But Bentley’s haughty temper, thus displayed in his criticisms, burst forth much more injuriously in the government of his college; where he carried himself so loftily, and gave such serious and repeated offence, that several of the Fellows exhibited a complaint against him before the Bishop of Ely, as visitor. Their object was his removal from the headship, in furtherance of which they charged him with embezzlement, in having improperly applied large sums of money to his own use; and with having adopted other unworthy and violent proceedings, to the interruption of peace and harmony in the society. In answer to these imputations he states his own case in a letter to the Bishop, which was published in octavo in 1710, under the title of the Present State of Trinity College. Such was the beginning of a long, inveterate, and mischievous quarrel; which, after a continuance of more than twenty years, ended in the Master’s favour. The Biographia Britannica, and the Life of Bentley by the present Bishop of Gloucester, necessarily give a detailed narrative of this dispute, during the progress of which several books were written, with the most determined animosity on both sides. We cannot in this instance regret the confined space, which prevents our dilating on a quarrel, unfortunate in its origin, virulent in its progress, and, in our opinion, especially discreditable to the Master.
Nor was this the only trial of a spirit sufficiently able to bear up against the storms of opposition, and by obstinate perseverance to triumph over its adversaries. During the course of the former dispute, Bentley had been promoted to the Regius Professorship of Divinity. George I. paid a visit to the university in October, 1717. It is usual on such occasions to name several persons for a doctor’s degree in that faculty by royal mandate; and the principal part of the ceremony consists in what is called the creation, that is, the presentation of the nominees to the Chancellor, if present, or to the Vice-Chancellor in his absence, by the Professor. Bentley claimed a fee of four guineas as due from each of the Doctors whom it was his office to create, in addition to a broad-piece, which had been the ancient and customary compliment. There were two gold coins under that denomination; a Jacobus, worth twenty-five shillings, and a Carolus, passing for twenty-three. Both were called in, and no gold pieces of that value have since been coined. The Professor refused to create any doctor who would not acquiesce in the fee. His arguments in favour of the claim were at least plausible; but it ill became so high a functionary to interrupt solemn proceedings, and sow discord in a learned body for a mercenary and paltry consideration. From this low origin arose a long and warm dispute, in the course of which the Master of Trinity and Regius Professor was suspended from all his degrees, October 3, 1718, and degraded on the seventeenth of that month. Of thirty Doctors present, twenty-three voted for the degradation of their brother; and of ten heads of colleges who attended all but one joined in the sentence. The principal ground for these extraordinary measures will not appear very strong to impartial posterity; it was an alleged contempt in speaking of a regular meeting of the Heads of Houses, as “the Vice-Chancellor and four or five of his friends over a bottle.” From this sentence Bentley petitioned the King for relief: and the affair was referred to a committee of the Privy Council, whence it was carried into the Court of King’s Bench, where the four Judges declared their opinions _seriatim_ against the proceedings of the university; and a peremptory mandamus was issued, February 7, 1724, after more than five years of undignified altercation, charging the Chancellor, Masters, and scholars “to restore Richard Bentley to all his degrees, and to every other right and privilege of which they had deprived him.”