Edmund Grindal

Edmund Grindal (born 1519?, St. Bees, Cumberland, Eng.—died July 6, 1583, Croyden, Surrey) was an English archbishop of Canterbury whose Puritan sympathies brought him into serious conflict with Queen Elizabeth I.

Educated at Magdalene and Christ’s colleges, Cambridge, he became a royal chaplain and prebendary of Westminster in 1551 and, during the reign of Mary I, went to the Continent on diplomatic missions relating to religious affairs. On the accession of Elizabeth I he returned home and the following year was nominated bishop of London, but he hesitated to accept because of his scruples about the “ornaments” rubric in the Elizabethan prayer book, the vestments of the clergy, and the use of wafer bread for Holy Communion. He consulted Peter Martyr, who advised acceptance so that they might work from within for the removal of the remaining relics of popery. As bishop of London Grindal was a thorn in the side of Archbishop Matthew Parker, who wished to enforce the wearing of the surplice but enjoyed little support from Grindal.

In 1570 Grindal was made archbishop of York, and he became a determined opponent of Thomas Cartwright and the Presbyterianizing party, which desired the abolition of the prayer book and of episcopacy. Accordingly he was nominated to the archbishopric of Canterbury in 1576 in the hope that he might drive a wedge between the moderate Puritans and the new party of radical reform. He introduced a series of moderate reforms of abuses, which might have been effective 10 years earlier. Unfortunately he fell foul of Elizabeth in regard to “prophesyings,” or meetings of clergy for mutual edification and study, since he wished to regulate and continue them, whereas she wished to prevent their meeting. Grindal thereupon addressed to the Queen a remonstrance, in which he pointed out to her the limits of her authority in ecclesiastical matters and exhorted her to respect that of the bishops, in terms as unaccustomed as unwelcome to Elizabeth. She retorted by imprisoning him and by suspending him from the exercise of his metropolitan functions. The dispute dragged on until his death.