(Matthew), the second Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Norwich in the year 1504, the 19th of Henry VII. His father, who was a man in trade, died when our author was about 12 years old; but his mother took special care of his education, and at the age of 17 sent him to Corpus-

---

(a) He was consecrated December 17th 1559, in Lambeth chapel, by Barlow bishop of Chichester, Scory bishop of Hereford, Coverdale bishop of Exeter, and Hodgkin suffragan bishop of Bedford. This deserves to be particularly mentioned, because the Romanists asserted afterwards that he had been consecrated at the Nag's-head inn or tavern in Cheapside. But this notorious and improbable falsehood hath been fully confuted by Mafon in his Vindication of the Church of England concerning the Consecration and Ordination of Bishops, 1613, folio; by Bramhall in his Confecration of Protestant Bishops vindicated; and by Courayer in his Defence of the Validity of English Ordinations, 1728, 3 vols 8vo; and even by many Catholics. PARKER

So on one side of the hall a continued row of men according to their rank filled the other tables; and on his right hand sat only some noble women and ladies of quality, the whole length of the hall, corresponding to the row of men on the other side: which order of placing the women was observed in honour of the queen. The first rank of guests being risen, and the tables cleared, they were furnished again, and filled the second time. At the last feast, which was grander than all the rest, the archbishop entertained the two judges who went that circuit (a), the attorney-general, the high sheriff, with all who met at these assizes, as justices of the peace, advocates and common lawyers, and all the rest of proctors and attorneys; who all (with a promiscuous company) in troops came in. The hall was let forth with much plate of silver and gold, adorned with much tapestry of Flanders; and dainties of all sorts were served in excellent order by none but the archbishop's servants, the table being often the same day furnished afresh with new guests: while the ladies were nobly entertained in inner parlours by Mrs Parker, the hall being now filled only with gentlemen. Otherwise, at these feasts, it was the archbishop's custom, in honour of matrimony, to entertain both men and their wives. Of this noble hall and palace, now within 200 years, there is little or nothing left except a few ruins. On Whit's day 1570, and the two following days, this archbishop feasted the citizens of Canterbury and their wives in the same manner as he had done before; and on Trinity Sunday (after consecrating Bishop Curteis of Chichester) he made another most archiepiscopal feast, inviting another archbishop (viz. Grindal of York, who came thither for confirmation) to be his guest; besides whom were present Horn bishop of Winchester, and Curteis aforefaid of Chichester. At the lower tables sat all the ministers and servants whatsoever, even the children, who belonged to that church; and at the remotest tables, but in the same hall, in sight, sat the poor of both sexes of the hospitals of St John's and Harbledown. On July 11th, being assizes time, the judges, high sheriff, gentlemen, and the common fort, were all feasted by the archbishop in a splendid manner as before. Soon after Bishop Sandys of Worcester, elect of London, came to Canterbury to be confirmed. The archbishop, on his return, lodged the first night at Sittingbourne, and the next night (after dining at Gravesend) came to Lambeth in barges by Thames, with all his family. Sept. 7, 1573, being Q. Elizabeth's birthday, Archbishop Parker entertained her majesty, and as many noblemen, &c. as were present at Archbishop Warham's entertainment in the same hall 54 years before. The archbishop (to use his own words, in a letter to Archbishop Grindal of York) "met her highness, as she was coming to Dover, upon Folkestone Down. I left her at Dover, and came home to Bekesborough that night; and after that went to Canterbury to receive her majesty there. Which I did, with the bishops of Lincoln and Rochester, and my suffragan [of Dover], at the west door; where, after the grammarian had made his oration to her upon her horse-back, she alighted. We then kneeled down, and said the psalm Deus misereatur, in English, with certain other collects briefly; and that in our chimers and rochets. The quire, with the dean and prebendaries, stood on either side of the church, and brought her majesty up with a square song; the going under a canopy, borne by four of her temporal knights, to her traverse, placed by the communion board, where she heard evening song; and after departed to her lodging at St Austin's, whither I waited upon her. From thence I brought certain of the council, and divers of the court, to my house to supper, and gave them 14 or 15 dishes, furnished with two mefs, at my long table, whereas fat about 20; and in the same chamber a third mefs, at a square table, whereas fat 10 or 12; my less hall having three long tables furnished with my officers, and with the guard, and others of the court: and so her highness came every Sunday to church to hear the sermon. And upon one Monday it pleased her highness to dine in my great hall, thoroughly furnished with the council, Frenchmen, ladies, gentlemen, and the mayor of the town, with his brethren, &c.; her highness sitting in the midst, having two French ambassadors [Gondius and Mothe-Fenelon] at the end of the table, and four ladies of honour at the other end. And so three mefs were served by her nobility at washing, her gentlemen and guard bringing her dishes, &c." On which the Archbishop of York, in his answer, made this reflection: "Your grace's large description of the entertainment at Canterbury did so lively set forth the matter, that in reading thereof I almost thought myself to be one of your guests there, and as it were beholding the whole order of all things done there. Sir, I think it shall be hard for any of our coat to do the like for one hundred years, and how long after God knoweth." In this progress Lord Treasurer Burghley was lodged with Mr Pearson, the eleventh prebendary, who, the archbishop says, "had a fine house."

He founded several scholarships in Bennett or Corpus Christi college in Cambridge, and gave large presents of plate to that and to other colleges in this university. He gave 100 volumes to the public library. He likewise founded a free-school at Rochdale in Lancashire. He took care to have the fees filled with pious and learned men; and, considering the great want of bibles in many places, he, with the affiance of other learned men, improved the English translation, had it printed on a large paper, and dispersed through the kingdom. This worthy prelate died in the year 1575, aged 72, and was buried in his own chapel at Lambeth. He was pious without affectation or austerity, cheerful and contented in the midst of adversity, moderate in the height of power, and beneficent beyond example. He wrote several books; and also published four of our best historians; Matthew of Westminster, Matthew Paris, Affer's Life of King Alfred, and Tho. Walpoleham. The learned archbishop also translated the Psalter. This version was printed, but without a name; and has been attributed

(a) This proves that the judges of assize then came to Canterbury, though it was then a county in itself, being so made in 1461. attributed to an obscure poet of the name of Keeper. This was Wood's opinion; but it is more than probable that the learned author of the *Albena Oxon.* was wrong. See Gentleman's Magazine for 1781, p. 566, where Parker is proved to be the author of a version of the Psalms.

(Samuel), an English clergyman, who, by a temporizing spirit, aided by excellent parts and considerable learning, raised himself to the bishopric of Oxford. He was born September 1649, at Northampton, where his father John then practised the law. John had been bred to that profession, in one of the temples at London; and, being afterwards against the king, was made a member of the high court of justice in 1649, where he gave sentence against the three lords, Capel, Holland, and Hamilton, who were beheaded. During Cromwell's usurpation, he was made an assistant committee man for his county. In 1650 he published a book in defence of the new government, as a commonwealth, without a king or house of lords. June 1655, when Cromwell was declared protector, he was appointed a commissioner for removing obstructions at Worcester-house in the Strand, near London, and was sworn sergeant at law next day. January 1659, he was appointed one of the barons of the exchequer by the Rump-parliament; but, upon a complaint against him, was quickly displaced. However, he was again regularly made sergeant at law, on the recommendation of Chancellor Hyde, at the first call after the restoration. In the mean time, he carefully educated his son Samuel among the Puritans in Northampton; whence, being fit for the university, he was sent to Wadham college in Oxford, and admitted, in 1659, under a presbyterian tutor. Here he led a strict and religious life, entered into a weekly society, then called the Gruellers, because (as Wood observes) their chief diet was water-gruel; and it was observed that he put more graces in his porridge than all the rest. They fasted and prayed, and met at a house at Halywell, where he was so zealous and constant at prayers, sermons, and sacraments, that he was esteemed one of the most precious young men in the university. He took the degree of A.B. February 28, 1659-60. Upon the restoration, he hesitated what side to take; but continuing publicly to speak against Episcopacy, he was much discomfited by the new warden Dr Blandford, who had been appointed to that office upon the dawn of the restoration in 1659. Upon this he removed to Trinity college, where, by the advice of Dr Ralph Russell, then a senior fellow of that society, he was refused from the prejudices of an unhappy education, which in fact he publicly avowed in print. He then became a zealous Anti-puritan, and for many years acted the part of what was then called a true son of the church. In this temper, having taken the degree of M.A. in 1663, he entered into holy orders, resorted frequently to London, and became chaplain to a nobleman; continuing to display his wit upon his old friends the Presbyterians, Independents, &c.

In 1665, he published some philosophical Essays, and was elected a member of the Royal Society; these Essays, he dedicated to Sheldon archbishop of Canterbury, who became his patron; and in 1667 made him his chaplain. Being thus in the road to preferment, he left Oxford, and resided at Lambeth, under the eye of his patron; who, in 1670, made him archdeacon of Canterbury, in the room of Dr Sancroft, afterwards archbishop. November the same year, he put himself in the train of William prince of Orange, who visited Cambridge, and had the degree of D.D. conferred upon him there. November 1672, he was installed a prebendary of Canterbury; and was made rector of Ickham and Chatham in Kent by the archbishop much about the same time. He was very obsequious to the court during the reign of Ch. II., and upon the accession of his brother to the throne, he continued the same servile complaisance; and he soon reaped the fruits of it in the bishopric of Oxford, to which he was appointed by James II. on the death of Dr Fell in 1686, being allowed to hold the archdeaconry of Canterbury in commendam. He was likewise made a privy-counsellor, and constituted by a royal mandamus president of Magdalen-college in Oxford. These favours, however, were the price of his religion, which he scrupled not to offer up a sacrifice to his ambition. In this new change, he became one of the Roman mercenaries, prostituting his pen in defending transubstantiation, and the worship of fonts and images. The Papists made sure of him as a profyte; one of whom says that he even proposed in council, whether it was not expedient, that at least one college in Oxford should be allowed Catholics, that they might not be forced to be at such charges, by going abroad to study. In the same way, having invited two Popish noblemen, and one of the church of England, to an entertainment, he drank the king's health, wishing a happy success to all his affairs; adding, that the Protestant religion in England seemed to him to be in no better a condition than that of Buda was before it was taken, and that they were next to Atheists who dared to defend that faith. Nay, so shameful was his conduct, that the cooler among the Romanists condemned it as too hot and precipitate. For example, Father Peter, a Jesuit, and privy-counsellor to King James, in a letter to Father la Chaife, confessor to Louis XIV. writes thus: "The bishop of Oxford has not yet declared himself openly; the great obstacle is his wife, whom he cannot rid himself of; his design being to continue a bishop, and only change communion, as it is not doubted but the king will permit, and our holy father confirm; though I don't see how he can be farther useful to us in the religion he is in; because he is suspected, and of no esteem among the heretics of the English church; nor do I see that the example of his conversion is like to draw many others after him, because he declared himself so suddenly. If he had believed my counsel, which was to temporize for some longer time, he would have done better; but it is his temper, or rather zeal, that hurried him on to it." Accordingly his authority in his diocese was so very insignificant, that when he assembled his clergy, and desired them to subscribe an "Address of Thanks to the King for his Declaration of Liberty of Conscience," they rejected it so unanimously, that he got but one clergyman to concur with him in it. Bishop Burnet represents him to be a man of no judgment, and of as little virtue; and as to religion rather impious; that he was covetous and ambitious, and seemed to have no other sense of religion but as a political interest, and PARKER a subject of party and faction. He seldom came to prayers, or to any exercises of devotion; and was so proud, that he grew insufferable to all that came near him. (But this must be read with caution.) No doubt but the ill success he met with, in pushing on the design to introduce Popery, ruined him, as well as his royal master: the latter lost his crown by it, and the bishop his life; for, falling into contempt with all good men, trouble of mind threw him into a distemper, of which he died unlamented at Magdalen college, March 20, 1687. He sent, however, a Diligence to James, persuading him to embrace the Protestant religion, with a Letter to the same purpose, which was printed at London in 1690, 4to.

He wrote several pieces, in all which Burnet allows that there was an entertaining liveliness; though at the same time he accompanies that favourable censure, as his manner is, with a "But it was neither grave nor correct." Yet Dr Nichols's remark cannot be disputed, and may be extended to the present time, "that he has but few readers at this day." And Swift observes, that Marvell's remarks on Parker continued to be read, when the book which occasioned them was long ago sunk. He left a son, Samuel, an excellent scholar, and of singular modesty; who married a bookseller's daughter at Oxford, where he resided with a numerous family of children; to support which, he published some books, with a modest Vindication of his father. One of his sons is now, or was lately, a bookseller at Oxford.