Whitgift, JOHN, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born a merchant's son at Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire, in 1530 or 1533. He was brought up at Wellow Abbey, near Grimsby, where his uncle was abbot, and at St Anthony's School in London, and in 1549 entered Queen's College, Cambridge, but migrated next year to Pembroke Hall. In 1555 he was elected a fellow of Peterhouse, and, protected by its master during the Marian persecution, took orders in 1560, and from the Bishop of Ely, to whom he was chaplain, received the Cambridgeshire rectorcy of Teverham. He became successively Lady Margaret professor of Divinity (1663), Master of Pembroke, a queen's chaplain, a D.D., regius professor of Divinity, and Master of Trinity (1567), Dean of Lincoln (1571), Bishop of Worcester (1577), Archbishop of Canterbury (1583), and a privy-councillor (1586). Several of these offices he held conjointly, for he was a great pluralist. Having attended Queen Elizabeth in her last moments, and crowned James I., he died at Lambeth, 29th February 1604, and was buried at Croydon, where in 1596 he had founded an almshouse. With a decided Calvinistic bias, Whitgift yet was a steadfast champion of conformity, and in his controversy with Thomas Cartwright (q.v.) is held to have vindicated the Anglican position against the Puritans with no less ability than Jewell showed in defending it against the Romanists. Stow, Camden, Wotton, and Fuller concur in their praise of Whitgift, and it was reserved for Macanlay to stigmatise him as 'a sycophant and oppressor.' His works were edited for the Parker Society by the Rev. John Ayre (3 vols. 1851-53).
See vol. ii. of Cooper's Athenæ Cantabrigienses (1861) for a bibliography of his ninety-four writings and for a long list of authorities, to which may be added vol. v. of Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (1875).