The Cathedral Church of Canterbury Part 6

#Edmund Grindall# (1576-1583) was born at St. Bees and educated at Cambridge, where he became Master of Pembroke Hall. He was Chaplain to Edward VI. During the troubles of Mary's reign he lived in Germany, and on Elizabeth's accession became the first Protestant Bishop of London. Thence he was removed to York and in 1575 was appointed as archbishop. He was inclined to view the Puritans with more leniency than his predecessor and always refused to forbid the prophesyings, or meetings of the clergy for discussing the meaning of scripture, which Elizabeth disliked so much, and was in consequence deprived of his jurisdiction. He went blind before his death and was buried at Croydon.

#John Whitgift# (1583-1604) was born at Great Grimsby and educated at Cambridge, where John Bradford was his tutor: he became one of Elizabeth's chaplains and Master of Pembroke Hall and of Trinity. He wrote an answer to Cartwright's "Admonition" and was preferred to the Deanery of Lincoln and Bishopric of Worcester. After Grindall's death he was translated to Canterbury. From this date his severity towards the Puritans increased. He insisted that every minister of the Church should subscribe to three points: the queen's supremacy, the Common Prayer, and the Thirty-nine Articles, and enforced his principle with much vigour, contrary to the advice of the more enlightened Lord Burleigh. The severity of these measures called into existence the "Martin Marprelate" libels and produced much dissatisfaction and suffering among the more Puritanical clergy, which was by no means lessened by the accession of James, who, on his way to London rejected a pet.i.tion signed by more than one thousand Puritan ministers. Whitgift was buried at Croydon where he founded a school and hospital.

#Richard Bancroft# (1604-1610) was born near Manchester and educated at Jesus College, Oxford. He became one of Elizabeth's chaplains, and Bishop of London, whence he was translated to Canterbury. He was even more severe than his predecessor against the Puritans, and was a most stern champion of conformity. He advocated the king's absolute power beyond the law and attempted to establish episcopacy in Scotland. He died at Lambeth and was buried in the parish church there.

#George Abbot# (1610-1633) was born at Guildford and educated at Balliol College. He a.s.sisted in establis.h.i.+ng union between the Scotch and English Churches and was rewarded with the Bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry.

Thence he was translated to London, and on the death of Bancroft was appointed to the primacy. In contrast to his predecessor he connived at some irregularities of discipline in the Puritanical clergy. At the same time he was a zealous Calvinist and hater of popery, and disapproved of those who preached up the arbitrary power of the king. These latter views rendered him unpopular with the courtiers and the party of Laud. The accidental death of a keeper at the hands of the archbishop was utilized against him by his enemies and he was with difficulty restored to his archiepiscopal functions. On refusing to licence a sermon by Dr.

Sibthorpe, a.s.serting the king's right to tax his subjects without their consent, he was obliged to retire to his palace of Ford, near Canterbury.

He a.s.sisted at the coronation of Charles I., but never managed to win the favour of that monarch. He died at Croydon, and was buried at Guildford, where his tomb and effigy still remain.

#William Laud# (1633-1645) was born at Reading, and educated at St. John's College, Oxford. At the university he soon became conspicuous for his hatred of the Puritans and his devotion to High Church doctrines. He became President of St. John's in spite of the opposition of Archbishop Abbot. He became successively one of the royal chaplains, Dean of Gloucester, Bishop of St. David's, Bath and Wells, and London. He acted as Dean of Westminster at Charles I.'s coronation. He was made Dean of the Chapel Royal, Chancellor of Oxford, and a Privy Councillor of Scotland. On Abbot's death he was elevated to the primacy, and is said to have refused the offer of a cardinal's hat. As archbishop he was responsible for the general Church persecution which produced his own unpopularity and downfall, and was one of the main causes of the Civil War. Prosecutions for non-conformity were enforced with the utmost severity. The courts of Star Chamber and High Commission were brought to bear on the Puritans, and Laud became universally detested. The superiority of the king over the law was openly preached, and the Irish and Scotch Puritans were alienated by the severity of the measures taken against them. On the common idea of popular government, the Puritans were driven into coalition and identification with the national party, while the king, court, bishops, and judges represented the High Church movement and the doctrine of the king's absolute authority. In 1639 the palace at Lambeth was attacked, but the archbishop was removed to Whitehall and escaped for the time. In 1640, however, he was impeached for high treason, and confined in the Tower.

Various charges were brought against him and fines inflicted, and his property was seized and sold or destroyed for the use of the commonwealth.

The charge of high treason could not be legally established, and a bill of attainder was pa.s.sed against him in 1645. He was eventually beheaded on Tower Hill, at the age of seventy-one years; his remains were interred at Barking, but subsequently removed to the chapel of St. John's College at Oxford. His conduct has been differently judged by his friends and enemies. He built the greater part of the inner quadrangle of St. John's, and presented a large collection of important ma.n.u.scripts to the university. In his time the archiepiscopal palace at Canterbury was ruined by the Puritans, and on the Restoration an Act was pa.s.sed dispensing the archbishops from restoring it. From this time they have had no official residence in Canterbury.

#William Juxon# (1660-1663) was born at Chichester, and educated, like his predecessor, at St. John's College, Oxford, where he attracted the attention of Laud. He became successively President of St. John's, Dean of Worcester, Bishop of Hereford, and Bishop of London. He also became Lord Treasurer, a post which had been held by no churchman since the days of Henry VII., and was the last instance of any of the great offices of State being filled by an ecclesiastic. He attended Charles I. on the occasion of his execution. On the Restoration he became Archbishop of Canterbury, and died three years afterwards. He lies in the chapel of St. John's College.

#Gilbert Sheldon# (1663-1677) was educated at Oxford, and became Fellow and Warden of All Souls' College. He was a strong supporter of the king during the Civil War. He was deprived of his wardens.h.i.+p and imprisoned by the Parliamentarian commissioners when they visited Oxford. He retired to Derbys.h.i.+re until the Restoration, when he was restored to his wardens.h.i.+p; he was made Dean of the Chapel Royal, and succeeded Juxon in the See of London. In 1661 he a.s.sisted at the discussion of the liturgy between the Presbyterian and Episcopal divines known as the Savoy Conference. In 1663 he succeeded Juxon in the primacy, and in 1667 was elected Chancellor of Oxford. He built the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, which building is an early work of Sir Christopher Wren's. He offended the court party by his open disapproval of the king's morals, and retired in 1669 to his palace at Croydon, where he spent most of the remainder of his life. He was buried at the parish church at Croydon, where his tomb and effigy still remain.

#William Sancroft# (1678-1691) was born at Fresingfield, in Suffolk, and educated at St. Edmundsbury and at Cambridge, where he became Fellow of Emmanuel College. He was deprived of his fellows.h.i.+p in 1649, and retired to the Continent, where he remained until the restoration of Charles II.

He then returned to England, and subsequently became Master of Emmanuel College, and Dean of York, and of St. Paul's, and Archdeacon of Canterbury, and was raised to the primacy by Charles II., whose death-bed he attended. In the reign of James he was at the head of the seven bishops who presented the famous pet.i.tion against the Declaration of Indulgence, for which they were committed to the Tower, tried, and acquitted amidst immense popular excitement. After James's flight, Sancroft acted as the head of the council of peers who took upon themselves the administration of the government of the country. His plan was to retain James nominally on the throne, while placing the reins of government in the hands of a regent. He refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, considering himself bound by his former oath to James II. He was accordingly suspended and deprived, and when ejected by law from Lambeth he retired to his small ancestral property at Fresingfield, where he died and was buried.

#John Tillotson# (1691-1694) was born of Puritan parents at Sowerby, in Yorks.h.i.+re, and was educated at Cambridge. During the Protectorate he had followed the teachings of the Presbyterians, but on the Restoration he submitted to the Act of Uniformity. He held among other posts those of Preacher at Lincoln's Inn and Dean of Canterbury, and enjoyed the intimate confidence of William and Mary. On the deprivation of Sancroft he was reluctantly induced to accept the primacy, which he was destined to hold only for some three years. He died at Lambeth after this short term of office, and was buried in the Church of St. Lawrence, Jewry. As a theologian Tillotson was remarkable for his lat.i.tudinarianism, and he was one of the finest preachers who have ever lived.

#Thomas Tenison# was born at Cottenham, in Cambridges.h.i.+re, and educated at Cambridge. His fame as a preacher procured him the Archdeaconry of London and the Bishopric of Lincoln, in which diocese he did admirable work. He died at Lambeth, and lies buried in the parish church there.

#William Wake# (1716-1737) was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and became Dean of Exeter and Bishop of Lincoln. He was gifted with great learning, and took an active part in the controversy with Atterbury on the subject of the rights of convocation.

#John Potter# (1737-1747) was the son of a linendraper at Wakefield, in Yorks.h.i.+re, and was educated at University College, Oxford, becoming Fellow of Lincoln and afterwards Bishop of Oxford. He was a learned divine and writer. Like his predecessor he was buried in the parish church at Croydon.

#Thomas Herring# (1747-1757) and

#Matthew Hutton# (1757-1758) were both translated to Canterbury from York.

#Thomas Secker# (1758-1768) was born of dissenting parents near Newark. At the instance of Butler, afterwards the famous Bishop of Durham, he joined the Church of England and abandoned the study of medicine, and took holy orders. He held many posts in succession, including the Bishoprics of Bristol and Oxford. He died and was buried at Lambeth, where his portrait, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, still remains.

#Frederick Cornwallis# (1768-1783) was the seventh son of Charles, 4th Lord Cornwallis. He was consecrated Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in 1750, and in 1766 became Dean of St. Paul's. On October 6th, 1768, he was enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury. In Hasted's "Kent" we find him commended highly for having abolished that "disagreeable distinction of his chaplains dining at a separate table." More renowned for his affability and courteous behaviour than for learning, he entertained at times with semi-regal state; but once fell into some disfavour because "his lady was in the habit of holding _routs_ on Sundays."

#John Moore# (1783-1805) became Dean of Canterbury in 1771. He was consecrated Bishop of Bangor in 1775, and thence translated to the archiepiscopal see in 1783. Although a promoter of Sunday-schools and foreign missions, he did not escape reproach for paying undue regard to the interests of his family. It has been well said that during his tenure of office and that of his immediate successor, the sinecures and pluralities held by the highest clergy were worthy of the mediaeval period.

#Charles Manners-Sutton# (1805-1828) was grandson of John, 3rd Duke of Rutland. In 1791 he was made Dean of Peterborough, and Bishop of Norwich in 1792. In 1794 he was appointed Dean of Windsor, and became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1805 owing to Court influence, which outweighed the hostility of Pitt, who wished to appoint his own nominee. As a prelate he was distinguished for many virtues and qualities befitting his office. He was president at the foundation of the National Society, and worked strenuously to advance the cause of education which it represents. While he held the primacy a fund which had been acc.u.mulated from the sale of Croydon Palace was applied to the purchase of Addington, where he lies buried.

#William Howley# (1828-1848) was tutor to the Prince of Orange (afterwards William II. of Holland) then successively Regius Professor of Divinity of Oxford, Bishop of London, 1813, and archbishop, 1823. He played a prominent part in politics and state ceremonials and marked the transition between the new _regime_, and the old princely days of the archbishoprics.

#John Bird Sumner# (1848-1862) was brother of Dr. C. Sumner, Bishop of Winchester. In 1823 he was appointed Bishop of Chester, and in 1848 was promoted to the See of Canterbury. He published a large number of works, and by his activity and simplicity of life is "remembered everywhere as realizing that ideal of the Apostolic ministry which he had traced in his earliest and most popular work."[3]

[3] Diocesan Histories: "Canterbury," by R.C. Jenkins, M.A. 1880.

#Charles Thomas Longley# (1862-1868) was the son of a Recorder of Rochester. In 1836 he was consecrated the first bishop of the newly founded See of Ripon, translated to Durham in 1856, became Archbishop of York in 1860, and in 1862 was transferred to Canterbury. Perhaps the most memorable incidents in a memorable career are the Pan-Anglican Synod held at Lambeth in 1867, and his establishment of the Diocesan Society for Church Building.

#Archibald Campbell Tait# (1868-1882) was son of Craufurd Tait, Esq., a Scots attorney. He succeeded Arnold as Master of Rugby in 1842, and became Dean of Carlisle in 1850. He presided over the Pan-Anglican Synod in 1867, and in 1868 succeeded to the archbishopric. "Memorials of Catherine and Craufurd Tait" is a book so well known that even the barest sketch of his career here would be superfluous.

#Edward White Benson# (1882-1896), son of Edward White Benson, Esq., of Birmingham Heath, was a master of Rugby. He was Head Master of Wellington from 1858 to 1872, Prebendary and Chancellor of Lincoln in 1872, was consecrated the first bishop of the newly created See of Truro in 1877, and translated to Canterbury in 1883. He was buried in the Cathedral on October 16th, 1896, in a secluded corner of the north aisle, immediately under the north-west tower, the first archbishop who was interred in the cathedral of the metropolitan see since Reginald Pole in 1558.

#Frederick Temple# (1896- ), the present archbishop, is son of the late Major Octavius Temple. He was Head Master of Rugby, 1858 to 1869, consecrated the sixty-first Bishop of Exeter in 1869, translated to London in 1885, and to Canterbury in 1896. His share in the famous "Essays and Reviews," and the many active works he has inst.i.tuted, are too well known to need comment.