Thomas Cartwright

Thomas Cartwright (c. 1535-1603), English Puritan divine, was born in Hertfordshire.

He studied divinity at St John's College, Cambridge, but on Mary's accession had to leave the university, and found occupation as clerk to a counsellor-at-law. On the accession of Elizabeth, he resumed his theological studies, and was soon afterwards elected fellow of St John's and later of Trinity College.

In 1564 he opposed John Preston in a theological disputation held on the occasion of Elizabeth's state visit, and in the following year helped to bring to a head the Puritan attitude on chuich ceremonial and organization. He was popular in Ireland as chaplain to the archbishop of Armagh (1565-1567), and in 1569 he was appointed Lady Margaret professor of divinity at Cambridge; but John Whitgift, on becoming vice-thancellor, deprived him of the post in December 1570, and--as master of Trinity--of his fellowship in September 1571.

This was a natural consequence of the use which he made of his position; he inveighed bitterly against the hierarchy and constitution of the Anglican Church, which he compared unfavourably with the primitive Christian organization. So keen was the struggle between him and Whitgift that the chancellor, William Cecil, had to intervene. After his deprivation by Whitgift, Cartwright visited Beza at Geneva. He returned to England in 1572, and might have become professor of Hebrew at Cambridge but for his expressed sympathy with the notorious "Admonition to the Parliament" by John Field and Thomas Wilcox[?]. To escape arrest he again went abroad, and officiated as clergyman to the English residents at Antwerp and then at Middelburg.

In 1576 he visited and organized the Huguenot churches of the Channel Islands, arid after revising the Rhenish version of the New Testament, again settled as pastor at Antwerp, declining the offer of a chair at St Andrews. in 1585 he returned without permission to London, was imprisoned for a short time, and became master of the earl of Leicester's hospital at Warwick. In 1590 he was summoned before the court of high commission and imprisoned, and in 1591 he was once more committed to the Fleet. But he was not treated harshly, and powerful influence soon secured his liberation. He visited Guernsey (1595-1598), and spent his closing years in honour and prosperity at Warwick, where he died on December 27 1603.

Cartwright was a man of much culture and originality, but exceedingly impulsive. His views were distinctly Presbyterian, and he stoutly opposed the Brownists or Independents. He never conceived of a separation between church and state, and would probably have refused to tolerate any Nonconformity with his reformed national Presbyterian church. To him, however, the Puritanism of his day owed its systematization and much of its force.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.