ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



It some disturbance by the Romanist clergy.^'' Now the penal laws were 

 vived, a strict watch was kept on papists, and orders were issued for seizing 

 leir horses and arms." Places like Egton still afForded refuge to recusants, 

 ho were hunted down at intervals;'* but in 1696 only nine Papists were 

 turned to Archbishop Sharp as existing in so populous a place as Leeds.*' 



The archbishopric, on Lamplugh's death (1691), was given to John 

 liarp, Dean of Canterbury, who as Dean of Norwich and rector of St. Giles- 

 i-the-Fields had been threatened with suspension under James 11.'" Like 

 is predecessor. Sharp was a Yorkshireman by birth." As archbishop, he 

 lowed much religious zeal and tact.'' One practical outcome of his know- 

 dge of the diocese of York was his collection of manuscripts, relating to 

 ich several parish, and supplementing the voluminous collections made by 

 is contemporary, James Torre of Snydall." Sharp died in 17 14, and 

 ir William Dawes, a pious but undistinguished prelate, was translated from 

 ;hester.*° Dawes was succeeded by Lancelot Blackburne, Bishop of Exeter 

 1724—43), who was somewhat more conspicuous as a courtier than a 

 relate.*^ Thomas Herring, translated from Bangor in 1743, and to Canter- 

 ury in 1747, a kindly and accomplished man, has left in one or two of his 

 jtters a record of his diocesan work which has some bearing on the religious 

 fe of the age. His arrival at Bishopthorpe brought him into a ' round of 

 ompliments and entertainments,' from which he retired to perform his 

 iocesan visitation. ' I bless God for it,' he writes, ' I have finished the 

 /ork, not only without hurt, but with great pleasure to myself, and I return 

 ome with great satisfaction of heart for having done my duty, and acquired 

 sort of knowledge of the diocese, which can be had by nothing but personal 

 nspection.' He reckoned that in his progress he had confirmed above 

 0,000 people ; probably haste in administering the rite stood in the 

 /ay of accurate computation.*^ Among the clergy of the diocese at this time 

 /as Laurence Sterne, who became vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest in 1738, 

 eceived a stall at York in 1741, obtained the living of Stillington on his 

 carriage in 1743, and the perpetual curacy of Coxwold in 1760.*^^ Herring, 

 s Archbishop of Canterbury, mentioned Sterne's name for a vacant prebend 

 t Canterbury in 1752.*' A more theologically minded incumbent was 

 Archbishop Blackburne's son, Francis, who, as rector of Richmond and Arch- 



" Ornsby, Dioc. Hist. Tork, 402, 403. Lord Danby wrenched Smith's pastoral staff from him ; it is 

 ill preserved in the vestry of York Minster. 



" See Quarter Sess. Rec. (N.R. Rec. Sec), vii, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, loi, &c. (all instances in 1689). 



" Ibid, vii, 213:3 vi^arrant against John Danby of Egton Bridge upon information for saying mass 

 13 July 1708) ; ibid. 215 : 32/. 6ii. to be paid to the chief constables of Langbaurgh for charges in taking up 

 woman Catholics at Egton, &c. (5 October 1708). 



" Lawton, op. cit. 89. '^ Drake, op. cit. 467, 468. See Macaulay, Hist. cap. vi. 



" Lamplugh was a native of Thwing ; Sharp, of Bradford. 



" See Thomas Sharp, Life of John Sharp, D.D. (ed. T. Newcome, 1825). In pt. ii, pp. 115 seq., his 

 .iocesan work is noticed at length. 



" See Lawton, op. cit. Introd. pp. xii, xiii. " Drake, op. cit. 469. 



" Much slander about Blackburne was collected by Horace Walpole ; see Walpole's Letters (ed. Cunmng- 

 lam), i, 235 (21 Mar. 1742-3) ; ii, 250 (22 Apr. 1751) ; ix, 472 (11 Dec. 1780), also the short memoir of 

 lis times drawn up by Walpole, ibid, i, 74. 



" Letters from Dr. Thomas Herring . . . to William Buncombe, Esq. 1728-57 (i777). ^z seq. (15 Sept. 

 7+3). 



"' Diet. Nat. Biog. liv, 199 seq. Sterne's Yorkshire preferments were due to his uncle, Jaques Sterne, 

 irandson of Archbishop Sterne and Precentor and Canon of York. 



*' Herring to Duke of Newcastle, Add. MSS. 32726, fol. 470 (22 Apr. 1752). Sterne's name is the 

 econd of the two candidates : Herring's language about both is rather ambiguous. 



71 



