In a modern publication, entitled _Lives of Eminent Englishmen_,
edited by G.G. Cunningham, 8 vols. 8vo. Glasgow, 1840, we meet with
a memoir of Archbishop Whitgift, which contains the following
paragraph:--
"While Whitgift was footing to an archbishopric, poor
Cartwright was consigned to poverty and exile; and at length
died in obscurity and wretchedness. How pleasant would it
have been to say that none of his sufferings were inflicted
by his great antagonist, but that he was treated by him with
a generous magnanimity! Instead of this, Whitgift followed
him through life with inflexible animosity."--_Cunningham's
Lives_, ii. 212.
Mr. Cunningham gives no authority for these statements; but I will
furnish him with my authorities for the contradiction of them.
"After some years (writes Walton, in his _Life of Hooker_),
the Doctor [Whitgift] being preferred to the see, first of
Worcester and then of Canterbury, Mr. Cartwright, after
his share of trouble and imprisonment (for setting up new
presbyteries in divers places against the established order),
having received from the Archbishop many personal favours,
retired himself to a more private living, which was at
Warwick, where he became master of an hospital, and lived
quietly and grew rich;... the Archbishop surviving him but
one year, _each ending his days in perfect charity with the
other_."
To the same effect is the statement in Strype, which I borrow from Dr.
Zouch's second edition of _Walton's Lives_, p. 217.:--
"Thomas Cartwright, the Archbishop's old antagonist, was alive
in 1601, and grew rich at his hospital at Warwick, preaching
at the chapel there, saith my author, very temperately,
according to the promise made by him to the Archbishop;
which mildness of his some ascribed to his old age and more
experience. But the latter end of next year he deceased. And
now, at the end of Cartwright's life, to take our leave of
him with a fairer character, it is remarkable what a noble
and learned man, Sir H. Yelverton, writes of some of his last
words--'_that he seriously lamented the unnecessary troubles
he had caused in the Church, by the schism he had been the
great fomenter of, and wished to begin his life again, that
he might testify to the world the dislike he had of his former
ways_;' and in this opinion he died."
I find it stated, moreover, on the authority of Sir G. Paul's _Life
of Whitgift_, that Cartwright acknowledged the generosity of Whitgift,
and admitted "his bond of duty to the Archbishop to be so much the
straiter, as it was without any desert of his own."--_Carwithen's
History of the Church of England_, i. 527. 2nd edit.
Lest this should not suffice to convict Mr. Cunningham of error, I
will adduce two extracts from _The Life of Master Thomas Cartwright_,
written by the Presbyterian Sa. Clarke, in 1651, and appended to his
_Martyrologie_.
"About the same time [viz. 1580], the Earl of Leicester
preferred him [Cartwright] to be master of his hospital
at Warwick, which place was worth to him about one hundred
pounds."--Clarke, p. 370.
"For riches, he sought them not; yea, he rejected many
opportunities whereby he might have enriched himself. His
usual manner was, when he had good sums of gold sent him,
to take only one piece, lest he should seem to slight his
friend's kindness, and to send back the rest with a thankful
acknowledgement of their love and his acceptance of it;
_professing that, for that condition wherein God had set him,
he was as well furnished as they for their high and great
places_."--Ib. p. 372.
So much for the "poverty," the "wretchedness," of Cartwright, and the
"inflexible animosity" of Whitgift. The very reverse of all this is
the truth.