page_title: Henry Sacheverell
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Henry Sacheverell / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Porträt Daniel Defoes im National Maritime Museum, London English: Portrait of Daniel Defoe, National Maritime Museum, London
context_page_description: Henry Sacheverell was an English high church Anglican clergyman who achieved nationwide fame in 1709 after preaching an incendiary 5 November sermon. He was subsequently impeached by the House of Commons and though he was found guilty, his light punishment was seen as a vindication and he became a popular figure in the country, contributing to the Tories' landslide victory at the general election of 1710.
context_section_description: The son of Joshua Sacheverell, rector of St Peter's, Marlborough, he was adopted by his godfather, Edward Hearst, and his wife after Joshua's death in 1684. His maternal grandfather, Henry Smith, after whom he was possibly named, may be the same Henry Smith who is recorded as a signatory of Charles I's death warrant. His relations included what he labelled his "fanatic kindred"; his great-grandfather John was a rector, three of whose sons were Presbyterians. One of these sons, John (Sacheverell's grandfather), was ejected from his vicarage at the Restoration and died in prison after being convicted for preaching at a Dissenting meeting. He was more proud of distant relatives who were Midlands landed gentry that had supported the Royalist cause during the Civil War.
  The Hearsts were pious High Anglicans and were pleased with Sacheverell, who was "always retiring to his private devotions before he went to school". He was educated at Marlborough Grammar School from 1684 to 1689. He was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1689, where he was a student until 1701 and a fellow from 1701 to 1713. Joseph Addison, another native of Wiltshire, had entered the same college two years earlier. It was at Sacheverell's instigation that Addison wrote his 'Account of the Greatest English Poets' (1694) and he dedicated it to Sacheverell. Sacheverell took his degree of B.A. on 30 June 1693, and became M.A. on 16 May 1695.
  The Bishop of Oxford, John Hough, ordained him deacon on 18 May 1695. However, when in 1697 he presented himself to the Bishop of Lichfield, William Lloyd, with a reference from the dean of Lichfield, Lloyd complained of his grammatically incorrect Latin. Sacheverell, who had published several Latin poems, quoted Latin grammars to verify his Latin and apparently told Lloyd it was "better Latin than he or any of his chaplains could make". Lloyd sent his secretary to his library to prove Sacheverell wrong but failed to do so.
  In 1696 he was appointed chaplain to Sir Charles Holt and curate for Aston parish church. However, when the Aston living fell vacant, Holt refused to appoint Sacheverell. Holt's wife years later claimed this was because Sacheverell "was exceedingly light and foolish, without any of that gravity and seriousness which became one in holy orders; that he was fitter to make a player than a clergyman; that in particular, he was dangerous in a family, since he would among the very servants jest upon the torments of Hell". However Lancelot Addison, the dean of Lichfield and the father of Joseph, nominated him to the small vicarage of Cannock in Staffordshire and after an intense three-day examination, Lloyd was finally convinced Sacheverell was ready and accepted his nomination in September 1697. Sacheverell was threatened with prosecution for seditious libel after preaching a fiery sermon but this was dropped due to Sacheverell's unimportance.
  In July 1701 he was elected Fellow of Magdalen College but his overbearing, disrespectful self-confidence and arrogance won him few friends. In 1709 before his two famous sermons, Thomas Hearne dismissed him as a loud-mouthed wine-soaker. However he was a hard worker and an active teacher, being promoted to a variety of offices. In June 1703 he was appointed to an endowed lectureship; in 1703 he was appointed College Librarian; in 1708 was appointed Senior Dean of Arts and in 1709 he became Bursar.
  Sacheverell first achieved notability as a High Church preacher in May 1702 when he gave a sermon entitled The Political Union, on the necessity of the union between church and state and denigrating Dissenters, occasional conformists and their Whig supporters. His peroration included an appeal to Anglicans not to "strike sail to a party which is an open and avowed enemy to our communion" but instead to "hang out the bloody flag and banner of defiance". Gaining a small London readership, Daniel Defoe labelled Sacheverell "the bloody flag officer" and in his The Shortest Way with the Dissenters he included in its subtitle an acknowledgement of "Mr Sach—ll's sermon and others". 
caption: Daniel Defoe dubbed Sacheverell "the bloody flag officer" and based the style of his The Shortest Way with the Dissenters on one of Sacheverell's sermons
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