That the burghers of Guildford were always the best of friends one with another is not my contention; that the dignity of their ancient surroundings should conduce to loving-kindness may remain unquestioned.
The greatest of Guildford's worthies was George Abbot, the son of Maurice Abbot, a clothworker of this town, and his wife Alice. He was born in 1562, the eldest of that "happy ternion of brothers," as Fuller quaintly describes him and his two younger brothers, who became respectively Bishop of Salisbury and Lord Mayor of London. The parents of these distinguished men came very near to martyrdom in the reign of Queen Mary, for they were both ardent Protestants; but, escaping the fate that befell many others, they had the happiness of seeing their children rise in the world far beyond all local expectations. Alice Abbot, indeed, had a singular dream which foretold that "if she could eat a jack or pike, the first son she should bring into the world would be a great man." A few days afterwards (so runs the story) she drew up a pike from the river Wey while filling buckets for household use; and, in accord with the promptings of her dream, ate it. "Many people of quality offered themselves to be sponsors at the baptism of Mistress Alice's son--the future Archbishop," says Aubrey; and if the dream itself was nothing but the result of a late supper acting upon a vivid imagination, certainly local interest in "Mistress Alice's" account of it procured for her firstborn quite an exceptional degree of favour and consideration. He was educated first at the Free Grammar School of Guildford, and was sent at the age of sixteen to Balliol College. Thenceforward his rise was rapid. He studied theology, and became tutor to the sons of influential personages. Excellent preferments in the Church became his at an early age, and through many stages of favour he became Archbishop of Canterbury in his forty-ninth year. His rise was undoubtedly due to native worth, for Abbot was a scholar of the foremost rank, and well equipped, both by study and by force of character, to hold his own in the fierce religious controversies of his time. He was, moreover, honest, and had little of the truckler or the time-server in his nature, as his opposition both to James I. and Charles I. showed, on occasion. It is to his righteous opposition that Charterhouse School, now down the road at Godalming, owes its very existence; for, when the cupidity of James I. was aroused over the provisions of Thomas Sutton's will, and when he attempted to divert that pious founder's money to his own uses, Abbot withstood the attempt, and the King was fain to give way--with an ill grace, 'tis true, but effectually enough.