Frauds Atterbury, an English theologian and politician, born at Milton, near Newport-Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, March 6,1662, died in Paris, Feb. 15, 1732. He was the son of a clergyman, and was educated at Westminster school, and at Christ Church college, Oxford, where he took his bachelor's degree in 1684. In 1687 appeared his controversial work, "A Reply to 'Considerations on the Spirit of Martin Luther and the Original of the Reformation,"' a pamphlet written by Obadiah Walker, a Roman Catholic, master of University college. Atter-bury's defence of Protestantism was long classed among the best of such arguments. He now acted for several years as tutor to young Boyle, afterward earl of Orrery. Taking orders in 1691, his eloquence as a preacher procured him several offices in the church, and finally the appointment of chaplain to the king and queen. He was constantly involved in controversies on theological and literary subjects. He acquired special notoriety from a work written principally by him, but published in 1698 under the name of Charles Boyle, who was then a student at Christ Church, in which great wit but little learning was used in a violent attack upon Richard Bentley, who had declared the reputed letters of Phalaris, previously published by Boyle, to be entirely spurious.

This was one of the most famous literary controversies of the time, and before it closed it had enlisted much of the talent of the two universities on one side or the other. In 1700 Atterbury engaged on the side of the clergy in a discussion of the rights of convocation, and received the thanks of the lower house of convocation, and the degree of D. D. from Oxford. In 1702 he was appointed a chaplain in ordinary to Queen Anne, in 1704 dean of Carlisle, and in 1707 canon in Exeter cathedral. During several years he engaged in an intricate theological dispute with Benjamin Hoadley. In 1710 he was made prolocutor to the lower house of convocation, in 1712 dean of Christ Church (but removed on account of his quarrelsome temper), and in 1713, on the recommendation of Lord Oxford, bishop of Rochester. It has been asserted, though never proved, that on the death of Queen Anne Atterbury proposed an immediate attempt in favor of the pretender, James; at all events he soon showed himself on the side of the Stuarts, and vigorously opposed the measures of the government.

He was finally convicted of participation in a treasonable plot for the forcible restoration of the fallen dynasty, and after making an eloquent defence before the lords, he was sentenced in May, 1723, to expulsion from all his offices and to perpetual exile. In June he left England for France, with his daughter Mrs. Morriee, and resided in Paris during the remainder of his life. For several years of his exile he continued to work secretly in the interest of James; but he lost favor with that prince on account of certain differences of opinion, and, though afterward reconciled to him, he was never his active partisan after 1727, when he wrote to him a letter of withdrawal. He was buried in Westminster abbey, though without public ceremony; and the government afterward caused his coffin to be opened, in search for treasonable papers supposed to be hidden in it.