ABSTRACT
Shipley's 'sin' lay in uncompromising attachment to Whig principles. His father, Bishop William Shipley (1714-88), was one of the small minority of Anglican prelates openly hostile in the House of Lords to the North government's American policy; his brother-in-law, the great orientalist and lawyer, Sir William Jones (1746-94), was enthusiastic about constitutional reforms of every kind including the abolition of Anglican privileges. Such preferences may have been tolerated in the 1770s; two decades later, when the British state was fighting for its survival against Revolutionary France,
1 Warwickshire Record Office, CR2017/TP/151 /11: Bishop Douglas to Pennant, 10 April 1798 [hereafter WRO}.
