29 September 1636 A.D. Thomas Tenison Born—81st of 105 Archbishops of Canterbury, a Protestant and Reformed Churchman
29
September 1636 A.D. Thomas
Tenison Born—81st of 105 Archbishops of Canterbury, a Protestant and
Reformed Churchman
Thomas Tenison (29 September 1636 –
14 December 1715) was an English church leader, Archbishop of Canterbury
from 1694 until his death. During his primacy, he crowned two British monarchs.
Contents
·
1 Life
·
3 Family
Life
He was born at Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, and educated at Norwich School,
going on to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, as a scholar on Archbishop Matthew Parker's foundation. He graduated in 1657, and was chosen fellow in 1659.[1] For a short time he studied medicine, but in 1659 was privately ordained.
As vicar of St Andrew-the-Great, Cambridge, he set an example by his devoted
attention to the sufferers from the plague. In 1667 he was presented to the living of Holywell-cum-Needingworth, Huntingdonshire, by the Earl of Manchester, to
whose son he had been tutor, and in 1670 to that of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich.
In 1680 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and
was presented by King Charles II to the important London
church of St Martin's-in-the-Fields.
Tenison, according to Gilbert Burnet, "endowed schools including Archbishop Tenison's
School, Lambeth, founded in 1685 and Archbishop Tenison's
School, Croydon, founded in 1714, set up a public
library, and kept many curates to assist him in his indefatigable labours".
Being a strenuous opponent of the Church of Rome, and "Whitehall lying within that parish, he stood as in the front of the battle all King
James's reign". In 1678, in a Discourse of Idolatry, he had
condemned the heathenish idolatry practised in the Church of Rome, and in a
sermon which he published in 1681 on Discretion in Giving Alms was
attacked by Andrew Poulton, head of the Jesuits in the Savoy. Tenison's reputation as an enemy of Romanism led the Duke of Monmouth to
send for him before his execution in 1685, when Bishops Ken and Turner refused
to administer holy
communion; but, although Tenison spoke to him in "a softer
and less peremptory manner" than the two bishops, he was, like them, not
satisfied with the sufficiency of Monmouth's penitence.
Under King William III, Tenison was in 1689
named a member of the ecclesiastical commission appointed to prepare matters
towards a reconciliation of the Dissenters, the revision of the liturgy being
specially entrusted to him. A sermon he preached on the commission was
published the same year. He preached a funeral sermon for Nell Gwyn in 1687, in which he represented her as truly penitent – a charitable
judgment that did not meet with universal approval. The general liberality of
Tenison's religious views won him royal favour, and, after being made Bishop of Lincoln in 1691, he was promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury in December 1694.
Archbishop Tenison was one
of seven Lord Justices whom King William
appointed to administer the kingdom whilst he was on campaign in Europe.
Archbishop of Canterbury
He attended Queen Mary during her last illness and
preached her funeral sermon in Westminster Abbey. When William in 1695 went to take command of the army in the Netherlands,
Tenison was appointed one of the seven lords justices to whom his authority was
delegated. After Mary's death, Tenison was one of those who persuaded the King
that his long and bitter quarrel with her sister Anne must be ended.[2]
Along with Burnet he attended the King on his deathbed.
He crowned William's successor, Queen Anne, but during her reign was
in less favour at court :[3] the Queen thought that he inclined too much to the Low Church, and clashed
with him over her sole right to appoint bishops. Only with great difficulty did
he persuade her to appoint his nominee William Wake, as Bishop of Lincoln.[4] Increasingly he lost influence to John Sharp, Archbishop of York,
whom the Queen found far more congenial.[5] He was a commissioner for the Union with Scotland in
1706; but in the last years of the Queen's reign was very much a secondary
political figure, and from September 1710, though still nominally a member of
the Cabinet, ceased to attend its meetings.[6] A strong supporter of the Hanoverian succession, who shocked many by
referring to Anne's death as a blessing,[7] he was one of three officers of state to whom, on the death of Anne, was
entrusted the duty of appointing a regent till the arrival of George I, whom he crowned on 20
October 1714. For the last time at a coronation, the Archbishop asked if the
people accepted their new KIng: the witty Catherine Sedley, mistress of James
II, remarked "Does the old fool think we will say
no?" Tenison died in London a year later.
Family
He married Anne, daughter of Richard Love; but died without issue.[8] Edward Tenison (1673–1735) LL.B
(Cantab.), his cousin, became Bishop of Ossory (Ireland) (1730/1731-1735).[9][10]
In appearance he was a large, brawny, "
hulking" figure, very strong when young but afflicted with gout in later life.[11]
Armorials
The personal coat of arms of Archbishop Tenison consist of the arms of the see of Canterbury impaled with the Tenison family
arms. The former, placed on the dexter side of honour, are blazoned as: Azure, an archiepiscopal
cross in pale or surmounted by a pall proper charged with four crosses patee
fitchee sable. The arms of Tenison,
placed on the sinister side of the escutcheon are blazoned as: Gules, a bend engrailed argent voided azure, between three leopard's faces or jessant-de-lys azure. In standard English: a red field bearing a white (or
silver) diagonal band with scalloped edges, and a narrower blue band running
down its centre. This lies between three gold heraldic lion's faces, each of which
is pierced by a fleur-de-lys entering through the
mouth.
Origin
Arms of Denys of
Gloucestershire, late 13th century
These arms are a difference, or variant, of the
mediaeval arms of the family of Denys of Siston, Gloucestershire, and may have been adopted by the Tenison family because
its name signifies "Denys's or Denis's son". The arms were originally
those of the Norman de Cantilupe family, whose feudal tenants the Denys family
probably were in connection with Candleston Castle in Glamorgan. St Thomas Cantilupe
(d.1282), bishop of Hereford, gave a reversed (i.e. upside down) version of the
Cantilupe arms to the see of Hereford, which uses them to this day. A version of the Denys arms was also adopted
by the family of the poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
not known to have been a descendant of Archbishop Thomas Tenison.
See
also
References
8.
Jump up ^
"Tenison,
Thomas". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
1885–1900.
9.
Jump up ^
"Tenison,
Edward". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
1885–1900.
10.
Jump up ^ George Stanhope, A Letter from the Prolocutor
to the Reverend Dr. Edward Tenison, Archdeacon of Carmarthen, 1718
·
This
article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.
(1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.).
Cambridge University Press.
External
links
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Bishop
of Lincoln
1691–1695 |
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Archbishop of Canterbury
1695–1715 |
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