BISHOPS SINCE THE RESTORATION OF KING CHARLES II.
1662. George Morley, Bishop of Worcester. 1684. Peter Mews, Bishop of Bath and Wells. 1707. Sir Jonathan Trelawney, Bart., Bishop of Exeter. 1721. Charles Trimnell, Bishop of Norwich. 1723. Richard Willis, Bishop of Salisbury. 1734. Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Salisbury. 1761. John Thomas, Bishop of Salisbury. 1781. Hon. Brownlow North, Bishop of Worcester. 1820. George Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln.
Dr. Tomline was the last Bishop of Winchester who had possession of this ancient house, but he never resided in it.
George Morley, chaplain to Charles I., was a great scholar and an eminent divine. After the death of the king he retired to the Hague, where he attended on Charles II. At the Restoration he was made Dean of Christ Church, and in the same year Bishop of Worcester, whence he was translated to Winchester. His constant practice was to rise at five o’clock in the morning, to go to bed at eleven, and to eat but once a day. By these rules he preserved his health with very little interruption through the course of a long life. He died in 1684.
Peter Mews was born at Parscandle, in Dorsetshire, in 1618, and was educated at Merchant Tailors’ School, under the care of Dr. Winiffe, then Dean of St. Paul’s, and afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. From school he was elected scholar to St. John’s College, Oxford, and became Fellow of the same College at the commencement of the civil war. Soon afterwards he left Oxford, entered the royal army, and was promoted to the rank of captain; he served for some time, and then went to Holland.
During the Interregnum he took holy orders, and at the Restoration returned to his college, where he took the degree of D.D. On the death of Dr. Bailey he was made President of St. John’s College. In 1669 he was chosen Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and in 1673 he was promoted to the see of Bath and Wells, which he held for about twelve years, till he was translated to Winchester. He died 1706, aged 88.
SINGULAR PREDICTIONS.—In 1706, John Needs, a Winchester scholar, foretold the deaths of Mr. Carman, chaplain to the College, of Dr. Mews, Bishop of Winchester, and of himself, within that year, to several of his school-fellows, among others, to George Lavington. This declaration exposed him naturally to much raillery in the school, and he was ludicrously styled “Prophet Needs.” Mr. Carman died about the time he mentioned. For this event, however, he had little credit, it being said, that the death of such an old man might reasonably be expected. Within the time prefixed Bishop Mews also died by a strange accident. He was subject to fainting fits, from which he soon recovered by smelling spirits of hartshorn. Being seized with a fit whilst a gentleman was with him, and perceiving its approach, he pointed eagerly to a phial in the window; the visitor took it, and in haste poured the contents down the Bishop’s throat, which instantly suffocated him. As the time approached which Needs had prefixed for his own dissolution, of which he named even the day and the hour, he sickened, apparently declined, and kept to his chamber, where he was frequently visited and prayed with by Mr. Fletcher, second master of the school, and father of the Bishop of Kildare. This gentleman reasoned and argued with the youth, but in vain; for with great calmness and composure the patient resolutely persisted in affirming that the event would verify his prediction. On the day he had fixed, the house-clock being kindly put forward, struck the hour before the real time; he saw through the deception, and told those who were with him, that when the church clock struck he should expire—he did so!