William Alexander 1824-1911 Bishop of Derry and Raphoe 1867-1896

William Alexander was born in Londonderry on the 13th April 1824. He was the son of Robert Alexander, Rector of Aghadowey and Dorothea, daughter of Henry McClintock of Ballyarton, Co. Donegal. Educated at Tonbridge School, Kent, Alexander won an exhibition to Exeter College, Oxford, but later migrated to Brasenose, where he graduated B.A. 1847. At college he seems to have been somewhat a spendthrift and consequently fell heavily into debt. Fortuitously, he was bailed out by his parents, but promised nevertheless to repay them when he received an income (the loan was repaid shortly before he became Bishop). During his time at college it was the profound influence of the "Oxford Movement" and in particular John Henry Newman's sermons which affected young Alexander deeply. After Newman's conversion to Rome, the young student himself contemplated following his example. He took his name of the college books, wrote to his mother stating his intention of converting and then left Oxford. But questions began to arise on his journey home. Along the way Alexander seems to have been touched by the calming influence of a Quakeress. This combined with a torturous night of soul searching in a cheap hotel in Birmingham, appears to have finally resolved the doubts that were present in the mind of the future Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. Many years later he would reflect on this spiritual evolution.

"At first I was carried away by the sheer aesthetic pleasure; later, at a great crisis, I was shown by those (Newman's) sermons the hidden things of my own soul; but later again, when the ignorant undergraduate had learned to read and think, he found many drawbacks in his paragon of other years. I owe him, no less, a deep debt of gratitude for an awakening of the soul, although I came to see that he had no profound exegesis, for he was not a profound scholar"

Will be updated at a later date. +Frederick, Derry. 

Thomas Rundle 1688-1743 : Bishop of Derry 1735-43

Thomas Rundle, the son of a clergyman, was born at Milton Abbot, near Tavistock, Devonshire 1688. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford and graduated B.C.L. in 1710. In 1712 Rundle became acquainted with William Whiston whose unorthodox (Arian) religious views had led to his banishment from Cambridge University where he had been professor. Nevertheless, Rundle himself became momentarily a "hearty and zealous member" of Whiston's "Society for Promoting Primitive Christianity" 

William Whiston 1667-1752

By 1717, however, his interest in this "temperate and abstemious a way of living" had waned and Rundle was now intent on taking Holy Orders. It drew a resentful response from Whiston: "you are going to leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness, and I will have nothing more to do with you".

During his Oxford days, Rundle had become good friends with Edward Talbot, second son of Dr. William Talbot, then Bishop of Salisbury. The association proved fruitful and resulted in the bishop's patronage of the young cleric: Chaplain to Bishop Talbot, 1716;

The Right Reverend. Dr. William Talbot, Bishop of Oxford 1699-1715, Bishop of Salisbury 1715-1722, Bishop of Durham 1722-1730. His Majesty's Lord Lieutenant, County Durham 1722-1730. 

Vicar of Inglesham, Wiltshire, 1719; Rector of Poulshot, Wiltshire, 1720; Archdeacon of Wilts, 1720.

After the death of Edward in 1720, and on being translated to Durham, Bishop Talbot continued to promote the interests of Rundle: Prebendary of Durham Cathedral: Vicar of Sedgefield, 1722; Resident Chaplain to the Bishop, 1724-1730; Master of Sherborn Hospital, Durham, 1728.

In 1733 the See of Gloucester became vacant and Rundle was nominated, after the death of Bishop Talbot in 1730, by Talbot's other son, Charles, Lord Chancellor.

Charles Talbot, 1st Baron Talbot PC (1685-1737) Lord Chancellor of Great Britain 1733-1737 

His nomination, however, was opposed by the then Bishop of London, Edmund Gibson, who ostensibly suspected Rundle, given his erstwhile association with Whiston, of heterodox opinions. Rundle, to defend himself, explained in a letter to a friend:

"I am an open and talkative man, and not one of my acquaintances ever suspected my disbelief in the Christian religion .... I do not doubt but the Bishop of London thinks me a very bad man, and thinks in opposing me, he doth God and the church good service; but it is not me, but the phantom represented to him under my name, that he so vehemently opposes .... I only complain that he prefers a little tattle hear-say character, from men that have no intimacy with me."

The impasse, after some debate between contending parties, seems to have been resolved by Gloucester going to Martin Benson (a friend of Rundle's) while Rundle himself was promoted to the richer benefice of Derry. The Bishop of London was probably satisfied with this compromise as Rundle's connection with the Lord Chancellor could not be overlooked. Derry, after all, was in a different sphere of influence to that of Gloucester and thus could be more easily ignored by English Churchmen. The rejection from an English bishopric and his promotion to an Irish one, however, naturally excited objections from within the Irish Church itself and in particular from the Primate, Hugh Boulter.

The Most Reverend Hugh Boulter, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland. (1672-1742)

  

The Very Reverend Jonathan Swift,  Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.  (1667-1745)

Yet ironically it was Jonathan Swift who came to the defence of Rundle by penning a few satirical verses which touched on the recent controversy:

Make Rundle Bishop! fie for shame!

An Arian to usurp the name!

A Bishop in the Isle of Saints!

How will his Brethren make complaints!

Dare any of the mitred host

Confer on him the Holy Ghost?

Rundle a Bishop! well he may,

He's still a Christian more than they;

We know the subject of their quarrels,

The man has learning, sense and morals,

Objections to Rundle's appointment gradually abated and over time the bishop became well liked by churchmen and the literary elite alike. Swift became greatly impressed by Rundle as a conversationalist and wit, remaking to Alexander Pope "he is indeed worth all the rest you ever sent us ... His only fault is that he drinks no wine, and I drink nothing else." This was praise indeed since Swift was a committed opponent of English appointees to Irish Church benefices. He had now made one exception.

Rundle, who resided chiefly in Dublin, became noted for his "repeated acts of public munificence and private generosity, which gradually endeared him to the people of Ireland." The building of an episcopal residence in Dublin, for example, while costing a considerable sum. gave much needed work to local tradesmen. There is evidence that, though he did not wish to leave the English Church, he was nonetheless to find comfort in his Irish surroundings:

"My situation in Ireland is as agreeable to me as any possibly could be, remote from the early friendship of my life ... At Dublin, I enjoy the most delightful habitation, the finest landscape, and the mildest climate, that can be described or desired. I have a house there rather too elegant and magnificent , in the north of an easy Diocese, and a large revenue. I have about thirty-five beneficed clergymen under my care, and they are all regular, decent and neighbourly; each hath considerable and commendable general learning, but no one is eminent for any particular branch of knowledge. And I have rather more Curates, who are allowed by their Rectors such a Stipend, as hath, alas! tempted most of them to marry, and it is not uncommon to have Curates that are fathers of eight or ten children, without anything but an allowance of £40 a year to support them."

Rundle, who never married, died in Dublin on the 14th April 1743 and left his fortune of £20,000 to John Talbot, second son of The Lord Chancellor. 

William King 1650-1729 : Bishop of Derry 1691-1703

William King was born in the town of Antrim on the 1st May 1650, the son of James King who migrated from Aberdeenshire to escape adhering to the Solemn League and Covenant in the period 1639-49. After a somewhat slow start his formal education began at the age of twelve when he attended a Latin school in Dungannon, County Tyrone (now known as the Royal School, Dungannon). At the age of sixteen he entered Trinity College, Dublin and, reflecting the poverty of his background, was admitted as a sizar (a student receiving an allowance from the college). Trinity, as King noted in his autobiography, was to have a powerful effect on him for it was here that the future Bishop of Derry began to receive serious religious instruction. In particular he singled out his tutor, John Christian, as having imparted unto him "a true sense of religion". This influence undoubtedly moulded King into following a career in the Church. He had been chosen to be a servant of Christ and was ordained Deacon by Bishop Robert Mossom of Derry 1671.

After failing to win a fellowship, King fortunately came to the attention of John Parker, Archbishop of Tuam. Under his patronage, the young cleric, after obtaining a prebend, became Provost of Tuam in October 1676. Although he later regretted neglecting his studies in this intellectual backwater., it was not long before he enjoyed a more favourable appointment. It was Parker's translation to the See of Dublin in 1678 that transformed King's career and introduced him to the centre of church government in Ireland. At Dublin, he collated the chancellorship of St. Patrick's with the annexed Parish of St. Werburgh's. It appears that shortly after becoming chancellor he became involved in a curious dispute with Dean Worth over the right of the Dean to visit independently of the chapter. In a controversy that smacks of a personality clash or a difference of opinion on church policy, King,

"Protested against the visitation of the Dean, and asserted that he had no right to hold any such, without the consent of the Chapter"

The Chancellor, however, was to loose in the judgement of the case (1681) and was punished by being required to build a number of stalls in the chapter house.

Controversy was a defining feature of King's career as he proved to be a staunch defender of the Church of Ireland against its critics. In 1687, for example, King was moved to attack the actions of another Dean. Peter Manby, formerly Dean of Derry, had converted to the Roman Church in 1686. In outlining his own decisions for the change, Manby published The Considerations which obliged Peter Manby to embrace the Catholic Religion. The former Dean argued that the Reformation had been imposed on the nation by a handful of people and singled out Archbishop Cranmer for particular criticism. His aim was to "show the unwarrantableness of all the changes that they (the Protestant Reformers) made in religion. This drew a reply from King in his Answer to the Considerations which, by contarst, argued that Manby's desertion was based on more ulterior motives. In King's opinion, his defection had been the result of his failure to procure a bishopric from the Primate. Given the pro-Catholic policies of James II and his Lord Deputy in Ireland, the Earl of Tyrconnell, Manby (so the argument went) had therby sought advancement in the Roman Tradition. In addition, King cited Manby's temporal interest in keeping the profits of the deanery after his desertion and furthermore, he collected the views of those who knew Manby:

"the most conclude, that it was little grain of worldly advantage that turned the scale for your new church" The debate continued and developed into an intense pamphlet war between the contending sides over a wide ranging topics such as the Reformation in England, defining the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and the validity of the Anglican order. As each side maintained its uncompromising position, the end result inevitably proved inconclusive. However the controversy was not solely confined to the two parties. The line of argument adopted by King was also to sour relations with the Presbyterian community, for, in defending his own faith, he was to exclude dissenters from the Catholic church.

The church which King defended did not only come under attack from an isolated and disaffected cleric. Shortly afterwards, the very political and religious settlement which King upheld was to be shaken to its foundations. The political upheavals of the 1680s placed the Church of Ireland in an unenviable position. Catholic resurgence under James II and the Earl of Tyrconnell, were clearly unwelcome by churchman and Protestant layman alike. To support the King and his policies meant the undermining of their own position yet to oppose him meant ignoring the 1660 Restoration Settlement of Divine Kingship with its doctrine of non-resistance. The dilemma of supporting King James was brought into sharper focus when, after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, he began his fight back in Ireland as the way to reclaim his throne. Undoubtley King shared the same moral apprehension as the rest of his co-religionists. Yet by mid 1689 he appears, after many anxious meditations, to have thrown in his lot with the House of Orange. King pointed to James' Patriot Parliament (the Roman Catholic Assembly which aimed to overturn Protestant hegemony in Ireland, May-July 1689) as the defining moment in transferring his allegiance  to William. In view of his previous support for the doctrine of non-resistance, King gave a scrupulously worded explanation:

"I doubted no longer but that it was lawful for me and others to accept that deliverance, which providence brought by the Prince of Orange, now the acknowledged King of England and Scotland, and to submit myself to him as King and liberator, epically since neither by action, nor writing had I contributed anything to depose King James, or to promote him, Prince of Orange to the crown"

During this turbulent period, King had assumed jurisdiction in the diocese of Dublin following the withdrawal of Archbishop Marsh in February 1688. A year later he became Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin (February 1689). His position as leader of the Protestant community in the capital led to his imprisonment at the hands of the Jacobites on two separate occasions. However, he used his incarceration to good effect as it was in prison where he pieced together his best-seller: The state of the Protestants of Ireland under the late King Jame's Government (published in 1691). Although giving a systematic account of the recent past its real purpose was to vindicate the transference of loyalty from James to William by Irish Protestants. The change of allegiance, King argued, was not an act of rebellion as the decision reached had been one based purely on self-preservation: "it is lawful for one Prince to interpose between another Prince and his subjects when he uses them cruelly, or endeavours to enslave or destroy them"

William's victory at the Battle of the Boyne put an end to King's suffering and, as Dean of St. Patrick's, he was given the opportunity to preach at the thanksgiving service 16th November 1690. Using as the text, Psalm 107.2. Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed, and Delivered from the hand of the enemy, the sermon suggested that a providential role had been played by Irish Protestants in the recent crisis similar in experience to the Israelites escaping from their Babylonian captivity. Thus a European conspiracy aimed at their destruction had been thwarted by the "over-ruling Providence of God"

The Williamite victory not only secured King's liberty, however. His role in maintaining the Protestant influence in Dublin as well as supporting the new political order inevitably led to further ecclesiastical preferment. In December 1690, after some lobbying, he was appointed to the bishopric of Derry and consecrated in the following January. The appointment  provided a challenge to his reforming instincts as the diocese had suffered greatly from the ravages of war.

In the month of March following I went to Derry, and applied myself with the greatest possible industry to regulating the See, then much  disordered and neglected. I found the land almost desolate, country houses and dwellings burnt: on an inquiry being made I ascertained that there were in the Diocese of Derry, before the troubles, about 250,000 head of cattle, there were left after the siege was raised, about 300; out of 460,000 horses 2 horses remained lame and wounded, with 7 sheep, and 2 pigs, but no fowl, whence the miserable state of that province was sufficiently manifest.

King's description was clearly an exaggeration but there was no denying that the region had suffered severe hardship. However it was the standard of his clergy which preoccupied him most. In 1691 for example, he found only ten clergy in the diocese were resident in their benefices and of these nine were pluralists:

But the clergy were badly off; little or nothing was returned by benefices to their possessors; many were non-resident, beneficed elsewhere, who served their parishes by curates; those warned to provide curates replied that the incomes did not suffice to support a curate, and permitted me, if I wished, to sequestrate their benefices for the curate's use.

In an effort to alleviate the problems of non-residency and pluralism the bishop demanded that his clergy should either resign their benefices or else provide for a curate. Such a strict enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline won him few clerical friends: "This business indeed", King was to write "excited no little odium against me amongst the clergy" Many of the reforms called for by King and other reform minded bishops of the period came up against similar opposition. It was not only those clerics guilty of holding pluralities who were against such initiatives, but also those within parliament itself who had a vested interest in maintaining such irregularities as lay impropriations. The predominance of the use of patronage and private interest in the appointment of the church's personnel also hampered the reformers from realizing their ideals. Consequently, King was forced to rely ultimately on his own efforts in seeking to improve spiritual standards within his jurisdiction.

Despite the magnitude of the task, there appeared to be some evidence of progress. In the bishop's visitation of 1693 twenty-eight beneficed clergy were now recorded in his diocese. King also suggested that headway had been made in the reconstruction of churches, helped in part by financial support from the crown:

In ecclesiastical visitations, I exhorted the parishioners not to allow those that were falling into decay to go to utter ruin, as that would be the cause some time of great expense to themselves, which a small expenditure could now prevent; and partly by persuasions, partly by bearing some portion of the expense, I got all the churches repaired and seven which....... I took care should be rebuilt.

Educational matters came within episcopal reach too. For example he endeavoured to ensure, albeit for a limited period, that the school in Londonderry was adequately funded by The Irish Society. Furthermore he promoted the teaching of Irish at Trinity College, Dublin and provided Irish speaking clergymen to a group of Scottish Highlanders who had settled in Donegal.

While the bishop obviously placed a high priority on internally reforming the established church, he was concious that it faced external problems as well. During his episcopate, King was confronted by a large nonconformist population in his diocese. Their sheer numbers and the confident assertion of their faith

provided a direct challenge to the established church. To a reform minded bishop such as king this nonconformity could not be ignored. In the beginning he had urged his clergy to hold discourses with Presbyterians in an effort to win them over. In practise, however, such persuasive action appears to have been mainly carried out by King himself during parish visitations.

By 1693 the bishop's views on the subject seem to have been sufficiently distilled to adopt another approach. IN that year King was moved to write a pamphlet entitled A Discourse concerning the inventions of Men in the Worship of God in which he argued "that only the Anglican mode of worshipping God was conformable to Scripture, but theirs (Presbyterian) not only was to the contrary thereto".  What the bishop was aiming for was to show Presbyterians the error of their ways and in the process hoped his reasoning would pave the way to their eventual conformity. Its main effect was to unleash a polemical debate between himself and Joseph Boyse on behalf of the Presbyterians. Boyse, who had written Some Impartial Reflections on D.Manby's Considerations, and Mr. King's Answer in 1687, replied in his Remarks on the Discourse following up with a Vindication of his Remarks. A Robert Craghead, Presbyterian minister in Londonderry also contributed to the nonconformist cause. In return, King was to continue with two Admonitions to the Dissenting Inhabitants of Derry. The debate centred predictably over differences between the two denominations in the use of music during services, forms of prayer, bodily worship, use of scripture, and the place of communion in the service. King believed that by forcing Presbyterians to defend the validity of their faith, he had undermined their confidence in debate and had successfully driven some to doubt their previously held convictions. Joseph Boyse, on the other hand, though differently: "Tis rare to find these publick debates so manag'd, as not to widen differences rather then compose'em and heighten rather than allay the animosities of the contending parties.

Bishop King also came into conflict with the Presbyterian dominated Londonderry Corporation who were to support the Irish Society's claim over certain lands and fishing rights which the bishop contented. This lengthy legal dispute, the origin of which went back to the episcopates of Bishop Montgomery and Bishop Bramhall, brought into focus the question of were the right of appeal actually rested. In 1697 the Irish House of Lords had found in favour of King, but in the following year the Irish Society appealed to the English Lords who declared that their Irish counterparts had not been entitled to make a judgement on the case. A compromise was later found in 1704, but the implications of the English ruling were not to be lost on those Irish Patriots who supported parliamentary independence, least of all King. Thereafter he continued to espouse colonial nationalist sentiment by leading the agitation against other cases involving similar questions of jurisdiction. For example, the constitutional dispute provoked by another land case, Sherlock v Annesley as well the controversy over "Wood's Halfpence". In March 1703 King became Archbishop of Dublin where he also campaigned with characteristic gusto to improve the material and spiritual well-being of the Church. He continued to keep a close interest in the internal affairs of his former diocese by comparing his successors' activities with the high standards that he had set. King, like Swift, opposed the practice of giving English clerics benefices within the Irish church. His claim to the primacy on two occasions, 1713 and 1724, was ignored in favour of English appointees. He gained a European reputation as a philosopher with his Die Origine Mali in 1702 which was to centre on the problem of reconciling the existence of evil with the presence of a benign God. He died, unmarried, on the 8th of May 1729 and left his property to charity.