The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Abbot, George

ABBOT, George, Archbishop of Canterbury: b. Guildford, Surrey, 19 Oct. 1562; d. 5 Aug. 1633. A cloth-worker's son, he studied at Balliol, Oxford, was chosen Master of University College 1597, and three times was vice-chancellor of Oxford. Dr. Abbot's name was second on the list of eight divines ordered in 1604 to prepare the present (King James) version of the Bible. In 1608 he went to Scotland with the Earl of Dunbar to arrange for a union of the English and Scotch churches. James took a great fancy to him, and, though Abbot had never held a parish, made him bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in 1609, transferred him to the see of London a month later, and less than a year afterward appointed him Archbishop of Canterbury. Flattery of he king is accredited as the cause of this astonishing rapidity of preferment; but once in his seat, at least, Abbot felt no need of such tactics. He opposed the scandalous divorce suit of Lady Frances Howard against the Earl of Essex, though the court favored and carried it. In 1618 he forbade the reading, in the Croydon church where he was, of the king's declaration permitting games and sports on Sunday, which the Puritans (to whom Abbot belonged) regarded as a permit to break the Sabbath, and the order to read it as a command to commit blasphemy. He promoted the marriage between the Princess Elizabeth and the Protestant Elector Palatine, and opposed the disastrous Spanish-marriage project of Prince Charles, and thereby one Charles', Laud's, and Buckingham's hatred. The king, however, remained his friend. In 1622 he accidentally killed a keeper while deer-hunting, and his enemies tried to have him disqualified for the involuntary manslaughter. The king made light of the matter, but has to refer it to a commission, which decided in his favor, and he was formally absolved and reappointed. He attended James in his last sickness, and crowned Charles. The latter, on Abbot's refusing to license a fanatical divine-right sermon, deprived him of his functions and put them in commission; but, having to summon a parliament shortly after, was afraid of the effect and restored him. From that time he lived in retirement, leaving Laud in complete ascendancy. He wrote many works now forgotten, though one on the prophet Jonah was reprinted in 1845. A geography passed through numerous editions. Consult Gardiner, S. R., ‘History of England.’