ANDREWES, LANCELOT. — English theologian and Anglican bishop of Winchester, born in 1555, died on 6 September 1626. A student at Pembroke College, Cambridge, he received Anglican orders in 1582 and immediately distinguished himself as a skilled controversialist. Queen Elizabeth made him dean of Westminster (1601), and James I, the theological king, made extensive use of him in drafting his works against Catholic doctrines. Among his sermons, the eight dealing with fasting deserve mention; they were preached during two successive Lents, first in the presence of Elizabeth and then of James I. When he was consulted concerning the “Lambeth Articles,” which aimed to introduce Calvin’s decrees on predestination into the Anglican Church, he succeeded in having them modified in a less intransigent sense. His name also heads the list of the theologians who worked on the “authorized version” of the Bible: Biblia ex hebraeo et graeco in anglicum converso sermonem jussu et auspiciis Jacobi I, Magnae Britanniae Regis, London 1612. The king wished to demonstrate his gratitude for the services rendered and the zeal shown in defending the Anglican Church by making him bishop, first of Chichester (1605), then of Ely (1609), and finally of Winchester (1619); and he came very ABBATIA (v.) for the see of Canterbury. He was a person of great culture and erudition—as even his opponents readily acknowledge—simple and modest, wholly devoted to the triumph of his Church, straightforward and far removed from all flattery, even toward sovereigns.
During his lifetime he published only two works, both intended to defend James I in his controversy with s. Roberto Bellarmino: Tortura Torti, sive ad Matthaei Torti librum responsio, London 1609, in which, at the king’s commission, he replied to the work that Bellarmino had published under the name of his secretary Matteo Torto, condemning the oath imposed by James I on Catholics; and Responsio ad Apologiam card. Bellarmino, London 1610, to counter the cardinal’s reply to the first work. A., who was the most perfect embodiment of the theologian of the High Church, there defends Anglican doctrine not only against the supremacy of the Pope, but also attacks Communion under one species, the private Mass, the use of the Latin language in the liturgy, etc. His other works, left in manuscript—sermons, devotional manuals, and theological questions—were published after his death, and the collection was reprinted at Oxford beginning in 1841 in the Library of Anglo-catholic Theology.