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ATTERBURY, FRANCIS (1662-1732)

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 882 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ATTERBURY, See also:FRANCIS (1662-1732) , See also:English See also:man of letters, politician and See also:bishop, was See also:born in the See also:year 1662, at See also:Milton or See also:Middleton Keynes in See also:Buckinghamshire, a See also:parish of which his See also:father was See also:rector. He was educated at See also:Westminster school and at See also:Christ See also:Church, See also:Oxford, where he became a See also:tutor. In 1682 he published a See also:translation of See also:Absalom and See also:Ahithophel into Latin See also:verse; but neither the See also:style nor the versification was that of the Augustan See also:age. In English See also:composition he succeeded much, better. In 1687 he published An See also:Answer to some Considerations,. on the Spirit of See also:Martin See also:Luther and the See also:Original of the See also:Reformation, a reply to See also:Obadiah See also:Walker, who, elected See also:master of University See also:College in 1676, had printed in a See also:press set up by him there an attack on the Reformation, written by See also:Abraham Woodhead. Atterbury's See also:treatise, though highly praised by Bishop See also:Burnet, is perhaps more distinguished for the vigour of his See also:rhetoric than for the soundness of his arguments, and the Papists were so much galled by his sarcasms and invectives that they accused him of See also:treason, and of having, by implication, called See also:King See also:James a Judas. After the Revolution, Atterbury, though bred in the doctrines of non-resistance and passive obedience, readily swore fealty to the new See also:government. He had taken See also:holy orders in 1687, preached occasionally in See also:London with an eloquence which raised his reputation, and was soon appointed one of the royal chaplains. But he ordinarily resided at Oxford, where he was the See also:chief adviser and assistant of See also:Dean See also:Aldrich, under whom Christ Church was a stronghold of Toryism. Thus he became the inspirer of his See also:pupil, See also:Charles See also:Boyle, in the attack (1698) on the Whig See also:scholar, See also:Richard See also:Bentley (q.v.), arising out of Bentley's impugnment of the genuineness of the Epistles of See also:Phalaris. He was figured by See also:Swift in the See also:Battle of the Books as the See also:Apollo who directed the fight, and was, no doubt, largely the author of Boyle's See also:essay. Bentley spent two years in preparing his famous reply, which proved not only that the letters ascribed to Phalaris were See also:spurious, but that all Atterbury's wit, eloquence and skill in controversial fence was only a cloak for an audacious pretence of scholarship.

Atterbury was soon occupied, however, in a dispute about matters still more important and exciting. The rage of religious factions was extreme. High Church and See also:

Low Church divided the nation. The See also:great See also:majority of the See also:clergy were on the High Church See also:side; the majority of King See also:William's bishops were inclined to latitudinarianism. In 1700 See also:Convocation, of which the See also:lower See also:house was overwhelmingly Tory, had not been suffered to meet for ten years. This produced a lively controversy, into. which Atterbury threw himself with characteristic See also:energy, See also:publishing a See also:series of See also:treatises written with much wit, audacity and acrimony. By the See also:mass of the clergy he was regarded as the most intrepid See also:champion that had ever defended their rights against the See also:oligarchy of Erastian prelates. In 1701 he was rewarded with the archdeaconry of See also:Totnes and a prebend in. See also:Exeter See also:cathedral. The lower house of Convocation voted him. thanks for his services; the university of Oxford created him a, See also:doctor of divinity; and in 1704, soon after the See also:accession of Anne„ while the Tories still had the chief See also:weight in the government,. he was promoted to the deanery of See also:Carlisle. Soon after he had obtained this prefermgt the Whig party came into See also:power. From that party he could expect no favour.

Six years elapsed before a See also:

change of See also:fortune took See also:place. At length, in the year 1710, the See also:prosecution of See also:Sacheverell produced a formidable See also:explosion of High Church fanaticism. At such a moment Atterbury could not fail to be conspicuous. His in-See also:ordinate zeal for the See also:body to which he belonged, his turbulent and aspiring See also:temper, his rare talents for agitation and for controversy, were again signally displayed. He See also:bore a chief See also:part in framing that artful and eloquent speech which the accused divine pronounced at the See also:bar of the Lords, and which presents a singular contrast to the absurd and scurrilous See also:sermon which had very unwisely been honoured with See also:impeachment. During the troubled and anxious months which followed the trial, Atterbury was among the most active of those pamphleteers who inflamed the nation against the Whig See also:ministry and the Whig See also:parliament. When the ministry had been changed and the parliament dissolved, rewards were showered upon him. The lower house of Convocation elected him See also:prolocutor, in which capacity he See also:drew up, in 1711, the often-cited See also:Representation of the See also:State of See also:Religion; and, in See also:queen, who had selected him as her chief adviser in ecclesiastical matters, appointed him dean of Christ Church on the See also:death of his old friend and See also:patron Aldrich. At Oxfcrd he was as conspicuous a failure as he had been at Carlisle, and it was said by his enemies that he was made a bishop because he was so See also:bad a dean. Under his See also:administration Christ Church was in confusion, scandalous altercations took place, and there was See also:reason to fear that the great Tory college would be ruined by the tyranny of the great Tory doctor. In 1713 he was removed to the bishopric of See also:Rochester, which was then always See also:united with the deanery of Westminster. Still higher dignities seemed to be before him.

For, though there were many able men on the episcopal See also:

bench, there was none who equalled or approached him in See also:parliamentary talents. Had his party continued in power it is not improbable that he would have been raised to the archbishopric of See also:Canterbury. The more splendid his prospects the more reason he had to dread the accession of a See also:family which was well known to be partial to the Whigs, and there is every reason to believe that he was one of those politicians who hoped that they might be able, during the See also:life of See also:Anne, to prepare matters in such a way that at her decease there might be little difficulty in setting aside the See also:Act of See also:Settlement and placing the Pretender on the See also:throne. Her sudden death confounded the projects of these conspirators, and, what-ever Atterbury's previous views may have been, he acquiesced in what he could not prevent, took the oaths to the house of See also:Hanover, and did his best to ingratiate himself with the royal family. But his servility was requited with See also:cold contempt; and he became the most factious and pertinacious of all the opponents of the government. In the House of Lords his See also:oratory, lucid, pointed, lively and set off with every See also:grace of See also:pronunciation and of gesture, extorted the See also:attention and admiration even of a hostile majority. Some of the most remarkable protests which appear in the See also:journals of the peers were See also:drawn up by him; and, in some of the bitterest of those See also:pamphlets which called on the English to stand up for their See also:country against the aliens who had come from beyond the seas to oppress and See also:plunder her, critics easily detected his style. When the See also:rebellion of 1715 See also:broke out, he refused to sign the See also:paper in which the bishops of the See also:province of Canterbury declared their See also:attachment to the See also:Protestant See also:succession, and in 1717, after having been See also:long in indirect communication with the exiled family, he began to correspond directly with the Pretender. In 1721, on the See also:discovery of the See also:plot for the See also:capture of the royal family and the See also:proclamation of King James, Atterbury was arrested with the other chief malcontents, and in 1722 committed to the See also:Tower, where he remained in See also:close confinement during some months. He had carried on his See also:correspondence with the exiled family so cautiously that the circumstantial proofs of his See also:guilt, though sufficient to produce entire moral conviction, were not sufficient to justify legal conviction. He could be reached only by a See also:bill of pains and penalties. Such a billthe Whig party, then decidedly predominant in both Houses, was quite prepared to support, and in due course a bill passed the See also:Commons depriving him of his spiritual dignities, banishing him for life, and forbidding any See also:British subject to hold inter-course with him except by the royal permission.

Phoenix-squares

In the Lords the contest was See also:

sharp, but the bill finally passed by eighty-three votes to See also:forty-three. Atterbury took leave of those whom he loved with a dignity and tenderness worthy of a better man, to the last protesting his innocence with a singular disingenuousness. After a See also:short stay at See also:Brussels he went to See also:Paris, and became the leading man among the Jacobite refugees there. He was invited to See also:Rome by the Pretender, but Atterbury See also:felt that a bishop of the Church of See also:England would be out of place at the Vatican, and declined the invitation. During some months, however, he seemed to stand high in the See also:good See also:graces of James. The correspondence between the master and the servant was See also:constant. Atterbury's merits were warmly acknowledged, his See also:advice was respectfully received, and he was, as See also:Bolingbroke had been before him, the See also:prime See also:minister of a king without a See also:kingdom. He soon, however, perceived that his counsels were disregarded, if not distrusted. His proud spirit was deeply wounded. In 1728 he quitted Paris, fixed his See also:residence at See also:Montpelier, gave up politics, and devoted himself entirely to letters. In the See also:sixth year of his See also:exile he had so severe an illness that his daughter, Mrs Morice, herself very See also:ill, determined to run all risks that she might see him once more. She met him at See also:Toulouse, received the communion from his See also:hand, and died that See also:night.

Atterbury survived the severe See also:

shock of his daughter's death two years. He even returned to Paris and to the service of the Pretender, who had found out that he had not acted wisely in parting with one who, though a heretic, was the most able man of the Jacobite party. In the ninth year of his banishment he published a luminous, temperate and dignified vindication of himself against See also:John Oldmixon, who had accused him of having, in See also:concert with other Christ Church men, garbled the new edition of See also:Clarendon's See also:History of the Rebellion. The See also:charge, as respected Atterbury, had not the slightest See also:foundation; for he was not one of the editors of the History, and never saw it till it was printed. A copy of this little See also:work he sent to the Pretender, with a See also:letter singularly eloquent and graceful. It was impossible, the old man said, that he should write anything on such a subject without being reminded of the resemblance between his own See also:fate and that of Clarendon. They were the only two English subjects who had ever been banished from their country and debarred from all communication with their See also:friends by act of parliament. But here the resemblance ended. One of the exiles had been so happy as to See also:bear a chief part in the restoration of the royal house. All that the other could now do was to See also:die asserting the rights of that house to the last. A few See also:weeks after this letter was written Atterbury died, on the 22nd of See also:February 1732. His body was brought to England, and laid, with great privacy, under the See also:nave of Westminster See also:Abbey.

No inscription marks his See also:

grave. It is agreeable to turn from Atterbury's public to his private life. His turbulent spirit, wearied with See also:faction and treason, now and then required repose, and found it in domestic endearments, and in the society of the most illustrious See also:literary men of his See also:time. Of his wife, Katherine See also:Osborn, whom he married while at Oxford, little is known; but between him and his daughter there was an See also:affection singularly close and See also:tender. The gentleness of his See also:manners when he was in the See also:company of a few friends was such as seemed hardly credible to those who knew him only by his writings and speeches. Though Atterbury's classical attainments were not great, his See also:taste in English literature was excellent; and his admiration of See also:genius was so strong that it overpowered even his See also:political and religious antipathies. His fondness for Milton, the mortal enemy of the Stuarts and of the Church, was such as to many Tories seemed a See also:crime; and he was the close friend of See also:Addison. His favourite companions, however, were, as might have been expected, men whose politics had at least a tinge of Toryism. He lived on friendly terms with Swift, See also:Arbuthnot and See also:Gay. With See also:Prior he had a close intimacy, which some misunderstanding about public affairs at last dissolved. See also:Pope found in Atterbury not only a warm admirer, but a most faithful, fearless and judicious adviser. See F.

See also:

Williams, See also:Memoirs and Correspondence of Atterbury with Notes, &c. (1869); See also:Stuart Papers, vol. i.: Letters of Atterbury to the See also:Chevalier St See also:George, &c. (1847); J. See also:Nichols, Epistolary Correspondence, &c. (1783-1796) ; and H. C. See also:Beeching, Francis Atterbury, (1909).

End of Article: ATTERBURY, FRANCIS (1662-1732)

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