The next scene is laid among the bishops. The bishopric of Winchester had been promised to Hoadly. Willis, the Bishop of Winchester, was seized with an apoplectic fit, and Lord Hervey instantly wrote to Hoadly, who was then Bishop of Salisbury, to come up to town and enforce his claim. The bishop wrote to the Queen and Sir Robert letters, which were to be delivered as soon as Willis was dead. The Queen, on presenting those letters, asked Lord Hervey if he did not blush for the conduct of his friend in this early and pressing application for a thing not yet vacant. While he was speaking, the King came in, and both King and Queen talked of Hoadly, in such a manner as plainly showed that they neither esteemed nor loved him. Potter, Bishop of Oxford, a great favourite of the Queen, strongly solicited Winchester, and would have obtained it, but for Walpole’s suggestion, that the engagements to Hoadly could not be broken without scandal. Hoadly at last obtained Winchester; and, as the Memoir observes, one of the best preferments in the church was conferred upon a man hated by the King, disliked by the Queen, and long estranged from the friendship of Walpole. Then all followed in the way which might have been anticipated; the King not speaking a word to the new bishop, either when he kissed his hand or did homage; the Queen, when she found it could not be helped, making the most of promoting him,—and Sir Robert taking the whole merit of the promotion to himself. Another source of contention now arose. The Chancellor Talbot had recommended Rundle, a chaplain of his father, the late Bishop of Durham, for the see of Gloucester, which had been vacant a twelvemonth. Gibson, Bishop of London, objected to him, that fourteen or fifteen years before he had been heard to speak disrespectfully of some portions of Scripture, and Rundle was suspected of Arianism. This reason was certainly sufficient to justify inquiry. Sir Robert, in his usual style, tried to mediate; begged of the Chancellor to give up his support of Rundle, offering him at the same time a deanery, or to give him the Bishopric of Derry in Ireland, then possessed by Henry Downes; of whom the Memoir speaks as a crazy old fellow with three thousand a-year. This affair ended in Benson’s being made Bishop of Gloucester, and Secker Bishop of Bristol, both formerly chaplains to the Chancellor’s father. Rundle was subsequently made Bishop of Derry, where he died, nine years after, in his sixtieth year, much regretted.