Cleric
On 14 January 1690 Blackall was instituted to the rectory of South Ockendon, Essex; he resigned this for the rectory of St Mary Aldermary, London, to which he was presented by the dean and chapter of St Paul's on 6 November 1694. He also held the city lectureships of St Olave Jewry from 1695 to 1698, and St Dunstan-in-the-West from 1698. He was appointed chaplain to William and Mary, although it was later alleged that he had been a nonjuror and had refused to swear allegiance to the new monarchs for two years.
Blackall was nominated to the bishopric of Exeter by the personal determination of Queen Anne, upon the recommendation of John Sharp, archbishop of York, but without the knowledge of her ministers, whose politically expedient recommendations the queen, mindful of the royal prerogative, deemed insufficiently orthodox. It was consequently remarked wittily that he was the ‘queen's bishop’. He was consecrated at Lambeth on 8 February 1708. In order to supplement his episcopal revenues he was permitted to hold, in addition to his bishopric, the deanery of St Buryan, Cornwall, the rectory of Shorbrook, Devon, and the offices of archdeacon and treasurer of Exeter. He was a diligent bishop in his diocese, and he was also instrumental in the institution of charity schools in Exeter. He lived to see the establishment of two such schools for boys and two for girls, of fifty pupils each.
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Famous quotes containing the word cleric:
“At the time there was a claustral monk named Frere Jean of the Hashes, who was young, gallant, joyful, good natured, dextrous, bold, adventurous, thoughtful, tall, thin, with a capacious mouth, gifted in the nose, a great dispatcher of hours, quite an accomplisher of masses, a quick doer-in of vigils,—to put it in a nutshell, a true monk if ever there’s been one since this monk of a world first monked out a monk; moreover, a cleric to his very teeth in matters of the breviary.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)