LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 235 



Thus much being said of his visitation and 

 reformation of the collegiate church of South- 

 well, and other services performed by him to 

 its great advantage ; it may not be improper to 

 conclude this part of the work with an account 

 of the most memorable of his acts as an archbishop 

 or metropolitan. And that was his interposition 

 and mediation of the differences between Dr. 

 William Nicholson, the Bishop, and Dr. Francis 

 Atterbury, the Dean of Carlisle ; and the rather, 

 because in this account, which shall be no fur- 

 ther laid open than is necessary to shew what 

 share he bore in accommodating matters be- 

 tween them, his own sentiments about the king's 

 ecclesiastical swpremacy, which was the sole ground 

 of their dispute, will more fully appear. 



In the year 1704, when Dr. Atterbury was 

 nominated by the Queen to the deanery of Car- 

 lisle, a scruple arose in the breast of the bishop 

 about the regularity of admitting him into that 

 preferment. For, in his lordship's judgment, 

 the doctor had, by some of his assertions which 

 were published concerning the regal supremacy, 

 incurred the censure of the second canon. The 

 natural inference from which was, that without 

 a retraction of those positions, at least before 

 the bishop and his chapter, institution could 

 not be canonically given him by them. How- 

 ever, his lordship, foreseeing the difficulties 



