Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/250

Atterbury politics too much with religion, it must be remembered, in justice to him, that the two subjects were so strangely mixed up in that eventful time that it was all but impossible for a public character to disentangle the one from the other. His name will always be a prominent one in the complicated history of the church and nation of England in the latter part of the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth century.

 ATTERBURY, LEWIS, D.D., the elder (d. 1693), was the son of Francis Atterbury, rector of Middleton-Malsor, Northamptonshire. He became a student of Christ Church in 1647; submitted to the authority of the visitors appointed by the parliament; took the degree of B.A. on 28 Feb. 1649), and was created M.A. on 1 March 1651, by dispensation from Oliver Cromwell, at that time chancellor of the university. In 1654 he was made rector of Great or Broad Risington in Gloucestershire, and in 1657 received the living of Middleton-Keynes, near Newport Pagnell, Bucks. At the Restoration he was careful to have his titles to these benefices confirmed by taking a presentation under the great seal. On 25 July 1660, he became chaplain to Henry, Duke of Gloucester, who died at the end of the year; and on 1 Dec. 1660 he took the degree of D.D. He seems to have been, in his later years, involved in litigation, which necessitated his frequent attendance in town. On 7 Dec. 1698, as he was returning home after one of his visits to London, he was drowned near Middleton-Keynes, and there buried. Atterbury married and left two sons—Lewis Atterbury the younger, and the famous Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. He published the following sermons:
 * 1) 'A Good Subject, or the Right Test of Religion and Loyalty' (on Prov. xxiv. 21, 22), 17 July 1684.
 * 2) 'The Grand Charter of Christian Feasts, with the right way of keeping them' (on 1 Cor. v. 8), 30 Nov. 1685.
 * 3) 'Babylon's Downfall, or England's Happy Deliverance from Popery and Slavery' (on Revelation xviii. 2), preached at Guildhall Chapel on 28 June 1691, and published at the desire of the court of aldermen.

 ATTERBURY, LEWIS, LL.D., the younger (1656–1731), the eldest son of, and brother of , was born at Caldecot, in the parish of Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, on 2 May 1656. After being educated at Westminster School, under Dr. Busby, he proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated on 10 April 1674. He was ordained deacon by Dr. John Fell, bishop of Oxford, on 21 Sept. 1679, when he had already taken his bachelor's degree; and on 5 July 1680 he proceeded M.A., taking priest's orders on 25 Sept. of the following year. In 1683 he became chaplain to Sir William Pritchard, then lord mayor of London: and in February 1684 he was appointed rector of Sywell, Northamptonshire. On 8 July 1687 he took by accumulation the degrees of bachelor and doctor of civil law. He was appointed, in 1691, lecturer of St. Mary Hill, London, and on 16 June 1695 he became preacher of Highgate Chapel, where he had been officiating for some time previously, during the illness of his predecessor. Before this date he had been appointed one of the six chaplains to Princess Anne of Denmark at Whitehall and St. James's, a position which he continued to hold after she came to the throne, and during part of the reign of George I. On coming to reside at Highgate, struck with the difficulties against which the neighbouring poor had to contend in obtaining good medical advice, he applied himself to the study of medicine, and used his knowledge gratuitously for the benefit of his parishioners. In 1707 he was presented by the queen to the rectory of Shepperton, in Middlesex, the incumbent having been deprived for neglecting to take the oaths within the time required by law; and in 1719 he was collated by the Bishop of London to the rectory of Hornsey, continuing at the same time to hold the office of preacher at Highgate. The archdeaconry of Rochester becoming vacant by the death of Dr. Sprat in 1720, Atterbury wrote to his younger brother, the bishop, applying for the post. Archdeacon Yardley printed (in the preface to Atterbury's 'Sermons,' 1743) the correspondence that passed on the subject. The bishop thought that such an appointment would be 'the most unseemly, indecent thing in the world;' to which the elder brother replied that he could not see where the 'indecency' lay, and that, though there might be 'some show of reason for the non-acceptance,' there was 'none for the not giving it.' At the age of seventy, up to which time he had enjoyed good health, he was compelled by the  in-