LATE LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN.

[Sidenote: Birth and birth-place]

Doctor Robert Sanderson, the late learned Bishop of Lincoln, whose
Life I intend to write with all truth and equal plainness, was born
the nineteenth day of September in the year of our Redemption 1587.
The place of his birth was Rotherham[1] in the County of York; a Town
of good note, and the more for that Thomas Rotherham,[2] some time
Archbishop of that see, was born in it; a man, whose great wisdom,
and bounty, and sanctity of life, have made it the more memorable: as
indeed it ought also to be, for being the birth-place of our Robert
Sanderson. And the Reader will be of my belief, if this humble
relation of his life can hold any proportion with his great Piety, his
useful Learning, and his many other extraordinary endowments.

[Sidenote: His father]

He was the second and youngest Son, of Robert Sanderson, of
Gilthwaite-Hall, in the said Parish and County, Esq., by Elizabeth,
one of the daughters of Richard Carr, of Butterthwaite-Hall, in the
Parish of Ecclesfield, in the said County of York, Gentleman.

This Robert Sanderson, the Father, was descended from a numerous,
ancient, and honourable family of his own name: for the search of
which truth, I refer my Reader, that inclines to it, to Dr. Thoroton's
"History of the Antiquities of Nottinghamshire," and other records;
not thinking it necessary here to engage him into a search for bare
titles, which are noted to have in them nothing of reality: for titles
not acquired, but derived only, do but shew us who of our ancestors
have, and how they have achieved that honour which their descendants
claim, and may not be worthy to enjoy. For, if those titles descend to
persons that degenerate into Vice, and break off the continued line of
Learning, or Valour, or that Virtue that acquired them, they destroy
the very foundation upon which that Honour was built; and all the
rubbish of their vices ought to fall heavy on such dishonourable
heads; ought to fall so heavy, as to degrade them of their titles, and
blast their memories with reproach and shame.

But our Robert Sanderson lived worthy of his name and family: of
which one testimony may be, that Gilbert, called the Great Earl
of Shrewsbury, thought him not unworthy to be joined with him as
a Godfather to Gilbert Sheldon,[3] the late Lord Archbishop of
Canterbury; to whose merits and memory, posterity--the Clergy
especially--ought to pay a reverence.