Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rundle, Thomas
RUNDLE, THOMAS (1688?–1743), bishop of Derry, was born at Milton Abbot, Devonshire, about 1688, his father being Thomas Rundle, an Exeter clergyman. After passing through the grammar school at Exeter under John Reynolds, uncle of Sir Joshua, he matriculated as a commoner at Exeter College, Oxford, on 5 April 1704, at the age of sixteen, and took the degree of B.C.L. in 1710.
In 1712 he made the acquaintance of Whiston, who visited Oxford partly for patristic study, and partly to further the formation of his ‘society for promoting primitive Christianity.’ Rundle and his tutor, Thomas Rennel, were well disposed to this society, but thought Whiston would get no other members from Oxford. Rundle in the same year became tutor to the only son of John Cater of Kempston, near Bedford. Here Whiston visited him, and, finding him proficient in the fathers, set him upon a critical examination of the Sibylline oracles, a task of which he soon tired. Coming to London, he became a ‘hearty and zealous member’ of Whiston's ‘society’ (which held meetings from 3 July 1715 to 28 June 1717). But Thomas Emlyn [q. v.] soon discovered that Rundle was too much a man of the world to be content with this coterie of enthusiasts, and ‘did not seem cut out’ for a career of isolation. When Rundle informed Whiston that he intended to take holy orders, a breach, lasting for many years, ensued between them. Whiston sharply reproached Rundle for want of principle. It appears, however, that Rundle had begun to lose faith in Whiston's judgment on matters of antiquity. He was now more attracted to Samuel Clarke (1675–1729) [q. v.]
Rundle was ordained deacon on 29 July, and priest on 5 Aug. 1716, by William Talbot (1659–1730) [q. v.], then bishop of Salisbury, whose younger son, Edward, was Rundle's most intimate friend since Oxford days. The bishop at once made Rundle his domestic chaplain, and gave him (1716) a prebend at Salisbury (Foster). He became vicar of Inglesham, Wiltshire, in 1719, and rector of Poulshot, Wiltshire, in 1720, both livings being in the bishop's gift. Bishop Talbot also appointed him archdeacon of Wilts (1720), and treasurer of Sarum (1721). During his residence at Salisbury, Rundle became well acquainted with Thomas Chubb [q. v.], whom he had perhaps met before, with Whiston, and of whose publications (up to 1730) he speaks highly, as fruits of common-sense, ‘neither improved nor spoilt by reading.’
Though Edward Talbot had died in December 1720, his family continued to patronise Rundle. Bishop Talbot, on being promoted to Durham, collated him to a stall in his cathedral (23 Jan. 1722), and preferred him to a better one before the end of the year, giving him also the vicarage (1722) and rectory (1724) of Sedgefield, co. Durham, and appointing him (1728) to the mastership of the hospital of Sherburn, two miles from Durham. He lived at the palace as resident chaplain from September 1722 till Bishop Talbot's death on 10 Oct. 1730, Thomas Secker [q. v.] being his fellow-chaplain from 1722 to 1724. On 5 July 1723 he proceeded D.C.L. at Oxford. Whiston intimates that his high living at Durham permanently injured his health, though he ‘lived very abstemiously afterward.’
In December 1733 the see of Gloucester became vacant by the death of Elias Sydall. Rundle was nominated as his successor by the lord chancellor, Bishop Talbot's eldest son, Charles Talbot, first baron Talbot [q. v.], who had made him his chaplain. The appointment was ‘registered in the public prints.’ But Edmund Gibson [q. v.], bishop of London, interposed. The real objection was to Rundle's ecclesiastical politics; but occasion was taken to misrepresent his relations with Chubb, and raise the cry of deist. Gibson's henchman, Richard Venn (d. 1740), rector of St. Antholin's, London, reported a conversation between Rundle and Robert Cannon [q. v.] Cannon was noted for sceptical remarks, made in a jocular way, and the probability is that Venn was too much scandalised by what he heard to distinguish accurately between the speakers. Rundle, who was defended by Arthur Ashley Sykes [q. v.] and John Conybeare [q. v.], had not only preached against deists, but had led a discussion against Tindal and Collins at the Grecian coffee-house. The matter was eventually compromised by giving the see of Gloucester to Martin Benson [q. v.], a friend of Rundle, while Rundle himself was appointed to Derry, a much wealthier see, with little to do, for the diocese contained but thirty-five beneficed clergy. Hugh Boulter [q. v.], the primate, wrote to Dorset regretting the appointment. Pulteney wrote in the same strain to Swift, who penned the spirited lines:
Rundle a bishop! Well he may—
He's still a Christian more than they!
I know the subject of their quarrels—
The man has learning, sense, and morals.
‘His only fault,’ wrote Swift to Pope, ‘is that he drinks no wine.’ Pope declared in reply, ‘He will be a friend and benefactor to your unfriended and unbenefited nation. … I never saw a man so seldom whom I liked so much.’ And later (1738) ‘Rundle has a heart’ (Epilogue to the Satires, dial. ii.).
Rundle's patent to the see of Derry was dated 17 July 1735, and on 3 Aug. he was consecrated by Boulter, Arthur Price [q. v.], bishop of Meath, and Josiah Hort [q. v.], bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh. He lived chiefly in Dublin, where he rebuilt a house, partly to give employment to Irish workmen. In a letter of 3 Jan. 1739 he writes: ‘My house will be finished in about six weeks … the whole is handsome, but nothing magnificent but the garret in which I have lodged my books;’ this ‘garret’ was 64 feet long by 24 wide, and 16 high, with a bow window at the east end, looking towards Trinity College. In a letter of 9 Sept. 1740 he calls himself ‘the most inactive man living;’ in fact he was a valetudinarian, but a happy one. In the last of his letters (22 March 1743), brief, and impressive in the reality of its religious hope, he writes: ‘I have lived to be conviva satur—passed through good report and evil report; have not been injured, more than outwardly, by the last, and solidly benefited by the former.’ He died unmarried at Dublin on 14 April 1743, bequeathing most of his fortune of 20,000l. to John Talbot, second son of the lord chancellor. He was slender in person. His portrait, which belonged to Secker, is at Cuddesdon Palace.
Rundle published four single sermons (1718–36). His ‘Letters … with Introductory Memoirs,’ &c., Gloucester, 1789, 2 vols. 8vo (reprinted, Dublin, same year), were edited by James Dallaway [q. v.] Most of them are addressed to Barbara (1685–1746), daughter of Sir William Kyle, governor of Carolina, and widow of William Sandys (1677–1712) of Miserden, Gloucestershire.
[Memoirs, 1789; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Whiston's Memoirs, 1753, pp. 229 sq.; Boulter's Letters, 1770, ii. 145; Hughes's Letters of J. Duncombe, 1773, ii. 56; Disney's Memoirs of Sykes, 1785; Porteous's Life of Secker, 1797; Swift's Works (Scott), 1814; Mant's Hist. of the Church of Ireland, 1840, ii. 5, 37 sq.; Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), 1881 iii. 476, 1871 vii. 334 sq.; certified extracts from the Salisbury diocesan registers.]