charge of his duties, and constantly sent up lists of recusants and examinations of suspected persons. His services were recognised by James I no less than by his predecessor; he took a prominent part in the Hampton Court conference, and preached at the close before the king, who greatly admired his sermons (cf. Strype, Whitgift, App. pp. 236–8).
On 18 April 1606 he was appointed archbishop of York, on the death of Dr. Matthew Hutton, whom he had succeeded also at Durham. In the primacy his political activity increased. He was named on the commission for ‘examining and determining all controversies in the north’ (21 July 1609, ib.) He was given the custody of the Lady Arabella Stuart, and it was from his house that she escaped in June 1611. He preached the sermon on the opening of parliament in 1614. In the same year, when the lords refused to meet the commons in conference on the impositions, and sixteen bishops voted in the majority, Matthew alone voted for conferring with the lower house. If the letter in ‘Cabala’ is genuine (see below), this was not the only occasion on which he opposed the royal policy. During his last years he retired from political life, and was excused attendance at parliament, 1624–6, on account of his age and infirmities. In 1624 he gave up York House to the king for Buckingham, in exchange for certain Yorkshire manors.
As early as 1607 rumours of his death were abroad (J. Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton, ib. 30 Dec. 1607), and he was supposed to encourage them. ‘He died yearly,’ says Fuller (Church History, p. 133), ‘in report, and I doubt not but that in the Apostle's sense he died daily in his mortifying meditations.’ In 1616 one of these reports caused considerable mirth at the expense of the avaricious archbishop of Spalato, who applied to the king for the see which he supposed to be vacant (Gardiner, Hist. of Engl. iv. 285). Matthew died on 29 March 1628, and was buried in York Minster, where his tomb stands (the effigy now separate) in the south side of the presbytery.
Matthew, though renowned in his day as a preacher and divine, was a statesman quite as much as a prelate. The advisers of Elizabeth and James felt that they could rely upon him to watch and guard the northern shires. None the less was he a diligent bishop and a pious man. ‘He had an admirable talent for preaching, which he never suffered to lie idle, but used to go from one town to another to preach to crowded audiences. He kept an exact account of the sermons which he preached after he was preferred; by which it appears that he preached, when dean of Durham, 721; when bishop of that diocese, 550; when archbishop of York, 721; in all, 1992’ (Granger, Biographical History, i. 342). He was noted for his humour. ‘He was of a cheerful spirit,’ says Fuller, ‘yet without any trespass on episcopal gravity, there lying a real distinction between facetiousness and nugacity. None could condemn him for his pleasant wit, though often he would condemn himself, as so habited therein he could as well be as not be merry, and not take up an innocent jest as it lay in the way of his discourse’ (Church History, p. 133).
He married Frances, daughter of William Barlow (d. 1568) [q. v.] , sometime bishop of Chichester, and widow of Matthew Parker, second son of the archbishop. She was ‘a prudent and a provident matron’ (ib.), gave his library of over three thousand volumes to the cathedral of York, and ‘is memorable likewise for having a bishop to her father, an archbishop to her father-in-law, four bishops to her brethren, and an archbishop to her husband’ (Camden, Britannia). She died 10 May 1629. Their brilliant son, Sir Tobie [q. v.] , was a great trouble to his father. Two younger sons were named John and Samuel, and there were two daughters (Hunter, Chorus Vatum, Addit. MS. 24490, f. 234).
His portrait in the hall of Christ Church, Oxford, shows him as a small, meagre man, with moustache and beard turning grey.
Matthew published ‘Piissimi et eminentissimi viri Tobiæ Matthew Archiepiscopi olim Eboracensis concio apologetica adversus Campianum. Oxoniæ excudebat Leonardus Lichfield impensis Ed. Forrest an. Dom. 1638.’ There is a manuscript in late sixteenth-century hand in the Bodleian. The sermon seems to have been largely circulated in manuscript, though it was not printed till ten years after the archbishop's death. Matthew is also credited with ‘A Letter to James I’ (Cabala, i. 108). This is a severe indictment of the king's proposed toleration and of the prince's journey into Spain. The writer declares that the king was taking to himself a liberty to throw down the laws of the land at pleasure, and threatens divine judgments. The letter is unsigned and undated, and, in default of evidence of authorship, it seems improbable that Matthew was the writer. Thoresby attributes it to George Abbot.
‘I have been informed that he had several things lying by him worthy of the press, but what became of them after his death I know not, nor anything to the contrary, but that they came into the hands of his son, Sir Tobie’ (Wood, Athenæ Oxon.)
