Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/406

 and visited Rome, where he saw enough, he is reported to have afterwards said to James II, to keep him from changing his religion (, Anecdotes, p. 329, where it is asserted that he acknowledged a previous inclination towards the church of Rome). On his return some people mistakenly thought that ‘he had been tinged with popery’ by his visit.

Ken continued to live at Winchester until 1679, when he took the degree of D.D., was appointed chaplain to Mary, the king's sister, wife of William II, prince of Orange, the stadtholder of Holland, and went to reside at the Hague. He had a difficult post to fill. In the spring of the next year he expressed himself ‘horribly unsatisfied’ with the prince's unkind behaviour towards his wife, and declared that he would remonstrate with him, even at the risk of being ‘kicked out of doors’. William's anger was excited against him, because he persuaded Count Zulestein to marry a lady whom he had seduced; he resented the prince's threats and resigned his post, but William appears to have been struck by his courage; he consented to remain, and his relations with the prince improved. Henry Compton [q. v.], bishop of London, having consulted him as to a possible union between the church of England and the Dutch protestants, he wrote that it would be better to let the scheme drop. While at the Hague he effected the conversion from Roman catholicism of Colonel Edward Fitzpatrick, brother of Richard Fitzpatrick, lord Gowran [q. v.] On his return to England in the autumn of 1680 he was commanded to preach before the king, and soon afterwards became one of the king's chaplains. He again resided at Winchester, and, perhaps in the summer of 1683, when the court was about to visit the city, refused to allow the royal harbinger to appropriate his prebendal house to the use of Eleanor Gwyn [q. v.], saying that ‘a woman of ill-repute ought not to be endured in the house of a clergyman, and especially the king's chaplain’ (, p. 9). In August he sailed for Tangier as chaplain to Lord Dartmouth, the commander of the fleet sent to destroy the fortifications there. During the expedition he had various discussions with Samuel Pepys; he was horrified at the wickedness of the place, and preached boldly against it and against the ‘excessive liberty of swearing’ in which the English garrison and soldiers indulged (, Life, ii. 149). He returned to England in April 1684.

In November he was informed that the king had chosen him to succeed Peter Mew [q. v.], bishop of Bath and Wells, who was translated to Winchester on the death of Ken's friend, Bishop Morley. Charles is said to have declared that no one should have the see but ‘the little black fellow that refused his lodging to poor Nelly’ (, p. 142). The king had the highest opinion of Ken, and was personally responsible for the appointment (, p. 9). Having been elected on 16 Dec., Ken was consecrated at Lambeth on 25 Jan. 1685. On 2 Feb. he was summoned to the king's deathbed, and strove to awaken Charles's conscience, speaking, it was said, ‘like a man inspired,’ and vainly urging him to receive the sacrament. He persuaded the king to have the Duchess of Portsmouth removed from his room, and to send for the queen. Finally, he absolved the king, for which he was blamed by some, because he received no declaration of penitence (on this see, i. 85 n.; , i. 435). Returning to Winchester after the death of Charles, he used his influence to secure the election to parliament of the candidates for the city favoured by James II. He had taken up his residence at Wells, but was in London when Monmouth's followers desecrated his cathedral, and probably also at the time of the battle of Sedgemoor, 6 July (ib. p. 214;, i. 636 n.) He went, together with Turner, bishop of Ely, to apprise Monmouth of his fate on the evening of 13 July, and in common with Turner, Tenison, and Hooper, he was sent by the king to attend the duke in the Tower the night before his death; he remained with him all night, and accompanied him to the place of execution on the 15th, where he took no part in the altercation on the scaffold, confining himself to his devotional duties (, p. 38; , ii. 48; Account, &c. Somers Tracts, ix. 261; but on the other side , iii. 49). He then went down to Wells, interceded with the king to put a stop to the cruelties of Kirke, and is said to have saved a hundred prisoners from death (, pp. 5, 7). The remaining prisoners at Wells he visited day and night, supplied their wants as far as he was able, and urged others to do the same.

Ken had to borrow money, which he punctually repaid, for the expenses of his consecration, when, instead of giving a feast and gloves, he contributed 100l. to the rebuilding of St. Paul's; his see was not a rich one, and he helped his poor relations, yet when in 1686 he came into a sum of 4,000l. by the renewal of a lease, he gave the larger part of it to the fund for the Huguenot refugees, in whose welfare he took great interest. When in London he went afoot, while other bishops drove in coaches (ib.) He was in-