[Sidenote: Archbishop of Canterbury]
John Whitgift was born in the County of Lincoln, of a family that
was ancient; and noted to be both prudent and affable, and gentle
by nature. He was educated in Cambridge; much of his learning was
acquired in Pembroke Hall,--where Mr. Bradford[17] the Martyr was his
tutor;--from thence he was removed to Peter House; from thence to be
Master of Pembroke Hall; and from thence to the Mastership of Trinity
College. About which time the Queen made him her Chaplain; and not
long after Prebend of Ely, and then Dean of Lincoln; and having for
many years past looked upon him with much reverence and favour,
gave him a fair testimony of both, by giving him the Bishoprick of
Worcester, and--which was not with her a usual favour--forgiving
him his first fruits; then by constituting him Vice-President of
the Principality of Wales. And having experimented his wisdom, his
justice, and moderation in the manage of her affairs in both these
places, she, in the twenty-sixth of her reign, 1583, made him
Archbishop of Canterbury, and, not long after, of her Privy Council;
and trusted him to manage all her Ecclesiastical affairs and
preferments. In all which removes, he was like the Ark, which left a
blessing on the place where it rested; and in all his employments was
like Jehoiada, that did good unto Israel.
These were the steps of this Bishop's ascension to this place of
dignity and cares: in which place--to speak Mr. Camden's very words in
his Annals of Queen Elizabeth--"he devoutly consecrated both his whole
life to God, and his painful labours to the good of his Church."
And yet in this place he met with many oppositions in the regulation
of Church affairs, which were much disordered at his entrance, by
reason of the age and remissness of Bishop Grindal,[18] his immediate
predecessor, the activity of the Non-conformists, and their chief
assistant the Earl of Leicester; and indeed by too many others of
the like sacrilegious principles. With these he was to encounter; and
though he wanted neither courage, nor a good cause, yet he foresaw,
that without a great measure of the Queen's favour, it was impossible
to stand in the breach that had been lately made into the lands and
immunities of the Church, or indeed to maintain the remaining lands
and rights of it. And therefore by justifiable sacred insinuations,
such as St. Paul to Agrippa,--"Agrippa, believest thou? I know thou
believest," he wrought himself into so great a degree of favour with
her, as, by his pious use of it, hath got both of them a great degree
of fame in this world, and of glory in that into which they are now
both entered.
[Sidenote: The "little black husband"]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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