so. In 1696, he was appointed chaplain to Sir Charles Holt (fl. 1670s) 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". 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". John Dennis also replied to Sacheverell in The Danger of Priestcraft to Religion and Government. Roger Mander, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, appointed Sacheverell to preach the University Sermon on 10 June 1702, the date chosen by Queen Anne as a Fast Day for Heaven's blessing for British success in the new war against