IT is not deemed necessary to introduce the Correspondence
of Archbishop Parker to the members of the society which
bears his name, by any lengthened or express biography.
To consider his career in detail, would be to write the ec-
clesiastical history, and indeed no small portion also of the
literary history, of the most important part of the reign of
Queen Elizabeth. Such a work, however valuable, would be
foreign to the purpose of the Parker Society; the design of
which is to furnish materials, rather than treatises; to publish
authorities, rather than to draw conclusions.

But, in truth, although not in the form of an express
biography, this volume contains within itself what is really
and truly a Life of Archbishop Parker. In what esteem he
was held by Archbishop Cranmer and others of the Reformers
of the English church ¹, by what steps he rose to the arch-
bishoprick, how he exercised the authority of that exalted
office, what difficulties he had to encounter, and by what
spirit the whole tenour of his life was animated, these things --

To his well-beloved, master Parcare, chaplain to the Queen's good grace."

-v-