cons. 31 Mar. 1689 bp. of SALISBURY
First sat 3 Apr. 1689; last sat 21 Aug. 1714
b. 18 Sep. 1643, Edinburgh, s. of Sir Robert Burnet, and Rachel, da. of James Johnston of Wariston, sis. of Archibald Johnston‡, of Wariston. educ. privately; Marischal Coll. Aberdeen. matric. 1652, MA 1657; ct. of justice 1657-8. m. (1) c.1672-3, Lady Margaret (d. May 1685), da. of John Kennedy, 6th earl of Cassilis [S], s.p. (2) 25 May 1687,1 Mary Scott (d.1698), of The Hague, 5s. (2 d.v.p.) 2da.2 (3) c. 23 May 1700,3 Elizabeth (d. 3 Feb. 1709), da. of Sir Richard Blake of The Strand, Mdx. wid. of Robert Berkeley of Spetchley, Worcs. 2da. d.v.p.4 d. 17 Mar. 1715; will 24 Oct. 1711-17 Apr. 1714; pr. 24 Mar. 1715.5
Probationer 1661; minister Saltoun 1665-69; clerk of presbytery Haddington 1667; prof. of divinity Glasgow Univ. 1669-1674; royal chap. 1673; chap. Rolls Chapel 1675-84; lecturer St. Clement Danes 1675-83, St Mary-le-Bow Jan. 1689;6 DD Lambeth 1680;7 Chap. to Prince of Orange 1688; chan. Order of Garter 1689; preceptor to duke of Gloucester 1698-1700.
Eccles. commr. [I], 1690,8 Eng. Mar. 1695,9 1699.10
Commr. hospitals 1691,11 Q. Anne’s Bounty 1704.12
Freeman/burgher, Amsterdam 1687;13 mbr. SPCK 1700;14 SPG.15
FRS 1664.
Also associated with: St James’s Palace, 1698-1703; St John’s Court, Clerkenwell, 1709-6.
Likenesses: oil on canvas by Mary Beale, c.1675, St Edmundsbury Museum, Suffolk; oil on canvas aft. J. Riley, c.1689-91, NPG 159; oil on canvas by Sarah Hoadly, aft. 1689, University of Aberdeen; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, aft. 1689, National Trust, Wimpole Hall, Cambs.
Early Career
Brought up by his mother, the sister of the covenanter politician Archibald Johnston of Wariston who had been leader of the protestor movement and close to the English Independents in the 1650s, but rigorously educated by his Episcopalian father, Burnet’s was an ambiguous intellectual and political inheritance. Precociously learned, Burnet made use of time in England in 1663 making connections with London’s religious and scientific circles, followed up by tours of the Netherlands and France. A parish minister from 1665, his forthright criticism attracted the enmity of many of the Scottish bishops and the patronage of John Maitland, earl, later duke of Lauderdale [S], for whose project of accommodation with moderate Scottish Dissent in 1669 he would become an unsuccessful cheerleader. Burnet turned down the proposal by Lauderdale to make him into a Scottish bishop, and now a professor in the University of Glasgow, he increasingly gravitated into the orbit of the dukes of Hamilton, whose relation he married. In the summer of 1673, Burnet came to London to secure permission to publish his Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton; though he was initially encouraged by the king and the duke of York, Lauderdale’s enthusiasm rapidly turned into hostility. Burnet, concluding that Lauderdale would make his continued career in Scotland impossible, settled in London. Involvement in the opposition to Lauderdale included an appearance before a committee of the Commons during the attempt to remove him in 1675, which contributed to his worsening relationship with the court.16 By the time his Hamilton memoirs appeared in 1677 Burnet was serving as successful preacher, at the Rolls Chapel and at St Clements, had begun work on The History of the Reformation, and was a frequent contributor to pamphlet religious controversy.
Burnet would become closely linked to country politicians in London and the London clergy who were close to them, but he claimed to have been sceptical of the reality of the Popish Plot, and to have been consulted on several occasions by the king as a result. The publication of the History of the Reformation, on the other hand, gave him a considerable reputation as a defender of the Church of England against its Catholic foes; flirting with the idea of excluding James Stuart, duke of York, from the throne, Burnet became close to many of the leading Whigs, including Arthur Capel, earl of Essex, and Lord William Russell‡, and was tainted by association with them after the Rye House Plot. His service to Russell at his trial and execution in July 1683 cost him any residual royal favour. He lost his posts as a preacher and lecturer.
Soon after the duke of York, succeeded as king in 1685, Burnet left for voluntary exile. After travelling through France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, he reached the Netherlands in 1686 where he was taken into the service of the prince and princess of Orange, being ‘so great a servant of theirs, and gives such characters of them’ as to be seen as an significant promoter of their interest.17 Burnet played an important part in the exiled community, and came to be seen as a threat by James II, who put pressure on the prince and princess to dismiss him: in compliance he was forbidden their court. He remained in touch with them however, as well as with events in England: by February 1688 he was being delivered ‘such great packets of letters constantly as few receive but public ministers’.18 Burnet’s anonymous writings on English affairs, including his Reasons against Repealing the Acts of Parliament concerning the Test, published before an anticipated meeting of Parliament in April 1687, incited James to take direct action against him, though Burnet wrote that what really precipitated it was news of his engagement to ‘a considerable fortune at the Hague’. As early as 2 Apr. 1687, Edward Harley‡ reported to his father that Burnet had indeed ‘married a lady with a great fortune’.19 A prosecution against Burnet for treason was begun in Scotland in April; Burnet responded by obtaining naturalization from the States General, before it was generally known in the Netherlands. His marriage seems to have taken place in May 1687 to ‘the daughter of a very rich widow’. His mother-in-law died five months afterwards, when reportedly the ‘whole estate is come into hand, it is thought to be full £12,000’.20 Once James II had fled, Burnet became a leading advocate of William assuming the crown. On 20 Dec. 1688 Charles Bertie‡ told Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby, that he had seen George Savile, marquess of Halifax, in ‘deep conference’ with Burnet ‘who is the prince’s clerk of his closet and chaplain and a great man of state.’21 Morrice, too, thought Burnet to be clerk of the closet in February 1689, but officially he never appears to have been more than the prince’s chaplain; it was John Tillotson, the future archbishop of Canterbury, who became clerk in April 1689, although Burnet was still being called clerk of the closet by some in 1694.22 On 20 Dec. Burnet introduced four of the seven bishops, William Lloyd, of St Asaph, Francis Turner, of Ely, Thomas White, of Peterborough, and Thomas Ken, of Bath and Wells, to the prince.23 On 22 Dec. Burnet preached at St James’s before the Prince and ‘a very numerous assembly of the nobility, gentry and citizens’ delivering ‘a most learned, eloquent and edifying sermon; exhorting to gratitude, first to God and then to his highness for this happy deliverance from popery and slavery’.24 Despite being pestered by ‘many impertinent people that press in upon me’, Burnet was able on 25 Dec. 1688 to send from St James’s an assessment of affairs to Arthur Herbert, earl of Torrington:
as to the settling of the government, there are two different opinions, for a third, which was for treating with the king, has fallen by his second withdrawing yesterday… Some are for calling together with the peers all such as have been Parliament men, that so they may go to declare that, the king having left his people and withdrawn the pretended prince, the princess is queen, and so proceed to call a legal Parliament by writs in her name. Others think that a Parliament or rather a Convention is to be summoned, which will be the true representation of the kingdom, and that, though they have no legal writs, yet they being returned upon a free choice, this will be upon the matter a free Parliament, and that this assembly is to judge both the king’s falling from the crown and the birth of the pretended prince; and that then a Parliament may be legally held after they have declared in whom the right of the crown lies. This last is liable to this exception that the slowness of it may expose Holland to be lost before England can be settled or ready to act.25
Burnet was also advising William on appointments. A comprehensive list of possible nominees for the whole gamut of government posts exists in the papers of Henry Sydney, the future Viscount Sydney, as well as a letter containing pen portraits of London clerics to be employed.26 From December 1688, Burnet met a number of times with Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon, though the encounters did not encourage the latter: on 5 Dec., after a discussion about whom William might appoint to his government, Burnet, ‘in wonderful warmth’, denied that there could be a treaty between the king and the prince. Clarendon wrote in his diary ‘Good God, what are we like to come to, if this man speaks the prince’s sense?’ On the following day, Clarendon asked him why he had refused to say the collect for the king in Exeter cathedral, making an ‘ugly noise with his mouth’ instead. On 11 Jan. 1689 Clarendon noted that Burnet ‘is always so bitter in talking of deposing the king.’27 According to Bishop Turner on 11 Jan. it was planned that a group of City clergymen, including Simon Patrick, the future bishop of Ely, Thomas Tenison, the future archbishop of Canterbury, Dr William Sherlock and Dr John Scott would meet with himself, Lloyd of St Asaph and White, with Burnet being invited ‘to sustain his notion of the forfeiture’.28 This probably related to a meeting on 14 Jan. when Burnet attended a long conference with various Anglican divines including Turner, in which he justified his stance in support of William.29 Certainly, Clarendon thought that Lloyd of St Asaph had been ‘wheedled’ by Burnet to make ‘the king’s going away a cessation’, and later claimed that Burnet had said he ‘could make the bishop of St Asaph do anything’.30 On 1 Feb. 1689 Sir John Reresby‡ visited Halifax, where he found Sir Edward Seymour‡ and Burnet, ‘the great creature of the prince of Orange’, who ‘argued violently for the crowning of the prince’.31 Burnet himself believed that he had a ‘great share… in the private managing’ of debates in the Lords, ‘particularly with many of the clergy, and with men of the most scrupulous and tender consciences’.32
Bishop of Salisbury and the Convention
Initially some believed that Burnet would be rewarded with the see of Durham since Nathaniel Crew, the incumbent bishop, was expected to refuse the oaths to the new regime.33 Clarendon thought that Lloyd of St Asaph was instrumental in securing the vacant see of Salisbury for Burnet, even though William had apparently promised it to Jonathan Trelawny, of Bristol, or to Patrick.34 Years later, Thomas Naish heard the story that Trelawny had ‘kissed hands’ for it, two or three days before Burnet’s appointment, and that this was ‘the first occasion of the grudge and misunderstanding between them’.35 Burnet’s promotion to Salisbury brought him much trouble in the light of his repeated criticism of episcopacy and his refusal to accept a bishopric during the reign of Charles II. Thomas Burnet explained that his father ‘was indeed so little anxious after his own preferment, that when the bishopric of Salisbury became void, as it did soon after King William and Queen Mary were established on the throne, he solicited for it in favour of his old friend Dr Lloyd, then bishop of St Asaph’. William, however, ‘answered him in a cold way, that he had another person in view; and the next day he was himself nominated to that see.’36 The prize was worth having, Elizabeth Burnet later assessing it as ‘one year with another [a] good £2500 a year, ’tis called £3000, but I think it not so much.’37 Recognizing the futility of questioning the king’s decision Burnet ‘set myself seriously to form a method how I could behave myself in that station. I spent a whole week in retirement and sat up the whole night before I was consecrated.’ During his retreat he examined ‘all the thoughts I had at any time entertained of the duty of bishops and made solemn vows to God to put them in practice.’ Amongst many resolutions, in accordance with his earlier criticisms of the episcopate, he wrote that he was determined ‘never to indulge looseness or luxury nor to raise fortunes to my children out of the revenues of the Church’ and ‘resolved to abstract myself from courts and secular affairs as much as was possible, and never to engage in the persecuting of any what side soever on the account of differences of religion’. He also dedicated himself ‘to the functions belonging to the order, preaching, catechizing, confirming, and ordaining and governing the clergy in the best manner I could.’38
On 3 Apr. 1689 Burnet took his seat in the House of Lords as bishop of Salisbury. He was to be an assiduous attender, being present on 88 days of the remainder of the session, a little over 79 per cent of the total. He was named to 36 committees before the adjournment in July 1689, and 22 committees afterwards. On 4 Apr. the House received the report from the committee which had examined the bill for uniting their majesties protestant subjects. As Burnet later recorded, the committee had added a proviso to the bill allowing a group of clergymen and laymen to ‘prepare such a reformation of things, relating to the Church, as might be offered to king and Parliament, in order to the healing our divisions, and the correcting what might be amiss, or defective, in our constitution. This was pressed with great earnestness by many of the temporal lords.’ Burnet admitted that ‘I at that time did imagine, that the clergy would have come into such a design with zeal and unanimity; and I feared this would be looked upon by them as taking the matter out of their hands; and for that reason I argued so warmly against this, that it was carried by a small majority to let fall.’ When another proviso in the bill was being considered he moved ‘that the subscription, instead of assent and consent, should only be to submit with a promise of conformity’. When a violent debate arose about whether to dispense with kneeling at the giving of the sacrament, Burnet took a clear stance in favour because this ‘posture being the chief exception that the Dissenters had, the giving up this was thought to be the opening a way for them to come into employments’, and therefore ‘I declared myself zealous for it: for, since it was acknowledged that the posture was not essential, and that scruples, how ill grounded soever, were raised upon it, it seemed reasonable to leave this matter as indifferent in its practice as it was in its nature.’39
On 8 Apr. 1689 Burnet was appointed one of the managers of the conference on the amendments in the bill for removing of papists out of London. Following the report of Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, Burnet was named to a committee to draw up reasons in support of their proposal that the queen dowager be allowed 30 English servants and was named to a further conference on the bill on 16 April. On 11 Apr. Burnet preached the sermon at the coronation of William and Mary.40 On 14 Apr. Reresby found Burnet with Halifax, where he was critical of the slow proceedings of the Commons, the fault for which he imputed to ‘the Church of England party’, who he felt ‘designed the advantage of King James and his service by it’. Both Halifax and Burnet were angry at the address of the Commons of the previous day calling for Convocation to be summoned.41 On 17 Apr. the House amended the clause which concerned the bishops taking the oaths in the toleration bill, and appointed Burnet and five others to make the rest of the bill agree with the amendments. On 20 Apr. 1689 Burnet was named to report a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill for abrogating the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and then named to draw up reasons why the Lords insisted upon their amendments. He was named to manage the conference on the 22nd. At the conference Burnet was the second of the Lords managers to speak in favour of exempting the clergy from the oaths. He observed that the clergy regularly prayed for the monarchs as required by the Book of Common Prayer and that the communion service contained a protestation of fidelity. Could it be imagined he questioned, ‘that the clergy will so solemnly pray thus, and not obey the king and queen? This is more than an oath, which is but one single act; this is done every day; they themselves pronounce the words in the sacrament service.’ He concluded that the ‘eyes of all England are upon this matter. The Lords are of opinion they have made so much a better security than what you have made, that they hope you will agree with them’.42 He was then named to manage a further conference and on 23 Apr. reported that the Commons insisted that all persons should be enjoined to take the oaths; and that there should be no difference between the clergy and the laity. After further debate it was resolved to agree with the Commons. On 24 Apr. Burnet was one of six lords appointed to manage another conference on the bill, at which the Commons accepted the Lords’ proviso. Burnet later commented that ‘I was the chief manager of the debate in favour of the clergy, both in the House of Lords, and at the conferences with the Commons; but, seeing it could not be carried I acquiesced the more easily’. He explained that at the beginning of these debates ‘I was assured, that those who seemed resolved not to take the oaths, yet prayed for the king in their chapels; yet I found afterwards this was not true, for they named no king, nor queen, and so it was easy to guess whom they meant by such an indefinite designation.’ At the same time he ‘also heard many things that made me conclude they were endeavouring to raise all the opposition to the government possible.’43
On 22 May 1689, when a committee of the whole considered the bill of rights, a clause was added to prevent Catholics from succeeding to the crown, to which Burnet ‘proposed an additional clause, absolving the subjects, in that case, from their allegiance... and it passed without any opposition or debate’. Then, at the king’s instance, Burnet proposed ‘the naming the duchess of Hanover, and her posterity, next in the succession. He signified his pleasure in this case also to his ministers; but he ordered me to begin this motion in the House, because I had already set it on foot.’44 The amendment adding Princess Sophia, as being the next Protestant in the lineal succession of the royal family, and her heirs, was agreed to by a sub-committee on 24 May when Burnet was in the chair. He played a leading role in the conferences that ensued when the Commons rejected this. According to the report delivered to the Commons he was the ‘chief manager’ at the final conference on 31 July, after which the bill fell.45
Burnet’s conduct was much approved at Hanover and his efforts ‘made that illustrious house from thenceforth consider him as one firmly attached to their interests, and with whom they might therefore enter into the strictest confidence.’ According to Thomas Burnet, his father had given early notice of the invasion to the court of Hanover, ‘intimating that the success of this enterprise must naturally end in an entail of the British crown upon that illustrious house’. Princess Sophia wrote that she was ‘very grateful for the warmth you have been pleased to testify for my interests, which is a great personal satisfaction to me, as if your good intentions had been more successful’. As Burnet’s son later observed, this was the beginning of a correspondence that lasted until Sophia’s death, the extant letters ‘all written in her own hand.’46
Burnet recollected that he came into Lords ‘when… comprehension and toleration was in debate, and I went so high in those points, that I was sometimes upon the division of the House single against the whole bench of bishops.’ He thought that his standing was enhanced by his opposition to the bill ‘which enacted the taking the oaths’, but he again ‘fell under great prejudices’ when he realized that by praying for an unnamed king the non-jurors were ‘plainly praying for King James’. It was, however, his attitude to the Scottish episcopate and the recognition of the Presbyterian Kirk as the national Church of Scotland that proved the greatest source of disagreement with his English colleagues. Burnet observed that it was ‘generally thought that I could have hindered the change of the government of the Church that was made in Scotland, and that I went into it too easily’, but he was convinced by William that it was a matter of necessity because ‘the whole Episcopal party, a very few only excepted, went into King James’s interest: and therefore, since the Presbyterians were the only party that he had there, the granting of their desires at that time were unavoidable.’47
On 25 May 1689 Burnet reported from committee reasons to be offered to the Commons at a conference explaining why the Lords did not agree to leave out their amendment to the additional poll bill. That day Roger Morrice noted that Burnet was the only bishop not to vote Titus Oates guilty of a breach of privilege for distributing a printed account of his case. On 31 May Burnet voted against reversing the two judgments of perjury against Oates, arguing that ‘if such rascals and perjured persons were capacitated to give evidence no honest man was secure of his life’. On 22 July Burnet was named to report on a conference on the bill reversing the judgments against Oates but on the 30th he changed his mind and voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to it. On 20 and 21 June Burnet was named to report a conference on the bill appointing commissioners of the great seal. On 2 July he was the only bishop in favour of proceeding with the impeachment of Sir Adam Blair and his co-defendants.48 On 13 July, after Carmarthen (the former Danby) and Halifax narrowly escaped censure by the Commons, Burnet noted that he had dined with one of the marquesses, presumably Halifax, ‘who seems not to be much troubled at it; perhaps he thought it was a victory because the debate was adjourned’.49
In July 1689 Burnet was unsuccessful in securing the translation of Lloyd of St Asaph to Worcester.50 On 13 Sept. he responded to a request for an assessment of his personal estate in England by noting that he had no personal estate in England other than his furniture and his books, along with ‘a debt that is more than twice the value of it.’51 On 19 Sept. Tillotson attributed his elevation to Canterbury to Burnet, ‘one of the worst and best friends I know. Best, for his singular good opinion of me: and the worst, for directing the king to this method... as if his lordship and I had concerted the matter, now to finish this foolish piece of dissimulation in running away from a bishopric to catch an archbishopric.’52
Meanwhile, Burnet was still pursuing the prize of comprehension. In June 1689 Morrice had noted that Burnet and Lloyd of Asaph together with John Hampden‡ were in discussions about a bill, which the king was thought to favour.53 In September a commission was appointed by the king to consider reforms to the liturgy, ceremonial, canons and courts of the Church to prepare the way for comprehension. Burnet missed the first two of the 18 meetings of the commission early in October.54 Indeed, on 5 Oct. 1689, William Douglas, duke of Hamilton [S], thought that Burnet shunned coming to London, to avoid being lobbied by the many Scots in the capital; ‘he has got a good fat bishopric and now he is so wise as not to meddle.’55 Nevertheless, he was present for the remainder of the meetings between 3 Oct. and 18 November. Its demise followed the meeting of Convocation on 20 Nov. 1689.56
Burnet was present when Parliament reassembled on 19 Oct. 1689, and for the new session which began on 23 October. He was present on 65 days of the session, just over 89 per cent of the total. At the end of May 1689, it had been reported that Burnet had been one of those asked by the earl of Essex’s widow to desist from investigating his death in the Tower six years before.57 The first report of the committee appointed to consider the deaths of Essex, Russell, and others, as well as the surrender of the corporate charters, on 6 Nov. may have been the occasion of the debate reported by Morrice in which Charles North, 5th Baron North, moved the word ‘murder’ not be used in the terms of reference for the committee, and Burnet counter-proposed that the same word be used as was used in the act reversing their attainder. Also on that day, the thanks of the House were ordered to be given to Burnet for his sermon preached on the previous day. On 23 Jan. 1690 Burnet ‘spoke very well against the surrendry [of corporation charters], but he went out of the House when the question was put’ to leave out the words which declared the surrender to be illegal.58
Following the adjournment of Convocation on 14 Dec. 1689 Burnet and Lloyd of St Asaph acted as the intermediaries between the court and the suspended, non-juring bishops in an attempt to broker a compromise involving compensation for the loss of their bishoprics.59 On 24 Dec. it was reported that Burnet ‘out of his abundant zeal for the hierarchy and its revenues, has of late frequently appeared at the lobby of the Commons discoursing some leading members about service for the suspended bishops and ’tis said they endeavour to find flaws in their own act that it may not be executed.’60 According to Morrice, Burnet attended a meeting (either on 30 Dec. or 6 Jan. 1690) along with Thomas Lamplugh, archbishop of York and Henry Compton, bishop of London, with several non-juring bishops, at which it was pledged that the bishops in the Lords would oppose deprivation. In February he was one of the bishops reported to have approached the king on their behalf.61 In the summer of 1690, Burnet conducted more negotiations with the non-juring bishops under Queen Mary’s direction, which failed over allegations that they were implicated in Jacobite intrigues.62
The Parliament of 1690
Burnet was present when the 1690 Parliament convened on 20 Mar., attending on 36 days, exactly two-thirds of the first session. On 7 Apr. 1690, when the committee of the whole was debating the recognition bill, he was named to a sub-committee to draw a clause relating to recognizing the Convention as a Parliament.63 On 9 Apr. Burnet was given leave to be absent ‘for a while’. Although he did attend on the 10th, he was absent by the time the vote came on whether to erase the words of the protests against the recognition bill, having been ‘at first for this bill and then neither for it nor against it’.64 He next attended on 26 April. The tenor of Burnet’s two interventions in the debate on 2 May on the second reading of the abjuration bill was that it should be committed and amended. Morrice noted his support for committal.65 On 3 May Burnet opposed the idea that those not subscribing to the new oaths should lose their right to sit in the House. The relevant parliamentary list for the vote on 8 May concerning the use of the words ‘right and lawful’ in the new oaths refers to ‘all the bishops’ rather than recording them individually: Burnet was marked present on the attendance list so if he was still in the chamber for the vote, he voted to leave out ‘right and lawful’. On 7 May, when the Lords inquired into the London lieutenancy, Burnet ‘made a set speech’ against an investigation into the personal qualifications of men, likening it to the Catholic inquisition. He supported continuing the present militia. On 12 May he was named to manage a conference on the regency bill. On 14 May Morrice was unsure whether Burnet had joined Bishop Patrick in voting against the bill restoring the corporation of London.66
Burnet was absent when the 1690-1 session began on 2 Oct., first attending on the 9th. In all he attended on 40 days, nearly 56 per cent of the total. On 14 Oct. 1690 he reported that having been in town for a week he was optimistic that the necessary finance for the war would be granted by the Commons, although he did fear that excessive zeal in turning out Episcopalians in Scotland would create difficulties for the government in England.67 On 11 Nov. the House voted against Burnet’s use of privilege in a patronage dispute with the dean and chapter of Windsor.68 During December the passage of the bill of Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, relating to the Seymour estates, was assisted by Burnet, who was Ailesbury’s ‘great stickler and never missed being at the committees’.69 On 5 Jan. Burnet was named to manage the conferences held on the bill that suspended parts of the Navigation Act. By 10 Jan. Burnet was back in Salisbury, apologizing to Robert Boyle for his failure to wait on him on the 5th, because ‘the messages between the two Houses held us so late’ that by the time he had finished other business in London ‘it was not possible to get back before your time of going to bed was past’.70 He was still there early in April 1691, but back in London by 31 May when he assisted at the consecration of Tillotson at Bow Church.71 During the 1691-2 session Burnet was present on 65 days, 67 per cent of the total and was named to 39 committees. On 30 Oct. and 2, 6, 9 and 10 Nov. 1691 he chaired and reported progress from a committee of the whole on the bill preventing clandestine marriages. On 10 Nov. he was named to a committee to consider clauses on the forging of marriage licences and Quaker marriages, which he reported on 11 November. He was named to report conferences on the safety of the kingdom (17 Nov.) and on the amendments made by the Lords to the bill for abrogating the oath of supremacy in Ireland (1 Dec.), following which on 3 Dec. he was named to a committee of five to draw up reasons why the Lords disagreed to the Commons’ amendments to the bill. On 12 and 15 Dec. he reported from the committee for privileges on the claim of Thomas Tufton, 6th earl of Thanet, to the barony of Clifford; on the cause of Stamford v Suffolk; on the petition of Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, relating to the barons of the exchequer; on the request of John West, 6th Baron De la Warr, for leave to apply to the Commons; on Maynard v Suffolk, Widdrington v Derby and Watt v Hopkins. On 12 Jan. 1692 he reported on two more, on Villiers v Suffolk and on Felton’s claim to the barony of Walden. On 3 Dec. 1691 he had been named to a small committee to prepare a clause for debate in committee of the whole on the bill regulating treason trials; he was named on 17 Dec. to report the subsequent conference, and then to draw up reasons for the Lords’ insisting on several of their amendments. On 18 Dec. he chaired the adjournment of the committee on the bill preserving bay salt for the navy.72 On 2 Feb. 1692 Burnet was given leave to go into the country, and he last attended on the following day, three weeks before the end of the session, signing a proxy in favour of John Moore, bishop of Norwich, on 8 February.
Over the summer, in May, Burnet was unsurprisingly excluded from James II’s pardon.73 In September he told Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, of the temper of his diocese, particularly on those matters such as ‘the judges bill’, treason legislation and the East India Company, which were likely to figure in Parliament. During the 1692-3 session, he was present on 71 days, nearly 70 per cent of the total and was named to 35 committees. He continued to be an active member of the House, regularly reporting from committees, including, on 18 Nov. 1692, the committee appointed to draw up addresses to the king and queen. On 29 Dec. he was named to a committee to inspect the Journal to see if the Commons had transmitted their vote approving the conduct of Edward Russell, the future earl of Orford, in the correct manner and to consider heads for the conference which was held on 4 Jan. 1693. On 31 Dec. 1692 Burnet had voted in favour of the committal of the place bill, but on 3 Jan. 1693 he was listed as one of the Lords ‘that went away’, although he was not listed as attending that day.
In February 1692, it had been reported that Burnet had been ‘earnestly’ soliciting in favour of the Norfolk divorce.74 Burnet was indeed forecast as a likely supporter of such a bill and on 2 Jan. 1693 he voted for it. During January he chaired two committees of the whole: on the bill vesting superstitious trusts and uses in the crown (4 Jan.) and to consider an amendment to the bill for frequent parliaments (18 January). On 20 Jan. Burnet’s A Pastoral Letter was attacked in the Commons. Although Burnet was defended as a man ‘zealous’ for the government, who had written ‘with no ill design’, merely laying ‘down the several grounds on which this government may be said to be laid for the satisfaction of all persons, and amongst the rest mentions that by conquest’, on 23 Jan. the Commons ordered the work to be burnt by the common hangman.75 On 25 Jan. Burnet voted in favour of the committal of the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons. He was absent between 14 Feb. and 6 Mar., and last attended on 9 Mar., a few days before the session ended. In May it was reported that he had ‘declared the burning his book was a barbarous usage’, upon which ‘a Parliament man took notice of it, and designs to charge him with it, if they come to sit’.76
Burnet attended on the opening day of the 1693-4 session, 7 Nov. 1693, and was present on 100 days, just over 78 per cent of the total, being appointed to 18 committees. He was again active as a chair of committees of the whole, including that on the triennial bill (4 and 6 Dec.) and on the bill for the easier recovery of small tithes (26 March). On 17 Feb. he voted against the reversal of the chancery decree in the case of Montagu v Bath. On 22 Feb. he spoke in the debate on the bill regulating trials for treason, citing historical precedents.77 He reported from numerous other committees during March, last attending that session on 31 March.
Burnet spent the summer of 1694 back in Salisbury.78 He was back in London by November and attended on 88 days of the 1694-5 session, just over 73 per cent of the total, being was named to 25 committees. According to Narcissus Luttrell‡ the cause of Tattershall v Fitzherbert heard on 24 Jan. 1695 saw the appeal of the former, ‘put into a living’ by Burnet, dismissed in favour of the latter.79 Burnet reported on the Finch estate bill (14 Feb.) and from committees of the whole on 13 and 21 March. During April and May he acted as a manager for four conferences (two of which were on the treason trials bill. On 29 Apr. 1695 he took the oaths in chancery in order to qualify to act as a member of the new commission for disposing of ecclesiastical preferments.80 During September he expressed his support for Sir William Trumbull‡ should he stand for Berkshire in the forthcoming election.81
The Parliament of 1695
Burnet missed the opening of the 1695 Parliament on 22 Nov., first attending on 2 Dec. 1695. He was present on 74 days, nearly 60 per cent of the total. On 9 Dec. Burnet asked a question in the committee of the whole considering the act of the Scottish parliament in establishing an East India Company, concerning the possible promise of shares to people to get them to invest in the company.82 He was appointed to 23 committees and was again active as a chair of the committee of the whole, reporting on the supply bill dealing with annuities (17 Jan.); the recovery of small tithes (25 Jan.); and the East India Company (28 Jan. and 1, 4 Feb.); and preventing frauds and regulating abuses in the plantation trade (24 March).
Burnet had signed the Association on 27 Feb. 1696 (as he did again in Salisbury).83 Writing to Princess Sophia on 7 Apr. Burnet had remarked that the recent conspiracy ‘has kindled in all men’s minds a zeal for the king and a horror of King James beyond what I am able to express.’84 Burnet missed the opening of the next session on 20 Oct. 1696, telling Lady Russell on 31 Oct. that ‘I do not think of coming up yet this fortnight, if I am not called for’.85 He first attended on 14 Nov., then being present on 60 days, nearly 53 per cent, and was named to 19 committees. Burnet attended John Hampden following his botched but ultimately successful suicide attempt of 3 Dec. 1696.86
As Burnet himself recounted, the ‘great business of this session that held longest in both houses, was a bill relating to Sir John Fenwick‡.’87 Burnet supported the bill at its second reading, there being ‘both a power and a necessity of doing it’.88 It was probably on 23 Dec. 1696, on the third reading of the bill, that Burnet made a speech arguing that ‘the nature of government required that the legislature should be recurred to, in extraordinary cases, for which effectual provision could not be made by fixed and standing laws’. He supported his arguments with detailed historical precedents designed to demonstrate that ‘the nation had upon extraordinary occasions proceeded in this parliamentary way by bill.’ Condemning Fenwick would ‘be striking a terror to all that negotiate with France’, and the good in the bill would outweigh the bad.89 He was duly recorded as voting for the third reading of the bill. In justifying himself, Burnet explained that the Lords ‘by severe votes, obliged all the peers to be present, and to give their votes in the matter’, and that ‘I thought it was incumbent on me, when my opinion determined me to the severer side, to offer what reasons occurred to me in justification of my vote. But this did not exempt me from falling under a great cloud of censure upon this occasion.’ That said, Burnet claimed to have been helpful to Fenwick who, as he prepared to face the executioner, ‘desired the assistance of one of the deprived bishops, which was not easily granted; but in that, and several other matters, I did him much service, that he wrote me a letter of thanks upon it.’ This brought an end of ‘that unacceptable affair, in which I had a much larger share than might seem to become a man of my profession’.90
Burnet was involved in one further consequence of the proceedings against Fenwick: the punishment of Charles Mordaunt, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), for attempting to manipulate the affair to his own advantage. On 15 Jan. 1697 Burnet argued that although ‘there could no excusing him from being author of those papers’, there should be some note taken ‘of some eminent services he had done for this government’. Nevertheless, according to his own account Burnet then moved that Monmouth be sent to the Tower.91 Further, on 22 Jan. Burnet intervened in the debate on the petition of Lady Mary Fenwick for a reprieve of one week for her husband, to note that there was a letter dropped in the street ‘which had dark expressions, as if the king would not live to see Fenwick executed’. The effect of his intervention was to alter the address to ask for a reprieve if the king thought it consistent with his safety and the safety of the government.92 Rather mischievously, there was a proposal that he accompany Bishop Compton with the address, to which Burnet reacted badly, saying that the House had every right to send him to the Tower, but not to Kensington – remarks for which he had to apologize.93
Burnet last attended that session on 17 Mar. 1697, and on the 18th he signed a proxy in favour of Bishop Patrick. On 17 Mar. James Johnston‡ wrote that Burnet was ‘of great use in the House of Lords and is at present more in favour with the king than ever he was, or ever I thought should have been’.94 In July Burnet was in Salisbury.95 He returned to London good time for the opening of the 1697-8 session.96 He attended on 82 days of the session, just under 63 per cent of the total and was appointed to 42 committees. Possibly at the bill’s second reading on 24 Feb. 1698 Burnet spoke in in favour of the divorce bill of Charles Gerard, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, ‘showing the necessity and lawfulness of such extraordinary proceedings in some particular case.’97 On 5 Mar. Burnet was appointed to a committee for a conference on the bill to punish Charles Duncombe‡, and was one of the managers of the resultant conferences on 7 and 11 March. On 15 Mar. Burnet voted for the bill and entered a protest when it was lost. He was named, amongst others, to the conference on the bill for the more effectual suppressing of blasphemy and profaneness on 24 May. On 27 May he explained that under this law ‘men convicted of such crimes are only excluded from public office, and first offences are condoned on a profession of penitence. Nor are any under this law to be condemned, but such as offend of malice prepense and deliberately’.98 Burnet last attended the session on 1 June 1698, over a month before it ended. His early departure may have been related to the ill health of his wife, who died in Holland, on 8/18 June.99 On 13 July he was described as ‘a most deserted mourner’, although he was coming up to town upon the establishment of the household of the duke of Gloucester, of whom he was soon to be named preceptor.100
The Parliaments of 1698 and 1701
Burnet attended on the second day of the 1698 Parliament, 9 Dec., and was present on 46 days, nearly 57 per cent of the total, being named to 10 committees. On 4 Jan. 1699 Burnet was ordered to preach the martyrdom sermon on 30 January. The House formally thanked him on 1 Feb., although some were critical that he had said very little about the death of Charles I.101 He was again active as a chair of the committee of the whole. On 29 Mar. protested against the resolution in the cause of the London Ulster Society v. the Bishop of Derry. He was present on the last day of the session, 4 May. As was to be usual during his care of Gloucester, Burnet spent much of the summer at Windsor.102 In August Burnet was one of the bishops who found Thomas Watson, bishop of St Davids, guilty of various offences, which led to the sentence of deprivation.103
Burnet was present on the opening day of the next session, 16 Nov. 1699. He attended on 55 days, 70 per cent of the total, and was named to 13 committees. James Lowther‡ noted on 12 Dec. that when the Commons considered the debt due to Prince George, duke of Cumberland, ‘there were some speeches reflecting upon’ Burnet, and a motion made for an address to remove him as governor to the duke of Gloucester, ‘but let fall for the present’.104 James Vernon‡ attributed the attack firstly to Sir John Bolles‡ and then to Sir John Pakington‡ in ‘a set speech as if it had been concerted’. Pakington was an old enemy of Burnet’s, having previously remarked of his pamphlet that ‘if they had voted the author to be hanged, he believed the whole nation would have been pleased at it’.105 When the attack on Burnet was resumed on the 13th, the ‘chief thing’ charged against him was his authorship of A Pastoral Letter and its alleged claim that the king came to the crown by conquest; others thought his being a Scot disparaged the abilities of the English. The bishop was defended as having written so much in defence of the Protestant religion and English liberty that this ‘was more than a sufficient atonement for any slip he might have made amongst the many volumes he had writ’, and that ‘turning him out for being a Scotchman, would not be the way to bring that nation out of the heats they were already in.’106 He survived the censure by 40 votes.
According to Charles Hatton, ‘in the heat of the debate’ on 10 Jan. 1700 over the Darien colony, the excitable Burnet told Bishop Lloyd (now translated to Worcester) that he was ‘an old dotard, intoxicated with tobacco and Revelations.’107 On 23 Jan. Burnet protested against the decision to reverse the decree in Williamson v the Crown. On 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning the House into a committee of the whole to discuss two amendments to the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 18 Mar. he chaired the committee of the whole House on the bill for the further preventing the growth of popery. On 10 Apr. Burnet favoured the passage of the bill for a land tax and for the sale of the forfeited estates in Ireland, which was the subject of conferences between the Houses, and faced being lost if the Lords were to stick to their amendments. When James Annesley, 3rd earl of Anglesey, was speaking on the defence of the rights of the peerage, and so in favour of adhering to their amendments, Burnet cried out ‘stuff, stuff, with his cap on at the table, this was so loud, that it drew the eyes of several lords upon him and the ears of the lord a speaking, who took notice of it, and appealed to the House for justice upon such indecent irregularity’. Burnet ‘flatly denied upon honour, conscience and salvation’ his offence, but having been overheard by several peers, ‘so that he was going to the bar forthwith, but was suffered to explain and excuse himself’, which he managed ‘by saying his zeal for the royal cause the princess and duke had transported him beyond his reasonable thoughts and so got off with that fumbling excuse as foreign to the matter as his sermons are usually to his texts.’108
With the dismissal of John Somers, Baron Somers, at the end of April 1700, and the consequent rumours of ministerial change, including the possible translation of Burnet to Winchester, Charles Trimnell, the future bishop of Norwich, thought that Burnet ‘in most peoples’ opinion cannot stand long at St James, and as for his removal to Winchester I believe our Oxford colleges of that bishop’s visitation need not fear any from Dr B.’109 Meanwhile, on 23 May, Thomas Bateman noted that Burnet had married a widow with a jointure worth £800 a year.110 At some point during the summer of 1700 Burnet’s name appears on a printed list with annotations which may suggest that he was regarded as a potential supporter of the new ministry.
Burnet was first present at the first Parliament of 1701 on 10 February. He attended on 93 days, nearly 89 per cent of the total and was named to 33 committees. On 8 Mar. Pakington was ordered to bring in a bill into the Commons which included provision to prevent the translations of bishops, apparently prompted by renewed rumours of Burnet’s intended translation to Winchester. The rumour had been current from at least March 1699 when it had been reported that the king had given the ‘reversion’ of it to Burnet.111 Burnet chaired and reported from committee of the whole on the divorce bill of Ralph Box (10 Apr.) and on the bill settling the crown (21 May). Burnet’s own recollection concerning the latter was that when the Commons sent the bill up to the Lords ‘we expected great opposition would be made to it’, but this failed to materialize because many ‘of the lords absented themselves on design’. The Act of Settlement having passed, as Burnet wrote later, ‘we reckoned it a great point carried that we had now a law on our side for a Protestant successor; for we plainly saw a great party formed against it, in favour of the pretended prince of Wales.’ Princess Sophia acknowledged Burnet’s support for the Hanoverian Succession in the letter of June 1701, in which she thanked him ‘for the affection which you have testified to me in the affair of the succession, which excludes at the same time all Catholic heirs, who have always caused so many disorders in England.’112 He continued to be active in the management of conferences, including those of 6 and 10 June concerning the impeachment of Whig peers. Later that month he voted to acquit Somers and Orford.
With a new ministry, and the revival of convocation, Burnet again came under attack for some of his writings. In May 1701 Thomas Naish was told of three charges ready to be drawn up against Burnet in Convocation, relating to heresy, protecting servants guilty of extortion and promoting simony.113 This was a response to Burnet’s Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles (1699), which aimed to assist in healing the doctrinal divisions between dissenters and the Church.114 As Burnet himself put it, the censure of his Exposition was for favouring ‘a diversity of opinions, which the articles were framed to avoid’.115 The attack ended with the sudden death of Prolocutor Woodward on 13 Feb. 1702.116 Woodward’s pursuit of Burnet is likely to have been related to an existing dispute between the two men. Woodward was dean of Salisbury; he had been cited for contempt and disobedience, which had in turn led to a complaint from the lower house of Convocation, which the bishops had rejected.117 An attack on Burnet planned for March 1704 was discouraged by George Hooper, the prolocutor, recently appointed bishop of Bath and Wells.118
In July and August 1701 Burnet was based in Salisbury, and making preparations for a visitation in September.119 He made strenuous efforts to secure the support of his clergy for the two Whig candidates in the Wiltshire election of November 1701. Burnet would later also try to direct his clergy in the 1702 and 1705 elections, and in elections to convocation, though in 1703 he claimed never to do so, merely ‘declaring my own opinion and knowledge of two persons without ever speaking to any person except my own tenants for his vote’. 120
Burnet was present when Parliament opened on 30 Dec. 1701. He attended on 65 days of the session (65 per cent of the total) and was named to 23 committees. He reaffirmed his commitment to the Hanoverian Succession at the beginning of the session when he signed the Lords’ address of 1 Jan. 1702. Burnet himself noted that the ‘matter that occasioned the longest and warmest debates in both Houses, was an act for abjuring the pretended prince of Wales, and for swearing to the king by the title of rightful and lawful king, and to his heirs, according to the act of settlement’.121 On 12 Jan. the Lords gave a second reading to the abjuration bill, which occasioned a great debate in which Burnet responded to the insistence of Nottingham and John Sheffield, marquess of Normanby, that the term abjuration be defined and the oath limited. Burnet added that he thought the oath ‘as necessary for the securing of our civil rights as that oath of abjuration of the pope’s supremacy’ and that the ‘doctrine of jure divino was a false doctrine and but of 200 years standing.’122 On 12 Feb. Burnet was added to the managers of the conference on the bill for the attainder of the pretended prince of Wales.123 On 23 Feb. he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole on the abjuration bill.
The Accession of Anne and the Parliament of 1702
Following the king’s riding accident at the end of February 1702, Burnet ‘did not stir from him till he died,’ and thought his death ‘was a dreadful’ stroke.124 As one newsletter observed, it did not prevent Burnet being the first person to bring Queen Anne news of William’s death. He ‘upon his knees by her majesty’s bedside kissed her hand and assured her he would be her majesty’s loyal and faithful subject, excusing his zeal to the service of his late majesty.’125 Parliament was not dissolved immediately after the king’s death and on 18 Apr. Burnet chaired and reported from committee of the whole on the bill enabling the queen to appoint commissioners to treat for a union between England and Scotland.
Burnet was present when the new Parliament convened on 20 Oct. 1702. He attended on 76 days (over 88 per cent of the total) and was named to 30 committees. On 16 Nov. William Nicolson, bishop of Carlisle, noted that Burnet was ‘in good heart, not valuing the grins of the lower house of Convocation’. He was certainly engaged in the debates in the upper house of convocation, having on 15 Dec. 1702 ‘sharp repartees’ with Bishop Trelawny over a legal opinion on a paper from the lower House.126 In November 1702 the queen asked the Commons to make provision for her husband, Prince George, in case he should outlive her. The Commons voted £100,000 for the prince but a motion was made to exempt the prince from a clause in the Act of Settlement that incapacitated foreigners who had been naturalized from holding office or sitting in Parliament. Although the original provision ‘plainly related only to those who should be naturalized in a future reign’, Burnet observed that making a special case for Prince George implied that a similar exemption was required by those who were already naturalized: it is not clear from his text whether this was because it might have had some bearing on his own situation; certainly it was seen as a ‘prejudice’ to those who had been promoted by King William.127 Burnet went to see the queen at St James’s on 31 Dec. 1702 to explain his objections. After his audience he met Bishop Nicolson, who noted that his colleague was ‘in some heat and concern’, and told him ‘that the queen seemed set upon having that bill pass; saying that she had rather an affront were given to herself than to the prince. Yet the bishop was so free as to move for a two days prorogation, that the contents of this might be put into two bills.’128
Burnet regarded the provision on office-holding as ‘put in the bill, by some in the House of Commons, only because they believed it would be opposed by those, against whom they intended to irritate the queen’.129 The stratagem appears to have worked. A newsletter on 14 Jan. 1703 reported that the previous day the queen had asked Burnet remove from his lodgings in St James’s.130 On 19 Jan. Burnet spoke ‘under great perplexity’ in the committee of the whole on the bill. After expressing ‘the highest obligations of duty and gratitude to the prince’, he thought that ‘justice... was to take the place of gratitude, and he thought it would be an apparent injustice to the other foreign lords’, if the bill now passed so that the provision could not be reckoned any honour or dignity to him.131 When the committee divided about including this clause the votes were equal, so, according to convention, it was removed from the bill, only to be restored when the bill was reported, sparking a protest from Burnet. Burnet concluded that ‘the queen was highly displeased with those who had opposed it, among whom I had my share.’ On 4 Feb. when the House considered the bill enlarging the time for taking the oath of abjuration, it added clauses against any attempt to prevent Princess Sophia from coming to the throne, and extending the oath to Ireland. Burnet noted that all ‘people were surprised to see a bill that was begun in favour of the Jacobites turned so terribly upon them, since by it we had a new security given, both in England and Ireland, for a Protestant successor.’132
Burnet seems to have seen the Test and Corporation Acts as allowing moderate Dissenters to serve in office in return for occasional conformity and was thus opposed to the attempt to outlaw the practice with the occasional conformity bill brought up from the Commons on 2 Dec. 1702.133 On the next day he supported a proposal made by Somers that the committee of the whole on the bill should be instructed that it should be ‘extended to no other persons than the Test Act’. In committee of the whole on 4 Dec., he almost certainly opposed an amendment that all office-holders should receive the sacrament four times a year and attend church at least once a month. Similarly, on the 7th, he almost certainly supported the resolution of the committee to remove the financial penalties from it, effectively a wrecking amendment.134 On 9 Dec. when it was rumoured that the Commons were considering adding the legislation to a money bill in order to force it through the Lords, Burnet signed the Lords’ resolution that such a ‘tack’ was ‘unparliamentary’, and tending towards the ‘destruction of the constitution of this government’. Unsurprisingly Nottingham’s forecast drawn up in or about January 1703, listed Burnet as a likely opponent of the bill. That month a number of conferences were held between the two Houses to discuss the impasse over the bill. Burnet acted as a manager of the conference on 16 Jan. 1703, on the eve of which he received a visit from two dissenting ministers, Edmund Calamy and Benjamin Robinson. Calamy later noted that their conversation was reflected in Burnet’s speech at the conference.135 The bill was lost in the dispute between the Houses. Burnet wrote that the bishops who had opposed the bill were ‘censured as cold and slack in the concerns of the Church... A great part of this fell on myself; for I bore a large share in the debates, both in the House of Lords and at the free conference.’136 In other business that session, Burnet voted against Thomas Wharton, 5th Baron Wharton, in his cause with Robert Squire‡ on 12 Feb. 1703.137 On 17 Feb., when the Lords gave its verdict on the party controversy over the action at Vigo the previous October, voting that Sir George Rooke‡, had ‘done his duty, and behaved himself like a worthy and brave commander, with honour to the nation’, Francis Atterbury, the future bishop of Rochester, noted ‘no bishop was against’ him and that Burnet ‘and nine, there present, were for him.’138
Burnet was present when the next session began on 9 Nov. 1703 and attended on 85 days, 86.7 per cent of the total. As was by now automatic for those in the chamber, he was regularly named to committees. In November and early December, Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast that Burnet would continue to oppose attempts to pass a bill against occasional conformity and Burnet did vote against the bill on 14 December. As Burnet noted, the bishops ‘were almost equally divided’ but ‘I had the largest share of censure on me, because I spoke much against the bill’.139 During his speech he admitted that ‘I myself was an occasional conformist in Geneva and Holland’ an experience which had convinced him that ‘occasional conformity, with a less perfect church, may well consist with the continuing to worship God in a more perfect one.’ He made it clear that he believed the bill was designed to limit toleration.140 Following the defeat of the bill Burnet printed his speech ‘which drew many virulent pamphlets upon me, but I answered none of them’.141 Sir Charles Turner‡ asked his brother-in-law Robert Walpole†, the future earl of Orford, for a copy to ‘bind up with the bill and Lords amendments which I find the Lords have ordered to be printed.’142
Burnet remained an active committee chairman, reporting back on five occasions during January and February 1704. In March a newsletter reported that Burnet, seconded by John Sharp, archbishop of York, had instigated a debate about James Bourchier or Boucher, one of those implicated in the Scotch Plot. This presumably relates to the debate of 1 Mar. when the House agreed to address the queen for clemency on his behalf if he confessed what he knew of the plot.143 On 13 Mar. Burnet reported from committee of the whole on the bill that established the scheme known as Queen Anne’s Bounty. Burnet had long advocated such a scheme, so it was appropriate that he should be involved in the legislation bringing it into effect.144 On 24 Mar. Burnet entered a protest against the decision not to put the question that the part of the narrative relating to Sir John Maclean, part of the evidence relating to the Scotch conspiracy, was ‘imperfect.’ When writing his account of this session of Parliament, Burnet commented on ‘the discoveries made of a plot which took up much of the Lords’ time, and gave occasion to many sharp reflections that passed between the two Houses in their addresses to the queen.’ Much time and effort was expended on the enquiry and at the end of it ‘the Lords concluded the whole matter with voting that there had been dangerous plots between some in Scotland and the court of France and St Germains; and that the encouragement of this plotting came from the not settling the succession to the crown of Scotland in the house of Hanover.’145
During the subsequent, 1704-5 session, Burnet was present on 80 days, nearly 81 per cent of the total. Over the summer the Scottish parliament had met and forced the crown to accept the Scottish Act of Security, which threatened to dissolve the personal union of the crowns of England and Scotland at the death of the queen. The queen was present on 29 Nov. when the Lords went into a committee of a whole on the state of the nation with reference to Scotland, Burnet noting that ‘the debate about the Scotch act was taken up with great heat’ in the Lords.146 Burnet, according to his wife, was no longer in touch with events and individuals in Scotland.147 Nevertheless he made a long speech in which he examined the misfortunes that had afflicted Scotland since the union of the crowns in 1603.148
On 15 Dec. 1704, Nicolson recorded that Burnet spoke against giving a second reading to the bill against occasional conformity, and that Heneage Finch, Baron Guernsey, was ‘hard’ on Burnet, ‘having (accidentally) his Glasgow Dialogue in his pocket, out of which he read two or three pages very severe upon the Dissenters’. He reported from a number of committees and was involved in managing conferences with the Commons. These included the high profile conferences held in February 1705 over the controversial issue of the Aylesbury men, but he was also involved in conferences on lesser issues: the militia bill (named 12 Mar.) and the Peschell naturalization bill (reported 13 March). He was also active in the Journals committee and on 19 and 24 Mar. was recorded as examining the journal up to 1 Feb. 1705.
The Parliament of 1705
In June 1705 Burnet brought several actions of scandalum magnatum, one of which was settled out of court in November by a Mr Smeaton, and another by Henry Chivers‡, for ‘impudent scandalous lies’.149 Burnet intervened, unsuccessfully, against candidates who had supported the tack, in the 1705 elections for Salisbury and Wiltshire. He organized a ‘public entertainment’ to publicize the printed list of tackers and declaimed against them from his pulpit, declaring that it was the orders of the queen and John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, ‘to excite the people against Tackers’. He even sent a circular letter to the inferior clergy of his diocese: ‘gentlemen, I have been a bishop 16 years and never meddled with any elections till now but now the queen seeing which way things are going gave us particular commands to take care and send such persons as will support her and her government’, and therefore recommending Sir Edward Ernle‡ and William Ashe‡. Defoe reported that not only had Burnet’s candidate, Harris, lost the election at Salisbury, but ‘the bishop’s friends were very ill treated by the clergy at the county election’. It seems that he ‘was too warm, and disgusted some with his too great zeal’.150
Burnet was present for the opening of the 1705 Parliament on 25 October. He attended on 82 days, some 86 per cent of the total. On 17 Nov. 1705 Thomas Hearne was informed that Burnet had ‘preached eight or nine times stoutly against occasional conformity. The reasons he supposes are only a means to reconcile him to some persons whom by scandals and disingenuous reports he has very much offended’.151 Apprehensive that Parliament was giving further provocation to the Scots by its actions, Burnet was relieved when the next session of the Scottish Parliament agreed to allow the queen to nominate commissioners to negotiate a union with England provided the provision that designated the Scots as aliens in the event of the failure to settle either the Union or the Succession, was repealed. This was achieved on 23 Nov. 1705 whereupon Burnet, ‘as a Scotchman’ thanked the House ‘for their generous vote; and privately invited all to an £100 treat on this day sevennight, St Andrew’s Day.’152
On 3 Dec. 1705 Burnet attended a dinner at Lambeth, along with Nicolson and Humphrey Humphreys, bishop of Hereford, where they prepared for the forthcoming church in danger debate. Opening the debate on 6 Dec. Rochester suggested that the Church was in peril under the queen’s administration particularly as a result of the ‘danger from Scotland’. Burnet was one of a number of peers who argued and voted to the contrary. Accounts of his speech by Nicolson and White Kennett†, the future bishop of Peterborough, show that Burnet insisted that the Church was flourishing ‘from the frequent communions; the many emissaries sent to the plantations; the care taken for catechizing; and the queen’s bounty to the poor clergy.’ He attacked the inconsistency between Compton’s current views on resistance and his decision to appear in arms at the Revolution and in an even more overtly partisan swipe suggested that it was necessary to ‘bless God for the danger we have escaped. Bishops imprisoned. Ecclesiastical commissions. And a prospect of ruin if not rescued by King William.’153 He was named as one of the managers of the subsequent conferences (7, 12, 14 and 17 December).
Burnet played a full role in the disputes in Convocation; thus on 15 Dec. 1705 he moved for thanks to be given to the minority who had protested against the proceedings of the lower house ‘for their duty and care to preserve the ancient constitution of the Convocation of this province’, which was agreed, with two dissidents, Bishops Trelawny and Hooper.154 He continued to be active in committee work. On 4 Feb. Nicolson reported a ‘difference’ between Burnet and John Hough, of Lichfield and Coventry, over the bill for augmenting the number of canons residentiary and for improving the deanery and prebends in the cathedral of Lichfield. On 20 Feb. Burnet (together with Sunderland) was ‘severe’ on William Binckes (dean of Lichfield and prolocutor of convocation) in the committee on the bill and insisted on having the queen’s formal consent to it, whereupon the committee was adjourned.155 The bill was eventually amended and passed. On 7, 11 and 19 Feb. Burnet was involved in managing conferences on the regency bill, including a role in the committee to draw up reasons why the Lords would adhere to their amendments. On 23 Feb., in committee of the whole House on a bill for restoring to the archbishop of Dublin the town and lands of Sea Town and repaying to him the money he paid for it from the trustees for sale of the forfeited estates in Ireland, Burnet was the only bishop in favour of omitting the ‘repayment’ clause. He was then presumably in favour of reading the bill for a third time on the 25th rather than immediately.156
Early in March 1706, when the House was considering a bill to prevent the further growth of popery, enquiry was made as to why bishops had not returned lists of papists as requested by the Lords the previous year. Burnet replied that ‘he had written to all his clergy in pursuance of their lordships’ orders but because it was at a time when the country was engaged in disputes about elections of Parliament-men and it happened that the clergymen and papists were generally in the same interest they had neglected to return their names.’157 On 11 Mar. Burnet was probably named to manage a conference relating to Sir Rowland Gwynne’s‡ Letter to the Earl of Stamford, as all those present in the House were so named.
On 15 June 1706, in the aftermath of the victory at Ramillies, Burnet wrote from Salisbury to Tenison, enclosing a copy of a celebratory address to the queen for which he was collecting signatures.158 According to Thomas Naish, many of the Wiltshire clergy declined to sign it because it stated that ‘none but the confederates of our enemies and those who are deluded by them can imagine our church to be in danger’; they subscribed to the grand jury’s address instead.159 The death of Peter Mews, bishop of Winchester, on 9 Nov. 1706, raised the prospect of promotion for Burnet. However Trelawny had long been promised the diocese by Sidney Godolphin, earl of Godolphin, and it was Trelawny who got it.160 An embittered Burnet allegedly then went to the queen and charged his rival with mistreating his wife.161
Burnet was in London before the opening of the session, at Lambeth on 23 Nov. 1706 to settle the form of the thanksgiving for the military victories of the previous campaign. He was present when the next session began on 3 Dec., attending on 70 days, just over 81 per cent of the total and was as usual habitually involved in committee business. On 10 Jan. 1707, on the second reading of the bill repealing a clause in the act for the better apprehending, prosecuting, and punishing felons, Burnet moved for the ‘removal of the farce of benefit of clergy’. On 25 Jan. he was in attendance at Lambeth when Tenison unveiled his bill for the security of the Church of England, whereupon he fell out with Nicolson ‘on the time of passing that in Scotland’.162 On 3 Feb. Burnet chaired the committee of the whole on the resultant bill and was thus in the chair when the Tories tried to insert in it reference to the Test Act. On 15, 19, 21 and 24 Feb. Burnet chaired and reported progress from the committee of the whole which considered the articles of the treaty of Union, and on 27 Feb. he reported the committee’s resolutions. He chaired the committee of the whole on the resultant bill for the Union on 3 March. Burnet claimed to be one of the leading advocates of the treaty in the Lords.163 On 17 Feb. Bishop Patrick of Ely signed a proxy in his favour. On 25 Feb. Burnet chaired the committee of the whole on the Jermyn divorce bill, reporting to the House that it should be rejected. He was present on the last day of the session, 8 Apr., when he was named to a conference on the vagrancy bill. Burnet was present for eight of the nine days of the short session of April 1707. On 15 Apr. he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for the relief of bankrupts. During that session, on 18 Apr., he examined the Journal up to 31 Jan. 1707.
Burnet was present when the next session convened on 23 Oct. 1707, attending on 80 days of the session, nearly 75 per cent of the total. On 5 and 7 Feb. 1708 he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill rendering the Union more complete, reporting it on the 7th. Joseph Addison‡, presumably referring to the vote on abolishing the Scots Privy Council on 1 May, recorded that Burnet ‘spoke very much against the tyranny of a Privy Council in Scotland and was followed in his vote… by all the bishops’ except William Talbot, of Oxford, and Trelawny of Winchester.164 If Mrs Burnet may be taken as an accurate indicator of her husband’s views, the ministerial crisis which resulted in the dismissal of Robert Harley, the future earl of Oxford, was seen as a victory and ‘had this affair hung in suspense’, not only Burnet ‘but most of the other bishops’ would have offered Marlborough and Godolphin ‘all the service in their power’ and ‘been ready to join in anything’ to show their regard to the duumvirs.165 During February and March Burnet was again to the fore in matters relating to the Union, chairing committees of the whole on issues relating to the election of Scottish representative peers on 10 and 12 Feb. and 1 and 3 March. During March he also reported on three estate bills and a naturalization bill as well as chairing and reporting from the committee of the whole on the ecclesiastical livings bill (27 March). Unsurprisingly in about May 1708 Burnet was listed as Whig.
The Parliament of 1708
Burnet was present on 16 Nov. 1708, when the Parliament began, attending on 56 days, nearly 61 per cent of the total. He attended the traditional dinner at Lambeth on 28 December.166 On 21 Jan. 1709 Burnet voted against the resolution that Scottish peers with British titles could vote in elections for Scottish representative peers. On 24 Jan. he supported Johnston in his legal cause before the Lords, presumably that of the Attorney-general v. Crofts et al, which was the only one heard that day.167 He was absent from 1-28 Feb. 1709 probably on account of the death of his wife on the 3rd, and her interment at Spetchley. During her illness she had been ‘constantly attended by my Lady Marlborough with whom she was to go to Holland, had her grace gone, or to Hanover’.168 Henceforth, when in London Burnet usually resided at St John’s Court, Clerkenwell, in the house left to him by his spouse.169
On 15 Mar. 1709 in committee of the whole House on the general naturalization bill, Burnet voted in favour of retaining the provision allowing the new arrivals to take the sacrament in ‘some Protestant reformed congregation’ rather than in a ‘parochial church’. As he himself said, he spoke ‘copiously’ for the bill.170 When a bill for improving the Union of the two kingdoms went into a committee of the whole on 16 Mar. Burnet was chosen as its chairman. The first head of the bill stated that ‘all crimes which were high-treason by the law of England (and these only) were to be high-treason in Scotland’. His fellow countrymen were very unhappy at this prospect and argued that such crimes should be ‘enumerated in the act, for the information of the Scotch nation; otherwise they must study the book of statutes, to know when they were safe, and when they were guilty’.171 Burnet’s report to the House reflected this concern as the judges were requested to bring in an account of the several laws that related to treason. He was again in the chair on 18 Mar. when the judges delivered in their report. In relation to the first head, a question was put ‘whether the English statutes be particularly enumerated’, which was lost, with Bishop Nicolson recording that there was not one bishop amongst the non contents. Burnet’s chairmanship was described by Nicolson as ‘blundering’ and when the committee met the next day it had a new chair. On 22 Mar. Burnet voted in favour of the ultimately unsuccessful proposal to allow defendants a list of prosecution witnesses five days before trial. On 23 Mar. he was one of two bishops to vote with the Scots in a division, technically over resuming the House, but effectively about forfeitures, as he was ‘against all forfeitures but personal’.172 On 25 Mar. he voted in favour of the motion that the House be resumed, so that consideration of Scottish marriage settlements could be delayed until the following day.173 On 28 Mar. he protested against the rejection of another attempt to require defendants in treason trials to be given a copy of the indictment, and a list of prosecution witnesses at least five days before the trial. He then protested against the passage of the bill itself. When the bill was amended and returned to the Lords on 14 Apr., according to both Charles Hay†, Lord Yester, the future 3rd marquess of Tweedale [S] and Edmund Gibson†, the future bishop of London, Burnet joined all the bishops in voting against the amendment to the clause that there be no forfeitures for high treason, which stated that it was not to come into force until the Pretender’s death rather than on 1 July, and was the only bishop to vote against the same change to the clause allowing the defendants to have lists of witnesses.174 However, according to Nicolson, ‘all the bishops present’, including Burnet, agreed to both the amendments that the statute should not commence till after the Pretender’s death.175
About this time, as his son later observed, Burnet ‘grew more abstracted from the world, than the situation he had been in during the former parts of his life had permitted. To avoid the distraction of useless visits’, he settled in St John’s Court, ‘and kept up only an intercourse with his most select and intimate acquaintance’.176 It was probably in October 1709 that Arthur Maynwaring‡ wrote that Burnet was ‘daily writing a History which everybody will read when he is dead’.177 In keeping with this resolution, perhaps, Burnet did not appear for the 1709-10 session until 10 Jan. 1710, the second day after the Christmas recess, although he was in London by 2 Jan., when he dined at Lambeth with Charles Montagu, 4th earl of Manchester, and others.178 He attended on 47 days, just over 50 per cent of the total.
What seems to have brought Burnet out of his chosen inactivity was the decision to impeach Dr Sacheverell. Burnet judged Sacheverell to be ‘a bold insolent man, with a very small measure of religion, virtue, learning or good sense’, who had ‘resolved to force himself into popularity and preferment, by the most petulant railings at Dissenters, and low-churchmen’. Burnet was particularly stung by Sacheverell’s assertion of ‘the doctrine of non-resistance in the highest strain possible’. He complained that Sacheverell had argued ‘that to charge the Revolution with resistance, was to cast black and odious imputations on it; pretending that the late king [William] had disowned it, and cited for the proof of that, some words in his declaration, by which he vindicated himself from a design of conquest.’179 The impeachment provoked widespread rioting in London, some of which came uncomfortably close to Burnet. On 1 Mar. he was insulted near his home and on 2 Mar. he complained of his treatment to the Lords but as the Commons took notice of the tumults, the Lords left the matter to them.180 On 4 Mar. Sacheverell’s counsel was able to use passages from Burnet’s own Vindication of the Authority, Constitution, and Laws of the Church and State of Scotland (1673) to demonstrate the orthodoxy of his opinion, whereupon Burnet responded by ‘sneaking from his place to deliver the managers a book of his own out of his bosom, and directing them to call for a passage to contradict himself’.181
Aware that Sacheverell was also questioning the validity of the Hanoverian Succession, Burnet set himself the task of refuting his assertions in the speech he gave to the House of Lords on 16 Mar. during consideration of the first article of the impeachment. He began with the observation that ‘since it is grown to be a vulgar opinion, that by the doctrine of the Church of England, all resistance in any case whatsoever, without exception, is condemned; I think it is incumbent upon me... to give you... a clear account of this point’. He then embarked on a long, historical account of the doctrine of the Church before concluding that Sacheverell’s assertion of passive obedience and non-resistance in his sermon was ‘certainly a condemning the Revolution: and this is further aggravated from those limitations on our obedience, in an act passed soon after the Revolution, by which, in case our princes turn Papists, or marry Papists, the subjects are, in express words, discharged from their allegiance to them.’ He ended by saying that ‘he was as much against severity to the Dr’s person as any but was for censuring the sermon and settling the doctrine.’182 There is a possibility that the printed version of Burnet’s speech omitted a section on the ‘spirit of Jacobitism’ which he alleged pervaded the clergy and poisoned the universities. One contemporary printed account, purporting to have been written on that day, judged it to be ‘a sermon in Defence of Resistance’, even to the extent of suggesting that so long as the doctrine of non-resistance was condemned, Burnet would be ‘very well content the Doctor might escape’.183
According to Rev. Ralph Bridges, on 17 Mar. 1710 Burnet ‘opened’ the fourth article of the impeachment and ‘having quoted and distorted several words to show the ministry’s being reflected upon’, argued that ‘it was a matter of amazement to anyone to hear such expressions from the pulpit in her majesty’s reign, which was the wonder of the present age and would be so of posterity and which therefore ought to be the object of our idolatry, if possible’. Burnet then told a story of a
hotheaded bishop (at the naming of which words the whole House fell a-laughing) who having by his influence caused a synagogue of Jews at Alexandria to be suppressed and afterwards a good pious lady of that religion coming thither and abounding in works of charity, it enraged the bishop so much that he stirred up the people there and made them tear her all to pieces. And he was the Sacheverell of those days, concluded my Lord of Sarum.184
Another account had Burnet seconding Wharton on the article, speaking with ‘vehemence’ against Sacheverell, ‘who by inveighing against the Revolution, Toleration, and Union, seemed to arraign and attack the queen herself’. Sacheverell’s attack upon her ministers was plain because he had ‘so well marked out a notable peer [Godolphin], there present by an ugly and scurrilous epithet [Volpone], (which he would not speak) that ’twas not possible to mistake him’. His speech was somewhat ruined by ‘the whole House a-laughing and several Lords cried out name him’, which William Cowper, Baron Cowper, ruled out of order.185 On 20 Mar. Burnet voted Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. Upon reflection, he felt that Sacheverell’s punishment in being forbidden to preach for three years and his sermon burnt in the presence of the lord mayor and alderman of London, was a ‘mild judgment’, while on 28 Mar. Ralph Bridges noted that Burnet ‘could not forbear saying that he thought this favourable sentence was returning of him thanks’.186 However, in keeping with his earlier view, there is evidence that on 21 Mar., following Cowper’s proposal for a seven-year ‘silence’ and three months’ imprisonment, Burnet and Talbot were among the few that supported John Campbell, duke of Argyll, that he had voted for the impeachment upon a promise that ‘no severe punishment should be insisted on’.187
Burnet attended the last day of the session, 5 Apr. 1710 and the prorogation of 18 April. On 20 May he wrote to William Wake, bishop of Lincoln, from Salisbury in fairly optimistic vein, regarding the nomination of two bishops as ‘a good step’. Bristol and St Davids were vacant: John Robinson, the diplomat, would fill that of Bristol and Philip Bisse, a relative of Harley’s, that of St Davids; both were moderate Tories. ‘I pray God’, he went on, ‘it may be followed by more that are of a piece with it for how high soever our jury rises a very little management [may] gain it.’188 On 29 May he preached a sermon in Salisbury Cathedral in support of resistance theory, which led to conflict with some of the corporation, who had been somewhat exuberant in their support for Sacheverell.189 In September it was reported that Burnet had had a severe fit of the stone.190 Somers wrote to him on 9 Sept.: ‘I hear you have returned to Salisbury from Bath in a very ill state of health’.191 On 3 Oct. Harley included Burnet among those likely to oppose the new ministry.
The Parliament of 1710
Burnet was in London before the 1710 Parliament opened on 25 Nov., visiting Lambeth on 11 Nov., arriving at the end of a meeting of bishops discussing Convocation.192 He took his seat on 27 Nov. and was then present on 44 days, a little under 39 per cent of the total. Before the New Year he only sat on 27 and 28 Nov. and on 4 days in December. According to Burnet, in the winter following the change of ministry, the queen encouraged him ‘to speak more freely to her of her affairs than I had ever ventured to do formerly. I told her what reports were secretly spread of her through the nation, as if she favoured the design of bringing the Pretender to succeed the Crown, upon a bargain that she should hold it during her life.’ The queen ‘heard me patiently: she was for the most part silent; yet by what she said, she seemed desirous to make me think she agreed to what I had laid before her, but I found afterwards it had no effect upon her.’ Burnet opposed the attack in the Lords on the conduct of the war in Spain under the former ministry, remarking that ‘I never saw anything carried on in the House of Lords so little to their honour as this was; some who voted with the rest seemed ashamed of it’. He suspected that the defeat at the battle of Almanza in April 1707, was being used to justify the queen changing her ministers because most of what else they had done had been successful. Whilst this seemed to confirm that the queen had ignored his advice he felt no regret at having spoken out ‘since I had, with an honest freedom, made the best use I could have of the access I had to her.’193 On 9 Jan. 1711 in committee of the whole, Burnet spoke against the motion that the earl of Peterborough (formerly earl of Monmouth), whose evidence was used to criticize the conduct of the campaign, had given a true, just and honourable account of the council of war in Valencia. Burnet said that ‘he was for as much (honourable) as they pleased, but could not come up to the words (true and just). This occasioned great laughter.’194 He opposed the motion by voting against the procedural motion to resume the House. On 11 Jan. he protested against the decision to reject the petitions of Henry de Massue, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and then he protested against the resolution that the opinions in the council of war of Galway, Tyrawley, and General James Stanhope†, the future Viscount Stanhope, had occasioned the defeat at Almanza, and the subsequent losses. On 12 Jan. he protested against the resolution censuring ministers for approving and directing an offensive war in Spain. On 3 Feb. he protested against two resolutions further censuring ministers for failures in the supply of the troops in the Spanish campaign. On 7 Feb. 1711 Burnet won £100 in damages in another trial for scandalum magnatum against an apothecary from Salisbury, William Naish, who had accused the bishop of preaching lies.195 On 24 Feb. Burnet met Wake and several other bishops to discuss Convocation matters.196 Burnet was recorded as present on 1 Mar. when it was noted that all the bishops supported the vote that the appeal of James Greenshields was regularly brought before the Lords.197 Sir James Dunbar‡ specifically noticed that Burnet was one of the majority against adjourning this question until the following day and in favour of proceeding to hear counsel.198 This being done, the decree was then reversed. On 9 Mar. Burnet chaired the committee of the whole on Jermyn’s divorce bill, and was reportedly ‘ill-treated’ by Argyll, so much so that when the order was read for a committee of the whole on 12 Mar on the divorce bill of Benedict Leonard Calvert‡, the future 4th Baron Baltimore [I], no Lord was ‘willing to take the chair’ after Burnet ‘had fared so ill’, so the House was resumed.199 He last sat on 9 May, a month before the end of the session, having signed a proxy in favour of Bishop Moore (now translated to Ely) on 12 May.
Burnet was increasingly worried about the succession. On 31 Mar. 1711 Nicolson had heard that Burnet had warned the queen ‘on the change of her ministry, the growth of the Pretender’s interest’.200 On 28 Nov. the queen informed David Hamilton that Burnet had told her ‘we are ripening for judgment, and that the Dutch come into the Peace by force’, perhaps in the same interview in which Burnet stressed the danger of all Europe falling under (Catholic) Bourbon control, leading to the murder of the queen and a re-kindling of the fires in Smithfield; he ended, ‘I pursued this long, till I saw she grew uneasy’ and withdrew. On 4 Dec. the queen and Hamilton discussed Burnet’s sermon at Mercers’ Chapel, in which he again declaimed on the imminent dangers from popery and the French monarchy which would see the Pretender restored even in the queen’s lifetime.201
Burnet was present on the opening day of the session, 7 Dec. 1711, when presumably he voted for the inclusion of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the Address. On 8 Dec. he was listed as supporting the presentation of the address containing that clause in the abandoned division of that day. About December Burnet’s name appears on a list compiled by Nottingham, possibly concerning his alliance with the Whigs over the peace (or occasional conformity). On 19 Dec. Burnet was forecast as likely to oppose the claims of James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House under his British title, but on the 20th he ‘went out’ of the House before the vote was taken. On 5 Jan. 1712 Burnet was one of nine Whig bishops who dined at Bishop Trelawny’s at Chelsea, though just what was under discussion remains unknown.202 Complaints in the House on 31 Jan. concerning the sermon preached to it by Bishop Trimnell the previous day led Burnet, who had actually heard the sermon, to profess that ‘he never heard a better, and that there was nobody could find fault with it, but those that were against the late happy Revolution’. This led to calls for him to be brought to the bar, but Burnet avoided this fate by moving to the clerk’s table and saying ‘my Lords I do protest before God I meant no one in this House’.203
Apropos of the legislation that was alleged to be designed to weaken the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland, Burnet observed that those ‘who were suspected to have very bad designs applied themselves with great industry to drive on such, as they hoped would give the Presbyterians in Scotland such alarms as might dispose them to remonstrate that the union was broken.’ The first of these was the Episcopal toleration bill.204 In the committee of the whole on the bill on 13 Feb. Burnet and Halifax both opposed it.205 When the Lords re-considered the bill on 26 Feb. Burnet was noted as disagreeing to the Commons’ amendment to the Lords’ own amendment.206 The bill was followed by another to restore patronages in Scotland. Burnet told a deputation from the Church of Scotland lobbying against it, that ‘I resolve to speak some very free things in the House on that subject, and I will tell them I noticed the king of France to proceed just this way in revoking the Edict of Nantes, and piece by piece, he wore in; and at length took it away, and turned persecutor.’207 On 12 Apr. Burnet spoke and voted against the committal of the bill.208 He asserted that the bill was ‘contrary to the Kirk establishment by the Union’ in a ‘very long historical speech on behalf of the Kirk rights’. He also claimed that the bill ‘was not designed for the benefits of the Church, but to favour the Pretender’, telling Oxford that ‘this is not a time to weaken Protestants and create divisions by such bills, but we ought to unite against popery’.209 Greenshields wrote that Burnet ‘speeched vehemently’ against it, whilst Gibson noted that Burnet was one of four bishops voting with the minority.210 Burnet’s opposition may have been counter-productive; Sir Hugh Paterson‡ thought that Burnet ‘was one of the greatest sticklers against it, which I believe made it not go the worse’.211
On 22 Apr. 1712, Burnet attended the traditional Easter dinner at Lambeth, where he ‘opened’ with ‘some warmth’ the matter of Thomas Brett’s sermon ‘asserting the invalidity of lay baptism’, a position held by some high-flying divines.212 On 28 May Burnet protested against the resolution to reject a humble address that the queen issue orders to James Butler, 2nd duke Ormond, to act offensively against France in order to obtain a safe and honourable peace, although his name does not appear on the printed list of the division.213 On 29 May he substituted Bishop Moore as his proxy in Convocation.214 He last sat on 16 June, shortly before the end of the session, having attended on 64 days, a little under 60 per cent of the total.
Burnet was one of nine bishops attending the traditional dinner with Tenison at Lambeth on 26 Dec. 1712.215 On 22 Jan. 1713 speaking of Burnet, the queen said that ‘he knows all things, and says more than anybody, and that last summer he said the Pretender would be here before six weeks’.216 On 16 Feb. Bridges reported that when Parliament met it would order Burnet’s preface to be burnt, presumably a reference to the third edition of A Discourse of the Pastoral Care, which included ‘a new preface suited to the present time’ lamenting the state of religion among the clergy. Bridges added that ‘the bishop, I hear, is very desirous they should, being very eager and forward to show his zeal for the good old cause’. He elaborated on 27 Feb. that the preface was certainly by Burnet ‘being both his style and several of his arguments and expressions he made use of last sessions in the House of Lords, so says our good Lord of London.’217
Burnet attended the prorogations on 17 Feb. 3, 10, and 26 Mar. 1713, on the latter occasion being accompanied by Bishop Wake.218 Before the beginning of the session, a list compiled by Swift, and amended by Oxford, marked Burnet as expected to oppose the ministry. He was present when the session began on 9 April. He attended on 45 days, a little over 68 per cent of the total. On 1 June he joined the Whigs in supporting the motion of James Oglivy, earl of Findlater [S] for a dissolution of the Union, at least in so far as supporting a motion for appointing another day to consider of it.219 About 13 June, he was classed by Oxford as likely to oppose the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty. He last attended on 15 July, the penultimate day of the session, and by the 24th he was back in Salisbury, as he was in late September 1713.220
The Parliament of 1713 and the Hanoverian Succession
On 8 Feb. 1714, when Tenison was discussing the names of his commissioners in the licence allowing Convocation to sit, he insisted on including Burnet, ‘the second senior and must not be leaped over, tho’ perhaps, he, being intent on his great work, may not attend’.221 Burnet was present when Parliament opened on 16 February. He attended on 42 days, just over 55 per cent of the total. On 11 Mar. Burnet protested against the decision not to add words to an address on the discovery of the author of the pamphlet, The Public Spirit of the Whigs, to indicate that the author (widely and accurately believed to be Oxford’s ally, Jonathan Swift) pretended to know the secrets of the queen’s administration. On 16 Apr. Burnet opposed the proposal for an address of thanks for the ‘safe, honourable and just’ peace with France and Spain. For Burnet, the ministry had persuaded the queen ‘to break her word in making a separate peace’ and had deserted her allies.222 Burnet was present sporadically in May and on 29 May signed a proxy in favour of Bishop Moore. He next attended on 25 June, George Baillie‡ reporting on the 26th that the bishop had returned in good health, contradicting rumours of his death.223 This may have been a diplomatic absence, as at the end of May or beginning of June, Nottingham had forecast that Burnet would oppose the schism bill. However, he voted by proxy against extending the schism bill to Ireland (11 June) and against the passage of the bill (15 June). On 8 July he protested against the decision not to proceed with a representation to the queen that the benefits of the Asiento contract had been obstructed by unwarrantable endeavours to gain private advantages to particular persons. He attended on the last day of the session, 9 July.
Burnet was missing from the opening of the session convened on the death of Queen Anne, on 1 Aug. 1714. He first sat on 12 Aug. and attended for four of the 15 days. On 21 Sept., Burnet, General Stanhope, Lord Chief Justice, Thomas Parker†, the future earl of Macclesfield, and Thomas Pelham, 2nd Baron Pelham, ‘were all hussaed’, during George I’s arrival into the capital.224 On 22 Sept. it was reported to Trumbull that Burnet was to be made dean of the chapel royal in place of John Robinson, bishop of London, but this turned out to be false.225 As Charlett was informed on 29 Sept., George Smalridge, bishop of Bristol, and Robinson ‘officiated last Sunday, the one as almoner, the other as dean of the Chapel. ’Tis said the Lord Nottingham has kept them in, declaring in the council that putting them out and Burnet in would disoblige three parts in four of the nation. This not shame or repentance keeps them and others in, but fear’.226 On 18 Oct. Burnet went with Wake to court and waited on the king, prince and princess of Wales and the young princesses before attending the coronation on the 20th.227
On 5 Mar. 1715 Burnet preached before George I.228 Shortly afterwards, he ‘was taken ill of a violent cold, which soon turned to a pleuritic fever’, otherwise described as ‘inflammation of the lungs’, and died on 17 March.229 He was able to leave to his five children their mother’s estate, plus the money he had invested from his salary as preceptor.230 In his will he provided for two endowments, which were, as Henry Fletcher of Saltoun (with which family and parish Burnet had been closely associated at the beginning of his career) reported ‘twenty thousand merks to the parish of Saltoun for educating youth, and as much to the College of Aberdeen, but the money is in the public funds and cannot be made good sooner than five year.’231
Soon after his emergence into London society, Burnet had been described by John Evelyn in 1674 as a ‘famous and excellent preacher’, who spoke with ‘such a flood of eloquence and fullness of matter as shewed him to be a person of extraordinary parts’.232 To these advantages, he added ambition: Denzil Holles, Baron Holles, regarding him as a ‘forward Scotsman’ with ‘a bishopric in his head’.233 Having achieved this aim, Burnet has been perceived as an ‘energetic and reforming diocesan’.234 He seems to have had a fundamental horror of persecution, arguing that worldly power should never be used to advance Godly belief, and as a consequence he opposed the high-church attack on Dissenters, whilst agreeing that they were proud schismatics who should never have left the Church.235 As his will proclaimed
I am a true protestant according to the Church of England, full of affection and brotherly love to all who have received the reformed religion tho’ in some points different from our constitution. I die as I all along lived and professed myself to be full of charity and tenderness for those among us who yet dissent from us and heartily pray that God would heal our breaches and make us like minded in all things that so we may unite our zeal and join our endeavours against atheism and infidelity that have prevailed much and against popery the greatest enemy to our Church more to be dreaded than all other parties whatsoever.
Parliamentary historians have seen Burnet as one of ‘a small core of active peers and bishops who regularly took the lead in debates’.236 Burnet never missed a parliamentary session, undertook a large quantity of committee work and spoke his mind, despite inviting ridicule and getting into trouble for his words. However, his forthright and uncompromising whiggish views made him many enemies to whom his wife once referred as ‘very unreasonable in both inventing false stories and improving any that, by being in any part true, give an advantage of easier belief.’237 Furthermore, Burnet was a meddler and a gossip, and a man of ‘intense excitability’, who was not good on confidentiality.238 Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester, wrote on 10 Jan. 1696 that ‘it is no easy matter I perceive, to deal with a person of the Bishop of Salisbury’s temper; for the same heat which runs him into mistakes makes him impatient when he is told of them.’239 Added to this was a disarming (or irritating) frankness with his fellow men, and while gruff sailors like Torrington and Orford were able to treat his moral strictures lightly, others could not.240 Thus, despite his value to William III as a polemicist and ‘a man very close to the heart of Williamite counsels’, William was heard to complain ‘of Burnet’s breaking in upon him whether he would or no, and asking such questions as he did not know how to answer, without trusting him more than he was willing to do; having a very bad opinion of his retentive faculty’.241 Indeed, Halifax noted in April 1689 that he had ‘never heard the king say a kind word of him’, and Halifax himself was noted by William Legge, earl of Dartmouth, to speak of him ‘with the utmost contempt, as a facetious, turbulent, busy man, that was most officiously meddling with what he had nothing to do, and very dangerous to put any confidence in, having met with many scandalous breaches of trust while he had any conversation with him’.242
G.M.T./S.N.H.- 1 Burnet Supp. ed. Foxcroft, 251n.
- 2 T.E.S. Clarke and H.C. Foxcroft, Life of Gilbert Burnet, 353.
- 3 Add. 72498, ff. 15-16.
- 4 Clarke and Foxcroft, 380.
- 5 TNA, PROB 11/545.
- 6 Morrice, Entring Bk. iv. 270.
- 7 Fear, Exclusion and Revolution ed. J. McElligott, 149-50.
- 8 CSP Dom. 1690-1, p. 158.
- 9 CSP Dom. 1694-5, p. 402.
- 10 CSP Dom. 1699-1700, p. 276.
- 11 CSP Dom. 1690-1, pp. 240, 473.
- 12 G.F.A. Best, Temporal Pillars, 520.
- 13 Beinecke Lib. OSB MSS 1, ser. I, box 2, folder 64, [-] to Poley, 19 Aug. 1687; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 233.
- 14 Clarke and Foxcroft, 378.
- 15 Chamberlayne, Magnae Britanniae Notitia (1707) p. 627.
- 16 Grey, iii. 18-19.
- 17 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 40.
- 18 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 234.
- 19 HMC Portland, iii. 398; Burnet, History (1724), 726.
- 20 Morrice, Entring Bk. iv. 57-8.
At the end of 1688 Burnet accompanied the invasion fleet as William’s chaplain and acting as his chief English propagandist. Burnet edited and translated Fagel’s Declaration of Reasons, William’s key manifesto, and read it from the pulpit in Exeter Cathedral. He was also heavily involved in editing the Second Declaration of Reasons and wrote a pamphlet, An Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority; and of the Grounds upon which it may be Lawful or Necessary for Subjects to defend their Religion, Lives and Liberties.
L.G. Schwoerer, Declaration of Rights 1689, pp. 113, 116-18; Ellis Corresp. ii. 296. - 21 HMC 14th Rep. IX, 456.
- 22 Morrice, Entring Bk. iv. 521; Bucholz and Sainty, Royal Household, i. 56; CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 1; Verney ms mic. M636/48, J. to Sir R. Verney, 28 Nov. 1694.
- 23 Beinecke Lib. OSB mss fb 210, ff. 365-6; English Currant, 21-26 Dec. 1688.
- 24 Universal Intelligencer, 22-26 Dec. 1688.
- 25 Eg. 2621, ff. 83-84.
- 26 PH, xxxii. 142-7; Sidney Diary, ii. 281-8.
- 27 Clarendon Corresp. ii. 214, 217-18, 227-8, 244.
- 28 Clarendon Corresp. ii. 508.
- 29 Beinecke Lib. OSB mss fb 210, ff. 331-2; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 483-4.
- 30 Clarendon Corresp. ii. 247, 266-7.
- 31 Reresby Mems. 547.
- 32 Burnet, iii. 397-8.
- 33 Clarke and Foxcroft, 265.
- 34 Clarendon Corresp. ii. 269.
- 35 Diary of Thomas Naish ed. D. Slatter (Wilts. Arch. Soc., Recs. Branch xx), 58.
- 36 Burnet, vi. 288.
- 37 Add. 61458, ff. 71-73.
- 38 Burnet Supp. ed. Foxcroft, 497.
- 39 Burnet, iv. 17-19; HMC Lords, ii. 49.
- 40 Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 521.
- 41 Reresby Mems. 572.
- 42 Cobbett, Parl. Hist. v. 229.
- 43 Burnet, iv. 16.
- 44 Burnet, iv. 28; Horwitz, Parl. Pols. 30.
- 45 HMC Lords, ii. 345-7.
- 46 Burnet, vi. 287, 289, 291.
- 47 Burnet Supp. ed. Foxcroft, 327-8; Burnet, iv. 17.
- 48 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 119, 124, 153.
- 49 Letters of Lady Rachel Russell, 228.
- 50 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 151.
- 51 Chatsworth, Halifax Coll. B.8.
- 52 Add. 4236, f. 293.
- 53 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 142.
- 54 CSP Dom. 1689-90, pp. 262-3; Clarke and Foxcroft, 276-7; Rev. Pols. 100.
- 55 NAS, Hamilton mss GD 406/1/6393.
- 56 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 222, 235; Clarke and Foxcroft, 277, 282-3.
- 57 Clarendon Corresp. ii. 277.
- 58 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 241, 384.
- 59 Horwitz, Parl. Pols. 39-40.
- 60 Bodl. Ballard 27, f. 88.
- 61 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 368, 392.
- 62 Clarke and Foxcroft, 303.
- 63 HMC Lords, iii. 4.
- 64 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 423.
- 65 Eg. 3347, ff. 4-5; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 434.
- 66 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 434-7, 442.
- 67 Add. 34095, ff. 160-1.
- 68 HMC Lords, iii. 155.
- 69 WSHC, Ailesbury mss 1300/787.
- 70 Boyle Corresp. vi. 324.
- 71 HMC 13th Rep. VI, 29; Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 238.
- 72 HMC Lords, iii. 445.
- 73 Glasgow Univ., Hunterian collection, ms 73, f. 89.
- 74 Ballard 20, f. 171.
- 75 Luttrell Diary, 376, 380-2.
- 76 Bodl. Tanner, 25, f. 42.
- 77 Leics. RO, DG 7 box 4959 P.P. 107, ‘notes of Mr Sd’s[?] bill of tryalls pro trea[son]. [16]93’.
- 78 HMC Downshire, i. 440; HMC 10th Rep. VI, 257.
- 79 Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 431.
- 80 Add 46527, f. 62; CSP Dom. 1695, p. 326; Wood, iii. 483.
- 81 HMC 11th Rep. VII, 202; HMC Downshire, i. 413, 560-1.
- 82 HMC Hastings, iv. 316.
- 83 Diary of Thomas Naish, 37.
- 84 Clarke and Foxcroft, 339.
- 85 Letters of Lady Rachel Russell, 324-5.
- 86 HMC Portland, iii. 580.
- 87 Burnet, iv. 327.
- 88 WSHC, Ailesbury mss 2667/25/7; Vernon-Shrewsbury Letters, i. 133-4.
- 89 Staffs. RO, Persehowse papers, D260/M/F/1/6, ff. 96-98.
- 90 Burnet, iv. 348-51.
- 91 Vernon-Shrewsbury Letters, i. 173; Burnet, iv. 348.
- 92 Vernon-Shrewsbury Letters, i. 178-9.
- 93 Clarke and Foxcroft, 343.
- 94 HMC 14th Rep. III, 132.
- 95 HMC Downshire, i. 754.
- 96 Diary of Thomas Naish, 39.
- 97 Timberland, ii. 3.
- 98 Clarke and Foxcroft, 347.
- 99 Leics. RO, DG 7 box 4950 bdle 22, Southwell to Nottingham, 14 June 1698.
- 100 Vernon-Shrewsbury Letters, ii. 124.
- 101 Bodl. Carte 228, f. 276.
- 102 Clarke and Foxcroft, 354, 368.
- 103 Vernon-Shrewsbury Letters, ii. 334; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 545; LPL, ms 951/6, 3 Aug. 1699.
- 104 Cumbria RO (Carlisle), Lonsdale mss D/Lons/W2/2/2, J to Sir J. Lowther, 12 Dec. 1699.
- 105 Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxiii), 238.
- 106 Vernon-Shrewsbury Letters, ii. 386-8.
- 107 Hatton Corresp. 247.
- 108 Add 28053, ff. 402-3; Vernon-Shrewsbury Letters, iii. 24.
- 109 Ballard 10, f. 40.
- 110 Add. 72498, ff. 15-16; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 649.
- 111 Horwitz, Parl, Pols. 293; Verney ms mic. M636/51, C. Gardiner to Sir J. Verney, 15 Mar. 1701; Carte 228, f. 295.
- 112 Burnet, iv. 500-1; vi. 292.
- 113 Diary of Thomas Naish, 44.
- 114 Canadian Jnl. Hist. xli. 250.
- 115 Clarke and Foxcroft, 388.
- 116 Bennett, Tory Crisis in Church and State, 65.
- 117 Recs. of Convocation, ix. 136-8.
- 118 Atterbury, Epistolary Corresp. iv. 441.
- 119 Locke Corresp. vii. 359-60, 415.
- 120 Diary of Thomas Naish, 46-49, 54; HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 649; Clarke and Foxcroft, 402.
- 121 Burnet, iv. 549.
- 122 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pps. 44, f. 157.
- 123 HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 419.
- 124 Burnet, iv. 558-61.
- 125 Add. 70073-4, newsletter, 10 Mar. 1701[-2].
- 126 Nicolson, London Diaries, 127, 144-5.
- 127 Burnet, v. 54-56.
- 128 Nicolson, London Diaries, 155-6.
- 129 Burnet, v. 56.
- 130 Add. 70075, newsletter, 14 Jan. 1702[-3].
- 131 Nicolson, London Diaries, 177-8.
- 132 Burnet, v. 56-58.
- 133 Canadian Jnl. Hist. xli., 252-6.
- 134 Nicolson, London Diaries, 137, 139, 140.
- 135 Nicolson, London Diaries, 175; Add. 70075, newsletter, 16 Jan. 1703; E. Calamy, An Historical Account of my Own Life (1829), i. 472-3.
- 136 Nicolson, London Diaries, 191; Burnet, v. 53-54.
- 137 Nicolson, London Diaries, 204.
- 138 Atterbury, Epistolary Corresp. iv. 373.
- 139 Burnet, v. 107.
- 140 Cobbett, Parl. Hist. vi. 159-165.
- 141 Burnet, v. 108.
- 142 CUL, Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss 295, Turner to Walpole, 28 Feb. 1703[-4].
- 143 Longleat, Bath mss. Thynne pprs. 45, ff. 49-50.
- 144 Clarke and Foxcroft, 408.
- 145 Burnet, v. 123-4, 134.
- 146 Burnet, v. 182.
- 147 Add. 61458, ff. 10-12.
- 148 Baillie Corresp. 14-15.
- 149 Luttrell, Brief Relation, v. 565, 614; Diary of Thomas Naish, 54; HP Commons, 1690-1714, iii. 529; HMC Portland, iv. 271.
- 150 HP Commons, 1690-1714, ii. 692-3; Ballard 21, f. 222; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 1, box 3, folder 163, [newsletter] to Poley, 8 May 1705; HMC Portland, iv. 213, 270; Add. 61458, ff. 160-1.
- 151 Bodl. Rawl. Letters 4, f. 72.
- 152 Nicolson, London Diaries, 309.
- 153 Nicolson, London Diaries, 317, 320-2; HJ, xix. 766-7; WSHC, Ailesbury mss 3790/1/1, p. 60.
- 154 LPL. Ms. 1770, ff. 8v.-9r.
- 155 Nicolson, London Diaries, 336, 351, 367, 371-2, 381.
- 156 Nicolson, London Diaries, 384.
- 157 KSRL, Simpson-Methuen corresp. ms c163, Simpson to Methuen, 5 Mar. 1706.
- 158 LPL, Ms. 930, no. 12.
- 159 Diary of Thomas Naish, 54-55.
- 160 Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 733-4.
- 161 Diary of Thomas Naish, 58.
- 162 Nicolson, London Diaries, 397, 405-8, 411-12.
- 163 Burnet, v. 295.
- 164 Addison Letters, 90.
- 165 Add. 61458, ff. 74-75.
- 166 LPL, Ms. 1770, ff. 69r., 72v.
- 167 Add. 72488, ff. 47-48; HMC Lords, n.s. viii. 8-9.
- 168 Add. 72488, ff. 49-50.
- 169 Clarke and Foxcroft, 439.
- 170 Nicolson, London Diaries, 486; Burnet, v. 411.
- 171 Burnet, v. 403.
- 172 Nicolson, London Diaries, 486-8; HMC Lords, n.s. viii. 286-8; Burnet, v. 406.
- 173 Nicolson, London Diaries, 489; LPL, Ms. 1770, f. 77r.; HMC Lords, n.s. viii. 288.
- 174 NLS, Yester mss 7021, f. 171; Wake mss 17, f. 204.
- 175 Christ Church, Oxf. Wake mss 17, f. 203; Nicolson, London Diaries, 498.
- 176 Burnet, vi. 327.
- 177 Add. 61460, f. 76.
- 178 LPL, Ms. 1770, f. 90r.
- 179 Burnet, v. 434-5.
- 180 HMC Lords, n.s. viii. 368; Cowan, State Trial of Sacheverell, 151.
- 181 HMC Portland, iv. 534; Cowan, 37, 60.
- 182 Cobbett, Parl. Hist. vi. 847-860; HJ, xix. 770.
- 183 Cowan. 22, 140-1.
- 184 Add. 72494, ff. 169-70.
- 185 Cowan, 91.
- 186 Burnet, v. 450; Add. 72494, ff. 171-2.
- 187 Cowan, 76.
- 188 Wake mss 17, f. 249.
- 189 Diary of Thomas Naish, 68-69; Cowan, 184-5.
- 190 Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 627; HMC Portland, iv. 584.
- 191 NYPL, Montague coll. box 9, Somers to [Burnet], 9 Sept. 1710.
- 192 LPL, Ms. 1770, f. 100v.
- 193 Burnet, v. 455-7; vi. 29.
- 194 Add. 72491, ff. 27-28; Timberland, ii. 307.
- 195 Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 688; Diary of Thomas Naish, 70-71; Longleat, Bath mss. Thynne pprs. 47, ff. 145-8.
- 196 LPL, Ms. 1770, f. 105r.
- 197 NLS, Wodrow pps. Letters Quarto V, f. 148r.
- 198 NAS, GD 124/15/1020/13.
- 199 Nicolson, London Diaries, 557-8.
- 200 Nicolson, London Diaries, 566.
- 201 Hamilton Diary, 31-32; Burnet, vi. 77-78.
- 202 Nicolson, London Diaries, 576.
- 203 Wentworth Pprs. 261; BLJ, xix. 161.
- 204 Burnet, vi. 106.
- 205 Timberland, ii. 364.
- 206 Add. 22908, ff. 89-90.
- 207 R. Wodrow, Analecta, ii. 174.
- 208 Wodrow pprs. Letters Quarto, VI, f. 162v.
- 209 BLJ, xix. 161-2.
- 210 Add. 22908, f. 92; Bodl. Add. A.269, p. 9.
- 211 HMC Mar and Kellie, 498.
- 212 Wake mss 17, ff. 322-3.
- 213 PH, xxvi. 161n.
- 214 Recs. of Convocation xi. 61.
- 215 LPL, Ms. 1770, f. 128.
- 216 Hamilton Diary, 50.
- 217 Add. 72496, ff. 46-49; A Discourse of the Pastoral Care, (1713).
- 218 LPL, Ms. 1770, f. 131v.
- 219 Haddington mss, misc. pprs. ser. 1, box 4, item 384, memo on Union, 2 June 1713.
- 220 SP34/21/97; Clarke and Foxcroft, 462.
- 221 Wake mss 6, f. 167.
- 222 Wentworth Pprs. 371, 375; Cobbett, Parl. Hist. vi. 1345.
- 223 Haddington mss. Mellerstain letters VI, Baillie to wife, 1 May, 26 June 1714.
- 224 Verney ms mic. M636/55, W. Viccars to Verney, 21 Sept. 1714.
- 225 Add. 72502, f. 10.
- 226 Ballard 31, f. 129.
- 227 LPL, ms 1770, 149v.
- 228 HMC Downshire, i. 906-7.
- 229 Clarke and Foxcroft, 473; Add. 70147, Lady Dupplin to A. Harley, 17 Mar. 1715; Add. 72502, ff. 37-38; Letters of Thomas Burnet to George Duckett, 1712-22, ed. D. Nichol Smith (Roxburghe Club, 1914), 84.
- 230 HMC Downshire, i. 906-7.
- 231 NLS, Saltoun mss 16503, f. 87r.
- 232 Evelyn Diary, iv. 47-48.
- 233 Add. 70333, Harley memo. Thurs. 10 Apr. 1710.
- 234 Bennett, Tory Crisis, 15.
- 235 HJ, li. 590, 595.
- 236 Nicolson, London Diaries, 97.
- 237 Add. 61458, ff. 4-5.
- 238 Clarke and Foxcroft, 268-9.
- 239 LPL, ms. 929/104.
- 240 HMC Finch, iv. 199, 205; Eg. 2621, ff. 49-52.
- 241 T. Claydon, William III and the Godly Revolution, 29; Clarke and Foxcroft, 352.
- 242 Foxcroft, Halifax, ii. 216, 529.