A series of articles defending the writings of Alexander Pope against charges of religious unorthodoxy, led to a friendship with the poet which contributed greatly to Warburton's social advancement. Pope introduced him to both William Murray, later Lord Mansfield, who obtained for him the preachership of Lincoln's Inn in 1746, and to Ralph Allen, who, in Dr Johnson's words, "gave him his niece and his estate, and, by consequence, a bishopric." Warburton married Gertrude Tucker, in September 1745, and from that time lived at Allen's estate at Prior Park, in Gloucestershire, which he eventually inherited in 1764.