agenda for convocation. He became prominent for his ‘moderation towards dissenters’ (see his Discourse concerning the Ecclesiastical Commission open'd in the Jerusalem Chamber, October 10, 1689), having been already employed by Sancroft to consider a possible revision of the Book of Common Prayer. He had long considered the differences between the church and the more moderate dissenters to be easy of reconciliation (cf. his Argument for Union, e.g. pp. 4–5, where he comments on the impossibility of the presbyterians agreeing with ‘Arians, Socinians, Anabaptists, Fifth Monarchy-men, Sensual Millenaries, Behmenists, Familists, Seekers, Antinomians, Ranters, Sabbatarians, Quakers, Muggletonians, Sweet Singers; these may associate in a caravan, but cannot join in the communion of a church’).
On 25 Nov. 1691, it is said on the direct suggestion of Queen Mary, he was nominated bishop of Lincoln. He was elected on 11 Dec., consecrated at Lambeth on 10 Jan. 1691–2. The writ of summons to the House of Lords is dated 25 Jan. 1692 (Hist. MSS. Comm., 14th Rep. App. vi. 53), and he took the oath and his seat the same day (Lords' Journals, xv. 56). He was offered the archbishopric of Dublin on the death of Francis Marsh [q. v.] in 1693, and then requested the king to secure the impropriations belonging to the forfeited estates to the parish churches; but, the estates being granted to the king's Dutch favourites, the design was not carried out. On the death of Tillotson he was made archbishop of Canterbury. White Kennet (Hist. of England, iii. 682) says that he had at Lincoln ‘restored a neglected large diocese to some discipline and good order,’ and that his elevation was ‘most universally approved by the ministry, and the clergy and the people,’ and Burnet endorses the approbation, though he says that Stillingfleet would have been more generally approved; but the appointment was far from popular among the high-church clergy. He was nominated 8 Dec. 1694, elected 15 Jan., confirmed 16 Jan., and enthroned 16 May 1695. Immediately after his appointment, he revived the jurisdiction of the archbishop's court, which had not been exercised, and, summoning Thomas Watson (d. 1717) [q. v.] before it on the charge of simoniacal practices, he deprived him of his see of St. David's in 1697. He attended Queen Mary on her deathbed, and preached her funeral sermon, which was severely censured by Ken. He made no answer to the attack, his relations with the queen being under the seal of confession (Whiston, Memoirs, 1757, p. 100); but he reproved the king for his adultery with Elizabeth Villiers, and, on his promise to break off the connection, preached the sermon ‘Concerning Holy Resolution’ before the king on 30 Dec. (published by his command, 1694). He is said also to have been the means of reconciling the Princess Anne to the king (Boyer, Hist. of Queen Anne, introd. p. 7).
He was from time to time given political duties, and was thoroughly trusted by William III. In 1696 his action in voting for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick (1645?–1697) [q. v.] was much commented on. He was placed at the head of the new ecclesiastical commission appointed in 1700. He ministered to the king on his deathbed.
On 23 April 1702 he crowned Queen Anne in Westminster Abbey. From the beginning of the new reign his favour was at an end. He voted against the occasional conformity bill, corresponded with the Electress Sophia, urging her to come to England, and was regarded as a leading advocate of the Hanoverian succession. His negotiations with Frederick of Prussia (1706, 1709, and 1711) as to a project of introducing episcopacy into Prussia (see correspondence in Life of Archbishop Sharp, i. 410–49) aroused much unfavourable comment, as did his apparent favour to Whiston (Hearne, Diary, ed. Doble, ii. 252). His visitation of All Souls' College was not popular in Oxford (ib.), and he was severely criticised as of a ‘mean spirit’ (ib. iii. 350).
It was attributed to Anne's disfavour more than to his sufferings from the gout that he was replaced as president of the convocation of Canterbury by a commission (Burnet, History of his own Times, vol. ii.; see also His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury's Circular Letter to the Bishops of his Province, 1707, for his relations to convocation, and An Account of Proceedings in Convocation in a Cause of Contumacy, 1707). During the last years of the reign he never appeared at court, but he took active measures to secure the succession of George I, was the first of the justices appointed to serve at his arrival in England, and was very favourably received by that king, whom he crowned on 20 Oct. 1714. His last public act was the issue of a ‘Declaration [signed also by thirteen of the bishops] testifying their abhorrence of the Rebellion’ (London, 1715), in which the danger to the church which would ensue from the accession of a popish prince was pointed out.
He died without issue at Lambeth on 14 Dec. 1715, and was buried in the chancel of Lambeth parish church. In 1667 he married Anne (1633–1714), daughter of
