John Whitgift - Promotions, Improvements and More

Promotions, Improvements and More

Whitgift's theological views were controversial. An aunt with whom he once lodged wrote later that “though she thought at first she had received a saint into her house, she now perceived he was a devil”. Macaulay's description of Whitgift as "a narrow, mean, tyrannical priest, who gained power by servility and adulation," is rhetorical and exaggerated; but undoubtedly Whitgift's High Church beliefs led him to treat the Puritans intolerantly. In a pulpit controversy with Thomas Cartwright, regarding the constitutions and customs of the Church of England, his oratorical effectiveness proved inferior, but was able to exercise arbitrary authority. Together with other heads of the university, he deprived Cartwright of his professorship, and in September 1571 Whitgift exercised his prerogative as master of Trinity to deprive him of his fellowship also. In June of the same year Whitgift was nominated Dean of Lincoln. In the following year he published An Answere to a Certain Libel entitled an Admonition to the Parliament, which led to further controversy between the two churchmen. On 24 March 1577, Whitgift was appointed Bishop of Worcester, and during the absence of Sir Henry Sidney in Ireland (1577) he acted as vice-president of Wales.