In the latest post for the Georgian Lords, Dr Charles Littleton considers the role of a minority of the bishops in the House of Lords standing in opposition to the ministerial response to the developing crisis in America.

In all the recent coverage on the departure of the hereditary peers from the House of Lords, it could easily be overlooked that the bishops of the Church of England remain, the last surviving component of the House as it existed before the introduction of life peers. The presence of bishops sitting in the House as legislators has long been controversial. In the 18th century the 26 bishops (2 archbishops and 24 bishops) were often castigated as a monolithic and servile voting bloc, constrained by their dependence on the monarch who had raised them to their position to vote for the sitting government.

Not all bishops fit this stereotype, however. John Hinchliffe, bishop of Peterborough between 1770 and 1794, stood out among his episcopal brethren in his opposition to the American war. The son of a livery stable-keeper in Swallow Street, Hinchliffe was raised from his lowly origins through his intelligence and application. He was installed as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1768, made vice-chancellor of the university in 1768-9, and at the end of 1769 consecrated bishop of Peterborough.

On 7 February 1775, in the debate on the Commons‘ address condemning the colonists for their ‘rebellion’, Hinchliffe professed his wish for ‘reconciliation upon the very easiest terms’, but ‘consistently with the just authority and pre-eminence of this country’. However, he insisted he would still agree to the address, as were Britain ‘tamely to submit to the indignities that have been put upon her… it would be only drawing ashes over the embers, that would still be burning underneath’. [Almon, Parl. Reg., ii. 55-57]

By the time of the following session in October his attitude had changed, and he declared that he had been wrongly ‘induced’ to support the address and the government’s measures against the Americans, as he had been assured that they would lead to a peace. As he complained ‘It was said in the spring, that the Americans would not, some indeed were confidently persuaded they could not, fight’.That reassurance had been proved wrong, bloodily, at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. [Almon, Par. Reg., v. 8-9] From that point, Hinchliffe was a consistent opponent of the government’s war measures.

Hinchliffe was celebrated for his polished speeches, delivered with a ‘remarkable mellow voice’, which were widely reported. However, Horace Walpole noted in March 1776 that as well as Hinchliffe, Frederick Keppel, bishop of Exeter, Jonathan Shipley, bishop of St Asaph, and Edmund Law, bishop of Carlisle, were also bishops ‘professedly in Opposition’. [Walpole’s Last Journals, i. 534-35]

Shipley and Keppel began their opposition well before Hinchliffe. In April 1774 Shipley prepared a speech against the bill to alter the charters of the Massachusetts Bay colony, but this was printed rather than delivered. [Shipley, Works, ii. 159-200] In June, Keppel was listed as a lord of Parliament voting consistently against the Court, and in January 1775 he was the only bishop voting for Chatham’s motion calling for the withdrawal of British troops from Boston. Regarding the Commons’ address against the colonists in February, the one Hinchliffe complained he had been persuaded to support mistakenly, there emerged contrary accounts of whether Keppel or Shipley was the sole bishop voting against it. In April both voted against the bill to restrain trade with the colonies, and before the beginning of the 1775-76 session they were joined together again in a list of those in opposition.

Political connections perhaps counted for as much in shaping these bishops’ positions as any pious impulses towards pacifism or fear of bloodshed. A common link was Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd duke of Grafton. Over the course of 1769, when he was still prime minister, Grafton recommended Shipley, Hinchliffe and Edmund Law for the episcopate. Indeed, Hinchliffe’s promotion may have been one of Grafton’s last appointments before leaving office in January 1770. In November 1775 Grafton resigned (again) as lord privy seal and Hinchliffe duly joined his patron in opposition.

From this point, too, Edmund Law limited his infrequent attendances to key divisions, when he voted with Grafton. Shipley began voting in opposition before Grafton’s resignation, and both contemporaries and he himself emphasized his closer connection to Chatham. Keppel, in contrast, was the youngest in a prominent Whig clan, whose older brothers were war heroes from the Seven Years’ War and central figures in the Rockingham Whigs. It is likely that much of Keppel’s opposition derived from his attachment to his brothers and the Whig family tradition.

Such opposition bishops never really troubled the government, as the rest of the episcopal bench remained solidly behind the war measures. The bishops’ behaviour even became a point for lay opposition members. On 14 March 1776, when Grafton moved, once again, for conciliation and pacification with America, Charles Lennox, 3rd duke of Richmond, ‘lashed the bishops for their unchristian compliance with bloody measures’. Nevertheless, though their numbers were small, the three to four opposition bishops during the American war suggest that it is not justified to see the bishops in the 18th-century House merely as a ‘dead weight’ as they were often called.

As the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence arrives, it is worth remembering that there were figures in Parliament in positions of moral authority warning of the war’s dangerous consequences. On 10 March 1776, weeks before the Declaration, Keppel preached to the king, warning of the divine judgment that would befall the realm if the government continued in its course. ‘Have they not already fallen on us?’ Keppel asked. ‘Are we not engaged in a fatal civil war? And give me leave to add that, if the sword is not timely sheathed, ruin will ensue to both countries.’ [Walpole’s Last Journals, i. 535]

CGDL

Further reading:

G. M. Ditchfield, ‘The House of Lords in the Age of the American Revolution’, in A Pillar of the Constitution, ed. C. Jones (1989), 199-239, and esp. 217-20

The Last Journals of Horace Walpole, ed. Doran, rev. A. F. Steuart (1910), vol. 1

The Works of the Right Reverend Jonathan Shipley, DD, Lord Bishop of St Asaph (1792), vol. 2