Source guides
Confirmation of Post-Reformation Archbishops of Canterbury
The post-Reformation procedure for the appointment of bishops and archbishops of the Church of England was established by the Appointment of Bishops Act of 1533 (25 Henry VIII c.20). Changes were made to the medieval procedure to take into account the break with Rome. The steps involved were detailed, but the main stages were nomination by the Crown, the formal election, legal confirmation of the election, consecration (if the bishop-elect had not already been consecrated to a previous see), restitution of temporalities and enthronement. The list below gives the dates and places of confirmation of all the post-Reformation Archbishops of Canterbury. Archbishop Cranmer had been appointed just before the break with Rome, and Cardinal Pole was appointed during the brief reconciliation under Mary Tudor, so the list begins with Matthew Parker, Queen Elizabeth’s first Archbishop of Canterbury.The customary, but not the only place, for the confirmation to be held, was the church of St. Mary Le Bow, the main church in the Archbishop’s peculiar jurisdiction of the Deanery of the Arches within the City of London, and the location for the Court of Arches, the Archbishop’s consistory court for provincial business, since at least the 12th century. From Sancroft in 1678 to Frederick Temple in 1896 all confirmations took place in St. Mary Le Bow. The proceedings allowed however for opposition to be made to the appointment and protests did in fact take place at the confirmation of Archbishop Temple. His successor Randall Davidson was confirmed at Church House Westminster and most succeeding confirmations have taken place in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
See also the guide to biographical
sources for Archbishops of Canterbury from 1052 to
the present day.
| Matthew Parker | 9 Dec. 1559 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Edmund Grindal | 15 Feb. 1576 | St. Paul’s Cathedral |
| John Whitgift | 23 Sept. 1583 | Lambeth Palace Chapel |
| Richard Bancroft | 10 Dec. 1604 | Lambeth Palace Chapel |
| George Abbot | 9 April 1611 | Lambeth Palace Chapel |
| William Laud | 19 Sept. 1633 | Lambeth Palace Chapel |
| William Juxon | 20 Sept. 1660 | Westminster Abbey (Henry VII Chapel) |
| Gilbert Sheldon | 31 Aug. 1663 | Lambeth Palace Chapel |
| William Sancroft | 24 Jan. 1678 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| John Tillotson | 28 May 1691 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Thomas Tenison | 16 Jan. 1695 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| William Wake | 16 Jan. 1716 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| John Potter | 28 Feb. 1737 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Thomas Herring | 24 Nov. 1747 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Matthew Hutton | 29 April 1757 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Thomas Secker | 21 April 1758 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Frederick Cornwallis | 30 Sept. 1768 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| John Moore | 26 April 1783 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Charles Manners Sutton | 21 Feb. 1805 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| William Howley | 15 Aug. 1828 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| John Bird Sumner | 10 March 1848 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Charles Thomas Longley | 26 Nov. 1862 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Archibald Campbell Tait | 30 Dec. 1868 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Edward White Benson | 3 March 1883 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Frederick Temple | 22 Dec. 1896 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Randall Thomas Davidson | 6 Feb. 1903 | Church House, Westminster |
| Cosmo Gordon Lang | 30 Nov. 1928 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| William Temple | 17 April 1942 | St. Paul’s Cathedral |
| Geoffrey Francis Fisher | 2 Feb. 1945 | St. Paul’s Cathedral |
| Arthur Michael Ramsey | 21 June 1961 | St. Paul’s Cathedral |
| Frederick Donald Coggan | 5 Dec. 1974 | St. Paul’s Cathedral |
| Robert Alexander Kennedy Runcie | 25 Feb. 1980 | St. Paul’s Cathedral |
| George Leonard Carey | 27 March 1991 | St. Mary Le Bow |
| Rowan Douglas Williams | 2 Dec. 2002 | St. Paul’s Cathedral |