[A.D. 1675-1683.] James Fleetwood, Provost of King’s College, Cambridge. Bishop Fleetwood was the seventh son of Sir George Fleetwood of Lancashire, and whilst all the rest of his family joined the Puritans, he alone remained a Royalist.
[A.D. 1683-1689.] William Thomas, translated from St. David’s. Bishop Thomas was a Nonjuror; and, with the other nonjuring bishops, would have been deprived of his see, had not his death occurred, June 25, 1689.
[A.D. 1689-1699.] Edward Stillingfleet, “a man deeply versed in ecclesiastical antiquity, of an argumentative mind, excellently fitted for polemical dispute.... In the critical reign of James II. he may be considered as the leader on the Protestant side[120].” Stillingfleet was, however, strongly tenacious of the authority of the Church, and was decidedly opposed to the “latitudinarian” theology of his time. He was born, 1635, at Cranbourne, in Dorsetshire, was educated at St. John’s, Cambridge, and afterwards became Rector of Sutton, in Nottinghamshire, where he wrote and published his Irenicum, and (1662) his “Origines Sacræ, or, A Rational Account of the Grounds of Natural and Revealed Religion;” a book of considerable importance, which brought him into great notice. Passing from one preferment to another, he became in 1689 Bishop of Worcester. In 1699 he died at his house in Westminster. His body was conveyed to his own cathedral for interment, when the monument which still remains (Pt. I. § VI.) was erected by his son. The inscription was written by Dr. Bentley, who had been the Bishop’s chaplain.
The Origines Sacræ is the most important of Bishop Stillingfleet’s works; but his entire writings, collected and reprinted in 1710, fill six folio volumes. After he became Bishop of Worcester, he wrote a “Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity,” in answer to some parts of Locke’s Essay.
[A.D. 1699-1717.] William Lloyd, translated from Lichfield. In 1680 he had been consecrated to the see of St. Asaph, and was one of the seven bishops sent to the Tower by James II. He died in 1717, aged ninety-one; and was buried in the parish church of Fladbury, near Evesham, of which his son was rector. Bishop Lloyd’s learning was considerable, although few of his works are now remembered.
[A.D. 1717-1743.] John Hough, translated from Lichfield. Bishop Hough was the famous President of Magdalen College, Oxford, forcibly dispossessed in 1687 by James II., who had ordered the Fellows to elect Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford, and a Romanist. The story, which will best be read in Macaulay’s “History of England,” (vol. ii.,) need not be repeated here. Dr. Hough was restored to the presidency in 1688, together with the twenty-five fellows who had been expelled at the same time. In 1690, King William made him Bishop of Oxford, with liberty to retain the headship of his college. In 1699 he was translated to the see of Lichfield, and thence in 1717 to Worcester. On the death of Archbishop Tenison in 1715 the primacy had been offered to, and declined by, him. All who mention Bishop Hough bear witness to the simplicity and excellence of his character.
[A.D. 1743-1759.] Isaac Maddox, translated from St. Asaph. Bishop Maddox is best known as the author of “A Vindication of the Government, Doctrine, and Worship of the Church of England, established in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.” He was the founder of the Worcester Infirmary, to which the story of the Good Samaritan on his monument refers. (Pt. I. § XVIII.)
[A.D. 1759-1774.] James Johnson, translated from Gloucester.
[A.D. 1774, translated to Winchester 1781.] Brownlow North, translated from Lichfield.
[A.D. 1781-1808.] Richard Hurd, translated from Lichfield. Bishop Hurd is now best remembered as the friend and biographer of Warburton; but he was himself conspicuous among the scholars of his time. He was born, the son of a small farmer, at Penkridge, in Staffordshire, in 1720; was educated at the grammar school at Brewood, and was sent as a sizar to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he afterwards obtained a fellowship. Ten years later he made the acquaintance of Warburton, whose friend he remained through life. In 1763 he was elected Preacher of Lincoln’s Inn; and in 1765 Warburton made him Archdeacon of Gloucester. George III., who greatly admired his “Moral and Political Dialogues,” made him Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in 1774: and in 1776 Preceptor to the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. In 1781 Hurd was translated to Worcester; and declined the see of Canterbury on the death of Archbishop Cornwallis in 1783.