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have involved the unsuccessful accuser in ruin; and, from the tone of the king and the timidity or subservience of that parliament, Rothes might well despair of establishing his accusation, how ever just. He was silent; the articles, though really rejected by a majority, were ratified in the Scottish manner by the touch of the sceptre; and the parliament was forthwith dissolved upon the 28th of June. Charles did not venture upon his English practice of imprisoning refractory members, but he studiously testified his high displeasure against those who had opposed his will. They were excluded from a lavish dispensation of honours and promotions; were received at court with reproaches or sullen silence;

ing journey to the queen at Greenwich, where he arrived after four days on the 20th of July. Laud, who was not so good a traveller, followed him by slow stages, and reached his palace at

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LAUD'S PALACE AT FULHAM.-Falkner's History of Fulham.

were turned into ridicule; were set down as schismatic and seditious men. Having made Bishop Laud a privy counsellor of Scotland, and heard him preach in pontificalibus in the royal chapel of Holyrood; having established "singing men"

ARCHBISHOP LAUD.-After Vandyke.

in the said chapel, and set up an episcopal see at Edinburgh, with a diocese extending over ancient Lothian from the Forth to Berwick, and with rich endowments in old church lands, which certain great nobles had, by a private and not unprofitable bargain, agreed to surrender, for the sake of example, to others; Charles made a post

Fulham on the 26th. "On Sunday, August the 4th" (we use the prelate's own words) "news came to court of the Lord-archbishop of Canterbury's death, and the king resolved presently to give it me, which he did, August 6th. That very morning at Greenwich, there came one to me seriously that vowed ability to perform it, and offered me to be a cardinal. I went presently to the king, and acquainted him both with the thing and person." To be promised the primacy of the Anglican church, and a cardinal's hat from the pope, upon one and the same day, was a combination of circumstances of a very extraordinary kind! Under date of Saturday, August the 17th, he says: "I had a serious offer made me again to be a cardinal (this seems to prove that he had not rejected the first offer in a very angry or decided manner); I was then from court, but so soon as I came thither (which was Wednesday, August 21st) I acquainted his majesty with it; but my answer again was, that somewhat dwelt within me, which would not suffer that, till Rome were other than it is." At a later period, when the scourged, mutilated, and maddened Puritans were hunting Laud to the scaffold, he said, in alluding to this remarkable passage of his life: "His majesty, very prudently and religiously, yet in a calm way, the person offering it having relation to some ambassador, freed me from that both trouble and danger." Some agent in the singular transaction let out the secret of the hat, the effect of which upon the Puritans may be conceived. As he had already

1 Troubles and Trial of Archbishop Laud.

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1

2 Hobbes, in his tractate De Cive, published some nine years after, alludes to the strange rumour, but treats it as an absurd

led the National church so far in its way to Rome, | fere to stop the proceedings of the Ecclesiastical where would he stop short when he had become Court in extorting money from the subject for a prince of the Holy See? Having definitely settled the business of the cardinalate, Laud was formally installed in the archbishopric of Canterbury on the 19th of September.

the repairing and adorning of churches and chapels. Nor did Charles and Laud stop here; for in the month of May, 1631, a commission was issued, with the usual arbitrary forms, empowering the privy council "to hear and examine all differences which shall arise betwixt any of our courts of justice, especially between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction." Some three months before the issuing of this commission, Laud astonished the people of London by his newly made or revived ceremonial of consecrating churches. The first which he so consecrated was that of St. Catherine Creed, a London church, which had not been rebuilt, but only repaired, but which was pronounced by him to require the ceremony, because new timber and other materials, not consecrated, had been introduced. He proceeded to St. Catherine's in the greatest state, an infinite number of people of all sorts "drawing together," says his sympathizing biographer, Heylin, "to behold that ceremony to which they had so long been strangers, ignorant altogether of the anti

He went on fearlessly with his high-handed proceedings in the church. But he had not waited for the primacy to begin these; for even during old Abbot's life he had obtained the almost entire disposal of bishoprics, and, as Bishop of London, had introduced numerous changes into the churches of his diocese, and the cathedral of St. Paul's, which he began to rebuild and beautify with money obtained, for the most part, in an irregular and oppressive manner. According to the doctrine of the majority of the English preachers and of the Reformed churches abroad, the Almighty cared not for temples built with hands; simplicity, as far as possible, removed from the pomp, the glare and glitter of the Roman church, was most acceptable unto Him, and a barn as good a temple as the vast and wondrous dome of St. Peter's itself, provided only those within it worshipped in sincerity and truth.quity and the necessity of it." In fact, the RomLaud thought differently, as no doubt did many good and conscientious persons, who had long been representing that it was indecorous to worship God in places no better than stables. Soon after the death of Buckingham, when, as Bishop Laud, he "had great favour with the king," a proclamation was issued to the bishops for the repair of decayed churches throughout the kingdom. It was asserted in this royal ordinance, that by law the same ought to be repaired and maintained at the charge of the inhabitants and others having land in those chapelries and parishes respectively, who had wilfully neglected to repair the same, being consecrated places of God's worship and Divine service. His majesty charged and commanded all archbishops and bishops to take special care that these repairs were done, and by themselves and their officers to take a view and survey of them. The parishioners and landlords thought that a part, if not the whole of the expense, instead of falling solely upon them, ought to be defrayed out of the tithes which they paid; but what was calculated to produce still greater disgust was the concluding clause of the proclamation, wherein the bishops were ordered "to use the powers of the Ecclesiastical Court for putting the same in due execution; and that the judges be required not to interrupt this good work by their too easy granting of prohibitions." That is, the judges were not to interand malicious party calumny. But Land's own diary had not then been made public, to show the man in his true colours as painted by himself.

See the proclamation, dated the 11th of October, 1629, in Rushworth.

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ish aspect of the ceremony, from beginning to end, gave scandal and alarm to the majority of the spectators. To begin his repairs at St. Paul's with pomp and effect, he conducted the king thither in state, and after a fitting sermon Charles took a view of the dilapidations of the church, which appear to have been very serious. Soon after a commission was issued under the great seal, appointing money brought in for the purpose of repairs to be paid into the chamber of London, and declaring further, that "the judges of the prerogative courts, and all officials throughout the several bishoprics of England and Wales, upon the decease of persons intestate, should be excited to remember this church out of what was proper to be given to pious uses.' The clergy, being summoned by their ordinaries, gave towards the repairs of St. Paul's a kind of annual subsidy; Sir Paul Pindar gave £4000 and other assistance; the king contributed altogether about £10,000, Laud himself only £100 per annum. As more money was wanted, it was sought for in the arbitrary fines extorted in the Star Chamber and in the High Commission Courts, in which Laud was all prevalent, and where he carried two great objects at once, by intermeddling with men's consciences and private conduct, and by making their punishment contribute to his great object of rendering St. Paul's a kind of rival of St. Peter's. "He intended the discipline of the church," says Clarendon, in a striking passage, "should be felt as well as spoken of, and that it should be applied to the greatest and most splendid trans3 Life of Laud.

2 Rymer.

gressors as well as to the punishment of smaller fore his majesty, had expressed himself in favour offences and meaner offenders; and thereupon of the rule of celibacy as imposed on all Roman called for, or cherished, the discovery of those priests by Pope Gregory, and in disparagement who were not careful to cover their own iniqui- of the married clergy, saying that he, for his part, ties, thinking they were above the reach of other other things being equal, should, in the disposal men, or their power or will to chastise. Persons of benefices, always give the preference to such of honour and great quality, of the court and of clergymen as lived in celibacy. This was touchthe country, were every day cited into the High ing a most sensitive chord: there were some Commission Court, upon the fame of their incon- things in which the churchmen of the Establishtinence, or other scandal in their lives, and were ment would willingly have resumed the ancient there prosecuted to their shame and punishment; usage, but a return to celibacy was horrible and and as the shame (which they called an insolent atrocious in their eyes. A loud and universal triumph upon their degree and quality, and le- murmur warned Laud that he had gone too far. velling them with the common people) was never His retractation was adroitly managed. He imforgotten, but watched for revenge, so the fines mediately got up a marriage between one of his imposed there were the more questioned and re- own chaplains and a daughter of his friend or pined against, because they were assigned to the creature Windebank, performed the nuptial serrebuilding St. Paul's Church, and thought, there- vice himself in a very public manner, and gave fore, to be the more severely imposed, and the the married chaplain preferment. We have deless compassionately reduced and excused: which plored the fanatical and barbarous destruction likewise made the jurisdiction and rigour of the of works of art connected with the old religion: Star Chamber more felt and murmured against, Laud-we can scarcely believe from mere tasteand sharpened many men's humours against the was most anxious to preserve such fragments as bishops, before they had any ill intention to- had hitherto escaped, and to supply the places of wards the church." Well supplied with money some of those which had perished. But the way from this curious variety of sources, and spurred in which he went to work only gave a fresh imby the active, impatient spirit of Laud, the work-petus to the iconoclastic fury. Mr. Sherfield, a inen proceeded apace, but with more rapidity bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and recorder of Sarum, than good taste or attention to congruity. Inigo by direction of a vestry, and in accordance with Jones restored the sides with a clumsy Gothic, acts of parliament and canons of the Reformed church, caused a picture on glass to be removed from the window of a church and broken to pieces. 2 Laud, thereupon, brought him up in the Star Chamber, maintaining that he had usurped on the jurisdiction of the bishop and that of his majesty as supreme head of the church. He there ventured to defend the use of painted images in places of worship, and counted among the evils which attended their destruction the keeping moderate Catholics away from church. Some members of the court presumed to hint that Laud was leaning towards Popery: but the majority sentenced Sherfield to pay £500 to the king, to lose his office of recorder, to find security that he would break no more images, and also "to make a public acknowledgment of his offence, not only in the parish church of St. Edmond's, where

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INIGO JONES' PORTICO, west end of Old St. Paul's. -After Hollar.

and threw up in the western front a fine Corinthian portico; but before the body of the work was finished the bishop was brought to the block; and during the Civil wars St. Paul's was converted into barracks for the parliament's dragoons. It got abroad that Laud, in speaking be. History of the Great Rebellion.

The particular picture destroyed by Mr. Sherfield appears to have been barbarous in taste and offensive in other respects. The subject was the Creation. The poor recorder said in defence,

"That the true history of the Creation was not contained in that window, but a false and impious one."

same time, Laud projected several things which were good and laudable in themselves, without being opposed to the national liberties. Such were the buildings at St. John's College, Oxford, wherein he had been bred; the setting up a Greek press in London; the appointment of a professor of Arabic at Oxford; the foundation of an hospital at Reading; all of which works were perfected in his lifetime. He had proposed to find a way to increase the stipends of poor vicars, but this remained an intention.

it was committed, but in the cathedral church it- | some hasty and incompetent persons. But, at the self, that the bishop, in contempt of whose authority he had played this pageant, might have reparation." Upon Laud's first removal to the see of London, he presented to Charles a list of "considerations for the better settling of the church government." He proposed that the bishops should be commanded to reside in their several dioceses, excepting those which were in attendance at court; that a special charge should be given them against frequent and unworthy ordinations; and that especial care should be had over the lecturers, which, by reason of their pay, were the people's creatures, and blew the coals of their sedition. "For the abating of whose power," continues Laud, "these ways may be taken :-That the afternoon sermons in all parishes be turned into catechizing; that every lecturer do read Divine service according to the Liturgy printed by authority, in his surplice and hood, if in church or chapel, and if in a market town, then in a gown, and not in a cloak; that the bishop should suffer none under noblemen and men qualified by law to keep any private chaplain in their houses; that his majesty should prefer to bishoprics none but men of courage, gravity, and experience in government; that Emmanuel and Sydney Colleges, in Cambridge, 'which are the nurseries of Puritanism,' be from time to time provided with grave and orthodox men for their governors; that more encouragement should be given to the High Commission Court; that some course should be taken to prevent the judges from sending so many prohibitions,""&c. Charles regulated his conduct according to these suggestions, and shortly after he issued his "regal instructions," which differed very slightly from the considerations presented by Laud, and included all the clauses except those relating to the Cambridge colleges and the High Commission Court, which it was neither necessary nor expedient to mention in public. Laud, upon the appearance of these instructions or injunctions, which were of his own devising and composition, summoned all the ministers and lecturers within the city and suburbs of London, and, making a solemn speech, pressed them all to be obedient to his majesty's orders, as being full of religion and justice, and advantageous to the church and commonwealth, although they were mistaken by

1 Cyprianus Anglicus.

2 Rushworth. Just at this time Mr. Bernard, lecturer at St. Sepulchre's Church, London, said, in his prayer before sermon-"Lord, open the eyes of the queen's majesty, that she may see Jesus Christ, whom she has pierced with her infidelity, superstition, and idolatry." For these words he was questioned in the High Commission Court, which declared the same to be scandalous and unadvised, and not to be repeated. The zealous preacher, however, escaped any severe punishment by making a very humble submission.-Ibid.

VOL. II.

Maintaining the closest correspondence with Viscount Wentworth, now (1632) not merely President of the North, but also Lord-deputy of Ireland, Laud endeavoured to surround the king with persons devoted to his own views and interests. On the 15th of June, 1632, Francis Windebank, his old friend, whose daughter he had married to his chaplain, was sworn secretary of state; and in the month of July another old and sturdy friend, Dr. Juxon, then dean of Worcester, at his suit, was sworn clerk of his majesty's closet. "So that Windebank having the king's ear on one side, and the clerk of the closet on the other, he might presume to have his tale well told between them, and that his majesty should not easily be possessed with anything to his disadvantage."✦ If Laud had taken all to himself in the business of the church while only Bishop of London, he became far more absolute on his promotion to the primacy. He commanded like a pope of the fourteenth century. The communion-table, which, according to Clarendon, had not been safe" from the approaches of dogs," was, by an order of council, directed to be removed, in all cases, from the centre to the east end of the church, to be railed in, and called by its old Roman name of altar. Against disobedient priests, nay, even against neglectful church wardens, were hurled the thunders of excommunication. Not merely painted glass began to reappear in the windows, but pictures in the body of the churches and over the altars. Laud was inexorable on the subject of surplices and lawn sleeves. Everywhere great pains were taken to give pomp and magnificence to the national worship, and a dignified or imposing appearance to the persons of the officiating ministers.

The more religious part of the Protestant com

* The whole or part of the Greek type was, however, obtained in an arbitrary manner truly characteristic of Laud. The king's printers, in an edition of the Bible, had committed the very awkward mistake of omitting the word not in the seventh commandment, by which omission the decalogue was absolutely parodied. The bishop called in the impression, and called up the poor printers to the High Commission Court, which sentenced them to pay an exorbitant fine, with part of which Laud provided the Greek type for printing ancient manuscripts, &c. 4 Heylin.

160

munity-the classes branded with the general
name of Puritans-regarded these attempts with
horror, and considered them as nothing less than
an engine to batter down the pure worship, and
destroy the pure worshippers of God.' They
had delighted especially in evening lectures and
extemporary prayers, wherein they were often
carried away by their fervour to utter things
displeasing to the court; Laud, by a stroke of
his pen, suppressed the evening meetings and the
extemporary praying. In the beginning of the
month of October, 1633, there were complaints
made to the council concerning church-ales and
revels upon
the Lord's-day in Somersetshire.
The Lord Chief-justice Richardson and Baron
Denham, being on the circuit in that county,
thought it incumbent on them to issue an order,
similar to divers others that had been made here-
tofore by the judges of assize, for the suppressing
of these noisy sports. As soon as intelligence of
this proceeding reached the ears of Laud, he
complained of it to the king as an insolent inva-
sion of his province; and the chief-justice was
commanded to attend the council, where he was
not only made to revoke his order, but also re-
ceived "such a rattle, that he came out blubber-
ing and complaining that he had been almost
choked with a pair of lawn sleeves." The jus-
tices of peace, being much troubled at the re-
vocation of the order, drew up a petition to the
king, showing the great mischiefs that would
befall the country if the Sabbath were not better
kept, and if these meetings at church-ales, bid-
ales, and clerk-ales, condemned by the laws,
should now be set up again. The petition was
subscribed by Lord Poulet, Sir William Port-
man, Sir Ralph Hopeton, and many other gentle-
men of rank and fortune; but before they could
deliver it to the king, a declaration came forth
concerning "lawful sports to be used of Sun-
days," which was little more than a republication
of King James's Book of Sports, which, after a
time, had been disregarded and cast aside. After
giving the whole of that document, Charles, or
Laud, added, that his present majesty "ratified
and published this, his blessed father's declara-
tion; the rather because of late, in some counties,
under pretence of taking away of abuses, there
had been a general forbidding, not only of ordin-
ary meetings, but of the feasts of the dedication
of the churches, commonly called wakes. Now,"
continued this renvoi, "his majesty's express will
and pleasure is, that these feasts, with others,
shall be observed. . . . And his majesty further
commands all justices of assize, in their several
circuits, to see that no man do trouble or molest
any of his loyal and dutiful people in or for their

1 Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson,
2 Heylin.

lawful recreations, having first done their duty to God, and continuing in obedience to his majesty's laws. . . . And doth further will, that publication of this his command be made by order from the bishops, through all the parish churches of their several dioceses respectively." 3 The bishops, it should appear, were obedient enough; but many ministers, very conformable to the church in other respects, refused to read this order in their churches; for which some were suspended, some silenced from preaching and otherwise persecuted. This made men to look again beyond the Atlantic for some place where they might be free from the "haughty prelate's rage." At the same time Laud stretched his hands to Scotland and Ireland, making a sad turmoil in both countries; and Charles continued to issue proclamations without number, and on an infinite variety of subjects, from fixing the religion that people were to profess, down to fixing the price of poultry—from a prohibition of heresy to a prohibition of the abuses growing out of the retailing of tobacco. The power of Archbishop Laud kept daily on the increase, and certainly the proud churchman neglected none of the arts of a courtier, or those adroit compliances which smoothed his ascent. He had, however, now and then to sustain a check from the queen, whose influence over Charles seemed to grow with years and troubles, and with his now cherished plan of governing like a king-like a very King of France

without intermeddling and impertinent parliaments. Henrietta Maria's temper was almost as difficult to manage as a sturdy Puritan's conscience; at times she conceived plans connected with her religion, and exacted services which startled even the boldness of the primate. But, soon after, Laud was put into the Commission, or, as he calls it, the Great Committee of Trade and the king's revenue. On March the 14th of the following year he was named chief of the Board of Commissioners of the Exchequer, appointed upon the death of Lord Weston (recently created Earl of Portland), the lord high-treasurer. After presiding over the board for about a year, he induced the king to make his friend Juxon, Bishop of London, lord high-treasurer; in doing which, he did not "want some seasonable consideration for the good of the church." His biographer says that Bishop Juxon was a most upright man, yet it was generally conceived that the archbishop, in making this appointment, neither consulted his present ease--for which he should have procured the treasurer's white staff

3 Rushworth. 4 Heylin. "No churchman," says Laud himself, had it since the time of Henry VII. I pray God bless him to carry it so, that the church may have honour, and the king and the state service and contentment by it."-Diary.

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