ABSTRACT
Francis Atterbury was an able and ambitious churchman who, under the Stuarts, might well have become Archbishop of Canterbury. He had known Alexander Pope for some time and their friendship developed rapidly once Francis Atterbury had joined the Jacobites. Alexander Pope liked Francis Atterbury and spent hours discussing literature with him. There is also evidence that the Hampshire Blacks, among others, had clear Jacobite connections and that their gang had recruited conspirators for the Francis Atterbury plot. He showed him the as yet unpublished lines on Atticus and the Bishop was enthusiastic, being one of the first to see Alexander Pope would make a formidable satirist. In 1722, the money was delivered to the rebels in Paris by Alderman Barber the printer who, with Alexander Pope, applied for the licence to publish Buckingham's Works. Alexander Pope had also written to Lord Carteret protesting his innocence in the Jacobite propaganda issue.
