Simon Sudbury

Simon Theobald or Simon of Sudbury (died 14 June 1381) was an Archbishop of Canterbury (1375–1381) as well as Bishop of London.

Life

He was born at Sudbury in Suffolk, studied at the University of Paris, and became one of the chaplains of Pope Innocent VI, who sent him, in 1356, on a mission to Edward III of England.

In October of 1361 the pope appointed him Bishop of London, and he was consecrated on 20 March 1362.^[1] He was soon serving the king as an ambassador and in other ways. On 4 May 1375 he succeeded William Whittlesey as archbishop of Canterbury,^[2] and during the rest of his life was a partisan of John of Gaunt.

In July of 1377, he crowned Richard II, and in 1378 John Wycliffe appeared before him at Lambeth, but he only undertook proceedings against the reformer under great pressure.

In January of 1380, Sudbury became Lord Chancellor of England,^[3] and the insurgent peasants regarded him as one of the principal authors of their woes. Having released John Ball from his prison at Maidstone, the Kentish insurgents attacked and damaged the archbishop's property at Canterbury and Lambeth; then, rushing into the Tower of London, they seized the archbishop himself. So unpopular was Sudbury that guards simply allowed the rebels through the gates.

Sudbury was dragged to Tower Hill and, on 14 June 1381,^[2] was beheaded. His body was afterwards buried in Canterbury Cathedral, though his head (after being taken down from London Bridge) is still kept at the church of St Gregory at Sudbury in Suffolk, which Sudbury partly rebuilt.^[4] With his brother, John of Chertsey, he also founded a college in Sudbury; he also did some building at Canterbury. His father was Nigel Theobald, and he is sometimes called Simon Theobald or Tybald.

Notes

References

• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third Edition, revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X. 

External links

• Simon of Sudbury at Catholic Encyclopedia Online
• Simon of Sudbury at 1911 Britannica Encyclopedia Online

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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