when his friend Edmund Gibson (afterwards bishop of London) preached the sermon.
His tenure of the see was not uneventful, for Nicolson's impetuosity involved him in perpetual warfare. He took exception in the preface to the first part of the ‘English Historical Library’ (1696) to the account of the manuscript in the chapter library at Carlisle, which Dr. Hugh Todd had furnished to Dr. Edward Bernard for insertion in the ‘Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum,’ and this led to a warm controversy (described by Canon Dixon in the ‘Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian Society,’ ii. 312–23). He refused, in 1704, to institute Atterbury to the deanery of Carlisle until he had recanted his views on the regal supremacy; and, although on the advice of Archbishop Sharp this refusal was withdrawn, he raised doubts on the validity of the terms in the queen's grant of the deanery, which were referred to the attorney-general for his judgment. Ultimately, on an intimation from the queen that she did not approve of the bishop's action, the new dean was duly instituted. This matter is set out in a pamphlet entitled ‘True State of the Controversy between the Present Bishop and Dean of Carlisle,’ 1704; 2nd edit. 1705. In 1717 he committed a serious blunder in spreading the assertion that some important qualifications had been inserted before publication in Hoadly's celebrated sermon on ‘The Nature of the Kingdom, or Church, of Christ,’ and he gave White Kennet as his authority; but the statement was promptly repudiated by that divine. This matter formed the subject of much newspaper correspondence and of a variety of pamphlets. The dispute is described at length in Newton's ‘Life of Kennet,’ pp. 165–83, and 214–88.
Nicolson was translated to the more lucrative bishopric of Derry, in Ireland, on 21 April 1718. He was enthroned at Derry on 22 June in that year, and was translated to the archbishopric of Cashel and Emly on 28 Jan. 1726–7, but did not live to take charge of his new diocese. As he sat in his chair in his study at Derry Palace he was seized with apoplexy, and died on 14 Feb. 1726–7. He was buried in the cathedral, but no monument was erected to his memory. From 1715 to 1723 he held the post of lord almoner. Nicolson married Elizabeth, youngest daughter of John Archer of Oxenholme, near Kirkby Kendal, Westmoreland, and had eight children, one of whom, the Rev. Joseph Nicolson, chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral, died on 9 Sept. 1728.
Archbishop Boulter expressed great regret at the bishop's death; but even in those days he provoked comment in Ireland by the preferments which he showered upon his relatives. His person was large. A portrait of him belongs to Colonel J. E. C. C. Lindesay of Tullyhogue, in Tyrone. Copies, made in 1890, are at Rose Castle, Carlisle, and Queen's College, Oxford. His will is printed in the fourth volume of the ‘Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archæological Society.’
Nicolson's great work consisted of the ‘Historical Library.’ The first part of the English division came out in 1696, the second in 1697, and the third in 1699. The Scottish portion was published in 1702, and the Irish division not until 1724. All the three parts of the ‘“English Historical Library,” corrected and augmented,’ were issued in a second edition in 1714, and the entire work, the English, Scotch, and Irish divisions, in 1736 and 1776. Some correspondence respecting the proposed edition of 1736 is contained in the ‘Reliquiæ Hearnianæ,’ ii. 839–841, and the impression of 1776 was ‘almost totally destroyed’ by fire in the Savoy in March of that year. Atterbury, who contemptuously dubbed Nicolson ‘an implicit [i.e. credulous] transcriber,’ reflected, in the ‘Rights, Powers, and Privileges of an English Convocation,’ on his remarks relating to that body. The preface to the ‘Scottish Historical Library’ (1702) contained Nicolson's answer to these criticisms, and it was also issued as ‘A Letter to the Rev. Dr. White Kennet, D.D. … against the unmannerly and slanderous Objections of Mr. Francis Atterbury,’ 1702. This letter was added to the 1736 and 1776 editions of the ‘Libraries,’ and reprinted in the collection of ‘Nicolson's Letters,’ i. 228–62. In consequence of this controversy some demur was made at Oxford to the conferring on him of the degree of D.D., usually taken on promotion to a bishopric, but it was ultimately granted on 25 June 1702. The same degree was given to him at Cambridge.
Thomas Rymer addressed three letters to the bishop on some abstruse points of history which were referred to in the ‘Scottish Historical Library,’ and Sir Robert Sibbald replied to Rymer's objections (Halkett and Laing, i. 126). Jeremy Collier published ‘An Answer to Bishop Burnet's Third Part of the History of the Reformation: with a Reply to some Remarks in Bishop Nicolson's “English Historical Library,”’ 1715, which dealt with Nicolson's comments on Collier's references to the pope and Martin Luther. The bishop was very keen in pursuit of knowledge, and although his haste in speech and in print led him into many mistakes, notably
