Feast of St. Lancelot Andrewes 

Join the SCP Chapter of Sts. Francis and Clare commemorates St. Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Bishop of Winchester, with a Mass followed by a Chapter Meeting and then dinner. This good siant was on the committee of scholars that produced the King James Translation of the Bible, and probably contributed more to that work than any other single person. Following the Mass we will hold a brief business meeting and then adjourn for dinner. We will car pool to the restaurant. 

 Living from 1555 – 25 September 1626, he was an English bishop and scholar, who held high positions in the Church of England during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. During the latter's reign, Andrewes served successively as Bishop of Chichester, of Ely and of Winchester and oversaw the translation of the King James Version of the Bible (or Authorized Version). In the Church of England he is commemorated on 25 September with a Lesser Festival.

During Elizabeth's reign 

In 1588, following a period as chaplain to Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, President of the North, he became vicar of St Giles, Cripplegate in the City of London, where he delivered striking sermons on the temptation in the wilderness and the Lord's Prayer. In a great sermon (during Easter week) on 10 April 1588, he stoutly vindicated the Reformed character of the Church of England against the claims of Roman Catholicism and adduced John Calvin as a new writer, with lavish praise and affection.

Through the influence of Francis Walsingham, Andrewes was appointed prebendary of St Pancras in St Paul's, London, in 1589, and subsequently became Master of his own college of Pembroke, as well as a chaplain of Archbishop John Whitgift. From 1589 to 1609 he was prebendary of Southwell. On 4 March 1590, as a chaplain of Elizabeth I, he preached before her an outspoken sermon and, in October that year, gave his introductory lecture at St Paul's, undertaking to comment on the first four chapters of the Book of Genesis. These were later compiled as The Orphan Lectures (1657).

Andrewes liked to move among the people, yet found time to join a society of antiquaries, of which Walter Raleigh, Sir Philip Sidney, Burleigh, Arundel, the Herberts, Saville, Stow and Camden were members. Queen Elizabeth had not advanced him further on account of his opposition to the alienation of ecclesiastical revenues. In 1598 he declined the bishoprics of Ely and Salisbury, because of the conditions attached. On 23 November 1600, he preached at Whitehall a controversial sermon on justification. In July 1601 he was appointed dean of Westminster and gave much attention to the school there.

During the reign of James I 

Andrewes' name is the first on the list of divines appointed to compile the Authorized Version of the Bible. He headed the "First Westminster Company" which took charge of the first books of the Old Testament (Genesis to2 Kings). He acted, furthermore, as a sort of general editor for the project as well.

On 31 October 1605 his election as Bishop of Chichester was confirmed, he was consecrated a bishop on 3 November, installed at Chichester Cathedral on 18 November^[3] and made Lord High Almoner (until 1619).^[5]Following the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot Andrewes was asked to prepare a sermon to be presented to the king in 1606 (Sermons Preached upon the V of November, in Lancelot Andrewes, XCVI Sermons, 3rd. Edition (London,1635) pp. 889,890, 900-1008 ). In this sermon Lancelot Andrewes justified the need to commemorate the deliverance and defined the nature of celebrations. This sermon became the foundation of celebrations which continue 400 years later.^[6] In 1609 he published Tortura Torti, a learned work which grew out of the Gunpowder Plot controversy and was written in answer to Bellarmine's Matthaeus Tortus, which attacked James I's book on the oath of allegiance. After moving to Ely^[3] (his election to that See was confirmed on 22 September),^[5] he again controverted Bellarmine in the Responsio ad Apologiam.

In 1617 he accompanied James I to Scotland with a view to persuading the Scots that Episcopacy was preferable to Presbyterianism. He was made dean of the Chapel Royal and translated (by the confirmation of his election to that See in February 1619)^[5] to Winchester, a diocese that he administered with great success. Following his death in 1626 in his Southwark palace, he was mourned alike by leaders in Church and state, and buried beside the high altar in St Saviour's (now Southwark Cathedral, then in the Diocese of Winchester)

 

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