Bancroft, Richard (1544–1619)

English churchman, archbishop of Canterbury from 1604, and chancellor of Oxford University from 1608.

Bancroft was born at Farnworth, Lancashire, and educated at Cambridge University. In 1576 he became rector of Teversham, near Cambridge, and rose rapidly to become bishop of London in 1597. In the reign of James I he was appointed commissioner on behalf of the Church of England in the Hampton Court conference. He opposed puritanism, and was a supporter of the theory of the divine origin of episcopacy. He was also the founder of the library at Lambeth Palace.