page_title: Gilbert Sheldon
section_title: Archbishop of Canterbury
hierarchical_section_title: Gilbert Sheldon / Archbishop of Canterbury
caption_attribution_description: English: Croydon Minster, Gilbert Sheldon tomb c1677 by Jasper Latham
context_page_description: Gilbert Sheldon was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1663 until his death.
context_section_description: He was translated to become Archbishop of Canterbury in 1663: the congé d'élire was issued on 14 July, Sheldon was elected on 11 August, royal assent was given on 20 August and his election was confirmed (in a legal ceremony by which he officially took his new post) on 31 August at Lambeth Palace; he was enthroned by proxy and vested with the temporalities on 7 September. He was greatly interested in the welfare of the University of Oxford, of which he became Chancellor in 1667, succeeding Lord Clarendon, as Hyde now was. The Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford was built and endowed at his expense. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1665.
  He accepted much purely secular work, acting as arbiter on petitions presented through him, and taking up investigations passed on by the king, especially in connection with the navy. Sheldon lost political influence after the fall of Clarendon in 1667, and by making Charles's philandering a matter of religious reproach. He was vocal against the Royal Declaration of Indulgence of 1672.  He is depicted in a window in Gray's Inn Chapel.
  Sheldon is mentioned in Pepys' Diary who relates a story from his "Cozen Roger" that "...the Archbishop of Canterbury that now is, do keep a wench, and that he is a very wencher as can be and tells us that is publicly known that Sir Charles Sedley had got away one of the Archbishop's wenches from him..."  Such stories, spread by his enemies, were common. There is in fact no credible evidence that Sheldon led an immoral life, though  Samuel  Pepys's cousin  Roger Pepys, a Puritan, may well have believed the gossip. A later entry in Pepys' Diary praises the Archbishop  as a "stout and high spirited man", who openly spoke his mind to the King on matters of morality.
  Sheldon never married: this may have inspired the gossip reported by Pepys about his immoral private life. His niece, Catherine, married John Dolben, Archbishop of York.
  Sheldon was buried in Croydon Parish Church, now renamed Croydon Minster.
caption: Tomb in Croydon Minster
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