EXETER, BISHOP OF. 



249 



seventeen years old, was elected to a Somerset- 

 shire Fellowship at Magdalen College. Under 

 the influence of Dr. Routh, principal of Mag- 

 dalen College, he commenced the study of 

 theology and of the works of the early fathers, 

 but did not receive deacon's orders till 1802, 

 having previously been elected Prselector of 

 Moral Philosophy, and one of the public ex- 

 aminers of the candidates for honors. In 1804 

 he was ordained priest, and married the same 

 year to Miss Surtees, a niece of Lady Eldon. 

 He was offered the next year (1805) the prin- 

 cipalship of Hertford College, but declined it. 

 He was presented to two livings by the Crown 

 (through Lord Eldon's influence), both sine- 

 cures. In 1806 he added to his other appoint- 

 ments that of chaplain to the Bishop of Dur- 

 ham, and defended his patron, in some brilliant 

 pamphlets, against the strictures of Lingard, 

 the Roman Catholic historian. Further pre- 

 ferments awaited him ; he was appointed Vicar 

 of Bishop's Middleham, near Durham, in 1806 ; 

 Eector of Gateshead, and master of King James 

 Hospital there, in!808 ; assigned to a prebendal 

 stall in Durham Cathedral in 1809 ; appointed 

 incumbent of St. Margaret's Chapel, Durham, 

 in 1810 ; and in 1814 another, and far richer, 

 prebendal stall in Durham Cathedral was con- 

 ferred on him. Thus, at thirty-six years of age, 

 and when he had been in priest's orders but 

 ten years, he was holding five livings and two 

 prebendal stalls, and, soon after, was offered, 

 but declined, the Irish bishopric of Clogher. 

 Mr. Phillpotts was emphatically High Church 

 in his religious views, and almost necessarily 

 intensely conservative in his political opinions ; 

 and with these sentiments he combined a bit- 

 ter and argumentative hostility to Koman Ca- 

 tholicism. It is not matter of surprise, then, 

 that his earlier as well as his later publi- 

 cations should have been devoted either to -the 

 defense of the Conservative Government and 

 its measures, the support of old practices and 

 abuses, or to vigorous, though not always very 

 temperate, assaults on Catholicism. In 1820 

 the valuable living of Stanhope fell vacant, 

 and was conferred at once by the Bishop of 

 Durham upon Mr. Phillpotts. Here he lived 

 in baronial style, and, being county magistrate 

 as well as clergyman, managed to have some 

 controversy on his hands most of the time. 

 His nature was so combative that he could not 

 rest without some conflict, religious, political, 

 or dogmatical on hand, and, for the next eight 

 years, he bombarded the nation with pamphlets 

 on all these topics, and made himself feared 

 by his opponents. To this period also belongs 

 one of the ablest of his controversial works ; 

 and one which, for its exceptional fairness, jus- 

 tice, and logical power, will always be regarded 

 as his greatest contribution to polemic litera- 

 ture "Letters to Charles Butler, Esq., on his 

 Book of the Roman Catholic Church." A sup- 

 plementary letter, in a small volume, was pub- 

 lished the next year (1826). It is, perhaps, the 

 highest compliment that can be paid to these 



<' Letters," to say that they resulted in cement- 

 ing a warm personal friendship between Mr. 

 Butler and his able antagonist, which continued 

 through their lives, notwithstanding their wide- 

 ly diverse opinions. In 1827 Dr. Phillpotts 

 discussed in another volume the question, then 

 a vitally important one in English parties, how 

 far it would be safe to concede the Roman 

 Catholic claims? And, while his hostility to 

 the Catholics was in no whit abated, and he 

 vigorously opposed any concessions to them 

 without sufficient guarantees, he yet differed 

 from most of his conservative friends, in avow- 

 ing his belief that they could give guarantees 

 which ought to be regarded as sufficient, with- 

 out violating their consciences. He opposed, 

 however, the measures proposed by Canning, 

 then premier, and the bills brought forward by 

 Mr. Stanley (afterward Earl of Derby), (see 

 DERBY, in this volume), and persisted that they 

 did not require sufficient assurances of the 

 national safety. In 1828 the Duke of Welling- 

 ton, then premier, nominated Dr. Phillpotts to 

 the deanery of Chester, and his enemies in- 

 sisted, most unwarrantably, the duke himself 

 being witness, that this promotion and that to 

 the bishopric of Exeter, which followed in 

 1830, were the price paid to him for his aban- 

 donment of his anti-Catholic prejudices. His 

 subsequent career showed that these charges 

 were utterly unfounded. He was consecrated 

 bishop, January 2, 1831, and the following 

 autumn made several able speeches in the 

 House of Lords, where he soon proved him- 

 self one of the readiest and soundest debaters 

 in that body. In these he took, as heretofore, 

 a high conservative position, and opposed the 

 Catholics with all his old vigor. He was, for 

 more than thirty sessions, a very constant at- 

 tendant upon the sittings of the House of Lords, 

 and was the most active and spirited debater 

 among the lords spiritual. In his diocese he 

 was an active tractarian and ritualist, sustain- 

 ing with all his old force the Oxford Anglo- 

 Catholic views, and putting the tractarians into 

 the livings of the diocese wherever he could. 

 He had almost always a controversy on hand 

 with some recusant clergyman, and it was a 

 common saying that the peace of the Church 

 was more continually broken in Devonshire and 

 Cornwall than throughout the whole of the 

 rest of the kingdom. Of this fondness for 

 controversy, as well as the extent to which he 

 would carry it, the Gorham case, which made a 

 great stir in its day was a conspicuous example. 

 Mr. Gorham, already an old man, and an incum- 

 bent in the Diocese of Exeter, was preferred 

 to the living of Bramford Speke. He was not 

 tractarian nor High Church, and Bishop Phill- 

 potts went out of his way to examine him, 

 pronounced him unsound in the faith, and re- 

 fused to institute him into the new living. Mr. 

 Gorham appealed to the Privy Council, which 

 gave judgment against the bishop ; but he still 

 refused to act. Archbishop Sunnier (the Arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury) hereupon very quietly 



