THE DEPRIVED BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER.*
This most fascinating biography was written shortly after the death of its subject, by a member of the Bishop's household, who "wrote these papers on purpose to keep his glorious character fresh in his mind, when by age or oppression other things might wear out" To him and to the venerable editor we are indebted for a book of singular value and interest, which not only adds to our knowledge of England and her Church in the seventeenth -century, but also introduces us to a personality which it is impos- sible to regard without feelings of reverence and even of affection. The original manuscript, which for the last fifty years has been in the possession of Mr. Evans, has been scrupulously reproduced, and we have no fear that the deprived Bishop of Gloucester will be forgotten in the future so completely and so unjustly as in -the past. He deserves to live in the memory of every Englishman.
Robert Frampton was born at Pimpern, near Blandford, in 1622. His father, not unlike Latimer's, was "an honest yeoman, pos- sessed of a small farm of about thirty pound per annum," an -eminently pious and charitable man, "who thanked God he never found a lie in the mouth of any one child he had to make -an excuse." At the age of fifteen Robert left the free school at Blandford for Corpus, Oxford, but the Puritan reforms which Mr. Fox Bourne has sketched for us in his Life of Locke were still to come, and his tutor was so slothful that Frampton eagerly availed himself of an opportunity to migrate to Christ Church, where he took his B.A. degree in 1641, "his readiness in speak- ing both Latin and Greek eminently serving him to disappoint The Life of Robert Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester, deprived as a Non-Juror, 168s. adited by T. Simpson Evans, MA., Vicar oi Sboreditch. London: LOnamang•
many a pert 'courser,' as they were then called." When the Covenant became a test, he left Oxford without his M.A. degree, and became master of the free school at Gillingham. The civil war was at its height, and he was harassed "by one Gage, who from a tailor was advanced to the degree of an officer and a quartermaster in the rebel army." Gage, having been worsted in an argument and in an appeal to fists, laid an in- formation against Frampton before John Fry, "after one of the infamous regicides" (probably the "Lieutenant-Colonel Phray " of the death-warrant), who had been converted by the exactions of Prince Maurice from a friend of the Royal cause into an am- sparing enemy. Fry tried to adjust the quarrel, but Gage made two more attacks on his formidable opponent, who approved himself a "stout man "with the cudgel, and beat off the quarter- master with disgrace. Finally, Fry "was forced to interpose, and enjoin Mr. Frampton to keep the peace, and let the good people of the land be quiet." But Frampton took part in more perilous encounters than those with Quartermaster Gage :—
"Mr. Frampton and his four brothers had been in the engagement at Hambleton Hill, his brothers all wounded, and he with them some time a prisoner in a church, from whence he contrived an escape, and was obliged to fly and abscond for the same. Nor will I omit one instance of the courage, yea, the piety, erga parentes at least, of the family. In the evening after that fight, his good old father was informed of the death of all his sons, and being in great pain (but then was relieved before morning) by the account one of his daughters (Sarah) gave him of the number of the slain ; she, going in the night alone two miles with a lantern, and viewing every dead body in quest of her brothers ; and though she knew not till the next day where they were, concluded they were not dead; though one was so wounded, and had spent so much blood, that he was forced to creep to his prison upon his hands and knees."
Shortly after this Frampton was privately ordained by Bishop Skinner, of Oxford, Chillingworth's former tutor, who, according to Warton, "was supposed to be the only bishop who conferred holy orders during the suppression of our Church and hierarchy." As he had, in the pulpit and elsewhere, the courage of his opinions, and was a passionate advocate of monarchy and episcopacy, he speedily found it prudent to accept the post of domestic chaplain to the Earl of Elgin, in whose family, and that of his sister, "the great Countess of Devonshire, and the repairer of the breaches of that noble family," he saw much of Waller, Denham, Samuel Butler, and Hobbes, the last of whom, "after he had heard him urge the divinity of our Saviour, from St. John i. 1, said that if Mr. Frampton was an old man, he should have believed him." He frequently visited London with his lord's household, and won a great reputation as a preacher, especially in urging the claims of "those that the wickedness of the times had persecuted into strange cities." During his resi- dence in the Elgin family he was consulted by the Countess of Devonshire with regard to the proposal of "that monstrous villain, Oliver Cromwell," for a marriage (which ultimately took place) between her grandson, Robert Rich, and his youngest daughter, Frances, and "modestly replied that as a divine he should resolve her ladyship in the words of St. Paul, 'With such a one, no, not to eat." It should be noted that the author of this Life states that Charles Cavendish, the Countess's son, who was killed at the battle of Gainsborough, and whose epitaph was written by Waller, fell by the hand of Oliver himself, whereas Cromwell, in one of his letters (Carlyle's No. VII.), declares that "my Captain-Lieutenant slew him with a thrust under his short ribs." The Countess always retained a lively regard for Frampton, made him a noble present of plate on his marriage, and selected him to preach her funeral sermon.
In 1655 he was appointed Chaplain to the Turkey Company's factory at Aleppo. In reply to his patron's remonstrances, he "frankly told his lordship that he hoped, even among Turks, to have an opportunity freely to bewail the base behaviour of them that were hardly Christians, and be out of the sight of them that had so barbarously imbrued their hands in the blood -of their Sovereign." His test-sermon before the Company—they had re- jected a proposal to send him before "the 'Tryers (a sort of hypocrites too well known to need a character)"—gave such satisfaction that his salary was fixed at double that of any of his predecessors, viz., one hundred pounds per annum, beside the diet of himself, servant, and horses. The whole record of his sixteen years' residence at Aleppo is full of interest, but must be passed over very briefly here. How the good ship the Antelope' was nearly cast away off the Land's End, and how the voyagers felt the shock of an earthquake off Zante ; the life and death of Mr. Ilext at Scanderoon, "a mighty promoter of the interest of the Greeks ;" how Frampton learnt Arabic, French, and Italian, and made a collection of Arabic proverbs ; his popu-
laxity among Mussulmans and Christians of both rites ; how the "more civilized" Turks evade the observance of the "grand
Impostor's Law,"—even for Prideaux,Mahommed was "the wicked impostor ;" how he confirmed the weak in the faith, and at the imminent peril of his own life, reclaimed apostates to Islamism, the reader will find set forth with abundance of vivid detail and quaint and characteristic anecdote. He visited Constantinople on the business of the Company, with an escort which he led like an old Cavalier, threatening to "set a bullet in the heart of any who should pretend to fly ;" journeyed to Jerusalem, "that once eye of the world," and the holy places, and though an expert swimmer, was nearly drowned in the Jordan ; and saw Tripoli, Damascus, and Egypt. Among his acquaintances were the French traveller Chardin, and Pococke the Orientalist. Frampton paid a short visit to England in 1666, and preached in the City and at Whitehall while men's minds were still full of the terror of the Great Fire. On October 10, the public fast-day, Pepys, after eating herrings at the Dog Tavern, went to church, "and there was Mr. Framp- ton in the pulpit, whom they cry up so much ; a young man, and of a mighty ready tongue. I heard a little of his sermon." And on January 20, 1667, he heard him a second time. "I think the best sermon, for goodness and oratory, without affectation or study, that ever I heard in my life. The truth is, that he preaches the most like an apostle that ever I heard man ; and it was much the best time that ever I spent in my life at church." During this visit he married Mrs. Mary Canning, after a mutual attachment of twelve years. She was mighty in the Roman con- troversy, and was, we are assured, a yoke-fellow worthy such a husband ; but we hear little else of her, and she died in 1680. Frampton resigned the chaplaincy at Aleppo in 1671, and re- turned finally to England in May, where his company "brought the first news of the Dutch fleet being out, so well our cruisers kept the watch."
Two months after his return he became Preacher at the Rolls, and in 1673 was promoted to the Deanery of Gloucester. The King had been disposed to resent two sermons, one on Solebay Fight, in which Frampton made a too personal appeal to the Sovereign on behalf of the survivors and of the widows and orphans of the slain ; and another on "the Atheism which, he said, did so abound and appeared in such eminent places, even daring to approach the Court itself, that they bare up themselves as if they could plead a toleration." But in a personal interview he made his peace with Charles, and observed that "had he been the greatest rebel to be supposed, the King's gentle way of repri- manding was enough to have made him a convert." He had refused an offer of the living of Deptford, in spite of the importuni- ties of Evelyn, who lived in the parish, and who speaks of Frampton as "not only a very pious and holy man, but excellent in the pulpit for the moving affections ;" but he accepted two small livings in his native county, and spent the winter of each year in Gloucester, and the summer in Dorset. Though undeniably a pluralist, "he was such a good sewer for the poor that not one shilling of all the several preferments he had in England ever came to the hands of his executors, nor so much by a thousand pounds as he brought out of Turkey, so large was his charity." In 1681, in spite of all his efforts with his friends, and even with the King in person, to prevent his nomination, he was made Bishop of Gloucester, and took up his residence in his cathedral city, with a country retreat at Standish. He was a pattern bishop, skilled to teach by precept and example, a good administrator and man of business, keeping up a mild but firm discipline over his clergy, visiting regularly the remote and neglected portions of his diocese, and insisting on the orderly and regular performance of the ser- vices of the Church. In spite of an occasional brush with "the cattle they call Quakers," and an insuperable aversion to con- venticles, he seems to have won the respect and affection even of the Nonconformists of his diocese. He belonged to the ultra- Anglican school of Laud, and was not free from a certain want of intellectual breadth which has characterised that school down to our own day. But he was tolerant for his time. "When a servant of the justice of the peace and some others began to deface the windows and seats of [a certain] meeting-house (which was a converted barn), he ordered them to forbear, saying that it was no sign of true re2igion to affront a false, and that these people were yet Christians, though mistaken in their way." Its many indications of the state of religious feeling in England and in the Established Church before the Revolution would alone suffice to give this book a real importance for the historical student.
But the time was at hand when the good Bishop was to act a part on a greater stage. Preaching at Whitehall before the Princess
of Denmark, when her father was on the throne, he compare@ the "images of the Papists" with those of the heathen :— " The Princess that Sunday dined with the King, who asked her who preached in his chapel; says she, The Bishop of Gloster.'—' Why, then,' says the King, Nanny, thou hadst, I am sure, an excellent sermon • and then, speaking to the Queen, said, Madam, I take that Bishop Of Gloster to be as good a man and as excellent a preacher as ever I knew ; I have beard him often with great satisfaction, I think never any with the like.'" The next day the subject of his discourse was noised abroad, and the Queen was greatly incensed ; while the King, to his credit, persisted that Frampton " was a good man, and would neither de- part from the truth nor encourage faction." The King was, however, seriously offended by a sermon which the Bishop- preached on the suspension of his colleague of London, wherein, with suggestive references to Marian times, he exhorted his hearers to steadiness in their religion ; but the Archbishop and the Bishop of Ely pleaded his cause with the King, and James was pacified. When the Declaration of Indulgence was promulgated, he had to make head against the Roman Catholics and Nonconformists combined, and their oppo- sition was so bitter "that he was once in the mind to resign his bishopric, and once more, if possible, to settle himself among the more agreeable neighbours, the Turks," but his friend, Bishop Fell, dissuaded him. He kept a Popish priest from being a pre- bendary of his Cathedral, and when the declaration concerning. liberty of conscience was sent down to his diocese, he despatched a servant forthwith to order his clergy not to read it. "And so it fell out that but very few of the clergy complied with that order, and one that did was left by his whole congregation, who all followed an ancient lady out of the church." Then came the famous petition of the Bishops, Frampton's alleged part in which we must let his biographer relate in his own words :— " It was signed by eight that were present, of which the Bishop of Gloster was one, and by two that were absent. Nor did this good man withdraw but upon the forenamed business of preventing its being read in his diocese, where some were more officious than in other dioceses, depending upon the lenity of the Bishop. He was absent, and the day of delivering being come, the Bishop of Ely pressed their going to the King without him, which the Arch- bishop opposed, as well to have him for whom the King had an affection, and who was as hearty in the cause as any, to be at the delivery of a petition to which he was a party, and showed them a letter that he would with God's leave be with them time enough that day to deliver it, and says he, I am sure our brother Robert of Gloster with his black mare are on the gallop.' But the Bishop of Ely prevailed with his Grace to go (providentially to keep the sacred number, as Ifs called, of seven), and so they did, but half-an-hour before the Bishop of Gloster came, who with greater regret went with them to the Tower than he would have had to have been sent with them, and there offered to go singly on the morrow with his own petition, which the good Primate dissuaded him from, saying, Brother, there will come a time' when your constancy and courage may do the Church more service.' Though under no confinement, the Bishop of Gloster spent most of his time in the Tower with his brethren, and when with- drawing at night, his coach was pressed with multitudes of people for- his benediction. One Sunday during their confinement he preached at St. Stephen's, Walbrook, and going thence, the people on both sides of the way to his lodgings in Barge Yard kneeled down to have his. blessing."
When James in his progress visited Gloucester, he treated the Bishop with studied disrespect, who on his part, while professing his perfect loyalty to his Sovereign, set at naught the orders of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and in the case of Magdalen College espoused the cause of the ejected Fellows, refusing to re- cognise the documents signed " Bonaventure Epis. Madaurensis."- And in an interview with the King he did not shrink from putting in his plea on behalf of Compton, Bishop of London, who had been suspended from his spiritual functions, and lay under the King's heavy displeasure. The day soon came when James was- in need of his assistance. In his address of respect to the Prince' of Orange on his arrival in London, Frampton besought him to take care of his lawful and much-injured Sovereign, and had "this sour answer, 'I will take care of the Church." He refused to have a hand in the form of thanksgiving for the Prince's land- ing, and in a sermon preached before William quoted a signifi- cant anecdote of Cineas and Pyrrhus, on which the Prince remarked that the Bishop of Gloucester did not seem to expect a, translation. He supported James's claims and "indefeasible right" in the Convention Parliament, and when the majority decided that the throne was vacant, the Bishop entered his protest in very large characters. Refusing to take- the oath to William and Mary, he was suspended on February 13. Among those who sought to induce him to comply was Thomas Firmin, to whom the Bishop replied, "I I am growing old, 'tis true, but did never think I should have been so old as to be upbraided with Nonconformity, by you that are a Nonconformist to all Christendom, besides a few lousy sectaries in Poland,' alluding to his Socinian tenets." But entreaties, promises, and blandishments were all unavailing, and on August 1, 1691, he was finally deprived of his bishopric, and inhibited from preaching, his sermon on the previous Sunday baying been from the text, "Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward." Through the influence of the Bishop of London, and "another person very gracious with the new governors," the authorities connived at his retaining the vicarage of his favourite Standish. The almost universal good-will which he had won during his tenure of the bishopric stood him repeat- edly in good stead ; but he was arrested on the discovery of the Assassination Plot, and brought before the Council, on a charge of "supporting and encouraging the enemies to the Government, and of printing letters missive collecting money" for the benefit of the deprived clergy. His bearing on this occasion can scarcely fail to remind the readers of Bishop Sprat's marvellous narrative of the" flower-plot" conspiracy. When his case was represented to the King, William was pleased to say, like his two predecessors, that he always took the Bishop of Gloucester for an honest man, and with expressions of pity for his straitened circumstances, ordered his immediate discharge without fees. While under arrest, he was visited by many persons of distinction, especially the Duchess of Devonshire, and a daughter of Judge Jeffreys. The latter was but repaying the obligation which the Bishop had laid upon her family, by visiting her unhappy father in the Tower. We must quote this "memorable passage " in full :— "The Lord Chancellor Jeffreys' fate and usage at the Revolution is well known, who, making his escape in a sea-habit, was apprehended, and with much disgrace and insult committed to the Tower. And there he lay sick with the gout and disconsolate enough, not one soul of the many he had preferred and befriended when in power giving him a visit ; when the Bishop of Gloucester, scarcely acquainted with him [but his biographer has already mentioned his dining with Jeffreys], and never obliged by him, gave him a friendly visit, and found him sitting in a low chair, with a long beard on, and a small pot of water by him, and weeping with himself ; his tears were, as the Bishop observed, very great ones, to which he was used to apply the old observation of • TOXIII/C7tpUtl, re:u 'Ilpdarr Ow. He accosts him in a Christian style, and says, 'My lord, I see you are disconsolate ; I find you weeping. If, my lord, either of these be upon the score of the hardships you labour tinder at present, e'en cast away the one and dry up the other, as un- worthy either a man or a Christian. But if they are from the reflection you make from your past life, in which something must needs be done amiss, for no man liveth and sinneth not, weep on and spare not ; these tears of yours are more precious than diamonds.' There was then some part of his family with him, and to this his Lordship replied, My Lord, all the disgraces I have suffered hitherto I can bear, and by God's grace will submit to whatever more may befall me, since I see so much of the goodness of God in sending me to you, you that I never in the least deserved anything from ; for you to visit me, when ethers who had their all from me desert me, it can be no more than the raotion of God's Spirit in you. I thank you for your fatherly advice, and desire your prayers that I may be able to follow it, and beg that you would add to this the friendship of another visit ; at what time I would,' says he, 'receive the Sacrament,' which he did with great devo- Con with his wife and his children at the Bishop's hands, and in a few days died in peace of mind. This was the friendship and debt that good lady came, when the Bishop was in prison, to own and pay."
After Frampton was deprived, be Buffered much "not from false, but supercilious brethren,",among whom was Dodwell, the first in erudition (according to Macaulay) of the Non-jurors, who held that by attending the public services of the Church he was ipso factoguilty of schism ; and Bishop Lloyd, of St. Asaph, one of thetwo deserters from the famous Seven who accepted the Revolution and its fruits. He did not, like Atterbury, dabble in treasonable politics. He frequently read prayers at Standish, omitting only the names of the Royal family, and preached from the reading-pew, while his house was at once a church for holy offices and a hospital for its charity to the poor. Despite his great knowledge and his eventful career, he could never be prevailed upon to burden the already overloaded world with the smallest tract.* He retained his daunt- less courage, his readiness to rebuke any offender, of whatever rank or position, and remained withal, as Archbishop Sancroft said of him, "the same honest, facetious, merry, witty, contented Robert of Gloucester." He received many most liberal offers of help. Queen Mary herself negotiated with Frampton and Ken, and when she saw that they would not comply, "she said she knew they affected martyrdom, and could doubtless bear it, but she would disappoint them both "—a remark with which William is more commonly credited. Queen Anne, too, strongly urged his acceptance of the see of Hereford, but met with no greater success than her sister. For the last three years of his life the venerable Bishop was confined to his house through an accident which befell him on his return home after his arrest, but he pre- • Two or three letters of Frampton are printed in the Life of Ken, by a Layman. (Pickering, 1850.
served his eyesight and most of his faculties to the last ; and after a brief illness, on May 25, 1708, "at the words of his own appointment—the last of the verses in the preparatory office in the Burial, 'Suffer not this Thy servant in his last hour for any pangs of death to fall from Thee '—he resigned his soul to God that gave it." He lies buried in the chancel at Standish, and it is a high praise of this biography to say that it is a worthy monu- ment to the memory of him whom it rescues from undeserved oblivion.
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