Tillotson
JOHN ROBERT, Archbishop of Canterbury; born in Sowerby, Yorkshire, England, in October, 1630.
He studied at Claire Hall, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1650, and became a fellow the year after. In 1650 he became tutor in the house of Edmund Prideaux, attorney-general under the Protector. He is said to have received his orders from Sydserf, Bishop of Galloway, and at any rate he was a preacher by 1661, when we find him ranged among the Presbyterians at the Savoy Conference. He submitted at once to the Act of Uniformity (1662); in 1663 became rector of Keddington, in Z tle relished. He married a niece of Oliver Cromwell, and became lecturer at St.
Lawrence's Church, in the Jewry. In 1670 he became a prebendary, in 1672 dean of Canterbury. Along with Burnet he attended Lord Russell on the scaffold (1683).
In 1689 he was appointed clerk of the closet to King William and dean of St.
Paul's, and in April, 1691, was raised to the see of Canterbury, vacant by the deposition of the Nonjuror Sancroft. His "Posthumous Sermons," edited by his chaplain, Dr. Ralph Barker, filled 14 volumes (1694). A complete edition of his whole works, including 254 sermons, appeared in three volumes folio, 1707-1712; with a good "Life" by Dr. Thomas Birch, 1752; and an annotated selection of his sermons by G. W. Weldon (1886). Burnet said he was the best preacher of his age. He died Nov. 22, 1694.