Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/28

 8 church. Attempts were made to dissuade him from this act but all efforts were futile. Whiston whose honesty is above suspicion made personal enquiries, as a friend of both parties, into the truth of the allegation and came to the conclusion that the charge was made in error.

An emissary from the lord chancellor called at Venn's rectory and hinted that the deanery of Wells would soon be vacant. "Let the chancellor know that I scorn his bribe" was the response. The interviewer then changed his tone with the prophecy that Venn's action would prove his ruin. The rector having obtained from his wife the assurance that she could support them with her needle and from his son the expression that he would like to be a waterman, calmly dismissed the agent with the words "there, sir, report what you have heard to the chancellor and tell him I defy him." The incident calls to mind the interview of Andrew Marvell with the emissary from Charles II. Venn with his wonted openness spoke shortly afterwards in a bookseller's shop of Conyers Middleton as an "apostate priest." Conyers with more vigour than usual, retaliated with the sentence "should I chance to describe a certain priest by the title of the Accuser, there is scarce a man in England who would not think on Mr. V—." The see of Gloucester was unfilled for more than a year, throughout which period rumour after rumour prevailed in political circles, and pamphlet after pamphlet issued from the press. Sir Thomas Robinson, the "long Sir Thomas," wrote to lord Carlisle that the lord Chancellor having been told that his nominee was never to be a bishop had declared that should the congé d'élire be issued for the election of any other person he would give up the seals. Sixteen pamphlets, most of them with titles of portentous length, are entered under Rundle's name in the catalogue of the British Museum library as dealing with this protracted controversy and among