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Nevil, who had been promoted to the Deanery of Canterbury in 1597, was sent by Archbishop Whitgift to King James in Scotland, in the names of the Bishops and Clergy of England, to tender their bounden duties, and to understand his Highness's pleasure for the ordering and guiding of the Clergy.
And now, when the Church was pestered with them, and with all those other fore-named irregularities; when her lands were in danger of alienation, her power at least neglected, and her peace torn to pieces by several schisms, and such heresies as do usually attend that sin: for heresies do usually out-live their first authors; when the common people seemed ambitious of doing those very things that were forbidden and attended with most dangers, that thereby they might be punished, and then applauded and pitied: when they called the spirit of opposition a tender conscience, and complained of persecution, because they wanted power to persecute others: when the giddy multitude raged, and became restless to find out misery for themselves and others; and the rabble would herd themselves together, and endeavour to govern and act in spite of authority: in this extremity of fear, and danger of the Church and State, when, to suppress the growing evils of both, they needed a man of prudence and piety, and of an high and fearless fortitude, they were blest in all by John Whitgift, his being made Archbishop of Canterbury; of whom Sir Henry Wotton that knew him well in his youth, and had studied him in his age gives this true character; "That he was a man of reverend and sacred memory, and of the primitive temper; such a temper, as when the Church by lowliness of spirit did flourish in highest examples of virtue."
Whitgift, too, was no friend to Catholics: he had, for instance, deliberately defended the use of the rack against them and others, unashamed; and in one particular instance, at least, as Bishop of Worcester, had directed its exercise in the county of Denbigh.
Meanwhile, at home, the affairs of the Church of England were far from prosperous. In spite of the opposition, however, of Burghley and the Commons, Whitgift, who had by this time succeeded to Canterbury upon Grindal's death, remained firm; and a long and dreary dispute began, embittered further by the execution of Mr. Copping and Mr.
Dramatist and satirist, b. at Coventry, was ed. at Oxf. In later life he gave up writing for the stage, took orders, and was incumbent of Christchurch, Hants, 1616-31. He began his literary career in 1598 with satire, The Scourge of Villanie and The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image , the latter of which was burned by order of Archbishop Whitgift.
The homilies published for the use of the clergy, and which they were enjoined to read every Sunday in all the churches, inculcate every where a blind and unlimited passive obedience to the prince, which on no account, and under no pretence, is it ever lawful for subjects in the smallest article to depart from or infringe. * Strype's Life of Whitgift, book iv. chap. 11. Neal, vol. i. p. 564.
Hooker was through the influence of Archbishop Whitgift appointed, in 1585, Master of the Temple; but a great effort had just been made to obtain the place for a Mr. Walter Travers, well known in that day, though now it is Hooker's name which alone preserves his. This Travers was then afternoon-lecturer at the Temple.
Archbishop Whitgift, grovelling still lower, declared his conviction that James, in the observations he had deigned to make, had been directly inspired by the Holy Ghost. Nothing could be more illogical and incoherent with each other than his theological and political opinions. He imagined himself a defender of the Protestant faith, while hating Holland and fawning on the House of Austria.
This she did notwithstanding the fact that about the time Thomas Cartwright, through the influence of the ritualists under Whitgift, had been driven from Cambridge, Parliament had refused to bind the clergy to the Three Articles on Supremacy, on the form of Church government, and on the power of the Church to ordain rites and ceremonies.
Whitgift, succeeding Grindal at Canterbury in 1583, opened the campaign against Puritanism not indeed with the favour either of parliament or of the leading statesmen, whose personal sympathies were with the advanced party, but manifestly with encouragement from the Queen. Whitgift's own attitude was that of the Disciplinarian rather than of the theologian.
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