ation voted him thanks
for his services; the University of Oxford created him a doctor of
divinity; and soon after the accession of Anne, while the Tories still
had the chief weight in the government, he was promoted to the deanery
of Carlisle.

Soon after he had obtained this preferment, the Whig party rose to
ascendency in the state. From that party he could expect no favour. Six
years elapsed before a change of fortune took place. At length, in
the year 1710, the prosecution of Sacheverell produced a formidable
explosion of high-church fanaticism. At such a moment Atterbury could
not fail to be conspicuous. His inordinate zeal for the body to which
he belonged, his turbulent and aspiring temper, his rare talents for
agitation and for controversy, were again signally displayed. He bore a
chief part in framing that artful and eloquent speech which the accused
divine pronounced at the bar of the Lords, and which presents a singular
contrast to the absurd and scurrilous sermon which had very unwisely
been honoured with impeachment. During the troubled and anxious months
which followed the trial, Atterbury was among the most active of those
pamphleteers who inflamed the nation against the Whig ministry and the
Whig parliament. When the ministry had been changed and the parliament
dissolved, rewards were showered upon him. The Lower House of
Convocation elected him prolocutor. The Queen appointed him Dean of
Christchurch on the death of his old friend and patron Aldrich. The
college would have preferred a gentler ruler. Nevertheless, the new
head was received with every mark of honour. A congratulatory oration in
Latin was addressed to him in the magnificent vestibule of the hall; and
he in reply professed the warmest attachment to the venerable house in
which he had been educated, and paid many gracious compliments to those
over whom he was to preside. But it was not in his nature to be a mild
or an equitable governor. He had left the chapter of Carlisle distracted
by quarrels. He found Christchurch at peace; but in three months his
despotic and contentious temper did at Christchurch what it had done
at Carlisle. He was succeeded in both his deaneries by the humane and
accomplished Smalridge, who gently complained of the state in which both
had been left. "Atterbury goes before, and sets everything on fire.
I come after him with a bucket of water." It was said by Atterbury's
enemies that he was made a bishop because he wa