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.
Life
He was born at
Cottenham,
Cambridgeshire, and educated at the free school in
Norwich, 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. 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
Tenison's School, Lambeth, founded in 1685 and
Tenison's School, Croydon, founded in 1714, set up a public library, and kept many curates to assist him in his indefatigable labours". During this period he wrote some of his most notable sets of poetry, the most well known being, "be still oh foolish beating heart, rest your head beneath her smile, dedicated it is thought to his mother. 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 the
Eucharist; 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.
Along with Burnet he attended the king on his deathbed. He crowned
Queen Anne, but during her reign was in less favour at court. He was a commissioner for the Union with Scotland in 1706. A strong supporter of the Hanoverian succession, 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
31 October 1714. Tenison died in London a year later.
See also
