Francis Atterbury Biography Quotes 3 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Francis Atterbury was born in 1663 into a clerical family in England. His father, Lewis Atterbury, was a parish clergyman whose example shaped his sons; Francis's brother, also named Lewis Atterbury, became a well-known preacher. The household valued learning and the authority of the Church of England, and the young Francis was sent to Westminster School, where the formidable headmaster Richard Busby drilled generations of boys in classical scholarship and discipline. From Westminster he advanced to Christ Church, Oxford, distinguishing himself as a brilliant classicist and a poised writer of Latin verse. By the late 1680s he had taken orders, and his gifts as a polemicist and preacher were already evident.

Scholarship, Wit, and Early Controversies
At Oxford and London he moved among scholars and men of letters, a world that prized erudition and sharp argument. He played a notable part in the celebrated dispute over the authenticity of the Epistles of Phalaris, taking the side of Charles Boyle against the formidable critic Richard Bentley. Although Bentley's scholarship ultimately prevailed in the judgment of posterity, Atterbury's spirited advocacy displayed his flair for controversy and his command of classical learning. His pen soon turned to ecclesiastical questions closer to his heart. In the pamphlet literature around 1700 he argued for the traditional rights of the Church's synods, crossing swords in print with William Wake, later Archbishop of Canterbury. These exchanges announced Atterbury as a leading High Church voice determined to assert the authority of the clergy and the integrity of Anglican doctrine and governance.

High Church Leadership and Public Reputation
The early eighteenth century was a time when theology shaded easily into politics. Atterbury's alliance with the High Church Tories deepened as national debate intensified over church prerogatives, the succession, and the obligations of loyalty. He was widely credited with advising and helping to frame the defense of Henry Sacheverell during the sensational impeachment of 1710, a trial that inflamed public opinion and helped sweep the Tories to power. The episode made Atterbury a household name and a symbol of clerical resistance to what he and his allies saw as Whig encroachments. He cultivated friendships in the ministry, particularly with Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, and he gained the confidence of Queen Anne, who favored High Churchmen and rewarded his services.

Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Rochester
In 1713 Atterbury achieved the peak of his ecclesiastical preferment. He was appointed Bishop of Rochester while also holding the deanery of Westminster, an influential combination that placed him at the ceremonial and spiritual center of national life. His eloquence and administrative energy were evident in the Abbey and in his diocese, and his prestige in the Church rose accordingly. Yet he remained as much a public figure as an ecclesiastical one. He spoke for a vision of the Church aligned with the monarchy and wary of doctrinal latitudinarianism, a stance that endeared him to the Tory heartlands and alarmed his Whig opponents.

Convocation and the Bangorian Controversy
With the Hanoverian succession in 1714 and the dominance of Whig ministers under George I, the political winds shifted sharply. Atterbury emerged as the most formidable leader of the clergy in Convocation, serving as prolocutor of the Lower House and defending its independence. The flashpoint came with the Bangorian controversy after Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, preached in 1717 that Christ's kingdom was not of this world, a thesis Whigs embraced as a challenge to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Atterbury marshaled arguments and allies to resist Hoadly's conclusions. The government responded by proroguing Convocation, effectively silencing that assembly for years. The episode crystallized Atterbury's role as the embodiment of High Church opposition to Whig ecclesiastical policy.

Literary Friendships and Cultural Influence
Beyond the pulpit and the synod, Atterbury's salon at Westminster and later his correspondence linked him to leading writers. He enjoyed close relations with Alexander Pope, who prized Atterbury's taste and judgment and consulted him on literary projects. Jonathan Swift, fellow Tory satirist and clergyman, exchanged letters with him about politics and letters. These friendships, along with Atterbury's own polished sermons and occasional Latin poetry, embedded him in the Augustan literary world and extended his influence beyond church politics into the shaping of English letters.

The Jacobite Connection and the Atterbury Plot
As Whig power consolidated after the failed 1715 rising, disaffected Tories and Jacobites continued to hope for a Stuart restoration. Atterbury's sympathy with that cause, and his contacts with exiled leaders such as the Duke of Ormonde and Henry St John, brought him under increasing scrutiny. In 1722 the government, led in the Commons by Robert Walpole, exposed what came to be known as the Atterbury Plot, a conspiracy in which correspondence with James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, was cited as evidence of treasonable designs. Atterbury was arrested and confined in the Tower of London. Though no conventional trial secured a conviction, Parliament passed a Bill of Pains and Penalties in 1723 that deprived him of his offices and banished him for life.

Exile and Final Years
Banishment did not still Atterbury's pen or diminish his stature among his admirers. He departed England for the Continent and settled chiefly in Paris, where he continued to write, to correspond with Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, and to act as an elder statesman for the Jacobite diaspora. The separation from England and from Westminster weighed on him, and the strains of exile were compounded by family sorrows. He remained intellectually vigorous, engaged with news from London and with continental debates, but his prospects of return dimmed as Walpole's ministry endured. Atterbury died in France in 1732, closing a life that had moved from the schoolrooms of Busby and the halls of Christ Church to the very center of church and state, and finally into principled, unyielding exile.

Character, Writings, and Legacy
Atterbury's character combined gifts that seldom sit easily together: a scholar's exactitude, a preacher's warmth, a partisan's courage, and a statesman's sense of timing. His sermons were admired for clarity and force, his Latin verse for elegance, and his polemical tracts for their learning and edge. He left a substantial body of letters that illuminate the inner workings of early eighteenth-century politics and culture, as well as his friendships with figures such as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. In church affairs he stands as the most conspicuous champion of the Convocation and of High Church principles in an age that increasingly favored Whig theories of tolerance and state supremacy. Politically he was both participant and symbol: a Tory divine whose fortunes rose with Queen Anne's court and fell under George I, a prelate whose name became attached to a plot that defined the limits of opposition in an era of fragile succession.

The controversies that surrounded him continue to shape his reputation. Admirers see fidelity to conscience and a courageous defense of the Church's liberties; critics see in him the hazards of clerical partisanship and the ambiguities of Jacobite intrigue. What is beyond dispute is his significance. Francis Atterbury stood at the crossroads of literature, religion, and politics in early eighteenth-century Britain, engaging the leading minds of his time, contending with bishops such as Benjamin Hoadly and William Wake, advising ministers like Robert Harley and Henry St John, and confronting the authority of Robert Walpole. He was, in every sense, a principal actor in the drama of his age.

Our collection contains 3 quotes who is written by Francis, under the main topics: Ethics & Morality - Faith - Reason & Logic.

Other people realated to Francis: Robert South (Clergyman), Bishop Robert South (Theologian)