Archbishops of Canterbury from 1533 to 1645 Flashcards
Thomas Cranmer
1st Protestant Archbishop.
Burned in 1556.
Archibishop from 1533 à 1555.
Begun under King Henry VIII (1509 à 1547), Continued under King Edward the VI (1547 à 1553) and continued under Queen Mary I (1553 à 1558)
Archdeacon of Taunton / first Protestant archbishop; excommunicated by Rome and deprived for heresy 1553 / put to death by burning, 21 March 1556.
supported the principle of royal supremacy, in which the king was considered sovereign over the Church within his realm.
Cranmer’s tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, he was responsible for establishing the first doctrinal and liturgical structures of the reformed Church of England.
When Edward came to the throne, Cranmer was able to promote major reforms. Architect of the Book of Common Prayer, he wrote and compiled the first two editions of it, a complete liturgy for the English Church.
He changed doctrine or discipline in areas such as the Eucharist, clerical celibacy, the role of images in places of worship, and the veneration of saints. Cranmer promulgated the new doctrines through the Prayer Book, the Homilies and other publications.
After the accession of the Catholic Mary I, Cranmer was put on trial for treason and heresy. Imprisoned for over two years and under pressure from Church authorities, he made several recantations and apparently reconciled himself with the Catholic Church. While this would have normally absolved him, Mary wanted him executed, and, on the day of his execution, he withdrew his recantations, to die a heretic to Catholics and a martyr for the principles of the English Reformation.
Cranmer’s death was immortalised in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and his legacy lives on within the Church of England through the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles, an Anglican statement of faith derived from his work
Central figure of the early English Reformation, was of Nottinghamshire gentry
stock. Entering Jesus College, Cambridge, at fourteen, in the mid 1510s he surrendered his Jesus fellowship to marry. His wife died in childbirth, and Cranmer was
then ordained and resumed his fellowship. He served on a diplomatic mission to Spain in 1527 and in 1529 suggested fresh consultations with European university theology faculties to aid Henry VIII’s attempt to rid himself of Catherine of Aragon. He was sent to Italy in 1530, and there the absentee bishop of Worcester, Jerome Ghinucci, made him parson of Bredon (Worcestershire).
His break with traditional religion probably came through work on Henry’s annulment. During diplomacy in Germany in 1532, he defied clerical celibacy to marry Margarethe, niece of Nuremberg Lutheran leader Andreas Osiander. Not long after, Henry chose him as archbishop of Canterbury. Consecrated with reluctant papal approval in 1533, he declared Henry’s first marriage annulled and facilitated a public royal marriage to Anne Boleyn. When Anne, his religious ally, was executed for adultery, Cranmer granted the king a further annulment (1536).
Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, the king’s deputy as head of the English church, collaborated in further reformation, but by Henry’s conservative Act of Six Articles (1539), Margarethe was forced to leave England. Having survived Cromwell’s fall (1540), Cranmer was the only person at court able to tell Henry of Catherine Howard’s adultery (1541). Henry’s continuing esteem enabled him to survive efforts by conservatives in 1543 to repeat their destruction of Cromwell. In Edward VI’s reign, he was prominent in steering reform, compiling two Books of Common Prayer (1549, 1552), the second being less of ompromise than the first. In 1550 he also composed an Ordinal (the order of service by which bishops, priests, and deacons are ordained); he published two books
affirming against Bishop Stephen Gardiner that there was no real or corporal presence of Jesus Christ the eucharistic elements of bread and wine. He promoted the
Forty Two Articles (issued 1553, revised 1563 as Thirty nine Articles, and still the Church of England’s doctrinal standard), together with a recasting of English canon law (John Foxe later entitled it the Reformatio Legum). John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, prevented this new version of canon law being enacted; nevertheless Cranmer reluctantly cooperated in Northumberland’s and Edward’s unsuccessful attempt to make Jane Grey queen succeeding Edward, rather than the Lady Mary, Henry VIII’s oldest child.
When Mary nevertheless became queen, Cranmer was convicted at a treason trial in 1553, and at a heresy trial in 1554, and
imprisoned at Oxford with Hugh
Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. His morale broken, he signed six recantations, some after he had no doubt been told that he would burn at the stake. He made a last
minute return to Protestantism at his execution, however, publicly repudiating his recantations, and thrusting his right hand, which had signed them, into the flames.
Cranmer’s firm Erastianism did not appeal to later Puritans, and the Book of Common Prayer, still so notable for his sonorous prose, was too reminiscent of old
ceremonial for many; some maintained, probably correctly, that he would have revised it further given opportunity. Nevertheless, his single minded devotion to Reformation and his frequent quiet ruthlessness toward traditional devotion make him a figure closer to Puritan ideals than his later Anglican admirers would care to
admit.
Cardinal Reginald Pole, last Roman Catholic Archbishop
1556 -1558
Catholic, anti-Puritan under Queen Mary I. His bishopric ends with the Elizabethan settlement.
Dean of Exeter; created a cardinal in 1536 / diocesan administrator since 11 December 1555; last Roman Catholic archbishop
English cardinal of the Catholic Church and the last Catholic archbishop of Canterbury, holding the office from 1556 to 1558, during the Counter-Reformation.
Henry VIII offered him the Archbishopric of York or the Diocese of Winchester if he would support the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Pole withheld his support and went into self-imposed exile in France and Italy in 1532
In May 1536, Reginald Pole finally and decisively broke with the King. In 1531, he had warned of the dangers of the Boleyn marriage; he had returned to Padua in 1532 and received a last English benefice in December. Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador to England, had suggested to Emperor Charles V that Pole marry Henry’s daughter Mary and combine their dynastic claims; Chapuys also communicated with Reginald through his brother Geoffrey. At this time Pole was not definitively in Holy Orders.
The final break between Pole and Henry followed upon Thomas Cromwell, Cuthbert Tunstall, Thomas Starkey and others addressing questions to Pole on behalf of Henry. He answered by sending the king a copy of his published treatise Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione, which, besides being a theological reply to the questions, was a strong denunciation of the king’s policies that denied Henry’s position on the marriage of his brother Arthur’s widow and denied the royal supremacy; Pole also urged the princes of Europe to depose Henry immediately. Henry wrote to Pole’s mother, the Countess of Salisbury, who in turn sent her son a letter reproving him for his “folly”.[7]
The Elizabethan Religious Settlement (1559-63)
A collection of laws and
decisions concerning religious practices. Act of Supremacy (1559): Elizabeth I as “Supreme Governor”of CofE, Oath of Supremacy (oath of loyalty to the Queen). Court of High Commission established to root out nonconformity. Act of Uniformity (1559), passed by only three votes, about faith and service: Book of Common Prayer (3rd version) in 1559, mandatory church attendance on Sundays, vestments retained
Matthew Parker
Anti-Puritan / Attempts to secure
conformity for CofE
1559-1575
First Archbishop under Qeeen Elizabeth I (1558-1603)
Was not Catholic (so Protestant?)
Dean of Lincoln
Edmund Grindal
1575 à 1583
Second Archbishop under Elizabeth I
Sympathetic to Puritans
Translated from York.
John Whitgift
1583 à 1604, Third Archbishop under Elizabeth I
Anti-Puritan (Protestant?) –Bishopric extended for one year under King James I (1603-1625)
Translated from Worcester.
Richard Bancroft
Anti-Puritan, Attempts to secure conformity for Church of England
1604 à 1610
First Archbishop under King James I (1603-1625)
Translated from London.
Cardinal Reginald Pole, last Roman ________ Archbishop
1556 à 1558
CATHOLIC!
1556 à 1558
Anti-Puritan for 2 years!
George Abbot
1611 à 1633
Partial to Puritans + Puritan sensibility
Puffy
1611 à 1633
Second Archbishop under King James I, 1603-1625, Bishopric extends eight years into the reign of King Charles I (1625-1649), so he would be the first Archbishop under King Charles I
Translated from London.
William Laud
1633 à 1645
see Laudanism. Defended episcopal polity. Executed in 1645.
Anti-Puritan, sought to secure conformity for the Church of England
Translated from London; executed in office; commemorated in the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the USA
Archbishop of Canterbury and one of the principal opponents of puritan reform. William Laud was born in the town of Reading, the son of a prosperous clothier. He
was educated at the town grammar school and then went on to matriculate at St. John’s College, Oxford, in 1589. St. John’s had been founded during the reign of
Queen Mary and still retained a strong Catholic influence. He received his B.A. in 1594, his M.A. in 1598, and his B.D. in 1604. He was elected a senior fellow of the
college in 1601. While still at Oxford, he took a number of positions that led the future archbishop of Canterbury George Abbot and others to raise questions about his orthodoxy, and the charge that he was a papist began during these years, though there was never any actual basis for the accusation.
Laud’s advancement in the church began in 1608 when Richard Neile, later archbishop of York, named William as his chaplain. Three years later he was made a
royal chaplain, and by 1612 he was regularly preaching at the king’s court. In 1611 he succeeded to the presidency of St. John’s College. Abbot tried unsuccessfully to prevent his election and in 1615 criticized a sermon Laud preached as smacking of popery. In fact, by this time Laud was attacking Presbyterians as being as bad as
papists.
The dispute eventually reached the king who, with Neile defending his protégé, decided in Laud’s favor.
In 1621 Laud was elevated to bishop of St. David’s. He rarely visited the diocese, staying instead at Richard Neile’s London residence of Durham House where he could be close to the court. In the 1620s Durham House became the center of a group of young clergy who sought to reintroduce what they saw as the “beauty of holiness,” and whose views included some that were opposed to orthodox Calvinism and—to some at least—smacked of Arminian heresy. Laud’s advancement was aided by his close friendship to King James’s favorite the Duke of Buckingham.
The new king, Charles I, was initially closer to Lancelot Andrewes, whom Laud admired, than to Laud himself. Following Andrewes death, however, it was Laud who became the close ally of the king. In 1627 he became bishop of London, a diocese that included not only the city but the entire county of Essex, both puritan hotbeds. At the same time Laud was also playing an important role in advising the king on matters of government.
He quickly emerged as the principal opponent of the puritans in the church and of the critics of the king’s policies in the state. He worked to convict of treason the author of a tract opposing the so called forced loan whereby Charles I attempted to raise funds without parliamentary approval. As head of the Privy Council’s Commission for Regulating Plantations, he prosecuted an
attack on the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and he tried to suppress further puritan emigration to New England. His efforts to rebuild the power and wealth of the church set him at odds with many lay interests. He successfully attacked the Feoffees for Impropriations, a corporation that sought to spread puritan influence by purchasing church livings and awarding them to zealous preachers. He emphasized conformity to the prescribed forms of church worship and was relentless in seeking the deprivation of nonconformists. He favored moving altars back to their position in the east end of the church and railing them in with altar rails. Most serious perhaps, was his support of clear opponents of traditional Calvinism such as John Cosin and Richard Montagu.
In 1633 he was elevated to the post of archbishop of Canterbury and renewed the practice of metropolitan visitations to reinforce the drive for conformity.
He reinvigorated the Court of High Commission. Clashes with puritan clergy such as Thomas Shepard became evidence of his determination. He played an important role in the prosecution of the lawyer and pamphleteer William Prynne in the Court of Star Chamber. He advised and assisted Charles I in seeking to bring the churches in Ireland and Scotland into closer conformity with the Church of England. The revisions of the Scottish canons and prayer book that ensued helped to precipitate the uprising in that northern kingdom.
The Long Parliament ordered Laud imprisoned. In 1644 he was tried for subverting the religion of the realm and for contributing to the subversion of England’s
laws. He was convicted by ordinance and executed in 1645.
Episcopal see
An episcopal see is, in a practical use of the phrase, the area of a bishop’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the geographical significance of the term, making it synonymous with diocese.
The word see is derived from Latin sedes, which in its original or proper sense denotes the seat or chair that, in the case of a bishop, is the earliest symbol of the bishop’s authority. This symbolic chair is also known as the bishop’s cathedra. The church in which it is placed is for that reason called the bishop’s cathedral, from Latin ecclesia cathedralis, meaning the church of the cathedra. The word throne is also used, especially in the Eastern Orthodox Church, both for the chair and for the area of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
The term “see” is also used of the town where the cathedral or the bishop’s residence is located
Within Catholicism, each diocese is considered to be a see unto itself with a certain allegiance to the See of Rome. The idea of a see as a sovereign entity is somewhat complicated due to the existence of the 23 Particular Churches of the Catholic Church. The Western Church and its Eastern Catholic counterparts all reserve some level of autonomy, yet each also is subdivided into smaller sees (dioceses and archdioceses). The episcopal see of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, is known as “the Holy See”[9] or “the Apostolic See”,[10] claiming papal supremacy.
Ecclesiastical jurisdiction
signifies jurisdiction by church leaders over other church leaders and over the laity.
King Henry VIII
1509 à 1547
King Edward VI
1547 à 1553
Queen Mary
1553-1558
