PARKER, MATTHEW (1504-75). The second Protestant Ar•c•hbishop of Canterbury. -le was born at Norwich, August 6. 1504, studied at Corpus Christi College. Cambridge. and was or dained a priest in 1527. At the university he was a distinguished student, and was from an early period favorably disposed toward the doc trines of the Reformation, and lived in close in timacy with some of the ruo•e ardent reformers. In 1535 be was appointed chaplain to Queen Anne Boleyn. With this appointment he ob tained the deanery of the monastic college of Stoke-by-Clare in Suffolk. Here lie appears to have first definitely sided with the reform ing, party in the Church and State, the ser mons which Ire preached containing bold attacks on different Catholic tenets and practices. In 1535 Parker took the degree of D.D.; and in 1544. after some minor changes, became master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, which he ruled admirably. Three years later be married and probably about this time drew up his defense of the marriage of priests, entitled Dr SaCerd Of u . In 1552 he was presented by King Edward VI. to the rich deanery of Lincoln. On the accession of Queen Mary he refused to con form to the reestablished order of things, and was deprived of his preferments. and even obliged to conceal himself. It does not appear, however, that he was eagerly sought after by the emissa ries of Mary; for he was very unwilling to dis turb the framework of the Church. On the clean of Mary and the accession of Elizabeth (1558) he was appointed by the Queen Archbishop of Canterbury. The consecration took place in Lambeth Chapel, December 17. 1559.
The subsequent history of Archbishop Parker is that of the Church of England. The difficulties that beset him were very great. Elizabeth her self was addicted to various 'popish' practices, such as the use of images, and was strongly in favor of the celibacy of the clergy. But his great est anxiety was in regard to the spirit of sec tarian dissension within the bosom of the Church itself. Already the germs of Puritanism were beginning to spring up, and there can be no doubt that their growth was fostered by the des potic caprices of the Queen. Parker himself was manifestly convinced that if ever Protestantism was to be firmly established in the land at all, some definite ecclesiastical forms and methods must be sanctioned to secure the triumph of order over anarchy, and he vigorously set about the repression of what he thought a mutinous in dividualism incompatible with a catholic spirit.
That he always acted wisely or well cannot be affirmed; he was forced into intolerant and in quisitorial courses, and as he grew older he grew harsher, the conservative spirit increasing with his years. He gave the English people the "Bishops' Bible," which was undertaken at his request, prepared under his supervision, and published at his expense in 1572. Much of his time and labor from 1563 to 1568 was given to this work. He had also the principal share in drawing up the Book of Common Prayer, for which his skill in ancient liturgies peculiarly fitted him, and it was under his presidency that the Thirty-nine A rticIrs were finally reviewed and subscribed by the clergy (1562). Parker died in the palace at Lambeth, London, May 17, 1575.
Among other literary performances, Parker published in 1567 an old Saxon Homily On the Sacrament, by ..Elfrie of Saint Albans, .t Testi monic of Antiquitie Showing the Juncient Payth in the Oh (-eh of England Touching the Sacra ment of the Body and Blonde of the Lord, to prove that transubstantiation was not the doc trine of the ancient English Church; edited (1571) the histories of Matthew• of ‘Yestinins ter and Matthew Paris; and superintended the publication of a most valuable work, De t iquitate Britannierr Eeelesia., probably Printed at Lambeth in 1572, where the Arch bishop, we are told, had an establishment of printers, engravers, and illuminators. He also founded the 'Society of Antiquaries.' and was its first president : endowed the University of Cam. bridge. and particularly his own college, with many fellowships and scholarships and with a magnificent collection of manuscripts relating to the civil and ecclesiastical condition of England. and belonging to nine different centuries I from the eighth to the sixteenth). Ilk from 1.535 on was published by the Parker So ciety (Cambridge, 1853). Consult his Lift by strype (best ed.: 3 vols., oxford, and in Hook's Jrchbishops of Cant( roury, new be 'VOL iv. (Lomlon. 1572j. In his how r the Parker Society was formed, which publish...I 53 volumes of Elizabethan ecclesiastic-al literature (Cambridge, 1841-541.