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 April to July 1661 he attended the Savoy conference. ‘Among all the bishops,’ wrote Baxter, ‘there was none who had so promising a face as Dr. Sterne, the Bishop of Carlisle. He look'd so honestly, and gravely, and soberly, that I scarce thought such a face could have deceived me; and when I was intreating them not to cast out so many of their brethren through the nation, as scrupeled a ceremony which they confessed indifferent, he turn'd to the rest of the Reverent Bishops and noted me for saying “in the nation.” “He will not say in the kingdom,” saith he, “lest he own a king.” This was all I ever heard that worthy bishop say. But with grief I told him that half the charity which became so grave a bishop might have sufficed to have helpt him to a better exposition of the word’ (Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, 1696, ii. 305). On 5 March 1661–2 convocation is said to have entrusted the revision of the Book of Common Prayer to Sterne, George Griffith [q. v.], bishop of St. Asaph, and Brian Walton [q. v.], bishop of Chester (, Protestant Archbishops; but cf., Studies in Hist. of the Common Prayer).

Sterne is said to have left his bishopric in an impoverished state to his successor, Edward Rainbowe [q. v.], with whom he had a lawsuit (, Cumberland, ii. 632–633). In 1664 he was translated to the archbishopric of York, being elected on 28 April and confirmed on 10 June following. In that capacity, according to Burnet, he ‘minded chiefly the enriching of his family’ (Own Time, ii. 427). He was a regular attendant at parliament (cf. Tanner MSS. xlii. 46), and, according to Burnet, was ‘more than ordinarily compliant in all things to the court, and was very zealous for the duke’ of York. He was also suspected for this reason of inclinations towards popery. He died at Bishopthorpe, aged 87, on 18 June 1683 (cf. letter of his son Richard to Sancroft, 20 June 1683, in Tanner MSS. xxxiv. 47), and was buried in St. Stephen's Chapel, York Minster, where there is an inscription to his memory. He gave 1,850l. towards the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral, and left 40l. a year to found four scholarships at Jesus College, and 20l. a year to found two at Corpus Christi College.

Sterne married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Dickinson, lord of the manor of Farnborough. She died in London on 6 March 1673–4, aged 57, and was buried at Farnborough, where there is an inscription to her memory. By her Sterne had thirteen children. The eldest son, Richard, died at York in 1700; another son, Simon, was grandfather of Laurence Sterne [q. v.], the author of ‘Tristram Shandy’ (, Ducatus Leodiensis, ed. Whitaker, i. 214). An anonymous portrait of the archbishop was engraved by F. Place. There is a portrait in the hall of Jesus College, Cambridge.

Sterne published ‘A Comment on Psalm ciii’ (London, 1649, 8vo), and a work on logic entitled ‘Summa Logicæ’ (London, 1685, 8vo). He has verses in the ‘Genethliacon Caroli et Mariæ’ (1631) and in ‘Irenodia Cantabrigiensis ob paciferum Caroli e Scotia reditum’ (1641). He also assisted in the preparation of Walton's Polyglot Bible.

Sterne has also been claimed as the author of the ‘Whole Duty of Man’ and the six works published anonymously as by that writer (cf. The Whole Duty of Man, ed. W. B. Hawkins, 1842, pp. xiii–xxiii; Bibliographer, 1882, ii. 73–9, 94, 164). The claim was based solely on the assertion that the manuscript of the work was once in Sterne's possession (, Diary, ed. Bray, ii. 321). But Sterne, who was, according to Burnet, ‘a sour ill-tempered man,’ possessed worldly characteristics quite incompatible with Bishop Fell's account of the author of the ‘Whole Duty.’ The latter, moreover, in the seventh tract of the series, ‘The Christian's Birthright’ (sect. vii. paragraph 2), states that he had been driven abroad during the troubles, whereas Sterne never left England. There can indeed be little doubt that the ‘Whole Duty of Man’ was written by Richard Allestree [q. v.], though severely edited by Bishop John Fell (1625–1686) [q. v.], his biographer and literary executor (Mr. C. E. Doble in Academy, 1882, ii. 348, 364, 382; cf. art. ).

[Tanner MS. xxxvi. 73, xxxviii. 130, xl. 42, xlii. 46, lxx. 79, cxcliv. 130; Rawlinson MSS. A. 290. 20, C. 983. 11; Harl. MS. 3784, arts. 2, 3; Lords' and Commons' Journals; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–71; A True Relation of the Taking … of Dr. Sterne, London, 1642, 4to; Baillie's Letters and Journals, ii. 148; Evelyn's Diary, ii. 321, 389; Luttrell's Brief Relation; Burnet's Own Time, i. 312, ii. 427; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, ii. 146–7; Peter Barwick's Life of John Barwick, 1724, pp. 41, 42, 281; Le Neve's Protestant Archbishops, 1720, pp. 241–57, and Fasti Eccl. Angl. ed. Hardy; Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 433–4, ii. 336; Laud's Works, iv. 423–4, 430, vii. 47, 660–1; Masters's Hist. Corpus Christi Coll. Cambridge; Worthington's Diary (Camden Soc.); Baker's Hist. St. John's Coll. Cambridge, ed. Mayor, i. 219, ii. 633, 638, 647; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, iii. 328–30; Granger's Biogr. Hist.; Nichols's Lit. Illustrations, ii. 603–4; Nicholson and Burn's Cumberland and Westmoreland;