GRINDAL, EDMUND successively bishop of London, archbishop of York and archbishop of Canterbury, was the son of a farmer of Hensingham, Cumberland. He was educated at Magdalene and Christ's Colleges and then at Pem broke Hall, Cambridge, where he was elected fellow in 1538. He proceeded M.A. in 1541, was ordained deacon in 1544 and was proctor and Lady Margaret preacher in Probably through the influence of Ridley, who had been master of Pem broke Hall, Grindal was selected as one of the Protestant dis putants during the visitation of 1549. When Ridley became bishop of London, he made Grindal one of his chaplains and gave him the precentorship of St. Paul's. He was soon promoted to be one of Edward VI.'s chaplains and prebendary of Westminster, and in Oct. 1552 was one of the six divines to whom the Forty-two articles were submitted for examination.
The death of Henry VIII. frustrated Grindal's proposed eleva tion to the episcopal bench. He abandoned his preferments on Mary's accession and made his way to Strasbourg, and then to Frankfurt, where he endeavoured to compose the disputes between the "Coxians" (see Cox, RICHARD), who regarded the 1552 Prayer Book as the perfection of reform, and the Knoxians, who wanted further simplification. He returned to England in was appointed one of the committee to revise the liturgy, and one of the Protestant representatives at the Westminster con ference. In July he was also elected Master of Pembroke Hall in succession to the recusant Dr. Thomas Young (1514-80) and Bishop of London in succession to Bonner.
Grindal himself was, however, inclined to be recalcitrant from different motives. He had qualms about vestments and other traces of "popery" as well as about the Erastianism of Eliza beth's ecclesiastical government. His Protestantism was robust enough; he did not mind recommending that a priest "might to put to some torment." But he was loth to execute judgments upon English Puritans; he had not that firm faith in the supreme importance of uniformity and autocracy which enabled Whitgift to persecute with a clear conscience nonconformists whose the ology was indistinguishable from his own. As it was, his attempts to enforce the use of the surplice evoked angry protests, especially in 1565, when considerable numbers of the nonconformists were suspended ; and Grindal of his own motion denounced Cartwright to the Council in 157o.
In 1570 Grindal was translated to the archbishopric of York, where Puritans were few and coercion would be required mainly for Roman Catholics. By Burghley's influence he was chosen to succeed Parker as archbishop of Canterbury in 1576. Burghley wished to conciliate the moderate Puritans and advised Grindal to mitigate the severity which had characterized Parker's treatment of the nonconformists. Grindal indeed attempted a reform of the ecclesiastical courts, but his metropolitical activity was cut short by a conflict with the arbitrary temper of the queen. Eliza beth required Grindal to suppress the "prophesyings" or meetings for discussion which had come into vogue among the Puritan clergy, and she even wanted him to discourage preaching; she would have no doctrine that was not inspired by her authority. Grindal remonstrated, claiming some voice for the Church, and in June 1577 was suspended from his jurisdictional, though not his spiritual, functions for disobedience. He stood firm, and in January 1578 Secretary Wilson informed Burghley that the queen wished to have the archbishop deprived. She was dissuaded from this extreme course, but. Grindal's sequestration was con tinued in spite of a petition from Convocation in 1581 for his reinstatement. Elizabeth then suggested that he should resign ; this he declined to do, and after making an apology to the queen he was reinstated towards the end of 1582. While making prepara tions for his resignation, he died on July 6, 1583, and was buried in Croydon parish church. He left considerable benefactions to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, Queen's College, Oxford, and Christ's College, Cambridge; he also endowed a free school at St. Bees, and left money for the poor of St. Bees, Canterbury, Lambeth and Croydon.
Strype's Life of Grindal is the principal authority ; see also Dict. Nat. Biogr. and, besides the authorities there cited, Gough's General Index to Parker Soc. Publ. ; Acts of the Privy Council ; Cal. of Hat field mss.; Dixon's Hist. of the Church of England; Frere's volume in Stephens' and Hunt's series; Cambridge Mod. Hist. vol. iii.; Gee's Elizabethan Clergy; Birt's Elizabethan Religious Settlement; and Pierce's Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts (1909).