Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/257

 of the religion and politics of the Commonwealth. ‘All newes in religion, whether in Doctrine or Discipline, is the common skreen,’ he says, ‘of private design.’ In 1655 he saw through the press, and wrote a preface (not obscurely censuring the innovations of ‘a new and fifth monarchy, a new and fifth gospel’) to the collation of the Vulgate undertaken by John Boys, at the wish of Bishop Andrewes [London, 1655]. Meanwhile he was in correspondence with the most notable of the exiled churchmen abroad, and assisted the poorer royalist clergy out of his own purse (cf. Harleian MS. 3783, ff. 103, 105).

In 1657 he went abroad, stayed at Amsterdam and Utrecht, was noticed by the Princess of Orange (mother of William III), and then started with his friend Robert Gayer for a southern tour by Spa, Maestricht, Geneva, Venice, Padua, to Rome. At Padua he was entered a student of the university (, Collect. Curiosa, vol. i. p. xxix). At Rome he heard of the Restoration, and his friends were urgent for his return, the bishop of Derry offering him the chaplaincy to Lord Ormonde, with valuable preferments. On 8 May 1660 he was chosen a university preacher at Cambridge, and on his return to England he became chaplain to Cosin, at whose consecration, with six other bishops, in Westminster Abbey, on 2 Dec. 1660, he preached a sermon on the office of a bishop and the divine origin of the apostolic ministry (London, 1660). He was employed in the Savoy conference, and is said to have been especially concerned in the alteration of the calendar and rubrics (, Register, pp. 574, 632; also Cal. of State Papers, Dom. Charles II, Addenda, 1660–70, p. 523). Cosin gave him the rectory of Houghton-le-Spring, to which he was instituted on 7 Dec. 1661, and on 11 March 1662 he was collated to a prebend in Durham Cathedral. He became also in 1661 one of the king's chaplains. While resident in Durham he made large collections concerning the antiquities of the county, which proved of great assistance to subsequent historians (, Durham, ii. 206). He proceeded D.D. at Cambridge per literas regias in 1662.

The fellows of Emmanuel, despite their puritanic sympathies, remembered Sancroft's learning and high character, and when Dr. Dillingham vacated the mastership on 24 Aug. 1662, by refusing to take the oath ordered by the Act of Uniformity, Sancroft was elected to the post on 30 Aug. ‘Beyond all expectation,’ he wrote, ‘I am come back to the college where I knew nobody at all, my acquaintance being wholly worn out.’ He found the college in sad plight, and the university much decayed in learning. With the benefaction of a deceased master, Dr. Houldsworth, he set about the conversion of the old chapel into a library, and he procured plans for a new chapel, to which he subscribed liberally (nearly 600l.); it was finally completed under his successors. On 8 Jan. 1664 he was nominated by the king to the deanery of York. He was installed by proxy on 26 Feb. (Cal. of State Papers, Dom. Charles II, 1663–4, p. 461). ‘This dignity he held but ten months, and in that time he expended in building and other charges 200l. more than he received. He made a rental of the church of York, and brought the accounts of it (before wholly neglected) into order’ (, Bishops, i. 199; see Harleian MS. 3783, ff. 137, 141).

On the death of Dr. John Barwick (1612–1664) [q. v.], Sancroft was nominated to the deanery of St. Paul's (Harleian MS. 378, f. 109), and was installed on 10 Dec. 1664. He thereupon resigned the rectory of Houghton, and shortly afterwards the mastership of Emmanuel. He continued to take great interest in the college, giving to it a large proportion of his books when he left Lambeth in 1691, and the presentation of the benefice of Fressingfield, with endowments for a chaplaincy at Harleston (cf. Emmanuel College Magazine, vol. vii. No. 1, pp. 49–52; Emmanuel College MSS.).

In his new office he applied himself at once to the restoration of St. Paul's Cathedral. During the plague he was at Tunbridge, whither he had been advised to go by his physician ‘long before any plague was heard of’ (Letter of Dr. Barwick, 5 Aug. 1665, Harleian MS. 3783, f. 19). On 27 July 1666 he viewed the cathedral with Christopher Wren, the bishop of London, and others, and decided upon the erection of a ‘noble cupola, a forme of church building not as yet known in England, but of wonderfull grace’ (, Diary, i. 371). The great fire necessitated the rebuilding of the whole cathedral, and to this Sancroft devoted his energies for many years. He contributed 1,400l. himself and raised large contributions from others, and entered minutely into the architectural as well as the financial aspects of the work. He was excused his residence as prebendary of Durham in consequence of the ‘perpetual and close attendance required’ on the commission for the rebuilding, nothing being done ‘without his presence, no materials bought, nor accounts passed without him’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom., Charles II, Addenda, 1660–