Atterbury, Francis 1663-1732
English prelate

Born in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, he was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford. In c.1687 he took orders and won such a reputation as a preacher that he was appointed lecturer of St Bride's (1691), a royal chaplain, and minister to Bridewell Hospital. He then became successively dean of Carlisle (1704), Prolocutor of Convocation (1710), dean of Christ Church (1712), and Bishop of Rochester and dean of Westminster (1713). In 1715 he refused to sign the bishops' Declaration of Fidelity, and in 1722 he was committed to the Tower for conspiring to restore the Stuarts. Atterbury, who defended himself with great ability, was deprived of all his offices, and for ever banished from the kingdom. In 1723 he left England, and settled in Paris. His works comprise sermons, and letters to Pope, Jonathan Swift, Henry Bolingbroke, and others of his friends. Charles Boyle's Examination of Bentley's Dissertations on the Epistle of Phalaris (1698), a clever but shallow performance, satirized by Swift in his Battle of the Books (1704), was really by Atterbury who had been the young earl's tutor at Christ Church.