The son of devoutly Protestant parents, if Sharp was more heavily swayed by his mother’s Anglican royalism than by his father’s support for Parliament during the Civil Wars, he was also said to have imbued from the latter some of his puritan tendencies.
An examination of his political and parliamentary life challenges the view that he always shied away from partisan politics, but also confirms that he relished the role of mediator. During the reign of Anne he struggled to maintain his political independence, both from the queen and also from his close personal friends Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, and Heneage Finch, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford).
Sharp enjoyed financial security having inherited from his father property in and around Bradford.
Sharp’s first parliamentary sermon before the Commons, preached on 11 Apr. 1679, was in circulation the following month and augmented the high profile sermons that he delivered from his prestigious London pulpit at St Giles.
The reign of James II and Revolution
Following the accession of James II, Sharp continued to preach his staunchly Protestant sermons.
In April 1686 Sharp was made a royal chaplain, but he nevertheless joined the campaign against Catholicism.
The ecclesiastical commission eventually suspended Compton for his refusal to suspend Sharp. Meanwhile, Sharp ‘voluntarily’ abstained from preaching in Norwich whence he had returned on Jeffreys’ advice. He returned to London in December and petitioned successfully for reinstatement.
On 13 May 1688 Sharp was one of the London clergy to discuss their proposed defiance of the second Declaration of Indulgence.
By the end of January 1689, when he preached before the Commons on the text ‘deliver me from blood guiltiness’, he was again embroiled in controversy. His sermon, in which he had (in spite of his earlier involvement in discussion of James’s abdication) prayed for James II as king, evoked strong reactions. A motion to thank him for the speech was rejected and ‘some declared he had highly affronted the proceedings of the House’.
As one of the 2nd earl of Nottingham’s closest allies, Sharp was rewarded in September 1689 with the deanery of Canterbury which gave him de facto authority over those sees without a functioning bishop. He was involved in the earl’s initiatives to introduce legislation to the House on religious toleration and comprehension, and was one of those named to the new ecclesiastical commission.
Against the nonjurors, Sharp deployed de facto arguments in which he argued that ‘the laws of the land ... [are] the only rule of our conscience in this matter ... if William be king in the eye of the law, we must in conscience obey him as such’. Despite this, he refused elevation to any see vacated by the deprivation of a nonjuror, much to the king’s annoyance.
Archbishop of York
In May 1691 Sharp was at Canterbury Cathedral in his capacity as dean to receive the congé d’élire for Tillotson’s election as archbishop. Rumours of his own elevation were already current.
On 5 Oct. 1691, a prorogation day, Sharp received his writ of summons and, with Tillotson, took his seat in the House of Lords. His parliamentary career lasted more than 20 years and in the course of 23 sessions he attended all but three. Throughout his whole time on the episcopal bench, he was named to approximately 116 select committees though he reported back to the House from only three of those. He attended for the start of the new session on 22 Oct. 1691 and was present for 73 per cent of sittings. He was appointed to preach the sermon on 5 Nov. and was duly thanked the following day. He preached before the king and queen on Christmas Day.
Sharp spoke in the House on the Quaker bill on 12 Feb. 1692 (according to his diary, this was the first occasion on which he ‘took the boldness to speak in the House’); four days later he spoke again on the divorce bill for Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, when he restated doctrinal arguments on the lawfulness of divorce for adultery.
Attending the House on 4 Nov. 1692 for the start of the next parliamentary session, Sharp attended thereafter for 36 per cent of sittings. On 12 Nov. he went to the House but, on a point of conscience, stayed out of debates on the commitment of the lords who had been imprisoned the previous summer. If he kept his counsel in the chamber, he made detailed notes on the issues raised in his private notes.
Sharp’s most significant contribution to the session was his speech in opposition to the bill for frequent Parliaments, which had first been introduced during the previous session when he was absent in his diocese but vetoed by the king. Outlining his reasons for opposing the measure, he complained of the problems that would arise from frequent elections and stressed that he thought the potential impact of the bill ‘a little too hard upon the king’. It would, he claimed, effect a change to the constitution so that Parliament (or a committee of both Houses) could ultimately be in permanent session and compromise the balance between the liberty of the subject and the rights of the crown. Constant Parliaments would prove burdensome to the people who already found privilege of Parliament ‘grievous enough’, and leave little or no time in which to instigate or complete legal proceedings. Further, frequent elections and the inevitable polarization of opinion would divide the people ‘alienating people’s affections one from another, and their being engaged in factions, and piques, and quarrels’, increasing drunkenness, idleness and debauchery amongst the people and ‘feuds and animosities’ amongst the gentry.
Early in November 1694 – just under a year since Nottingham had been forced from office –Sharp was appealed to by Nottingham’s brother, Henry Finch, who had been offered the bishopric of Man but was anxious to decline it in the hopes of being promised the deanery of York instead. Conscious that he no longer had any claim to royal patronage, Nottingham joined his brother in hoping that Sharp would use his interest with the king and queen to secure it for him. Finch duly obtained a promise that he would be given the desired post.
On 25 July 1695 Sharp received word from Tenison (now his fellow primate, after Tillotson’s death in November 1694) that Parliament was to be prorogued to September. Tenison also enclosed a copy of his latest circular, inviting Sharp’s ‘animadversions on it that I may do better next time’.
Sharp attended the House on the first day of the new Parliament and thereafter attended the session for 77 per cent of sittings. In the spring of 1696 he signed the Association, but on 27 Feb. he moved the Lords to define more carefully the caveat entered by the episcopate. The following month (on 19 Mar.) he was noted as having introduced a bill to stop excommunication for those who failed to pay small tithes.
Sharp did not return to Westminster until early December 1696, six weeks after the start of the new session, almost certainly in time for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick‡. Having taken his place in the Lords, Sharp attended only 14 per cent of sittings. On 8 Dec. the king gave an audience to both Sharp and Moore, pressing them to support the Fenwick attainder.
In February 1697, Sharp attempted to interpose with Sir George Treby‡ on behalf of the widowed Lady Abdy (granddaughter of Sir Edward Nicholas‡). Treby was presiding over the trial of one of Lady Abdy’s servants, who had set fire to some outhouses on the Abdy estate. Realizing that the girl faced the death penalty if convicted, Lady Abdy had sought to drop the charges but been convinced by Sharp to persevere with the prosecution and then petition the judge for clemency once the trial had been concluded. He now sought Treby’s agreement to meet Lady Abdy to consider her appeal.
After 1697 Sharp found himself caught increasingly in the middle of the Convocation dispute between ‘low’ churchmen and high-fliers. Sharp was now at the heart of the Tory bishops. He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. 1697 after which he was present for just under 39 per cent of sittings. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted with the minority against the bill to punish Sir Charles Duncombe‡.
Elections followed the dissolution of 7 July. The poll at York on 20 July resulted in a controverted election, but Sharp resolved not to interfere and ignored the requests for assistance made to him by the defeated Edward Thompson‡.
Sharp failed to take his seat in the first session of the new Parliament, choosing to concentrate instead on affairs within his province. He wrote from Bishopthorpe to John Somers, Baron Somers (with whom he maintained a mutually respectful relationship) for a writ of Convocation for the northern province as soon as Parliament opened.
Sharp took his seat once more on 23 Nov. 1699, one week after the start of the new parliamentary session. He attended thereafter for just over 60 per cent of sittings. On 11 Jan. 1700 he was ordered by the House to preach the martyrdom sermon on the 30th and duly delivered a moralizing sermon in the Abbey.
Sharp did not attend the session after 28 March. Throughout the spring and summer he corresponded with Tenison on ecclesiastical preferments and agreed to support the latest activities of the SPCK. He also seems to have used his interest on behalf of Humphrey Prideaux, who was eager to secure Sharp’s former deanery of Norwich.
During the first round of parliamentary elections in 1701 Sharp again exercised his influence as lord of the manor at Ripon; perhaps surprisingly he did not accede to the request of Ripon corporation to sponsor the candidature of his own son John Sharp‡, but instead once again backed his ‘good friends’ Jennings and Aislabie.
In the second election of that year Sharp now chose to support his son’s candidature at Ripon. After a fierce contest, the younger Sharp was returned with Aislabie. During the summer Sharp had been approached by Arthur Ingram‡, 3rd Viscount Irwin [S], who had resolved to stand for Yorkshire. Ingram was successful but it is not clear whether Sharp did give him his support.
On 5 Jan. 1702 Sharp was noted as missing without excuse at a call of the House. It was not until 20 Apr., after the king’s death, that Sharp finally took his place, after which he was present for just six days in the session. During his absence he had been warned by Moore of the king’s illness.
The reign of Anne to 1707
Anne’s accession improved Sharp’s standing. Nottingham urged that the archbishop attend court promptly since he was almost certainly the most favoured of the bishops. He concluded that Sharp should ‘judge whether something more than the ordinary respect of a subject is not due to her from you’. Sharp, indisposed once more with the stone, was given royal permission to stay away until the following winter, but the queen changed her mind and decided that she wanted Sharp to preach at the coronation. A newsletter of 2 Apr. reported as much, and at the start of April Sharp informed Tenison (who had clearly been snubbed by the new queen in these arrangements) that he had intended to come to London anyway rather than be thought to be guilty of ‘intolerable ill manners’. As far as the matter of the sermon went, he was willing to accede to the queen’s request, though he insisted ‘my health is so broken with colics in my stomach, and stone and strangury, that I am altogether unfit to go about any work, and least of all such a business as this.’ Notwithstanding his indisposition, he assured Tenison that he would set out for London on the 13th.
On 23 Apr. Sharp duly preached the sermon. Subsequently, he had several audiences with the queen about ecclesiastical promotions.
Sharp continued to furnish the government with ecclesiastical recommendations and in June consecrated his old friend, William Nicolson, as bishop of Carlisle, at Lambeth.
very improper for me to meddle in Parliament elections, either for the city or county: that I foresaw great inconveniences would come upon it with respect to myself, and yet I should do no great good; and therefore I made it a rule to myself not to be concerned in these matters, unless there was an absolute necessity for it, as in the case of a notorious bad man that should offer himself ... I would promise them, that though I could not serve them by making any votes for them, yet I would never disserve them by espousing any interest against them.Life of John Sharp, i. 122-3.
Preoccupied by the assizes and the elections, Sharp remained in contact with Nottingham, sending news of the likely outcome in constituencies throughout his diocese; with the exception of Hartington, the majority of Commons’ Members throughout his diocese were expected to remain unchanged. Required by Nottingham on a regular basis to explain his interventions and conversations with the queen, Sharp was nonetheless clearly devoted to the earl and his wife and ‘all the lovely, hopeful branches’ of the Finch family.
The new Parliament assembled on 20 Oct. 1702, but Sharp failed to take his seat until 4 Nov. after which he attended approximately 53 per cent of all sittings. Sharp was now co-operating with Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, who had undertaken to act as mediator between the various Church factions. Working in concert, Sharp and Harley offered inducements in the form of preferments in an attempt to defuse hostilities.
Sharp supported the occasional conformity bill that was introduced into the Commons in November 1702. He was also instrumental in gaining the queen’s approval for the measure.
The new year found Sharp joining a number of his fellow prelates waiting on the queen and Prince George of Denmark, and duke of Cumberland. He also found time to discuss the prince’s bill with Nicolson, which they agreed ‘was a private one and so could have no-tacking clause’, as well as the affairs of Convocation. Sharp had his own concerns to attend to also, having been pressed by the queen (and by Sidney Godolphin, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin) to overcome his reluctance and accept the post of almoner (which had been rejected by Compton).
Sharp was absent from the House between 8 and 24 Jan. 1703, ‘much disordered’, according to Nicolson, with pain from kidney stones. He registered his proxy in favour of Nicolson on the 11th and his vote was used on the 16th to oppose the amendment to the clause relating to the Corporation Act (the votes were even and the motion lost). He resumed his place on 25 Jan. and on 10 Feb. (Ash Wednesday) was sufficiently recovered to preach before the queen. Nicolson found the sermon ‘very moving’. The archbishop was visited by John Aislabie and Nicolson the following day, Aislabie keeping him informed of the day’s debates in the Commons.
Sharp developed an important role as a mediator with the queen. On 31 Mar. he reassured Bishop William Lloyd about the latter’s continuing place in her favour, but refused to waste the queen’s time in discussing the vacancy at St Davids (previously held by the suspended Thomas Watson,); she would undoubtedly ‘do nothing in that affair without the advice of her cabinet counsel. And ... they will never advise her to put in a new bishop, till the case of the archbishop’s power to deprive a suffragan bishop be heard and agreed to by the House of Lords’.
In advance of the autumn session of 1703, Sharp convened a meeting of Harley, Francis Atterbury, later bishop of Rochester, and George Hooper, bishop of St Asaph, later bishop of Bath and Wells, the last two being his principal contacts in the Canterbury Convocation, in an abortive effort to persuade Atterbury to desist from lobbying for new legislation to counter occasional conformity.
Early in the new year, Sharp was informed by Godolphin that the queen was considering Harley’s proposals for the crown’s surrender of ecclesiastical first fruits to provide a fund to augment poor livings (Queen Anne’s Bounty). The move was at least in part intended to assure the high church interest that their concerns had not been abandoned.
Sharp’s increasing association with high Tory ecclesiastical politics steadily undermined his friendship with Nicolson. Commenting on the appointment of Atterbury to the deanery of Carlisle, Nicolson confessed that he was ‘extremely troubled’ that Sharp should have had ‘so great a share’ in securing Atterbury the post, not least as Atterbury had been instrumental in snubbing Nicolson at Oxford.
By the end of August 1704, Nicolson and Atterbury were mired in a jurisdictional dispute over the latter’s institution to the Carlisle chapter. Sharp attempted, without success, to get Nicolson to climb down, aware that the queen was offended at Nicolson’s tacit challenge to her prerogative. Harley hoped that Sharp would bring his authority, ‘sweetness and candour of ... temper’ to the situation and Sharp offered to defuse the dispute by proposing that he institute Atterbury himself.
I can truly say I have done all that was possible for me to do, both towards removing the objections which the Bishop of Carlisle had started … and if that could not be done, then towards persuading his lordship to grant me his authority to admit the Doctor myself.
HMC Portland, iv. 131.
By mid October Sharp had to report that the Carlisle affair had delayed his return to court, but that he would make amends to the queen by preaching for her on 5 November.
Despite his stated preference to remain above party politics, Sharp was drawn along in Nottingham’s wake. Elizabeth Burnet, a correspondent of the duchess of Marlborough, described the archbishop as ‘a very good man ... most if not all of his notions were good and he was very far from being a bigot or to have narrow notions, but of late he hears too much of one side’. According to Burnet himself, Nottingham and Edward Villiers, earl of Jersey, were ‘indefatigable in some things with him, but of himself he would be much more reasonable’.
Sharp finally returned to the House three weeks into the new session on 13 Nov. 1704. He continued to attend for just over half of all sitting days. Following a request from the queen, he set his interest behind opposition to the approaching tack of the occasional conformity measure to a supply bill. Despite his own support for the legislation, Sharp thought the tack unconstitutional and an ‘irregular way of forcing it upon the House of Lords and the ministry’; consequently he exerted pressure not only on his own son, John, but also on the Members for Boroughbridge and Yorkshire, Sir Bryan Stapylton‡, and Sir John Kaye‡. Sharp’s efforts failed to persuade Stapylton, who voted for the measure, but Kaye and Sharp’s son both voted against the tack on 28 November.
Although unwilling to countenance the measure as a tack, Sharp continued to support the introduction of legislation against occasional conformity. On 15 Dec. he was among those arguing in favour of giving the latest occasional bill a second reading but the motion was rejected by 21 votes (once proxies had been added to the tally).
Sharp returned to the House following the Christmas recess on 2 Jan. 1705. Two days later, he was called upon by Nicolson, who found him ‘gracious and humble’ in spite of their continuing disagreements over Carlisle. On 27 Feb. Sharp was named to the committee to prepare for a conference with the Commons regarding the Aylesbury men. The queen had clear political expectations of her episcopal appointees and of Sharp’s leadership: when George Bull, the theological scholar, was nominated to the see of St Davids in March 1705, Anne told Sharp that ‘the bishops she put in should vote on the side that they who call themselves the Church party do vote on’.
Sharp claimed that he asked the queen repeatedly to release him from ‘meddling in any state matters’, hoping to retire from court to conduct his pastoral ministry. This did not stop him from continuing to press her for his own ecclesiastical nominees. Although Sharp did not think either Whigs or Tories meant any harm to the Church of England, his recommendations were overwhelmingly Tory. During the spring of 1705 he ‘struggled hard’, but unsuccessfully, for Sir William Dawes, his protégé, to be made bishop of Lincoln, grooming Dawes as his eventual successor at York on account of the latter’s ‘inviolable attachment to the interests of the Church of England’.
On 5 Apr. 1705 Parliament was dissolved. Sharp heard from Nicolson of the ‘great confusion’ surrounding parliamentary elections elsewhere, but the borough of Ripon saw the uncontested return of Sharp’s son and his kinsman John Aislabie.
Sharp returned to his own ecclesiastical agenda. The previous year he had asked the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt‡, whether the Act of Toleration permitted Dissenting ministers only to preach and teach or if they were also permitted to conduct rites of passage, despite encroaching on the Church’s traditional function in these areas. Holt replied that nonconformist marriages could certainly be challenged in an ecclesiastical court as having been conducted without licence and the publication of banns, but that the other rites were less clear and required expert opinion from a specialist in canon law.
Sharp returned to the House for the opening of Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705. He attended the session for just under a third of all sittings and was careful to distance himself from the proposal to invite Princess Sophia of Hanover to England. On 15 Nov. he joined the majority in opposing the motion put by John Thompson, Baron Haversham, to invite Sophia, though he was careful later to communicate to Hanover his respect and good intentions.
Sharp and Godolphin failed to agree over the Tory ‘Church in Danger’ crusade, though both seem to have been at pains to maintain friendly relations in spite of their differences.
Sharp’s health took a turn for the worse in the new year. By 14 Jan. 1706 he was ‘dispirited’ with illness, suffering from the stone and ‘the spleen’. Poor health was not his only concern, and he proved unsuccessful in his efforts to secure the nomination of Tory divine John Wynne†, the future bishop of St Asaph, for the vacancy at Llandaff.
On 25 Mar., during the recess, Sharp attended the Privy Council at Kensington and was asked by the queen to ‘endeavour, in all my conversation, to discourage’ the expected renewal of the motion to summon the Electress Sophia. Asked whether ‘I had not once expressed myself that I abhorred the thoughts of it’, Sharp obfuscated, claiming not to remember saying so, though allowing, ‘if her majesty said I did use those words, I could not doubt but I did’.
Sharp took his seat at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. 1706, of which he attended 52 per cent of sittings. The day before he had exchanged visits with Wake, perhaps in anticipation of the first day’s business.
On 31 Dec. Sharp took part in the thanksgiving service at St Paul’s for the victory at Ramillies. He made space for Nicolson in his coach for the procession to the cathedral. The House then adjourned until 7 Jan. 1707 but Sharpe remained away until 13 Jan., when the Lords prepared to debate the bill for union with Scotland.
On 16 Jan. Sharp entertained Nicolson, Nicholas Stratford, bishop of Chester, and George Smalridge, the future bishop of Bristol, possibly canvassing support for his amendment to Tenison’s bill to secure the Church. Certainly, on 3 Feb., in a committee of the whole House, Stratford voted in support of Sharp’s unsuccessful amendment that the Test should be an integral part of the Act of Union. Sharp’s amendment was rejected by 60 votes to 33, with 23 lords registering their dissent against its rejection.
In the Commons proceedings of 28 Feb. Sharp’s son was reported to have ‘speeched it against the Union’ and it was understood that when the bill came before the Lords, Sharp himself intended to be ‘so indiscreet as to speak against it’ as well.
From the bishoprics crisis of 1707 to the start of the Tory ministry in 1710
The crisis brought to the fore simmering resentments that were already well established over Church appointments. Sharp had himself come up against the queen’s opposition in February to his proposal that Smalridge should succeed the terminally ill William Jane as regius professor of Divinity at Oxford, the queen having learned that Smalridge was one of those who ‘flew in the face of the government’ by insisting that the Church was in danger.
On 23 Oct. 1707 Sharp took his seat in the new Parliament of Great Britain, attending thereafter for just over 30 per cent of sittings. In an audience with both the queen and the prince on 3 Nov. Sharp was asked by Anne, whom he supposed to be fearful of ‘ruffles’ in Parliament, to serve her interests during the session. In response, Sharp assured her of his continuing loyalty but craved leave ‘to vote in Parliament according to my sentiments’. Ten days later she asked for his vote in the imminent division on the Admiralty when she feared that George Churchill‡ would come under attack; Sharp, still struggling to retain his political independence, promised to discuss the matter before engaging himself to any party.
In the midst of these manoeuvres, Sharp was approached by Archbishop King of Dublin for his assistance in the matter of the naturalization bill for the children of John King, 3rd Baron Kingston [I] when it came before the Lords.
Early in February the queen asked for Sharp’s vote against the bill to dissolve the Scottish Privy Council. Sharp was clearly unwilling to lend his support, and asked once more to be allowed to vote according to his own judgment. According to Sharp’s own recollection, Anne permitted him the liberty to attend for the division and vote as he saw fit, even if it opposed her own wishes.
On 8 Feb. Sharp had the satisfaction of finally consecrating Dawes. Sharp’s friendship with Nicolson, by contrast, remained under strain on account of the ongoing disputes with Atterbury and by the introduction of the partisan cathedrals bill, instigated by Nicolson and Somers.
On 14 Nov. 1708 Sharp waited on the queen, where they both gave vent to their grief for the death of Prince George.
Sharp’s greater concern in the early months of 1709 was the question of the settlement of the crown and Protestant religion. This appears to have prompted a lengthy discourse with the queen early in February in which he was given assurances that both she and her ministry were completely supportive of the Hanoverian succession. Sharp seems to have welcomed the queen’s professions cautiously, while noting his continuing suspicions of some of the ministers and ‘the little care that was taken at the last invasion for the suppression of it’.
Sharp’s concern for the security of the established Church was again reflected the following month over the general naturalization bill. This was the subject of discussion between Sharp, Wake and other bishops on 14 Mar. 1709, and when the bill was committed the following day Sharp voted for the amendment (proposed by Nicolson and Dawes) to insist on worship at a ‘parochial’ church and not merely at any Protestant gathering. The bill’s committal exposed party divisions on the episcopal bench with Sharp ranged alongside nine other Tory bishops against seven Whig prelates led by Tenison. On 23 Mar. he attended the House for the last time that session, ‘tortured’ with gout in the knee. He maintained his social round but remained indisposed for much of April. On Good Friday, the day after the prorogation, Sharp attended the queen and in the evening was called on by Nicolson, with whom he discussed William Whiston’s alleged Arianism.
Back at Westminster on 15 Nov. 1709 for the first day of the new parliamentary session, Sharp was thereafter present on 59 per cent of sittings. He attended the queen on 3 Feb. 1710 when he was ‘earnestly’ pressed to vote against the bill for limiting the number of officers in the Commons, and warned ‘that it would look strange that [he] should be the only bishop of the bench that voted for that bill, which was so much against her prerogative’. Sharp attempted in vain to persuade her that ‘it was a good bill’ and was once again thrown back on the recourse of insisting on his right to vote according to his conscience.
Alongside his efforts on behalf of the English clergy, Sharp’s involvement in the cause of toleration for Scottish episcopal clergy also began to assume a higher profile as a result of the James Greenshields’ case. Sharp had been informed of the plight of the Scots episcopalian clergy in 1702 by the bishop of Edinburgh, Alexander Rose, and two years later received a plea for help from all the Scottish bishops.
On 16 Feb. 1710 Sharp was one of 20 lords (including Nottingham and Rochester) who dissented from the House’s resolution not to summon Greenshields and the Edinburgh magistrates, before hearing Greenshields’ judicial appeal to the Lords. Greenshields’ case was temporarily overtaken by the impeachment of Henry Sacheverell. Sharp (who described the financial support of Sacheverell by John Radcliffe‡ as a work of the ‘greatest charity’) was present when the trial opened in Westminster Hall.
In the wake of the trial, Sharp’s two sermons preached before the Commons in 1679 (on enemies to Church and state) and his speech to the Lords on the articles of impeachment all appeared in the press.
Harley’s ministry 1710-1714
At the general election of 1710 Sharp’s son and Aislabie were again returned without contest.
He returned to London before the opening of Parliament to find the queen uneasy at the prospect of internecine quarrelling in the synod. She asked Sharp (despite the Canterbury Convocation being under Tenison’s authority) to chair a meeting comprising Harley, Rochester, Sprat and Hooper to limit the business of Convocation to blasphemous publications, excommunication, and relations with the Prussian Lutherans. The move provoked fury from Atterbury, whom Sharp then attempted to stifle by championing George Smalridge for the deanery of Christ Church but without success. He made no attempt to seek writs for his own provincial Convocation, but concentrated on the southern synod, chairing numerous debates involving both moderate and high-flying Tories.
As well as his efforts with Convocation, Sharp worked closely with Harley, both of them being eager to secure as many ecclesiastical preferments as possible for moderate churchmen.
Sharp took his seat in the House on 25 Nov. 1710 for the opening of Parliament after which he was present for just over 30 per cent of sittings. On 26 Dec. he visited Lambeth for a very well attended St Stephen’s dinner. He continued to attend meetings of the Queen Anne’s Bounty commissioners and to wait on the queen at court. He gave a lift to Nicolson for a new year gathering at court, which was marked by the return of Marlborough from Flanders. Apparently ‘hesitant’ about the Tory challenge to the previous ministry’s conduct of the war in Spain, he did not attend the House for the lengthy debate on 9 Jan. 1711.
On 20 Jan. 1711, the House not sitting, he chaired a meeting on proposals to provide bishops for the plantations; the proposals, in which Jonathan Swift had aspirations for his own clerical advancement, were dropped.
Despite appeals to Harley made shortly before Christmas by John Erskine, 22nd earl of Mar [S], that either the queen or Sharp should persuade Greenshields to delay his petition until the next parliamentary session, the appeal came before the House in February.
Sharp missed the last seven weeks of the parliamentary session and by early June he was back at Bishopthorpe. From there he congratulated Harley on his elevation as earl of Oxford and also took the opportunity of recommending to his new colleague in the Lords the appointment of Henry Dawnay‡, 2nd Viscount Downe [I], as governor of Hull in place of Newcastle (who had died shortly before). It was a post Downe was eager to secure and was, according to Sharp, an appointment that would ‘be of great service for the breaking that interest in the East Riding which has always opposed your lordship’s measures’. Sharp also continued his efforts to develop closer relations with the church in Prussia through his negotiations with Jablonski, to which end he hoped that an agent might be sent ‘under some public character’.
Back in London by the close of January 1712, having returned to the chamber Sharp was present for 32 per cent of all sitting days in the session. He resumed his social round with bishops of all political views, including Wake and Compton, and on 20 Feb. he was visited by Nicolson and Greenshields, both anxious to secure the passage of the bill on Scottish episcopal communion.
Alongside of his involvement in the Lords, Sharp also continued to take a close interest in matters in Convocation. On 20 Apr., when the upper house of Convocation sent down a resolution on the validity of lay baptism, Sharp sought Oxford’s help in having the queen forbid contentious discussion.
Despite his stance on this issue, at the start of June 1712, Sharp was thought by Oxford to be an uncertain supporter of the ministry. Impatient to leave London for Bishopthorpe, he hung on ‘in expectation of the Peace’, but on the 7th registered his proxy with William Dawes once more and left London.
In the new year of 1713 Sharp obtained from Oxford another appointment for his son as a commissioner of trade at an annual salary of £1,000. The archbishop gave his word to Oxford that his son would ‘behave himself’. He also hoped ‘now that I have appointed so good a proxy as the bishop of Chester is’ to be excused parliamentary attendance in order to conduct a spring visitation.
Unwell and depressed, Sharp attended the House for the last time on 9 May 1713. The following day he had his final audience with the queen.
In mid December it was reported that Sharp was en route either to Bath or Bristol ‘being in an ill state of health’ and ‘afflicted with diabetes’.
Sharp’s death presented the ministry with a troublesome dilemma. Three days afterwards Oxford was assured that Dawes would ‘certainly vote against you if he has not York’, though it was by no means certain he would prove loyal even if he was promoted. The other bishop thought to be in the running was Bisse.
Of Sharp’s 14 children, only four survived him: two sons, John and Thomas, and two daughters, Ann and Dorothy.