Robert Holgate (1481/1482 – 1555) was

Bishop of Llandaff The Bishop of Llandaff is the ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Llandaff. Area of authority The diocese covers most of the County of Glamorgan. The bishop's seat is in the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (the site of ...

from 1537 and then

Archbishop of York The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers th ...

(from 1545 to 1554). He recognised Henry VIII as head of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

. Although a protege of

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex Thomas Cromwell (; 1485 – 28 July 1540), briefly Earl of Essex, was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false charg ...

, Holgate had a career in the

Gilbertine Order The Gilbertine Order of Canons Regular was founded around 1130 by Saint Gilbert in Sempringham, Lincolnshire, where Gilbert was the parish priest. It was the only completely English religious order and came to an end in the 16th century at th ...

of which he became master. He was briefly Prior of Watton until the priory was dissolved in 1539. Most of the Gilbertine houses were lesser establishments which should have been dissolved under the Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1535 (only four out of twenty-six houses had revenues over £200 a year). However, Holgate is credited with using his influence to save them for a few years. For example, Malton Priory, one of the lesser Gilbertine houses, was the last of them to surrender in December 1539, whereas

Sempringham Priory Sempringham Priory was a priory in Lincolnshire, England, located in the medieval hamlet of Sempringham, to the northwest of Pointon. Today, all that remains of the priory is a marking on the ground where the walls stood and a square, which are i ...

, worth more than £200 a year, surrendered in 1538.Page, William, 'Houses of the Gilbertine order: The priory of Sempringham', A History of the County of Lincoln: Volume 2 (1906), pp. 179–187, (

Public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

text), accessed vi
British History online
/ref> Holgate was consecrated as

on 25 March 1537. He translated to

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

on 16 January 1545. At York in 1546, he founded a school, now called Archbishop Holgate's School. He was President of the

Council of the North The Council of the North was an administrative body first set up in 1484 by King Richard III of England, to improve access to conciliar justice in Northern England. This built upon steps by King Edward IV of England in delegating authority in the ...

from 1538.After the dissolution
/ref> In 1550 Holgate married Barbara Wentworth, who was about 25 at the time. This might, however have been a second wedding to make it fully legal, and Holgate and Wentworth might have first married in late 1547 with Roger Tongue officiating. In 1551 Anthony Norman claimed that he was already married to Barbara Wentworth, but the courts decided that their marriage when she was about seven had not been a binding legal transaction. Robert and Barbara remained married until 1553, when shortly after Mary I of England came to the throne. She imprisoned Holgate on various charges, with his being a married cleric being central to these. In 1554 Holgate renounced his marriage claiming he had only entered it to avoid suspicion as a papist. In January 1555 Holgate was released from prison, but he was not restored to priestly office. He died later that year.A. G. Dickens, "The Marriage and Character of Archbishop Holgate," ''English Historical Review'' Vol. 52, no. 207 (July 1937) pp. 428–442 In 1558 a Robert Holgate from Yorkshire entered the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

. He may have been a son of Holgate, since there are some claims he had two children by Barbara, but there is no conclusive evidence on the matter.

References

:''This article contains public domain text from William Page's Houses of the Gilbertine order: The priory of Sempringham, A History of the County of Lincoln: Volume 2'' (1906)

External links

* Archbishop Holgate's School *H.L. Parish
‘Holgate, Robert (1481/2–1555)’
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 5 June 2007 {{DEFAULTSORT:Holgate, Robert Archbishops of York Bishops of Llandaff 16th-century Welsh Anglican bishops 1480s births 1555 deaths Gilbertine Order