Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blackburne, Lancelot
BLACKBURNE, LANCELOT (1668–1743), archbishop of York, was the son of Richard Blackburne of London, whom the archbishop claimed to have been connected with the Blackburnes of Marricke Abbey, and after being educated at Westminster School matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, on 20 Oct. 1676, aged 17. At the close of 1081, shortly after his ordination, he went to the West Indies, the sum of 20l. appearing in the record of 'Moneys paid for Secret Services' (Camden Soc. 1861) to have been paid 'to Launcelott Blackburne, clerk, bounty for his transportation to Antego.' On 28 Jan. 1083 he proceeded M. A., and having attached himself to Bishop Trelawny on his appointment to the see of Exeter, received considerable preferment in that diocese. He became a prebendary in June 1691 and sub-dean in. January 1695. Among the correspondence of John Ellis in the British Museum, 'Additional MSS.' 28880-88, occur several letters from Blackburne, and among them (28880, f. 169) is one requesting the influence of Ellis on behalf of his appointment to the duchy rectory of Culstock in Cornwall (29 May 1696). This preferment Blackburne obtained, and during his tenure of it he built the old rectory house. A letter from Blackburne to Bishop Trelawny, describing the evidence given in a trial at Exeter for witchcraft in September 1696, was print and in 'Notes and Queries,' 1st series, xi. 498-9 (1866), and reprinted in the 'Western Antiquary,' iii. 226-7 (1884). Rumours injurious to his reputation were freely circulated during his lifetime, and in 1702 they forced him to resign his sub-deanery. In July 1704, however, he was reinstated, and from that time his rise was rapid. He became the dean of Exeter on 3 Nov. 1706, archdeacon of Cornwall in January 1716, and bishop of Exeter in January 1717. This preferment he retained until 1724, and it is stated that he desired to hold it in commendam with the deanery of St. Paul's, but that he was prevailed upon to accept the archbishopric of York, a piece of preferment which, according to scandal, was bestowed upon him for having united George I in marriage with his mistress, the Duchess of Munster. Two ballads, printed in 1730, represented him as contending with Hoadly and Gibson for the primacy of Canterbury, but that prize was missed by all three. Blackburne’s rise in the church was originally due to the patronage of Bishop Trelawny, but it was probably accelerated through his marriage, at the Savoy Chapel, 2 Sept. 1684, with Catherine, daughter of William Talbot, of Stourton Castle, Staffordshire, and widow of Walter Littleton of Lichfield. From her brother, William Talbot, bishop of Durham, father of lord-chancellor Talbot, is descended the present Earl of Shrewsbury, and her issue by her first husband was a direct ancestor of Lord Teynham. She was older than the archbishop, and predeceased him. He died at a time of extreme cold, 23 March 1743, and was buried at St. Margaret's, Westminster, on 1 April.
Archbishop Blackburne was gay and witty. His enemies repeated the story that he acted as chaplain on board one of the ships engaged in buccaneering, and that he shared the booty, the joke running that one of the buccaneers on his arrival in England asked what had become of his old chum Blackburne, and was answered that he was archbishop of York. The freeness of his manners is shown by two anecdotes: (1) That on a visitation at St. Mary's, Nottingham, he ordered pipes and tobacco and some liquor to be brought into the vestry ‘for his refreshment after the fatigue of confirmation;’ whereupon the vicar, Mr. Disney, remonstrated with the archbishop for his conduct, and, with the remark that the vestry should not be turned into a smoking-room, forbad their introduction. (2) That he applauded the conduct of Queen Caroline in not objecting to the king’s new mistress. It was at one time insinuated that Francis Blackburne, the archdeacon [q. v.], was a natural son of the archbishop, but this was a slander. Horace Walpole more than once asserted that Bishop Hayter of Norwich was an illegitimate son of the archbishop, but this assertion is refuted in the ‘Quarterly Review,' xxvii. 186, One of Walpole's sentences combines all the reckless charges which were repeated by the prelate’s slanderers: ‘The jolly old archbishop of York, who had all the manners of a man of quality, though he had been a buccaneer and was a clergyman; but he retained nothing of his first profession except his seraglio.' The popular opinion concerning the character of Blackburne’s life may be gathered from a poem entitled ‘Priestcraft and Lust, or Lancelot to his Ladies, an Epistle from the Shades,' 1743, fo. Hayter was one of Blackburne's executors, and with two Talbots was residuary legatee to the estate. In a charge to the clergy of the archdeaconry of York (1732) he pays a warm tribute to the archbishop, styling him ‘my indulgent benefactor.' Archbishop Blackburne was the author of a sermon in Latin to convocation, three sermons before Queen Anne, and one before the House of Commons. When Queen Caroline inquired whether Butler, the author of the ‘Analogy,’ was not dead, a ready remark of the witty prelate— ‘No, madam, he is not dead, but buried,' an allusion to his retirement at Stanhope-led to Butler’s appointment as clerk of the closet, and to the queen’s recommendation of him to Archbishop Potter when she was on her deathbed. A line engraving of the archbishop by Vertue, from a painting by Zeeman, is dated ‘Aged 68, 10 Dec. 1726.'
[Walpole's Last Ten Years of George II (1822), i. 75; Letters, i. 235, 250; Atterbury's Correspondence, i. 253; Bliss`s Wood, iv. 661; Rawlinson MSS. 4to, i. 299, Bodleian Library; Noble’s Continuation of Granger, iii. 68-9; Granger’s Letters, 199; Polwheele's Devon, i. 313; Life of F. Blackburne, i. p. viii (1805); Notes and Queries, 4th ser. ix. 226, 289, 396; Oliver's Bishops of Exeter, 161, 273, 277, 296; Bartlett`s Life of Bp. Butler, 38; We1ch’s Westminster Scholars, 178-9; Sir C. Hanbury Williams’s Works (1822), ii. 133-5.]