Early Career
Brought up by his mother, the sister of the covenanter politician Archibald Johnston of Wariston who had been leader of the protestor movement and close to the English Independents in the 1650s, but rigorously educated by his Episcopalian father, Burnet’s was an ambiguous intellectual and political inheritance. Precociously learned, Burnet made use of time in England in 1663 making connections with London’s religious and scientific circles, followed up by tours of the Netherlands and France. A parish minister from 1665, his forthright criticism attracted the enmity of many of the Scottish bishops and the patronage of John Maitland, earl, later duke of Lauderdale [S], for whose project of accommodation with moderate Scottish Dissent in 1669 he would become an unsuccessful cheerleader. Burnet turned down the proposal by Lauderdale to make him into a Scottish bishop, and now a professor in the University of Glasgow, he increasingly gravitated into the orbit of the dukes of Hamilton, whose relation he married. In the summer of 1673, Burnet came to London to secure permission to publish his Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton; though he was initially encouraged by the king and the duke of York, Lauderdale’s enthusiasm rapidly turned into hostility. Burnet, concluding that Lauderdale would make his continued career in Scotland impossible, settled in London. Involvement in the opposition to Lauderdale included an appearance before a committee of the Commons during the attempt to remove him in 1675, which contributed to his worsening relationship with the court.
Burnet would become closely linked to country politicians in London and the London clergy who were close to them, but he claimed to have been sceptical of the reality of the Popish Plot, and to have been consulted on several occasions by the king as a result. The publication of the History of the Reformation, on the other hand, gave him a considerable reputation as a defender of the Church of England against its Catholic foes; flirting with the idea of excluding James Stuart, duke of York, from the throne, Burnet became close to many of the leading Whigs, including Arthur Capel, earl of Essex, and Lord William Russell‡, and was tainted by association with them after the Rye House Plot. His service to Russell at his trial and execution in July 1683 cost him any residual royal favour. He lost his posts as a preacher and lecturer.
Soon after the duke of York, succeeded as king in 1685, Burnet left for voluntary exile. After travelling through France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, he reached the Netherlands in 1686 where he was taken into the service of the prince and princess of Orange, being ‘so great a servant of theirs, and gives such characters of them’ as to be seen as an significant promoter of their interest.
At the end of 1688 Burnet accompanied the invasion fleet as William’s chaplain and acting as his chief English propagandist. Burnet edited and translated Fagel’s Declaration of Reasons, William’s key manifesto, and read it from the pulpit in Exeter Cathedral. He was also heavily involved in editing the Second Declaration of Reasons and wrote a pamphlet, An Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority; and of the Grounds upon which it may be Lawful or Necessary for Subjects to defend their Religion, Lives and Liberties.
as to the settling of the government, there are two different opinions, for a third, which was for treating with the king, has fallen by his second withdrawing yesterday… Some are for calling together with the peers all such as have been Parliament men, that so they may go to declare that, the king having left his people and withdrawn the pretended prince, the princess is queen, and so proceed to call a legal Parliament by writs in her name. Others think that a Parliament or rather a Convention is to be summoned, which will be the true representation of the kingdom, and that, though they have no legal writs, yet they being returned upon a free choice, this will be upon the matter a free Parliament, and that this assembly is to judge both the king’s falling from the crown and the birth of the pretended prince; and that then a Parliament may be legally held after they have declared in whom the right of the crown lies. This last is liable to this exception that the slowness of it may expose Holland to be lost before England can be settled or ready to act.
Eg. 2621, ff. 83-84.
Burnet was also advising William on appointments. A comprehensive list of possible nominees for the whole gamut of government posts exists in the papers of Henry Sydney, the future Viscount Sydney, as well as a letter containing pen portraits of London clerics to be employed.
Bishop of Salisbury and the Convention
Initially some believed that Burnet would be rewarded with the see of Durham since Nathaniel Crew, the incumbent bishop, was expected to refuse the oaths to the new regime.
On 3 Apr. 1689 Burnet took his seat in the House of Lords as bishop of Salisbury. He was to be an assiduous attender, being present on 88 days of the remainder of the session, a little over 79 per cent of the total. He was named to 36 committees before the adjournment in July 1689, and 22 committees afterwards. On 4 Apr. the House received the report from the committee which had examined the bill for uniting their majesties protestant subjects. As Burnet later recorded, the committee had added a proviso to the bill allowing a group of clergymen and laymen to ‘prepare such a reformation of things, relating to the Church, as might be offered to king and Parliament, in order to the healing our divisions, and the correcting what might be amiss, or defective, in our constitution. This was pressed with great earnestness by many of the temporal lords.’ Burnet admitted that ‘I at that time did imagine, that the clergy would have come into such a design with zeal and unanimity; and I feared this would be looked upon by them as taking the matter out of their hands; and for that reason I argued so warmly against this, that it was carried by a small majority to let fall.’ When another proviso in the bill was being considered he moved ‘that the subscription, instead of assent and consent, should only be to submit with a promise of conformity’. When a violent debate arose about whether to dispense with kneeling at the giving of the sacrament, Burnet took a clear stance in favour because this ‘posture being the chief exception that the Dissenters had, the giving up this was thought to be the opening a way for them to come into employments’, and therefore ‘I declared myself zealous for it: for, since it was acknowledged that the posture was not essential, and that scruples, how ill grounded soever, were raised upon it, it seemed reasonable to leave this matter as indifferent in its practice as it was in its nature.’
On 8 Apr. 1689 Burnet was appointed one of the managers of the conference on the amendments in the bill for removing of papists out of London. Following the report of Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, Burnet was named to a committee to draw up reasons in support of their proposal that the queen dowager be allowed 30 English servants and was named to a further conference on the bill on 16 April. On 11 Apr. Burnet preached the sermon at the coronation of William and Mary.
On 22 May 1689, when a committee of the whole considered the bill of rights, a clause was added to prevent Catholics from succeeding to the crown, to which Burnet ‘proposed an additional clause, absolving the subjects, in that case, from their allegiance... and it passed without any opposition or debate’. Then, at the king’s instance, Burnet proposed ‘the naming the duchess of Hanover, and her posterity, next in the succession. He signified his pleasure in this case also to his ministers; but he ordered me to begin this motion in the House, because I had already set it on foot.’
Burnet’s conduct was much approved at Hanover and his efforts ‘made that illustrious house from thenceforth consider him as one firmly attached to their interests, and with whom they might therefore enter into the strictest confidence.’ According to Thomas Burnet, his father had given early notice of the invasion to the court of Hanover, ‘intimating that the success of this enterprise must naturally end in an entail of the British crown upon that illustrious house’. Princess Sophia wrote that she was ‘very grateful for the warmth you have been pleased to testify for my interests, which is a great personal satisfaction to me, as if your good intentions had been more successful’. As Burnet’s son later observed, this was the beginning of a correspondence that lasted until Sophia’s death, the extant letters ‘all written in her own hand.’
Burnet recollected that he came into Lords ‘when… comprehension and toleration was in debate, and I went so high in those points, that I was sometimes upon the division of the House single against the whole bench of bishops.’ He thought that his standing was enhanced by his opposition to the bill ‘which enacted the taking the oaths’, but he again ‘fell under great prejudices’ when he realized that by praying for an unnamed king the non-jurors were ‘plainly praying for King James’. It was, however, his attitude to the Scottish episcopate and the recognition of the Presbyterian Kirk as the national Church of Scotland that proved the greatest source of disagreement with his English colleagues. Burnet observed that it was ‘generally thought that I could have hindered the change of the government of the Church that was made in Scotland, and that I went into it too easily’, but he was convinced by William that it was a matter of necessity because ‘the whole Episcopal party, a very few only excepted, went into King James’s interest: and therefore, since the Presbyterians were the only party that he had there, the granting of their desires at that time were unavoidable.’
On 25 May 1689 Burnet reported from committee reasons to be offered to the Commons at a conference explaining why the Lords did not agree to leave out their amendment to the additional poll bill. That day Roger Morrice noted that Burnet was the only bishop not to vote Titus Oates guilty of a breach of privilege for distributing a printed account of his case. On 31 May Burnet voted against reversing the two judgments of perjury against Oates, arguing that ‘if such rascals and perjured persons were capacitated to give evidence no honest man was secure of his life’. On 22 July Burnet was named to report on a conference on the bill reversing the judgments against Oates but on the 30th he changed his mind and voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to it. On 20 and 21 June Burnet was named to report a conference on the bill appointing commissioners of the great seal. On 2 July he was the only bishop in favour of proceeding with the impeachment of Sir Adam Blair and his co-defendants.
In July 1689 Burnet was unsuccessful in securing the translation of Lloyd of St Asaph to Worcester.
Meanwhile, Burnet was still pursuing the prize of comprehension. In June 1689 Morrice had noted that Burnet and Lloyd of Asaph together with John Hampden‡ were in discussions about a bill, which the king was thought to favour.
Burnet was present when Parliament reassembled on 19 Oct. 1689, and for the new session which began on 23 October. He was present on 65 days of the session, just over 89 per cent of the total. At the end of May 1689, it had been reported that Burnet had been one of those asked by the earl of Essex’s widow to desist from investigating his death in the Tower six years before.
Following the adjournment of Convocation on 14 Dec. 1689 Burnet and Lloyd of St Asaph acted as the intermediaries between the court and the suspended, non-juring bishops in an attempt to broker a compromise involving compensation for the loss of their bishoprics.
The Parliament of 1690
Burnet was present when the 1690 Parliament convened on 20 Mar., attending on 36 days, exactly two-thirds of the first session. On 7 Apr. 1690, when the committee of the whole was debating the recognition bill, he was named to a sub-committee to draw a clause relating to recognizing the Convention as a Parliament.
Burnet was absent when the 1690-1 session began on 2 Oct., first attending on the 9th. In all he attended on 40 days, nearly 56 per cent of the total. On 14 Oct. 1690 he reported that having been in town for a week he was optimistic that the necessary finance for the war would be granted by the Commons, although he did fear that excessive zeal in turning out Episcopalians in Scotland would create difficulties for the government in England.
Over the summer, in May, Burnet was unsurprisingly excluded from James II’s pardon.
In February 1692, it had been reported that Burnet had been ‘earnestly’ soliciting in favour of the Norfolk divorce.
Burnet attended on the opening day of the 1693-4 session, 7 Nov. 1693, and was present on 100 days, just over 78 per cent of the total, being appointed to 18 committees. He was again active as a chair of committees of the whole, including that on the triennial bill (4 and 6 Dec.) and on the bill for the easier recovery of small tithes (26 March). On 17 Feb. he voted against the reversal of the chancery decree in the case of Montagu v Bath. On 22 Feb. he spoke in the debate on the bill regulating trials for treason, citing historical precedents.
Burnet spent the summer of 1694 back in Salisbury.
The Parliament of 1695
Burnet missed the opening of the 1695 Parliament on 22 Nov., first attending on 2 Dec. 1695. He was present on 74 days, nearly 60 per cent of the total. On 9 Dec. Burnet asked a question in the committee of the whole considering the act of the Scottish parliament in establishing an East India Company, concerning the possible promise of shares to people to get them to invest in the company.
Burnet had signed the Association on 27 Feb. 1696 (as he did again in Salisbury).
As Burnet himself recounted, the ‘great business of this session that held longest in both houses, was a bill relating to Sir John Fenwick‡.’
Burnet was involved in one further consequence of the proceedings against Fenwick: the punishment of Charles Mordaunt, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), for attempting to manipulate the affair to his own advantage. On 15 Jan. 1697 Burnet argued that although ‘there could no excusing him from being author of those papers’, there should be some note taken ‘of some eminent services he had done for this government’. Nevertheless, according to his own account Burnet then moved that Monmouth be sent to the Tower.
Burnet last attended that session on 17 Mar. 1697, and on the 18th he signed a proxy in favour of Bishop Patrick. On 17 Mar. James Johnston‡ wrote that Burnet was ‘of great use in the House of Lords and is at present more in favour with the king than ever he was, or ever I thought should have been’.
The Parliaments of 1698 and 1701
Burnet attended on the second day of the 1698 Parliament, 9 Dec., and was present on 46 days, nearly 57 per cent of the total, being named to 10 committees. On 4 Jan. 1699 Burnet was ordered to preach the martyrdom sermon on 30 January. The House formally thanked him on 1 Feb., although some were critical that he had said very little about the death of Charles I.
Burnet was present on the opening day of the next session, 16 Nov. 1699. He attended on 55 days, 70 per cent of the total, and was named to 13 committees. James Lowther‡ noted on 12 Dec. that when the Commons considered the debt due to Prince George, duke of Cumberland, ‘there were some speeches reflecting upon’ Burnet, and a motion made for an address to remove him as governor to the duke of Gloucester, ‘but let fall for the present’.
According to Charles Hatton, ‘in the heat of the debate’ on 10 Jan. 1700 over the Darien colony, the excitable Burnet told Bishop Lloyd (now translated to Worcester) that he was ‘an old dotard, intoxicated with tobacco and Revelations.’
With the dismissal of John Somers, Baron Somers, at the end of April 1700, and the consequent rumours of ministerial change, including the possible translation of Burnet to Winchester, Charles Trimnell, the future bishop of Norwich, thought that Burnet ‘in most peoples’ opinion cannot stand long at St James, and as for his removal to Winchester I believe our Oxford colleges of that bishop’s visitation need not fear any from Dr B.’
Burnet was first present at the first Parliament of 1701 on 10 February. He attended on 93 days, nearly 89 per cent of the total and was named to 33 committees. On 8 Mar. Pakington was ordered to bring in a bill into the Commons which included provision to prevent the translations of bishops, apparently prompted by renewed rumours of Burnet’s intended translation to Winchester. The rumour had been current from at least March 1699 when it had been reported that the king had given the ‘reversion’ of it to Burnet.
With a new ministry, and the revival of convocation, Burnet again came under attack for some of his writings. In May 1701 Thomas Naish was told of three charges ready to be drawn up against Burnet in Convocation, relating to heresy, protecting servants guilty of extortion and promoting simony.
In July and August 1701 Burnet was based in Salisbury, and making preparations for a visitation in September.
Burnet was present when Parliament opened on 30 Dec. 1701. He attended on 65 days of the session (65 per cent of the total) and was named to 23 committees. He reaffirmed his commitment to the Hanoverian Succession at the beginning of the session when he signed the Lords’ address of 1 Jan. 1702. Burnet himself noted that the ‘matter that occasioned the longest and warmest debates in both Houses, was an act for abjuring the pretended prince of Wales, and for swearing to the king by the title of rightful and lawful king, and to his heirs, according to the act of settlement’.
The Accession of Anne and the Parliament of 1702
Following the king’s riding accident at the end of February 1702, Burnet ‘did not stir from him till he died,’ and thought his death ‘was a dreadful’ stroke.
Burnet was present when the new Parliament convened on 20 Oct. 1702. He attended on 76 days (over 88 per cent of the total) and was named to 30 committees. On 16 Nov. William Nicolson, bishop of Carlisle, noted that Burnet was ‘in good heart, not valuing the grins of the lower house of Convocation’. He was certainly engaged in the debates in the upper house of convocation, having on 15 Dec. 1702 ‘sharp repartees’ with Bishop Trelawny over a legal opinion on a paper from the lower House.
Burnet regarded the provision on office-holding as ‘put in the bill, by some in the House of Commons, only because they believed it would be opposed by those, against whom they intended to irritate the queen’.
Burnet seems to have seen the Test and Corporation Acts as allowing moderate Dissenters to serve in office in return for occasional conformity and was thus opposed to the attempt to outlaw the practice with the occasional conformity bill brought up from the Commons on 2 Dec. 1702.
Burnet was present when the next session began on 9 Nov. 1703 and attended on 85 days, 86.7 per cent of the total. As was by now automatic for those in the chamber, he was regularly named to committees. In November and early December, Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast that Burnet would continue to oppose attempts to pass a bill against occasional conformity and Burnet did vote against the bill on 14 December. As Burnet noted, the bishops ‘were almost equally divided’ but ‘I had the largest share of censure on me, because I spoke much against the bill’.
Burnet remained an active committee chairman, reporting back on five occasions during January and February 1704. In March a newsletter reported that Burnet, seconded by John Sharp, archbishop of York, had instigated a debate about James Bourchier or Boucher, one of those implicated in the Scotch Plot. This presumably relates to the debate of 1 Mar. when the House agreed to address the queen for clemency on his behalf if he confessed what he knew of the plot.
During the subsequent, 1704-5 session, Burnet was present on 80 days, nearly 81 per cent of the total. Over the summer the Scottish parliament had met and forced the crown to accept the Scottish Act of Security, which threatened to dissolve the personal union of the crowns of England and Scotland at the death of the queen. The queen was present on 29 Nov. when the Lords went into a committee of a whole on the state of the nation with reference to Scotland, Burnet noting that ‘the debate about the Scotch act was taken up with great heat’ in the Lords.
On 15 Dec. 1704, Nicolson recorded that Burnet spoke against giving a second reading to the bill against occasional conformity, and that Heneage Finch, Baron Guernsey, was ‘hard’ on Burnet, ‘having (accidentally) his Glasgow Dialogue in his pocket, out of which he read two or three pages very severe upon the Dissenters’. He reported from a number of committees and was involved in managing conferences with the Commons. These included the high profile conferences held in February 1705 over the controversial issue of the Aylesbury men, but he was also involved in conferences on lesser issues: the militia bill (named 12 Mar.) and the Peschell naturalization bill (reported 13 March). He was also active in the Journals committee and on 19 and 24 Mar. was recorded as examining the journal up to 1 Feb. 1705.
The Parliament of 1705
In June 1705 Burnet brought several actions of scandalum magnatum, one of which was settled out of court in November by a Mr Smeaton, and another by Henry Chivers‡, for ‘impudent scandalous lies’.
Burnet was present for the opening of the 1705 Parliament on 25 October. He attended on 82 days, some 86 per cent of the total. On 17 Nov. 1705 Thomas Hearne was informed that Burnet had ‘preached eight or nine times stoutly against occasional conformity. The reasons he supposes are only a means to reconcile him to some persons whom by scandals and disingenuous reports he has very much offended’.
On 3 Dec. 1705 Burnet attended a dinner at Lambeth, along with Nicolson and Humphrey Humphreys, bishop of Hereford, where they prepared for the forthcoming church in danger debate. Opening the debate on 6 Dec. Rochester suggested that the Church was in peril under the queen’s administration particularly as a result of the ‘danger from Scotland’. Burnet was one of a number of peers who argued and voted to the contrary. Accounts of his speech by Nicolson and White Kennett†, the future bishop of Peterborough, show that Burnet insisted that the Church was flourishing ‘from the frequent communions; the many emissaries sent to the plantations; the care taken for catechizing; and the queen’s bounty to the poor clergy.’ He attacked the inconsistency between Compton’s current views on resistance and his decision to appear in arms at the Revolution and in an even more overtly partisan swipe suggested that it was necessary to ‘bless God for the danger we have escaped. Bishops imprisoned. Ecclesiastical commissions. And a prospect of ruin if not rescued by King William.’
Burnet played a full role in the disputes in Convocation; thus on 15 Dec. 1705 he moved for thanks to be given to the minority who had protested against the proceedings of the lower house ‘for their duty and care to preserve the ancient constitution of the Convocation of this province’, which was agreed, with two dissidents, Bishops Trelawny and Hooper.
Early in March 1706, when the House was considering a bill to prevent the further growth of popery, enquiry was made as to why bishops had not returned lists of papists as requested by the Lords the previous year. Burnet replied that ‘he had written to all his clergy in pursuance of their lordships’ orders but because it was at a time when the country was engaged in disputes about elections of Parliament-men and it happened that the clergymen and papists were generally in the same interest they had neglected to return their names.’
On 15 June 1706, in the aftermath of the victory at Ramillies, Burnet wrote from Salisbury to Tenison, enclosing a copy of a celebratory address to the queen for which he was collecting signatures.
Burnet was in London before the opening of the session, at Lambeth on 23 Nov. 1706 to settle the form of the thanksgiving for the military victories of the previous campaign. He was present when the next session began on 3 Dec., attending on 70 days, just over 81 per cent of the total and was as usual habitually involved in committee business. On 10 Jan. 1707, on the second reading of the bill repealing a clause in the act for the better apprehending, prosecuting, and punishing felons, Burnet moved for the ‘removal of the farce of benefit of clergy’. On 25 Jan. he was in attendance at Lambeth when Tenison unveiled his bill for the security of the Church of England, whereupon he fell out with Nicolson ‘on the time of passing that in Scotland’.
Burnet was present when the next session convened on 23 Oct. 1707, attending on 80 days of the session, nearly 75 per cent of the total. On 5 and 7 Feb. 1708 he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill rendering the Union more complete, reporting it on the 7th. Joseph Addison‡, presumably referring to the vote on abolishing the Scots Privy Council on 1 May, recorded that Burnet ‘spoke very much against the tyranny of a Privy Council in Scotland and was followed in his vote… by all the bishops’ except William Talbot, of Oxford, and Trelawny of Winchester.
The Parliament of 1708
Burnet was present on 16 Nov. 1708, when the Parliament began, attending on 56 days, nearly 61 per cent of the total. He attended the traditional dinner at Lambeth on 28 December.
On 15 Mar. 1709 in committee of the whole House on the general naturalization bill, Burnet voted in favour of retaining the provision allowing the new arrivals to take the sacrament in ‘some Protestant reformed congregation’ rather than in a ‘parochial church’. As he himself said, he spoke ‘copiously’ for the bill.
About this time, as his son later observed, Burnet ‘grew more abstracted from the world, than the situation he had been in during the former parts of his life had permitted. To avoid the distraction of useless visits’, he settled in St John’s Court, ‘and kept up only an intercourse with his most select and intimate acquaintance’.
What seems to have brought Burnet out of his chosen inactivity was the decision to impeach Dr Sacheverell. Burnet judged Sacheverell to be ‘a bold insolent man, with a very small measure of religion, virtue, learning or good sense’, who had ‘resolved to force himself into popularity and preferment, by the most petulant railings at Dissenters, and low-churchmen’. Burnet was particularly stung by Sacheverell’s assertion of ‘the doctrine of non-resistance in the highest strain possible’. He complained that Sacheverell had argued ‘that to charge the Revolution with resistance, was to cast black and odious imputations on it; pretending that the late king [William] had disowned it, and cited for the proof of that, some words in his declaration, by which he vindicated himself from a design of conquest.’
Aware that Sacheverell was also questioning the validity of the Hanoverian Succession, Burnet set himself the task of refuting his assertions in the speech he gave to the House of Lords on 16 Mar. during consideration of the first article of the impeachment. He began with the observation that ‘since it is grown to be a vulgar opinion, that by the doctrine of the Church of England, all resistance in any case whatsoever, without exception, is condemned; I think it is incumbent upon me... to give you... a clear account of this point’. He then embarked on a long, historical account of the doctrine of the Church before concluding that Sacheverell’s assertion of passive obedience and non-resistance in his sermon was ‘certainly a condemning the Revolution: and this is further aggravated from those limitations on our obedience, in an act passed soon after the Revolution, by which, in case our princes turn Papists, or marry Papists, the subjects are, in express words, discharged from their allegiance to them.’ He ended by saying that ‘he was as much against severity to the Dr’s person as any but was for censuring the sermon and settling the doctrine.’
According to Rev. Ralph Bridges, on 17 Mar. 1710 Burnet ‘opened’ the fourth article of the impeachment and ‘having quoted and distorted several words to show the ministry’s being reflected upon’, argued that ‘it was a matter of amazement to anyone to hear such expressions from the pulpit in her majesty’s reign, which was the wonder of the present age and would be so of posterity and which therefore ought to be the object of our idolatry, if possible’. Burnet then told a story of a
hotheaded bishop (at the naming of which words the whole House fell a-laughing) who having by his influence caused a synagogue of Jews at Alexandria to be suppressed and afterwards a good pious lady of that religion coming thither and abounding in works of charity, it enraged the bishop so much that he stirred up the people there and made them tear her all to pieces. And he was the Sacheverell of those days, concluded my Lord of Sarum.Add. 72494, ff. 169-70.
Another account had Burnet seconding Wharton on the article, speaking with ‘vehemence’ against Sacheverell, ‘who by inveighing against the Revolution, Toleration, and Union, seemed to arraign and attack the queen herself’. Sacheverell’s attack upon her ministers was plain because he had ‘so well marked out a notable peer [Godolphin], there present by an ugly and scurrilous epithet [Volpone], (which he would not speak) that ’twas not possible to mistake him’. His speech was somewhat ruined by ‘the whole House a-laughing and several Lords cried out name him’, which William Cowper, Baron Cowper, ruled out of order.
Burnet attended the last day of the session, 5 Apr. 1710 and the prorogation of 18 April. On 20 May he wrote to William Wake, bishop of Lincoln, from Salisbury in fairly optimistic vein, regarding the nomination of two bishops as ‘a good step’. Bristol and St Davids were vacant: John Robinson, the diplomat, would fill that of Bristol and Philip Bisse, a relative of Harley’s, that of St Davids; both were moderate Tories. ‘I pray God’, he went on, ‘it may be followed by more that are of a piece with it for how high soever our jury rises a very little management [may] gain it.’
The Parliament of 1710
Burnet was in London before the 1710 Parliament opened on 25 Nov., visiting Lambeth on 11 Nov., arriving at the end of a meeting of bishops discussing Convocation.
Burnet was increasingly worried about the succession. On 31 Mar. 1711 Nicolson had heard that Burnet had warned the queen ‘on the change of her ministry, the growth of the Pretender’s interest’.
Burnet was present on the opening day of the session, 7 Dec. 1711, when presumably he voted for the inclusion of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the Address. On 8 Dec. he was listed as supporting the presentation of the address containing that clause in the abandoned division of that day. About December Burnet’s name appears on a list compiled by Nottingham, possibly concerning his alliance with the Whigs over the peace (or occasional conformity). On 19 Dec. Burnet was forecast as likely to oppose the claims of James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House under his British title, but on the 20th he ‘went out’ of the House before the vote was taken. On 5 Jan. 1712 Burnet was one of nine Whig bishops who dined at Bishop Trelawny’s at Chelsea, though just what was under discussion remains unknown.
Apropos of the legislation that was alleged to be designed to weaken the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland, Burnet observed that those ‘who were suspected to have very bad designs applied themselves with great industry to drive on such, as they hoped would give the Presbyterians in Scotland such alarms as might dispose them to remonstrate that the union was broken.’ The first of these was the Episcopal toleration bill.
On 22 Apr. 1712, Burnet attended the traditional Easter dinner at Lambeth, where he ‘opened’ with ‘some warmth’ the matter of Thomas Brett’s sermon ‘asserting the invalidity of lay baptism’, a position held by some high-flying divines.
Burnet was one of nine bishops attending the traditional dinner with Tenison at Lambeth on 26 Dec. 1712.
Burnet attended the prorogations on 17 Feb. 3, 10, and 26 Mar. 1713, on the latter occasion being accompanied by Bishop Wake.
The Parliament of 1713 and the Hanoverian Succession
On 8 Feb. 1714, when Tenison was discussing the names of his commissioners in the licence allowing Convocation to sit, he insisted on including Burnet, ‘the second senior and must not be leaped over, tho’ perhaps, he, being intent on his great work, may not attend’.
Burnet was missing from the opening of the session convened on the death of Queen Anne, on 1 Aug. 1714. He first sat on 12 Aug. and attended for four of the 15 days. On 21 Sept., Burnet, General Stanhope, Lord Chief Justice, Thomas Parker†, the future earl of Macclesfield, and Thomas Pelham, 2nd Baron Pelham, ‘were all hussaed’, during George I’s arrival into the capital.
On 5 Mar. 1715 Burnet preached before George I.
Soon after his emergence into London society, Burnet had been described by John Evelyn in 1674 as a ‘famous and excellent preacher’, who spoke with ‘such a flood of eloquence and fullness of matter as shewed him to be a person of extraordinary parts’.
I am a true protestant according to the Church of England, full of affection and brotherly love to all who have received the reformed religion tho’ in some points different from our constitution. I die as I all along lived and professed myself to be full of charity and tenderness for those among us who yet dissent from us and heartily pray that God would heal our breaches and make us like minded in all things that so we may unite our zeal and join our endeavours against atheism and infidelity that have prevailed much and against popery the greatest enemy to our Church more to be dreaded than all other parties whatsoever.
Parliamentary historians have seen Burnet as one of ‘a small core of active peers and bishops who regularly took the lead in debates’.