ABBOT, GEORGE (1562-1633), Archbishop of Canter bury, was born on Oct. 19, 1562, at Guildford, Surrey, the son of a cloth-worker. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford, he became master of University College (1597) and dean of Winchester (1600).
He was one of those who prepared King James's Version of the Bible. James I. sent him to Scotland in 1608 to arrange for the establishment of episcopacy there. On his return he was preferred to the bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry (1609), London (1609) and Canterbury (I6I As vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford at different times between 1600 and 1605, he had come into conflict with Laud, and at court he supported Puritan measures. He promoted the marriage between the Elector Palatine and Princess Elizabeth, and resisted the proposal for the marriage of the Prince of Wales to the Spanish infanta.
Under Charles I. he was suspended from his functions of primate for refusing to license the Assize sermon preached by Robert Sibthorp at Northampton (Feb. 22, 1627), advocating non-resistance to the royal demands, however arbitrary. He died at Croydon, Aug. 5, 1633, and was buried at Guildford, where he had endowed a hospital. Abbot's later years were clouded by the fact that in 1622 he had accidentally shot a keeper while hunting. His enemies maintained that the homicide, though accidental, disqualified him from office, and the matter had to be referred to a commission, on which King James had to exercise his casting vote in the archbishop's favour.