TILLOTSON, John (1630-94)

John Tillotson’s short tenure as archbishop of Canterbury was the final part of an ecclesiastical career in which he had long engaged with political and parliamentary business. A Presbyterian who conformed to the established church following the Act of Uniformity, much of his career was given over to proving the Restoration church to be much more comprehensive of diverse religious opinion than many of his colleagues may have wished. His pursuit of a comprehensive English church found expression in his choice of friends and his wider intellectual circle. His clarity and effectiveness as a preacher won him popularity, the respect of Charles II as well as the admiration and friendship of Mary II and William III; and his ability to reconcile apparently conflicting issues made him trusted across many political divides except by the most dogmatic.

Early life and career

Born into a ‘low and obscure’ Yorkshire family, Tillotson was raised as Presbyterian and educated at Cambridge during the Civil Wars and Interregnum. Tillotson Works ed. Barker, 12. He took the 1650 engagement and became chaplain and tutor in the household of Edmund Prideaux, a Presbyterian elder and attorney general to Oliver Cromwell^‡. Birch, Life of Tillotson (1753), 14, 387. Only with Cromwell’s death did Tillotson appear to question the political settlement of the Commonwealth: the rhetoric of the memorial fast, he later informed his friend Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, evoked his ‘disgust’. Burnet, vi. 241.

At the Restoration, Tillotson’s career was far from assured. In June 1660, at the request of Peter Gunning, the future bishop of Ely, he was ejected from the fellowship at Clare, Cambridge, that he had held since 1651. Unlike his more conservative friend Edward Stillingfleet, the future bishop of Worcester, he was not ordained until after the Restoration and probably not until after the Savoy Conference of 1661, which he attended as a Presbyterian auditor. Life of Tillotson, 19. His decision to be ordained by Thomas Sydserf, bishop of Galloway (who, unlike English bishops, did not require his ordinands to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles), combined with his choice of friends in the Dissenting community, provided his enemies with ample proof that he was insufficiently committed to the Restoration religious settlement. Life of Tillotson, 18-19; Burnet, i. 323-4.

Tillotson submitted to the Act of Uniformity in 1662. After brief periods as a curate in Cheshunt and then as rector of Kedington.Suffolk (to which he was presented by the Presbyterian Sir Thomas Barnardiston^‡), he obtained a position in London as preacher at Lincoln’s Inn, on 26 Nov. 1663, resigning his Suffolk living despite the relatively meagre stipend of £100 per term and £24 ‘vacation commons’. Life of Tillotson, 25-27. Soon afterwards he married Elizabeth French, a niece of Oliver Cromwell and stepdaughter of John Wilkins, then rector of St Lawrence Jewry. He had already preached on occasion for Wilkins, and later in 1664 was elected Tuesday lecturer at St Lawrence Jewry by the trustees of that post. Life of Tillotson, 29. Tillotson also had several contacts with the London mercantile community through his brother Joseph Tillotson and his friendship with the mercer and philanthropist Thomas Firmin, a Socinian whose presence within the established church was an example of the kind of inclusivity Tillotson advocated. The Life of Mr Thomas Firmin, Late Citizen of London (1698), 14-16. His reputation as a preacher was based on presenting the religious establishment as the fulfilment of rational enquiry (as in his 1664 St Paul’s sermon against atheism preached before the lord mayor of London, ‘The wisdom of being religious’), while being able to ‘maul and unravel’ Catholic apologists such as John Sergeant. Life of Tillotson, 392; J. Tillotson, The Rule of Faith (1666); Burnet, i. 400. By February 1666, Tillotson was sufficiently familiar in natural philosophical circles for Robert Hooke to write to Robert Boyle asking him to send some ens veneris (a copper compound used medicinally) to cure Tillotson’s child’s rickets. Boyle Corresp. iii. 49, 119.

According to Burnet, in January and February 1668 Tillotson may have been involved in the preparation of the comprehension bill promoted by Sir Matthew Hale^‡, which was based upon negotiations with the Presbyterians led by his father-in-law Wilkins and supported by Sir Orlando Bridgeman^‡, George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester. Life of Tillotson, 42-43; Burnet, i. 449. The bill, inspired by the assurances made in the king’s 1660 Declaration of Breda, never came before Parliament. Bodl. B.14.15.Linc. ff. 9-13; Life of Tillotson, 42. Burnet may, however, have confused this negotiation with the later comprehension scheme of 1675, in which both Tillotson and Stillingfleet were certainly involved. Thorndike, Works, v. 304.

Prebend and Dean of Canterbury

On 14 Mar.1670 Tillotson was admitted prebendary of Canterbury following nomination by Charles II. The promotion brought in an additional annual income of £600. Spurr, Restoration Church, 177. In August 1671, he became one of the trustees for the financial affairs of Buckingham (together with Anthony Ashley Cooper, Baron Ashley, Secretary Sir John Trevor^‡, Sir Thomas Osborne, later earl of Danby, marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds, and Sir Robert Moray). TNA, PRO 30/24/40/46. Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey, was sufficiently impressed by Tillotson’s sermon against Catholics at Whitehall on 21 Apr. 1672, that the next day he undertook ‘a long dispute with the king’ failing to convince Charles II to have it printed. Add. 40860, f. 27. In October 1672, Tillotson was promoted to the deanery of Canterbury. Tillotson’s memorialist John Beardmore recorded that the promotion came at the recommendation of Buckingham, Gilbert Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, and George Berkeley, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, though at the time Sir Ralph Verney^‡ had heard that the appointment was ‘merely at the request of the archbishop’. CSP Dom. 1672-3, pp. 71-3; Life of Tillotson, 393; Verney, ms mic. M636/25, Sir R. to E. Verney, 7 Nov. 1672. John Wilkins died at Tillotson’s house in Chancery Lane on 19 Dec. 1672; Tillotson was bequeathed his papers with discretion over their publication. He embarked on preparing Wilkins’s Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion for the press. Life of Tillotson, 44.

On 21 Jan. 1674, Tillotson was ordered to preach a Commons fast sermon. CJ, ix. 296-7. When Richard Baxter was asked by Roger Boyle^‡, earl of Orrery [I], in late 1673, to draw up a list of proposals that would satisfy Presbyterians, he was deeply sceptical that anything would come of it, though he commented that were he able to negotiate with Tillotson and Stillingfleet ‘or some moderate men’, they would be able to come to an agreement within a week. Reliquiae Baxterianae, iii. 109-10. A bill for composing differences in religion, and inviting sober and peaceably-minded Dissenters into the service of the Church’ was introduced on 13 Feb. 1674 and committed on 19 February. Tillotson reported however to William Sancroft, dean of St Paul’s and later archbishop of Canterbury, that although the House voted on the 20th to drop the obligation to wear the surplice and use the cross in baptism, there was fierce opposition from within the episcopate. Bodl. Tanner 42, f. 89; Reliquiae Baxterianae, iii. 157; Life of Tillotson, 43. The bill was lost with the prorogation five days after its committal. Tillotson and Stillingfleet, apparently at the instance of George Morley, bishop of Winchester and Seth Ward, bishop of Salisbury did have discussions with Baxter and other prominent nonconformists in late 1674 or early 1675, apparently drawing up heads for a bill that would have removed oaths and subscriptions for the clergy, other than the 39 articles, prevented prosecution under the Conventicle Act for ‘family piety’ and allowed toleration for all those who in conscience could not conform under its terms. Baxter was later said to have been suspicious of the project, believing it to have been intended to favour Catholics, but it was Tillotson who wrote to him on 11 Apr. 1675 to tell him that after consulting Ward he had concluded that the draft bill had no chance of passing in either House without ‘the concurrence of a considerable part of the bishops’ and that he was no longer willing to be associated with it: ‘not but that I do most heartily desire an accommodation… but I am sure it will be a prejudice to me and signify nothing to the effecting of the thing’. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 354-5; Reliquiae Baxterianae, iii. 157-60; LPL, ms 1743, f. 145; Life of Tillotson, 43-4; Cal. Baxter Corresp. ed. Keeble and Nuttall, ii. 173-4.

In April 1674, Tillotson recommended the physician John Mapletoft, a relative and sympathizer of Thomas Firmin, to Gilbert Holles, 3rd earl of Clare, as a tutor for his son. Add. 70012, f. 152. He baptized Anglesey’s grandson James Annesley, later third earl of Anglesey, on 13 July 1674. Add. 40860, f. 73. Although in September 1675 it was rumoured that Tillotson would replace Guy Carleton, the current bishop of Bristol (since he would ‘better agree with the temper of the Bristol fanatics’), Tillotson rejected the offer on the grounds that it would be to his financial disadvantage, since there were no commendams available to support the impoverished see of Bristol, and he thought it ‘without example that any one hath been a bishop and dean of a cathedral church.’ Verney, ms mic. M636/28, J. to E. Verney, 9 Sept. 1675; HMC Bath, ii. 156-7. His emoluments and his place in the London church were strengthened when in 1678, at the same time as Stillingfleet was made dean of St Paul’s, Tillotson was granted the prebend of Oxegate belonging to St Paul’s and the residentiary place at the cathedral vacated by Sancroft on his promotion to the archbishopric of Canterbury. CSP Dom. 1677-8, p. 614.

Tillotson’s relationship with Prince William of Orange and with Hans Willem Bentinck, later earl of Portland, was said by Laurence Echard to have dated from 1677 when William married Princess Mary; the couple were supposedly left without necessities when staying in Canterbury on their way to the Netherlands, and Tillotson placed the deanery, (which was not taken up) his plate and coin at William’s disposal. Thomas Birch pointed out that Echard’s account differed from those in contemporary sources and that the story was used to justify Tillotson’s later advance to the archbishopric of Canterbury over the heads of other candidates. Life of Tillotson, 50-3.

On 5 Nov. 1678, Tillotson and Thomas Lamplugh, bishop of Exeter, preached on the same text (Luke 9: 55-6) before Parliament, Tillotson to the Commons and Lamplugh before the Lords. Tillotson’s sermon was an attack on popery; but at its heart was an insistence that the punishment of heretics by ‘fire and sword’ was unchristian, inconsistent with the rational persuasion employed by Jesus. Catholics were to be pitied and prevented from doing harm rather than persecuted. J. Tillotson, A sermon Preached Nov. 5, 1678 (1678). A sermon preached a month later to a feast of Yorkshiremen resident in London continued the theme by preaching the imperative of universal goodwill over sectarian discord. To achieve protestant unity, the Church would ‘not insist upon little things… but yield them up’ to ‘plausible exceptions’ maintained by nonconformists. J. Tillotson, A sermon Preached… in the Church of S. Mary-le-Bow ( 1679). Some of Tillotson’s words were seized on in a pamphlet quoting the will of the Elizabethan archbishop of York, Edwin Sandys^†, as evidence of the Church’s willingness to embrace dissent. Lawrence Womock, the future bishop of St Davids, responded in a pamphlet archly claiming that Tillotson had been misunderstood. A Proposal of Union among Protestants [1679]; [L. Womock], The Late Proposal of Union among Protestants (1679). Tillotson was responsible for the conversion of Charles Talbot, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, from Catholicism in 1679, and his letter that October chiding Shrewsbury for taking a mistress was widely distributed in manuscript and printed. HMC Astley, 42; The Life and Character of Charles Duke of Shrewsbury (1718), 4; Add. 32084, f. 8; Tanner 33, f. 153; Rawl. Letters 108, ff. 248-9. Tillotson ‘could not but wish success to the exclusion bill’. He and Burnet took ‘great pains’ to prevent George Savile, marquess of Halifax from assuming the role of ‘champion’ against it. Burnet, ii. 208; Life of Tillotson, 78. Tillotson’s Whitehall sermon of 2 Apr. 1680, on Job xxiv.15 asserted the power of the magistrate in matters of religion: though carefully insisting that it did not imply the magistrate’s right to reject the true religion, or oblige his subjects to a false one, he argued that if he did, conscience did not license the individual to combat it actively. Tillotson, The Protestant Religion Vindicated (1680). Charles having slept through most of the sermon, a peer told him he had missed ‘the rarest piece of Hobbism’, to which Charles reportedly replied ‘Gods fish, he shall print it then.’ Simon Patrick, later successively bishop of Chichester and Ely, thought Tillotson had called ‘the very existence of God’ into question; the sermon’s emphasis on the role of the civil authority as regulator of religion was attacked from all sides, including by Tillotson’s friend, the nonconformist minister John Howe. Life of Tillotson, 64. Tillotson continued to pursue opportunities for the moral reform of the elite: it was to him that John Wilmot, 2nd earl of Rochester, repented of his debauched life, and Tillotson lamented that Rochester died before his changed character could be demonstrated to the wider world. Add. 4236, f. 219.

Tillotson was not involved in preparing the comprehension and toleration bills introduced into the Commons in November and December 1680; he commented that he never saw the bills, and ‘the bishops thought this too much, and the Dissenters too little’. LPL, ms 1743, f. 149; Add. 4236, f. 227. But he does seem to have been involved in a separate discussion of the subject around this time. On 14 Nov. he entertained Howe and William Lloyd, bishop of St Asaph, at his home to discuss a further possible measure of comprehension, but the failure of exclusion the following day apparently stopped Lloyd from proceeding with the discussions. Calamy, Works of Howe, 72. Tillotson was said to have tried to persuade Halifax to support exclusion, and following Charles II’s answer of 4 Jan. 1681 to the address of the Commons, explaining that he could never accept it, Tillotson refused to sign the address of the London clergy in the king’s support. Life of Tillotson, 78.

On 5 Jan. 1681 Tillotson observed to his friend, the philanthropist and eventual non-juror Robert Nelson that the Commons would ‘give anything for [exclusion], and his majesty anything but that’. Add. 4236, f. 225. Following the dissolution on 18 Jan. and the summons of a new Parliament to meet at Oxford on 21 Mar., he wrote to Halifax on 19 Feb. that the elections in and around London were returning ‘generally… the same members that served in the last Parliament’ who would ‘probably bring the same minds to Oxford which they had at Westminster’ resulting in continued stalemate on the exclusion issue. Add. 75366, Tillotson to Halifax, 19 Feb. 1681. A further letter to Nelson of 7 March described his relief at seeing parliamentary elections secured ‘almost without any drinking or expense’ and confirmed that ‘generally the same persons are chosen again’. He still hoped for measures to either tolerate or incorporate nonconformists, but had ‘no great hopes of any good issue of this [matter] till the minds of men become more calm.’ Add. 4236, f. 227.

After the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament in March 1681, Tillotson contacted Halifax to say their ‘friends’ felt ‘very warm… and not a little dissatisfied’ with Halifax for voting against the proposed impeachment of the Catholic conspirator Edward Fitzharris. HP Commons 1660-1690, iii. 367. Tillotson fretted that the failure of the exclusion bill and the peremptory dissolution of Parliament now exposed the country ‘to that danger which ought some way or other to have been provided against’. Add. 75366, Tillotson to Halifax, 3 May 1681. In October 1681 Tillotson was pressed by William Wentworth, 2nd earl of Strafford, to join with ‘the ablest of our Church’ to reconvert James Stuart, duke of York before the expected autumn Parliament assembled; Strafford sent a copy of the correspondence to Halifax. Add. 75361, Strafford to Halifax, 15 Oct. 1681.

During that autumn, Tillotson’s reputation prompted moves to procure for him an Irish bishopric. In October, James Butler, duke of Ormond, wrote to his son Richard Butler, earl of Arran [I] and Baron Butler, to suggest that he try to persuade Tillotson to accept the see of Derry (though he was keen to do so discreetly, to avoid upsetting the Irish clergy). Though not personally acquainted with him, Ormond had read ‘all I could get of his preaching and writing’. He expected Tillotson to approve of the see’s annual income of £1,800. HMC Ormonde n.s. vi. 181, 185-6, 205, 207, 227, 228; Bodl. Carte 219, f. 296, Carte 118, f. 336. Sir Leoline Jenkins^‡ informed Tillotson on 26 Nov. that Ormond had requested Tillotson’s appointment to the bishopric of Meath be proposed to the king; but Jenkins expressed his reservations to Tillotson, wishing him well but giving a strong hint that it would be better for the Irish Church if he did not take it, ‘your concern being (strictly speaking) but temporal and transient, that of the Church directly regarding the other world’. CSP Dom. 1680-1, p. 589. The king approved Tillotson’s elevation to Meath, but Tillotson declined on the grounds of advancing age, telling Jenkins of his ‘unpleasant and disagreeable thought of transplanting myself into another country and beginning the world again when I feel myself going out of it.’ HMC Ormonde n.s. vi. 234, 238, 243, 245. On 13 Dec. Ormond expressed his disappointment with Tillotson: he had thought to promise him ‘a settled and easy station’ in Ireland. CSP Dom. 1680-1, p. 614.

Tory Reaction to Revolution, 1682-9

According to Beardmore, Tillotson spent the six years before the Revolution living in his new home in Edmonton, still preaching in London with ‘his usual freedom, or rather with greater zeal and fervency, to confirm his auditors against Popery.’ Life of Tillotson, 394. In 1682 he was one of the signatories to the letter circulated to raise money for the publication of the bible in Welsh, with Stillingfleet, William Beaw, bishop of Llandaff, and Jenkins, and with them was a trustee of the project. Boyle Corresp. v. 357-8. On 20 Aug. 1682 he wrote to Lady Henrietta Berkeley in an attempt to dissuade her against the ‘bad course’ of her affair with Ford Grey, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke. On 24 Feb. 1683 he wrote a letter of recommendation for her brother, George Berkeley, the son of George Berkeley, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, who had lived with Tillotson ‘for some considerable time’. Add. 4236, f. 238; Tanner 35, f. 205. He was one of the delegates in the case of Emerton and Mrs Hyde, voting for Emerton’s marriage on 31 Oct. 1682. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 233-4. In January 1683 it was rumoured that he (among unnamed others) had been expelled from their royal chaplaincies and the list of Lent preachers, or that he and others including Henry Compton, bishop of London, Stillingfleet, Burnet and John Sharp, later archbishop of York, would be ‘suspended’ for ‘not being so violent against the Dissenters as other were’. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 340; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i.246. In February, he was said in a report to Sir Leoline Jenkins to have preached that English ‘religion and liberty in all human probability’ would not outlive the king, which was construed as a ‘reflection’ on the duke of York. CSP Dom. Jan.-June 1683, p. 40.

Tillotson appeared at the trial of Lord William Russell^‡ as a character witness. An Impartial and Full Account of the Life & Death of the Late Unhappy William Lord Russell (1684), 77. On 20 July 1683 Tillotson wrote a letter (a copy of which he left with Halifax) urging Russell’s repentance since the Christian religion forbad resistance to authority. Eg. 3876, ff. 207-8. He accompanied Russell to the scaffold. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/4, p. 264; Burnet, ii. 371-8. On the day after the execution, Tillotson appeared before the Privy Council (including the king, the duke of York and Halifax) where he denied any involvement in writing Russell’s controversial scaffold speech. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/4, p. 265; CSP Dom. July-Sept. 1683, pp. 181, 187; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 270. He argued that Russell kept company with James Scott, duke of Monmouth, only to prevent the latter being misled by Anthony Ashley Cooper* , earl of Shaftesbury; the king commended his letter to Russell, which was passed from Halifax to the king and then to Roger L’Estrange^‡ for publication. Life of Tillotson, 112; CSP Dom. July-Sept. 1683, p. 197. He was later said to have influenced Halifax’s attempt to obstruct George Hickes’ promotion to the deanery of Worcester in October 1683, though it was apparently swept aside by the king and Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon. Bodl. ms Eng. Misc. e. 4. ff. 19-20. Tillotson’s conduct in 1683 suggested to Sir Thomas Stringer^‡ that he must be seeking to ingratiate himself with opponents of the Protestant interest; Life of Tillotson, 102-4; PRO 30/24/6B/408. Lawrence Womock, in a pamphlet of late 1683 suggested that this ‘greatest trimmer’, ‘born of anabaptistical parents’ and not even properly baptized, had achieved such authority that he felt no compunction at vindicating ‘every traitor’. CSP Dom. July-Sept. 1683, p. 440; Some Select Queries Humbly Offered to the Consideration of the D-n of C-t-b-y (1683).

The reign of James II began inauspiciously for Tillotson when the draft loyal address from the clergy of Canterbury in March 1685 named only the vice-dean and prebendaries, which ‘may possibly give some occasion to suspect it was done in opposition to our dean.’ ^{Tanner 33, f. 243.} On 5 Nov. he met with about 20 of his fellow London clergy (including Stillingfleet, John Sharp, Thomas Tenison, who would succeed him at Canterbury, and Simon Patrick) who ‘hoped sincerely… to continue Protestant’ in writing to the archbishop of York and the bishops of London and Oxford urging their attendance at the session of parliament. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 51-2. On 21 Nov. 1685, Tillotson informed Lady Russell that Parliament had been prorogued until the following February, which he found ‘surprising’. Letters of Lady Rachel Russell (1773), 50-51.

In September 1686, Tillotson and his fellow canon residentiaries at St Paul’s with their dean Stillingfleet received at St Paul’s the order of the Lords Commissioners suspending Compton as bishop of London and were instructed to display the order on the cathedral door. Tillotson was reportedly the most reluctant of the chapter to comply, ‘but the rest would have carried it against him if he had persisted in his opposition to it.’ Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 255. Three months later, when James II forced Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, to attend a public debate about the merits of the Catholic Church with his priests, he refused to accept Rochester’s nominees, Tillotson and Stillingfleet on the grounds that they had deliberately misrepresented his faith. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 326; Burnet, iii. 116. In January 1687 Roger Morrice wondered whether Tillotson and Stillingfleet would resign from the chapter if Compton were actually deprived and they were forced to elect a replacement. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 339. That year, Tillotson’s previously unpublished sermons were published. Tillotson, The Indispensable Necessity of the Knowledge of the Holy Scripture (1687); Tillotson, Sermons and Discourses (1687). On 10 Apr. he preached at the king’s chapel against conversion to the king’s faith, by analogy with Moses at the Egyptian court, praising those ‘who in this hour of temptation stick… close to the Church of England [and] choose rather to be God’s favourites than the king’s’. Cartwright, Diary, 44; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 14 In July Roger Morrice recorded an allegation that Tillotson had circulated information that the king was paying £8,000 to nonconformists (£2,000 in one payment alone to Henry Hurst, an ejected minister) who had addressed thanks to the king for his first Declaration of Indulgence. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 70. Tillotson’s reply, if any, was not recorded by Morrice; but the incident may have had some bearing on the insinuations about the bribing of dissenting ministers made by Halifax in A Letter to a Dissenter, probably written the following month. Halifax, Works, ed. M.N. Brown, i.79-80.

On 13 May 1688, Tillotson consulted with Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, about a coordinated response to the second Declaration of Indulgence, and attended the meeting of clergymen who were ‘all for refusal’. Tanner 28, f. 38; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 260-1. He agreed ‘vigorously’ with Edward Fowler, later bishop of Gloucester, who produced testimony from Dissenters who denied that they supported the Declaration. Add. 34515, f. 65. In his Sunday sermon on 17 June he gave thanks for the birth of the prince of Wales, but praised the princesses Mary and Anne ‘who did both steadily profess and sincerely practice the true religion’, and referred to the king’s promise to defend the Church. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 285. In late summer 1688 Tillotson visited Princess Anne at Tunbridge Wells, where on 2 Sept. he preached on the parable of the ten virgins, emphasizing the folly of being unprepared at the required moment. Tillotson, The Parable of the Ten Virgins (1694). He returned to Edmonton from Canterbury at the end of September, but told one correspondent that given fears of an invasion, he was considering moving his family back to Canterbury. Add. 4292, f. 150. Birch knew the anecdote that Tillotson drew up the letter sent by George, prince of Denmark, the future duke of Cumberland to announce his defection to James II on 24 Nov. 1688, and argued for its veracity on stylistic grounds. Life of Tillotson, 131-2. According to Burnet, Nottingham claimed that both Tillotson and Stillingfleet dissuaded him from taking up arms against James II, although both clerics later denied his version of the conversation. Burnet, iii. 266.

After the Revolution

On 14 Jan. 1689 Tillotson joined Lloyd of St Asaph, Patrick, John Sharp and Thomas Tenison at Stillingfleet’s house in London to draw up the heads of a comprehension bill. On the day of thanksgiving for ‘deliverance… from popery and arbitrary power’ on 31 Jan., Tillotson preached at Lincoln’s Inn chapel, recommending that Protestants show clemency towards their former persecutors and not to ‘imitate those patterns, which with so much reason we abhor’. Life of Tillotson, 133-4; Tillotson, A Sermon Preach’d at Lincolns-Inn-Chappel (1689). At the prompting of Sarah, Lady Churchill, he visited Princess Anne and persuaded her not to oppose the granting of the crown to William III for life should he survive Mary II. An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough (1742), 22-3.

On 25 Mar. 1689, Tillotson was ordered to attend the House of Lords in his capacity as a trustee under the will of James Cecil, 3rd earl of Salisbury, following the petition of the countess of Burlington as guardian of the 4th earl’s younger (Protestant) brothers. Salisbury had removed his brothers from school at Eton the previous year and sent them to France. TNA, PROB 11/380 (James Cecil, 3rd earl of Salisbury); C 10/147/23. Tillotson’s proximity to the new settlement was shown in the published letter by John Sheffield, 3rd earl of Mulgrave, written to explain his action in having joined James II’s ecclesiastical commission. Dated 27 Mar., the letter was addressed to Tillotson, and referred to the latter’s efforts on his behalf. A True Copy of a Letter from the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Mulgrave (1689); Life of Tillotson, 135-6. In April 1689, Tillotson replaced Nathaniel Crew, of Durham, as clerk of the closet, giving him influence over royal patronage of the clergy. CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 68. Following the failure of the comprehension bill to be read in the Commons in April, despite passing the Lords, Tillotson recommended to William that a commission of the clergy be appointed to recommend a measure of ecclesiastical reform which would then be passed by Convocation, evading accusations that the Church was being reformed by secular authority. Life of Tillotson, 165-6. When on 16 Aug., the Commons gave the third reading to the bill to secure the government against ‘papists and disaffected persons’, a rider to the bill was added, directing profits from the 4th earl of Salisbury’s estates to Tillotson and John Fisher of the Middle Temple as trustees for the 3rd earl’s younger children, but the bill was lost at the prorogation shortly afterwards. CJ, x. 266-7; HMC 12th Rep. App. pt. vi. 267. Tillotson endured ‘ten weeks attendance’ on the king and queen at Hampton Court from July to September 1689. Life of Tillotson, 203. In August, metropolitan jurisdiction was granted temporarily to the dean and chapter of Canterbury; Tillotson then issued a mandate to Compton and to Lloyd of St Asaph authorizing them to perform the consecrations of bishops in the province. Canterbury Cathedral Archives, CCA-DCc-ChAnt/S/436. As clerk of the closet he already had a share in ecclesiastical appointments, but he met with considerable resistance from a number of clergy who refused to succeed soon-to-be-deprived non-jurors. In vain he pressed the see of Norwich on his friend Sharp and his relationship with William Wake, later successively bishop of Lincoln and archbishop of Canterbury, suffered for the same reason. Life of Tillotson, 253; N. Sykes, William Wake, i. 51-2. On 13 Sept. 1689 Tillotson sent Portland a summary of proposals including the reformation of the church canons and ecclesiastical courts, replacement of subscription to the 39 articles with a general declaration, and a compromise form of episcopal ordination for Presbyterian ministers. Add. 4236, ff. 317-18; LPL, ms 1743, ff. 111-18, 151-3. Having kissed hands on or before 19 Sep., on 23 Sep. Tillotson was appointed dean of St Paul’s to replace the newly elevated Stillingfleet. Life of Tillotson 205; Evelyn Diary, iv. 649; Fasti 1541-1857, i. 5-7; CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 270. He was installed in November 1689 at St Paul’s, and Sharp succeeded him as dean of Canterbury.

Reviewing the ecclesiastical appointments made by William III in summer 1689, Tillotson thought them ‘as well as could be expected in the midst of the powerful importunities of so many great men in whom I discern too much of court art and contrivance for the preferment of their friends, yea even in my good Lord Nottingham more than I could wish.’ When Tillotson kissed hands for the deanery of St Paul’s in September, the king ‘spoke plainly about a great place, which I dread to think of’. Tillotson’s advancement was the suggestion of Burnet, ‘one of the worst and best friends I know: best for his singular good opinion of me and the worst for directing the king in this method’. Tillotson had not intended ‘running away from a bishopric to catch an archbishopric. This fine device hath thrown me so far into the briars, that without his majesty’s great goodness, I shall never get off without a scratched face.’ William pressed him further on the subject in the following days, Tillotson still resisting, but king and dean ‘parted upon good terms.’ Add. 4236, f. 295.

Postponing contemplation of his accepting the primacy, Tillotson concentrated on the ecclesiastical commission and on the reform of the liturgy and canons. The commission opened in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey on 10 Oct. 1689. Clarke and Foxcroft, Life of Burnet, 276. Its recommendations were passed to Convocation, where comprehension was fatally damaged. Tillotson’s appointment as dean of St Paul’s may have been intended to secure him the preeminent place in Convocation as prolocutor of the lower house, which he claimed by virtue of his office, but instead the lower house elected William Jane, with Compton’s support. T. Long, Vox cleri (1690), 23-4. Sharp had proposed Tillotson but he was defeated by 20 votes. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 264; Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 17, f. 206. One Presbyterian relayed dismay: Tillotson, ‘their man’, would have ‘granted… all we could have wished for, both in the alteration of the liturgies, prayers, ceremonies and all’. CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 325. On 11 Dec. Tillotson was forced to leave a meeting with the committee of the lower house of Convocation on the address thanking William III for preserving the protestant religion, after a particularly protracted dispute in which he was ‘baited… like a bear’. Tillotson was assured by a colleague that, it was ‘in vain… to court the Tory clergy’ to make concessions since they were convinced of his dishonesty. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 302-3. After Tillotson and Richard Kidder, later bishop of Bath and Wells, became embroiled in a dispute with George Hooper, later successively bishop of St Asaph and Bath and Wells, over the lower house’s replacement of the bishops’ address to the king with their own, William prorogued Convocation in disgust. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 309-10; Long, Vox Cleri, 59-61;. In the autumn, Tillotson’s 1683 letter to Russell was resurrected by the Tories in hope of causing him embarrassment. On 15 Nov. 1689 the Lords’ committee to take evidence concerning the executions of Russell, Algernon Sydney^‡, Sir Thomas Armstrong^‡ and Cornish and other government actions in the 1680s examined Tillotson on oath for three hours about his behaviour at the time of Russell’s death. Tillotson denied that he had approved the publication of his letter to Lord Russell, which had been much against his will: he had shown it to Halifax, who had used it in an attempt to persuade the king to save Russell’s life. A copy had been subsequently shown to him by Roger L’Estrange, from which it had been published. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/4, pp. 262-9; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 260-1.

Archbishop of Canterbury

Tillotson delivered the martyrdom sermon on 30 Jan. 1690 and a fast sermon on 16 Apr., both before the Commons. CJ, x. 338-9, 374, 380-1; CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 427; J. Tillotson, A Sermon Preach’d before the House of Commons (1690). On 7 Mar., he caused uproar with a sermon before the queen that diminished the concept of a tormenting eternal hell. It was argued by his political opponents that he was consoling the queen in her dread of eternal damnation for having usurped her father’s throne. Life of Tillotson, 216. When Shrewsbury attempted to resign on 28 Apr. it was Tillotson who was sent on an unsuccessful errand to persuade him to retain office. Burnet, iv. 80. On 18 June Tillotson preached a fast sermon at St Mary-le-Bow, insisting that though England had been favoured, only moral reformation and the destruction of her Catholic enemies would guarantee the future. J. Tillotson, A Sermon Preach’d at St Mary le Bow (1690). On the same day, he was heard by John Evelyn discussing the plight of the protestants of the Vaudois with Stillingfleet, Tenison and Lloyd of St Asaph. Evelyn Diary, v. 25. On 5 Oct. William III renewed his offer of the archbishopric of Canterbury. Tillotson warned the king that he would face opposition: ‘all the storm which was raised in Convocation the last year was upon my account, and… the bishop of L[ondon] was at the bottom of it out of a jealousy, that I might be a hindrance to him in attaining what he desires’. Lady Russell advised him to ‘put anew in practice that submission, you have so powerfully both tried yourself, and instructed others to; I see no place to escape at; you must take up the cross and bear it.’ Letters of Lady Rachel Russell, 213, 246. On 18 Oct. Tillotson finally acceded to William’s wishes; the king suggested that an announcement be delayed until Parliament had risen, and Tillotson asked that it be preceded by a declaration in council that the places of the deprived bishops were to be disposed of, so Tillotson would not appear ‘a wedge to drive out the present archbishop’. Add. 4236, ff. 307-11. The news stayed within a closed circle: the following spring, Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, still considered Compton and Stillingfleet to be in the running as well as Tillotson. Add. 70015, f. 55. In November Tillotson was named as a commissioner to settle the church in Ireland. CSP Dom. 1690-1, p. 158; Add. 61830, f. 35; Add. 4236, f. 257. That autumn, Carmarthen noted that Tillotson should be asked to reprimand his son-in-law James Chadwick^‡ over his vote in the Convention for the disabling clause, ‘for he gives a very bad example’. CSP Dom. 1690-1, p. 211. On 20 Nov. Tillotson was again summoned by the Lords to be a sworn witness on behalf of Robert Cecil^‡ in the dispute between Cecil and his brother Salisbury involving the latter’s attempt to resume his privilege (previously waived) in the brothers’ chancery case.

The royal warrant for Tillotson’s election as archbishop of Canterbury was finally issued on 22 Apr. 1691. CSP Dom. 1690-1, p. 342. Tillotson was determined to secure the archbishopric of York for his friend John Sharp, but Sharp had aroused the king’s antipathy by turning down Norwich among other sees on the grounds that he would not directly replace deprived non-juring friends. Life of Tillotson, 253. On 24 Apr., Sharp and Tillotson met to finalize a plan to overcome the king’s objections. Sharp would inform Nottingham of his agreement to fill the archdiocese of York following Lamplugh’s imminent death, and (if Nottingham approved) Tillotson would broach this with the king. Life of Tillotson, 253-4. On 12 May the non-juror Henry Dodwell wrote to him to urge him not to be ‘the aggressor in the new designed schism, in erecting another altar against the hitherto acknowledged altar of your deprived fathers and brethren’; Tillotson’s elevation, Dodwell claimed, would fatally undermine the independence of the Church and confirm for posterity its subordination to temporal authority. Life of Tillotson, 246. Nevertheless, the royal assent on 21 May was followed a week later by Tillotson’s formal confirmation at St Mary-le-Bow. CSP Dom. 1690-1, p. 384; LPL, ms 941, f. 120, Reg. Tillotson, ff. 1-9. On Whit Sunday, 31 May, Tillotson was consecrated before an audience that consisted of ‘all the great officers of state, and most of the nobility in town’ including Carmarthen, Nottingham, William Russell, 5th earl, later duke, of Bedford and Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk. HMC Finch, iii. 69. Sancroft pointedly celebrated communion to a congregation of 60 in a rival service at Lambeth. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 238; HMC, Finch iii. 69. Tillotson bore the brunt of hostility to the new bishops; Harley commented that ‘the rage is as high and gall overflowing’ as if Richard Baxter had been made archbishop. Sancroft had no intention of moving his family out of Lambeth and made it clear that he would not go quietly. Add. 70015, f. 96; HMC Finch, iii. 64. Tillotson issued a subpoena to his predecessor to answer a charge of appropriating diocesan revenue. Tanner 26, f. 54. Nottingham recorded on 5 June that the attorney-general, Sir George Treby^‡, had already prepared the case for determination. HMC Finch, iii. 99. Sancroft was finally ejected at the end of June by the sheriff. The new archbishop forbade the prosecution for libel of those arrested for writing against his appointment, against the wishes of Treby and solicitor-general Sir John Somers, later Baron Somers. Evelyn Diary, v. 59; Letters of Lady Rachel Russell, 266. Tillotson recognized that he faced a ‘miserably distracted and divided Church and nation’. Add. 4236, ff. 313-14. In September, the outlawed non-juror George Hickes alleged that Tillotson was engaged in a new comprehension project in preparation for the autumn parliamentary session. Bodl. Ballard 12, f. 70. However, Tillotson had recently acknowledged to an academic contact in Leiden that comprehension should not ‘be attempted for the present; but that we ought to wait while the times grow more disposed to a peace’. Life of Tillotson, 233-4. Tillotson preached before the queen at the monthly fast on 16 September. Tillotson, A Sermon Preached before the Queen (1691).

Having been involved in high politics and with parliamentary business for nearly three decades, Tillotson finally received his writ of summons to the House of Lords on 5 Oct. 1691. PA, HL/PO/JO/19/1/327. He took his seat there, along with Sharp, the same day, when the House met to prorogue. He attended on the first day of each of four sessions held between his elevation and his death in 1694; for the first three sessions he sat between 60 and 70 per cent of sittings. On 22 Oct. 1691, Tillotson was present on the first day of the session. He attended more than 69 per cent of sittings; he was named to the committee for privileges and to 13 select committees, including that on the address to the king, from which he reported on the first day of the session. On 27 Oct. he reported from the committee on the address to the queen. On 1 Dec. he was named as one of the reporters of the conference with the Commons on the oaths in Ireland bill; and on 11 Dec. he was named to the committee on the bill for securing the portions, debts and legacies on the estate of the late earl of Salisbury, a matter within which he had a prior interest as a trustee of the earl’s legacy to his younger sons. Dining with the new archbishop on 28 Dec. 1691, the diarist John Evelyn found Tillotson ‘far politer than the old man’. Evelyn Diary, v. 80. Tillotson received the proxy of Nicholas Stratford, bishop of Chester, on 18 Jan. 1692, possibly in anticipation of the Lords’ consideration of the divorce bill for the duke of Norfolk.

Tillotson’s attention in the early part of 1692 was concentrated on the reform of the Church. Life of Tillotson, 264-8. Tillotson and Mary II encouraged Burnet to write his Discourse of the pastoral care, licensed by Tillotson in May.Add. 4236, ff. 252-3; Life of Tillotson, 267. Having made preparations for a liturgy to be used on the fast day set for 8 Apr. (a date which proved difficult to fix), Tillotson convened a meeting of eight bishops to discuss a new circular letter on 11 Apr.: the meeting proved unexpectedly harmonious, ‘none more cheerfully concurring in everything’ than Tillotson’s old antagonist Compton, and ended with a dinner held ‘with great kindness’. Add. 4236, f. 253.

That month it was reported that Tillotson and Burnet had been named in a printed list issued by James II excluding them from any future pardon should the former king be restored. Verney, ms mic. M636/45, J. to Sir R. Verney, 4 May 1692. While the defeat of the French fleet at La Hogue on 19 May made James’s immediate return by force of arms unlikely, William III’s success in Flanders was not certain: in the early hours of 7 June, Tillotson lay awake ‘in great perplexity for the King’ and calmed himself by making eight resolutions including, ‘not to trouble the queen any more with my troubles’ and to keep confidential his conversations with the king and queen. In the same month he noted in a memorandum that William and Mary were ‘two angels, in human shape, sent down to us to pluck a whole nation out of Sodom’. Add. 4236, ff. 316-17. In July he seemed overwhelmed to be chosen by the queen to be a godparent, alongside herself, to the son of Charles Powlett, 6th marquess of Winchester, remarking to Lady Russell that he hoped that once William III had returned safely from war the king and queen might at last be parents and (alluding to the canard repeated by Hickes and others that he had been born to an Anabaptist family) that ‘I, who am said not to have been baptized myself, may have the honour to baptize a prince of Wales.’ Life of Tillotson, 272-3. In September he gave preliminary judgment in favour of Jonas Proast, a Tory Anglican opponent of the Toleration Act who had been dismissed as chaplain to All Souls, Oxford on an unrelated matter. Tillotson was accused of being ‘dilatory’ in managing the case as Proast was an opponent of his friend John Locke. Hearne, Remarks and Collections, i. 97. On 27 Oct., Burnet having declined to do so, Tillotson preached the thanksgiving sermon following a season of victories and the frustration of Grandval’s assassination plot, arguing for the Revolution ‘as the cause of true religion against a false and idolatrous worship, and of the liberties of mankind against tyranny and oppression’. Tillotson, A Sermon Preached before the King and Queen at White-hall (London, 1692); Life of Tillotson, 279. On 4 Nov. 1692, Tillotson was again present for the first day of the new parliamentary session and was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. He attended 70 per cent of sittings and was named to eight select committees. On 3 Jan. 1693, he voted with the court against the place bill and on 25 Jan. 1693, he voted to commit the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons. On the last day of the session (14 Mar. 1693), Tillotson attended for the king’s veto of two bills deemed impediments to the royal prerogative: the royal mines bill and the bill for the frequent meeting of Parliaments. Tillotson expressed some discomfort with William’s use of the veto to Stillingfleet, writing that it was a ‘great matter of joy to his greatest enemies and much resented by many of his true friends’. DWL, ms 201.39, p. 29.

Closely interested in the religious affairs of Scotland and Ireland, Tillotson was concerned about a number of moral horror stories from within the Irish army, and served as the main channel of communication between the Irish episcopate and the crown in the preparation of injunctions and draft bills to introduce to the Irish parliament. UNL, Pw A 2373, 2690. One Scottish observer remarked that ‘nothing was done in there [in Scotland] in the change of ecclesiastical government but by Dr Tillotson’s advice’. LPL, ms 933, f. 73. On 1 Aug. 1693, Tillotson informed Portland (who managed Scottish affairs) of his concern about the draft Scottish comprehension bill shown to him by John Dalrymple, master (later viscount and earl) of Stair [S], which forced Scottish Episcopalians to own Presbyterian government ‘as the only government’; the king, he claimed, would not accept the bill as it was one not of comprehension but of exclusion. Add. 4236, ff. 318-9; UNL, ms PwA/2445. Tillotson seconded Burnet’s attempts under directions from the queen to obtain an act whereby the Scots clergy might keep their livings without having to abjure episcopacy. UNL, Pw A 1403.

Constant abuse took its toll on Tillotson’s spirits. On 9 Sept. 1693, he complained to William Lloyd that the ‘Jacobites of the Church of England for lying and calumny have outdone… even the Jesuits’. Glos. Archives, D3549/2/2/1, no. 159. A month later, he confessed to Lady Russell that he was at his ‘wit’s end concerning the public’, disillusioned ‘that the upper end of the world was so hollow’, and saddened that he could no longer make new friends: he could have no certainty whether they were genuine or merely hanging onto his coat-tails. Add. 4236, f. 303. On 26 Oct. 1693, in advance of the new parliamentary session, Tillotson secured the queen’s permission for Lloyd’s absence, but informed Lloyd that he would still need to obtain the leave of the House. He worried to Lloyd that the mismanagement of naval forces and consequent loss of the Turkey fleet in the summer had ‘caused so universal a discontent as I fear will not easily be allayed’. Glos. Archives, D3549/2/2/1, no. 160. Present at the House on 7 Nov. 1693 for the first day of business, Tillotson was again named to the committee for privileges. He attended 61 per cent of sittings that session and was named to 10 select committees. On 23 Feb. 1694, Tillotson intervened in the dispute between the king and Irish landlords over forfeited impropriations belonging to Catholic estates. LPL, ms 929, f. 62. On 16 Apr. he managed a conference on Sharp’s small tithes bill, reporting on 18 April. The life of John Sharp, DD, ed. Newcome, i. 285. The lengthy debate on the tonnage bill on 23 Apr. placed him in opposition to the 12 other bishops in the House that day; he voted for the bill, and thus both for the establishment of the Bank of England and in practical terms for the guarantee of supply to allow the departure of the fleet. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 298-9.

Following a petition from Robert Lucy, chancellor of St Davids, Tillotson appointed three commissioners to conduct a metropolitan visitation and suspended Thomas Watson, bishop of St Davids, on 21 Aug. 1694. TNA, C 5/253/31; LPL, VX 1B 2g/2, box. 3, Peirson, 13 Aug. 1694, Watson, 16 July 1694; Add. 46555, f. 6. Wary of antagonizing fellow churchmen, even on matters of pastoral care, in September he proposed that a measure intended to oblige clergy to spend more time residing in their parishes should be introduced not simply by episcopal initiative, but by royal letters containing injunctions to the archbishops, claiming that it would assure the nation that the king and queen were sincerely attached to the established Church and its welfare. Add. 4236, ff. 257-8, 259, 261; LPL, ms 933, f. 15. In October he corresponded with John Hough, bishop of Oxford about a living of which Sir Gervase Clifton, a Catholic recusant, was patron. Add. 4274, f. 204. On 25 Oct. and 6 Nov. Tillotson attended the House for the formal announcements of a further prorogation. On 8 Nov. he told Sharp that his absence from Westminster in the coming session would not be ‘well taken’. Add. 4274, f. 70. On 12 Nov., Tillotson was, as usual, in the House for the first day of parliamentary business, but it was his last ever attendance; 10 days later he was dead. In 1688, Tillotson had already ‘been warned of mortality by a near apoplexy’. Add. 4236, f. 289. On 18 Nov. 1694, during Sunday worship at the chapel royal, Whitehall, he suffered ‘a kind of apoplexy and with it a dead palsy which… seized one side of him all along’. Verney, ms mic. M636/48, J. to Sir R. Verney, 21 Nov. 1694; Add. 17677 OO, f. 393; Add. 63057 B, f. 162; Evelyn Diary, v. 195-6. The ‘apoplectic symptoms… were obstinate against all endeavours that could be used’ and he died on 22 Nov. in the arms of his friend Robert Nelson. Bodl. Rawl. Letters 91 fo. 263; Life of Tillotson, 315. L’Hermitage considered that Tillotson would be greatly missed by all English protestants since he was a ‘moderate spirit and upholder of union’. Add. 17677 00, f. 393. Locke claimed that he had lost the only person to whom he could ‘freely consult about theological uncertainties’. Locke, Corresp. v. 238; Life of Tillotson, 344. Burnet wrote that the king and the queen were ‘much affected’ by his death, and the queen could not speak of him without tears . Burnet, iv. 237.

The short space of time between Tillotson’s consecration and his death seems to have made Tillotson an exemplar of the extreme burden of the office, but as William Wake was assured in 1715, ‘the reason was because he came unprepared by any previous experience of much business. He made too great a step at once from a deanery to an archbishopric’. Christ Church Lib. Oxf. Wake mss 23, f. 274. The costs of refurbishing Lambeth (which left his son-in-law in financial difficulty) and a lack of inherited wealth meant that the king had to forgive his unpaid first fruits. Burnet, iv. 237. As William III had promised, Tillotson’s widow was granted an annuity of £400 in May 1695, increased by a further £200 in 1698. Add. 61603, f. 60; Add. 70318, Burchett to the queen, 18 Apr. 1713; CJ, xii. 598-602. Tillotson’s collection of pamphlets, acquired by Edward Maynard (later canon of Lichfield), was presented to Magdalen College, Oxford and the copyright of his manuscript sermons sold for £2,500 after his death. LPL, ms 1741, f. 116; Life of Tillotson 345. One courtier laid a wager that Tillotson would be replaced by Simon Patrick, and a rumour also circulated of Burnet’s appointment; but within two weeks of his death, Thomas Tenison was named as his successor. Bodl. Rawl. Letters 91, f. 263; Verney ms mic. M636/48, J. to R. Verney, 28 Nov. 1694; CSP Dom. 1694-5, p. 350. Tillotson was buried on 30 Nov. 1694 in his former church of St Lawrence Jewry.