John Whitgift
John Whitgift [1]
an eminent English prelate, was born at Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire, in 1530. He was educated at Queen's College, and Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1554; was chosen fellow of Peterhouse in 1555; entered into holy orders in 1560, and was appointed chaplain to Cox, bishop of Ely, who gave him the rectory of Feversham, in Cambridgeshire; was appointed lady Margaret professor of divinity at Cambridge in 1653; became chaplain to the queen in 1565; was president of Peterhouse in 1567; became master of Pembroke Hall in April of the same year; was appointed regius professor of divinity, and yet the same year became master of Trinity College; became prebendary of Ely in 1568; vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 1570; dean of Lincoln in 1571; prebendary of Lincoln in 1572; bishop of Worcester, and vice- president of the Marches of Wales in 1577; was chosen the successor of Edmund Grindal as archbishop of Canterbury in 1583; was very severe in his prosecution of Nonconformists both Puritans and Catholics, and was noted for his strenuous advocacy of the constitution of the English Church; obtained a decree against liberty of printing in 1585; became privy- councilor in 1586; founded a hospital and grammar-school at Croydon in 1595; joined in the deliberations of the conferences at Hampton Court in January, 1604; and died at Lambeth Palace, Feb. 29, of the same year. The Works of John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury (Cambridge, 185154. 3 vols.), were edited for the Parker Society by the Rev. John Ayre. Biographies have been written by Sir George Paule (1612) and John Strype (1718).
