a jesuit, a cruel soldier in the parliamentary army, a judge of the late king, and an assistant at the scaffold when King Charles was executed. He was defeated at the poll for the borough of Southwark, and in the following October was fined five marks for assaulting a waterman at the election day, the fact being that he had removed two men who were preventing his electors from tendering their votes (The Tryal of Slingsby Bethel (1681), and State Trials, viii. 747–58). In the same month of October 1681, Bethel showed his liberality by a gift of several hundred pounds for the relief of poor prisoners for debt. In July 1682 he thought it prudent to retire to Hamburg, and there he remained until February 1689. Whilst absent he was found guilty and heavily fined, with several others (8 May 1683), for an assault on the preceding midsummer day at the election of sheriffs, a proceeding which was generally condemned. After the accession of William and Mary the convicted persons presented a petition to the king, praying him to except out of his act of grace all those who were concerned in this prosecution (The humble Petition of Sir Thomas Pilkington, Slingsby Bethel, &c.). Bethel died early in February 1697. In Foster's ‘Yorkshire Pedigrees’ (vol. ii.) he is said to have married Mary Burrell of Huntingdon; but if this statement be correct, he was a widower in 1681.
Bethel was the author of several works. In 1659 he published ‘A true and impartial Narrative of the most material Debates and Passages in the late Parliament,’ reprinted in the ‘Somers Tracts’ (1748), iv. 524–33, in vol. vi. of the 1809 ed. of the same work, and again as an appendix to his anonymous tract, ‘The Interest of Princes and States,’ 1680. Most of the discourses in the last-mentioned volume were written many years previously, when the author was on his travels. They advocated freedom of trade and liberty of conscience. ‘The World's Mistake in Oliver Cromwell’ (anon.), 1668, contained a severe censure of Cromwell's foreign policy, and of his conduct towards Lilburne and Sir Henry Vane. Another of Bethel's anonymous pamphlets, ‘Observations on the Letter written to Sir Thomas Osborn,’ 1673, by the Duke of Buckingham, advocated the support of Holland against France. The last of his works, ‘The Providence of God observed through several ages towards this Nation’ (anon.), 1691, republished in 1694 and 1697, dealt mainly with the proceedings under the Stuarts for the establishment of arbitrary power. There is a contemporary print of Bethel in his robes as sheriff which was reproduced in 1800. It represents him as an austere and determined man.
[Luttrell, i. passim, ii. 30, iv. 179; Poulson's Holderness, i. 316, 347, 402, 408; Scott's Dryden, ix. 235, 280–2; 5th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. p. 386; Masson's Milton, v. 520.]
BETHELL, CHRISTOPHER (1773–1859), bishop of Bangor, was the second son of the Rev. Richard Bethell, of Wadham College, Oxford, B.A. 1755, M.A. 1759, rector of St. Peter's, Wallingford, who died 12 Jan. 1806, having married in 1771 Ann, daughter of James Clitherow, of Boston House, Middlesex. He was born at Isleworth, Surrey, 21 April 1773, and educated at King's College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. 1796, M.A. 1799, and D.D. 1817; obtained a fellowship, and was second member's prizeman 1797. He was rector of Kirby Wiske, Yorkshire, from 1808 to 1830; dean of Chichester from 5 April 1814 until he became a bishop, and prebendary of Exeter 22 June 1830. Lord Liverpool nominated him bishop of Gloucester 11 March 1824. The Duke of Wellington transferred him to the more lucrative see of Exeter 8 April 1830, and again on 28 Oct. in the same year to the still more lucrative see of Bangor, which he held up to the time of his death.
Dr. Bethell was during the whole of his life identified with the high-church party. He was the author of several theological works, the principal of which is ‘A General View of the Doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism,’ 1821, of which a fourth edition was published in 1845. His other works are chiefly charges and sermons. His ignorance of the Welsh language was a very great hindrance to his usefulness in the diocese of Bangor, where 195,000 out of 200,000 people understood little more than their native tongue. He died at the palace, Bangor, 19 April 1859, and was buried in Llandegai churchyard on 27 April. At the time of his death he was the oldest prelate on the episcopal bench.
[Guardian, 27 April 1859, p. 375; Record, 23 April 1859, p. 3.]
BETHELL, RICHARD, first Lord Westbury (1800–1873), lord chancellor, the son of Richard Bethell, M.D., of Bristol, the grandson of Samuel Bethell of Bradford-on-Avon, and the great-grandson of Thomas Bethell, also of Bradford-on-Avon, who died in 1755, was born at Bradford-on-Avon 30 June 1800. He was educated partly at Corsham School, near Bath, partly at Bristol. At the age of fourteen, 'while still,' as he used to say, 'wearing a jacket and a frill,' he presented, himself at Wadham College, matriculated,
