e
Parliamentarian commissioners when they visited Oxford. He retired to
Derbyshire until the Restoration, when he was restored to his wardenship;
he was made Dean of the Chapel Royal, and succeeded Juxon in the See of
London. In 1661 he assisted at the discussion of the liturgy between the
Presbyterian and Episcopal divines known as the Savoy Conference. In 1663
he succeeded Juxon in the primacy, and in 1667 was elected Chancellor of
Oxford. He built the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, which building is an
early work of Sir Christopher Wren's. He offended the court party by his
open disapproval of the king's morals, and retired in 1669 to his palace
at Croydon, where he spent most of the remainder of his life. He was
buried at the parish church at Croydon, where his tomb and effigy still
remain.

#William Sancroft# (1678-1691) was born at Fresingfield, in Suffolk, and
educated at St. Edmundsbury and at Cambridge, where he became Fellow of
Emmanuel College. He was deprived of his fellowship in 1649, and retired
to the Continent, where he remained until the restoration of Charles II.
He then returned to England, and subsequently became Master of Emmanuel
College, and Dean of York, and of St. Paul's, and Archdeacon of
Canterbury, and was raised to the primacy by Charles II., whose death-bed
he attended. In the reign of James he was at the head of the seven bishops
who presented the famous petition against the Declaration of Indulgence,
for which they were committed to the Tower, tried, and acquitted amidst
immense popular excitement. After James's flight, Sancroft acted as the
head of the council of peers who took upon themselves the administration
of the government of the country. His plan was to retain James nominally
on the throne, while placing the reins of government in the hands of a
regent. He refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary,
considering himself bound by his former oath to James II. He was
accordingly suspended and deprived, and when ejected by law from Lambeth
he retired to his small ancestral property at Fresingfield, where he died
and was buried.

#John Tillotson# (1691-1694) was born of Puritan parents at Sowerby, in
Yorkshire, and was educated at Cambridge. During the Protectorate he had
followed the teachings of the Presbyterians, but on the Restoration he
submitted to the Act of Uniformity. He held among other posts those of
Preacher at Lincoln's Inn and Dean of Canterbury, and enjoy