High church and Low church divided the nation.The great majority of the clergy were on the high-church side; the majority of King William's bishops were inclined to latitudinarianism.Adispute arose between the two parties touching the extent of the powers of the Lower House of Convocation.Atterbury thrust himself eagerly into the front rank of the high-churchmen.Those who take a comprehensive and impartial view of his whole career will not be disposed to give him credit for religious zeal.But it was his nature to be vehement and pugnacious in the cause of every fraternity of which he was a member.He had defended the genuineness of a spurious book simply because Christchurch had put forth an edition of that book; he now stood up for the clergy against the civil power, simply because he was a clergyman, and for the priests against the episcopal order, simply because he was as yet only a priest.He asserted the pretensions of the class to which he belonged in several treatises written with much wit, ingenuity, audacity, and acrimony.In this, as in his first controversy, he was opposed to antagonists whose knowledge of the subject in dispute was far superior to his; but in this, as in his first controversy, he imposed on the multitude by bold assertion, by sarcasm, by declamation, and, above all, by his peculiar knack of exhibiting a little erudition in such a manner as to make it look like a great deal.Having passed himself off on the world as a greater master of classical learning than Bentley, he now passed himself off as a greater master of ecclesiastical learning than Wake or Gibson.By the great body of the clergy he was regarded as the ablest and most intrepid tribune that had ever defended their rights against the oligarchy of prelates.The lower House of Convocation voted him thanks for his services; the University of Oxford created him a doctor of divinity; and soon after the accession of Anne, while the Tories still had the chief weight in the government, he was promoted to the deanery of Carlisle.
Soon after he had obtained this preferment, the Whig party rose to ascendency in the state.From that party he could expect no favour.Six years elapsed before a change of fortune took place.
At length, in the year 1710, the prosecution of Sacheverell produced a formidable explosion of high-church fanaticism.At such a moment Atterbury could not fail to be conspicuous.His inordinate zeal for the body to which he belonged, his turbulent and aspiring temper, his rare talents for agitation and for controversy, were again signally displayed.He bore a chief part in framing that artful and eloquent speech which the accused divine pronounced at the bar of the Lords, and which presents a singular contrast to the absurd and scurrilous sermon which had very unwisely been honoured with impeachment.During the troubled and anxious months which followed the trial, Atterbury was among the most active of those pamphleteers who inflamed the nation against the Whig ministry and the Whig parliament.When the ministry had been changed and the parliament dissolved, rewards were showered upon him.The Lower House of Convocation elected him prolocutor.The Queen appointed him Dean of Christchurch on the death of his old friend and patron Aldrich.
The college would have preferred a gentler ruler.Nevertheless, the new head was received with every mark of honour.Acongratulatory oration in Latin was addressed to him in the magnificent vestibule of the hall; and he in reply professed the warmest attachment to the venerable house in which he had been educated, and paid many gracious compliments to those over whom he was to preside.But it was not in his nature to be a mild or an equitable governor.He had left the chapter of Carlisle distracted by quarrels.He found Christchurch at peace; but in three months his despotic and contentious temper did at Christchurch what it had done at Carlisle.He was succeeded in both his deaneries by the humane and accomplished Smalridge, who gently complained of the state in which both had been left.
"Atterbury goes before, and sets everything on fire.I come after him with a bucket of water." It was said by Atterbury's enemies that he was made a bishop because he was so bad a dean.
Under his administration Christchurch was in confusion, scandalous altercations took place, opprobrious words were exchanged; and there was reason to fear that the great Tory college would be ruined by the tyranny of the great Tory doctor.
