Gilbert Sheldon (19 June 1598 – 9 November 1677) was an English religious leader who served as the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1663 until his death.
Early life
Sheldon was born in Stanton, Staffordshire in the parish of Ellastone, on 19 June 1598, the youngest son of Roger Sheldon; his father worked for Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford; he matriculated at Oxford on 1 July 1614, graduated BA from Trinity College on 27 November 1617, and MA(Oxon) on 28 June 1620. In 1619, he was incorporated at Cambridge. In 1622 he was elected fellow of All Souls' College, where he took the degrees of BD on 11 November 1628 and DD on 25 June 1634. In 1622, he was ordained, and shortly afterwards he became domestic chaplain to Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry.
In March 1636 he was elected warden of All Souls' on the death of Richard Astley. He had already made the acquaintance of William Laud, and corresponded with him on college business, university politics, and on the conversion of William Chillingworth from Roman Catholicism. Sheldon was not initially a Laudian, and he resisted (unsuccessfully) Laud's appointment of Jeremy Taylor to a fellowship at All Souls'. In 1634 and 1640 he was pro-vice-chancellor. In 1638 he was on the commission of visitation for Merton College; the visit produced a report requiring reforms.
During the years 1632–1639 he received the livings of Hackney (1633); Oddington, Oxfordshire; Ickford, Buckinghamshire (1636); and Newington, Oxfordshire; besides being a prebendary of Gloucester from 1632. Sheldon gravitated towards the Great Tew circle of Lucius Cary (Falkland), and was on friendly terms with Edward Hyde; he had no Puritan sympathies. He became a royal chaplain through Coventry, and the king intended preferment for him, plans interrupted by the political crises.
Civil War period
He was intimate with the Royalist leaders, and participated in the negotiations for the Uxbridge treaty of 1645. During this period he became with Henry Hammond one of the churchmen closest to the king, and attended him as Clerk of the Closet in Oxford, later in Newmarket, Suffolk and finally in the Isle of Wight. When the parliamentarians occupied Oxford in 1646 he resisted the visitation, but was finally and physically ejected from All Souls in early 1648. Taken into custody, he was to have been imprisoned in Wallingford Castle with Hammond but the commander was unwilling to have them. He was freed, with restrictions on his movements, later that year.
He lived quietly for a dozen years in the Midlands, at Snelston in Derbyshire or with friends in Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Glamorgan, where he stayed with Sir John Aubrey. He was active in fundraising for the poor clergy and for Charles II in exile. He corresponded with Jeremy Taylor, whom he supported, and with Hyde. On the death of John Palmer, whom the visitors had made warden of All Souls' in his place, on 4 March 1659, he was quietly reinstated.
Bishop of London
On 21 September 1660, Sheldon was nominated Bishop of London; he was elected on 9 October and his election was confirmed on 23 October. On 28 October, he was consecrated in the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey; he had been made Dean of the Chapel Royal not long before and became Master of the Savoy not long after. Since William Juxon was now Archbishop of Canterbury, but was aged and infirm, Sheldon in practical terms exercised many of the powers of the archbishopric in the period to 1663, and he was on the privy council. He was commissioned to consecrate the new Scottish bishops.
The Savoy Conference of 1661 was held at his lodgings. He hardly participated but was understood to be pulling strings in terms of the outcome. In his formulation, Puritan objections should be set out and considered; the point of the Conference was liturgical, to look into reform of the Book of Common Prayer. The subsequent Uniformity Act 1662 was very much in line with Sheldon's thinking. The Act was a sequel to Sheldon's successful orchestration of opposition to Charles II's intended Declaration of Indulgence, earlier in 1662.