Matthew Parker

English church reformer and archbishop of Canterbury (1559-1575)

• Born: August 6, 1504
• Birthplace: Norwich, Norfolk, England
• Died: May 17, 1575
• Place of death: London, England

As the first archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth I, Matthew Parker helped the queen achieve a truly national church, whose doctrine, ritual, and organization would be determined by Scripture, church tradition, and royal supremacy. Under Parker’s archbishopric, the Anglican church continued as a reformed branch of the Catholic Church rather than as a separate Protestant sect, maintaining religious peace in England.

Early Life

Matthew Parker was born in the parish of St. Saviour. He was the eldest son of William Parker, a merchant, and his wife, Alice (née Monins). When Matthew Parker was twelve years old, his father died; his mother then married John Baker, a wealthy gentleman who became an excellent stepfather to Parker. Parker was close to all his siblings, especially his brother Thomas, later a mayor of Norwich, and his stepbrother, John, a future benefactor to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Parker was educated at the local grammar school, and in September, 1522, he entered Corpus Christi College, where, in 1525, he earned a bachelor of arts degree. On December 22, 1526, he became a subdeacon; on April 20, 1527, a deacon; and on June 15, 1527, a priest. In 1528, he earned a master of arts degree, and he was soon singled out as a promising theologian and scholar, although of a moderately reforming interest. He was a member of the Cambridge Reformers, a group that included such notable reformation figures as Hugh Latimer. Parker was even charged with heresy in 1539, although the charges were dismissed as being “frivolous.”

Parker’s popular and dynamic preaching style, however, brought him favor. In 1533, he was licensed to preach through the southern province of England, and on March 30, 1533, he agreed to be chaplain to Anne Boleyn. With this chaplaincy came a deanery at the college of St. John the Baptist at Stoke in Suffolk. In 1535, he received a bachelor of divinity degree at Cambridge and, in 1538, a doctor of divinity degree. In March, 1537, he had also been appointed chaplain to Henry VIII. On December 4, 1544, he was elected master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and a short time later, he became vice-chancellor of the university. On June 24, 1547, he was married to Margaret Harlestone, the daughter of Robert Harlestone of Mattis Hall, Norfolk. Throughout the reign of Edward VI, Parker was valued for his moderate reforms, and on October 7, 1552, he received the rich deanery of Lincoln.

On the accession of Mary Tudor (Queen Mary I), Parker supported the cause of Lady Jane Grey . This support, along with his marriage and earlier friendships with reformers, resulted in the loss of his church preferments. Throughout Mary’s reign, Parker lived in fear and concealment. His health, never good, deteriorated even more rapidly after a fall from a horse. He thus devoted his time to theological studies and writing. On the accession of Elizabeth I , his continued poor health prevented him from working on a revision of the prayer book (in 1558), and although Parker preferred a quiet theological life, his virtues recommended him to Elizabeth I. Despite protests because of his poor health, he became archbishop of Canterbury in 1559. For Elizabeth, Parker combined scholarship, administrative experience, loyalty, and moderation; he was free of any taint of Calvinism or continental exile.

Life’s Work

As the archbishop of Canterbury, Parker faced tremendous difficulties. The negotiation of the Elizabethan church settlement had involved unwilling concessions by both the queen and the more radical Protestant reformers. Elizabeth’s liturgy contained as wide a selection of sixteenth century doctrinal matter as possible, but for Anglican doctrine to be so comprehensive it necessarily had to remain vague rather than explicit. The emphasis on the Church of England’s continuity with the medieval church, the deletion of black rubric on kneeling, the maintenance of vestments, and the inclusion of sentences within the Communion service (implying a belief in real presence) only alienated many Protestant reformers.

In addition, clerical ignorance, minor corruption, and liturgical irregularities abounded. It is, therefore, much to Parker’s credit that he so diligently sought to establish this fledgling Anglican church on a firm foundation of Scripture, tradition, and reason.

Deeply conscious of the importance of his own consecration as archbishop to the whole question of episcopal succession in the Church of England, Parker caused an account of the rites and ceremonies to be drawn up and deposited at Corpus Christi College. This account was essential because the Roman ritual was not observed. Indeed, on March 26, 1560, in answer to a letter from deprived bishops denouncing the theory of the new episcopate as subversive of papal authority, Parker drew up a statement declaring the equality of all bishops since the time of the Apostles. This statement has remained a cornerstone of Anglican theology.

After England’s refusal to attend the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic party believed that England’s breach with Rome was irreparable. Meanwhile, the more radical British groups expanded their reforms to include the removal of bishops, the elimination of the prayer book, vestments, saints’ days, and wedding rings.

Faced with these difficulties and with a queen who would not tolerate any changes, Parker followed a path of what he called, not innovation, but restoration to the times of the more primitive Catholic Church. He reduced the Forty-two Articles of Religion to thirty-nine articles while continuing a policy of no explicit definitions. For use in the universities, he issued a new edition of the prayer book that had large numbers of traditional feasts and saints’ days. He saw to it that a new translation of the Bible, which became known as the Bishop’s Bible, was undertaken in order that the Geneva Bible’s Calvinist influence would be reduced.

By 1563, however, disorders concerning ceremonies and vestments so concerned Elizabeth I that Parker was ordered to exact uniformity. In 1566, Parker’s Advertisements laid down fixed rules for public service and vestments. Elizabeth urged Parker to use his church courts and rites of visitation more. Much to Parker’s horror, his moderate statement only inflamed the Puritan reformers backed by the powerful earl of Leicester. Thirty-seven percent of the London clergy refused to conform and left the church to form the foundation of English Nonconformity.

Meanwhile, at Cambridge University, the assertiveness of the Puritans led by Thomas Cartwright grew. Cartwright represented undiluted Calvinism. A brilliant and determined leader, he advocated sweeping reforms stating that Anglicanism, like Roman Catholicism, was in error for its dependence on church tradition and the early church fathers. Cartwright favored abolishing the episcopal system in favor of Presbyterianism, the election of ministers by congregations, and the elimination of the prayer book along with vestments, crosses, statues, painted glass windows, and organs. Both William Cecil and Parker agreed, however, that no concessions could be made. In 1570, Parker was deprived of his professorship, in 1574, he lost his fellowship at Trinity College, and as a result of a summons by the ecclesiastical commission for his arrest, he fled abroad. Cartwright’s writings became the foundation of Presbyterian Nonconformity and represented the most comprehensive attack on everything for which the Anglican church stood.

As a result of all these controversies, a new code was compiled for the universities that modified their constitutions in order to prevent future innovations. In his later years, therefore, though Parker was personally and financially dedicated to the universities, his relations with them were not cordial.

Parker’s defense of the Anglican church against the Puritans earned for him the title “the pope of Lambeth.” Parker persisted against the Puritans. He removed the Puritan Thomas Aldrich from the mastership of Corpus Christi College, prohibited prophesying on biblical texts in the diocese of Norwich, and saw to it that church patronage and appointments, previously impartial, were now aimed at advancing the careers of those opposed to the Puritan-Calvinist doctrine.

After 1573, Parker withdrew to a more scholarly life. The death of his wife on August 17, 1570, had deeply troubled him. The church controversies made him withdraw from court despite Elizabeth’s support. Then in December of 1574, his son Matthew died at the age of twenty-three. Thereafter, Parker’s health declined rapidly. He died on May 17, 1575, from kidney disease. He was buried in his private chapel at Lambeth. The Puritans’ resentment against him was long-lived, and in 1648, his body was disinterred and buried under a dunghill. At the Restoration, in 1660, his remains and a monument were restored.

Parker died wealthy; many of his bequests were to Corpus Christi College and its library. The library received numerous manuscripts from the monasteries, Anglo-Saxon documents, and thousands of volumes on theology. His preservation of such documents was an invaluable service to future Anglican theologians.

Significance

Despite Parker’s own hesitation about accepting the appointment as archbishop of Canterbury, he proved to be an excellent leader for the foundation of the Church of England under Elizabeth I. With his own preference for moderation and tolerance, he stood firm against the early Puritan attack and oversaw the establishment of an Anglican church that would eventually view itself as absolute and infallible in its interpretations of tradition, Scripture, and history, as did Rome. The importance of Parker’s years as archbishop are emphasized even more by the fact that the church was to survive despite the difficulties of its next archbishop, Edmund Grindal. Grindal, who favored Puritan ideas, was sequestered from office in May, 1577, leaving the church without a primate until his death in July, 1583. Grindal’s successor, Archbishop John Whitgift, for the most part followed Parker’s policies.

Parker’s legacy is most visible in that the Anglican church he helped to establish remained uniquely English in its rites, rituals, traditions, and doctrine of a clerical hierarchy. His firm stance against the Puritans, combined with his own broad views, led to the survival of a Church of England accommodating both a High and a Low Church view in one church body on a relatively peaceful basis. The magnitude of this accomplishment becomes clear when England’s religious peace is compared with the Continent’s religious upheavals and wars.

Bibliography

Brook, V. J. K. A Life of Archbishop Parker. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1962. This detailed biography provides a careful if not minute examination of events in which Parker was even marginally involved.

Dickens, A. G. The English Reformation. 2d ed. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991. Dickens’s book stresses the creation of an Anglican church poised between Protestant and Catholic ideals. It shows the complexity and difficulty of working out a compromise between the contending forces. In its emphasis on the unique accomplishments of Anglicanism, it reveals if unconsciously that inherent feeling of superiority that Anglicanism came to possess.

Graham, Timothy. “Changing the Context of Medieval Manuscript Art: The Case of Matthew Parker.” In Medieval Art Recent Perspectives: A Memorial Tribute to C. R. Dodwell, edited by Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Timothy Graham. New York: Manchester University Press, 1998. An analysis of Parker’s role in influencing the conventions of religious manuscript art during his tenure as archbishop of Canterbury. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.

Graham, Timothy, and Andrew G. Watson, eds. The Recovery of the Past in Early Elizabethan England: Documents by John Bale and John Joscelyn from the Circle of Matthew Parker. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 1998. This volume comments on three primary documents from Parker’s time: a letter and two bibliographies. All three concern collections of medieval historical and ecclesiastical texts. They demonstrate the kinds of religious scholarship in which Parker was engaged. Includes bibliographic references and indexes.

Grim, Harold J. The Reformation Era, 1500-1650. New York: Macmillan, 1964. A standard account of the Continental Reformation, the English Reformation, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Excellent for the factual record but not an interpretive history.

Kennedy, William Paul McClure. Archbishop Parker. London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1908. This biography is still useful; biographies of Parker are in short supply. The emphasis of this book, which is supported by current works in the field, is that Parker played a crucial role in laying the foundation for Anglicanism.

Perry, Edith Weir. Under Four Tudors: Being the Story of Matthew Parker, Sometime Archbishop of Canterbury. 2d ed. London: Allen & Unwin, 1964. Perry sees Parker as the vital figure in the creation of an Anglican church. She attributes to Parker’s influence, backed by Elizabeth I, the fact that the Church of England continued as a branch of the Catholic Church instead of becoming a separate Protestant sect. Perry also is very revealing on Parker’s wife.

Reardon, Bernard M. G. Religious Thought in the Reformation. 2d ed. New York: Longman, 1995. This is a detailed theological examination of the Reformation period. Chapters 10 and 11 discuss the complex theological issues of the English Reformation; a reading of these chapters gives an understanding of why problems developed in the Church of England with Puritans, Separatists, and others.

Williams, Neville. Elizabeth the First, Queen of England. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968. This biography provides a vivid portrait of Elizabeth I as a woman of strong opinions. Unlike many biographies of Elizabeth, it is informative concerning the relationship between Parker and the queen.