No layman attained such a position amongst the Nonjurors as Robert Nelson, pupil of the Anglican Dr. George Bull, and friend of Dr. Mapletoft, who had been educated in the family of his great-uncle, Nicholas Farrer, of Gidding. He early imbibed influences favourable to the adoption of High Church views. His friendship with the Latitudinarian Archbishop Tillotson, and with the half-Puritan Bishop Kidder, might hold in check for awhile prior tendencies, but could not prevent their ultimately producing effect. His personal regard for Tillotson lasted till death; he held the Primate in his arms at the moment he expired; yet then all Nelson’s deference to his opinions had ceased, for from the crisis of the Revolution he had been a Nonjuring Jacobite. The conversion to Popery of his wife--an aristocratic widow, the Lady Theophila Lucy, who had become violently enamoured of his handsome person--did not incline him at all towards Rome, though it could not prove inimical to the development of his Catholic tendencies. Of his intense devoutness and religious zeal there can be no doubt, nor of his respectable abilities; and the importance of such an accession to the new sect was heightened by other circumstances. No one can look at his portrait without admiring the taste of Lady Lucy. His fine features, set off to advantage by a good complexion and the adventitious decoration of a magnificent wig, must have given him an imposing presence. That presence was further aided by the taste and expensiveness of his apparel, to which should be added the recollection of his wealth and his aristocratic connections. Thus fitted to make his way in society, he naturally became amongst poor and persecuted people a commanding personage--an oracle with some, a counsellor with all. He associated with Lloyd; corresponded with Frampton; was acquainted with Ken; for Kettlewell he felt a warm attachment; Collier and Spinckes were numbered amongst his friends; and Hickes lived close neighbour to him in Ormond Street, Red Lion Fields. [Sidenote: 1694–1702.]