Cartwright, Thomas (1535–1603)

English clergyman. A leader of the early Puritans, he did much to strengthen and organize their doctrines. He entered into lengthy controversy with John Whitgift, and his attack on the Elizabethan settlement was largely responsible for the classical formulation of Anglican doctrine by Richard Hooker in his The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1594). In 1570–71 Whitgift deprived Cartwright of both his divinity professorship and his fellowship. The rest of Cartwright's life was spent in visits to the European Continent and imprisonment, chiefly in Fleet prison, for his pronounced Presbyterian views.