From St Augustine in the sixth century to Rowan Williams in the twenty-first, the archbishops of Canterbury have provided leadership for the English Church. More than a hundred archbishops have offered spiritual leadership and political influence, whether in co-operation with the secular power or as its critics. Royal dynasties have come and gone, but the succession of the Canterbury primates has provided a remarkably continuous thread running through the history of England. This book draws upon a wealth of recent scholarly literature to relate the story of teh archbishops against a backdrop of more than fourteen centuries of English Ecclesiastical history.