Note 175 — Chapter V

Ibid., 366. The following extracts respecting Turner are curious:

He is said to have very heartily repented of what he did at the trial of the Seven, “and to have acknowledged that their going to the Tower, when they might easily have prevented the same by entering into mutual recognizances for each other, as the King would have had them, was a wrong step taken, and an unnecessary punctilio of honour in Christian Bishops. Howsoever it was, he reflected upon all that had passed, and was so sincere as to condemn himself in whatsoever he conceived that he had not acted as became his order and station.” “When he was Bishop of Rochester, he came to St. Mary’s, when a very bright sermon was preached by his brother of Trinity College. The Earl of Thomond sat next the Bishop, and seemed mightily pleased with the sermon. He asked him the name of the preacher. The Bishop told him it was one Mr. Turner. ‘Turner,’ says my Lord Thomond, ‘he can’t be akin to Dr. Turner, Bishop of Rochester. He is the worst preacher in England, and this is one of the best,’ seeming not to know the Bishop, when certainly he knew him very well.”—Lansdowne MSS., Kennet Coll., 987, 138.