 Stanhope, as Dean, entered the lower house of Convocation at a period of bitter conflict with the upper house under Francis Atterbury's leadership.As a man of peace, in friendship with Robert Nelson on one side, and with Edward Tenison and Gilbert Burnet on the other, Stanhope was proposed by the moderate party as prolocutor in 1705, but was defeated by the high churchman, Dr. William Binckes.In 1711, Stanhope was among the founding group that would organise the building of fifty new churches to replace those lost in the Great Fire of London, and was re-appointed in 1715 after the accession of George I.