252). The influence of his wife, too, was always exerted in favour of his remaining in communion with the church in which he had been brought up; but with her death in 1853 it became evident that the last barrier had disappeared. His book on the eucharist, published in the same year, caused many to foreshadow the step which he was about to take (Liddon, Life of Pusey, iii. 288); and there was some talk of a prosecution, but none came. The rumour was sufficient to delay Wilberforce's secession for a few weeks; but on 30 Aug. 1854 he wrote to the archbishop of York that, while he trusted he should always be under a loyal obedience to the queen, he could no longer admit that she was ‘supreme in all spiritual things or causes,’ and that he must therefore recall his subscription to the queen touching the supremacy, and as a necessary consequence resign the preferments of which he considered the subscription a condition (Kirwan Brown, History of the Tractarian Movement, app.) Although in this letter he spoke only of putting himself, ‘as far as possible, in the position of a mere lay member of the church,’ his ‘Inquiry into the Principles of Church Authority,’ which appeared soon after, left no doubt as to his intention to follow Manning into the church of Rome. On 1 Nov. 1854 he was received at Paris, his motive for allowing his reception to take place there rather than in England being the fear that the publicity sure to be given to it in the latter case might injure the position of his Anglican friends, and particularly that of his brother Samuel, to whom he was tenderly attached.
Wilberforce did not long survive his secession. For nearly a year, spent by him for the most part in travel, he hesitated as to whether he should become a priest; but at length the entreaties of Manning and others prevailed upon him to offer himself as a candidate for orders. He entered in 1855 as a student in the Academia Ecclesiastica in Rome, his expenses being defrayed by the pope. He was already in minor orders, and was within a few weeks of being ordained priest, when he was attacked in the first days of 1857 by gastric fever. He died at Albano on 3 Feb., and was buried at Rome in the St. Raymond Chapel of the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, where a tablet has been placed to his memory. He left by his first wife two sons: William Francis Wilberforce, rector of Brodsworth, near Doncaster, Yorkshire, and Edward Wilberforce, a master of the supreme court of judicature in England, both of whom are still living.
Robert Wilberforce's sudden death deprived the Roman church of a valuable recruit. He was utterly without personal ambition, but with a great power of identifying himself with any cause he took in hand, and his earnestness seems to have made a profound impression on all with whom he came in contact. At the same time, he was better trained in theological and other academic learning than either Newman or Manning; and there is little doubt that had he lived he would have become as prominent a figure in controversy as any of his fellow-seceders. His own secession was a heavy blow to the church of England, and the attempt in his last book—on church authority—to destroy the position of those who uphold the royal supremacy on logical grounds remained for a long time unanswered.
Wilberforce was all his life a laborious writer, and although his published writings show no signs of brilliancy they bear evidence of much industry, and of care in expression. Besides many pamphlets, sermons, and charges, he published, in conjunction with his brother Samuel, a ‘Life of William Wilberforce’ (5 vols. 1838), the ‘Correspondence of William Wilberforce’ (1840), and an abridgment of the first-named work (1843). He was also the author of one of the hymns in the ‘Lyra Apostolica.’ His other works are:
- ‘The Five Empires,’ 1841, a sketch of ancient history, the five empires being the Assyrian, the Persian, the Greek, the Roman, and the Christian.
- ‘Rutilius and Lucius,’ 1842, a romance of the days of Constantine.
- ‘Church Courts and Church Discipline,’ 1843, containing arguments in favour of a revival of convocation.
- ‘The Doctrine of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ 1848, an appeal for unity of teaching among churchmen.
- ‘The Doctrine of Holy Baptism,’ 1849, a summary of the tractarian doctrine on baptismal regeneration as dealt with later in the Gorham case.
- ‘A Sketch of the History of Erastianism,’ 1851, in which first appear the signs of the author's dissatisfaction with the theory of the royal supremacy.
- ‘The Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist,’ 1853, in which the doctrine of the real presence seems to many to be affirmed.
- ‘An Inquiry into the Principles of Church Authority,’ 1854, arguing that the bishop of Rome is alone the successor of St. Peter and the primate of the universal church.
