s before, and with so much success that
Lord Clarendon, writing in his praise, expressed the opinion that "if
Bancroft had lived, he would quickly have extinguished all that fire in
England which had been kindled at Geneva." He was as lenient with the
offences of the orthodox as he was rigid in suppressing heresy and schism.
In 1605 he was sworn a member of the privy council. The same year he
engaged in a contest with the judges, and exhibited articles of complaint
against them before the lords of the council; but these complaints were
overruled. His aim was really to make the ecclesiastical courts independent
of the law by speciously magnifying the royal authority over them. He
enforced discipline and exact conformity within the church with an iron
hand; and over 200 clergymen were deprived of their livings for
disobedience to the _ex animo_ form of subscription. In 1608 he was chosen
chancellor of the university of Oxford. One of his latest public acts was a
proposal laid before parliament for improving the revenues of the church,
and a project for a college of controversial divinity at Chelsea. In the
last few months of his life he took part in the discussion about the
consecration of certain Scottish bishops, and it was in pursuance of his
advice that they were consecrated by several bishops of the English church.
By this act were laid the foundations of the Scottish Episcopal church.
Bancroft was "the chief overseer" of the authorized version of the Bible.
He died at Lambeth Palace on the 2nd of November 1610. His literary remains
are not extensive, but show him to have been an able writer.

BANCROFT, SIR SQUIRE (1841- ), English actor and manager, was born near
London on the 14th of May 1841. His first appearance on the stage was in
1861 at Birmingham, and he played in the provinces with success for several
years. His first London appearance was in 1865 in Wooler's _A Winning
Hazard_ at the Prince of Wales's theatre off Tottenham Court Road, then
under the management of Effie Marie Wilton (b. 1840), whom he married in
1868. Mr and Mrs Bancroft were associated in the production of all the
Robertson comedies:--_Society_ (1865), _Ours_ (1866), _Caste_ (1867),
_Play_ (1868), _School_ (1869) and _M.P._ (1870), and, after Robertson's
death, in revivals of the old comedies, for which they surrounded
themselves with an admirable company. Lytton's _Money_ (1872), Boucicault's
_London Assurance_ (1877), and _Diplomacy_--an ad