Bishop Grindal
|
The Most Reverend Edmund Grindal |
|
|---|---|
| Archbishop of Canterbury | |
 |
|
| Installed | 1576 |
| Term ended | 6 July 1583 |
| Predecessor | Matthew Parker |
| Successor | John Whitgift |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
c. 1519 St Bees, Cumberland |
| Died | 6 July 1583 London |
| Buried | Croydon |
| Alma mater | Christ's College, Cambridge |
Edmund Grindal (c. 1519 – 6 July 1583) was an English Protestant leader who successively held the posts of Bishop of London, Archbishop of York and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Elizabeth I of England. Although born far away from the centres of political and religious power, he had risen rapidly in the church during the reign of Edward VI, and was nominated Bishop of London, but the death of the King prevented him taking up the post and along with other marian exiles he fled to the continent during the reign of Mary I. On the accession of Elizabeth I he returned and resumed his rise in the church, culminating in his appointment to the highest office.
This was a time of great change in the English church following the Elizabethan settlement, which established the relationship of monarch, church, state and subjects, and required considerable statesmanship and diplomacy in the context of the many religious factions and the strong will of the monarch. Although he has historically not been regarded the most notable of church leaders, his reputation has been revived by modern critical scholarship, which maintains he had the support of his fellow bishops and led the way for how the Anglican Church would develop in the early seventeenth century.
Tradition, as retailed by Grindal's biographer John Strype, had long held that Grindal was born in Hensingham, now a suburb of Whitehaven. However modern scholarship has shown that his birthplace was in fact Cross Hill House, St. Bees, Cumberland. Grindal himself gave a description of his birthplace in a letter to Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth I's Secretary of State, "... the house wherein I was born, and the lands pertaining thereto, being a small matter, under twenty shillings rent, but well builded at the charges of my father and brother", which corresponds to Cross Hill House. This has been proven by the discovery of the long-mislaid St. Bees long leases, which have provided the missing link in the chain of ownership back to William Grindal, Edmund's father, a farmer in the village. Grindal's exact date of birth is uncertain, but is c.1519.
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