communicated 
 with the Ministers as to a divorce, and that the Queen's 
 friends and advisers in this country, particularly Lord 
 Brougham, then Mr. Brougham , were at first disposed 
 to agree to a separation. 
 
 On George iii.'s death, Caroline apparently de- 
 termined to return to England, and in spite of 
 Brougham's persuasion to the contrary, given when 
 he met her at St. Omer, she arrived in London in 
 June. 
 
 The first point that arose was, how was Caroline, 
 now Queen, to be dealt with in the Prayer Book ? The 
 King insisted on her name being omitted, and Lord 
 Liverpool and his Cabinet, with the exception of Canning, 
 agreed. The King, incensed at the Queen's coming to 
 
1828] QUEEN CAROLINE 415 
 
 England, where she was received ' with enthusiasm by 
 the crowd, sent down to Parhament documents affect- 
 ing the Queen's conduct abroad — and Liverpool 
 proposed that these should be referred to a Secret 
 Committee. 
 
 The Queen and her supporters objected to this 
 ■Committee as consisting of persons who had already- 
 made up their minds adversely to the Queen. Lord 
 Liverpool had proposed the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 to be on the Secret Committee. Lord Dacre, who 
 presented the Queen's petition against the Committee 
 to the Lords, objected on the ground that the Primate 
 would not have suffered the name of the Queen to be 
 •excluded from the Liturgy — as it had been by Order 
 in Council — ^without having formed impressions un- 
 favourable to her. 
 
 Manners Sutton showed weakness ; he took up 
 the position that he was not the responsible adviser 
 -of the Crown in the alteration of the Liturgy. The 
 alteration had been made on the advice of Ministers 
 in Council, and the archbishop merely executed the 
 Orders in Council ; he was willing to go off the 
 Committee if satisfactory grounds were shown which 
 <lid not impeach his public or private honour. 
 
 The Secret Committee met and reported, and its 
 report, as is well known, produced the Bill of Pains 
 and Penalties against the Queen, which proposed to 
 deprive her of her status as Queen, and to dissolve 
 and annul the marriage between her and His 
 Majesty. 
 
 We do not propose to repeat the long but interesting 
 story of the Queen's trial. The Bill was carried on 
 its second reading by 123 to 95, but on the third 
 reading by 108 only against 99, and was then dropped. 
 As is known, the unfortunate Caroline was refused 
 admission to Westminster Abbey on the Coronation, 
 fell sick, and died. As to the Bill, the second reading 
 was opposed by the Archbishop of York, but supported 
 
4i6 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 by the Primate and ten bishops . In Committee a ver5r 
 serious question arose as to the clause dissolving the 
 marriage, or, as it was called, the divorce clause. The 
 earlier clause deprived Caroline of the status and rights 
 of Queen Consort. In Committee the Archbishop of 
 York moved the omission of the divorce clause. Bloom- 
 field of Chester said he thought the crime of adultery had 
 been proved against her, and so had voted for the second 
 reading, but he did so on an understanding that the 
 divorce clause was to be laid aside. Sutton's view 
 was that divorces a vinculo were declared to be 
 lawful by our Saviour Himself. The words " for 
 any other cause " than adultery made divorces for 
 adultery allowable. Being convinced the charge of 
 adultery was proved, he had no objection, least of all 
 of a religious nature, to the clause. The clause was 
 carried by 129 to 62. But the minority included two 
 archbishops , one of Tuam , and eight bishops . In February 
 1 82 1 an annuity of £50,000 was voted by Parliament to> 
 the unfortunate Caroline. Lord Darnley, one of her sup- 
 porters, took the opportunity of asking that her name 
 might be restored to the Prayer Book. The archbishop's 
 short speech against the proposal is as reported one of 
 the weakest and most inconsequent that he made in 
 Parliament. He laboured the point that the matter 
 was wholly unconnected with religious principle. It was 
 a claim not for prayer but for distinction in prayer^ 
 and was therefore a matter not of religion but of grace 
 and favour. Caroline would come in under the prayers 
 for the Royal Family, and if not, would have the benefit 
 of the prayers of the Church for the human race 
 generally. It is of interest to note that on investigation 
 it was found that on the point of mentioning Royat 
 Consorts in public prayer the practice of the English 
 Church had not been uniform. Some had been 
 mentioned, some not. 
 
 Of the whole question of George iv. and his wife,. 
 the populace at the beginning of the nineteenth century^ 
 
1828] REGINALD HEBER 417 
 
 took the side of the Queen on the broad ground that 
 as a husband he was certainly to blame whether 
 she as a wife was or not. The upper classes mostly- 
 thought the King was the King, and could do no 
 wrong ; perhaps our archbishop's views were tinged, 
 too much tinged, as those of his class. One hundred 
 years later, had the case arisen then, the view of 
 the populace of 1820 would have gained more general 
 support . 
 
 The good work of Bishop Middleton at Calcutta was 
 cut short by his death after a short but severe illness in 
 July 1822. His successor was the brilliant Reginald 
 Heber, author of " Palestine," the best of Oxford prize 
 poems, and of the hymn " From Greenland's Icy Moun- 
 tains." Perhaps the Hackney Phalanx had misgivings 
 whether he were not too many-sided and too little clerical ; 
 his Life of Jeremy Taylor had deficiencies, and on his way 
 up to Bengal he wanted to shoot a tiger. But the doubts 
 were of a very few only. Heber was consecrated by 
 Manners Sutton on Sunday, ist June. The archbishop 
 seems to have felt a timidity about the Bishop of Calcutta, 
 afraid perhaps that either by Evangelical Churchmen or 
 by Nonconformists the maintenance of such a post would 
 be looked upon with suspicion or distrust. Nine years 
 before, when the first Bishop of Calcutta had been conse- 
 crated by him, he had deprecated, if not forbidden, the 
 publication of the consecration . sermon preached by 
 Dr. Rennell. Now Heber is consecrated in the presence 
 of a handful of persons in Lambeth Chapel. Heber him- 
 self notes in a letter that the archbishop kindly invited his 
 brother and Mrs. Manners Sutton, his daughter Emily 
 with two friends. " The archbishop," says Heber in the 
 same letter, " read the service beautifully, and I was much 
 affected." 1 
 
 Manners Sutton presided also at Heber 's " send off "^ 
 meeting in the old S.P.C.K. offices in Bartlett's Buildings, 
 and gave a " grave and dignified " address. Heber 
 
 ^ Life of Heber, 133. 
 
41 8 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 replied with eloquence and earnestness. The meeting 
 was impressive. Watson wrote of it : 
 
 " It was indeed a grand day, and every one seemed 
 delighted with it ; none more so than the archbishop , who 
 told me a day or two afterwards with his usual emphasis 
 that it was perfect." 
 
 Van Mildert says of the same occasion : " I know not 
 when I had so exquisite a treat. It was everything that 
 the purest taste and the most unaffected piety could 
 desire." 
 
 In 1823 and 1824 the everlasting question of marriage 
 and the solemnisation of marriage was before Parlia- 
 ment, and we find Sutton introducing a Marriage Act 
 Amendment Bill. One of the matters dealt with was 
 the annulment within a year of improper marriages of 
 minors. The problem was how to deal with the case of 
 a minor marrjang without the consent of parents or 
 guardians. There were, said the archbishop, three 
 courses : 
 
 (i) To make the consent of parent or guardian 
 unnecessary. 
 
 (2) To leave the marriage without consent dissoluble 
 
 at anytime. 
 
 (3) To make the marriage voidable by the parents 
 
 for a year. 
 
 The last course, though not altogether without ob- 
 jection, was what the archbishop recommended. The 
 Bill got a second reading, though opposed by the advo- 
 cates of indissoluble marriage. 
 
 Later in the year Lord Lansdowne moved a Bill to 
 enable Dissenters to be married in their own chapels, or 
 alternatively to have the Anglican service mangled by 
 the omission of certain words . Sutton spoke and opposed 
 any alteration in the Prayer Book, and the Bill dropped. 
 
 The next year saw the introduction by the same peer of 
 a Bill granting relief to the Unitarians in enabling them to 
 
182 8] HELP TO WATSON 419 
 
 be married in their own chapels, or with the invocation of 
 the Trinity in the Church service omitted . He was rebuked 
 by the Lord Chancellor Eldon, and his views seem not to 
 have suited the young Bishop of Chester, Bloomfield, 
 who thought the Unitarians undeserving of any concession. 
 Even as far back as 1825, Bloomfield 's great abihties seem 
 to have made their mark in ParUament. The Bill was 
 lost, as was another Bill for a somewhat similar purpose, in 
 the following year — ^which was supported by the Primate, 
 and opposed by Bishop Bloomfield. 
 
 By this time the agitation on the Catholic Enfranchise- 
 ment claims was at its height. As they have often done 
 since, the clergy got up petitions against the Bill. History 
 repeats itself, and Eldon having presented a petition 
 against the claims from the congregation of Percy Street 
 Chapel, Lord King told the House the minister had 
 before the conclusion of the service informed the congre^ 
 gation that a petition was lying in the vestry for signature, 
 and as the House of Lords was influenced by numbers, 
 he recommended all the females to sign it. The learned 
 and pious Howley, Bishop of London, vindicated the 
 clergyman and said he had not introduced any political 
 discussion into the pulpit. But the Primate mightily 
 disapproved of his conduct as both irregular and improper. 
 
 The archbishop was now an old man, having covered 
 the Psalmist's threescore years and ten. For the last three 
 years of his life, from 1825 to his death in 1828, he was 
 unable to attend the House of Lords. In 1825, when his 
 health was infirm, he had the chance of repaying the 
 debt of service he owed to Joshua Watson. Sutton had 
 amassed a large fortune, as was then the fashion of arch- 
 bishops ; and, whatever defects or even faults he had, 
 niggardliness was not one of them. 1825 saw a great 
 commercial crisis, and poor Watson was hard hit, though 
 his own losses were not like those of some of his con- 
 nections, ruinous. His church and charity funds were 
 fortunately intact, " in safe keeping," says his biographer, 
 " elsewhere," and he was helped at a time of pressure by 
 
420 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 teing repaid a large sum which he had some years before 
 lent a friend for a benevolent object. A few days before 
 Christmas 1825, Watson got a note from Lambeth Palace : 
 
 " My DEAR Sir, — ^When you called upon me a week or 
 ten days ago, I was not well enough to see you. I am now 
 most anxious to have five minutes' conversation with 
 you. Spare me if you can five minutes to-morrow 
 morning between the hours of 10 and 12. From, my dear 
 Sir, your faithful and obliged friend and servant, 
 
 "C. Cantuar."! 
 
 Watson went and made notes of the interview. 
 There was emotion on both sides. Sutton began by 
 apologising for not coming to Watson : his doctors would 
 keep him at home ; then with " a faltering voice and 
 suifused eyes " he expressed his deep sympathy with 
 Watson's trouble and offered help — ^which meant financial 
 or other help. " These are not words of course," said the 
 Primate, " I speak from my soul ; and upon every public 
 and private ground of personal respect I say it would be the 
 highest gratification to me to come forward in any way 
 that can be of use . ' ' Watson disclaimed meriting such kind- 
 ness by anything he had done. " Not so," said the arch- 
 bishop. " I have long been under great obligations to 
 you. . . . They are obligations of many years." Watson 
 was able to decline the prof erred help, which seemed 
 almost, says his biographer, " to disappoint the kindly 
 Primate." " Well," he said, " perhaps not now ; but it 
 may be otherwise .... I have never felt more strongly in 
 my life." The day before the interview he had asked the 
 advice of Mr. Justice Allan Park as to what he should do. 
 " Judge," said he, " I can tell you, I could not love that 
 man more were he my own son." 
 
 The archbishop's death, however, at the age of 
 seventy-three came rather unexpectedly. He was 
 buried in a vault under Addington Church. It is signi- 
 ficant of the change in our ideas of burial, that of the 
 
 1 Churton, Life of Watson, 250. 
 
s828] MANNERS SUTTON'S FAMILY 421 
 
 iive archbishops buried at Addington the first two are 
 buried inside the church and three in the churchyard. 
 
 The funeral procession from Lambeth Palace was of 
 ran ornate and imposing kind, with the usual number 
 •of porters and mutes then employed in private funerals. 
 It is of interest that the first part of the Burial Service 
 was read by John Lonsdale, afterwards Preacher of 
 Lincoln's Inn and Bishop of Lichfield. 
 
 Manners Sutton died a rich man. He was bold 
 •enough to write his will in his own hand — providing 
 fairly for his family and making his son, the Speaker, 
 ■executor. The latter, it is said, bought a house for his 
 mother and sisters in Gloucester Place. 
 
 The archbishop's eldest son Charles, like the sons of 
 several archbishops of the time, was called to the Bar, 
 where he made for himself a good position, being 
 Treasurer of his Inn, Lincoln's Inn, in 1825. He entered 
 Parliament as member for Scarborough in 1806, and 
 here he also attained distinction. He was afterwards 
 member for Cambridge University. He was judge 
 advocate-general, and was elected Speaker in June 181 7. 
 
 In 183s he was created Viscount Canterbury. It 
 was a remarkable fact that for several years the brother 
 of the Primate was Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and his 
 son Speaker of the House of Commons. The arch- 
 bishop's eldest daughter Mary married the Hon. Hugh 
 Percy, Bishop of Carlisle ; another daughter married 
 the Rev. James Croft, who became Archdeacon of Canter- 
 bury. 
 
 The fashion of the day to eulogise almost without dis- 
 crimination a deceased prelate or statesman renders it 
 •difficult to gauge exactly Sutton's merits or demerits as 
 Primate. On the whole, a careful examination of his 
 interpositions in Parliament while archbishop, extending 
 •over twenty years, leads to the conclusion that though 
 mistaken in^^his principles, as for instance on his attitude 
 towards relief of the Roman Catholics, he acted with 
 dignity and propriety in the House of Lords. He was 
 
422 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 more jealous than a Primate would nowadays care to be 
 in protecting the rights of the clergy to their tempor- 
 alities, e.g. when he brought in a Bill to aid clergymen 
 in getting effective dispensations for holding two bene- 
 fices beyond the prescribed limit, and in his treatment of 
 non-resident rectors or vicars ; but on such questions 
 as divorce he took a high and worthy line. 
 
 His biographer in the Gentleman's Magazine says that 
 in saying that his Grace passed through life with the 
 character of a most accomplished gentleman, let it be 
 understood that he was a Christian gentleman. Later 
 on he adds naively, " Fortune as well as merit, it is 
 said, is necessary to make a great man." Birth was the 
 fortune or casualty which brought about his advance- 
 ment ; the merit was of no peculiar or remarkable 
 character, but there was no deficiency, and none of those 
 eccentricities or originalities by which great genius is 
 often debased or deformed. His expenses were splendid 
 and liberal ; his personal habits temperate and ab- 
 stemious. 
 
 We must remember that for twenty years after the 
 French Revolution it would have been impossible for 
 the head of the English Church to be anything but con- 
 servative in religion and in politics. To any suggestion 
 of reform nine out of ten educated Englishmen only 
 waved their hands in the direction of France — " Our 
 King still has his head on and his crown upon it." 
 Later, " Who else but England has stemmed the tide 
 of Napoleonic conquest?" "How have we done it? 
 Our constitution has done it. Even if it has defects,, 
 be careful before you change it in any particular." 
 
 With reasoning on these lines Manners Sutton would 
 in the main have agreed. But there are points in his 
 favour to be noted. The Government of the day listened 
 to and trusted him : his chaplains and most if not all 
 of those he preferred, such conspicuously as Words- 
 worth, were the best men in the Church. He was dis- 
 cerning of ability and merit ; from some letters written 
 
1828] HIS CHARACTER 423 
 
 to the S.P.C.K. about its publications he saw the stuff 
 of which Hugh James Rose was made, and brought him 
 forward. When Watson's biographer — no mean judge 
 -—is commenting on the fact of the archbishop and 
 bishops having, at first, the right reserved to them of 
 appointing the committee of the newly-formed National 
 Society, he attributes it " to the personal dignity and 
 authority " of Manners Sutton. The same author 
 testifies to his rule over his suffragans, saying, " Seldom 
 has any Primate presided over the English Church 
 whose personal dignity of character commanded so 
 much deference from his suffragans or whose position 
 was so much strengthened by their concordant support. 
 The fact is certain and the cause deserves to be more 
 studied than it has been by some writers on the state 
 of Church affairs during his primacy." ^ 
 
 Joshua Watson had a high opinion of his private 
 and public character and of the wisdom of his adminis- 
 tration. This surely counts for a good deal. Writing 
 to the archbishop's son after his death to request half 
 a dozen casts of the bust Chantry had just finished of the 
 late Primate, he speaks of " the extraordinary services 
 which the late archbishop was graciously permitted to 
 render to the Church of England during the most busy 
 period of her history since the Reformation . . . the 
 public benefits conferred by the daily sacrifice of private 
 comfort by such a man none can know but those whose 
 labours were animated by his presence, whilst his 
 judgment directed their counsels and his courtesy won 
 their affections." This is the language of a letter to 
 a son about his recently deceased father, and is more 
 stilted than we should use. But our verdict must be 
 that Sutton, looking at the world through early nine- 
 teenth-century spectacles, was a courteous, benevolent 
 Primate, and something more. His son, a distinguished 
 Speaker, as we have said, in his reply to Watson called 
 his father " one of the best of men and one of the most 
 
 1 Churton, 260, 
 ?8 
 
424 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805- 
 
 valuable and efficient public servants that ever lived." 
 That is probably what most if not all of the Public Men 
 of his day would have said of the archbishop. 
 
 Though no eminence as a Biblical or classical 
 scholar can be claimed for Manners Sutton, he showed 
 as head of the English Church a fitting interest in and 
 disposition to assist the cause of Biblical research. It 
 had long been the opinion of scholars that the libraries 
 at Constantinople, particularly those of the Patriarch 
 of Jerusalem, contained MSS of parts of the New Testa- 
 ment of great value. The libraries of the convents on 
 Mount Athos were supposed to be similarly rich. Very 
 early in the nineteenth century, with the approval and 
 probably at the expense of the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, two English scholars undertook visits of research 
 to these places . The leader of the party was Professor 
 Carlyle, a good Oriental scholar who had been Pro- 
 fessor of Arabic at Cambridge, and was afterwards 
 Chancellor of Carlisle and held the valuable living of 
 Newcastle. He died at the comparatively early age of 
 forty-five. His companion was Dr. Philip Hunt. In 
 the years 1800 and 1801 these gentlemen visited the 
 libraries of the convents in the Islands of the Sea of 
 Marmora, the libraries of the Patriarch of Jerusalem at 
 Constantinople and of St. Saba near Jerusalem. In 
 some cases the scholars succeeded in cataloguing the 
 large numbers of MSS found. From St. Saba Professor 
 Carlyle got from the Superior leave to carry off six of 
 the oldest MSS — two copies of the Gospels, one of the 
 Epistles, two Books of Homihes and the Sophist 
 Libanius. From the Patriarch's Constantinople Library 
 he similarly secured twenty-nine MSS of the Gospels 
 and Epistles, and three classical MSS. 
 
 They also procured from the libraries of the Greek 
 Monks on the Prince's Islands in the Sea of Marmora 
 copies of parts of the New Testament of the eleventh, 
 twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, which, according to 
 Dr. Hunt, they bought from the monks. The docu- 
 
1828] MSS FROM THE MONASTERIES 425 
 
 ments of the patriarchs were, however, handed to the 
 Enghsh travellers for purposes of collation and ex- 
 amination in London, and were to be returned, says 
 Professor Carlyle, " to the Patriarch of Jerusalem 
 should he ever demand them." Meanwhile the whole 
 find was consigned temporarily at least to the Library 
 at Lambeth. 
 
 In a year or two the scholarly Carlyle died before 
 he could carry out his design of a fresh edition of the 
 Greek Testament in which should be incorporated the 
 results of a collation of the newly unearthed Greek MSS. 
 
 In 1806 Mrs. Carlyle, the sister of the Professor, 
 and Dr. Hunt made over to the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury two boxes containing what the two scholars had 
 found and brought away, and it would appear that in 
 the matter of what is called by the lady " compensa- 
 tion " the archbishop showed true liberality. 
 
 In April 1 806 the boxes were opened and the contents 
 examined by Dr. Dampier, Bishop of Rochester, Dr. 
 Charles Burney, and Dr. Todd, head of the Library at 
 Lambeth. They contained thirty-seven volumes — four 
 were marked C as coming from Constantinople, and 
 were noted as subject to return ; eighteen marked I, 
 as coming from the Islands ; and five marked S, from 
 Syria. All except C were valued by the bishop and 
 his colleagues — and the price so ascertained the arch- 
 bishop approved and paid to Mrs. Carlyle. 
 
 In 1812a new Catalogue of the documents at Lambeth 
 was made and pubhshed which contained all the Carlyle 
 collection, except C. 
 
 Alas ! a few years later difficulty arose with the 
 Patriarch of Jerusalem. It can be easily understood 
 how a mistake may have arisen as to the terms on which 
 the documents had been suffered to come to England. 
 C admittedly was liable to return. 
 
 In 1 816 a formal claim was made on Archbishop 
 Manners Sutton for the return not only of the four 
 documents in C, but of others as having " been only 
 
426 CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON [1805-28 
 
 lent to Professor Car lyle." The Patriarch thus claimed 
 eleven documents — two copies of the Gospels, three of 
 the Acts and Libanius from St. Saba, two Gospels, two 
 Psalters, and Eutropius from Constantinople. 
 
 Manners Sutton seems to have behaved very 
 sensibly. " C," i.e. three Gospels and one Acts, were 
 at once put aside to be returned : so were two Psalters 
 and the Libanius. Mr. Carlyle had the Eutropius. 
 This left one Gospel and two Acts to make good what 
 was reclaimed. These were taken, and in the end the 
 whole parcel was returned to the Patriarch through 
 the Foreign Of&ce and the English Ambassador in 
 Turkey. The archiepiscopal liberality apparently made 
 nothing of the fact that part of what he had paid for he 
 could not keep. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Actors at Canterbury, 76. 
 
 Addington bought, 389 ; sold, 390. 
 
 America, bishops for, 153, 205 ; Secl^er's 
 support of, 2S0 ; opposition to, 283 ; 
 consecration of, 361-7. 
 
 Annet, 284. 
 
 Arabic, New Testament in, loi. 
 
 Ashton, 3. 
 
 Atterbury, ii, 54; in the tower: 
 appeals to Wake for religious privi- 
 leges, 99 ; his trial, 100 ; Potter's 
 evidence, 141. 
 
 Auckland, first Lord, 350. 
 
 Austrian Succession, War of, 152. 
 
 Bangorian Controversy, the, 128-37. 
 
 Barlow, Bishop, his consecration, 85. 
 
 Beaufoy, Mr., 360. 
 
 Beauvoir, 78. 
 
 Beggar's Opera condemned, 169. 
 
 Bell, Dr. , of Madras, 399. 
 
 Benson, Dr. George, 197. 
 
 Benson, Martin, Bishop of Gloucester, 
 
 253 ; death, 27. 
 Bentley, 47. 
 Berkeley, Bishop, 281. 
 Blackburne, Francis, 199 ; Hutton's 
 
 patronage of, 245, 248. 
 Blackburne, Lancelot, archbishop, 48 ; 
 
 visit to Hanover, 49. 
 Blandford, Lord, Moore tutor to, 349. 
 Blasphemy and profaneness. Bill against, 
 
 70 ; fails, 139. 
 Bossuet, 5. 
 Bray, Dr., 68, 280. 
 Broad Bottomed Administration, the, 
 
 IS3- 
 Buckden, palace at, 35. 
 Burnet, Bishop, 14. 
 Butler, Bishop Joseph, 251 ; rector of 
 
 Haughton, 255 ; George II. promotes, 
 
 199 ; "buried not dead," 257 ; death, 
 
 271. 
 
 Cambridge, election of high steward, 
 
 317. 
 Canterbury, no archbishop's house at, 
 
 285. 
 
 Carlisle, rebels at, 40. 
 
 Caroline, Queen, as Princess of Wales, 
 
 50 ; her illness and death, 149. 
 Caroline, Queen, wife of George IV., 
 
 415- 
 Carteret, 152. 
 Catechism, Wake's lectures on, 24 ; 
 
 Seeker's lectures on, 261. 
 Cathohc Emancipation, 376. 
 Chandler, Dr. Samuel, 207. 
 Chaslett, master of University College, 
 
 13, 38- 
 
 Choirs, Seeker on, 307. 
 
 Church Building Society, 408 ; Act, 411. 
 
 Church Government, Potter's work on, 
 119; reprinted, 142. 
 
 Clarke, Dr. Samuel, 256. 
 
 Collier, 102. 
 
 Commonitorium, the, 80. 
 
 Continent, charity for the, 407. 
 
 Convocation, under Wake, 52 ; sus- 
 pension of, 56 ; Seeker opposed to 
 summoning, 288. 
 
 Cornwallis, Frederick, archbishop, 310 ; 
 made primate, 325. 
 
 Cornwallis, Bishop James, of Lichfield, 
 
 325- 
 Cornwallis, Marquis, 313. 
 Courayer, Wake's friend, 87 ; oiifers 
 
 asylum to, 92, 93, 95 ; made D.C.L. 
 
 at Oxford, 96. 
 Cowper, Lord Chancellor, 39, 54, 66. 
 Croydon old Palace, 2ii ; Act for sale 
 
 of> 345- 
 Cumberland, Duke of, Herring s address 
 
 to, 190. 
 Czar offers to the Nonjurors, 105. 
 
 Dawes, Sir William, Archbishop of 
 
 York, 12, 65. 
 Denne, Dr. Samuel, 344. 
 Dettingen, George the Second's victory 
 
 at, 152. 
 Dilapidations at Lambeth and Croydon, 
 
 39- 
 Dissenters', relief of, 57, 337, 359, 402. 
 Divorce, remarriage on, 395. 
 Doddridge, Dr. Philip, 201, 305. 
 
428 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Dole, archbishop's, 226. 
 
 Ducarel, librarian at Lambeth, 336. 
 
 Duncombe, William, friend of Herring, 
 
 168, 171. 
 Du Pin, 78. 
 
 Eastern Church, Nonjurors' negotiations 
 
 with, 104. 
 Eden, Miss Eleanor, her proposed 
 
 marriage to Pitt, 375. 
 Edward the Sixth's first Prayer Book, 
 
 103. 
 Eldon, John, Lord, 380-1. 
 Enthusiasm, Archbishop Manners Sutton 
 
 deprecates, 404. 
 Etonian, Cornwallis first Etonian 
 
 primate, 326. 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice, Wake's view of 
 
 Church of England's doctrine on, 90. 
 Evelyn, John, 7. 
 
 Fathers, Apostolical, Wake's treatise 
 
 on, 8. 
 Feathers Tavern Petition, 327. 
 Fell, Dean of Christ Church, Bishop 
 
 of Oxford, 2, 4. 
 Fox, 370. 
 Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of 
 
 George III., 258. 
 Fytche ». Bishop of London, 357. 
 
 Gallican Church, Wake's negotiations 
 
 with, 78. 
 George i., death of, 145, 171. 
 George II. , coronation of, 145 ; funeral, 
 
 278. 
 George III., baptism by Seeker, 150; 
 
 first days as king, 277 ; coronation, 
 
 279 ; illness, 371. 
 George iv. marries Caroline, 374. 
 Gibson, Edmund, Bishop of London, 
 
 35. 38, 146. 
 Gin Act, 151. 
 Girardin, Abbe, 80 ; visit to England 
 
 by, 87. . 
 Gordon Riots, 339. 
 Grafton, Duke of, 322. 
 Grey, Dr., of Hinton, friend of Moore, 
 
 348. 
 Grey, Lord, 413. 
 
 Habeas Corpus, 237. 
 
 Hanoverian Dynasty, its hold on the 
 English people, 154. 
 
 Hardwicke, Lord, the friend of Her- 
 ring, 172, 217. 
 
 Hare, Bishop, 53. 
 
 Hell-Fire Club, 71. 
 
 Herring, Thomas, archbishop, 167- 
 229 ; birth and education, 168 ; 
 
 preacher at Lincoln's Inn, 169 ; atti- 
 tude to Latitudinarians, 1 76-8, 
 208 ; Archbishop of York, 181 ; dis- 
 taste for the Primacy, 194-5 ; illness, 
 214, 223. 
 
 Hickes, 102. 
 
 Hoadly, 129 ; his Plain Account, 175. 
 
 Holidays at the Custom House, 393, 
 
 HoUis, Thomas, 284. 
 
 Hough, Bishop, 38. 
 
 Huntingdon, Selina, Countess of, 330. 
 
 Hurd, Richard, Bishop of Worcester, 
 
 35r, 353- 
 Hutton, Matthew, archbishop, 230-47 ; 
 patronised by Duke of Somerset, 
 231 ; Bishop of Bangor, 232 ; Arch- 
 bishop of York, 233 ; primate, 235 ; 
 sudden death, 239 ; character, 241-3. 
 
 Inglis, Bishop of Nova Scotia, 368. 
 
 James, Saint, parish of Piccadilly, 
 
 foundation of, 10. 
 Jews, naturalisation of, 204, 272. 
 Johnson of King's College, New York, 
 
 278, 282, 299. 
 Jones, his school at Tewkesbury, 249. 
 
 Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough, 66, 73- 
 Kennicott and his Hebrew Testament, 
 
 297. 
 King, William, author of anecdotes, 
 
 293- 
 
 Lancaster, Joseph, 400. 
 
 Lardner, Dr. Nathaniel, 291. 
 
 Law, Bishop Edmund, 176, 300, 313. 
 
 Lay Baptism, Wake on, 19. 
 
 Library at Lambeth, 244, 279, 309. 
 
 Lisbon, earthquake at, 222. 
 
 Liverpool, Lord, 402, 409, 410. 
 
 Lonsdale, Bishop, 421. 
 
 Lort, 345. 
 
 Lowth, Bishop of London, 353-4. 
 
 Lycophron, Potter's edition of, 117. 
 
 Macclesfield, Earl of, his trial, 106, 143. 
 
 Majendie, of Hedingham, 213. 
 
 Manchester, Playhouse at, 335. 
 
 Manners Sutton, Charles, archbishop, 
 380-4 ; favourite of George III., 384. 
 
 Manners Sutton, Charles, son of the 
 archbishop ; created Viscount Can- 
 terbury, 421. 
 
 Mant, Richard, 412. 
 
 Manuscripts from the East, 425. 
 
 Markham, Archbishop of York, 333, 
 
 367, 382. 
 Marlborough, Duke of, patron of 
 Moore, 349, 351. 
 
INDEX 
 
 429 
 
 Marlborough, Sarah, Duchess of, 265. 
 
 Marriage Act Amendment, 418. 
 
 Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough, 400. 
 
 Marske, 239. 
 
 Masquerades, 107, 223, 287. 
 
 Mayhew, 283. 
 
 Middleton.first Bishop of Calcutta, 404. 
 
 Moore, John, archbishop, 348-79 ; 
 Bishop of Bangor, 351 ; stirs up 
 George III. against Catholic Eman- 
 cipation,, 376 ; his wealth and 
 nepotism, 378. 
 
 Nag's Head, the, consecration at, 85. 
 Navy Bill, 237. 
 
 New churches, scheme to build, 50, 67. 
 Newcastle, Duke of, prime minister, 
 
 315; dispenser of patronage, 200; 
 
 return to office as Privy Seal, 288. 
 Newcastle, the present Duke saves 
 
 Croydon Palace, 347. 
 Newdigate, Sir Roger, 328. 
 Newton, Bishop, 279, 286, 301, 322, 
 
 323. 343- 
 
 Nicholson, William, Bishop of Carlisle, 
 40, 44. 
 
 Nithsdale, Lady, letter to Wake, 43. 
 
 Nonconformists, comprehension of, 209. 
 
 Nonjurors, 102 ; their doctrinal dis- 
 sensions, 103. 
 
 Non-resident clergy, 403. 
 
 Norris, Henry Handley, 39S. 
 
 North, Lord, 355. 
 
 Nottingham, Lord, 71. 
 
 Occasional conformity, 59, 62. 
 Options, 161. 
 
 Parker, Archbishop, entertains Thirlby 
 and Tunstall at Lambeth, 343. 
 
 Parliamentary Reports, Seeker's early 
 efforts in, 263. 
 
 Parliamentary speakers, bishops as, 264. 
 
 Park, Mr. Justice Allan, 398, 420. 
 
 Peers, not Law Lords, speak and vote 
 on causes, 335- 
 
 Pelhams, the, 192, 216. 
 
 Philadelphia Convention, 362, 364. 
 
 Pitt, William, the elder, coalition with 
 Newcastle, 274 ; Seeker's suspicions 
 of, 289 ; on relief to Dissenters, 360. 
 
 Pitt, William, the younger, proposed 
 marriage of, 375 J quarrel with 
 George lii. over appointment of 
 archbishop, 388. 
 
 Porteous, Bishop Beilby, 292, 336. 
 
 Pott, Archdeacon, 411. 
 
 Potter, John, archbishop, 115-66; 
 birth and education, 115; Regius 
 Professor, 120 ; Bishop of Oxford, 
 
 124 ; friendship with Wake, 126 ; 
 
 suggested as Dean of Christ Church, 
 
 137; alleged haughtiness, 157; his 
 
 wealth, 158. 
 Potter, Thomas, 159. 
 Preaching, Seeker on, 308. 
 Preston, Lord Viscount, 3. 
 Pretyman, Bishop, 385. 
 Private baptisms, 307. 
 Protestant interest. Bill to strengthen, 
 
 61, 64. 
 Provoost, Bishop of Philadelphia, 367. 
 
 Quakers, petition of clergy against 
 
 relief to, 97. 
 Quarrel between George 1. and 
 
 George 11., when Prince of Wales, 50. 
 
 Rebellion, Mar's, of 1715, 40, 45. 
 
 Rebellion of 1745, 154 ; Archbishop 
 Herring's vigorous action in relation, 
 183-9 ; Seeker's activity over, 266. 
 
 " Religious Societies," the, 21. 
 
 Resignation bonds, 357. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, proposes to 
 decorate St. Paul's, 334. 
 
 Richardson, Mr. Justice, 401. 
 
 Richardson v. Chapman, 161-6. 
 
 Roman Catholics, relief to, 372, 392, 
 
 413- 
 
 Romilly, Sir Samuel, 391. 
 
 Rose, John, son of Bishop of Edin- 
 burgh, a rebel, 45. 
 
 "Routs" at Lambeth, 331. 
 
 Ryder, Bishop of Gloucester, 412. 
 
 Sacheverell, impeachment of, 26-33. 
 St. Paul's Cathedral, building of, 35. 
 St. Paul's, Deanery of, Cornwallis' 
 
 angry letter on receiving, 321. 
 Bancroft, Archbishop, 31. 
 Sandwich, Earl of, 317. 
 Scottish bishops, the, 267. 
 Seeker, Thomas, archbishop, 248- 
 
 309 ; schoolfellow of Butler, 249 ; 
 
 medical studies in Paris, 251 ; marries 
 
 the sister of Martin Benson, 256 ; 
 
 Bishop of Oxford, 263 ; Dean of St. 
 
 Paul's, 269 ; primate, 275 ; illness 
 
 and death, 290-1 ; a hard worker, 300. 
 Sherlock, Bishop of Salisbury, 148 ; 
 
 of London, 200. 
 Sidmouth, Lord, 395. 
 Slave Trade, the, 369. 
 Smalridge, 42, 51 ; his uncompromising 
 
 Toryism, 122 ; death, 137. 
 Society for the Propagation of the 
 
 Gospel in Foreign Parts, Wake's 
 
 interest in, ill ; activity of, 405. 
 Squire, Bishop, 227. 
 
430 
 
 INDEX 
 
 stair, Lord, 82. 
 
 Stanhope, 48. 
 
 Stamp Act, repeal of, 289. 
 
 Strype, Wake's estimate of, 89. 
 
 Sunderland, 62, 73. 
 
 Tait, Archbishop, 390. 
 
 Talbot, Edward, 252-3. 
 
 Talbot, William, Bishop of Salisbury; 
 
 124 ; then of Durham, 252. 
 Temple, Archbishop, 390. 
 Tenison, Archbishop, 7, 13, 23. 
 Terrick, Bishop of London, 323, 334- 
 
 335- 
 Test and Corporation Acts, repeal of, 
 
 58, 332, 359, 370. 
 Thicknesse, Miss, 348. 
 Thirlby, Bishop, 342. 
 Tithe Commutation, Pitt's proposal 
 
 for, 373. 
 Tortoise at Lambeth, 203. 
 Tranquebar missionaries, 112. 
 Trelawney, Sir John, Bishop of 
 
 Winchester, 75. 
 Trimnell, Bishop, 61, 76. 
 Turner, Francis, Bishop of Ely, 3. 
 
 Visitation, Wake's, 23. 
 
 Wake, William, archbishop 
 his stay in Paris, 4 • >>'' 
 
 .. 1-114; 
 his papers, 
 
 15 ; liberality at Croydon and 
 Lambeth, 113. 
 
 Wakefield, Gilbert, 293. 
 
 Wales, Herring's visits to, l8o. 
 
 Walpole, Horace, his dislike to Seeker, 
 259. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, anger with Gibson 
 over Quakers' Bill, 147 ; Prime 
 Minister, 172, 174. 
 
 Warburton, Bishop, 294. 
 
 W^atson, Bishop of Llandaff, 334, 341. 
 
 Watson, Joshua, 397, 41 1. 
 
 Watts, Dr. Isaac, 303. 
 
 "Week end "-ing, beginning of, 69. 
 
 Wesley, John and Charles, their inter- 
 view with Potter, 156 ; Herring on, 
 219. 
 
 Wesley, Samuel, 15, 34. 
 
 Whiston, WilHam, 77, 196. 
 
 White, Bishop of New York, 367. 
 
 Wilberforce, William, praise of Arch- 
 bishop Moore, 369. 
 
 Wilkes, John, 318. 
 
 Willis, Dr., 371. 
 
 Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, his 
 appeal to the Privy Council, 109. 
 
 WoUaston, 329. 
 
 Wordsworth, Rector of Lambeth, 405. 
 
 Wren, Sir Christopher, 36. 
 
 Yorke, Charles, 288. 
 
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