1892 6S3 Clerical Preferment under the l Duke of Newcastle Downloaded from fTVHE growth of a healthy sentiment against the solicitation of JL personal favours will be noted by historians of the future as one of the pleasing features of the nineteenth century. That we have made considerable progress in at least concealing, http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ if not in subduing, our natural appetite for promotion, seems obvious when we read the correspondence of the last century; and since the frequent exhibition of this vice in former days is to us rather ludicrous than revolting, there may be some reason to hope that the evil in its most obtrusive form has ceased to exist. Our self-seeking can no longer be quite, open, and so entirely has public opinion changed on this point that it is difficult to realise tbat the at University of New South Wales on July 22, 2015 letters which the duke of • Newcastle received were written in all seriousness and frequently succeeded in obtaining for the writer the particular preferment he sought. The race, as the archbishop of Tuam expresses it, may not always have been to the swift, still early application for appointments was clearly felt to be essential, and to this end Death himself must be forestalled. When the secrets of the private correspondence of our public men are revealed, it seems unlikely that early, assiduous, and self-appreciative application will be found to have materially improved any candidate's prospects of success, least of all, we may hope, in cases of clerical preferment. But a letter written by Sir John Vanbrugh in 17249 in favour of the vicar of Scarborough reads like a sneer at a vice which was then peculiarly clerical, although the writer does not scruple to use the clerical system to secure the end he has in view. He writes :- Now it so happens there is a prebendary of Southwell just deceased, by which there is a vacancy worth—nothing, yet so it is, we desire we may have it, because we are a youngish man of good bodily fortitude 1 The collection of manuscripts on which this article is founded was presented to the British Museum by the earl of Ohichester in 1886. It covers Nos. 82680-82992 of Addit. MSS. 1882-1887, as far as it concerns the official correspondence of Thomas Pelham Holies, duke of Newcastle; Nos. 82684-6, 82993-88025, 83028^88078 Inclnda the rest of his papers and correspondence. • No. 82687, i. 52. 686 CLERICAL PREFERMENT UNDER Oct. and our mind not BO harassed by our care of souls but that we hope we may outlive two certain elderly persons; which if we do, this same nothing may prove worth something at last. In a word the prebend we ask is but seven pounds per ftnnnm, and will require a yearly expense of thirty, to do the duty. But there is a good corps3 belonging to it, which after the lives of the two persons mentioned will fall in. ... I have not forgot your seat for Claremont. A few specimens of the letters of unsuccessful applicants will serve to show that Vanbrugh's sneer was not undeserved. The archbishop of Tuam, Josiah Hort, writes after the usual eighteenth- 4 century pattern: — Downloaded from The death of our late primat5 happening while I was at Tuam which is near a hundred miles from Dublin, I am later than others in my ap- plication upon that event, but as the race is not to the swift especially in cases of this nature, I hope it will not be too late for me to lay my small pretensions (if I may be permitted to use that expression) before your Grace. I am the senior of the whole Bench of Bishops here next after http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ the Archbishop of Dublin6 and I am his senior as Archbishop ; so that we are seniors to each other reciprocally, he as bishop, and I as arch- bishop. I was promoted to Tuam, being then at Bath, without -my seeking, in order to the execution of a scheme, formed by this government for raising the revenue of that archbishoprio of Tuam nearer to a par with the others for ever, by uniting the see of Ardagh to it which I was and am possessed of. ... I need not observe to your Grace what my principles and complexion at University of New South Wales on July 22, 2015 were in the worst of times and that I have not warped from them in one instance to this day. Dr. Thomas Moore, of Bath, writesT that he desires a prebend or the deanery of Worcester, as he could then do more service to the government. Otherwise he will ' become as rusty and useless as any senior fellow of a college and as full of real as well as of imaginary complaints.' He has some of both, but could easily recover health and spirits under other circumstances. He adds in a P.S. :— I hear by a person lately come from Worcester that Dr. Inett, one of the prebendaries, is past all hopes of recovery. The deanery of Worcester8 was much sought after. Lord Portsmouth wrote9 to recommend Dr. Barton, a Worcestershire His friends and relations have a very good interest in that county which I dare answer for it, will always be disposed of in the manner his 1 Vide p. 690, note 84. • No. 82707, f. 518. The archbishop oi Armagh, John Hoadley, died 16 July, 1746. Charles Cobbe. Vide p. 687. No. 82709, f. 18. 6 Oct. 1746. He was the incumbent of Chislehurst. His application was not successful. Dr. Inett died Jan. 1748-9. 1 James StQlingQeet died Sept. 1746, and was succeeded by Edmund Marten. 82709, 48. 1892 THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 687 gratitude will dictate. He is a good Wigg, and a chaplain to His Majesty. If he gets the deanery he will vacate a good living. George Lavington, who woujd rather have been dean of Worcester than a bishop,10 writes a letter in aid of his candidature which raises some interesting points. If, as he says, good manners required that all persons in need of promotion should seek it by letter, it is remarkable that he should not have found it out earlier in Ufa. No defence of the writers can be established on the ground of the universality of the practice. It is more probable that the Downloaded from duke of Newcastle himBelf was most to blame. He liked receiving and writing letters, and no application that was addressed to him was treated as waste paper. He loved to magnify his office, and Lavington probably had good reason for believing that the duke would think better rather than worse of him if he humbly sent in http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ his application. So he writes : u— When I heard that my Lord Chancellor had spoke to your Grace in my favour with regard to the deanery of Worcester, I began to doubt whether I [ought] not also myself to make the same request, but concluded at length that it might be some degree of presumption, and that anything I could say for myself would add little or nothing to such an application. I am since informed that I was wrong and that custom would have justi- fied me in so doing and perhaps decency have required it. So that if' I have sinned it is entirely a sin of ignorance and, therefore, I hope the at University of New South Wales on July 22, 2015 more easily passed over. The news-writers, I find, think me likely to succeed in that preferment and if your Grace be of the same opinion with those knowing persons, it would be much more agreeable to me and re- ceived more thankfully than if I were raised to a higher order. At all adventures, even though I should be speaking against myself, I must tftke the liberty to mention briefly the present circumstances of that church. Of the ten prebendarys, four, if not five are Torys and of the Whiggs one or two a little humoursome, so that if that society is to be made useful to the public there should be some prudent and steady man at the head of it. More naive is the archbishop of Dublin's application for the primacy of which Tuam was disappointed, 21 Oct. 1746." ' As I am well assured that church affairs in Ireland are no less your Grace's care and concern than in England, I beg leave to lay before your Grace what is rumoured here about filling the see of Armagh.1 It is proposed to put in the Bishop of Derry, ' a junior.' He will ' give place to an experienced English prelate,' but thinks it a shame that a junior should be put over him, as that ' would make him appear insignificant in the world, and render him useless hereafter.' '• Ha was afterwards Bishop of Exeter, Deo. 1746. 11 82709, 68. He was then prehendary of London. 11 Oct. 82709,75. Charles Cobbe. Stone, Bishop of Deny, succeeded to tho see of Armagh. 688 CLERICAL PREFERMENT UNDER Oct. On folio 427 of the same volume is a memorandum of the wishes of Simon Hughes.18 He gives three alternatives and will take ' either of these that shall first become vacant, or anything else of the same value.' Zachary Pearce,14 who had just been made Bishop of Bangor, did not look forward to his work. He writes, on 26 Jan.