2
November 1610 A.D. Richard Bancroft—74th of 105
Archbishops of Canterbury; the Anti-Romanist, Anti-Presbyterian, &
Erastian-Royalist
Stefon, Matt. “Richard Bancroft.” Encyclopedia
Britannica. N.d. Accessed 2 Jun 2014.
Richard Bancroft, (baptized
Sept. 12, 1544, Farnworth, Lancashire, Eng.—died Nov. 2,
1610, London), 74th archbishop of Canterbury
(1604–10), notable for his stringent opposition to Puritanism, his defense of ecclesiastical
hierarchy and tradition, and his efforts to ensure doctrinal and liturgical
conformity among the clergy of the Church of England. He also played a major role in
the preparation of the King James Version
of the Bible.
Bancroft studied at
the University of Cambridge,
earning a bachelor’s degree from Christ’s College in 1567 and a master’s degree
from Jesus College in 1572. He was ordained an Anglican priest in 1574 and
became a university preacher at Cambridge two years later. About
1581 he was appointed household chaplain of Lord Chancellor Sir Christopher Hatton.
During this time Bancroft continued to serve in other posts and became an
increasingly vocal defender of the Anglican episcopacy against
Puritan attempts at restructuring or abolishing it. In 1583, as preacher of the
town court of Bury St. Edmunds, he assisted in the arrest of two “Brownists,”
followers of the Puritan separatist Robert Browne, for their
purported libel of Queen Elizabeth I as a “Jezebel.”
After earning a
doctorate in theology at Cambridge in 1585,
Bancroft began investigating Puritan “heretics.” He also was appointed to more
prominent positions within the Church of England,
including treasurer of St. Paul’s Cathedral
in 1586 and canon of Westminster (a high office at Westminster Abbey)
in 1587. The following year he located the printing press used by “Martin
Marprelate,” the pseudonymous pamphleteer (or group of pamphleteers) who
critiqued the institution of the episcopate and particularly the conservative Calvinist archbishop of Canterbury
(and Bancroft’s predecessor in that office) John Whitgift (see
also Marprelate Controversy). Early in 1589 Bancroft
preached a sermon at Paul’s Cross, the historic open-air pulpit of St. Paul’s Cathedral,
in which he sharply rebuked the Marprelate tracts, rejected the primacy that
Puritans placed on personal religious experience
and the authority of the Bible, and defended the role of bishops within the church. The
following February he became a prebendary (administrator) of St. Paul’s. He was
appointed one of Whitgift’s household chaplains in 1592 and bishop of London in
1597; the latter position enabled him to act as de facto primate when Whitgift
was ill.
In April 1604, two
months after Whitgift’s death and with the backing of King James I, Bancroft secured the
acceptance by a convocation of the clergy of a new canon law for the church. On Dec.
10, 1604, Bancroft was installed as archbishop of Canterbury. He used the power
of his position to institute doctrinal and liturgical standards for priests and
bishops and to establish guidelines for the compilers of a new English
translation of the Bible; the King James Version, as it was subsequently known,
was published in 1611, after Bancroft’s death. Bancroft also increased his
attacks on Roman Catholics, becoming more
determined to root out any vestiges of “Popery” in England. He was one of the
drafters of the oath of allegiance of 1606, which required English subjects to
reject the pope’s authority and to swear
allegiance to the crown; the oath particularly targeted recusants, or English Roman
Catholics who did not attend services of the Church of England.
As one of his final acts, Bancroft set into motion the founding of the Episcopal Church in Scotland
by orchestrating the consecration of three Scottish bishops in 1610.
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