Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/447

 through all the schools in eight years. He taught poetry in 1712, was also professor of rhetoric, and was chosen professor of philosophy on 6 Oct. 1713. The latter office he held for seven years. He was ordained deacon on 9 March 1715–16, and priest on 28 March 1716, by Ernestus, bishop of Tournay. In April 1719 he was made bachelor and licentiate in theology, and on 13 July 1720 he became vice-president of Douay College in the room of Dr. Dicconson, who in that year joined the English mission. He took the degree of D.D. at Douay on 27 May 1727. The office of vice-president he held for ten years, together with the professorship of divinity, and he was likewise prefect of studies and confessor.

After having been twenty-six years at Douay he left the college on 18 Aug. 1730 and joined the London mission. He was most zealous in preaching, particularly to the poorer classes, and he helped to make numerous conversions. With his pen also he was indefatigable, and he did not hesitate to enter into a controversy with Dr. Conyers Middleton, who had published ‘A Letter from Rome, showing an exact conformity between Popery and Paganism, or the religion of the present Romans derived from their Heathen Ancestors.’ In a spirited introduction to the ‘Catholic Christian instructed’ (1737), Challoner, while paying a tribute of admiration to Middleton's elegant style and knowledge of pagan literature, sought to show that he was by no means so well acquainted with christian and Jewish antiquities, and that his mode of calumniating the catholic church must inevitably prove fatal to his own communion. Middleton invoked the aid of the penal laws and endeavoured to prosecute his antagonist as a person disaffected to the sovereign because he had observed that the established church had ‘introduced dead lions and unicorns into the sanctuary instead of the cross of Christ.’ Challoner was exposed to so much danger that, yielding to the advice of friends, he withdrew from the kingdom for a few months, till time and cool reflection had mitigated Middleton's rancour against him. He availed himself of the opportunity to visit Douay. About this time the English College was deprived by death of its president, Dr. Robert Witham (29 May 1738), and as the members of the community wished that Challoner might be their superior, they sent a petition to Rome. These efforts were defeated by Dr. Benjamin Petre, vicar-apostolic of the London district, who was growing old, and who petitioned the holy see to appoint Challoner to be his coadjutor. A controversy arose concerning the question whether Challoner should be promoted to the coadjutorship or sent to Douay, and was terminated by Dr. Petre's threat to resign the London district altogether if his request were refused. The pope gave his approval of Bishop Petre's application on 21 Aug. 1738. The briefs were accordingly issued—one of them, appointing him to the see of Debra in partibus, bearing date 12 Sept., and the other for the coadjutorship bearing date 14 Sept. 1739. A memorandum in the propaganda says that these briefs were not carried out (‘non ebbero effetto’); but in November Lorenzo Mayes, proctor of the English vicars, supplicated propaganda for a dispensation to enable Challoner to be consecrated. It was stated that the father of the bishop-elect ‘lived and died in the Anglican heresy, and Richard Challoner himself, until he was about thirteen years old, had been brought up in that sect,’ and therefore a dispensa was required to avoid scandal. Accordingly fresh briefs were issued on 24 Nov. 1740, and Dr. Petre consecrated Challoner as bishop of Debra, and communicated to him the powers of coadjutorship in the private chapel at Hammersmith on 29 Jan. 1740–1.

On the death of Dr. Petre, in December 1758, Challoner succeeded to the apostolic vicariate of the London district. At the beginning of 1759 he became extremely ill, and his life was in danger. He therefore obtained from the holy see a coadjutor in the person of the Hon. James Talbot. Challoner was most zealous in the administration of his diocese; he established several new schools, and he was the founder of the Charitable Society. At first he was accustomed to preach every Sunday evening to this society, composed of the poor and middle classes, which assembled in a miserable and ruinous apartment near Clare Market. Thence they removed to another room, almost as wretched, among the stables in Whetstone Park, Gate Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and lastly, after the bishop had preached for a few weeks in the Sardinian Chapel, until he was silenced by the ambassador at the instance of the ministry, the society removed to a place, rather more commodious, in Turnstile, Holborn. Occasionally the bishop held meetings of his clergy from necessity at some obscure inn or public-house, where every one present had his pipe and sat with a pot of beer before him to obviate all suspicion of the real character of the guests and the purpose of their assembly.

In 1764–5 efforts were made to let loose the whole force of the penal laws against the catholics. The Hon. James Talbot, whom Challoner had chosen as his coadjutor, was