Saturday 31 January 2026, 2:30pm
Lancelot Andrewes: "a paper-life better than none"
Professor Peter McCullough, Lincoln College Oxford
2026 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of Lancelot Andrewes—scholar, preacher, bishop, and dean of the Chapel Royal. Upon his passing in September 1626, King Charles 'thought it not fit his sermons should dye with him', and in commissioning William Laud to publish them, consoled himself and graced Andrewes' future readers with the consolation that 'a paper-life' was 'better than none'. This lecture will use Andrewes' long and varied 'real' life to put into a wider context Charles' admiration for him, and the ways that the 'paper-life' of his published sermons, one of the greatest monuments of English Renaissance prose, have sustained the bishop's remarkable after-life to our own day.

Followed by tea. Free, with retiring collection. 

Previous lecture
Many thanks to Simon Thurley, whose lecture on "The Pleasure Palaces of Charles I and Henrietta Maria", held on 24 September 2025, was extremely well received. For more information on his research and publications, see https://www.simonthurley.com/