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 his son was about twelve years of age; but his mother took especial care of his education, and at the age of seventeen sent him to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where, in 1523, he took his bachelor's degree. In 1527 he was ordained, created master of arts, and chosen fellow of the college. Having obtained a license to preach, he frequently discoursed at St Paul's cross in London, and in other parts of the kingdom. In the year 1533 or 1534, he was made chaplain to Anne Boleyn, who obtained for him the deanery of Stoke Clare in Suffolk, where he founded a grammar-school. After the death of this unfortunate woman, Henry made him his own chaplain, and in 1541 appointed him prebendary of Ely. In 1544, he was, by the king's command, elected master of Corpus Christi College, and the following year appointed vice chancellor of the university. In 1547 he lost the deanery of Stoke, by the dissolution of that college. In the same year he married the daughter of Mr Robert Harlestone, a Norfolk gentleman.

In the year 1552 he was nominated by Edward VI. to the deanery of Lincoln, which, with his other preferments, enabled him to live in great affluence. But Mary had scarcely succeeded to the throne when he was deprived of every office he held in the church, and obliged to live in obscurity, frequently changing his place of abode to avoid the fate of the other reformers.

Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558; and in the following year Parker was at once raised from indigence and obscurity to the see of Canterbury, an honour which he had neither solicited nor desired. In this high station he acted with equal spirit and propriety. He founded several scholarships in Bennet or Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and made large presents of plate to that and to other colleges in this university. He gave a hundred volumes to the public library; and, besides, founded a free school at Rochdale in Lancashire. He took care to have the different sees filled with pious and learned men; and, considering the great want of Bibles in many places, he, with the assistance of other learned men, improved the English translation, which he caused to be printed on large paper, and dispersed throughout the kingdom. This estimable prelate died in the year 1575, aged seventy-two, 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 was the author of several works, and likewise published four of our best historians; Matthew of Westminster, Matthew Paris, Asser's Life of King Alfred, and Thomas Walsingham. The archbishop also translated the Psalter. This version was printed, but without a name, and has been attributed to an obscure poet of the name of Keeper. Such, at least, was Wood's opinion, although it is more than probable that he was wrong. But in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1781 (p. 566), Parker is proved to be the author of a version of the Psalms.