Samuel Harsnett - Ministerial Career

Ministerial Career

In 1592 he served the office of Junior Proctor and five years later became chaplain to Dr Bancroft, then Bishop of London and shortly to become Archbishop of Canterbury by whose favour he quickly rose through the ranks. On the authority of Bancroft, he obtained the rectory of St Margaret, New Fish Street, London which he resigned in 1604 and the vicarage of Chigwell in Essex on 14 June 1597 which he resigned in 1605. Whilst at Chigwell, his wife, Thomazine, died in 1601, having given birth in 1600 to a short-lived daughter. Even after 1605 he continued to reside at Chigwell, where he had purchased a house and estate. In 1619 he purchased land in the parish on which he founded both a Latin school (which survives as Chigwell School) and an English school in 1629.

In 1598 he was promoted, becoming the prebendary of Mapesbury on 5 August and on 17 January 1602 the archdeacon of Essex – both posts chosen for him by Bishop Bancroft. On 16 April 1604 Sir Thomas Lucas of Colchester, father of Charles Lucas, installed him in the rectory of Shenfield, Essex.

Having been Bishop of Chichester since 13 November 1609, on 8 August 1619, he became Bishop of Norwich, resigning the living of Stisted he had held since 1609. He spent most of his time when absent from his city at Ludham, where he built a chapel and consecrated it for divine worship. In May 1624 he was charged before Parliament with high-handedness by the citizens of Norwich and in that same year he also persecuted the Puritans in Great Yarmouth, leading to a complaint by them to King Charles I in 1627.

On 26 November 1628, he was elected Archbishop of York, and on 10 November 1629 he was sworn a Privy Councillor.