The Cathedral Church of Peterborough: A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal SeeSweeting, W. D. (Walter Debenham)
History
The Cathedral Church of Peterborough: A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See
Sweeting, W. D. (Walter Debenham)
Peterborough Cathedral
=Thomas White= (1685-1691) was one of the seven committed to the Tower,
and also one of the seven deprived in 1691 as Nonjurors. He attended Sir
John Fenwick on the scaffold. This bishop, with his predecessor, Bishop
Lloyd, the deprived Bishop of Norwich, were two of the consecrators of
the Nonjuring Bishops, Hickes and Wagstaffe. There were really ten
bishops (including Archbishop Sancroft) who refused the oaths to William
and Mary; but the Bishops of Worcester, Chichester, and Chester died
before the time fixed for the deprivation. Bishop White lived in
retirement after he left his diocese. He died in 1698, and his funeral
is mentioned in Evelyn's _Diary_, under date June 5th: "Dr White, late
Bishop of Peterborough, who had been deprived for not complying with
Government, was buried in St Gregory's churchyard or vault, at St
Paul's. His hearse was accompanied by two Nonjuror bishops, Dr. Turner
of Ely, and Dr. Lloyd, with forty Nonjuror clergymen, who could not stay
the office of the burial, because the Dean of St Paul's had appointed a
conforming minister to read the office, at which all much wondered,
there being nothing in that office which mentioned the present king."
Lathbury remarks on this retirement from the grave, that it was a
singular circumstance, and contrary to the practice of the Nonjurors in
many other cases.
=Richard Cumberland= (1691-1718) had a reputation as a philosophical
writer. The only memoir of him is to be found in the preface to
_Sanchoniathon's History_,[37] a posthumous work, in which his chaplain
(and son-in-law) thus describes his appointment:--"The king was told
that Dr Cumberland was the fittest man he could nominate to the
bishopric of Peterborough. Thus a private country clergyman, without
posting to Court--a place he had rarely seen--without suing to great
men, without taking the least step towards soliciting for it, was
pitched upon to fill a great trust, only because he was fittest for it.
He walked after his usual manner on a post-day to the coffee-house, and
read in the newspaper that one Dr Cumberland of Stamford was named to
the bishopric of Peterborough, a greater surprise to himself than to
anybody else." His chaplain speaks of the bishop's character, zeal, and
learning in terms of unqualified praise. One of the bishop's sons,
Richard, was Archdeacon of Northampton, and father of Denison
Cumberland, Bishop of Clonfert and of Kilmore. This last named married a
daughter of Dr Bentley, the famous Master of Trinity College, Cambridge,
and one of their sons was Richard Cumberland, the dramatist. Bishop
Richard Cumberland is buried in the Cathedral, and a tablet to his
memory remains in the New Building.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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