JOHN WHITGIFT

JOHN WHITGIFT (1530-1604), archbishop of Canterbury, born at Great Grimsby; was educated at Cambridge, and became Fellow and Master of Pembroke College; escaped persecution under Queen Mary, and on the accession of Elizabeth was ordained a priest; after a succession of preferments, both as a theologian and an ecclesiastic, became archbishop in 1583; attended Queen Elizabeth on her deathbed, and crowned James I.; was an Anglican prelate to the backbone, and specially zealous against the Puritans; contemplated, with no small apprehension, the accession of James, "in terror of a Scotch mist coming down on him with this new Majesty from the land of Knox, or Nox, Chaos, and Company"; his last words were, with uplifted hands and eyes, a prayer for the Church, uttered in King James's hearing.