[1] He subsequently travelled on the continent, where he met George Berkeley, his friend and correspondent for thirty years, and Thomas Secker, whose sister he married.

In January 1735 he was nominated bishop of Gloucester; his friend and patron Lord Chancellor Charles Talbot, 1st Baron Talbot suffered the rejection of his previous nominee Thomas Rundle, whose promotion to Gloucester had been successfully opposed by Edmund Gibson, the Bishop of London.

He revived the institution of rural deans, repaved the choir of Gloucester Cathedral, added pinnacles to the lady chapel, and repaired the palace.

He visited the diocese of York, under commission from the aging Archbishop Lancelot Blackburne, who left him a service of plate by his will.

He tended Bishop Joseph Butler in his last illness, died a few months later on 30 August 1752, and was buried in his cathedral.