Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/230

Atherton suffered for a pretended crime upon the testimony of a single witness that deserved no credit. The bishop absolutely denied the fact; and the fellow who swore against him, when he came to be executed himself some time afterwards for his crimes, confessed at the gallows that he had falsely accused him.' Carte's statement is much too strong. Dr. Nicholas Bernard attended him from the time of his sentence to that of his execution, and at the request of Archbishop Usher wrote; A Relation of the Penitent Death of Bishop Atherton.' From this we learn that Atherton's attitude during the trial was 'by all condemned;' but when the fatal issue became manifest his manner changed. Three times daily Bernard visited the prisoner, and after a time he became penitent, and faced the penalty with equanimity. 'The magnanimity of the man,' says Bernard, 'I did much admire.' When the news of the lord-deputy's death brought some hope of a reprieve, 'it moved him not, as rather choosing a present deserved death than the prolonging of an ignominious life ; whereby the scandal would but increase. He did so abhor himself that once a thought rising within him to have petitioned to have been beheaded, he told me he answered himself with indignation "That a dog's death was too good for him," and so judged himself to the last.' Dr. Bernard tells us that the father of Atherton had foretold the shortening of life as a penalty for disrespect to his mother. He had, when a youth, threatened her that he would hang himself with his horse's bridle on a common gallows by which they were riding. On the day of his execution he read the morning service to his fellow-prisoners, and was then escorted by the sheriff of the county, a Roman catholic, who is said to have behaved with much unnecessary harshness. Bernard nowhere expresses an opinion of Atherton's innocence, although he reports his denial 'of the main thing in the inditement, which the law laid hold of, and which hath been since confirmed by the confession of his chief accuser at his execution also, yet in his own conscience applauded and magnified God's justice in it; and so burned a bundle of papers, which he wrote out of law books, in his own defence.' These quotations are clearly incompatible with the idea that Atherton was the innocent victim of a vile conspiracy. It is to be noted that none of his accusers were Roman catholics. His execution was witnessed by an immense crowd, and his last speeches and prayers were broken by a wretch who had climbed upon one end of the gallows in order to interrupt and deride the unhappy man. A penitent and pious letter to his wife, and another to his children, are printed by Bernard.

[Wood's Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 892; Fasti Eccles. Hiberniæ; Carte's Life of Ormonde ; Whole Works of Sir James Ware concerning Ireland, ed. Harris, Dublin, 1739, fol., i. 539, ii. 363; Life and Death of John Atherton, London, 1641 (inverse); Bernard's Penitent Death of John Atherton, Dublin, 1641, London, 1641,. 1651, 1709,&c.; Case of John Atherton, London, 1709 (this includes a letter by Thomas Mills, Bishop of Waterford); King's Case of John Atherton, London, 1716.]  ATHERTON, WILLIAM (1775–1850), Wesleyan minister, was born at Lamberhead Green, near Wigan in Lancashire, in 1775. At the age of 21 he entered the Wesleyan ministry on the Grimsby circuit, and his fresh and original style of preaching gave him a place among the most famous preachers of England in the first half of this century. He worked under the direction of the Wesleyan Conference for more than fifty years, and was chosen in 1846 the president of that assembly.

After spending some years in London, Atherton became in 1849 superintendent of the Wakefield circuit and chairman of the Leeds district, a position which he held until his death on 26 Sept. 1850, in his 74th year.

Atherton published several works, among which were the following: a sermon on the 'Insecurity of Life,' in 1818; an abridged 'Life of Lady Maxwell,' in 1838; and an 'Address on the Character, Agencies, and Religious Effectiveness of Wesleyan Methodism,' in 1839.

[Minutes of the Methodist Conferences; Dr. Osborn's Outlines of Wesleyan Bibliography.]  ATHERTON, WILLIAM (1806–1864), lawyer, was born at Glasgow in 1806, being the son of the Rev. William Atherton, a well-known Wesleyan preacher, by Margaret, daughter of the Rev. Walter Morison, a minister of the Established Church of Scotland. He was educated in England, adopted the legal profession, and practised from 1832 to 1839 as a special pleader below the bar. In the latter year he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple. He chose the northern circuit, and was not long in securing a high reputation. He was returned to parliament as one of the members for the city of Durham in 1852, and was re-elected by the same constituency in 1857 and 1859. In politics he was an advanced liberal; opposed to the repeal of the Maynooth giant; in favour of the ballot, a large reform in the law, and the