Westminster, which he was anxious to keep in his own hands. Laud knew how to forgive, as he showed even in early life by his conduct to the man who endeavoured, by craft, to upset his election at S. John's. Williams, even in old age, could not cease from his selfish vindictiveness. Laud might be perfectly justified in feeling that the liberation of Williams would be dangerous, in the excited times of 1640, but he certainly never would have said as Williams then did in his prison-" I am right sorry for the king who is like to be forsaken by all of his subjects. But for the Archbishop he had best not meddle with me, for all the friends he can make will be too few to save him." Indeed, in all the disputes with Williams, Laud appears decidedly to have the advantage in sobriety and right principle, even if he was too ready to avail himself of the strong arm of the law in overpowering his assailant. His having recourse to the law at all, must, of course, be very much palliated when we remember the nasty selfishness of Williams' continual conduct and the irritating jealousy with which he dogged the path of his more favoured brother; and if the sentence of the law was too severe in its terms or too violent in its mode of execution, this certainly was not a matter which the Archbishop could prevent. He doubtless mourned over the condition of one so high in ecclesiastical position, whose conduct exposed him to the just condemnation and immoderate retribution of a court of law, and though he felt bound to bring him to the one, he could not shelter him from the other. The Archbishop was indeed vigorous in the pursuit of justice, but not like the defendant vindictive in venting his spleen, and the Lord Keeper seems to have been teaching his biographer a lesson in calling names, when Lord Campbell reading Laud's expressions of sorrow at seeing a Bishop of so much learning and ability exposing himself to the verdict of the Star Chamber, says, that he spoke but "hypocritically." Williams, says Lord Campbell," was superior in learning and acuteness to Laud," which is perhaps in a sense true. Williams was indeed a thorough man of the world, while Laud was thorough in carrying out what he believed to be truth. The one worshipped self, the other would know of nothing but principle, and Laud's own character in its extremest opposition to Williams', is just exemplified by his praise of the saying of Prince Charles when a boy. The Prince said he never could be a lawyer, for he could not defend a bad cause nor yield in a good one. Laud expressed his fervent desire that the Prince would continue to live in this high sense of duty, and in its maintenance both the Prince and the Bishop persevered and died. If the Star Chamber verdicts were cruel and intolerant, the time was close at hand which was to show that these qualities were characteristic of the time and prevalent modes of thought, rather than of the royalist party in particular. Mr. Hallam shall save us from the danger of writing as partizans about the cruelties of the Presbyterians in their triumph. "But the Covenant, imposed as a general test, drove out all who were too conscientious to pledge themselves by a solemn appeal to the Deity, to resist the polity which they generally believed to be of His institution. What number of the clergy were ejected (most of them but for refusing the covenant and for no moral offence or imputed superstition) it is impossible to ascertain. Walker, in his Sufferings of the Clergy, endeavoured to support those who had reckoned it at 8000; a palpable overstatement upon his own showing, for he cannot produce near 2000 names after a most diligent investigation. Neal, however, admits 1600, probably more than one-fifth of the beneficed ministers in the kingdom. The biographical collections furnish a pretty copious martyrology of men, the most distinguished by their learning and virtues in that age. The remorseless and indiscriminate bigotry of presbyterianism might boast that it had heaped disgrace on Walton and driven Lydiat to beggary; that it trampled on the old age of Hales and embittered with insult the dying moments of Chillingworth. "But the most unjustifiable act of those zealots, and one of the greatest reproaches of the long parliament was the death of Archbishop Laud. In the first days of the session, while the fall of Strafford struck every one with astonishment, the commons had carried up an impeachment against him for high treason in fourteen articles of charge; and he had lain ever since in the tower, his revenues and even private estates sequestered, and in great indigence. After nearly three years' neglect, specific articles were exhibited against him in October, 1643, but not proceeded on with vigour till December, 1644; when, for whatever reason, a determination was taken to pursue this unfortunate prelate to death. The charges against him which Wilde, Maynard, and other managers of the impeachment, were to aggravate into treason, related partly to those papistical innovations which had nothing of a political character about them; partly to the violent proceedings in the Star Chamber and High Commission Courts, wherein Laud was very prominent as a councillor, but certainly without any greater legal responsibility than fell on many others. He defended himself not always prudently or satisfactorily, but with courage and ability; never receding from his magnificent notions of spiritual power, but endeavouring to shift the blame of the sentences pronounced by the council on those who concurred with him. The imputation of popery he repelled by a list of the converts he had made. Nothing could be more monstrous than the allegation of treason in this case.... Laud had amply merited punishment for his tyrannical abuse of power; but his execution, at the age of seventy, without the slightest pretence of political necessity, was a far more unjustifiable instance of it than any that was alleged against him."-Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 584. We come then, at length, to the consideration of his trial. "The groundless charge of popery though belied by his whole life and conduct was continually urged against the prisoner, and every error rendered unpardonable by the imputation which was supposed to imply the height of all enormities. 'This man, my lords,' said Serjeant Wilde concluding his long speech against him, 'is like Naaman the Syrian, a great man, but a leper.'"-Hume, Hist. of Eng., c. lvii. The testimony of Hume to the triumphant power of his Christian principle is remarkable. "Laud, who had behaved during his trial with spirit and vigour of genius, sunk not under the hours of his execution; but though he had usually professed himself apprehensive of a violent death, he found all his fears to be dissipated before that superior courage by which he was animated . . . . . Those religious opinions for which he suffered, contributed, no doubt, to the courage and constancy of his end. Sincere he undoubtedly was, and however misguided, actuated by pious motives in all his pursuits." Mr. Baines says well (p. 252): "In that trying hour he was not alone. True, he was on a scaffold, about to perish by a violent death, the object of the gaze of a thousand faces upraised to curse him, with only one friend near him, far away from all he loved in Church or State : nevertheless the presence of the FATHER was in his heart, and the love of the SON, and the communion of the SPIRIT. Nor was he, lone as he seemed, forgotten by his fellows. Even in that dense crowd there must have been those whose hearts were touched with some feeling of pity for the grey hairs so soon to be stained in blood. But more than this, there were the seven thousand faithful Israelites, who had not bowed the knee to Baal: all through the length and breadth of England there were hundreds praying that GOD would strengthen the martyr in his agony. From the royal closet where the LORD's anointed in penitential abasement knelt that sad morning, in which his long tried friend was to die; from the retirements where the Prelates of the Church were sheltering themselves from the pursuer: ay, from the very prison-house where stout-hearted Wren was wearing away his life: from hiding places where clergy dispossessed of their lawful cures were subsisting on the charity of the faithful: from sheltered nooks and quiet homes where dwelt the sons and daughters of England's Church, whom he had instructed by his precepts, and guided by his example,-whose secret thoughts he had shared, whose doubts. he had solved, whose difficulties he had removed,-to whom he had displayed their Church in its fulness, and taught them how in it they might find certainty of faith, and the means of satisfying their most ardent longings after saintliness; from the dwellings of CHRIST's poor who had fed upon his bounty and in him lost their best friend, went there up on that January 10, the united prayer of intercession for him whose death struggle it witnessed. Their prayers were heard. The Archbishop played the man he advanced to the front of the scaffold with a firm step and thus spake : "Good people,―This is an uncomfortable time to preach, yet I shall begin with a text of Scripture, Heb. xii. 2. 'Let us run with patience the race which is set before us, looking unto JESUS the Author and Finisher of our faith; Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of GOD.' I have been long in my race, and how I have looked to JESUS, the Author and Finisher of my faith, He best knows." " His whole speech we cannot give, but just the part which alludes to the charge of Romanizing and making innovations. (Baines, p. 255.) "And some comfort it is to me not only that I go the way of these great men in their several generations [Elphege and Sudbury, Archbishops of Canterbury, and S. John Baptist and S. Cyprian] but also that my charge (foul as it is made) looks like that of the Jews against S. Paul (Acts xxv. 3); for he was accused for the law and the temple, i.e. religion; and like that of S. Stephen (Acts vi. 14) for breaking the ordinance which Moses gave, i.e. law and religion, the holy place and the temple (v. 13). But you will then say, do I then compare myself with the integrity of S. Paul and S. Stephen? No: be that far from me. I only raise a comfort to myself that these great saints and servants of GOD were laid at in their time as I am now. And it is memorable that S. Paul who helped on this accusation against S. Stephen, did after fall under the very same himself. Yea, but here is a great clamour that I would have brought in Popery: I shall answer that more fully by and by. In the meantime, you know what the Pharisees said against CHRIST Himself: 'If we let Him alone, all men will believe in Himet venient Romani-and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.' Here was a causeless cry against CHRIST, that the Romans would come; and see how just the judgment was-they crucified CHRIST, for fear lest the Romans should come, and His Death was it which brought in the Romans upon them, GOD punishing them with that which they most feared. And I pray GoD this clamour of venient Romani, (of which I have given no cause,) help not to bring them in ; for the Pope never had such a harvest in England since the Reformation as he hath now, upon the sects and divisions that are now amongst us. 'In the meantime, by honour and dishonour, by good report and evil report, as a deceiver, yet true, am I passing through this world.'" (2 Cor. vi. 8.) "He then proceeded to declare solemnly his innocence of any attempt to alter the laws or religion of the kingdom, avouching with his dying breath both Charles's and his own great attachment to the English Church. "What clamours and slanders I have endured for labouring to keep an uniformity in the external service of GOD, according to the doctrine and discipline of the Church, all men know, and I have abundantly felt." Nothing can be more sublime than the whole of his deportment throughout the harassing period of his trial and execution. His language throughout is replete with the words of inspiration, and the Divine Spirit seemed throughout to be moulding him in his sufferings into the perfectness of Christian character. No levity, no self-sufficiency, no vindictiveness, sullied those hours of sacred endurance. Calmly reposing upon the love of his GoD and SAVIOUR, he seemed lost to all considerations of self, and only intent upon the salvation of men. The very scaffold was crowded with his enemies, and as his eyes through the chinks of the woodwork saw the heads of the crowd below, he bade them be well covered over, lest his blood might fall through upon the heads of any of the people. His was a Divine tranquillity, and the storms of human fury assailed it in vain. Sir John Clotworthy came up to entrap him by malicious impertinence into speaking some words which might be interpreted to his hurt. Laud still gently answered that the comfortablest saying of a dying man was that of the Apostle; "I desire to depart and to be with CHRIST;" and when the fanatic questioned him upon the ground of his assurance, he refused to express in words that which is unutterable, but being pressed for a word of Scripture, "That word," said he, "is the knowledge of GOD." In that knowledge he died secure. His lips were seen to be still moving in prayer as he lay upon the block. When he spake the words, "LORD, receive my soul," the axe of the executioner fell upon him. His head rolled away at one blow. His face turned instantly pale in death which till that moment had retained its natural colour with an undaunted courage. 66 Thy cloke was burning zeal, Untaught the worldling's arts to wield, But innocence thy coat of triple steel, Mr. Southey, after relating his martyrdom, thus continues (Book of the Church, XVII.) : "Great multitudes attended this victim of sectarian persecution to the grave; the greater part attracted by curiosity, but many by love and veneration, and not a few, it is believed, by remorse of conscience for having joined in the wicked and brutish clamour with which he had been hunted down. A baser triumph never was obtained by faction, nor was any triumph ever more basely celebrated. Even after this murder had been committed, with all the mockery of law, his memory was assailed in libels of blacker virulence (if that be possible) than those by which the deluded populace had been instigated to cry out for his blood; and to this day, those who have inherited the opinions of the Puritans, repeat with unabashed effrontery the imputations against him, as if they had succeeded to their implacable temper1 and their hardihood of slander also. More grateful is it to observe how little is in the power of malice, even when in the dispensations of Providence it is permitted to do its worst. The enemies of Laud cut off from him at the utmost a few short years of infirmity and pain: and this was all they could do! They removed him from the sight of calamities which would have been to him tenfold more grievous than death, and they afforded him an opportunity of displaying at his trial and on the scaffold, as in a public theatre, a presence of mind and strength of intellect, a calm and composed temper, an heroic and saintly mag1 For proof of this the reader is referred to the "Quarterly Review," Vol. X., pp. 99-101. VOL. XVII. 3 A |