The degree to which the life and work of John Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to 1604, have been eclipsed by those of his protégé, Richard Hooker, is evinced in subtle ways. Whitgift's most recent biographer, P. M. Dawley, declares, somewhat defensively, that "he, not Hooker, is the typical Elizabethan churchman." Even here the word typical carries an unintentional double edge, suggesting Whitgift's centrality to the ecclesiastical controversies of the sixteenth century yet also perhaps conceding his mediocrity. Certainly his prose tends to be mediocre. He is not in Hooker's league as a stylist, in part the result of the ad hoc circumstances under which he composed. Nevertheless, if time has obscured his name, it should be noted that his stature among his contemporaries was as substantial as his office would indicate--far more substantial than Hooker's. Indeed, a case can be made that it was primarily...