Andrewes

Andrewes, LANCELOT, a great English prelate, was born at Barking in 1555, and educated successively at the Coopers' Free School in Ratcliffe, at Merchant Taylors' School, and at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, of which college he was in 1576 elected fellow. Taking orders in 1580, he accompanied the Earl of Huntingdon to the north; and in 1589, through Walsingham's influence, he was appointed a prebendary of St Paul's and Master of Pembroke Hall. In 1597 Elizabeth made him a prebendary, and in 1601 dean, of Westminster. He rose still higher in favour with King James, who was well qualified to appreciate his extensive learning and peculiar style of oratory. He attended the Hampton Court conference, as one of the ecclesiastical commissioners, and took part in the translation of the Bible. In 1605 he was consecrated Bishop of Chichester; in 1609 he was translated to Ely, and appointed a privy-councillor, both for England and Scotland. To the latter country he accompanied the king in 1617, as one of the royal instruments for persuading the Scotch of the superiority of episcopacy over presbytery. In the following year he was translated to Winchester, where he died, 27th March 1626. A zealous High Churchman, Andrewes was, with the exception of Usher, the most learned English theologian of his time. As a preacher, he was regarded by his contemporaries as unrivalled; but the excellent qualities of his discourses are apt to suffer much depreciation in modern judgment from the extremely artificial and frigid character of the style. His principal works published during his life were two treatises in reply to Cardinal Bellarmine, in defence of the right of princes over ecclesiastical assemblies. Other works are sermons, lectures, and manuals of devotion; and the whole fill 8 vols. of the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology (1841-54). See his Lives by A. T. Russell (1863) and R. L. Ottley (1894).