//v
of
EDITED BY H. C. BEECHING. M.A.
WILLIAM LAUD
<-Sect6ers of
Crown 8vo, cloth extra,) with portrait.
UNDER the above title MESSRS. METHUEN are publishing a series
of short biographies, free from party bias, of the most prominent
leaders of religious life and thought.
2s. 6d.
CARDINAL NEWMAN. R. H. Button.
JOHN WESLEY. J. H. Overtoil.
BISHOP WILBERFORCE. G. W. DanielL
CHARLES SIMEON. H. C. G. Moule.
CARDINAL MANNING. A. W. Button.
3s. 6d.
THOMAS CHALMERS. Mrs. Oliphant.
LANCELOT ANDRE WES. . L. Ottley.
WILLIAM LAUD. W. H. Button.
JOHN KEBLE. W. Lock.
AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY. E. L. Cutts.
Other volumes will be announced in due course.
ARCHBISHOP LAUD
From the Picture by Vandyke
Formerly in the possession of Sir Robert Walpole, now in the
Hermitage Gallery, St. Petersburg.
WILLIAM LAUD
EY
WILLIAM HOLDEN HUTTON, B.D.
FELLOW, TUTOR, PRECENTOR, AND LIBRARIAN OF S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE, OXFORD,
AND EXAMINER IN THE HONOUR SCHOOL OF MODERN HISTORY
WITH A PORTRAIT
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1895
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON & BUNGAY.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 1
II. PRIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 36
III. LAUD AND THE CHURCH 58
IV. LAUD AND THE STATE ... ... ... ... 123
V. THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME ... 139
VI. FOREIGN REFORMED BODIES : IRELAND AND SCOT
LAND 161
VII. TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 187
VIII. MEMORIALS AND CHARACTER 229
PEEFACE
THE uncritical impetuosity which a generation ago
overwhelmed with contumely, sarcasm, and unhistorical
rhetoric the name of William Laud has, it is to be
hoped, now spent itself. There still lingers among
those whose historical knowledge is based upon the
obiter dicta of the partisans of fifty years ago a curious
survival of prejudice which is due to ignorance as much
as to sectarian bigotry; but the calm and judicial
investigation of writers more informed and less biassed
is teaching us to read the history of the seventeenth
century in a spirit very different from that of some of
our predecessors. Those who value the teaching of the
past owe a deep debt to the luminous and judicial work
of Leopold von Ranke. Beside that great and honoured
name students of the Stewart age will gratefully place
that of Samuel Rawson Gardiner. It is impossible for
any one who works at this very difficult and complicated
period adequately to acknowledge the enormous obliga
tion under which he stands to Mr. Gardiner s knowledge
o
and patience and fairness. It is not the least of his
services to the cause of truth that he has done more
than any other living writer to enable men to critically
examine and justly estimate the career of Laud.
viii PKEFACE
Attention has lately been directed, with unusual in
terest, to the life of the great English churchman of the
seventeenth century. A Romish "Recusant/ attracted
to his subject by its theological as well as historical
associations, has published a long and interesting
biography, which has not unnaturally something of
a controversial tone. It is difficult to exclude con
troversy when writing the life of the prominent champion
of a religious body to which the author does not belong :
and there are obvious advantages to the justice of an
historical estimate when the writer is able to enter fully
into the principles which guided the action of his hero.
The Rev. C. H. Simpkinson has also published a
valuable sketch of Laud s Life and Times.
I had already undertaken to write a life of Laud
before the two recent works which I have mentioned
had been announced. I have had the advantage of
consulting the work of the Romish Recusant while
writing some part of my own book ; but before Mr.
Simpkinson s volume was published a great part of
my manuscript was in print, so that I have not been
materially indebted to it.
Other modern biographies or essays I have en
deavoured as far as possible to avoid. I have not
looked for some time at Mr. A. C. Benson s sketch or
Dr. Mozley s essay. I have tried to write anew the
story of a life which I think will still bear telling
again.
The contemporary authorities are very numerous.
Chief among them are Laud s own Works, very com
pletely collected in the Library of Anglo-Catholic
Theology in seven volumes, 1847 1860. Heylin in his
Gyprianus Anglicus became the Archbishop s first
PREFACE ix
biographer. Prynne, in his Breviate, Hidden Works of
Darkness, and Canterburies Doome, takes the part of
advocatus diaboli, but gives much valuable information.
The State Papers, Domestic, contain, as might be expected,
an enormous amount of matter directly or indirectly
illustrating Laud s career. These are the primary
sources of our information. Besides these there are the
contemporary historians, private letters, and a large
mass of pamphlet literature. Of all these, as well as of
special authorities for particular epochs and of local
records and memorials, I have endeavoured to make
use. For many of the pamphlets, as loans or gifts,
I am indebted to Mr. C. H. Firth, whose generosity is
as great as his knowledge. Almost all the material is
printed, in some form or other : but happily there is
still the interest of handling, at Lambeth, in the Record
Office, and in Oxford, the very sheets on which the
firm neat handwriting of the Archbishop may be so
clearly read. These records are generally accessible.
For the history of the trial I have been able, through
the kindness of the Provost and Fellows of Worcester
College, to whom, and especially to the Librarian, Mr.
Pottinger, I am greatly indebted, to gain additional
information from a volume of the Clarke papers
(Worcester College MS. 71 N. 12), which has not, so
far as I can discover, been till now used by any writer
on the period.
William Clarke became a student of the Inner
Temple within a year of the Archbishop s execution.
From the internal; evidence of his MS. I should judge
that he attended the trial constantly, noting down at
the time all that he could of the speeches and the
evidence (for the MS. contains blanks as if caused by
x PREFACE
the difficulty of keeping up with the speakers), and on
days when he was absent briefly epitomizing the in
formation he received from other sources. Clarke does
not add very materially to our knowledge of the pro
ceedings, but he gives occasional details which are of
interest, and he affords an independent evidence of the
truth of the account which Laud himself composed.
Other volumes of the Clarke MSS. are being edited by
Mr. C. H. Firth. It is to be hoped that this volume
also may be made generally known.
It will be obvious to any one who reads this book
that I have never been outside the guidance of Mr.
Gardiner s History of England and his History of the
Great Civil War. Where I have had the temerity to
disagree with some of his conclusions, it has only been
after a strenuous effort to view the particular points
from the same standpoint as that of the subject of my
memoir. The facts which Mr. Gardiner has placed so
fully and so judicially before his readers are sometimes,
I think, capable of an interpretation different to that
which he has given them. My debt to Mr. Gardiner
is one which I share with all students of English
history. All who desire to obtain a just estimate of
the Church history of the period should also be
acquainted with Archdeacon Perry s History of the
Church of England, with Dr. Bright s Essay on Laud,
and with Mr. Wakeman s admirable and sympathetic
book, The Church and the Puritans. My personal
thanks are due no less to those who have aided my
own work to the Dean of Gloucester, to Dr. A. J.
Mason, vicar of the church in which Laud s body was
laid till the Restoration, to Mr. Kershaw, Librarian
of Lambeth, and especially to the Lord Bishop of
PREFACE xi
S. David s, whose kindness I cannot adequately
acknowledge.
I am under a peculiar obligation to the able and
learned writer who has assumed the name of A
Romish Recusant. Knowing nothing of me, he offered,
in the truest spirit of the courtesy of Letters, to assist
me in every way. He generously gave me the rare
pamphlet, The Recantation of the Prelate of Canterbury,
lent me Laud s Labyrinth, and never wearied of
answering questions or discussing points upon which
we "agree to differ."
In my own college I have the great privilege of
being guardian of the chiefest of the Laudian relics,
and there is much matter of interest in our possession
of which I have been able to avail myself to the full.
My book has been written in the midst of great
pressure of other work and continual interruptions, and
I am painfully aware of its defects : but, such as it is,
I offer it as an attempt justly and historically to
estimate the character of the great man to whose pure,
conscientious, and steadfast soul the Church of England
owes so much.
WILLIAM LAUD
CHAPTER I.
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY.
THE seventeenth century saw a long crisis in the
history of the English State and of the English Church.
The heroic age of Elizabeth had left behind it grave
problems, but the wise men and the heroes who might
have solved them with the pen or the sword were no
more. The stress and terror which had made men
gladly suffer the Tudor despotism passed away as
England rose from the political reconstruction of
Europe a compact and independent power ; and with
them passed the enthusiasm of loyalty and the willing
sacrifice of individual opinion.
The task that lay before the first two Stewarts was
as difficult as that which Elizabeth had so triumphantly
achieved, and it was a task toward which her example
afforded but little assistance. Problems not wholly
new, but with new features, were pressing for solution.
Should England become a despotic monarchy, like
the monarchy in which the strength of France was being
concentrated ? The question was answered by great
political conflicts, great political theories, and a great
2 WILLIAM LAUD
civil war. In religion the question was no less pressing.
Should the English Church be severed by its own act
from the historic continuity which State law and eccle
siastical formularies had at the period of the Reformation
itself so carefully preserved? Since the bull of 1570,
it seemed impossible to heal the definite breach with
Rome : a few years later the division between the two
parties in the English Church became as irreconcilable.
The successors of those who had guided the Church
through her period of change were satisfied with what
had been done, and content to abide in the old paths.
But stronger and stronger grew the opposition of those
whose ideal was freedom from all that was implied by
the continuity of the Church.
So long as Elizabeth lived the respect and submission
which had become traditional made men acquiesce in
decisions of the State which a later generation would
consider arbitrary and intolerable. The Englishmen
of the sixteenth century had not been unwilling to
have their religious differences settled for them : those
of the seventeenth were determined to decide them for
themselves.
Should the reforming movement proceed further ?
Should England consciously sever her ties with her
religious past and the past of historic Christendom?
It was this to which the seventeenth century was to
reply. It fell to one man to embody the answer in a
life of profound influence and eventfulness.
Born at the crisis of the breach with Rome, with his
young enthusiasm fired by the triumph over the
Armada, brought up both in the new learning of the
late English Renaissance and in the old humanities
which the Church and the grammar schools had still
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 3
preserved, the greatest archbishop who has sat in the
chair of Augustine since the Reformation lived to lay
his head upon the block amid the apparent failure of
all his aims, when yet he had relaid firm and deep the
old foundations, which had seemed at his birth to be so
grievously endangered.
William Laud was born at Reading on October 7,
1573.
" The greatest rivers many times have the smallest
fountains, such as can hardly be found out, and being
found out, as hardly quit the cost of the discovery ; and
yet by long running and holding on a constant and con
tinual course, they become large, navigable, and of great
benefit unto the publick. Whereas some families may
be compared to the Pyramides of ^Egypt, which being
built on great foundations, grow narrower and narrower
by degrees, until at last they end in a small comes, in a
point, in nothing."
Such is Heylin s retort to those who, when his hero
had become famous, delighted to taunt him with the
meanness of his birth, Prynne, Lord Brooke, and the
base libellers who cut to the quick the man sensitive
of his father s honour. We should say now that Laud
was one of the middle class, " a man," as he said himself,
" of ordinary but very honest birth."
His father was a clothier in a large way of business.
His mother had been twice married, and William Laud
was her tenth child : her brother, Sir William Webb,
some years after became Lord Mayor of London. Their
house has long disappeared, and its site is covered by a
block of buildings in Broad Street called Laud s Place.
William Laud was his father s only child, and it is
clear that the utmost was done for him when he was a
4 WILLIAM LAUD
boy to develop the masterful intellect that early made
itself apparent. The father prospered, and when he
died left a comfortable estate to his son. The boy was
well taught at Reading School by a master severe even
for the fashion of those times. Archbishop Neile, his
early patron and later supporter, used to say of himself
that the beatings he had at Westminster made him a
poor scholar all his life. It was not so with Laud. He
profited so well and came on so fast, that when he was
sixteen years of age (which, says Heylin, was very
early for those times) he was sent to Oxford. He matricu
lated on October 17, 1589, as a Commoner of S. John s
College.
It appears at first that he was supported by the
liberality of a friend or kinswoman ; but on S. John s
Day, 1590, he was chosen scholar of his college, and he
obtained his Fellowship three years later. Of his life as
an undergraduate little is known. It appears that his
chamber-fellow (for it was not until a century later that
the scholars obtained separate rooms) was one Jones, a
Merchant Taylors scholar ; but of their intimacy Laud
says nothing. 1
His father died in 1594, and in the same year he took
his Bachelor s degree. The weak health from which he
suffered all through his later life manifested itself
strongly during the years 1596 and 1597. In the next
year he proceeded to his Master s degree, and began to
take part in the educational work of the college.
From a small provincial town, not untouched by the
beginnings of Puritanism, Laud had come to a great
1 See Works, iv. 317, 344. This Jones afterwards became a
Benedictine and Professor at Douay, and was known as Fr.
Leander a S. Martino.
FEOM READING TO CANTERBURY 5
University where Calvinism was dominant but not
uncontested. His own college was one of the smallest and
least important. It was a new foundation, endowed but
thirty-four years before by a London merchant, Sir Thomas
White, and settled in the buildings of an old Cistercian
house. The hall and chapel were those of the monastery ;
the fine old cellars belonged too to the good old days ;
and there still stood the statue of the holy Bernard over
the great gateway. Sharp-witted young men when they
find themselves in a place of much freedom and little
responsibility are not generally eager to adopt the
opinions of their elders. If there is a tutor who takes a
different line from the others, his enthusiasm will win
many converts. It was so with Laud. The college itself
had never been violently Protestant. Edmund Campian,
the Jesuit, had been trained there, and when Tobie
Matthew, who was President, and rose to be Archbishop
of York, wrote against his doctrines, he appealed to
Catholic tradition and Holy Scripture rather than its
modern interpreters. Many of the Fellows had suffered
for their opinions. Again and again occurs the entry
in the college annals, "Alterata religione aut evasit
aut deprivatus est." Yet the example of the founder
had permanent effect. He had obtained the charter
of incorporation and drawn up his statutes under Queen
Mary; but he followed the English Church in its
repudiation of the .Papal Supremacy. Probably the
difference did not seem great to the devout London
merchant. If the Pope could entertain the thought of
accepting the English Prayer-Book, it must be enough
for a plain man. And so the college drew to itself men
who thought with him.
Prominent among these was John Buckeridge, and to
6 WILLIAM LAUD
him Laud became pupil. The learning and goodness
of the tutor had their effect, and the lad grew up to
found his study " upon the noble foundations of the
fathers, councils, and the ecclesiastical historians," and
to stand boldly opposed to the dominant Calvinism of
the University. From Buckeridge and his pupil in
S. John s came the much-needed re-assertion of the
principles upon which the English Reformation had
been carried through.
As a graduate, Laud soon began to come to the front
in the University. He was ordained deacon January
4, 1600, and priest on Palm Sunday, 1601. He had
already been "grammar reader" of his college : in 1602
he held a divinity lectureship. In 1603 he became
proctor, 1 and during his year of office took, after the
custom of his college, the degree of Bachelor of
Divinity. His colleague as proctor was Christopher
Dale of Merton College, whose severity was contrasted
with Laud s mildness. 2 It is clear that he was no stern
recluse, but took a keen interest in the amusements
of the University. When he was proctor, we find the
porter of S. John s (one Frank Clarke, a famous cha
racter for humour) sending him a letter of mock apology
for breaking a head with his black staff, written no
doubt by some smart scholar, which is proof enough
of the friendly terms on which he stood with the
college servants. Laud, he said, had condoned his
" delictes and crimes/ and restored him " out of the
porter s lodge of misery into the tower of felicity." In
1 It might be taken as an instance of his lenity, that the Liber
Niger Procuratorum contains no single record of punishment
during his tenure of office : but the book was not kept very exactly
at that time.
2 Wood s Life and Times (Clark), vol. ii., p. 234.
FROM BEADING TO CANTERBURY 7
the Christmas plays of the college he bore such part as
a senior could, by "subsidizing" the actors. The famous
account of the " Christmas Prince," l the most complete
record of an University " mumming " that we possess,
shows him as contributing generously to the funds out
of which the properties were provided. He had no
Puritan horror of stage-plays. The acting of the S.
John s scholars was a prominent feature of his reception
of the King in 1636. " I was never play-hunter/ 1 he
said at Prynne s trial, " but I have observed at Court
some Puritans to be at a play because they would not be
thought Puritans ; and for better testimony that they
have been there have stood under the candlestick and
been dropped on by the candles, and so have carried
away a remembrance of the place. If your lordships,
after pains taken in the managing of State affairs, grow
weary, what is fitter than to take your recreations ?
But Mr. Prynne will not allow you to see a play
they are, in his opinion, mala per se. But I say, take
away the scurf and rubbish which they are incident
unto, they are things indifferent." 2
In the year in which he was made proctor, Laud
entered into a wider world by his appointment as
chaplain to Charles Blount, Earl of Devon. Famous as
a warrior and a politician, there yet lay upon his patron s
life the dark stain of a shameful intrigue. Penelope
Devereux, Lord Essex s daughter, had been half affianced
to him, as she had been to Philip Sidney : she was
forced into a marriage with Lord Rich. The marriage
was a wretched one. Sidney s own exquisite sonnets
1 S. John s College MSS. A few copies were printed in 1816.
Miss Lee has edited (1893) the Christmas play of 1602, Narcissus,
and has appended the porter s letter quoted above.
2 Works, vi. 236.
8 WILLIAM LAUD
trace the course of his passion for Stella ; but the
virtue which denied her love to Astrophel did not
resist the assault of another lover. Lady Rich became
before many years the avowed mistress of Charles
Blount, who had succeeded to his brother s title of
Lord Mount] oy, and afterwards been created Earl of
Devon for his services in Ireland. She was divorced;
and Lord Devon endeavoured to make what repara
tion seemed possible for him. In 1605 Laud was
asked to marry the guilty couple : he consented. The
day on which he solemnized the unhallowed wedding,
the Feast of S. Stephen, was ever after observed by
him in remorse and penitence as a strict fast. His
prayers show how deeply he regretted his error. It
was the great blot upon his life : but it is not difficult to
understand the strong inducements which had weighed
with him. Ambition has been assigned as a cause. 1
If it was so, never was ambition so ill-served, for Lord
Devon was at once disgraced by the King, who could
not tolerate the re-marriage of divorced persons, and
died within a year, while Laud too fell under the
King s displeasure, and was for a long time shut out
from all preferment. It is incredible that James s views
on divorce should not have been known, and it is certain
that Laud had stronger and more well-grounded stimu
lants than ambition. Pity for the unhappy woman, 2 round
whose life the beauty of Sidney s romantic devotion still
lingered the knowledge that there had been what
might serve as a pre-contract in foro conscientice, as
Heylin says, though not in foro judicii and the sup-
1 " Serving my ambition and the sins of others," he says in his
own prayer of penitence.
2 Mr. Benson, Life of Laud, thinks the pathetic picture at
Lambeth is her portrait, kept with a touching fidelity by Laud.
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 9
port of some divines of eminence, 1 these may well have
moved him. He was a young man, and his bitterest
critics, if they cannot forgive him, may well remember
that he could never forgive himself.
There remain at Lambeth and in the Kecord Office,
two curious relics of the unhappy affair. At Lambeth 2
is preserved the " discourse written by ye Earl of
Devonshire in defence of his marriage with ye Lady
Rich," in his own hand. After being presented to the
King, it seems to have passed into the hands of Laud.
Among the State Papers of James I. lies the " Censure
of the Earl of Devonshire s tract touching marriage and
divorce, by William Laud." 3 When he wrote this Laud
had ceased to justify his action. "The authority of the
canon law true," he comments, "to putting away his
wife ; but neither silent nor unexpressed to marry again."
He adds a pathetic note as to the circumstances under
which he came to write. Lord Devon s tract was
" committed to me to read over twice," and the answer is
page by page. " These papers were in my lord s hands
when he died."
Thus we may leave the unhappy business and return
to Laud s work at the University. He had already, by
his exercises for the degree of B.D., when he discussed
the efficacy of baptism, taken his stand against the
ultra-Protestant teaching then current. Preaching at
S. Mary s on October 20, he maintained the Catholic
doctrine and position of the English Church. The
Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Airay, Provost of Queen s, at
once "picked a quarrel" with him, and he was "con-
1 See Heylin, Cypr. Angl., p. 58 ; and cf. Cosin s Argument on
the Dissolution of Marriage.
2 MS. 943, f. 47.
3 State Papers, Domestic, vol. xx., no. 53.
10 WILLIAM LAUD
vented." The examination of a sermon by the Vice-
Chancellor, and certain Doctors of Divinity opposed
to the preacher, is not an unfamiliar feature in the career
of any great Oxford leader of religion. All who have
been subjected to the ordeal have not fared so well
as Laud. It chanced that Sir William Paddy, the
King s physician, and M.P. for Thetford, himself a S.
John s man, heard the sermon in S. Mary s, and he
at once wrote to the Chancellor, the Earl of Dorset, to
inform him of the facts, and stated that moreover
" some two or three very learned men of the Court had
seen and considered of his sermon, and had given ap
probation of the same." The Chancellor immediately
wrote to Dr. Airay, speaking of Sir William Paddy as
his "good friend, a man religious, learned, and one
whom I love and trust," and suggesting a reference to
the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of
London. The Vice-Chancellor hastily retreated from
his opposition, and ceased all proceedings against Laud.
From this date ecclesiastical preferments came to
him in abundance. Sir Thomas Cave gave him the
living of Stanford in Northamptonshire in 1607: to
this was added North Kil worth, 1608 (exchanged for
West Tilbury in 1609), and Cuckston in 1610. On
June 6, 1608, he took the degree of D.D., declaring
in his thesis the divine right of episcopacy not
without unfavourable comment. 1
Meanwhile his old college tutor had not forgotten
"My tenet was, and still is, that episcopatus is jure divino."
Marginal notes on Prynne s Breviate, in Works, iii. 262. Prynne
says Dr. Holland, the Regius Professor, u publicly reprehended
him in the schools, " but Laud says " it is a notorious untruth that
Dr. Holland said any such thing." Mr. Gardiner, Diet. Nat.
Biog., Art. " Laud," has confused this occasion with the B.D.
Heylin makes the same mistake. See Laud s Works, as above.
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 11
him, and after the death of Lord Devon recommended
him to Dr. Neile, Bishop of Rochester, whose chaplain
he became on August 5, 1608. Neile, says Heylin
very happily, was " a man who very well understood
the constitution of the Church of England, though
otherwise not so eminent in all parts of learning as
some other bishops of his time; but what he wanted
in himself he made good in the choice of his servants,
having more able men about him from time to time
than any other of that age ; " and he adds, " none of
his chaplains was received so much into his counsels
as Dr. Laud, whom he found both an active and a
trusty servant, as afterwards a most constant and faith
ful friend upon all occasions." l From Neile Laud
received several of his preferments, and through him
the King first took notice of him. He preached at
Theobald s, September 17, 1609, and on November 20,
1610, he received the grant in reversion of a prebend
in Westminster Abbey. 2 In the same year he resigned
his Fellowship, in order to devote himself to his work as
chaplain and parish priest. It might seem as if the
dominant Calvinism had banished him from the Uni
versity. But he was not long to be absent.
"His good friend and tutor, Dr. Buckeridge," says
Heylin, " being nominated successor unto Neile in the
see of Rochester, 3 laid a good ground for his succession
in the Presidentship of S. John s College, thereby to
render him considerable in the University." Buckeridge
had done so much for his college, that his influence had
rightly great weight with the Fellows in their choice
of a successor. It was rumoured in the University that
1 Cyprianus Anyllcus, pp. 59, 60.
2 Calendar of State Papers, Dom., 1603-10, p. 644.
3 When Neile was translated to Lichfiekl.
12 WILLIAM LAUD
Laud would be elected, and the Calvinists took alarm.
George Abbot, elected to the see of Canterbury on the
death of Bancroft, formerly Master of University and
Vice-Chancellor, had known Laud in Oxford and dis
trusted his opinions. By his influence, the Lord Chan
cellor, Elsmere, who succeeded Bancroft as Chancellor
of the University, approached the King with charges
of popery and prophecies of disaster to Oxford if Laud
were given power. Whatever may have been James s
sympathies in the matter and it is known that he
did not like Laud he was too shrewd or too just to
interfere prematurely in a matter of merely academic
interest.
The election proceeded. On May 10, 1611, the
Fellows met in the chapel. When the nomination
papers had been laid on the altar, 1 and before the
Vice-President had announced the result, one of the
Fellows, who supported another candidate for the head
ship, 2 snatched the paper and tore it in pieces. The
Visitor, Bishop Bilson of Winchester, referred the
matter to the King. 3 James " sat in person for three
hours to hear " the cause. The day, as Laud to whom
coincidences were somewhat of omens notes, was The
Beheading of S. John Baptist in the Church Calendar ;
and the King, after his patient hearing, confirmed
Laud as President, " considering that the election
was no further corrupt and partial than all elections
are liable to be," and ordered that " clearer inter
pretation of the statutes be made for the future." 4
1 This was till recently the custom at all college elections.
2 Dr. E. Rawlinson, formerly Fellow, afterwards Principal of
S. Edmund Hall.
3 Col. of State Papers, June 14, Aug. 5, 1G11.
4 Ibid., Sept. 23, 1611.
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 13
He might take a lawful pride in his success, for it
was won by no personal intrigue. Years later he said,
" When I was chosen there was a bitter faction both
raised and countenanced against me (I will forbear to
relate how and by whom). But this is certain, I made
no party there ; for four being in nomination for that
headship, I lay then so siok at London, that I was
neither able to go down nor so much as write to my
friends about it." l
He showed a remarkable absence of all personal
feeling, indeed, in all that concerned his election.
His chief opponent had been the young Fellow named
Richard Baylie, who had torn up the voting papers.
Laud showed him special favour, procured his election
as proctor in 1615, married him to his brother s daughter,
when he became bishop made him chancellor of S.
David s Cathedral and his own chaplain, and eventually
raised him to be President of S. John s and Vice-
Chancellor.
During the years he now spent in Oxford, Laud de
voted himself to the domestic governance of his own
society, and to the task of theological reformation in
the University.
At first he had great difficulty in college. His
opponents " continued very eager and bitter." But
" the audit of the college for the year s accounts, and
choice of new officers, followed in November; there so
God blessed me," he says in later years, " with patience
and moderation in the choice of all offices, that I made
all quiet in the college. And for all the narrowness of
my comprehensions (it is a retort to those who then, as
men do now, called him narrow ), I governed that
1 Works, v. 88.
14 WILLIAM LAUD
college in peace, without so much as the show of a
faction, all my time, which was near upon eleven years."
The college books amply support this statement, and
the college annalists speak enthusiastically of his
moderation and generosity. The period of Laud s
connection with S. John s marks the rise of the
college from a poor and struggling foundation, owing
its presidents to the favour of Christ Church and its
continued existence to almost chance benefactions, to a
position of prominence, if not preponderance, in the
University. The energy of Laud was largely responsible
for this change ; but Buckeridge, Juxon, Paddy, Baylie,
each had share, in different ways, as churchman, man
of business, courtier, and industrious worker in college
business, in raising the status of Sir Thomas White s
foundation.
Laud s return to the University plunged him at
once into its theological squabbles. Robert Abbot,
Master of Balliol, elder brother of the Archbishop,
became Regius Professor of Divinity in 1612. " Depend
ing altogether on the will of his brother, he thought
he could not gratify and oblige him more than by
pursuing the old quarrels against Laud." He was not
long without occasion. A sermon of Laud s, Catholic
and anti-Puritan, roused his ire, and he retorted,
at the next opportunity, from the University pulpit
" Might not Christ say, What art thou, Romish or
English, Papist or Protestant ? Or what art thou ? a
mongrel compound of both : a Protestant by ordination,
a Papist in point of free will, inherent righteousness,
and the like. A Protestant in receiving the Sacrament ;
a Papist in the doctrine of the Sacrament. What, do
you think there be two Heavens ? If there be, get you to
FROM BEADING TO CANTERBURY 15
the other and place yourselves there, for into this where
I am ye shall not come/ x This stuff had been preached
on a Saint s Day, and was repeated on the Sunday
following, and Laud boldly sat through it. Men pointed
their fingers at him in the church, and it was counted
heresy to speak to him, and suspicion of heresy to greet
him in the street. But the opposition was too coarse
to be strong, and Laud lived it down. We have no
details, but we know that in ten years the current of
University partisanship ran all in his favour. He con
sulted Neile as to how to treat the censure, and
apparently received conciliatory advice, for no more
was said, and Abbot became Bishop of Salisbury in
1615. Prideaux, his successor in the Professorship,
was also a Puritan, but Laud was more than a match
for him.
Soon after his election to S. John s the King made
Laud his chaplain. In 1614 he received a prebend 2
in Lincoln Cathedral, and next year became Archdeacon
of Huntingdon.
The duties of his headship and his archdeaconry
were not sufficient to occupy all the time of so ener
getic a man as Laud. The King, whatever he may
have thought of his character, did not underrate his
ability, and at length in 1616 gave him the deanery of
Gloucester. He had seemingly a special object, 3 and
he desired the new Dean at once to take in hand
the reformation of the cathedral. " His Majesty," says
Laud, writing to the Bishop of Gloucester, "was
1 Quoted by Heylin, Cyprianus Anglicus, p. 67.
k 2 Buckden.
3 Mr. Gardiner, History of England, iii. 245, thinks he had
begun to regret his appointment of a Calvinist, Miles Smith, to
the bishopric.
16 WILLIAM LAUD
graciously pleased to tell me he was informed that
there was scarce ever a church in England so ill-
governed and so much out of order; and withal re
quired me in general to reform and set in order what
I found there amiss." 1 The new Dean at once began
his reforms. He was installed on December 20, 1616.
At the next meetings of the chapter, on January 15
and 17, 1617, 2 it was agreed that the necessary repairs
of the cathedral be immediately undertaken; and
secondly, that the Holy Table be placed at the east end
of the choir, the place appointed for it by Queen
Elizabeth s injunctions and by the unaltered practice of
the royal chapels and most of the cathedrals. 3 In
making this alteration it is clear that Laud did not
regard himself as an innovator. "The city," says
Heylin, " was at that time much pestered with the
Puritan faction, which was grown multitudinous and
strong by reason of the small abode which the Dean
and prebendaries made amongst them, the dull con
nivance of their bishop, and the remiss government
1 Works, vi. 239, Feb. 27, 1616-17.
2 Act Book of Gloucester Chapter. See Laud s Works, iv. 233.
3 Cf. Archbishop of Canterbury s judgment, Read and others
v. Bishop of Lincoln, 1890, p. 22 sqq. The question of the
"eastward position" is not mentioned by Laud as arising at
Gloucester. The Archbishop s judgment does not appear to
observe the significance of the fact, that when the position of the
altar was fixed at the east end the rubrical direction of " North
side" was retained. It is not to be presumed that Laud either
forgot or ignored the rubric. It should also be observed, that
Laud s own orders (cf. Works, v. 495) direct that the ends of the
altar should stand "north and south." It would appear there
fore that he interpreted the expression " north side " in conjunc
tion with " before the table," as implying a position at the north
end of the west side of the altar. Cf. Archbishop s judgment,
p. 40. " It seems that ministers who officiated before the table
still held to the letter of the rubric by standing towards the
north part."
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 17
of their metropolitan, so that it seemed both safe and
easy to some of the rabble to make an outcry in all
places that popery was coming in." l The bishop de
clared that he would not enter the cathedral again.
One of his chaplains wrote a letter which was circulated
as a popular libel attacking the chapter. 2 Alderman
Jones, before whom some who were distributing the
pamphlet were brought, advised the chapter to bring
the libellers before the High Commission. But Laud
after the Chapter meeting had retired quietly to
Oxford. He was in favour of no such extreme
measures. He merely wrote to the bishop referring
to the Chapter Act as based upon law and custom.
To his patron Neile he wrote also, "I beseech your
lordship let me have your lawful assistance that so long
as I do nothing but that which is established and
practised in our Church, I may not be brought into
contempt at my first entrance upon that place by any
turbulent spirits, and so disenabled to do that good
service which I owe to the Church of God." The
whole business did not lie heavy upon his mind : he
had clear warrant for his action, 3 and in less than a
month he set out for Scotland with the King. 4
It was only at its beginning that Laud s tenure of
the deanery was stormy. He remained Dean till he
received the bishopric of S. David s in 1621, and was
constantly present at chapter meetings. 5 He did the
1 Cyprianus Anglicus, p. 70.
2 See Prynne s Canterburie s Doome, pp. 75 78.
3 Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, Willdns, Concilia, iv. 188.
And cf. the declaration of precedent given in the canons of 1640
(Laud s Works, vi. 625), which clearly represent Laud s mind.
4 On March 14, 1616-17. See Diary.
6 Information kindly given by the chapter clerk of Gloucester.
c
18 WILLIAM LAUD
work that he was intended to do, but other claims
pressed on him. He has left no distinct traces on the
most exquisite of English cathedrals. 1 The restoration
which he took in hand has been merged in other
restorations, and the cathedral suffered exceptionally
during the civil wars ; only a little wood-work of
Jacobean renaissance remains to preserve his memory
at Gloucester. 2
His work at Oxford had received the King s sanction.
In 1616 James himself intervened in academic affairs
by sending instructions to the Vice-Chancellor, which
influenced the theological studies of the University in
the direction of Laud s views. Preachers were to
adhere to the distinctive teaching of the Church, and
students in Divinity were to be "excited to bestow
their time on the Fathers and Councils, schoolmen,
histories and controversies" a wider field than Puri
tanism approved " making them the grounds of their
studies."
James at last gave Laud a bishopric. On June 3,
1 He used his knowledge of Gloucester later during his metro-
political visitation. Cf. Works, v. 480-1 as to the dean s and
mayor s seats. Did he remember any naughty boys of his own
time when he ordered " that Thomas Longe and Richard Longe,
two of your choristers who are presented for incorrigible boys, be
forthwith removed from their places and others chosen in their
rooms " ?
2 The present Dean, so famous for knowledge and love of his
cathedral, very kindly writes to me as follows "I could not
definitely say that there was any Laudian work in the cathedral.
The Renaissance altar rails in the Lady Chapel are, I think, some 30
or 40 years later. . . . The door leading into the Monks Parlour
beneath my Library is dated 1614 two years before Laud be
came dean. Similar but rather better work panels my drawing-
room. Probably this was Laud s doing. Some wood-work on the
organ-loft, south side, is of a similar character, and is likely to
have been his doing."
FEOM READING TO CANTERBURY 19
1621, he spoke graciously, says the Diary, "concerning
my long service. He was pleased to say he had given
me nothing but Gloucester, which he well knew was a
shell without a kernel," and on June 29 "he gave me
the grant of the bishopric of S. David s." He was
consecrated on November 18. 1
The bishopric of S. David s was not a very appro
priate see for an Englishman already much occupied
with affairs of State, and it was some time before the
conclusion of Parliament 2 allowed Laud to visit his
diocese. The King evidently wished to keep him in
England : he gave him leave to retain the headship of
S. John s, but Laud would on no account violate the
college statutes, and resigned the Presidentship shortly
after his consecration. 3
On October 10, 1621, he was elected by the chapter
of S. David s, and on December 30 he was installed,
Dr. Robert Rudd, Archdeacon of S. David s, being
his proxy. 4 On the 5th of the following July Laud
" first entered into Wales," and four days later began
his first visitation at Brecon. Thence he went to S.
David s, where the register shows him to have been
present on July 22. His first meeting with his chapter
was characteristic. " Whereas," runs the record, " the
Reverend Father in God, William Laud, Bishop of S.
David s, hath taken offence that the muniments of the
said church are in such shameful confusion and so much
1 The consecrators were the Bishops of London, Worcester,
Cliicliester, Ely, Llandaff, and Oxford, Archbishop Abbot being
then under suspension for the accidental homicide of a keeper.
2 Heylin, Cypr. Anglic., p. 93.
3 Diary, Works, iii. 136-7.
4 Register of S. David s Cath. Reg. Men. D., pp. 13.
20 WILLIAM LAUD
neglected, he hath, with the consent of the precentor l
and chapter, ordered and decreed as follows viz. that
all and singular instruments, deeds," &c., be transcribed
and kept in safe custody by the chapter clerk. This
very necessary order is signed in the bold handwriting
of " Guill. Meneven." In the same meeting the chapter
deposed the school-master, as " being insufficient for the
place/ allowing him his stipend for a time, " that he
might in that space provide otherwise for himself."
Laud was accompanied by his nephew, Richard Baylie,
whom he nominated chancellor of the cathedral. On
the same day as the visitation of the chapter he was
personally installed. 2
Laud returned to England on August 15. He did
not return to his diocese till 1625. He did not, how
ever, remit his care, but kept as close a watch on his
see as was possible for a non-resident bishop. In
inquiry for recusants, as well as in spiritual direction,
the State Papers show him to have been active. When
he returned in August 1625, he found the chapel which
he had built in the house at Abergwili ready for
consecration. The palace appears to have needed con
siderable restoration. Bishop Ferrar, who had the
singular ill-fortune to be imprisoned by Edward VI.
and burnt by Mary, excused himself for not performing
1 At S. David s, where the bishop had originally been dean,
the precentor up to 1840 was head of the chapter. Since that
date the precentor has assumed, by 3 & 4 Viet., c. 113, the title of
dean. I need hardly mention, as the great classic on all that
concerns S. David s, the monumental work of the present bishop
and the late Mr. Freeman.
2 By the kindness of the venerable Dean of S. David s, I Lave
been allowed to inspect the chapter register, the valuable Col
lectanea Menevensia of Canon Payne, and the interesting note
books of Archdeacon Yardley.
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 21
the episcopal duty of hospitality by declaring the
ruinous condition of the hall. The house was repaired
by later bishops, and Laud s chapel is on the floor over
the present library. It seems probable that the hall
Bishop Ferrar speaks of was divided into two rooms on
the ground floor, while its height would admit of the
creation of an upper floor, on which are the chapel and
the present drawing-room. Laud s own buildings are
so few that the chapel at Abergwili deserves special
notice. It is in size and arrangement very like the
chapel of a small college. Re-decorated by the present
bishop and his predecessor, it still shows clear indications
of its appearance when Laud finished it. Its unusual
position adds considerably to its interest, and its con
tinuous use for the most sacred purposes gives it a
special claim to the reverence of those who respect its
founder. It was consecrated on Sunday, August 28,
1625, which Laud notes in his Diary as being the eve
of the Decollation of S. John Baptist, a day appro
priate from its association with his beloved college, and
recalling to his mind the King s hearing of the question of
his election to the Presidentship fourteen years before. 1
The act of consecration was charged against him as
a crime at his trial, and the charge was reinforced by
the discovery of the list of furniture in Bishop Andrewes
chapel, which Prynne declared to be Laud s. 2 He gave
valuable plate to the chapel, " rich furniture and costly
utensils and whatsoever else was necessary or convenient
for the service of God," says Heylin, and the sacred
vessels alone, he adds, cost 155 18s. 4td. It does not
1 See Diary, Works, iii. 171-2. The instrument of consecration
is in Pryime, Canterburies Doome, pp. 120, 121.
2 See Canterlurie s Doome. pp. 121-4, and Laud s Works, iv.
251.
22 WILLIAM LAUD
appear, however, that the chapel was completed, or if
it was it suffered considerably during the civil wars,
for Bishop Lucy, 1 writing in 1670, speaks of bis own
work in it. " The chapel," he writes, " is not yet
finished, but I have given orders for it, and I have
acquainted Dr. Thomas that if I finish it not in my
life, I have left 100 in my will for the completing of
it with seats and plate, which I know will make it more
decent than ever it was."
Laud did not stay long at Abergwili, yet the beauty
of the place and the pleasant old manor-house looking
across the broad river to the wood-covered hills must
have given him days of happy quiet. We can trace
his journeys from his Diary, where he tells of his
carriage breaking down between Aber-marlies (Aber-
maiiais probably, not many miles away, on the hills)
and his house, and of his ride into the mountains on a
bright October day, when he and his company dined
with his registrary at his country farm of " Pente
Cragg," a mile from the palace, whence a beautiful
mountain view can be seen. On November 11 he left
Wales. In the following June he was given the
bishopric of Bath and Wells.
His episcopate cannot be said to have left much
mark on the Welsh Church. He seems only to have
held two ordinations : and on another occasion " only
one person desired to receive holy orders . . . and he
found to be unfit, upon examination." The unhappy
man was " sent away with an exhortation." His tenure
of a Welsh see served merely to increase his knowledge
1 Letter to Archbishop of Canterbury, dated Brecon, October
10, 1670. I have to thank the Lord Bishop of S. David s for
allowing me to inspect his muniments, among which I found a
copy of this letter.
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 23
of the needs of the outlying districts and his deter
mination to supply them. But his short stay at beautiful
Abergwili was not forgotten ; he remembered the poor
of that little village in his will. 1
It was during his tenure of the see of S. David s
that Laud came into close association with Buckingham,
and that friendship began which will be spoken of
later. He was constantly at Court, preaching and
in conversation with James and Charles, both of
whom were present at his conference with the Jesuit
Fisher. The King was pleased to be consulted on
theological matters ; they discussed a French Capuchin s
book as to the Real Presence, and Laud read over to
him his answer to Fisher before it appeared in print.
A month later the King gave him the living of Crick,
in Northamptonshire. But it is clear that he was not
as yet admitted to the inner secrets of the Court, for he
did not know of the Spanish journey until the Prince
and the Duke had started, though he corresponded
constantly with Buckingham during his absence.
Early in 1622 he received what seems to have been his
first political employment when he was " put into the
Commission of Grievances," appointed on the dissolution
of Parliament after the famous protest of privileges.
Very soon after he found that the Lord-Keeper, Williams,
Bishop of Lincoln, regarded him with no favour.
Williams was a capable man, somewhat too supple in
his principles, and eager for political advancement. As
Lord-Keeper, he had earned high praise from lawyers as
well as the public, though he was the successor of Bacon.
When he had been appointed to the see of Lincoln
1 Canon Bevan s Diocesan History of S. David s contains a brief
account of Laud s episcopate.
24 WILLIAM LAUD
it was expected that his deanery of Westminster would
be given to Laud. Racket s account of the circum
stances, in his Life of Williams, derived though it be
from the Bishop s own information, is clearly erroneous : 1
though it may be that Williams would rather that Laud
had S. David s than Westminster, which he retained
himself with his bishopric and his legal work. What
ever may be the truth of the matter, it is evident that
the divergence between Laud and Williams was not
yet openly revealed, though Laud thought it necessary
to speak of it to Buckingham. 2
That Williams intrigued against Buckingham is the
assertion of Heylin. However that may be, the Duke
returned from Spain as Laud s friend and the enemy
of Williams. The history of the quarrel is a tangled
one, and scarce worth elucidation. It is of more interest
to observe how Laud regarded it in his private thoughts.
" It was Sunday. I was alone, and languishing with I
know not what sadness. I was much concerned at the
envy and undeserved hatred borne to me by the Lord
Keeper. I took into my hands the Greek Testament,
that I might read the portion of the day. I lighted upon
the thirteenth chapter to the Hebrews, wherein that
of David, Psalm Ivi., occurred to me then grieving and
fearing : The Lord is my helper : I will not fear what
man can do unto me. I thought an example was set
me ; and who is not safe under that shield ? Protect
me, O my God." :
1 Internal evidence is quite enough to condemn the story. I
am glad to have the support of A Komisli Kecusant on tins
point, p. 68 s(/q.
2 Diary, October 31, 1623.
3 The original entry is in Latin. Wharton appended the trans
lation. The date is January 25, 1623-4.
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 25
It is difficult to believe that a man who would write
thus in his Diary, could be guilty of such ingratitude
to a benefactor as Racket s account would imply.
Meanwhile Laud was being gradually introduced into
political business, and his energy and decision of char
acter were becoming known. To this period belongs
his first record of a conversation with Prince Charles,
upon whom he was afterwards to exercise so profound
an influence. " I stood by him at supper, where he
was a merry talker, and spoke of many things by the
way." l One of these " obiter dicta " was his remark,
that he could never be a lawyer. U I cannot defend
a bad cause, nor yield in a good one." His friendship
with Buckingham continued, and he was able to
exercise some influence over him in Church matters,
by no means always to Abbot s satisfaction. 2 He was
appointed to consider a proposal of Buckingham s for
the diversion of part of Button s endowments from the
Charterhouse for the support of the army : he rejected
the proposal in a very clear memorandum, still pre
served at Lambeth, 3 in which, with characteristic
reverence for antiquity and charitable bequest, he
refused to admit the argument that the present abuse
justified a departure from the founder s will. " It is
the greatest work that hath been done since the
Reformation of religion. Will not therefore the dis
solving of it be a great scandal to this State and Church,
and give the Roman party just occasion to triumph ?
Will it not be a great disheartening to all charitable
1 " Malta obiter cum suis." Feb. 1, 1623-4.
2 Cf. Diary, March 27 and 29, 1624.
3 Printed in Works, vi. 1 sqq. * Old Carthusians may
well be grateful to Laud for preserving their foundation from
Buckingham s clutches.
26 WILLIAM LAUD
men to see such works dissolved in the very age that
brought them forth ? "
In his work on charities, largely secular, but under
taken certainly in an ecclesiastical spirit, Laud was
engaged till the death of James I. On March 27, 1625,
Mid-Lent Sunday, as Laud was preaching at Whitehall,
the news was spread that the King had breathed his
last, and he broke off his sermon in the midst, inter
rupted by the sobs of Buckingham. Of the King s last
hours Laud had every means of knowing through his
old friend and the King s physician, Sir William Paddy,
and he writes that he made a brave and most religious
end. 1
Through Buckingham, over whose fickle mind he had
established a strong religious influence, Laud was from
the first able to approach the new King with much
greater freedom than he could use towards his father.
Within a week of James s death Charles singled out
Laud for special favour by bidding him preach at the
opening of Parliament ; four days later he drew up for
Buckingham to give to the King a list of prominent
ecclesiastics marked with the letters O and P. It was
clear that the new King intended to be orthodox, and to
show no favour to the Puritan party. From the first
there was a party against him : he was already named
to the King as " popishly affected." Puritan fears might
seem to receive some countenance when for the first
time since the days of Mary an English sovereign was
united in marriage to a Romanist. From the very
1 Diary. Cf. Bp. Williams sermon, "Great Britain s Salo
mon," p. 68 sqq.j and Sir William Paddy s MS. account inserted
in the King s Prayer-Book, and preserved in the library of S.
John s College. It is on the King s last hours too that Laud chiefly
dwells in his Memorables of King James (Works, vi. 5 7).
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 27
first coming of Henrietta Maria public suspicion must
have been awake. But Laud welcomed her only with
the prayer, " God grant that she may be a happy star
to our orb."
The sermon that he was to have preached at the
opening of Parliament was delivered, after the adjourn
ment, next day at Whitehall. It was on Ps. Ixxv. 2, 3,
"When I shall receive the congregation I will judge
according unto right," a stalwart " Church and King "
discourse. The Church is the State s support ; together
they stand or fall. " It is not possible in any Christian
commonwealth that the Church should melt and the
State stand firm. For there can be no firmness without
law, and no laws can be binding if there be no con
science to obey them ; penalty alone could never, can
never, do it. And no school can teach conscience but
the Church of Christ." Such was to be the motto of
the new reign, and it was fit therefore that Laud should
be one of those chosen to arrange the ceremonies of the
coronation. 1 He was therefore doubly concerned, for
he was still a prebendary of Westminster.
More than this, on January 16, scarcely a fort
night before the coronation, he was appointed to act
as deputy to the Dean (his enemy, Bishop Williams,
now in disgrace). In this capacity he had important
duties to perform. The greater part of the preparation
within the Abbey was left entirely in his hands, and it
was his part to remind the King to devote the eve of
his coronation to prayer and meditation, a duty which
he did not neglect. That the details of the coronation
were admirably carried out we have clear evidence.
^ l The Manner of the Coronation of King Charles L, edited by
Chr. Wordsworth, M.A. (Henry Bradshaw Society), is invaluable
on all that concerns the coronation. See also Laud s Works.
28 WILLIAM LAUD
Laud s neatness and accuracy were well employed. " The
ceremony was performed without any interruption and
in very good order : " l and " it was one of the most
punctual coronations since the Conquest." 2
A special interest belongs to the coronation, from the
fact that the form used for the coronation of James I.
had been hastily compiled, all earlier coronations having
been in Latin, and the Archbishop and a committee of
bishops revised the service for the occasion. The book
thus drawn up has not since then been substantially
varied. It is not, however, to be regarded as especially
the work of Laud. He himself denied being in any
way chiefly responsible for its compilation, and beyond
the fact of his known interest in liturgiology, and the
existence of copies of the book annotated by himself,
there is nothing to identify his hand in it. It is through
out according to the ancient sources.
Laud s special part in the coronation lay in the
ordering of details. At the Communion of the King
he administered the chalice, and when the King had
left the Abbey, he returned to the altar and " offered
up the three swords solemnly at the altar, ad per-
petuum usum Regni et honorem Regni et Ecclesiae."
These and other points were charged against him at
his trial : his answer was throughout an appeal to
precedent.
It is clear that so soon as Laud came to be intimately
known to the King his influence would make itself
felt. It was first seen in the case of Mountague.
Richard Mountague, Rector of Stanford Rivers, was a
scholar of great learning and a writer of sharp, trenchant
1 MS. note in Land s own copy of coronation service.
2 Ellis, Original Letters, iii. no. 323.
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 29
English. He had come before the public in conse
quence of an anti-Roman controversy which had origin
ated in his own parish, and in which he had endeavoured
to answer his opponents after their own method. A
Roman writer had endeavoured to discredit the theology
of the English Church by confusing it, after a fashion
not unfamiliar, with Calvinism, in a pamphlet called
A Gag for the New Gospel. Mountague retorted with
A New Gag for an Old Goose. The Roman contro
versialist had produced forty-seven propositions which
he attributed to the Church of England. Of these
Mountague allowed only eight to be her true doctrine.
The rest he declared to be either undecided or con
demned by her; while some are "raked together out
of the laystalls of the deepest puritanism." The aim
of Mountague s writing was one with which moderate
men would sympathize : " An impartial judgment," it
has been said by the highest living authority, "will
probably consider it as a temperate exposition of the
reasons which were leading an increasing body of
scholars to reject the doctrines of Rome and of Geneva
alike." 1 Had its theological position been expressed
in the usual language of theologians, it would scarce
have aroused even a theological tempest. But its sting
lay in the popularity, if not vulgarity, of the diction.
Mountague descended from the rostrum, like Wyclif, to
enter the arena. In a few weeks all was dust and con
fusion. A Puritan House of Commons could neither
tolerate nor ignore an attack which seemed so flagrant
and so flippant. And the storm was by no means
calmed by Mountague s publication of a treatise on the
Invocation of Saints, and of another popular anti-
1 Gardiner, History of England, vol. v., p. 352.
30 WILLIAM LAUD
Puritan pamphlet, Appello Caesar em. During the last
year of his life James had declined to censure Moun
tague s earlier writings. "If that is to be a papist,"
he said, "so am I a papist." The Appello Caesarem
had been referred by James within a month of his
death to Dr. White, Dean of Carlisle, Laud s com
panion in the controversy with Fisher, who found
"nothing therein but what is agreeable to the public
faith, doctrine, and discipline established in the Church
of England ; " and Laud, with Buckeridge and Howson,
had written to ask Buckingham s support when
Mountague was attacked by the Commons.
Charles, with his usual rashness, at the very crisis of
the Commons onslaught, made Mountague his chaplain,
and declared that he would protect him. The Commons
did not desist. The King appointed a commission of
bishops to report on Mountague s opinion. Montaigne,
Neile, Andrewes, Buckeridge, and Laud no bad judges
decided in his favour. Then a conference after the
manner of Laud s own conference with Fisher was held ;
but it convinced no one. Eventually Mountague was
made Bishop of Chichester in the teeth of the Commons
denunciations. In all this Laud had played a prominent
part. He had convinced himself that the claim of the
English Church to speak with the voice of historic
theology was concerned in Mountague s case, and he
threw himself, without a thought of the consequences,
into the strife. This, his first active intervention in the
very centre of the ecclesiastical contests of the day, and
his first open conflict with the Puritans in the Com
mons, is characteristic of his whole life. Tolerant by
conviction, and claiming wide liberty for others in the
interpretation of the Anglican formularies, he yet could
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 31
conceive of no sound foundation but what was built
upon the historic Christianity of the Church. To pre
serve that he would sacrifice anything : and in none of
the battles in which he was afterwards to be engaged
did he count the cost, or consider for one moment the
personal unpopularity which would attach to himself.
As soon as he had decided upon the right course, the
question of his conduct was for him unalterably settled.
Thus he managed to divert upon his own head much
of the wrath originally intended for those whose cause
he chivalrously espoused. But the further Laud was
estranged from the Puritan Commons the nearer he
was drawn to the King. Constantly, as his Diary shows,
in Buckingham s house, he became gradually introduced
into the inner circle of government. He was set to con
sider of the religious aspect of the strange project of
one Oventrout, who " proposed to show a way how the
West Indies might shake off the yoke of Spain, and put
themselves under the subjection of our King Charles."
His record of the affair ends quaintly. " We dismissed
the man, and returned not a whit the wiser."
That his influence was at work with the King is clear
from the constant references that we now find made to
religious questions. The Court as well as the Com
mons was keenly alive to theological interests. Was
Bishop Goodman of Gloucester teaching Roman doctrine?
Abbot, ISTeile, Andrewes, and Laud were to consider.
Even the excitement of the impeachment of Bucking
ham did not diminish the attention paid to Church
matters. The King chid the bishops " that in this time
of Parliament we were silent in the cause of the Church,
and did not make known to him what might be useful,
or was prejudicial to the Church, professing himself
32 WILLIAM LAUD
ready to promote the cause of the Church." In the
midst of all the domestic troubles and the foreign
dangers, Charles promoted Laud to the bishopric of
Bath and Wells. 1 On the death of Andrewes two
months later, Laud became Dean of the Chapel Royal.
In this office he came still nearer to the King. It was
his part to order the services in the royal chapels, and
there within a very short time Laud worked an im
portant reformation. It had been the custom since
James I. came to the throne, to cut off the prayers
whenever the King entered the chapel, and proceed at
once to anthem and sermon. " I desired his Majesty,"
says the Diary, " that he would please to be present at
prayers 2 as well as sermon every Sunday, and that at
whatsoever part of the prayers he carne, the priest then
officiating might proceed to the end of the prayers. The
most religious King not only assented, but also gave me
thanks."
From this date we may still more certainly assume
that the religious policy of Charles was practically
dictated by Laud. Thus it was agreed, contrary to
Williams s advice, that Bishop Andrewes letters to Du
Moulin, " concerning bishops that they are jure divino,"
should be published as they were in 1629 by Bucke-
ridge and Laud. Thus it was that Sibthorp s sermon,
revised it is true, was published, containing the strongest
statements of the Divine right of kings, in spite of
Abbot s protest that it contained statements contrary to
the laws of the realm. Thus it was that Manwaring,
whom Parliament censured, received from the Crown
1 Conge dWire, July 20, 1626 ; August 16, election ; Sept. 18,
confirmation ; Sept. 19, Laud did homage (Wells Cath. MSS. and
Laud s Diary).
2 Lyturgiae. Is Laud speaking of the Holy Communion ?
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 33
both pardon and promotion. Thus it was that Williams
remained in disgrace, and that Abbot himself was
sequestered from office. In politics Laud stood by the
King s side. He wrote the speeches which Charles
delivered on behalf of Buckingham, and corrected Buck
ingham s own defence. And Laud himself became
Bishop of London at the very time when the outcry
against him in the Commons was loudest. Yet he
remained unconscious of the feeling which was excited ;
of the discussion in the Lords he wrote, " By God s
goodness towards me I was fully cleared in the House."
On July 15, 1628, he was translated to London. On
August 23 Buckingham was assassinated. The news
reached Laud the next day as he was consecrating
Mountague to the bishopric of Chichester.
From the death of Buckingham Laud stood almost
alone. His friendship with Strafford was kept up almost
entirely by letters. At Court he had no one with
whom he was entirely intimate, and self-contained
though he was, he felt the need of support. Two years
later he was able to secure the appointment of his old
friend Windebanke, with whom he had so often stayed
at Haines Hill, to be Secretary of State, and a month
later, " Juxon was at my suit sworn Clerk of his Majesty s
Closet, that I might have one that I might trust near
his Majesty if I grow weak and infirm/
During the five years in which Laud remained Bishop
of London he was engaged to the full in political busi
ness ; but he was able also more thoroughly to devote
himself to his ecclesiastical charge. To this period also
belongs much of his work on behalf of the University
of Oxford.
In politics he scanned closely the action of the House
34 WILLIAM LAUD
of Commons. A copy of Rudyerd s famous speech call
ing for the republication of Magna Carta, exists in the
Record Office, in the writing of Bishop Harsnct, anno
tated by Laud. 1 There also may be seen a list of eight
Bills which the Parliament of 1628, according to Laud,
intended to pass " against the Church." 2 His own
political theories and political action are worthy of
separate consideration. The greater part of his ecclesi
astical policy may also more fitly be considered later.
This much, however, may be said here. He was now
able to carry out the greater part of the aims which he
had long had at heart. There can be no doubt that
the closest of these to his heart was the reformation of
the Church. The clergy of his new diocese urged him
to begin from below. 3 But he was never afraid of
striking at high game. Through his influence, no
doubt for the draft letter exists in Laud s writing 4
Charles ordered Abbot to command all the bishops
to retire to their sees, " those only excepted whose
attendance at Court is necessarily required." There
by it was intended to avoid the " ill example " to " the
inferior clergymen, and the hindrance of God s service
and the King s." Laud had himself not spent much
time in his dioceses ; but he had the excuse of Court
business, and he had certainly done as much by a
month s residence as most of the other bishops in a
year.
In 1633 he went with the King to Scotland, and
came still nearer to his most intimate designs. He had
long been Primate in all but name : as early as 1626
1 Cal State Papers, 1628-9, p. 92.
2 Ibid., p. 129.
3 Ibid., 1629, Nov. 17.
4 Ibid., 1629, May 13.
FROM READING TO CANTERBURY 35
Buckingham had told him of the King s intentions for
the next vacancy. Abbot died on August 4, 1633, and
on the 6th Charles greeted the Bishop of London with
the words, "My Lord s Grace of Canterbury, you are
very welcome."
CHAPTER II.
PRIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS.
LAUD S public life seems to overpower and dwarf his
personal history. We know little of how he lived in
his own house, or of what were his deepest intimacies.
It is difficult to imagine him at home, in his study or
his garden, in any of his dwellings which still remain.
At Oxford his own work transformed his college com
pletely from the appearance it must have borne when
he was a resident, nor is there any record of the room
in which he lived. Book-cases known to have been his
still remain, but they belong to a date after he had
left Oxford. At Gloucester, or Wells, or Fulham, as
well as at Croydon, there are other memories to dispute
the ground with his. Abergwili is much altered :
Lambeth is changed beyond recognition ; the Lollard s
Tower and the gateway stand incongruously by the side
of the modern building, and the chapel would not be
known for the place which Prynne and the accusers so
keenly scrutinized. His picture, the shell of his tortoise,
books and papers that were his, preserve his memory ;
but a modern student is brought most near to Laud in
the library, among the official records of his primacy, or
PRIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 37
the faded letters which he so carefully endorsed and
preserved.
His person in his habit as he lived it is not hard to
recall. The two busts at S. John s, 1 made in 1633, both
probably the work of Hubert le Sueur, the almost
innumerable portraits, attributed with more or less
rashness to Vandyke, the medal struck to commemorate
his martyrdom, 2 the miniatures and engravings, the
rough cuts that adorn the countless libels against him,
enable us to draw a clear picture of his appearance,
He was short and strongly built, but thin except in the
face, which was plump and rosy to the day of his death.
A trim pointed beard and moustache, bright peering
eyes, heavy eyebrows, close-cropt white hair, give a
marked individuality to the portraits. Alertness and
determination seem the chief characteristics, and a
cheery optimism that delights to plan and has confidence
in the present. He looks, as his life shows him to have
been, active, inquiring, assimilative, not original, but of
a strength and impressiveness which originality often
lacks. Certainly the face is kindly, and as certainly
it is full of intellectual keenness. It would arrest
attention anywhere, but it would not compel admiration,
perhaps hardly solicit friendship. 3
1 One is in the President s lodging, one in the library.
2 See below, p. 227.
3 The portraits of Laud are very numerous. The three best
known are the fine portraits in S. John s College Library, at
Lambeth, and in the Hermitage Gallery, S. Petersburg. The
last was at one time the property of Sir Robert Walpole, and was
engraved while it was at Houghton. It was sold to Catherine II.
of Russia. The Lambeth portrait was unquestionably there in
Laud s own day, and one of the S. John s pictures is also most
probably authentic. Another, probably referred to in a letter to
Straff ord, is not by Vandyke (Works, vii. 295). The S. Peters
burg portrait has perhaps the best claim to be considered entirely
38 WILLIAM LAUD
Yet after all Laud was certainly a homely man. His
letters show him full of jest and quaintness. He likes
Yorkshire beef and " hung venison " ; he is grateful for
a present of dried fish ; ho thanks Straff ord for the
marten s fur, which will keep him warm in winter; he
hopes that a lady who sends him a cat " does not mean
to scratch her friends by such tokens." When he felt
at ease with a friend he spoke freely. We may wonder
what the staid officials of the Court would have thought
had they known how merrily the Archbishop of Canter
bury and the Lord-Deputy of Ireland were writing
about them about the idleness and self-seeking of the
ministers, of Cottington s iniquities and the Archbishop
of Cashel s " sciatica in the conscience." For a busy
man, and few modern officials have more work than
Laud had, he writes very naturally and freely; and,
weary though he often was, he never made his labours
an excuse for neglecting an act of kindness. Work,
however, seems to have told upon his health and his
temper. He was a sickly infant, and a weak and
ailing lad at Oxford ; and when he grew older he was
constantly ill. He twice broke a sinew of his right leg,
and was laid up for a long time. He was easily made
the work of Vandyke, but the others, and many more that are to
be found in colleges, private houses, and palaces or institutions
with which Laud was connected, have some touches that suggest
the hand of the great master. There are a great number of copies ;
almost, all retain the attitude and style of the famous pictures.
The Bishop of S. David s has an interesting portrait at Abergwili,
which differs somewhat from those better known.
Among the engravings Hollar s print is the. best. The libels are
often curious but recognizable distortions. The rare portrait "with
the Chain," a rough, vulgar sketch, is mentioned by Laud himself.
" The Recantation of the Prelate of Canterbury " (1641) contains a
not unpleasing portrait representing Laud probably in his ordinary
house dress, a cassock, ruff and skull-cap. (See p. 192, note.)
PRIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 39
ill, and yet his constitution was capable of great
endurance. As an old man his physical strength amid
all the anxieties of his imprisonment and his trial was
amazing. His bold heart and strong nerve carried him
through times of stress which would have broken down
robuster men. Like most students and sedentary men
of business, he made occasional and spasmodic efforts
to take exercise. When he was detained indoors he
would " swing a book for exercise," and so injudiciously
as to strain himself seriously. He would walk for hours
in the garden at Lambeth, and often transact his busi
ness the while. At his trial he did not deny that he
played bowls, though he did disclaim that he played them
like Calvin on Sunday. He would ride too on occasion.
Newcastle, master in the art of equitation, gave him " a
fine great horse," and Strafford a "Dutch pad," a
saddle so rich that he thought a bishop should not in
" this age " use it.
Weak health in a busy man naturally shows itself
in a hasty or querulous temper. Laud unquestionably
was passionate in retort, and easily irritated by triflers
and busybodies. Whatever be the true story of his
quarrel with Archie Armstrong, the King s fool, it
shows that when weighty anxieties pressed upon him
he would not stay to treat folly gently. 1 Many of the
complaints of his action in the Star Chamber or High
Commission were due to his hasty vehemence of lan
guage. Much that was charged against him was ex
aggerated no doubt ; but an archbishop should not even
seem to lose his temper in a public place.
1 The facts are best put in Mr. Reynolds s edition of Selden s
Table Talk, p. 62. A Romish Recusant repeats the story in the
form which tells most against Laud.
40 WILLIAM LAUD
When a troublesome minister named Culmer, a man
of no very dignified or pleasant character, came troubling
him with questions for consideration, he was said to
have replied, " Consideration I ll take nothing into
consideration; and if you conform not all the sooner,
I ll take a more round course with you." 1 Clarendon
admits his "unpopular natural infirmities," the "greatest
of which," he says, " was (besides a hasty, sharp way of
expressing himself) that he believed innocence of heart
and integrity of manners was a guard strong enough
to secure any man in his voyage through this world."
He was, in fact, an honest man himself, and was in
tolerant to rudeness of anything that did not seem
straightforward in those with whom he had to deal.
That Heylin repeats much criticism may be taken to
prove at least the sharpness of his manner. The
roughness of his uncourtly nature, the small command
he had of his passion, his neglect of civility to the
nobility, his dislike of all ostentation and show all
these told against him in an age and a Court where
forms were so greatly regarded. He lived a lonely life.
He had no wife or near kin with him to calm his
humours and minister to his weariness. No intimate
friend ever lived in his house. He had but little time
for quiet converse, and few, if any, who would give him
advice. When it was given he was grateful for it,
with a sort of half-satirical pathos of self-condemnation,
which appears in Clarendon s account of an occasion when
he was made to hear home-truths. Young Mr. Hyde,
always well-meaning if a little officious, thought it would
be well that the Archbishop should hear what men said
of him, and took upon himself to tutor the Primate.
1 Deposition of Calmer, Gal. Stat. Pap.,Dom., 1643-4, p. 15.
PRIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 41
" He found the Archbishop " l the passage is so
characteristic and so illuminative that it may well be
quoted here " early walking in the garden, who
received him very graciously, and continuing his walk,
asked him, What good news in the country ? to which
he answered, there was none good; the people were
universally discontented, and (which troubled him most)
that many people spoke extreme ill of his Grace, as the
cause of all that was amiss. He replied, that he was
sorry for it : he knew he did not deserve it ; and that
he must not give over serving the King and the Church
to please the people, who otherwise would not speak
well of him. Mr. Hyde told him, he thought he need
not lessen his zeal for either ; and that it grieved him
to find persons of the best condition, and who loved
both King and Church, exceedingly indevoted to him,
complaining of his manner of treating them when they
had occasion to resort to him, it may be for his direc
tions. And then named him two persons of the most
interest and credit in Wiltshire, who had that summer
attended the Council Board in some affairs which con
cerned the King and the country; that all the Lords
present used them with great courtesy, knowing well
their quality and reputation, but that he alone spake
very sharply to them, and without anything of grace,
at which they were much troubled; and one of them,
supposing that somebody had done him ill offices, went
the next morning to Lambeth, to present his service to
him, and to discover if he could what misrepresentation
had been made of him : that after he had attended very
long, he was admitted to speak with his Grace, who,
scarce hearing him, sharply answered him, that c he had
1 Clarendon s Life, Oxford, 1759, vol. i., p. 62 syq.
42 WILLIAM LAUD
no leisure for compliments, and so hurried away; which
put the other gentleman much out of countenance.
And that this kind of behaviour of his was the discourse
of all companies of persons of quality, every man con
tinuing any such story with another like it, very much
to his disadvantage, and to the trouble of those who
were very just to him."
These were home-truths indeed, but Laud was very
humble under the criticism; he "heard the relation
very patiently, and discoursed over every particular
with all manner of condescension, and said, with
evident show of trouble, that he was very unfortunate
to be so ill understood ; that he meant very well ; that
he remembered the time when those two persons were
with the Council; that upon any deliberations, when
anything was resolved, or to be said to anybody, the
Council enjoined him to deliver their resolutions, which
he did always according to the best of his understand
ing; but of the imperfection he had by nature, which
he said often troubled him, he might deliver it in such
a tune, and with a sharpness of voice, that made men
believe he was angry, when there was no such thing ;
that when those gentlemen were there, and he had
delivered what he was to say, they made some stay,
and spake with some of the Lords, which not being
according to order, he thought he gave them some
reprehension, they having at that time very much other
business to do ; that he did very well remember, that
one of them (who was a person of honour) came after
wards to him, at a time he was shut up about an affair
of importance which required his full thoughts, but
that as soon as he heard of the other s being without,
he sent for him, himself going into the next room, and
PRIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 43
received him very kindly, as he thought; and sup
posing that he came about business, asked him what
his business was ; and the other answering that he had
no business, but continuing his address with some
ceremony, he had indeed said that he had not time
for compliments; but he did not think that he went
out of the room in that manner; and concluded that
it was not possible for him in the many occupations
he had to spend any time in unnecessary compliments ;
and that if his integrity and uprightness, which never
should be liable to reproach, could not be strong enough
to preserve him, he must submit to God s pleasure."
When Hyde pressed him further he answered with a
smile, that " he could only answer for his heart, that
he had very good meaning; for his tongue, he could
not undertake that he would not sometimes speak
more hastily and sharply than he should do (which
oftentimes he was sorry and reprehended himself for),
and in a time which might be liable to misinterpreta
tion, with them who were not very well acquainted
with him, and so knew that it was an infirmity which
his nature and education had so rooted in him that it
was in vain to contend with it."
Heylin s description well harmonizes with Claren
don s, but it is more intimate and more enthusiastic.
" Of apprehension he was quick and sudden, of a very
sociable wit and a pleasant humour ; and one that knew
as well how to put off the gravity of his place and
person when he saw occasion, as any man living;
accessible enough at all times, but when he was tired
out with multiplicity and vexation of business, which
some, who did not understand him, ascribed unto the
natural ruggedness of his disposition . . . constant not
44 WILLIAM LAUD
only to the public prayers in his chapel, but to his
private devotions in his closet." 1 He was a busy man,
with little time for recreation. His rest and refreshment
was in the fixed hours of prayer ; then alone could he
not be intruded upon; there, in his chapel, he could
renew his strength and his patience.
Yet with all this business and this devotion he was
as little an ascetic as he was a worldling. He lived
by rule, but by rule which became an enthusiasm. He
obeyed the English Church implicitly : his greatest
wish was fully to observe her rules. And this became
a delight. He loved, one might say, every stone of the
ancient fabric. He was not at all a mystic, but he was
a truly pious man, to whom the language of the Bible,
of the ancient collects and the English service-books,
and the intimate thoughts of private prayer, were the
very breath of life.
This only could preserve him in a Court so full of
selfishness and deceit. He had indeed to go warily,
though he never ceased to walk boldly. There was no
reliance to be placed anywhere, certainly not upon the
King. " But then I have nothing but the King s word
to me ; and should he forget or deny it, where is my
remedy ? " 2 The Queen with her Roman intrigues was
a constant difficulty "a cunning and practising woman "
the Archbishop did not hesitate to call her. A life of
extreme simplicity, and with fixed times of work and
devotion this was his safeguard in a Court society
which might ensnare even where it could not attract.
Often, one may think, his only relief, after a weary
day of labour and contention, was to sit down and write
1 Cyprianus Anylicus, p. 542.
2 To Straff ord, Jan 23, 1636. Laud s Works, vii. 211.
PRIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 45
the long record of his troubles to the only friend who
could truly share them. " I am very weary," he would
say to Strafford, and " I have had all manner of provoca
tions put upon me."
That such a man, so restless by nature and by
necessity, should dream often and strangely is not
wonderful. May it not have been some quaint humour
which made him jot down the curious visions that came
to him as he slept ? They do not read seriously. There
is nothing to show that he seriously regarded them when
he came to act. If there was superstition in recording
them, it was the gentle superstition which children learn
traditionally from their kinsfolk. " They have," thought
Carlyle, "an affectionate, lovable kind of character."
They touch indeed every side of his thoughts the
humours of a Court, the grim and gloomy outlook of
the times, political difficulties, the love of friends, the
Christian solace that was nearest to his heart " my
dream of my Blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
One of the most comfortable passages that ever I had
in my life."
It is a poor criticism indeed that must find its
evidence in a private diary and its sharpest satires in
the world of dreams. Laud was a busy, weary man :
when he slept his troubles did not desert him ; when he
woke, in those few idle moments when he could find
time to write, 1 he put down the quaint remembrances in
which the night gave some relief to the day s continued
toil.
The personal interests of a man so busy were naturally
simple. He loved his garden, and his birds, and his
music : he did not care for state or dignity or pomp.
1 The Diary was very irregularly kept, and very briefly.
46 WILLIAM LAUD
" I ll tell you a pretty story by the bye," he writes to
Strafford, " and tis true. When I first came to Lam
beth, there were in the walks song-thrushes, which ever
began to sing in February, and so continued, and the
nightingales followed in their season. Both of these
came my first year, I think to take their leave, for
neither of them hath appeared ever since." l His visita
tion articles and his particular directions to cathedrals
show a knowledge of church music and its requirements
which could not have been second-hand. His will men
tions instruments that he had at Lambeth and atCroydon,
his harp and chest of viols, and " the harpsico in the
parlour at Lambeth."
But his chiefest interests were undoubtedly those of
a scholar. He was always a book-lover. Rare editions,
unique manuscripts, rich bindings the delights of the
bibliophile his own collections as well as his literary
remains show him to have been keenly interested in.
At the time of Charles s coronation, his old friend
Bishop Neile, who had always found him a lodging, had
to give up his house to the French Ambassador ; the
Diary records the care with which he himself arranged
his books in their new home. His letters contain con
stant reference to the purchase of rare books. He made
ambassadors and merchants collectors for him ; but with
an unselfishness rare among virtuosos, he gave his
choicest treasures it would seem from his will almost
all he had, though he still had many liturgies, which, it
would seem, were his favourite study while he still lived
to public libraries and private friends. He had a taste
for art. He could talk of Vandyke with the King and
Strafford : he knew the value of pictures and of medals.
1 Works, vii. 416.
PKIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 47
He had indeed many of the characteristics of the great
prelates of the Renaissance, with just that change
which its ideas underwent on English soil. He was a
great builder and a patron of art, a scholar and a poli
tician, a priest with a love of comely order and the
seemly dignities of public worship. He delighted to
read and to control the literature of the day : he would
accept dedications and encourage struggling writers.
There was a certain formality about it all, viewed from
without, a sort of sober stateliness of pose such as the
Italian painters give to their church ceremonials and
the backgrounds of their cardinals. But with Laud there
was a more than English impatience at any ceremonial
that was meaningless, and there was, behind all, the deep
piety that let no touch of paganism from scholarship or
art enter into the scheme of his life.
Such was Laud as we know him in himself. We
may learn something more from his association with
those who came nearest to his heart. His deepest
friendships were with the two most prominent politicians
among his contemporaries in the service of the Crown.
Minute investigation, which has done so much to
rehabilitate the character of maligned ministers, has
done little if anything to raise the reputation of
George Villiers. Rash, violent, and constantly swayed
by the swift currents of his passions and his sympathies,
Buckingham was perhaps the least fitted to guide the
policy of a great nation of all those who have ever
been kings friends. His personal defects were no less
obvious than his public deficiencies. But at the same
time it is impossible to deny that the extraordinary
fascination which he exercised over some of the worthiest
as well as the greatest of his contemporaries was due
48 WILLIAM LAUD
to his possession of qualities which naturally and rightly
inspired the love and admiration of those who knew
him. He was a warm-hearted, generous man, who
sinned in hot blood, but repented with tears " good-
hearted," as men say, and full of buoyant youthfulness.
His contemporaries, with all their adulation of his
power and position, yet felt for him always as sober
men feel for a gallant boy called upon to perform great
tasks. They were tolerant of his errors, they recog
nized his difficulties, they watched his career with
sympathetic interest and almost involuntary admiration.
Such as these were the feelings with which Laud
regarded him. They first came together on religious
questions. April 23, 1622, "the King sent for me,"
says Laud s Diary, "and set me into a course about the
Countess of Buckingham, who about that time was
wavering in point of religion." On May 10 the young
Marquis spoke to him of his own religious difficulties,
and ten days later Laud gave him " papers concerning
the difference between the Church of England and
Rome in point of salvation, etc." Buckingham was
present at the conference with Fisher, which drew him
nearer to Laud as it confirmed him in the English
Church. On Whit Sunday they had intimate talk
together " the particulars are not for paper." l On the
eve of Trinity Sunday the favourite made his confession
to the Bishop, and next day he received the Blessed
Sacrament. On January 11 of the next year Laud s
Diary has "My Lord of Buckingham and I in the
inner chamber at York House. QUOD BEET SALVATOR
NOSTER CHRISTUS JESUS."
1 "June 15, I became C. to my Lord of Buckingham." There
can be no doubt this means confessor. So Heylin, Cyp. Ang., p.
101. Laud practically admitted it at his trial.
PRIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 49
|V< From that time they became close friends. It does
not appear that Laud knew of the journey into Spain,
kept secret as far as possible, till his friend had started
on the foolish venture. Letters passed between them
during his absence, and when he returned the friend
ship was knit more closely than ever, and Williams
lost all favour with the Duke. From that time till his
murder Buckingham and Laud grew more and more
near together. Laud watched with him all night when
he was sick, 1 stayed with him in the country, advised
him about his unhappy brother, Lord Purbeck, 2 talked
to him of all matters, from witches and astrologers to
that tragic blot on his own life, the marriage of Lord
Devon, christened his children, wrote letters and
speeches for him on matters of Church and State, and
was, as he styled himself in writing, his " most devoted
and affectionate friend." It was a feeling not uncommon
in the age in which he lived ; it reminds one at times
of Languet s attachment to Sidney, or Michelangelo s to
Cavalieri. And of his wife, too much neglected, he
writes that she is "goodness itself." It is clear that
on Laud s side the aim of the friendship was above all
things religious. He looked upon the fickle Duke as
one upon whom, more especially after King James s
death, the fortunes of England depended, and most of
all the fortunes of the English Church. He was well-
disposed : it was Laud s determination that he should
be also well-informed. Thus he supplied him with the
famous list of clergy for preferment, marked with the
letters and P. Thus he planned with him Church
endowments, and fortified him with arguments against
1 Whit Sunday, 1624, and Tuesday, he watched all night.
2 Cal State Papers, 1625-6, p. 363 (June 1626).
E
50 WILLIAM LAUD
Home and Geneva. He thought of him sleeping and
waking. 1 His prayers show how near he was to his
heart. " Gracious Father, I humbly beseech Thee, bless
the Duke of Buckingham with all spiritual and tem
poral blessings, but especially spiritual. Make and
continue him faithful to his prince, serviceable to his
country, devout in Thy Truth and Church; a most
happy husband and a blessed father ; filled with the
constant love and honour of his prince, that all Thy
blessings may flow upon himself and his posterity after
him. Continue him a true-hearted friend to me, Thy
poor servant, whom Thou hast honoured in his eyes.
.... Even so, Lord, and make him continually to
serve Thee." Then follow other prayers to the same
purport, " much used," as Prynne said, 2 " as is evident
by the fouling of the leaves with his fingers."
Laud, in fact, as religious men of mature years do
so naturally, always hoped and believed the best of his
gallant young friend. If to others he was a profligate,
to Laud he was a penitent. Laud cherished his best
intentions, and believed, perhaps too often, that they
would be performed. There was a tenderness indeed
about his thoughts of the favourite which added a
genuine personal affection to his religious care. It was
a friendship which death and danger could not destroy.
When he was charged at his trial, years after, with
correspondence with Buckingham, he boldly answered,
" My lord, I hold it my great honour that my lord duke
would write to me and give me leave to write to him."
Of a different fashion and a different origin was his
1 Diary, Aug. 21, 1625, Works, iii. 170. "Ea nocte in somnis
visus est milii Dux Buckinghamiae in lectum meum ascendere ;
ubi multo erga me amore se gessit."
2 Breviate, p. 13.
PKIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 51
friendship with Straff ord. But it is probable that here
also the beginning of the friendship was religion. The
first entry in Laud s Diary relating to Went worth, Jan.
21, 1630-31, is in terms similar to those used when
Buckingham s confession is referred to. These two
minds, whose religious belief and theories of govern
ment agreed, came naturally together. In method as
well as thought their views were akin. What they boldly
decided on they would bravely execute. They were not
satisfied with smooth semblances : their ideal was
" thoroughness " in action as in thought and life. Straf-
ford, in fact, answered more nearly than any one else to
the want, which even the self-contained Churchman felt,
of a helpmeet in his deepest projects. " I am alone
in those things which draw not private profit after
them" so he said pathetically. Thus, as Mr. Firth
well says, l " the intimacy and the confidence between
the two men rose naturally from their characters and
position. Each had an unselfish devotion to the monarch
he served, and to the ideas which he hoped to realize
through the monarchy." When Wentworth was in
Ireland the friends wrote constantly and intimately.
Laud was the confidant of all the Deputy s political
schemes, and the religious policy belonged to both
alike. Stratford sent Laud duplicates of all his im
portant despatches. Laud told Strafford of all his
petty worries, as well as his great checks. Both chafed
against " my lady Mora," and beat themselves in vain
against the sluggish indolence of self-seeking courtiers.
" Private ends," wrote Laud, " are such blocks in the
public way, and lie so thick, that you may promise
1 Introduction to Robert Browning s prose life of Strafford,
p. Ixvi.
52 WILLIAM LAUD
what you will, and I must perform what I can and no
more."
The mass of letters preserved is very great ; Laud
wrote more frequently to Strafford than to any other
man. The letters touch not only public affairs, the
agreement of the two men being complete on all
matters of policy, and the smallest details being dis
cussed between them, but also the private matters of
the writers. The tone throughout is that of old friends,
joking at each other s expense, grateful for remem
brances, humouring each other s whims, and devoted to
each other s interests, but chiefly to those views of
national policy they had at heart.
Much of the correspondence on both sides was in
cipher, and much of it was of a very private nature,
revealing the distrust which both writers felt concerning
the Queen s influence, Cottington, and others of the
Court. Laud was not without fear of the discovery of
the key. "The cipher 1 between us both you and I
have. By that cipher all our letters may be read when
we are dead. Some things you know are personal, and
such as, though not hurtful, yet such as neither of us
would have some men see."
From the time that the storm burst, and Strafford
returned from Ireland to lead the King s force against
the Scots, the correspondence ceased or the letters
have been destroyed. But the Diary, which has hitherto
been silent about Wentworth since its first mention of
him, adds a few details of the last years of the states
man. It records that they both advised the King, on
December 27, 1639, to summon a Parliament: the
impeachment and the trial too find place.
1 Works, vii. 166.
PRIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 53
The " History of the Troubles " also adds some
significant touches, and gives a fuller account of Straf-
ford s trial, ending with a comment on Charles s pitiful
cowardice, bitter indeed in its brevity. " It had been
far more regal to reject the Bill when it had been
brought to him (his conscience standing so as his
Majesty openly professed it did) than to make this
honourable preface, and let the Bill pass after." 1
The last meeting of the two friends is too famous to
need telling again. The old prisoner fainting at the
last sight of his staunch colleague, yet rising again to
proclaim the condemned traitor "more serviceable to
the Church (he would not mention the State) than
either himself or any of all the Churchmen had ever
been" it is a picture perhaps the most pathetic that
all those days of fears and fightings have left us.
" Thus ended," wrote Laud, " the wisest, the stoutest,
and every way the ablest subject that this nation hath
bred this many years. The only imperfections which
he had, that were known to me, were his want of bodily
health, and a carelessness, or rather roughness, not to
oblige any ; and his mishaps in this last action were
that he groaned under the public envy of the nobles,
served a mild and a gracious prince, who knew not how
to be or be made great ; and trusted false, perfidious,
and cowardly men in the northern employment, though
he had many doubts put to him about it. The day
was after called by divers, Homicidium Comitis
Straffordiae, ( the day of the murder of Strafford ;
because, when malice itself could find no law to put
him to death, they made a law of purpose for it. God
forgive all, and be merciful." - It is the last touching
1 Laud s Works, iii. 441. 2 Ibid., 441.
54 WILLIAM LAUD
word on the long friendship. If Laud loved no one so
deeply as he loved Buckingham, he had no friend so
true as Strafford.
It is the common fate of men immersed in busi
ness of Church or State, and not least of celibate
ecclesiastics, and of those whose hearts are generous,
to find among the many to whom they are related
by ties of business, or generosity, or sympathy,
scarce one sharer of the intimacies of the heart.
Among the many who surrounded Laud, whom he
met daily, and whom he benefited, there is scarce
one besides Buckingham and Strafford who fills any
place in his inner life. Windebanke was almost a
creature of his hand, and for some years they were
intimate. Laud stayed often at Haines Hill, and
Windebanke professed to follow the Archbishop s lead in
politics. But the friendship was broken ; Windebanke
proved self-seeking like the rest. Juxon, his successor
as President of S. John s, raised by his influence to be
Treasurer and Bishop of London, Laud loved and
trusted. He had known him from his childhood, and
they had worked together in college matters, where
Juxon developed his extraordinary capacity for hard
work and his keen business judgment. When Laud
left the University Juxon was his Oxford correspondent,
constantly writing him chatty letters of University doings
and prophecies of preferment, so that he might see, he
says, " the good opinion we have of ourselves at Oxford."
He aided him too in the reconciliation of Chill ingworth
to the English Church, with the help of Sheldon, then
Fellow of All Souls, eventually the successor of Laud
and Juxon as Primate. As Bishop of London and as
Lord Treasurer Juxon became Laud s right hand. The
PETVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 55
hardest of workers, the kindest of men " that good
man," as Charles loved to call him he was one of the
few in that time of strife of whom it may be said that
they made no enemies. "Neither as bishop nor
treasurer/ says Sir Philip Warwick, who had been his
secretary, " came there any one accusation against him
in that last parliament, whose ears were opened, nay
itching, after such complaints," and Falkland, in an
attack on the bishops, made an exception in his favour,
" that in an unexpected place and power he expressed
an equal moderation and humility, being neither am
bitious before, nor proud after, either the crozier or the
white staff."
William Cavendish, the gallant Marquis of Newcastle,
was another friend of Laud, as he was a friend also of
Strafford. He was a man upon whose honour they felt
they could rely. Laud rejoiced at his appointment as
governor to the young Prince of Wales. In his will he
left him his "best diamond ring, worth 140, or near
it." Noy, too, was his "dear friend."
Among those with whom he was intimate must
certainly be reckoned many of his chaplains, and not
least Dr. Peter Heylin, his enthusiastic biographer. It
speaks well for the simplicity and genuineness of
Laud s character that he was so much of a hero to
those who were most near to him.
Beyond this we find scant record of his friends.
Those mysterious initials in his Diary may conceal
intimacies of which the world knows nothing. Prynne
did not hesitate to suggest criminal relations, to which
Laud s whole character is the best refutation. Some
of them at least, it is clear, involved hours of spiritual
conflict. It is not probable that any explanation of
56 WILLIAM LAUD
them will ever be discovered. 1 Some may have covered
deep and tender friendships, but most of them are
probably records of private generosity to poor men
which was ill repaid. Certainly people of all classes
when in distress turned naturally to Laud to help
them. Anne, Countess of Pembroke, when her husband
treated her badly, hoped for Laud s mediation to obtain
some relaxation of the severity with which he used
her. 2 Many poor petitioners looked to him to help
them in their need.
To his own dependents Laud was a generous master
and friend. His will shows how great was his regard
for those who had served him. His Diary has touching
references to his love for his old retainers. Chiefest of
these was Adam Torless, his steward, who managed his
household at Lambeth, and in whose hands were the
1 The matter may be worth further investigation. It is difficult,
if not impossible, to trace any connection between the persons to
whom the initials may refer, and any particular places or periods
in Laud s history. E. B. and L. B. and K. B. are almost certainly
related, and had probably some connection with Stony Stratford.
E. B. was a man very intimate with Laud. There is much in the
Diary which looks like the record of a close friendship. " Cum
E. B., July 28, 1617, primo," in the Diary is to be read in connection
with a prayer for pardon in the Anniversary Devotions, "as I was
returning instead of thankfulness, I wandered out of my way
from Thee, into a foul and strange path." The references to
E. B. are very numerous. "On June 15, 1623, R. B. died at
Stony Stratford, which what it will work with B. E., God in
heaven knoweth and be merciful unto me." Unfortunately the
Stony Stratford registers for 1623 are defective. E. B. (who was
seemingly the same as B. E.) married May 1, 1624. There is no
record of the marriage at Stony Stratford. On January 17, 1621,
L. B. died. The Stony Stratford register on that day gives
Widow Beste s burial. The name Baylie occurs in the Stony
Stratford register about this date. It is possible that the persons
referred to may have been relations of Dr. R. Baylie, Laud s
protege. But the difficulties are, I fear, insoluble.
2 Col. State Papers, Dow., November 3, 1635.
PRIVATE LIFE AND FRIENDS 57
arrangements for the great entertainment which he
gave to the King and the University at Oxford in 1636.
In 1624 Laud mentions his illness. " Saturday, October 2,
in the evening, at Mr. Windebank s, my ancient servant,
Adam Torless, fell into a swoon, and we had much ado
to recover him; but, I thank God. we did." The
record of his death is full of genuine feeling. " Thursday,
September 23, 1641, Mr. Adam Torless, my ancient,
loving, and faithful servant, and then my steward, after
he had served me full forty and two years, died, to my
great both loss and grief. For all my accounts since
my commitment were in his hands, and had he not
been a very honest and careful man, I must have
suffered much more than I did ; yet I suffered enough,
besides the loss of his person, who was now become
almost the only comfort of my affliction and my age."
William Pennell, another servant, he dreamed of when
he lay dying, and then visited him, and commended his
soul to God. Many other servants are mentioned by
name, always with some kindly word of remembrance.
By the poor of Lambeth, at least, he was beloved ; and it
seems, indeed, that wherever he was intimately known,
especially by the humbler classes, his sturdy honesty
of soul, as well as his munificence, made his character
respected and admired.
The picture that we glean of Laud from what we learn
of his tastes and his friendships is an eminently human
and pleasant one. He was clearly a man utterly without
affectation, warm-hearted if hot-tempered, with no talent
for disguise or diplomacy, a solid worker and a stalwart
champion of what he believed to be right. His personal
character goes some way to explain the permanent in
fluence which he exercised upon the English Church.
CHAPTER III.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH.
ON August 12, 1633, the cong6 d elirc was issued with
the letter of nomination to the chapter of Canterbury.
On September 19 Laud recorded in his Diary the
completion of the translation. He was now in a
position to carry out more fully the designs for the
peace and reformation of the Church which he had
long entertained and had already in some cases
inaugurated.
To stand in the old paths was the closest wish of his
heart, and to him those paths seemed clearly to be
paths of peace. Constantly though he appeared before
the world as a militant ecclesiastic, he was always in
his mind suggesting articles of peace. Already he had
endeavoured to win men to agreement, or at least to
abstinence from war, by a formal declaration of the
position which he had claimed for the Church of Eng
land in his controversy with Fisher. " The Church
does not require assent unto particulars." This prin
ciple underlay his appeal for unity at the opening of
Parliament in 1626 : this was the basis of the proclam
ation for the peace of the Church which the King
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 59
issued on June 16 in the same year. It was his
constant thesis; and it was embodied in the Declar
ation which Charles, undoubtedly on his advice, issued
in November 1628, and which was intended to secure
at least outward peace, by enjoining silence in the
pulpits on those points on which men never had been,
and never will be, agreed, but over which inflamed par
tisanship at the time so much delighted to wrangle.
" For the present, though some differences have been
ill raised, yet we take comfort in this, that all clergy
men within our realm have always most willingly sub
scribed to the Articles established, which is an argu
ment that they all agree in the true, usual, literal
meaning of the said Articles; and that even in those
curious points in which the present differences lie, men
of all sorts take the Articles of the Church of England
to be for them ; which is an argument again, that none
of them intend any desertion of the Articles established.
That therefore in these both curious and unhappy
differences, which have for so many hundred years,
in different times and places, exercised the Church of
Christ, we will that all further curious search be laid
aside, and these disputes shut up in God s promises
as they be generally set forth to us in the Holy Scrip
tures, and the general meaning of the Articles of the
Church of England according to them. And that no
man hereafter shall either print, or preach, to draw the
Article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the
plain and full meaning thereof: and shall not put
his own sense or comment to be the meaning of the
Article, but shall take it in the literal and grammatical
sense."
The whole passage is eminently characteristic of
CO WILLIAM LAUD
Laud s mind, as it is in parts of his style. The Declara
tion still holds its place in our prayer-books. It has
certainly not prevented controversy on the Articles. It
may, however, be said that the principle enunciated in
the first paragraph, that the agreement of clergy of
different schools of thought to the general sense of the
Articles is a proof of the loyalty of each party to the
general tenets of the Church, has been very generally
adopted, and has been a material safeguard to the
Church. The aim of the Declaration was unquestionably
for peace; and the Catholicism of the Church was in
no way affected by it. The strained constructions put
upon the Articles at that time came from other quarters.
The origin of the phraseology, which afterwards ap
peared questionable, was then too well known for the
language to cause uneasiness to men of Laud s opinions.
The Declaration stands almost alone among the
documents of the time as a genuine effort towards
comprehension. And Laud was almost alone among
the leaders of religion in his day in the endeavour to
put its principles into practice. The widening of the
English Church, without any abatement of its Catholic
claims, had been one of the many projects of James I.
In two famous instances his desires had seemed to
be working towards fulfilment. The English Church
gave shelter to Isaac Casaubon and Marc Antony de
Dominis. The former had found in the Anglican
theory, and in the practice of the Church as he knew
it, the nearest approach to what seemed to him to be
the Apostolic ideal. James had welcomed the greatest
scholar in Europe with enthusiasm. Though a layman,
he received prebends at Westminster and Canterbury,
and he died in the communion of the English Church,
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 61
and was buried in Westminster Abbey. It was a
triumph for the English Church to have enlisted the
support of one whose name commanded respect through
out Europe. What James had done for Casaubon, Laud
desired to do for Vossius ; and he also received a pre
bend at Canterbury. Casaubon was an example of how
theological learning, out of harmony with Protestantism,
could find a meet home in the English Church. The
Archbishop of Spalatro appeared to show that the real
unity of Catholic Christendom, in spite of the English
Reformation, was an idea not unfamiliar to the Roman
theologians. The opinions of De Dominis, avaricious
and unstable though he was, had just the character
istics which appealed to James s mind ; and his book,
De Rcpublicd Ecclesiasticd, translated into ten languages,
might have proved a valuable assistance towards reunion.
But the defects of his personal character, 1 and the almost
comical retribution with which his career ended, served
to destroy any hopes that might have been formed from
the public statement of his opinions. The careers of
Casaubon and De Dominis proved of no real advantage
to the aim of a more general and Catholic comprehen
sion. With such failures before him, Laud had to be
content with endeavours after comprehension in the
British Isles. Such was his aim in Ireland, where he
sought to win the Romanists by a relaxation of the
recusancy fines and the teaching of Catholic doctrine.
In England his measures looked the same way.
The most famous instance of the width of his sympa-
1 Mountague called him " that infamous Ecebolius of these
times, reliyionis desnetor .... a man, if any other of his coat
and calling, apt enough to be circumcised and deny Christ, if the
Grand Signior would but make him chief Muf tie " (Immediate
Address unto God alone).
62 WILLIAM LAUD
thies an instance sufficient in itself to absolve him
for ever from the charge of narrowness and bigotry is
his action towards the " ever-memorable John Hales."
It might have been thought that the opinions of a man
so much beloved would have great influence, and that
Laud would be jealous of views so liberal. It appears
that nothing is further from the truth. Hales believed
" that pride and passion, more than conscience, were
the cause of all separation from each other s commu
nion : and he frequently said that that only kept the
world from agreeing upon such a Liturgy as might bring
them into one communion ; all doctrinal points upon
which men differed in their opinions being to have
no place in any Liturgy." His little tract on Schism
came into the Archbishop s hands, "who," continues
Clarendon, " was a very rigid surveyor of all things
which never so little bordered upon schism ; and
thought the Church could not be too vigilant against
and jealous of such incursions." The conclusion of the
story is as honourable to Laud as to Hales. The Arch
bishop sent for the scholar to Lambeth : they talked
in the garden almost all day, and when they came in
they were " high-coloured and almost panting for want
of breath, enough to show that there had been some
heats between them, not then fully cooled." Laud had
said " that the time was very apt to set new doctrines
on foot, of which the wits of the age were too suscep
tible ; and that there could not be too much care taken
to preserve the peace and unity of the Church/ Shortly
afterwards he sent for Hales again, " when there was a
prebendary of Windsor fallen, and told him the King
had given him the preferment, because it lay so con
venient to his Fellowship of Eton, which (though indeed
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 63
the most convenient preferment that could be thought
of for him) the Archbishop could not without great
difficulty persuade him to accept, and he did accept it
rather to please him than himself, because he really
believed he had enough before. He was one of the
least men in the kingdom, and one of the greatest
scholars in Europe."
The natural corollary to Laud s desire for compre
hension was his dislike of separation. To this he
clung to the last, and in his answer to Lord Saye and
Sele he denned clearly what he meant by the term.
" He, whoever "he be, that will not communicate in
public prayers with a national Church, which serves
God as she ought, is a separatist." l Thus he placed
the Romanists as well as "Anabaptists, Brownists,
Separatists, Familists," among the sects which "en
deavoured" the "subversion both of the doctrine and
discipline of the Church of England." J The system
of the Church of England, as he found it, settled in
formularies and doctrines, in the rule of belief and the
rule of worship, preserving its historic links with the
primitive and historic Christianity, but laying upon
men s consciences no weightier burden of necessary
belief than the first ages had required this it was
his aim to preserve as it was his duty to administer.
Within its pale he would include those who could
accept its formularies in their most liberal interpreta
tion; but he would preserve, by every means in the
power of State or Church, its heart of doctrine and
worship from the attacks of those who felt compelled
to stand without and in opposition.
1 Works, vi. 120. 2 Ibid., v. 622. Canons of 1640.
64 WILLIAM LAUD
It has been stated 1 that Laud was above all things a
doctrinal reformer. It is true that the banishment of
Calvinistic teaching from the English pulpits seemed
to him a matter of supreme importance. But on the
other hand, he was certainly not consciously an in
novator. He had chapter and verse for everything he
did. He appealed constantly to the English articles
and canons, to the Prayer-Book and the Bible. Out
side these and the patristic authorities he had no wish
to stray, certainly no wish to enforce compliance. He
was in principle a conservative, not a reformer, though
a practical reformation was the result of many of his
measures.
He started upon his work with the full support of
the Crown. Erastian he was not, for he desired that
in religion the State should serve and not command
the Church. But the distinction in principle was not
easy to preserve in practice, and in the public mind the
Archbishop s functions as privy councillor and prelate,
in the Star Chamber and on the bishop s throne, were
very naturally confused. Charles and Laud worked
hand in hand, and their wiser measures suffered from
association with political blunders.
Already something had been done by the State
to induce the conformity which Laud desired. In
December 1629 the King had sent out instructions
to the bishops, by which the " lecturers " 2 were to be
1 As by Dr. Mozley, Essays, i. 163.
2 Mr. Gardiner very happily describes the position of the
lecturers, vol. vii. p. 131. A lecturer " was paid by a corporation,
or by individuals, to preach and to do nothing more. He might
remain sitting in the vestry, if he chose, till the service was at an
end, when he could come out to ascend the pulpit, and to shine
forth in the eyes of the congregation as one who was far superior
to the man by whom the printed prayers had been recited. The
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 65
strictly restrained. Controversial topics were to be
rigidly excluded from sermons, the afternoon discourse
was to be catechetical and for the young, and no
teacher was to preach unless he had first read Divine
Service in his surplice. The bishops were to make
stricter oversight of the doings of the lecturers, and, in
accordance with the canons of 1604, and the advice of
Hooker, the bishops were "to suffer none but noblemen
and men qualified by law to have a chaplain in their
house."
It was an honest attempt to stop wrangling, and it
was honestly carried out. A " restraint on both sides "
was intended. 1 The Council suppressed the Calvinist
Bishop Davenant as Laud suppressed the orthodox
Master of Trinity, Cambridge. Silence, it was hoped,
might bring consent. But it is ill trying to enforce
silence on excited theologians by the secular arm.
Laud, as soon as he became Primate, caused the injunc
tions to be re-issued. It was ever his aim to abolish
" vagrant ministers and trencher-chaplains."
While the injunctions, one fruit of the State action
on behalf of the Church, were touching the Puritan
party in one direction, The Book of Sports was arousing
discontent in another. The old English custom of
employing the Sunday in recreation, after public worship,
had never been abandoned ; and there were special
Church feasts in commemoration of particular festivals
and in aid of Church work. 2 Puritanism from the first
lecturers were to be found chiefly in towns where there was a
strong Puritan element in the population, and they were them
selves Puritan almost to a man."
1 So Charles s speech in answer to the Remonstrance; which
was written by Laud. Works, vi. 9.
a See Pierce s letter, Cant. Doome, 142-3.
F
66 WILLIAM LAUD
had desired to use Sunday strictly as the Jewish
Sabbath : Fuller humorously describes how the " pre
cise keeping " of the day spread among the religious.
James I. had sought to pacify disputants by a Declaration,
which was afterwards embodied in The Book of Sports.
But the judges had disregarded both ecclesiastical
jurisdiction and the royal order. They had forbidden all
village feasts on Sundays, and required the clergy, under
penalty, to publish their order during Divine service.
This was an absolutely unwarrantable intrusion into
the sphere of ecclesiastical rule, and it was one which
neither King nor Archbishop were likely to tolerate.
Charles issued the Declaration of Sports, ordering that
the people
"be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any
lawful recreation, such as dancing, either men or women,
archery for men, leaping, vaulting or any other such
harmless recreation, nor for having of May games,
Whitsun-ales, and morris-dances, so as the same be had
in due and convenient time without impediment or
neglect of Divine service."
Chief-Justice Richardson, who had greatly exceeded
his legal power, when on the Western Circuit, by
punishing those clergy who had not published the order
condemning such games, was called before the Council
and received a severe reprimand. It may well be
imagined how Laud, whose inclination in such matters
were all in favour of freedom, and who had now a fine
opportunity to avenge the intrusion into Church juris
diction, would rate the officious lawyer. " He had been
almost choked with a pair of lawn sleeves," he declared
when he came out. But it was King and Council, it
must not be forgotten, who intervened, not Laud or the
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 67
clergy. Many of the parish priests indeed hesitated to
read the King s declaration. It was a vain attempt to
legislate where custom and public feeling were too
strong for the State. It pledged King and Archbishop
against a narrow Sabbatarianism. But it increased the
animosity which was rising against them among the
bigoted zealots to whom all recreation was unlawful.
On one other point we find the Crown issuing orders
which had come with better grace from the Church.
On November 12, 1630, the Council wrote to Laud
that 1 " the King, foreseeing the present scarcit} r , by
a late proclamation, required that there should be
an abstinence from flesh on Fridays, and no suppers
kept on fasting nights in inns and victualling houses.
That proclamation contains no new thing, but points
directly to laws in force for keeping of fasting days, as
in 2nd and 3rd Edward VI. cap. 19, and 5th and 6th of
the same king, cap. 3, and certain statutes of Queen
Elizabeth. The King s care in that behalf is so much
contemned in inns and such-like places, as seems very
strange to his Majesty and this Board ; for reformation
whereof the Council have given instructions to the
Mayor of London and the Justices of the Peace of
Westminster and the nearest counties, and it is his
Majesty s pleasure that the ecclesiastical court shall
take effectual order that the offenders be punished in
the manner expressed in the last-mentioned statute of
Edward VI."
The State requiring fasting, for economic reasons,
and insisting upon the Church giving its sanction to
the plan, is a curious illustration of the confusion of
functions which is the most prominent characteristic of
1 Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1629-31, p. 379.
68 WILLIAM LAUD
the time. Such a measure was certain to arouse oppo
sition. The Church lost much more than it gained by
the patronizing interference of the State.
Such was the alliance to which Laud as Primate
became one of the partners. It was no creation of his
or the King s. Puritans as well as Churchmen thought
some such union essential ; and both suffered from the
attempts to work an unworkable theory.
The beginning of Laud s primacy showed the influence
of the State at its height. On the day when the forms
of his translation were completed, the King addressed
a letter to the new Primate, giving directions, in fashion
familiar enough in the time of Elizabeth, for the new
Archbishop to follow. The chief point of his injunction
was the very necessary restriction of ordination. The
good of religion, dear to the King s heart, impels him
to require the Archbishop and bishops to strictly obey
the canon requiring a title for every person ordained,
and to follow in such matters " the ancient course of the
Church and the Canon Law, so far forth as that law is
received in this Church of England." 1 The Crown had
no thought to abandon the prerogative which Elizabeth
had exercised, of issuing injunctions and directions, of
commanding and enforcing by royal authority what a
more scrupulous age would have left to the ecclesiastical
power. It was the deep-rooted idea of the time. Abroad
it was shared by Catholic and Protestant, by Louis XIV.
and the Great Elector. At home the Parliament claimed
still more clearly than the Crown to interpret the union
between Church and State, and exercised the more
widely, as the King s power fell into abeyance, the
authority of the Sovereign Body over all estates of the
1 Col. State Papers, 1633-4, p. 212.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 69
realm. But Erastian though the temper of the age
was, and though the councillors of the Stuart kings
clung to theories of State supremacy to which bishops
like Laud did not yield, Charles did not consider that
the claim of the Crown involved any diminution of the
dignity of the Primate. Laud was specially directed,
at his translation, " to use all such ceremonies and offices,
and to carry himself with the same state and dignity,
and to assume such privileges and pre-eminences as
his predecessors in that see have ^used and enjoyed
heretofore." *
Assured of the royal support, and animated by a
keen desire to restore the Church to its high estate,
Laud, with his characteristic preference for practical
realities, turned at once to the restoration of order and
reverence in public worship.
"No one thing," he had said to the King in the
"Epistle Dedicatory" to his conference with Fisher, 2
" hath made conscientious men more wavering in their
own minds, or more apt and easy to be drawn aside
from the sincerity of religion professed in the Church
of England, than the want of uniform and decent
order in too many churches of the kingdom; and the
Romanists have been apt to say, the houses of God
could not be suffered to lie so nastily, as in some places
they have done, were the true worship of God observed
in them, or did the people think that such it were.
It is true, the inward worship of the heart is the great
service of God, and no service acceptable without it ;
but the external worship of God in His Church is the
great witness to the world, that our heart stands right
1 Gal. Stale Papers, 1633-4, p. 204.
2 Works, ii. xvi.
70 WILLIAM LAUD
in that service of God. Take this away, or bring it
into contempt, and what light is there left to shine
before men that they may see our devotion, and glorify
our Father which is in Heaven ? And .... these
thoughts are they, and no other, which have made me
labour so much as I have done for decency and an
orderly settlement of the external worship of God in
the Church ; for of that which is inward there can
be no witness among men nor no example for men.
Now, no external action in the world can be uniform
without some ceremonies; and these in religion, the
ancienter they be the better, so they may fit time and
place. Too many overburden the service of God, and
too few leave it naked. And scarce anything hath hurt
religion more in these broken times than an opinion
in too many men, that because Eome hath thrust some
unnecessary and many superstitious ceremonies upon
the Church, therefore the Reformation must have none
at all ; not considering there while, that ceremonies are
the hedge that fence the substance of religion from all
the indignities which profaneness and sacrilege too
commonly put upon it. And a great weakness it is,
not to see the strength which ceremonies things weak
enough in themselves, God knows add even to religion
itself."
It would be difficult to find a passage which more
accurately expresses the principles by which Laud
was guided in his action with regard to the external
order of the Church, or more conclusively acquits him
from the charges that have been brought against him
of a preference of the material to the spiritual aspect
of religion. " The inward service of the heart " appealed
as closely to him as to the sternest Puritan, but the
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 71
clearness of his mind and his practical knowledge of
men taught him not to ignore the casket while he
cherished the treasure which it preserved.
There is no ground for asserting that Laud assumed
" that the human mind could only be purified by sub
mission to a certain external order/ 1 or that he advo
cated " the pursuit of peace in preference to the pursuit
of truth." 2 Outward observances, " things weak enough
in themselves," were to him valuable only as safeguards
of the reverence with which every spiritual mind must
regard Divine things, and as evidences of that holy
awe and fear of the Lord which is the beginning of
wisdom. To him Crashaw s lines would seem to mark
the difference between the Puritan and the Anglican
conception of worship
" One stands up close and treads on high,
Where th other dares not bend his eye.
One nearer to God s altar trod,
The other to the altar s God."
To him spiritual things were not dim imaginations
but abiding realities, and the ineffable mysteries of
Divine love were made visible to the eye of faith.
Humbled to the dust by sin, and praying ever with
the tears of a penitent, he still delighted to think of
the glory of God, and to adore Him in all the dignity
and devotion of public worship. "Power and honour
are in His sanctuary." Laud could not shake off the
reverence of ages, or abandon the material helps in
I S. II. Gardiner, Hint. Eucjl, vii. 18.
a Ibid., p. 125. Mr. Gardiner continues " There was in his
mind no dim sense of the spiritual depths of life, no reaching
forward to ineffable mysteries veiled from the eye of flesh." I
think Laud s prayers show that his religion so permeated his life
that the " depths " were no longer " dim."
72 WILLIAM LAUD
which the Church had ever sought both to honour and
to draw nigh.
How far was the reality of worship in his day from
the ideal of dignity which he desired, is abundantly
evident. It might well be said that many of the
churches did " lie nastily." In some parts of England
the idea of reverence seemed altogether to have
departed. In Bedfordshire, for instance, it was charged
against the churchwardens of Knotting, that in 1634-36
fighting-cocks were brought into the chancel, and a
fight held before the altar, " in the presence of many
persons assembled as spectators of the sport, who betted
and laid wagers and performed the other offices ordin
arily used by cock-fighters. " It was stated that the
minister of the parish was himself present. 1 Instances
of irreverence even more gross may be found in the
literature of the time. If they seem incredible, it needs
but a slight acquaintance with the customs of some
Catholic nations at the present day to show that in
certain states of society such irreverence is not unusual.
When the sense of decency in Divine worship was
so far lost, it might have been expected that even the
most sacred things should be contemned. The altars,
which the iconoclasm of Edward VI. would have made
mere " oyster-boards," had in many cases been removed
from the chancels and placed in the body of the church,
but should, according to the injunctions of Elizabeth, have
been replaced " in the place where the altar stood . . .
so to stand saving when the Communion of the Sacra
ment is to be distributed ; at which time the same shall
be so placed within the chancel, as whereby the minister
may be more conveniently heard, and the communicants
1 Col. State Papers, 1637, preface (ccclxx. no. 90).
LAUD AND THE CHUKCH 73
also more conveniently and in more number com
municate with the said minister." Practical difficulties,
however, interfered with the constant moving of the
Holy Table, and thus in some churches it was always
left in the middle of the church, while in others, as in
the royal chapels and most of the cathedrals, it was
never moved from the east end.
Laud s love of regularity and order, if nothing else,
would have urged him to obtain the removal of the
altar to a permanent position at the east end. It is not
necessary to assert that he was actuated by the belief
in the doctrines of the Real Presence and the Eucharistic
Sacrifice, which he, like Andrewes, undoubtedly held, for
he was well aware that the position of the altar, as for
instance in churches of the basilican type at Rome and
elsewhere, did not affect the profession of any Catholic
doctrine. But practically the moving of the altar, and
still more the permanent position in the middle of the
church or the chancel, tended of necessity to irreverence.
In crowded churches the rough rustics laid their hats
and coats on it, and it shared in the general neglect
which carelessness and a false idea of opposition between
spiritual and external worship had engendered.
Laud s action at Gloucester, when he permanently
fixed the altar at the east end, and ordered that all
the officials should make reverence towards it as they
entered and left the church, was dictated primarily by
the desire to restore a spirit of reverence. Uniformity
and an obedience to Church order were secondary but
almost equally important motives. The canons required
that all should receive the Holy Sacrament kneeling ;
the custom of royal chapels and cathedrals justified the
bowing towards the altar as it did its position at the
74 WILLIAM LAUD
east end. " When this reverence is performed," said
Laud at his trial, " tis to God as to the Creator, and so
divine ; but tis only toward not to the altar."
In 1627 the questions which centred round the altar
had come into debate through the action of the vicar of
Grantham, who placed the Holy Table at the east end of
the choir. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, gave his decision
that it should be removed on occasion, according to the
injunctions. Himself in practice an indifferentist, with a
fondness for pomp, as the description of his own private
chapel shows, he was in doctrine opposed to the teaching
of Andrewes and Laud. He justified his order by a
condemnation of the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
In 1633 the question again became prominent. The
precedent set by Laud at Gloucester, or, to speak more
strictly, the usage of the royal chapels and the cathe
drals, had been generally followed, but there remained
many districts in which uniformity had not been
obtained. No general order was yet issued on the
subject, but when occasion arose the more dignified
position was required.
The church of S. Gregory, which was under the
jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of S. Paul s, had
been restored at the cost of 2000. The dean and
chapter, declaring that the altar had been irreverently
used, and that men " had not been ashamed to sit on
it, others to write, others to transact there other and
perhaps viler matter of business, distinguishing nothing
or little between the Lord s table and a plain or con
vivial table," directed that it should in future be placed
altarwise at the east end. Five of the parishioners
appealed to the Court of Arches. The King called the
suit into the Privy Council, because the Dean of Arches
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 75
was known to be prejudiced, and "certain to decide in
favour of the complainants." 1 After a long hearing
Charles declared that the decision of the Ordinary must
be obeyed. He pointed out that the objection of a few
parishioners, if allowed, might upset any settled order.
The complainants had perhaps wisely grounded their
case not upon Elizabeth s injunctions, the ecclesiastical
validity of which was questionable, but upon a liberty
allowed by the Prayer-Book and the Eighty-second
Canon. The question arose, to whom belonged the
liberty ? " For so much," said Charles, " as concerns the
liberty given by the said Common Prayer-Book or canon,
for placing the Communion table in any church or chapel
with most conveniency; that liberty is not so to be
understood as if it were ever left to the discretion of
the parish, much less to the particular fancy of any
humorous person, but to the judgment of the Ordinary." 2
Thus the dean and chapter, as ordinaries, won their
case. The decision was an obviously reasonable one.
But for some such court of appeal it would have been
impossible to preserve churches from the wilder
excesses of Congregationalism. The discretion in this,
as in other cases already provided, could best rest with
the Ordinary.
At the same time as this decision, in a case referred
to him from Leicester, Bishop Williams had again ordered
that the altar should remain at the east wall except
when used for the participation of the sacred mysteries.
His order did not in theory conflict with Charles s
judgment. In each case the ordinary acted as a court
1 Gardiner, Hist. Eugl., vii. p. 310 ; and Cat. State Papers,
October 18, 1633.
2 The act of the Privy Council is given in Gardiner, Con
stitutional Documents, pp. 35-37.
76 WILLIAM LAUD
of appeal. So matters remained until Laud as Primate
undertook a metropolitical visitation.
Established at Canterbury, with the full support of
the King, Laud determined upon a great effort to make
the English Church recognize and display its unity
through an uniformity of worship and ceremonial, which
its formularies undoubtedly contemplated, and which
only the leavening influence of foreign Protestantism
had disturbed.
Accordingly, at the beginning of 1634 he instituted
a visitation of all the dioceses of his province, under
taken after pre-Eeformation precedent, in right of his
metropolitan authority. The work was continued in
the two following years, and was placed in the hands
of his vicar-general, Sir Nathaniel Brent, 1 warden of
Merton College, Oxford, and afterwards of Sir John
Lambe, Dean of Arches. The articles for the visitation,
says Heylin, " had in them little more than ordinary,"
and this may be seen by reference to the many that
are preserved. They relate chiefly in the case of
cathedrals to the requirements of the capitular
statutes, and in the case of parish churches to the
orders of the Prayer-Book and canons. "But he had
given directions," continues Heylin, 2 "to his Vicar-
General to inquire into the observation of his Majesty s
instructions of the year 1629, to command the said
churchwardens to place the Communion table under the
eastern wall of the chancel, where formerly the altar
stood; to set a decent rail before it to avoid profane-
ness ; and at the rails the communicants to receive the
1 It appears from Heylin that at one time it was intended that
he should be a joint commissioner, but afterwards the idea was
abandoned. Cypr. Anglic., p. 285. 2 Ibid.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 77
Blessed Sacrament." It was this general order, which
needs no justification at the present day, and which was
then urgently required in the interests of decency and
reverence, the enforcement of which was the most
permanent result of the visitation, since it gave the
rule which has ever since been observed. It was a
definite assertion of the place of the altar, and not the
pulpit, as the centre of worship in the English Church.
As such it was taken by the Puritans, as such resisted,
and as such charged against Laud at his trial. Nor did
he ever refuse to meet his opponents on this ground.
" Mr. Brown, 1 in his summary charge, pressed this
against me. I answered as before, and added that in
all ages of the Church the touchstone of religion was
not to hear the word preached but to communicate.
And at this day many will come and hear sermons, who
yet will not receive the Communion together. And as I
call the Holy Table the greatest place of God s residence
on earth, so doth a late learned divine of this Church
[Thorndike] call the celebration of the Eucharist the
crown of public service, and the most solemn and chief
work of Christian assemblies/ " He had said, and he
stood to it, that " the altar is the greatest place of God s
residence upon earth, greater than the pulpit, for there
tis Hoc est Corpus Meum, this is My Body ; but in the
other it is at most but Hoc est Verlum Meum, This is
My Word ; and a greater reverence is due to the Body,
than the Word, of the Lord."
The removal of the altars seems to have been carried
out during the visitation without much opposition.
There were occasional protests, but on the whole the
change was peaceably adopted. The parishioners of
1 Works, iv. 284.
78 WILLIAM LAUD
All Hallows, Barking, 1 petitioned the Archbishop that
the Holy Table recently removed by their vicar might
be restored to its place. The churchwardens of Beek-
ington also appealed to him against the decision of the
Bishop of Bath and Wells. 2 But these seem to have
been exceptional cases. However strong may have
been the feeling of Puritanism, it did not immediately
betray itself.
The work of the visitation was, however, by no
means confined to the regulation of the position of the
altars. The notes written by Laud for the instruction
of Sir Nathaniel Brent cover a large field of ecclesias
tical law and usage, both " general " and " particular."
Schools were no longer to be kept in the chancel of a
church ; fonts were to be restored to their ancient place ;
chancels " severed from the church or other ways pro
faned" were to be altered; strict inquiry was to be
made into " peculiars " held by prebendaries or by lay
persons.
In the parish churches, as a rule, besides the removal,
where necessary, of the altars, no changes were made,
and no requirements were stated beyond those of an
ordinary episcopal visitation. In the cathedrals, on the
other hand, the demands were more extensive. The
perennial difficulty of episcopal contest over capitular
bodies had by no means disappeared at the Reforma
tion. The statutes by which the chapters were bound
were very frequently evaded. Laud had no tolerance
for such breach of rule. As Archbishop and visitor he
could exercise a control which had been impossible to
the bishops. Of the minuteness of the inquiries which
1 Cal State Papers, Dom., 1637-8, p. 67.
2 Prynne, Canterburie s Doome, p. 97.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 79
his metropolitical visitation involved, and of the curious
answers which were elicited, the records of the Salisbury
inquiry, preserved among the papers of the House of
Lords, 1 afford a characteristic illustration. The questions
start from the ancient obligations of the cathedral
officers " Whether have you any ancient laws, statutes,
or ordinances .... whereby your church is governed,
and who is accompted to be first author or founder of
them, and whether have they been altered or changed
at any time ? " He is careful to assert the continuity
of the obligations ; there is indeed no reference to any
Reformation changes in the articles of inquiry. The
statutory residence, the duty of private hospitality, the
preaching of sermons, the management of cathedral
property, especially in the matter of leases, the minis
tration of Sacraments, the teaching and training of the
choir, the private worthiness of the ministers, the
attendance at the daily morning and evening services
these are the questions which were pressed by Sir
Nathaniel Brent upon the officials of each degree. The
answers reveal a curious medley of personal quarrels
and indifferent performances of duty. " We have been
defective, but we will amend," is the burden of many a
reply. The choristers were not taught as they should
be, nor "well ordered and instructed in the art of
singing." Most of the prebendaries answer, as it is
still the custom to answer all official questionings, as
briefly as may be, and with care rather to conceal than to
impart information. But here and there a little per
sonal spite brings one prebendary or another into an
angry prolixity which throws a flood of light on the
management of cathedrals at the time when Laud was
1 Printed in Wiltshire Notes and Queries, nos. 1 3.
80 WILLIAM LAUD
determined to make them worthy centres and represent
atives of the highest worship. Dr. Se ward s household
causes scandal : Mr. Edward Thornborough " spends too
much for his ease with too little discretion " : the
" vergerers " neglect their duties : " our book of ancient
statutes is neither punctually observed nor indeed ac
knowledged by most of us to be of any power. Answer
will be made, we are sworn to customs as well as
statutes and customs we make and break according to
our ease or profit."
Laud s register contains many other examples of
minute inquiry, and the answers, with the injunctions
issued in consequence, reveal curious cases of neglect of
duty. At Lincoln, for instance, the altar was " not very
decent/ and the rail was worse. The organs were " old
and naught." The copes and vestments had been
embezzled, and worse irregularities appeared to be not
uncommon. 1
The defects revealed by the visitation gave occasion
for further inquiry and correspondence with the bishops
and chapters. Thus in 1635 we find Laud writing to
the Chapter of Wells in the case of Mr. Warde and his
residence, which had been submitted to him by the
King. 2 Bishops such as Mountague welcomed his
interference, and frequently solicited his aid in such
matters as non-residence. Mr. Hickes would not per
form his canonical duties in Chichester Cathedral,
wrote Mountague, but sent as substitutes "whom he
can get, sometime good, sometime bad, any riff-raff,
whom he can light upon, shifters, Nonconformists,
curates, young boys, Puritans, as the whole city hath
1 Gal State Papers, Dom., Sept. 9, 1634.
2 Hist. MSS. Comm. Report X., App., pt. 4, p. 258.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 81
often spoken against it." l Some years before he had
been kept informed of the case of Peter Smart, Pre
bendary of Durham, who had protested vigorously
against the order of the Cathedral service, and the use
of the vestments required by the canons of 1604, and
had been deprived of his prebend. 2 It does not appear
that he actively interfered, but his influence was known
to be on the side of Cosin the Dean. Such changes as
were carried out seemed to be acceptable to the people,
for Bishop Howson, writing to Laud in 1630, declared
that the people, after their own parochial services which
were early, " came by troops to the cathedral." 3
In all these matters it does not appear that Laud
advocated any extravagant changes, or that he con
sciously wandered beyond the orders and formularies of
the Church. The charges of " popery " which were
brought against him, if they were not equally applicable
to the framers of the Prayer-Book and canons, fell
within very narrow limits. The use of his private
chapel, his manner of consecrating a church, the wearing
of the ancient vestments, these were not great matters,
and in one of them at least he had direct warrant.
Indeed he did not even go so far as the Prayer-Book
ordered, for his " ornaments " were far below the re
quirements of the second year of King Edward VI.
At his trial he was charged with the use of " organs,
candlesticks, a picture of a history at the back of the
altar, and copes at communions and consecrations." He
replied, " First, these things have been in use ever since
1 Mountague to Laud, Jan. 16, 1632.
- Wentworth applied to Laud to use his influence to obtain the
vacant prebend for his chaplain, Dr. Carr. Gal. State Papers,
Dom., Oct. 3, 1630.
3 Cal. State Papers, Dom., March 17, 1631.
G
82 WILLIAM LAUD
the Reformation. And secondly .... it was in my
chapel as it was at White-hall : no difference. And
it is not to be thought, that Queen Elizabeth and King
James would have endured them all their time in their
own chapel had they been introductions for Popery.
And for copes, they are allowed at times of communion
by the canons of the Church."
The use of his own chapel again seams to have been
extremely simple, for his accusers could only charge
him with having painted windows, and consecrating the
new vessels for use at the Eucharist, and with allowing
a " crucifix " in the glass and on the hangings. Some
thing more elaborate appeared in the ceremonial
adopted at the consecration of the Church of S.
Catherine Cree. Prynne grotesquely mocked at it in
Canterbwrie s Doomc. 1 There was the singing of the
24th Psalm, and sundry " bowings, duckings, and cring
ings," and much reverence at the altar : but Laud was
able to answer that he did not follow the " Pontifical,
but a copy of learned and reverend Bishop Andrewes."
All these things in the light of modern controversies
may seem small matters to warrant a capital charge,
and indeed as we read the records of the time we may
marvel at Laud s moderation. It would be absurd to
use against him the angry language which has been
showered upon modern " ritualists." The most timid of
latitudinarians has in these days gone beyond him.
But still, however absurd their objections to particular
actions, the Puritans were right in recognizing his posi
tion as one of irreconcilable antagonism to their own.
The battle-ground changes as the years go on, but the
warfare is still the same. Laud, with all his modera-
1 P. 115 sqq.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 83
tion, was firm in his adherence to the old paths. The
position of the altar, the surplice, the cope, the stated
forms of prayer which the ages had allowed, were links
to the primitive and undivided body. The orders and
formularies of his own Church seemed, at the worst,
never to have severed Anglicanism from historic
Christianity. There were safeguards too as well as
links, and to these he clung as a soldier fallen into
an ambush of his foes.
It was this feeling, romantic and emotional as well
as practical, bringing with it beautiful memories, and
binding the ages of English devotion each to each by
natural piety, that appealed so forcibly to contemporaries
whose lives were very different from his own. Cosin s
book of devotions, designed to provide the English
ladies of the Court with as near a companion in the
religious life as the French ladies of the Queen possessed,
was, we may almost say, compiled under Laud s influence.
Saints and ascetics as well as scholars and statesmen
confided to him their hopes and their designs.
How readily the best devotion then nurtured in
England looked to him as its head may be seen by the
example of the leader of the revival of the religious
life in the English Church. Nicholas Ferrar, who
had been Fellow of Clare, Cambridge, a prominent
member of the Council of the Virginia Company, and
active among the popular party in Parliament when he
sat for Lymington, had settled at Little Gidding, and
ordered his household on the lines of a home of pious
seclusion. When he determined to seek Ordination a
desire which he kept secret even from his mother and
his dearest friends it was to Laud that he applied, and
was by him that he was ordained deacon on Trinity
84 WILLIAM LAUD
Sunday, 1G25. The house at Little Gidding, with its
beautiful asceticism and its tender simplicity, its life of
rule and of devotion, was under Laud s sanction. It
was by him when he was Archbishop that John Ferrar
was presented to the King when he bought the rich
concordance which Charles ever after read daily. Gid-
ding, said the Archbishop, should be called no longer
Parva but Magna. In 1640 the young Nicholas went
to Lambeth with his father. Laud " embraced him
very lovingly," and said of the books he brought, " they
were jewels for princes." The account which John
Ferrar gives of his interview with the Archbishop, and
his great kindness to the bright boy, is a beautiful
picture of the true piety and gentleness of Laud s nature.
" Nicholas Ferrar kneeling down took the Bishop by the
hand and kissed it. He took him up in his arms and
laid his hand on his cheek, and earnestly besought God
Almighty to bless him, and increase all grace in him,
and fit him every day more and more for an instrument
of His glory here upon earth and a saint in heaven,
which, said he, is the only happiness that can be
desired, and ought to be our chief end in all our actions.
God bless you ! God bless you ! I have told your
father what is to be done for you after the holidays.
God will provide for you better than your father can.
God bless you and keep you. So they parted from his
Grace."
A Little Gidding book, which Laud gave to his old
college, is still one of the choicest treasures of S.
John s.
It was to Laud also that George Herbert owed the
final direction of his life. His influence touched the
gallant young scholar at the very crisis of his hesitation,
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 85
when he was doubting whether to serve the King, with
every prospect of the highest preferment, or to accept
the offer of the little country parish of Bemerton, and
give his life to God and the poor. Pembroke told Laud
of his kinsman s irresolution ; and he, says Isaac Walton,
"did the next day so convince Mr. Herbert that the
refusal of it was a sin, that a tailor was sent for to come
speedily from Salisbury to Wilton, to take measure and
make him canonical clothes against next day." It must
never be forgotten that it was Laud s influence which
gave to the English Church the work of George
Herbert and of Chillingworth, while it ratified the very
different services of John Hales and Nicholas Ferrar.
But Laud s services to the Church were material as
well as spiritual. It was his aim to make the clergy the
equals of the gentry to whom it was their duty to
minister. The " lecturers," who lived upon benefactions
which inevitably tended to make them the preachers of
doctrines insisted upon by their patrons, and those
generally of a particular school, the domestic chap
lains whose position was too often a disgrace to
themselves and those with whom they lived, were
restricted and confined by his action in every possible
way. He decided to bring all under rule, but to make
all worthy to command. So long as the clergy were
impoverished and lived from hand to mouth on the
doles of those whose fathers had robbed the Church,
it was impossible that their status should be any higher
than that of the colourless clergy that swarmed in the
lands where the Reformation had made no way. Thus,
as in Ireland he obtained the impropriations from the
Crown for the Church, in England he endeavoured
constantly to restore to the clergy the endowments of
86 WILLIAM LAUD
which the Church had been deprived. At the same
time he strenuously resisted any attempt to turn these
endowments to the service of a particular faction, and
the scheme to endow Puritan preaching by the purchase
of impropriations was at once suppressed by his hand. 1
The great London church was always very near his
heart. It was through him that " Paules " ceased to be
the haunt of thieves and profligates, and the meeting-
place for tramps and swashbucklers. He organized
collections in every diocese for the restoration of the
fabric. He spent over 1200 himself on the work. He
obtained the grant of the fines in the High Commission
Court to the same object. He worked incessantly, and
aroused often the keenest animosity by his eagerness
for the removal of the houses that trenched upon the
cathedral. The King aided him, and Inigo Jones
built the extraordinary portico which was tacked on to
the great medieval cathedral. The State papers are
full of records of sums drawn from all over England,
and the total cost of the work performed was over
100,000. It was a great undertaking, worthy of the
medieval and renaissance bishops, who delighted in
building, and it well illustrates Laud s aim to revive the
dignity and magnificence of the Church.
It is difficult, as we look through the mass of literature
that entombs the history of Laud s work for the Church,
to disentangle the threads, and to present any clear
image which adequately represents the extent of his
multifarious activity. Perhaps we may see it most
clearly in the yearly reports of his province which
he submitted to the King. We possess the accounts of
the years 1633-39, with the King s notes, a curious
1 See Canterburies Doome, p. 385 sqq.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 87
record of the fellow-work of sovereign and minister.
They are concerned with matters the most minute, as
well as with more general principles, the observance of
statutes, the existence or growth of nonconformity or
recusancy, excommunications, non-residence, the asser
tion of episcopal control. They show the eagerness, the
restlessness, of Laud s oversight, and they illustrate again
and again the difficulties with which he had to contend.
Ignorance, indifference, vice, were his great foes ; and
he had to withstand the opposition also of men as able,
if not as determined, as himself. As in the State he
found Cottington and Windebanke opponents, if not
rivals, in the Church he had to deal with Williams and
Goodman.
Williams was a man of great capacity and worldly
wisdom. As Lord-Keeper, he had won the respect of
many of the lawyers, though Clarendon says he was
" most generally abominated." During the last year of
James I. s reign, he had occupied a very prominent
position, but Charles appears always to have entertained
for him a rooted dislike, and Buckingham became
eventually his bitter enemy. 1 It was natural that a
man so ambitious, and one who had held so high a place,
should resent his dismissal from office and the order to
reside in his diocese, and should dislike the man whom
the King and favourite delighted to honour in his stead.
Anything of rancour in Laud towards Williams is not
to be discovered in his public action or in the corre
spondence between them which he so carefully preserved,
and which may still be seen at Lambeth, Williams s
letters carefully endorsed in Laud s own hand with date
and subject. It was rather Charles s dislike and
1 Gardiner, vol. viii. pp. 250, 390.
88 WILLIAM LAUD
Williams s shiftiness, with the stress and tumult of the
times, that brought the two men into conflict. Williams
had been charged with revealing the King s secrets
contrary to his oath as councillor, and later, on clear
evidence, of subornation of perjury. 1 The scandal of
such an offence in a bishop made a heavy penalty not
unnatural. He was to be imprisoned during the King s
pleasure, fined 10,000, and, by the Court of High
Commission, suspended from the exercise of his functions.
The sentence, considering the punishments of the time,
was not severe, and it was natural that all those who
highly regarded the clerical office should not visit the
offence lightly. Laud himself voted for the penalty as
it was inflicted, and his speech leaves no doubt of the
reasons which influenced him. It was above all things
necessary to preserve the highest standard of honour
among the clergy. The mendacity of Williams was
unhappily notorious, and the flagrant case brought
before the courts was an occasion which could not be
passed by. But the scandal was none the less felt.
" We have adversaries too many amongst ourselves,"
said Laud, "but this day s work opens a way for the
Romanists to take advantage by it, to see so eminent
a person as a bishop, and so eminent a bishop as he,
to become thus censurable in a thing of so high a
nature." 2 Laud s own conduct was throughout most
generous to Williams. " I have been/ he stated, " five
several times on my knees to the King my master on
his behalf," and their correspondence shows that he
" dealt truly and really " in the matter.
Two years later, Williams was again sentenced in the
1 See Gardiner, vol. viii. p. 250 sqq.
2 Speech at the trial (Works, vi. 71),
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 89
Star Chamber in connection with letters found in his
house in which were very evident allusions to Laud as
"the little meddling hocus-pocus/ and "the little
urchin." In this case again it is clear that Williams
perjured himself. When we add to this record the
immortal infamy of which he was guilty in advising
Charles that his public conscience might justly allow
Strafford to suffer, while his private conscience acquitted
him, we cannot feel for Williams anything but con
temptuous repugnance. He refused the offer of pardon
and a bishopric in Wales or Ireland if he would
acknowledge his fault and withdraw his book on the
Altar. He remained to be Laud s foe to the last. 1
Williams was a man of strong character. Goodman,
Bishop of Gloucester, was weak and shallow. He
appears for a long time, according to Panzani, to have
been a Roman Catholic, while continuing to hold his
bishopric. He was greedy and avaricious, and his
intrigue and vacillation brought grave scandal upon his
profession. Laud s correspondence shows the opinion
he had of him : but they did not come into open con
flict till the Convocation of 1640, when Goodman
refused to sign the canons, which included a strong
declaration against Romanism. He was at once sus
pended, and afterwards committed to the Tower for
entering into negotiations with Rome. He died a
Papist.
Two further points remain to be considered, which
illustrate Laud s theory of the constitutional position of
1 See, on the affair of Williams, his correspondence with Laud
(vol. vi. of Laud s Works) ; Gardiner, vol. viii. pp. 250 sqq. and 390 ;
and Perry, History of the Church of England, vol. i. p. 532 sqq.
Laud s letter offering terms is Lambeth MS. 1030, fol. 68 b.
90 WILLIAM LAUD
the Church, and his use of the system which he found
in practical working.
The position of the Church as a separate Estate, with
its own privileges, powers, and duties, was evidenced by
the continuance of the ancient Convocations of Canter
bury and York, which met by the royal summons at the
time of each session of Parliament, voted supplies from
the clerical estate, and by royal licence passed canons
which had for the clergy the force of law. So long as
Crown, Church, and Parliament worked together with
out important divergence, Convocation fulfilled no very
important function, and entered very slightly, if at all,
into questions of national interest. Elizabeth preserved
the power of the legislative assembly of the Church
unfettered by Parliamentary control, and subsequent
legislation left Convocation legally subject to royal
authority alone. 1 Its position appeared generally to be
of little importance, judged from the standpoint of the
State : it was an historical survival which was not likely
to come prominently before the public view. The
difficulties of Charles, the opposition of the Parliament,
and the loyalty of Laud, changed all this. Convocation
suddenly intervened in the midst of a political crisis,
and by the assertion of its constitutional but rarely
used powers tended to accentuate the difference and
precipitate the contest between Crown and Parliament.
On April 13, 1640, Parliament met, and at once
plunged into the discussion of the grave political
questions on which the Commons were determined to
resist the arbitrary government of Charles. Ship-
money, grievances, the ecclesiastical " innovations," the
fundamental differences that were becoming patent to
1 Prothero, Select Statutes Eliz. and James I., p. xxxv.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 91
all these came up in turn, and the Commons, in spite
of Lords and Crown, would grant no supplies till these
great matters were settled. " Till the liberties of the
House and Kingdom were cleared, they knew not
whether they had anything to give or no." Angry
debates, the impossibility of compromise, the bold
advice of Stafford, brought about the dissolution, and
on May 5 the Short Parliament ceased to sit. Con
vocation had already sounded the note of opposi
tion, which showed on what side the clergy would
stand in the war which was growing daily nearer. On
April 22 it had unanimously granted six subsidies,
20,000 a year for six years, a generous contri
bution to the national finances which declared that
the Church approved while the Commons condemned
the system of government to which Charles was com
mitted. When Parliament was dissolved, the question
at once arose as to whether Convocation could legally
continue to sit. Laud had taken care to obtain the
licence to enact canons, 1 which had since 1604 2 been
omitted, and it was his special purpose to establish his
ecclesiastical policy by the highest ecclesiastical sanc
tion, and to present to the Parliament which claimed
to control the Church the constitutional opposition of
a united and legally recognized Estate.
The greatest stress was laid upon the constitutional
force of the royal letters patent. " 1 . To reform what
Convocation shall find necessary, or to put in practice
disused canons needful for this time ... 2. To satisfy
the Parliament in such things as they have found, but
now more than ever pretend, to stand in need of reform-
1 Cal State Papers, Dow., Apr. 15, 1G40.
2 Ibid., Apr. 12, p. 24.
92 WILLIAM LAUD
ation in the service or discipline of the Church. It is
easier for the clergy to cure their own wounds than to
leave them in the hands of strangers. 3. For the
assurance of all Churchmen, who either personally or
representatively appear in Convocation, that the King
expects them in some way, viz. in making laws, and
that they do not only meet to give away their own and
their brethren s money." 1 The paper of advice in which
this passage occurs reveals an almost pathetic ignorance
of the dangers with which the Church was beset. It
appears to have seemed sufficient to Laud that he was
supported by the Crown and had constitutional right.
Policy or political expediency did not enter into the
problem. Convocation had been summoned to do
certain work, and there was no reason why it should be
left undone because Parliament was dissolved. Laud
seems to have doubted the legality of the continued
session, but a reference to the lawyers settled the
question. >," The Convocation being called by the
King s writ, under the Great Seal, doth continue until
it be dissolved by writ or commission under the Great
Seal, notwithstanding that Parliament be dissolved."
A few days later, by special writs, the Convocations
were continued during pleasure. Thus the consti
tutional rights of Convocation were vindicated. The
exercise of the powers recognized was, however, a
matter of greater importance. The Convocations
proceeded to enact canons concerning " the regal
power for suppressing the growth of popery," against
" Socinians," against " sectaries " (" well knowing
that there are other sects which endeavour the sub
version both of the doctrine and discipline of the
. 1 Cal State Papers, Dom., Apr. 12, 1640, p. 24.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 93
Church of England no less than the papists do "), with
other less important matters, and with two more
prominent enactments which aroused the greatest op
position. The doctrine of the royal power enunciated
in the first canon may more fitly be considered in
relation to Laud s political opinions. There remains
the declaration concerning rites, and the " etcaetera
oath." l
The seventh canon professes to be based on the
obvious desirability that " uniformity of practice in the
outward worship and service of God " should accompany
unity of faith. It proceeds to declare that the position
of the " Communion table sideway under the east
window of every chancel or chapel is in its own nature
indifferent," but, quoting the injunctions of Elizabeth
and the practice of the royal chapels and of "most
cathedral and some parochial churches," goes on to
"judge it fit and convenient that all churches and
chapels do conform themselves in this particular to the
example of the cathedral or mother churches, saving
always the general liberty left to the bishop by law,
during the administration of the Holy Communion.
And we declare that this situation of the Holy Table
doth not imply that it is or ought to be esteemed a
true and proper altar wherein Christ is again really
sacrificed ; but it is, and it may be called an altar by us
in that sense in which the primitive Church called it an
altar, and in no other." The statement is studiously
moderate. It does no more, indeed, than give to Eliza
beth s injunctions the force of canonical law. It does
not even prohibit the removal of the altar during the
1 The canons, with the royal declaration, are given in Laud s
Works, v. 607 sqq.
94 WILLIAM LAUD
celebration of the Eucharist. Its aim is rather authori
tatively to justify the action already taken by Laud s
metropolitical visitation, and to express more widely
than might otherwise be possible the general feeling of
the Church s constitutional assembly in favour of uni
formity. The significance of the doctrinal declaration
must not of course be exaggerated. Its point lies in
the words, "wherein Christ is again really sacrificed"
which mark the English rejection of popular Roman
teaching already condemned in the thirty-first article as
"blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits." The
primitive and Catholic doctrine is expressly reserved
by the statement that the term " altar " is used in the
sense which the primitive Church attached to the
word.
The canon goes on to direct that the altars should
be "severed with rails" to preserve them from profana
tion, and that communicants shall " draw near and
approach to the Holy Table, there to receive the divine
mysteries " which are no longer to be carried " up and
down by the minister," except in special cases by
direction of the Ordinary, an exception still preserved
at Christ Church, Oxford.
Lastly, it is adjudged " very meet and behoveful " that
all good people should make reverence at coming in
or going out of church " not," it is carefully stated,
" upon any opinion of a corporal presence of the Body
of Jesus Christ on the Holy Table or in the mystical
elements, but only for the advancement of God s Majesty,
and to give Him alone that honour and glory that is
due unto Him and no otherwise," a provision which
again is based upon the Prayer-Book, and rejects only
the gross and carnal conception of the Real Presence
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 95
which the Catholic Church has ever condemned. It is
characteristic of the conciliatory temper in which these
canons were framed that the passage concludes with a
plea for mutual forbearance and chanty. " In the
practice or omission of this rite " (viz. of bowing) " we
desire that the rule of charity prescribed by the Apostle
may be observed, which is, that they which use this
rite despise not them who use it not, and that they
who use it not condemn not those that use it."
It is possible that so far the canons might have
passed without much public comment. But it was the
unhappy fashion of the age to delight to confirm its
opinions by oaths. So the House of Commons, under
Pym s direction, had done and Laud regarded their
action as a deliberate challenge : l so the Scots had
done in their Covenant. It was natural that the Church
should desire to have an oath from its supporters, as
the national party in the Commons had from theirs.
An oath was drawn up which was to be taken by all
persons in holy orders, school-masters, and graduates
(except sons of noblemen). It ran as follows
" I, A. B., do swear that I do approve the doctrine, and
discipline, or government established in the Church of
England as containing all things necessary to salvation :
and that I will not endeavour by myself or any other,
directly or indirectly, to bring in any popish doctrine,
contrary to that which is so established : nor will I ever
give my consent to alter the government of this Church
by archbishops, bishops, deans, and archdeacons, &c., as
it stands now established, and as by right it ought to
1 See Declaration, Gal State Papers. Dom., Jan. 29, 1629,
endorsed by Laud, "the Challenge of the Lower House in
Matters of Keligion."
96 WILLIAM LAUD
stand, nor yet ever to subject it to the usurpations and
superstitions of the See of Rome. And all these things
I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge and swear,
according to the plain and common sense and under
standing of the same words, without any equivocation,
or mental evasion, or secret reservation whatsoever.
And this I do heartily, willingly, and truly, upon the
faith of a Christian. So help me God in Jesus Christ."
Unobjectionable as the terms of the oath might be,
its form exposed it to the most damaging criticism.
" Etcaetera " was at once denounced and ridiculed.
What might it not cover ? And how swear to support
what even Convocation could not specify ? It seems to
have been a mere blunder. Heylin, who was very
prominent in the Convocation, says the &c. was merely
inserted to avoid repetition of a long string of officials,
and was retained by carelessness when the King pressed
for a rapid conclusion of the session. If a blunder, it was
a most unfortunate one. It turned the laugh against the
Church: and those who did not laugh thought that some
popish treachery lurked behind the innocent phrases
of the oath. A formidable agitation sprang up, joined
even by the orthodox clergy. In a few weeks the
Archbishop, by the King s order, directed that the oath
should be " forborne . . . till the next ensuing Con
vocation." It was the first time Laud had abandoned
a position he had taken up in Church matters. It was
the beginning of the end.
If Convocation, a body to all seeming harmless
enough, could thus stir popular feeling, how much more
readily would indignation be aroused against the Court
of High Commission !
Whatever may be said as to the disuse of the con-
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 97
stitutional powers of Convocation, no such objection
can be urged against the High Commission. 1 It was
fenced round and about by law. It had warrant for all
its actions. It was the growth of no antique system of
privilege, the expression of no separate right, It was
a modern creation, the work of Parliament, and that
almost within the memory of men living when Laud
became Primate. " The group of Courts held by virtue
of royal commissions issued under the Act of Supre
macy" was by the time of Charles I. for all practical
purposes, and except on special occasions, resolved into
that " Court of High Commission " which sat in London.
The duty of the Court was, especially, to enforce the
Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity : but in other points
it trenched upon the provinces of the ancient eccle
siastical courts, which its action tended practically to
supersede. Constitutionally the bishops should have
acted in their own courts, and according to the rules of
ecclesiastical law. Practical convenience, however, and
the strong pressure of the State, which could exercise a
much more direct control over the newly-created court
than over those which were not tied down by recent
statutes, made the High Commission assume the position
of the most prominent, if not the only important, tribunal
for the trial of ecclesiastical offences. It was an attempt
at a short cat towards the reformation of abuses. It
stood side by side with the Star Chamber and the
Court of Requests. But the good accomplished was
dearly purchased by the violation of constitutional right
1 I cannot but refer to the extremely lucid and thorough
account of the legal and constitutional position of this Court
given by Professor Prothero, Statutes and Documents) &c., p.
xl. sqq.
H
98 WILLIAM LAUD
involved in its original creation, and the unpopularity
which its procedure cast upon the Church at large.
Under Laud s primacy it proceeded against those
offenders whose opinions were most strong in Parlia
ment : nor would the lawyers, who led the party through
which it was finally overthrown, ever pardon the initial
infringement of constitutional balance inseparable from
its existence. It was the foe of the Puritans and the
bugbear of the Common Lawyers. And its creation
was an unconstitutional encroachment on the rights of
the clergy. These facts are sufficient to account for the
general delight at its abolition. It is not necessary to
invent any charges of extreme or illegal severity against
its action, or to talk of a " policy of rack and thumb
screw." Probably no human institution has ever been
more irrationally, or more untruthfully, attacked.
Happily we have sufficient evidence to enable us to
form, as Mr. Gardiner has done, an unbiassed and
judicial conclusion as to its methods and its defects.
Its great defects were, in an exaggerated form, those
of the other law courts of the day. They were, chiefly,
the exercise of the " ex-officio oath," by which persons
could be required to give evidence, in certain cases,
against themselves, and the general style of browbeat
ing and unfairness in the treatment of evidence which
seems to us to be the characteristic of all the tribunals
of the time. But in particular cases it is difficult to
condemn the sentences given.
Happily we are able to judge of the general working
of the court from the Act books, covering two years and
three months, which have been preserved. " It should
be remembered," says Mr. Gardiner, 1 who has made a
1 Hist. Engl, vol. x. p. 224.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 99
classified list of the cases, " that these years begin very
shortly after Laud s accession to the archbishopric, and
they are therefore exactly the years in which the action
of the court would be likely to be most vigorous."
It will be well to examine the cases in some detail.
During this period only two clergymen were sentenced
to deposition from the ministry; the one for a grave
moral offence, the other for teaching that Saturday
should be observed as the sabbath. The sentence in
the latter case was on submission wholly remitted.
Only four were sentenced to be deprived of their
benefices and suspended from the exercise of their
functions. The sentence of one of these, which was
inflicted for nonconformity, was changed to suspension
on his consenting to discuss his difficulties with his
bishop, and it seems probable that it was eventually
remitted. Another was guilty of dishonesty. The two
others were condemned for reviling their parishioners :
their suspensions were removed, in one case within six,
in the other within eighteen, months.
Lastly, eight were suspended. Of these, one was
allowed before long to resume his ministry, and another
was wholly pardoned. Of the others, only three cases
could be open to objection on any ground. John How
was condemned for praying that the Prince of Wales
" might not be brought up in Popery, whereof there
is great cause to fear," George Burdett for preaching
against the ceremonies, and Samuel Ward for a similar
offence. It is obvious that no charge of undue severity
can be based on these cases. If the Church was to
have any discipline at all, some sanction must be
attached to the acts of her constituted authorities.
Judged by these sentences, the Court of High Com-
100 WILLIAM LAUD
mission compares very favourably with any other court
of the time.
The test may, however, be carried further. Among
the mass of cases of which we have some knowledge
there stand out those of Leighton, Chauncy, Ward,
Barnard, Sir Giles Alington, and Lady Eleanor Davies.
Leighton, whose bitter animosity against Laud has
made his name famous in the annals of Nonconformity,
was degraded by the High Commission before the cruel
sentence of the Star Chamber was carried out. This
was a natural consequence of the sentence in the
other court. Chauncy had denounced the railing in of
the altar in the church at Ware, of which he had
formerly been minister. He " spoke reproachful words
against authority, and in contempt of his Ordinary . . .
and said that the rails were fit to be set up in
his garden ; that he came fifty miles from his own
church on purpose to countenance this business. And
all this he acknowledges upon his oath in his sub
mission." l In his case the sentence of suspension was
wholly remitted. Samuel Ward, whose subsequent
career showed him to be a convinced opponent of the
historic teaching of the Church, was sentenced to sus
pension for contemning the Book of Common Prayer. 2
He was committed to prison as contumacious, for
declining to acknowledge the truth of the charges
against him. His case is the most hard of those that
have been preserved, for he appears to have been con
demned simply for the violence of his criticism of the
Laudian order. It was said that he had declared " that
1 Laud s Works, iv. 232.
2 So Land s Works, v. 331. Cf. Prynne, Cant. Doome, p. 361 ;
Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1635-6, preface.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 101
a parrot might be instructed to repeat set forms, and
that an ape might be taught to bow and gesticulate."
But language such as this was certainly calculated, if
not intended, to bring the Church into contempt; and
it was not unnatural that the court should suspend
him from the exercise of functions on which he seems
to have set such little store.
Barnard 1 was severely sentenced, on the accusation
of the pious and gentle Comber, Master of Trinity, for
a sermon in which he categorically accused the leaders
of the English Church of symbolizing with Rome, and
declared that no Roman Catholic could be saved.
The cases of the laity were different. Fines and
censures were awarded for open and ribald denunciation
of Church ceremony or for sacrilegious acts such as
that of Sherfield at Salisbury, but the great majority
of the cases with which the court was concerned
were moral offences. And in this Laud was un
questionably the prime mover. " If the faults and
vices were fit to be looked into and discovered," says
Clarendon, in one of his most luminous passages, "let
the persons be who they would that were guilty of them,
they were sure to find no connivance or favour from
him. He intended the discipline of the Church should
be felt, as well as spoken of, and that it should be
applied to the greatest and most splendid transgressors
as well as to the punishment of smaller offences and
meaner offenders; and thereupon called for or cherished
the discovery of those who were not careful to cover
their own iniquities, thinking they were above the
1 His case is given in Prynne, Cant. Doome, p. 3G4 sqq., Lut it
is difficult to rely upon its accuracy ; and in Laud s Works, iv.
302.
102 WILLIAM LAUD
reach of other men, or their power or will to chastise.
Persons of honour and great quality, of the Court and
of the country, were every day cited into the High
Commission Court, upon the fame of their incontin
ence, or other scandal in their lives, and were there
prosecuted to their shame and punishment : and as
the shame (which they called an insolent triumph upon
their degree and quality, and levelling them with the
common people) was never forgotten, but watched for
revenge, so the fines imposed there were the more
questioned and repined against, because they were
assigned to the rebuilding and repairing of S. Paul s
church, and thought therefore to be the more severely
imposed, and the less compassionately reduced and
excused."
" In questions relating to marriage the court
straggled," says Mr. Gardiner, "against every kind
of opposition, to uphold the standard of a high
morality." Frances Coke, the wife of Buckingham s
coarse and half-witted brother, Lord Purbeck, had left
him, and lived in adultery with Sir Robert Howard.
The High Commission issued an order for a separation,
and enjoined upon the lady a public penance. She
evaded the penance, and after some years ventured to
return to London with her paramour. She was at
once imprisoned, and the penance was required to be
performed. She escaped before the day arrived. The
sentence showed a courageous desire to deal with
vice in high places. As great a scandal was that of
Sir Giles Alington, who married his own niece. He
was summoned before the High Commission, but by
playing upon the jealousy of the Common lawyers
secured a prohibition from the Common Pleas. The
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 103
High Commission took no heed, and gave a sentence
of 12,000 fine. Laud spoke bravely, "If this pro
hibition had taken place, I hope my Lord s Grace of
Canterbury would have excommunicated throughout
his province all the judges who should have had a
hand therein. For mine own part, I will assure you,
if he would not I would have done it in my diocese,
and myself in person denounced it, both in Paul s
church and other churches of the same, against the
authors of so enormous a scandal to our Church and
religion." " It was spoken," said an observer, " like a
bishop indeed." l
The case of Lady Eleanor Davies" stands by itself.
She was a lunatic, but of sufficient sanity to cause a
great deal of trouble, and it was long before the courts
would recognize her as rnad. She wrote bad verses and
made foolish prophecies, and was delighted with an
anagram which made her name produce, "Keveale o
Daniel." Sir John Lainbe told her that a better
anagram was " Never so mad a Ladie." She was fined
3000 and imprisoned. Not content with this, she
identified Laud with the Beast of the Apocalypse, and
prophesied his decease within a month. Laud, how
ever, was not concerned with her trial, and took her
revelations very lightly. 2 A few years later her mad
ness broke out again, and she entered Lichfield Cathe
dral " with a kettle in one hand and a brush in the
other to sprinkle some of her holy water (as she called
that in the kettle) upon the (altar) hangings and the
bishop s seat, which was only a composition of tar,
1 Sir Robert was fined for aiding her escape. It is a curious
comment on Puritanism, that Laud was by the Long Parliament
ordered to pay him 500 for false imprisonment.
2 See his letter to Strafforcl, Works, vi. 331-3.
104 WILLIAM LAUD
pitch, sink-puddle water, &c., and such kind of nasfcy
ingredients." After this she was, none too soon, removed
to Bedlam.
The volume 1 of reports of cases taken from the
Harleian and Rawlinson MSS. gives illustrations of
Laud s action in the High Commission Court at an
earlier period, from October 1631 to June 1632. None
of the cases are of any great interest, but they serve as
excellent examples of the ordinary work of the court.
Gross libel charges and moral offences appear side by
side with measures for the preservation of decency in
worship and the suppression of conventicles. Laud
appears severe on occasion, but by no means more
severe than Abbot ; and he shows the strong sense of
justice and the shrewd acuteness in grasping points of
importance which we have learnt to look for. Of the
recusancy fines he said in the Star Chamber very
truly, "52 shillings a year is no persecution." 2 Yet
when Roman vestments were seized he insisted that
their full value should be paid. 3 Against the seats
in churches above the altar he waged strenuous war,
" You must not prepare your seats above God." 4
From such cases, and such illustrations, we may draw
a fair picture of the ordinary work of the High Com
mission. " No one," says the great living authority on
this period, " who has studied its records will speak of
it as a barbarous or even a cruel tribunal." In its
treatment of moral offences it was severe, but no more
severe than the times imperatively demanded. Its
conscientious and courageous defence of the purity of
1 Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High
Commission, edited by Samuel Kawson Gardiner, LL.D. Camden
Society, 1886.
2 Ibid., p. 105. s J5^ tj p> 196> 4 j^., p. 296.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 105
the marriage tie, and of the cause of injured women,
shows that the King s party was at least as much alive
as its opponents to the moral evils of the age. In its
action with regard to conformity, a careful examination
shows it to have rarely outstepped the most moderate
punishments which the offences allowed.
With regard to Laud s own position in the court, it
must not be forgotten that all through his trial, though
he defended the sentences in particular cases, he stead
fastly repudiated all responsibility beyond that for his
own vote. " All this is the act of the High Commission,
not mine." l " In the High Commission we meddled
with no cause not cognizable there . . . and meddling
with nothing but things proper to them, I conceive no
one man can be singled out to suffer for that which was
done by all." The Archbishop s vote was not given
generally till last, and he again and again declared that
he never influenced another man s decision. He was
never hasty to condemn, and always ready to defer
judgment, or to confer with nonconforming ministers
himself, on the chance of arriving at a satisfactory
conclusion. 2 His action will well bear a comparison
with that of his Puritan predecessor, Abbot.
From the High Commission, in which his action
belongs at least as much to his position as to his
character, it is pleasant to pass to Laud s relations with
the Universities.
1 Works, iv. 232, 235.
2 See Lett-r of Dr. W. Yonge to Laud, Oct. 19, 1631 (Cal State
Papers) Concerning some ministers that refused to subscribe
and conform, the writer is a witness of the bishop s patient for
bearing them, giving them time to consult conformable ministers,
and vouchsafing to confer with them himself. Nor lias he ever
heard that any have been deprived but such as utterly refused to
conform.
106 WILLIAM LAUD
Few of Laud s many interests lay nearer to his heart
than his love of learning. It was his great wish to see
the English Church the home of a learned clergy.
While the Reformation and the Renaissance which
accompanied it in England had tended to raise the
standard of education throughout the country, the
difficulty of providing clergy, under the new circum
stances, had resulted in the advance in the learning of
the clerical estate being slower, in proportion, than in
that of the more leisured classes. It was, for the time,
exceptionally difficult to be both "a priest and a scholar.
A life of learning was difficult when the moral and
intellectual demands * upon the clergy were so great.
Laud, who owed himself so much to his college training,
and retained perhaps all his life something of the
characteristics of a college don, was especially eager to
encourage the work of the Universities in its relation
to the general work of the Church. When he ceased
to reside in Oxford, he did not abate his interest in the
University or in his own college. To S. John s he was
a constant benefactor. Year by year he sent down
books and MSS. to the college library. Many magni
ficent folios stamped with the arms of Canterbury and
of Laud still recall his generosity to his old college.
Most of them are rare editions, or valuable copies of
classical authors, and many are elaborately illustrated
books. The bindings are in every case of beautiful
workmanship, ranging from finely-tooled morocco to
plain velvet. One of his choicest gifts was the Whole
Law of Moses, from Little Gidding, bound in purple
velvet. 1 Still more precious were his gifts of MSS.
1 Not, as Macray, Annals of the Bodleian, 2nd edit., p. 67, in
green.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 107
These began as early as 1610, when he was still Fellow,
and continued till the close of his life. He presented
to S. John s in all thirty MSS., of which a large number
are in Oriental languages. Many of these doubtless
reached him through the Turkey Company, in conse
quence of the King s order of February 1634, that
"every ship of that company at every voyage shall
bring home one Arabic or Persian MS. book, to be
delivered to the master of the Company, and by him to
the Archbishop of Canterbury, who shall dispose of
them as the King shall think fit." l Pococke too had
opened relations with the Patriarch of Constantinople,
and another agent, Graves, was collecting in Egypt.
To the Bodleian library, as to his own college, he was
a generous benefactor. In 1629 he procured from his
old friend, Sir Thomas Roe, who had been ambassador
at Constantinople, many valuable MSS. Through him
the Barocci MSS. were presented by the Earl of Pem
broke, his predecessor as Chancellor of the University,
and the 238 MSS. collected by Thomas Allen were
given by Sir Kenelm Digby. In 1635 and 1636 he was
especially generous in benefaction. He gave in the
first year 462 volumes of MSS. and five rolls. Among
these were some of the spoils of Wtirtzburg, taken by
the Swedes in the Thirty Years War. To these in
1636 he added 181 MSS. and five cabinets of coins.
In 1639 he gave nearly 600 MSS., and in the last year
of his Chancellorship he sent many more, with a
pathetic letter in which the dangers of the times are
bewailed. His whole benefaction consisted of over
1300 MSS. in twelve languages, very largely "spolia
Orientis," as the University declared. Few, if any, gifts
1 Gal. State Papers, 1633-34, p. 477.
108 WILLIAM LAUD
of more value have ever been received by a great
library, and none, it may be safely said, display so
clearly at once the generosity and the discernment of
the giver. The Bodleian Library, as well as S. John s
College, is an abiding memorial of the greatest prelate
that the University has produced since the Reformation. 1
In the midst of the multifarious interests by which
he was surrounded, Laud always retained his close
connection with Oxford. When he ceased to reside he
was kept constantly informed of the doings of the
University. Juxon, his successor at S. John s, was his
regular correspondent. Baylie, whom he had promoted
on every occasion, often brought him the latest news,
and, as his chaplain, served to bind him still to the
society that he loved. And he had always kept up his
affection for his " old friend " Sir William Paddy.
It had always been the custom for the University
to elect as Chancellor some prominent nobleman whose
support could be relied upon. When, in 1630, the Earl
of Pembroke died, it was felt that Laud was at once
the most prominent patron and the most generous
benefactor whom the University could honour by its
choice. He was elected to the vacant post on April 12,
and threw himself at once into the discharge of its
duties with his accustomed energy. One of his first
thoughts was for his own college. S. John s was a
very small society, and its buildings were still, with but
slight additions, those of the old Cistercian house which
had been purchased by the founder, Sir Thomas White.
Already the college was feeling cramped in its small
habitation. Laud wished to attract the sons of dis-
1 Mr. Macray s classical Annals of the Bodleian contains a full
account of Laud s benefactions to the Library.
LAUD AND THE CHUKCH 109
tinguished men. The old buildings did not seem to
afford proper accommodation. The President s house,
too, was small compared to those of the other heads
whose equal he had now become. Laud determined, in
November 1630, "to build at S. John s in Oxford,
where I was bred up, for the good and safety of that
college." He set about the work with characteristic
precision. He procured from the King a grant of
timber from the forests of Stow and Shotover : the rest
of the work came entirely from his own generosity.
It is supposed that the plans were the work of Inigo
Jones : the design was at least new to Oxford, and
marked, if it did not originate, a departure in English
architecture.
Beyond the old buildings, one side of a quadrangle
was already erected. It had been completed as a
library in 1596. Laud finished the court. Facing
the college groves he built the exquisite " garden front,"
which is one of the most beautiful features of Oxford as
we know it. Taking the east end of the already existing
library as a model, the architect with extraordinary
skill produced a long faqade in which suggestions of
classical style were harmoniously mingled with the
late Perpendicular domestic architecture of the original.
The work is well worthy of detailed examination. The
plan of the interior of the quadrangle was at the time
unique. At the east and west sides were built cloisters
of purely Renaissance design, in the style so familiar at
Bologna and elsewhere in Italy, but hitherto unknown
in England. Above the cloisters were the long gallery
added to the President s house and the " new library "
which Laud provided for the books which he was con
stantly sending down to his old college. The cloisters,
110 WILLIAM LAUD
wrote Juxon, 1 were " of the largest size that art can
allow, and the pillars of the best stone, under marble,
growing (sic) in that part of England. The cloisters," he
added, were "of a form not yet seen in Oxford (for
that under Jesus College Library is a misfeatured
thing)."
The work, begun in 1631, was completed in 1636.
The total cost of the building appears to have been
3,208 4s. 3<^. 2 Laud added two bronze statues of
Charles and Henrietta Maria, life size, the work of
Hubert Le Sueur, the cost of which was 40 O. 3 The
work when completed may be said to have placed the
college architecturally in the front rank even among
the artistic glories of Oxford : and the effect upon the
status of the foundation, which Laud s work had in
other ways tended to raise, was marked. The new
buildings were the completion of the work of the
" second founder," which gave to Sir Thomas White s
college, for a time, the leading place in the University.
Well might the President and Fellows exceed the lan
guage of academic eulogy, and declare that "if their
gratitude were mute, the very stones of their college
would, like the statue of Memnon, commemorated by
Tacitus, give forth music to his glory." 4
The new buildings were opened on the occasion of a
visit of the King and Queen. 5 Laud as the Chancellor of
the University welcomed the royal party with elaborate
1 Gal. State Papers, March 12, 1632.
2 Dr. R. Baylie to Laud, Gal State Papers, April 23, 1636.
See also Cal. State Papers, April 16, 1631, March 12, 1632,
March 19, 1632, October 31, 1633, November 28, 1633, &c.
3 See Cal State Papers, May 2, 1633, and May 3, 1634.
4 Cal. State Papers, April 15, 1631.
5 See Hist, of Chancellorship, Works, v. 144 sqq.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 111
ceremonial. It was a memorable year for S. John s
and for Laud. On March 6, Juxon, then Bishop of
London, and formerly President, had been made Lord
High Treasurer of England. In June, Laud had
established his right to visit both Universities jure
metropolitico, and had completed his revision of the
statutes and promulgated the new code. Dr. Baylie, the
President of S. John s, was the Vice-Chancellor. The
royal visit lasted from the 29th to the 31st of August.
The King, as usual, resided in Christ Church, 1 and the
customary speeches and sermons were delivered. The
Elector Palatine and Prince Rupert, sons of Charles s
unhappy sister Elizabeth, received honorary degrees,
and their names were entered on the books of S. John s.
Laud gave a brief and happy Latin speech in Convo
cation, in the style of all academic discourses, com
plimenting the princes, eulogizing the University, and
jesting at his own disuse of the learned language. But
the most prominent feature of the royal sojourn was the
visit to S. John s.
On Tuesday the 30th ("it was S. Felix his day,"
Laud, with his love of good omens, notes in his diary,
" and all passed happily ") the King and Queen came to
the Chancellor s college. " When they were come to
S. John s they first viewed the new building, and, that
done, I attended them up the library stairs ; where, so
soon as they began to ascend, the music began, and they
had a fine short song fitted for them as they ascended
the stairs." When they had passed through the door,
over which the King s bust (most probably by Le Sueur)
1 The current Oxford legend that he stayed at S. John s has
no foundation, nor is there any reason why the rooms at the end of
Laud s library should be called "King Charles s rooms."
112 WILLIAM LAUD
now stands, they entered the old library which Sir
Thomas White had began, and the Merchant Taylors
Company had helped to complete. This was the room
most used for private study, and the book-shelves were
fitted with desks at which the great folios could be read.
There, one of the Fellows, Abraham Wright, welcomed
them with a speech. Then, continues Laud, " dinner
being ready, they passed from the old into the new library,
built by myself, where the King, the Queen, and the
Prince Elector dined at one table, which stood cross
at the upper end. And Prince Rupert, with all the
lords and ladies present, which were very many, dined
at a lono: table in the same room. All other several
O
tables, to the number of thirteen besides these two,
were disposed in several chambers of the college, and
had several men appointed to attend them ; and I
thank God I had that happiness, that all things were in
very good order, and that no man went out at the gates,
courtier or other, but content ; which was a happiness
quite beyond expectation."
We learn from an Oxford diarist that "the baked
meats served up in S. John s were so contrived by the
cook that there was first the forms of archbishops, then
bishops, doctors, &c., seen in order, wherein the King
and courtiers took much content." It was, says a
letter-writer, " a mighty feast." 1
"When dinner was ended," Laud continues, "I
attended the King and the Queen together with the
nobles into several withdrawing chambers, 2 where they
1 George Garrard, to Edward Lord Conway, September 4, 1636
(Ccd. State Papers, 1636-7, p. 113).
2 It is probable that the room at the north end of the library,
which then very likely opened into it, and the rooms from thence
LAUD AND THE CHUKCH 113
entertained themselves for the space of an hour. And
in the meantime I caused the windows of the hall to
be shut, the candles lighted, and all things made ready
for the play to begin. When these things were fitted,
I gave notice to the King and the Queen, and attended
them into the hall, whither I had the happiness to
bring them by a way prepared from the President s
lodging to the hall without any the least disturbance :
and had the hall kept as fresh and cool, that there was
not any one person when the King and Queen came
into it. The princes, nobles, and ladies entered the
same way with the King, and then presently another
door was opened below to fill the hall with the better
sort of company, which being done the play was begun
and acted." It was Loves Hospital, written by George
Wilde, one of the Fellows, who after the Restoration
became Bishop of Derry. " The plot was very good,
and the action. It was merry, and without offence,
and so gave a great deal of content." S. John s had
long been a home of acting, since the time when the
Christmas Prince had been the envy of the University,
and Laud adds with pride that " the college was at that
time so welLfurnished that they did not borrow any one
actor from any college in town." When the play was
over, the King and Queen returned to Christ Church ;
and the next day they left Oxford, with " a great deal
of thanks." On the evening of the 31st, Laud gave a
dinner in his new library to the heads of colleges,
doctors, and proctors, " which gave the University a
great deal of content, being that which had never been
done by any Chancellor before. I sat with them," he
to the President s house, which were then all connected, were
used as "withdrawing rooms" on this occasion.
i
114 WILLIAM LAUD
says, " at table, wo were merry, and very glad that all
things had so passed to the great satisfaction of the
King, and the honour of that place."
The whole entertainment, which had been given on
a munificent scale for Laud, though simple in his own
tastes, could on occasion emulate the historic grandeur
of the medieval bishops cost the Archbishop 2,666.*
His careful steward, Adam Torless, remained at Oxford
a week to collect the accounts and pay the bills, while
Laud himself, with a retinue of "between forty and
fifty horse," returned by slow stages to Croydon. It
was the last time he was in Oxford, and the University
gave fit recognition of his generosity and care.
The same minute care, and the same munificence,
appear in his general treatment of the University, as
in his patronage of his own college and of the Bodleian
Library. This will be seen from a brief review of his
Chancellorship.
He was admitted to office at London House on
April 28, 1630, after a large number of representatives
of the University had assembled in Convocation at
Doctors Commons, and marched in procession to the
bishop s palace. Laud s speech, after taking the oaths,
was a modest recognition of inferiority to his pre
decessors in position, but clearly expressed his intention
not to regard the office as a sinecure. His intimate
knowledge of the University and the city enabled him
to do more for both than had been done for centuries.
Three points appeared to him especially to require
attention. He was convinced of the necessity of
1 Account made by A. Torless, Gal. State Papers, 1636-7,
p. 477. Many presents were received, and some great personages
also gave contributions. Laud lias added to the endorsement,
"all payed."
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 115
personal supervision from outside, in order to prevent
petty quarrels he saw the necessity for a revival of
discipline among the undergraduates 3 and a revision of
the statutes.
From the first he required the Vice-Chancellor to
send him weekly an account of University affairs, upon
which he promised to send every week his own censure
or approbation. He kept a book, it is clear, into which
the University letters and his replies were copied, and
in which he noted down all events of importance as
they occurred. 1 From this it is evident that he had
no easy post. The Regius and Margaret Professors of
Divinity 2 needed admonition to "read their lectures
as the statutes require " : the proctors authority
required support even against the Dean of Christ
Church 3 (whom Laud in 1639 sharply informed that
he had "carried this business like a sudden, hasty,
and weak man, and most unlike a man that under
stands government ") : Dr. Prideaux had to be con
tinually rated for unsound doctrine and ill manners;
the Westminster supper at Christ Church on December
20 deserved suppression as a cause of disorder : the
cellar of Brasenose required to be " better looked to,
that no strong and unruly argument be drawn from
that topic place " : the citizens quarrelled with the
University about the night-watch a traditional quarrel
1 This volume appears to have come, with other Laud MSS.,
to S. John s, and was lent by Dr. Peter Mews, President
1667 1673, to Antony Wood, since which time it has not been
heard of. See Wood s Athenae Ojconienses, vol. iii. p. 141. It was
published in 1700, and in vol. v. of his Works, 1853.
2 Dr. John Prideaux, Keg. Prof. Div. 16151642 ; Dr. Samuel
Fell, Marg. Prof. 16261638, and Dean of Ch. Ch. 1638-1647.
3 There is an interesting passage in relation to contested
questions of University jurisdiction (v. 279).
116 WILLIAM LAUD
and the Chancellor must make peace : the Mitre,
ever a famous inn, was declared to be "the general
rendezvous of all the recusants, not in this shire only,
but in the kingdom " : and the Winchester scholars
of New College required to be checked in too early
reading of Calvin. 1 In all these matters Laud personally
intervened, and he was no less interested in the
regulation of alehouses, the navigation of the Thames,
the discovery of recusants, and the addition of new
buildings to the colleges. 2
To the Church and learning he rendered conspicuous
services in the revival of the Latin celebration of the
Holy Communion at the beginning of each term in
the University church, and in the creation of an Arabic
lectureship, 3 to which he appointed Mr. Edward Pococke,
the most famous Orientalist of the day. He was
especially concerned also in the development of the
" learned " press, and it was through him that the prebend
of Christ Church was annexed to the chair of Hebrew.
Besides these services, under his Chancellorship, Oxford
was most immediately affected by the reinforcement of
discipline and the revision of the statutes.
The studies of the place could not be properly carried
on when the government of the students was so lax as
Laud found it. In 1631 he issued orders to check the
extravagance of apparel, the " boots and spurs together
with their gowns," which the young men affected, and
to enforce the due respect of juniors towards seniors.
1 "I have often wondered," lie says (v. 116), "why so many
good scholars came from Winchester to New College, and yet so
few of them afterwards prove eminent men."
2 He notes the new building of the west side of University
College in 1634.
3 Now the Laudian Professorship of Arabic.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 117
The statutes were to be put in force " for haunting of
inns or taverns, especially of masters of arts, that should
give younger youths better example." The next year
similar injunctions were issued, that the heads of col
leges should see that the youth conform themselves to
the public discipline of the University. " And par
ticularly I pray, see that none, youth or other, be suf
fered to go in boots or spurs, or to wear their hair
undecently long, or with a lock in the present fashion,
or with slashed doublets, or in any light or garish
colours." Laud s intimate knowledge of the University
had given him a scheme for its improvement as well
as the understanding of its disciplinary defects. He
desired especially to make the power of the Chan
cellor more real, and secondly, to exercise that power,
through the heads of houses, over all members of the
University. His idea of his own function made the
Chancellor in Oxford something of what the Lord
Mayor was in London ; and as the guilds and com
panies were amenable through their masters and
wardens, so were the graduates and undergraduates
through the body of heads. Tact and a strong hand
soon re-establish discipline : and by 1636, Mr. Secretary
Coke could congratulate the students on the revival of
studious manners, and states that the University in
this matter, "which before had no paragon in any
foreign country," had now " gone beyond itself."
Of more permanent importance even than the re-
assertion of authority was the codification of statutes
which was the great work of Laud s Chancellorship. In
University law lie found confusion worse confounded.
Twice during his residence it had been attempted to
bring into order the multitudinous and contradictory
118 WILLIAM LAUD
rules by which the University was governed almost at
haphazard. He had himself been on a delegacy ap
pointed to deal with the matter, and when he became
Chancellor he took up the question with spirit. A
delegacy was again appointed, and by 1633 it reported
that its work was done. On August 20 the draft
was submitted to the Chancellor. He undertook a
careful revision of the whole, and issued the result on
July 18, 1634, enjoining that the statutes should be
observed for a year, and at the end of that time be
published with any alterations that in the meantime
might appear to be necessary. 1
The Laudian Code, as it came to be called, marked
an epoch in University law. The casual and tempo
rary orders of the Middle Age and of the Revival of
Learning had lain down together in poor harmony. It
was possible for a pedantic student or an ill-disposed
agitator to delay business and reduce government to
an absurdity. Convocation was constantly called to
gether, and the " whole University " was troubled " for
every boy s business." Laud introduced system and
coherence. He gave the government to a Board of
Heads, who should meet weekly to " consider of the
peace and government of the University as occasion may
arise." He substituted for the unsatisfactory method
of choosing proctors by general election a choice by
the colleges according to a definite cycle. It was under
his direction also that examinations were instituted,
" including far more subjects than are now required of
passmen." f * Throughout, he defined rights and regu
lated duties. The Laudian Code remained in force
1 See the Laudian Statutes, ed. Griffith and Shadwell, 1888.
2 Brodrick, Memorials of Merton College, p. 77, note.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 119
with but slight changes till the modern era of legis
lation set in, and even now in matters of ceremonial
and of discipline it forms the basis of University rule.
There is no need to exaggerate Laud s personal in
fluence on the codification. He knew what it was
necessary to do ; he employed capable agents, and he
supervised their work when it was accomplished. The
result bore markedly the impress of his mind. But
he did not, in any general sense, create or originate ;
his wisdom lay rather in the adaptation and in the
intention. Nevertheless, his work was one of the most
valuable and the most permanent that the University
has known. He was a genuine University reformer,
and in that aspect of his life he might be content to
go down to posterity with his code in his hand.
Apart from his position as Chancellor, Laud exercised
considerable control over several of the colleges in the
capacity of visitor. The most famous instance of the
use of these powers was in the case of Merton College,
where the statutes were by no means scrupulously
obeyed, and where Laud determined to enforce a " godly
and thorough reformation." The ordinances issued as
the result of his visitation were extremely strict and
entered into every aspect of college life. Sir Nathaniel
Brent, the warden, accepted them with apparent sub
mission, but it is clear that the college as a whole
preferred to govern itself, however laxly, for it regarded
the Archbishop s action as " the most unjust of visitations
and worse than the worst of all." 1
It is characteristic of the man, that he was not
satisfied with the rapprochement which his individual
knowledge and affection might bring about between the
1 See Brodrick s Memorials of Merton College.
120 WILLIAM LAUD
Church and the Universities. He sought to make
permanent and inalienable the right of the Church to
supervise the higher education of the nation. He saw
in the vague power with which law and custom had
endowed the see of Canterbury a means of exercising
a lawful and extensive control. He therefore claimed
the right to visit the Universities as inherent in the
metropolitanate. He claimed the right as ecclesiastical
not academic, and intended in no way to interfere with
the statutes. 1 He collected evidence, papers, decrees,
precedents, in favour of his claim. The Universities
also stated their case, 2 as did certain colleges with
regard to separate foundations, and a decision was
finally given by the King in Council, June 21, 1636.
" After a statement of the case, and of the principal
objections with the counter-evidence in support of the
asserted right, his Majesty adjudged the right of visit
ing both the Universities to belong to the archbishops
and metropolitical Church of Canterbury, and that
the Universities should be from time to time obedient
thereunto." The right thus asserted was never exer
cised. " My troubles began to be foreseen by me, and
I visited them not," said Laud at his trial, when the
claim was made the matter of a formal charge against
him. 3
His relations with the Universities and the history
of his Chancellorship of Trinity College, Dublin, 4 is as
valuable an illustration of his aims as any branch of his
1 See letter of Dr. Chr. Potter, Gal. State Papers, June 24,
1635.
2 Oxford made no general opposition ; for the case of Cambridge,
see Laud s Works, v. 555 sqq.
3 Works, iv. 193.
4 See p. 166 sqq.
LAUD AND THE CHURCH 121
English work must be regarded as one aspect, and
that to him a very important one, of his rights and
duties with regard to the Church at large. True
religion and sound learning ever stood together in his
thoughts as they stood in the Bidding Prayer of his
own University. It was his aim to knit them still
more firmly, and to encourage the progress of learning
by the aid of the moral principles which it belonged
to religion to instil. All intellectual progress requires
training and submission to rule, but opinion was to
be shackled as little as possible by minute dogmatic
regulations. What Church and State had decided and
declared must of course be observed : but it had been
their wisdom but rarely to descend into particulars.
As for the Universities, so for the Church at large,
obedience and freedom did not seem to Laud to be
incompatible. That union, rejected though it might be
for the time, was yet imperatively demanded by Church
and State alike. And so it was that " his nobler aims
were too much in accordance with the needs of his
age to be altogether baffled." It may be " little that
every parish church in the land still two centuries and
a half after the years in which he was at the height of
power presents a spectacle which realizes his hopes;
it is far more that his refusal to submit his mind to the
dogmatism of Puritanism, and his appeal to the culti
vated intelligence for the solution of religious problems,
has received an ever-increasing response, even in regions
in which his memory is devoted to contemptuous
obloquy." x It is in this that Laud s claim to be a
far-sighted statesman may be justified. Narrow though
his outlook may appear to have been, he was in reality
1 Gardiner, Hist, of Great Civil War, vol. ii. p. 108.
122 WILLIAM LAUD
builder, like all the true artificers of the Church, for
futurity. Thus, through his love of order and his love
of learning, no less than by his energy and his tolerance,
he did for the Church of England a work which no
other man since the Reformation has been able to
achieve.
CHAPTER IV.
LAUD AND THE STATE.
LAUD, by the necessities of the time more than by
his own wish, was a statesman as well as an ecclesiastic.
It is true that he saw no objection to the employment
of priests in secular office : rather he considered that
they could do work, in their single-minded devotion to
duty and absence of family interest, which the poli
ticians of the time but rarely accomplished. But it
was not to him an ideal arrangement. When he
secured the elevation of Juxon to be Lord Treasurer,
he had satisfied himself of the fitness of the appoint
ment, not only by a careful search for precedents, but
by an examination of the merits of other possible
candidates. He had himself worked at the Treasury,
and had seen the difficulties of its management and
the need of the strictest probity. " He had observed,"
says Heylin, " that divers Treasurers of late years had
raised themselves from very mean and private fortunes
to the titles and estates of earls, which he conceived
could not be without wrong to both King and subjects,
and therefore he resolved to commend such a man to
124 WILLIAM LAUD
his Majesty for the next Lord Treasurer, who, having
no family to raise, no wife and children to provide for,
might better manage the incomes of the Treasury to
the King s advantage than they had been formerly."
Some benefit he looked for to the Church from the
arrangement. " No churchman had it since Henry
VIL s time. 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. And now, if the
Church will not hold themselves up under God, I can
do no more," he wrote in his Diary on March 6, 1636 ;
and he made no further attempts to place Churchmen
in State office. As Primate, he was himself, according
to ancient usage, the first constitutional adviser of
the Crown, and that his interference in the affairs of
government should be sought by Charles was not un
natural. But before this date he was already, through
Buckingham s influence, engaged in secular work. If
we enumerate the secular employments in which he
was at any time engaged, we find that he was a privy
councillor, and sat on the High Commission and in
the Star Chamber ; he was on the Commissions of the
Treasury and of the Admiralty ; he was on the Foreign
Committee and the Committee of Trade. His capacity
for hard work and his utter absence of all self-seeking,
made the King, who came gradually to rely greatly upon
his advice, naturally put him wherever he might be
useful.
Like all men who are set to work for which they
have no special aptitude or training, he was by no
means always wise or successful in affairs of State.
He imparted a new spirit to the Treasury by his keen
search into abuses and his complete freedom from
LAUD AND THE STATE 125
selfish aims. But, to take one instance, his treatment
of the questions involved in the soap monopoly was
injudicious though well-meaning; and the quarrel with
Cottington and Windebanke, which followed, seriously
increased the difficulties of his own position. It was
an advantage to have an honest man in office, but it
was a misfortune to give authority in business matters
to one who was in no way a financier. Laud chafed
against " my lady Mora," the curse of the whole
administration : he threw himself headlong into the
struggle against corrupt and dishonest advisers : but
he was unfit for the work, and he could do little
at it. 1
His practical work, however, it may be said, was less
important than his political theory. It was Laud,
above all men, it has often been asserted, who threw
the weight of the Church on to the side of absolutism
in the great struggle. In a sense this is true, but it
is true to a much more limited extent than has been
generally believed. Laud was an Aristotelian. 2 He
looked at government from a practical standpoint, and,
like Hooker, took much of his political principles from
the Ethics and the Politics. He had certainly no idea
of advising a policy that was contrary to law. " I
learned so much long ago out of Aristotle," he said at
his trial, " and his reasons are too good to be gone
against." Thus the benefit of the governed was the
1 This is not the opinion of Mr. Simpkinson, Life of Lawl, who
dwells upon Laud s political activity, his work at the Treasury
and the Admiralty, and his preparations for the Scots war. I do
not think, however, that the authorities warrant our ascribing so
much to the Archbishop s individual action.
2 He constantly quotes Aristotle, whom he calls his "old
master " at his trial.
126 WILLIAM LAUD
thought which underlay all his statements of political
doctrine. He had no taste for abstract speculation,
least of all in politics. The doctrine of the Divine
right of kings, as Mr. Gardiner says, never assumed
prominence in his mind. He thought, like so many
sober students of the time, that government needed a
firmer base than the will of a fickle and half-educated
people, and he accepted the theory which Anglican
controversialists had found so valuable an ally in their
resistance to papal claims. Thus the expression of the
canons of 1640 follows the lines of Bodin, whom Laud
himself on several occcisions quotes as an authority, as
well as of Hooker. " The most high and sacred order
of kings is of Divine right, being the ordinance of God
Himself, founded in the prime laws of nature, and
clearly established by express texts both of the Old and
New Testaments."
The regal authority is recognized as supreme, and
the definition of the supremacy is a definite approach
to the formal statement of the doctrine of sovereignty,
as later developed by Hobbes. " For any person to
set up, maintain, or avow .... any independent
co-active power, either papal or popular .... is to
undermine their great royal office." Behind the King
lies the divine sanction. Thus, bearing arms against
the sovereign is declared to be to resist the ordinance
of God. " Bodin," as Laud said at his trial, " is clear
that arms may not be taken up against the prince, be
he never so impious and wicked, and instances in Saul
and Nebuchadnezzar."
In all this Laud certainly never dreamed that he was
passing beyond existing law and custom. He was
fortified by legal decisions at every point of dispute.
J.AUD AND THE STATE 127
And when a rash preacher like Man waring l went
beyond what seemed to him just, he protested against
the publication of his sermon. " I have, since I came
into place, made stay of divers books, purposely written
to maintain an absolute power in the kingdom, and
have not suffered them to be printed, as were earnestly
desired," he said at his trial. He declared to the last
that he had never favoured arbitrary government. The
law might be sharply or lightly carried out, but it should
never be exceeded. And this, he declared, " I learned
of a very wise and able governor .... Henry VII., of
whom the story says that in the difficulties of his time
and cause, he used both ways of government, severity
and clemency, yet both these were still within the com
pass of the law. He was far too wise, and I never yet
such a fool, as to embrace arbitrary government."
The critical question of taxation is avoided in the
canons of 1640 by an assertion of the royal right to
supplies, coupled with a declaration of the subject s
right to his own property. And Laud in his appeals
to individuals and to the nation in the matter of ship-
money relied solely on the judge s decision. As in
Church, so in State, a decision of the constituted
authority was to him final. " I for my part could not
conceive that the judges would put that under their
hands to be law which should after be found unlawful."
He made indeed a special search for precedents in the
matter of parliamentary grants, as may be seen in a list
1 I venture to think that Mr. Gardiner (vi. 208) exaggerates
Mamvaring s teaching. He did not assert that " eternal damna
tion " would be the lot of those who did not obey the King. He
used the term "damnation" simply in the sense in which it is
used in the Authorized Version in the passage referred to.
128 WILLIAM LAUD
of Parliaments on which he has noted the gifts and
subsidies on each occasion. 1
Thus his sermons appeal to the existing constitution
as the ground for generosity and for unity on the part
of Parliament. States have their solidity only in the
unity of those who compose them it is his constant
appeal, and an appeal which illustrates the scope of his
political vision. He was content to take the constitu
tion as he found it, and to accept for fundamental bases
of the State all the powers that the despotic Tudors
had exercised. He did not deny the competence of
other forms of government but the monarchical was
to him at once the best and for England the per
manent.
" I have no will to except against any form of govern
ment, assumed by any state ; yet this my text bids me
say for the honour of monarchical government, the
* seats of judgment in it are permanent ; and I do
not remember that ever I read seats of judgment so
fixed as under regal power. I do not by this deny but
that there may be the city in peace and administra
tion of justice in other forms of government, some
times as much, sometimes more ; but these are judicia
not scdes, judgment not seats, of it. And justice
there may be ; but it continues not half so steady.
The factions of an aristocracy, how often have they
divided the city into civil wars, and made that city
which was at unity in itself wade in her own blood!
And for a democracy, or popular government, fluctua
populi fluctus maris, the waves and gulfs of both are
alike. None but God can rale the raging of the sea
1 Gal. State Papers, March 17, 1628. Part of it is printed in liis
Works, vii. 627 sqq.
LAUD AND THE STATE 129
and the madness of the people/ And no safety or
settledness till there be a return in domum David, to
a monarchy and a King again." l
The King as a settled foundation, and " you are a
noble and most loyal people " such are his funda
mental conceptions. They belong to the England of
Elizabeth, to the romantic, extravagant veneration in
which the woman and the Queen, the person and the
State, were confused. They sound antiquated and
irrelevant in the England of the Stewarts. And yet,
out of date as was the entire personal devotion of the
sixteenth century, it was this to which Laud appealed,
and which seemed to him to be a beautiful and natural
feature of human society, which under the influence of
the Church gave Charles the party that fought so
gallantly for his cause. Old-fashioned loyalties have a
power which the world can ill afford to lack : and these
it was the work of Laud and the Churchmen of his day
to foster and preserve. The strength of the Crown lay
largely in that union between Church and State which
Laud believed to be indispensable. Church and State
stand and fall together it is his constant teaching.
" The Church cannot dwell but in the State " : " and
the Commonwealth cannot flourish without the Church."
And though he follows Aristotle as to the origin of the
State, he denies the possibility of the existence of the
State in its perfection without the Church to make it
" blessed and happy." And by the Church he definitely
meant the Church as organized upon the Apostolic
model. This Catholic Church it was which was in
separably bound to solid government, and above all to
1 Sermon before King Charles s second Parliament, Works,
I 85.
130 WILLIAM LAUD
monarchy. " They, whoever they be, that would over
throw sedes ecclesiae, the seats of ecclesiastical govern
ment/ will not spare, if ever they get power, to have a
pluck at the throne of David/ And there is not a
man that is for parity all fellows in the Church
but he is not for monarchy in the State." Laud saw
quite as clearly as James I. that " no bishop " involved
"no king."
And yet, though it lay at the very root of his political
creed to accept the constitution as he found it, and
to serve the monarch with unreserved loyalty and
devotion, neither theory nor practice made him blind to
the defects of government or the personal weaknesses
of the King. " The secret lets and difficulties in public
proceedings," he said, following Hooker, "and in the
managing of great State affairs, are both innumerable
and inevitable ; and this every discreet man should
consider." And of Charles his deliberate judgment
forced on him, it is true, after years of bitter disappoint
ment and tragic experience remains, " a mild and
gracious prince who knew not how to be or to be made
great." Something of this feeling, perhaps, urged him
earlier, when he begged the people to pray for the King, 1
for men do not readily revile and murmur against one
whom they earnestly remember before God.
Such was Laud s attitude towards the Crown. It
did not involve such disparagement of Parliaments as
the more violent Monarchists found ready to their
hands, or such exaltation of the royal authority. The
charge against him of altering the Coronation oath
entirely broke down at the trial, and was abandoned
by Prynne himself, who had garbled the Diary in order
1 Works, i. 191.
LAUD AND THE STATE 131
to find a basis for it. The oath which Charles took
was the same as that taken by his father. 1 Laud was
the last man in the world to alter custom on such a
point and at such a time. And he fully admitted the
place of Parliament in the Constitution, though it would
be hard to discover to what extent he recognized or
limited its powers. He supported Strafford in his advice
to summon the House in December 1639. "Parlia
ments are the best preservers of the ancient laws and
rights of this kingdom," he said, "but I think this too,
that corruptio optimi est pessima." 5 " If the Parliament
should prove peevish " was an expression in his Diary
to which exception was taken : but at most this was
but to deny that all Parliaments must be impeccable
and some, as he said, had been called " unlearned " or
" mad." As Parliament had been under Elizabeth, so
he conceived it should be now. Mr. Peter Wentworth
was a happy instance of how Parliamentary inquisitive-
ness should be treated. " King Charles had as good
right, and with as little breach of Parliament privilege,
to demand the six men which by his Attorney he had
accused of treason, as that great Queen had to lay hold
on Mr. Wentworth." 3
That Laud was not more definite in laying down
limits to the powers of Parliament was certainly due to
no lack in him of the courage of his opinions. Where
he was clear as to constitutional right, he did not hesitate
to speak boldly. " They say," he answered at his trial,
when he well knew that the Scots were thirsting for his
1 See Prynne s Breviate, p. 7 ; cf. Canterburie s Doome, pp. 69
and 475. The whole question is exhaustively argued by the Rev.
Chr. Wordsworth in his introduction to the Coronation Book of
Charles I. (Henry Bradshaw Society).
2 Works, iii. 433. 3 Ibid., vi. 231.
132 WILLIAM LAUD
blood, and that his enemies in Parliament were their
pledged allies, " that I did openly and often speak of
them as of rebels and traitors. That indeed is true ; I
did so : and I spake as I then thought and as I think
still " : and of the Covenant, " if I did say it was un
godly, damnable, and treasonable/ I said no more than
it deserved." l Rebellion he again and again asserted
was wholly unlawful. To take arms against the
sovereign was condemned by God and by history : and
the differences of the Scots had better been settled by
ink than by blood.
Laud, then, occupies in politics a position not unlike
that he holds in theology. He abhorred too rigid
definition. He would not state what might be, hypo-
thetically, the powers of King or of Parliament. He
would draw no line between them. He would impose
no " particular " articles of political belief. But what
had been decreed, what had been customary, what had
behind it the forces of precedent and of law, biblical
warrant, or the judges decision to that he adhered,
and outside that he would not, if he might, allow others
to stray.
But Laud s practical conduct of affairs of State is of
more interest than his theory, and most interesting of
all is his conduct in the Star Chamber. Here more
than elsewhere, perhaps, he has suffered from the ignorant
violence of partisan historians. The Star Chamber, it
should not be necessary to repeat, was a lay court, and
Laud was but one, and scarcely the most prominent,
of its many members. The offences of which it took
cognizance were offences against the State, not the
Church, and the law upon which its decisions were
j 1 Works, iii. 361, 362.
LAUD AND THE STATE 133
based was not the Canonical but the Common Law.
Libel, perjury, fraud, riot, were more prominent among
the charges brought before it than political offences. It
was a legal court, contrary though it was to the true
principles of the English Constitution ; and Laud took
it, as he found it, as part of the settled system under
which it was his lot to live, and sat among its members
as one of the ordinary duties which it fell to him to
perform. Nothing was further from his mind than to
play the tyrant or the bigot. He sat in the Star
Chamber with as clear a conscience and as single an
aim as those with which many clerks have sat in
modern times on the bench of the Petty Sessions.
There are three great Star Chamber cases which are
especially associated with the name of Laud, those of
Prynne, Burton, and Bast wick. These it may be well
to examine as examples of the part which the Arch
bishop took in the proceedings of the court.
Prynne was a learned lawyer with a taste for
lampoons. In 1632 his Histriomastix had, with coarse
violence, reviled the acting and the dancing in which it
was known that the Queen had shared, and had used the
foulest words of all women who played a mimic part.
He had declared that the murder of Nero was a justifi
able execution because he frequented stage-plays ; and
in theatres Charles was known to take delight. Plays,
Prynne declared, were altogether abominable, and those
that beheld them were like devils incarnate. "That
which hath birth from the devil is sin ; and stage-plays
have their birth from the devil, therefore stage-plays are
sinful." It is doubtful if in any age the book would
have been allowed to pass without prosecution. As it
was, for his accusations against the Queen and his far
134 WILLIAM LAUD
from obscure threat against the King, the Star Chamber
fined him 5000, ordered him to be imprisoned
during the King s pleasure, and degraded from his pro
fession and his membership of Lincoln s Inn and
Oxford, and finally to be set in the pillory and lose
both his ears. The notes of Laud s speech show clearly
the aspect in which the case appeared to him. He
could have condemned but lightly the vulgar railing
against the stage " a thing indifferent " but the
references to the King and Queen were indubitable.
"For Mr. Prynne," he said, "I am heartily sorry for
him ; for indeed I hold him guilty of high treason by
the Act of Edward III." For high treason the punish
ment awarded, severe though it was in itself, was
moderate. Laud took no further part in the affair than
by seeing that the University of Oxford performed its
part of the censure.
The cruel sentence was not fully carried out :
Prynne s ears were but touched, not shorn ; and when
he a few days later wrote a "very libellous letter"
to Laud, for which Noy in the Star Chamber demanded
that he should be forbade pen and ink and shut up
from church, Laud, with the instincts of a Christian
and a scholar, would not hear of it; and insisted
further that his books should be returned to him.
" I forgave him," he wrote in his Diary. Prynne was
not a man to make a martyr of; he "never handled
any argument," says Mr. Gardiner, " without making
it repulsive to those whom he sought to profit." If
Milton could write masques and the Queen could act in
them, it was not likely that men would believe in their
wholesale immorality.
But Prynne was not silenced. Three years later
LAUD AND THE STATE 135
he appeared again before the Star Chamber with a
minister, Henry Burton, and a physician, John Bast-
wick. The edge of Burton s bitter wit was sharpened
by his personal rancour. He had been Charles s Clerk
of the Closet when he t was Prince of Wales, and had
never forgiven those whom he believed to have urged
the King not to retain him when he came to the
throne. He had now published two sermons, in which
he savagely attacked the position of the altars, the
bowing towards them, and the placing upon them of
the Cross. Bastwick was famous for his ribald "Litany,"
in which he charged the bishops with being the fathers
of "ungodliness and unrighteousness, impiety and all
manner of licentiousness," and declared that the wicked
ness of even one of their courts was enough to " bring
down a continual and perpetual plague upon the King s
three dominions." The Litany fervently besought " From
plague, pestilence and famine, from bishops, priests and
deacons, Good Lord, deliver us." Prynne was a more
categorical accuser. In his " News from Ipswich " he
launched out into vehement denunciation of every
change, petty or great, that his ingenuity could dis
cover. That the public fast had been enjoined on a
Wednesday, that Elizabeth of Bohemia was no longer
prayed for by name, were proofs of popery which stood
side by side with the altars, the " duckings and cring
ings," and the public teaching of the school of Laud.
The three agreed in explicit condemnation of every
change in the direction of reverence that had been
introduced into the churches and the worship of
England, and they coupled their condemnation of the
acts with no obscure attacks upon the persons con
cerned. The case appeared to be so prominent that
136 WILLIAM LAUD
Laud thought it well to answer the charges in detail in
the Star Chamber. He entered into a clear and well-
considered defence of the orders that had been issued
in matters of ceremonial. He defended the bowings to
wards the altar, quoting the order of Henry V., " a prince
then grown as religious as he was before victorious/ to
the Knights of the Garter, not as the full explanation
of the practice, but as a justification of its innocence.
He defended the position of the altar, and condemned,
not without a spice of irony as sharp as his censure, the
book which Williams was more than suspected to have
written, The Holy Talk, Name and Thing} It was a
timely Apologia pro religione sua.
The accused charged King and bishops with an in
tention to " change the orthodox religion and intro
duce popery." There was practically no defence. It
was war to the knife, as Bastwick declared, between
the Church and the libellers. Laud would not vote,
but the court condemned them to lose their ears, to
be imprisoned for life at Guernsey, Scilly, Jersey, and
to be fined 5000 each. Laud never hesitated in his
condemnation, and he never doubted that the sentence
was according to law and custom. " Most certain it is,"
he was bold enough to say at his own trial, 2 " that how
soever the times went then or go now, yet in Queen
Elizabeth s time Penry was hanged and Udal con
demned and died in prison for less than is contained
in Mr. Burton s book, as will be evident to any man
1 There is in the Bodleian Library a copy of Laud s speech,
with MS. notes, which Dr. Kawlinson certified (from a memoir of
Arthur Earl of Anglesey, by Pett, p. 335) to have been written
by Williams. They are extremely bitter. " Ignorant malice and
orthodoxal wormwood " is his note on one passage (p. 26).
2 Works, iii. 391.
LAUD AND THE STATE 137
that compares their writings together. And these
saints would have lost their lives had they done that
against any other State Christian which they did
against this."
It was, to the mind of Laud, the State punishing
the expression of opinions which were subversive of the
social order ; but his personal feeling towards libellers
and Puritans had no bitterness. " I pitied them/ he
said, "as God knows, from my very heart." 1
Other cases, though less famous, should not be passed
by without comment. Alexander Leighton, a Scots
minister, had, in his Sions Plea against Prelacy, traced
every evil of the time moral, political, religious to
the bishops, "men of blood" and "trumpery of Anti
christ." It was a piece of railing so vulgar and violent
that we should nowadays be ready to receive it as evi
dence of a lack of sanity in the author. Leighton,
however, was too staunch in his opinions and too bold
in repeating his charges to be regarded by the Star
Chamber as anything but a pestilent libeller. Laud, it
is stated, spoke for two hours at the trial, but we have no
firsthand evidence of what he said. 2 Leighton was con
demned to a fine of 10,000 and the severest corporal
penalties, but the King, it appears, was inclined to have
pardoned him. He fled, was recaptured, and suffered
part of his sentence, was scourged, and lost an ear. His
speech on the scaffold repeated the common illusion of
a religious maniac. " He told the people he suffered
for their sins, and out of the Psalms and Isaiah applied
unto himself the prophecies of Christ s sufferings."
There is no reason to attribute to Laud any rancour
1 Works, iii. 389.
2 See Gardiner, Hist. Eng., vol. vii. p. 150.
138 WILLIAM LAUD
against Leighton. The accounts we have of the trial,
especially Leighton s Epitome, are inconclusive where
they are not scanty.
The State Papers contain many other references to
Laud s action in the court. We have some of his own
notes of cases, and letters of judges to him. 1 But we
are not justified in forming any other conclusion on the
evidence before us than that Laud acted with as little
personal feeling and as much reverence for law and
order as he did in every other sphere of his work The
methods of the court were not of his making, nor its
punishments of his choosing. It must also be remem
bered, when the horrible severity of the Star Chamber
sentences is condemned, that only in exceptional cases
were the fines exacted, 2 and that the personal punish
ments were on many occasions greatly mitigated.
When we judge Laud in his capacity as a member of
the Star Chamber, we cannot but recognize the weak
ness of each particular charge of cruelty, or of personal
influence. He sat with other judges, and he at least
could say of the unhappy prisoners, " I pitied them
from my very heart."
1 E. g. Cal State Papers, May 6, 1629 ; May 17, 1629.
2 See Gardiner, vol. vii. p. 148, and note.
CHAPTER V.
THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME.
LAUD S reputation, good or ill, as an ecclesiastical
statesman has almost entirely obscured his fame as a
theologian. His sermons are almost unknown even to
students of the seventeenth-century pulpit, and his
Controversy with Fisher is rarely, if ever, referred to by
modern controversialists who contend over the same
field and not infrequently, though perhaps uncon
sciously, use the same weapons.
Two hundred years ago men thought differently.
The sermons were reprinted even in the dark days
of the suppression of the Church, 1 and the Conference,
republished four times in the seventeenth century,
became the authoritative statement of the position
of Anglicanism in opposition to the Roman claims.
Charles I. made an analysis of it with his own hands,
and, as his last gift to his daughter Elizabeth, put it
side by side with Andrewes s Sermons and Hooker s
Ecclesiastical Polity.
For the oblivion into which Laud s pulpit discourses
1 An edition was published in 1651.
140 WILLIAM LAUD
have fallen many reasons might be assigned. They
are probably not even typical of his style. He was a
constant, and, from the demand, apparently an admired
preacher. He preached as willingly and as often in
little country churches as in London or at Court. But
he seems to have intentionally avoided all ostentation
and as far as possible all record of his pulpit ministry.
Not until comparatively late in his career did he notice
in his Diary even his most important discourses; and
he never suffered any of his sermons to be printed
except by direct royal command. In his will he left
the publication entirely in the hands of his executors.
Thus, during his lifetime, only six of his sermons were
published : all of them were preached on public occa
sions, and issued by order of James I. or Charles I.
One other sermon, preached on March 27, 1631, on the
anniversary of the royal accession, was printed without
his correction or revision, after his death. We have
thus to form our judgment of Laud as a preacher on
seven only of his sermons, and those all of an "official"
or " occasional " nature. There are few preachers who
would wish to be judged by this test.
The first point that strikes a reader of the sermons
is that they were modelled on those of Bishop An
dre \ves. Chamberlain, writing to Carleton of the first
of these discourses, says, "Herewithal I send you a
sermon of Dr. Laud s, because it is after the manner of
the Bishop of Winchester s preaching." There can be
no doubt that Laud admired and reverenced Andrewes
more than any other Churchman of his day. He refers
to him constantly in his writings, and in his defence
during his trial, and as to an authority beyond appeal.
Again and again he declares that he followed him
THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME 141
and him only. " All that I used was according to the
copy of the late Revere ad Bishop of Winchester."
" Nor did I follow the Pontifical, but a copy of learned
and reverend Bishop Andrewes," and the like. In his
Diary he thus recorded his death : " Episcopns Win-
ton, meritissimus, lumen orbis Christiani, mortuus
est."
Andrewes was admittedly the greatest preacher of
the day, and it is in keeping with the assimilative and
receptive tone of Laud s mind that he should have
thus consciously modelled himself on the preacher
whose theology he so completely accepted. No imita
tion has the freshness of the original, but it must be
admitted, I think, that Laud was more successful than
Bishop Felton, who " had almost marred " his " own
natural trot by endeavouring to imitate his artificial
amble." His aim, then, was completeness rather than
connection. His sermon was directly upon the text
selected. He would not pass to application till he had
thoroughly dissected and probed to the uttermost the
passage he had selected to dwell upon. He sought
too, if he did not always achieve, a clearness of direct
statement : he had noted this as a merit when he first
issued the sermons of his exemplar to the world. His
illustrations are drawn from the Fathers and schoolmen,
not often from the reformers, except Calvin, whom it
may be conjectured he had read originally to confute
him. His mental attitude is conservative, and yet
touched with a certain sharp and unconventional free
dom. Like all the preachers of the day, he does not
disdain the assistance of humour and irony and of illus
tration of a very homely sort. Where he did not succeed
in at all approaching his model was in pathos or
142 WILLIAM LAUD
imagination : yet here we may remind ourselves of
the very limited field which is covered by the dis
courses we possess. We do not know how he preached
of the Incarnation, the Divine Ministry, the Passion.
The original characteristics of his sermons appear to
be two. They illustrate both the tendency of his mind
and his view of the questions of the time. He refers
again and again to the lessons, or the psalms, of the
day. It was the providential ordering of God through
the fixed worship and ceremonial of the Church which
appealed to him from the first, and increasingly, with
a solemn and overmastering force. God taught through
rules which past ages had laid down, not independently
of them. So the daily lessons and psalms spoke to him
with a distinct message, a special teaching, for the day.
It was so when he was charged with treason and stayed
waiting till the evening before he was taken to the
Tower. " I went to evening prayer in my chapel.
The psalms of the day (ninety-three and ninety-four)
gave me great comfort. God make me worthy of it
and fit to receive it." So in his sermon before the
Parliament of 1628, he draws teaching from the first
lesson at Evening Prayer, and then ends with S. Paul s
prayer and benediction. " It is the prayer of this day,
for it is the second lesson at evening service."
The other characteristic is his appeal to history, seen
in his fondness for historical allusion or illustration.
Preaching on March 17, on Unity, he is reminded that
on "this day Julius Caesar overthrew Sextus Pompeius
.... and this very day too Frederick II. entered
Jerusalem, and recovered whatsoever Saladin had taken
from the Christians. But I must tell you these em
perors and their forces were great keepers of unity."
THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME 143
Like all the writers of the time, he has an insatiate
fondness for quotation : in this same sermon he quotes
Lucan, Caesar, Cassiodorus, Tacitus, Seneca, S. Leo, S.
Augustine, S. Basil, S. Gregory, S. Chrysostom, S.
Bernard, S. Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, Bucer, and many
more ; but in the case of the Greek Fathers he generally
used Latin versions, and his quotations are seldom exact,
indeed they are many of them rather of the nature of
references. The sermon on "Unity is typical ; of his
method. It was designed for a practical object to
bring the Commons at the opening of the Parliament of
1628 to see the weakness that was caused to the State
by divisions. It was a familiar thought with him. Jeru
salem, he said in his first sermon before King James,
" stands not here for the city and the State only, as
many of the ancient name the city only, nor for the
Temple and the Church only ; but jointly for both. For
both : therefore when you sit down to consult, you
must not forget the Church ; and when we kneel down
to pray, we must not forget the State : both are but one
Jerusalem." l His third sermon chose the same subject
" Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself."
Unhappily it was easier to urge than to influence.
Few then as are the sermons of Laud which we
possess, they serve in a measure to explain the nature
of his power over Churchmen. They express his mind
decided, clear, forgetful of self, fixed on great ends,
and believing that the policy which he set forth was
based on right, on precedent, and on the direction of
God in history.
These principles go some way to explain his attitude
on the Roman question. He believed firmly in the
1 Works, i. 5, 6.
144 WILLIAM LAUD
bases of the English Church in Holy Scripture, history,
and reason. He had no doubt whatever as to his
position, and he stood to it firmly.
Laud s Controversy with Fisher was one of a number
of similar combats. Only in its interest and the force
of its dialectic it rose above the rest. They may have
been " the legitimate successors of the disputations of
the schools"; they were certainly a prominent feature
of the Reformation movement, and not least of the
work of the Jesuits in the Catholic reaction : and they
were especially favoured by the King, who was a trained
theologian, and who delighted in discussion.
The circumstances of this conference, however, gave
it peculiar interest. The Countess of Buckingham, the
mother of the King s friend, was " wavering in point of
religion," l or perhaps had already been won over to the
Roman Church 2 ; she had been under instruction from
Father John Percy, a prominent member of the mis
sion, more commonly known as Fisher the Jesuit.
It was this Percy or Piercy who had brought Chilling-
worth for a time into the Roman Church, and had recently
converted Buckingham s brother, Lord Purbeck : 3 and
it is clear that Buckingham himself was doubting.
Conferences between Fisher and Anglican divines, at
one of which the King had himself been present, had
already taken place, but they had satisfied no one.
The Countess of Buckingham required more clear state
ment on the doctrine of " a continual, infallible, visible
Church." Thereupon James himself commanded Laud,
1 Laud s Diary, April 23, 1622.
2 See Life of Archbishop Laud, by A Romish Recusant/ pp.
76-7.
3 Stonyhurst MS., Anglia, vol vii., quoted in Life of Laud, by
A Romish Recusant/ p. 76.
THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME 145
then Bishop of S. David s, to meet Fisher in discussion.
On May 24 ; 1622, the interview took place. Whatever
its immediate result, and it at least confirmed the
shallow Buckingham in the Anglican Church, it be
came, from the literature which flowed from it, and
from the prominence which Laud s own publication of
its points secured, the classic presentation from the
English side of the theological differences between
England and Rome. The conference got into print,
and the first report produced a series of books. Laud
was content to stand to the judgment of posterity on
his theology, as expressed in the conference. " With
what strength I have written," he said at his trial, " I
leave to posterity to judge when the envy which now
overloads me shall be buried with me. This I will say
with S. Gregory Nazianzen, I never laboured for peace
to the wrong and detriment of Christian verity, nor I
hope ever shall." And he added in his MS., " Let the
Church of England, for in great humility I crave to
write this that the Church of England must leave the
way it is now going, 1 and come back to that way of
defence which I have followed in my book, or she shall
never be able to justify her separation from the Church
of Rome." In his will he expressly desired that the
conference might be translated into Latin and sent
abroad, "that the Christian world may see and judge of
my religion."
Laud s opinion of his own book was widely shared by
his contemporaries. But it was severely attacked by
Romanists, and especially in the " Labyrinthus Can-
tuariensis ; or Dr. Laud s Labyrinth," by T. C., in 1G58
1 I. c. the violent " No Popery " cry expressed in his own trial.
L
146 WILLIAM LAUD
or 1663. 1 It was defended by Meric Casaubon and by
Stillingfleet. 2 The result of forty years contention was
to leave it the strongest expression of the Anglican
position. In modern times it has secured the con
demnation of some writers 3 as dull, and the appro
bation of others 4 as vigorous. Of its merits few readers
can have any real doubt. Sir Edward Bering, foe
though he was, said truly, " His book against the Jesuit
will be his lasting epitaph."
Laud s first full account of the controversy was
published in 1639. Later editions, based upon the
Archbishop s corrections, 5 were issued in 1673 and
1686, and 1839 and 1849. The preface to the original
edition contains much matter of personal interest.
Laud s humour breaks out in his offer of the book to
his Jesuit opponent as " such a bone to gnaw as may
shake his teeth if he look not to it." He explains the
delay in the publication by the State employments
which had made him "too much a stranger to his
books," as well as the fever which laid him low in the
autumn of 1629, and the libels which clustered round
him in the subsequent years. From that he turns to
a statement of the Church s danger. " She professes
the ancient Catholic faith, and yet the Romanist con
demns her of novelty in her doctrine; she practises
1 The title-page says " Paris, 1658," but Stillingfleet asserts that
it was not published till 1663 (preface).
2 A Romish Recusant, who lays some stress on T. C. s
" reputation," does not seem to have met with Stillingfleet s
reply.
3 Such as Mr. Benson, Life of Laud, pp. 95, 200. " A nearly
unreadable folio " is, I think, a somewhat hasty expression.
4 Such as Sir James Stephen, Horae 8abbaticae, in a very
interesting and valuable criticism.
5 A copy of the conference in the Royal Library at Windsor
contains MS. corrections in Laud s hand.
THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME 147
Church government as it hath been in use in all ages
and all places where the Church of Christ hath taken
any rooting, both in and ever since the Apostles times,
and yet the Separatist condemns her for anti-Chris-
tianism in her discipline. The plain truth is, she is
between these two factions, as between two millstones,
and unless your Majesty look to it, to whose trust she
is committed, she will be ground to powder, to an
irreparable both dishonour and loss to this kingdom."
In the controversy itself Laud was under two dis
advantages. He had little if any knowledge of the
previous discussions, and no information of the ground
which he was himself to contest, nor so much as
twenty-four hours to prepare himself. And, secondly,
he was hampered it is the greatest disadvantage of
English controversialists since the Reformation by the
unauthorized publications of Protestant divines, claim
ing to speak for the English Church. The clearness
and accuracy of his mind nevertheless served him in
good stead, and he was able to steer clear of the
dangers that beset him.
The leading lines of his work bear considerable
resemblance to those taken by the divines of to-day.
The position of the Greek Church, 1 " a true Church in
the main substance, to and at this day, though erro
neous perhaps in some points," was a strong argument
against the exclusive claims of Rome. "I dare not
deny them to be a true Church," he said, and on the
FUioque controversy he spoke with true theological
j udgment.
The infallibility of the Church also was a point of
strongest contention : and Laud would not allow in-
1 Works, ii. 25.
148 WILLIAM LAUD
fallibility to any particular or local church. The par
ticular Church of Rome has erred, and cannot be
infallible. To this point he returns again and again.
Rome is "a true Church, I grant/ 1 but not the true
Church. The whole Church cannot err, 2 but parts can
err and have erred. Salvation, surely, is open to
Romanists, but "not as they are Romanists but as
they are Christians ; that is, as they believe the Creed
and hold the foundation Christ Himself, not as they
associate themselves wittingly and knowingly to the
gross superstitions of the Romish Church." 3 Yet to say
this is not to deny the privilege of the Church. " For
we confess as well as you, that out of the Catholic
Church of Christ there is no salvation. But what do
you mean by out of the Church ? Sure, out of the
Roman Church. Why, the Roman Church and the
Church of England are but two distinct members of
that Catholic Church which is spread over the face of
the earth. Therefore, Rome is not the house where
the Church dwells; but Rome itself, as well as other
particular Churches, dwells in this great universal
house." 4
It is Christ Who is the foundation of the Universal
Church : and Peter s Rock " is not S. Peter s person,
either only or properly, but the faith which he pro
fessed. And to this, besides the evidence which is in
text and truth, the Fathers come in with very full
consent." 5
The work of the Reformation and the deeds of
the reformers were, then as now, confused by con
troversialists for purposes of attack on the English
1 Works, ii. 143. 2 Ibid., ii. 155-8. 3 Ibid., ii. 333.
4 Ibid., ii. 340. 5 Ibid., ii. 257.
THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME 149
Church. Laud s answer is dignified and complete.
" Reformation, especially in cases of religion, is so diffi
cult a work, and subject to so many pretensions, that
it is almost impossible but the reformers should step
too far, or fall too short, in some smaller things or
other; which, in regard of the far greater benefit
coming by the Reformation itself, may well be passed
over and borne withal. But if there have been any
wilful and gross errors, not so much in opinion as in
fact, sacrilege too often pretending to reform super
stition, that is the crime of the reformers, not of the
Reformation ; and they are long since gone to God
to answer it, to Whom I leave them." 1
Careful though he is to reject the errors of the
reformers, Laud does not reject the name of Protestant.
He rather explains its meaning and its historical and
Catholic usage. "The Protestants did not get that
name by protesting against the Church of Rome, but
by protesting, and that when nothing else would serve,
against her errors and superstitions. Do you but
remove them from the Church of Rome, and our
Protestation is ended, and the separation too. Nor is
Protestation itself such an unheard-of thing in the
very heart of religion. For the sacraments both of
the Old and New Testaments are called by your own
school visible signs protesting the faith/ Now if the
sacraments be protestantia, signs protesting, why may
not men also, and without all offence, be called Pro
testants, since by receiving the true sacraments and
by refusing them which are corrupted, they do but
protest the sincerity of their faith against the doctrinal
corruption which hath invaded the great Sacrament
1 Works, ii. 173-4.
150 WILLIAM LAUD
of the Eucharist, and other parts of religion ? Especi
ally, since they are men which must protest their faith
by these visible signs and sacraments." 1
Yet Protestant though he be, Laud by no means
departs from Catholic doctrine. " For the Church of
England nothing is more plain than that it believes
and teaches the true and real presence of Christ in the
Eucharist 2 ; unless A. C. can make a Body no Body,
and Blood no Blood as perhaps he can by transub-
stantiation, as well as bread no bread, and wine no
wine. And the Church of England is Protestant too." 3
He brings Ridley as a witness. " Both you and I," he
said to his Roman opponent, " agree herein : that in the
Sacrament is the very true and natural Body and Blood
of Christ, even that which was born of the Virgin Mary,
which ascended into heaven, which sitteth on the right
hand of God the Father, which shall come from thence
to judge the quick and the dead; only we differ in
modo, in the way and manner of being : we confess all
one thing to be in the Sacrament, and dissent in the
manner of being there. I (being fully by God s word
thereunto persuaded) confess Christ s natural Body
to be in the Sacrament [indeed] by spirit and grace,
&c. You make a grosser kind of being, enclosing a
natural [a lively and a moving] Body under the shape
and form of bread and wine." 4 Nor is he less precise or
Works, ii. 152.
2 He adds a note quoting the English Liturgy.
3 The rest of the passage is not relevant to my point here. It
may be argued that as he declares Calvin to have believed in a
Real Presence, he admits English agreement with him. But he
nowhere says this ; and if he had meant it he would have said it.
4 Works, ii. 330. From these and many other passages it is
clear that Mr. Simpkinson, Life of Laud, p. 129, is in error when
he implies that Laud did not teach the Presence of Christ in the
consecrated elements.
THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME 151
less judicious on the doctrine of the Eucharistic sacrifice.
" At and in the Eucharist we offer up to God three
sacrifices : one by the priest only, that is the com
memorative sacrifice of Christ s death ; . . . another by
the priest and people jointly, and that is the sacrifice of
praise and thanksgiving ; . . . the third, by every parti
cular man for himself only, and that is the sacrifice of
every man s body and soul to serve Him in both all the
rest of his life." 1 In the same style he speaks of the
authority of scripture and of general councils, con
demns private judgment and the Komish doctrine of
purgatory, and ends by a repeated denial of the Pope s
infallibility. 2
So far we find Laud a stalwart assertor of the position
of the English Church as firm in adherence to the
Catholic doctrine. Of equal interest, and calculated to
win an even wider respect and agreement, is his decisive
claim for breadth and tolerance. The Church of England,
in his assertion, is strong and Catholic because she
utters no anathemas where Christ has not uttered
them. " She comes far short of the Church of Rome s
severity, whose anathemas are not only for thirty-nine
articles, but for very many more, above one hundred in
matter of doctrine, and that in many points as far
remote from the foundation ; though, to the far greater
rack of men s consciences, they must all be made
fundamental, if the Church have once determined
them : whereas the Church of England never declared
that every one of her articles are fundamental in the
1 Works, ii. 340-41.
2 It should be observed, that the author of Laud s Labyrinth
asserts that " Catholic faith (in this particular) only obliges us to
maintain that the Pope is infallible when he defines with a general
council" (p. 143).
152 WILLIAM LAUD
faith. For it is one thing to say, No one of them is
superstitious or erroneous ; and quite another to say,
Every one of them is fundamental, and that in every
part of it, to all men s belief. Besides, the Church of
England prescribes only for her own children, and by
those articles provides but for her own peaceable con
sent in those doctrines of truth. But the Church of
Rome severely imposes her doctrine upon the whole
world, under the pain of damnation." l
For himself, as for the National Church, he says that
it is impossible to set bounds to the Divine compassion.
"Nor will I ever take upon me to express that tenet or
opinion, the denial of the foundation only excepted,
which may shut any Christian, even the meanest, out
of heaven."
These were bold words, or so they seem to us who draw
our knowledge of seventeenth-century theology from
the bitter controversialists of Rome and Geneva. The
" ever-memorable John Hales," says Clarendon, " would
often say that he would renounce the religion of the
Church of England to-morrow if it obliged him to
believe that any other Christian should be damned."
Chilling worth and Falkland were with him ; and
William Laud, disciplinarian and Catholic though he
was, was of the company.
From a study of the conference with Fisher we should
expect to find Laud firm in his own position against
Rome, but not in favour of persecution of Romanists.
Such was his policy in Ireland, where he was eager to
substitute conciliation for the policy of mulct and
coercion. In England the question was, to him, even
more pressing. There the Church s chief foes were
1 Works, i. p. 60.
THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME 153
often almost of her own household. James s constant
negotiations with the Papacy, the ostentatious proselyt-
ism affected by Henrietta Maria, the defection of some
notable personages such as Lady Falkland, the Countess
of Buckingham, and Sir Tobie Matthew, and the presence
about the Court of secret as well as open Papal agents,
served to alarm strong defenders of English Catholicity
as well as Puritan haters of Rome and all its works.
As a statesman, and a minister to individual souls,
Laud had a hard task. In both aspects his work
demands attention. As a statesman he was confronted
by the gravest political dangers. Popular feeling had
never forgotten the Gunpowder Plot, and the House of
Commons under Pym s guidance was always on the
track of real or imaginary Popish intrigues, and was
sternly set on severe repression of Romanists. It was
not surprising that Laud should himself be accused of
" Popery/ And to the suspicious eyes that were on
the watch there seemed to be evidence to warrant the
charge, not only in his Catholic principles, but in actual
negotiations with Rome. The letters of Panzani, Con,
and Rossetti, 1 papal agents at the English Court and in
Ireland, show how far the intrigues went. Windebanke,
who had been raised to office through Laud s instru
mentality, in September 1635 professed to enter into
definite discussion with Panzani, and in the next month
declared that he had the King s orders to confer con
cerning a possible reunion. The negotiations were con-
1 In Roman transcripts in Record Office. See also Historical
MSS. Commission, Appendix to IX. Report, p. 360 sqq. Panzani s
Memoirs (by Rev. J. Berington) do not contain anything of import
ance relating to Laud. On Panzani s notorious ignorance of
English opinion, see a Roman Catholic writer, Rev. C. Plomlen,
Remarks on Panzanfs Memoirs, 1794.
154 WILLIAM LAUD
tinued by Bishop Mountague. Panzani s account shows
clearly enough how greatly he both misunderstood and
exaggerated the opinions of the leaders of the English
Church. 1 It is difficult to believe that any one who
knew Laud as Mountague did would describe him as
" pauroso e circonspetto " ; but even on Panzani s show
ing it was admitted that Laud showed no eagerness for
reunion, and had warned Charles that " if he wished to
go to Rome, the Pope would not stir a step to meet
him." 2 Some at least of the Roman authorities did
not regard it as safe to meddle with him. 3 But it
would appear that efforts were made to allure or
to entrap Laud, at the moment when Abbot s death
made his appointment to Canterbury probable, by
the offer of a cardinal s hat. His Diary, which states
the fact, shows how decided was his answer " My
answer was that somewhat dwelt within me which
would not suffer that till Rome were other than it is."
The offer was probably made by the Queen, 4 or one of
her suite. Later, Con, a Scotsman who knew a little
more of English affairs than the Italian Panzani, made
(according to Heylin) the same offer ; but Laud always
refused to see him, 5 and not even the detective skill of
Prynne could find any evidence of negotiations between
1 I may be permitted to refer to my article on Richard Moun
tague in Dictionary of National Biography.
2 Panzani s mission is exhaustively discussed by Mr. S. R.
Gardiner, History of England, vol. vii., p. 130 sqq. " Neither
the Archbishop nor the King," he well says, " was likely to listen
seriously to such a scheme."
3 An Oratorian father sent to England in 1635 was forbidden
on " any pretext whatever to allow himself to be drawn into com
munication with the new Archbishop of Canterbury." Barberini,
quoted in Life of Laud by A Romish Recusant, p. 224.
4 See Dr. Lingard, Hist. Eng., vol. ii., chap, v., footnote.
6 Works, iv. 332 ; cf. Home s Masterpiece.
THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME 155
them. At his trial Laud clearly rebutted the charge,
" declaring that if he had desired preferment for com
pliance with the Church of Rome, he might have had
more honour in foreign parts than ever he was likely
to obtain here, and that it was no outward honour but
his conscience that caused him to refuse the cardinal s
hat." i
Count Rossetti, in 1641, appears to have made other
efforts, and during his stay in Ireland to have had some
communication with Archbishop Usher, certainly a very
unlikely person to lean towards Rome. 2 A strange
story is told of an offer to bribe Laud by a pension of
a thousand crowns. 3 The only conclusion that can be
arrived at after a careful consideration of all these
extraordinary statements is that the Roman agents
were more active than intelligent, and that their
intrigues gave a natural foundation for Puritan sus
picions, for which Laud s own conduct and opinions
afforded no ground.
Had Laud been willing to seek a reconciliation with
Rome, it is clear that he would not have been so eager as
he was, during the whole of his career, to win English
converts from Romanism. He had no doubt that the
English Church was the guardian of the Catholic faith
in the island, and he regarded any desertion of her by
1 Clarke MS., Tuesday, March 12, 1643. This interesting
touch is not to be found in Rushworth, Prynne, or Laud s own
account.
2 Geschichte der Katholischen Kirche in Irland, von A. Belle-
sheim, vol. i. p. 688.
3 See Life of Laud, by A Romish Recusant, p. 395 sqq., and
the original passage, Hist. MSS. Comm., App. to IX. Report, p.
350, where it is said Laud was told that 1500 scudi per annum
would be enough to support prelatical state in Rome ! There
the story is told in connection with M. S. Giles. Cf. Laud s
iv. 326 sqq.
156 WILLIAM LAUD
Englishmen as an apostasy. More than this. Not
only was the question of jurisdiction involved, but to
his mind the difference between England and Rome
was between liberty and bondage. This explains his
constant efforts~to reclaim English converts, and makes
so conclusive his appeal at his trial to the success of
his attempts. He gave a list of twenty-two persons
whom by his own persuasions he had " recalled from
Rome," and he added, " let any clergyman of England
come forth and give a better account of his zeal to this
present Church." 1 Among the names he gave are two
of special interest. Sir William Webbe, his own kins
man, 2 was in 1633 brought back by his influence, and
with the ministration of Dr. Cosin, then Rector of
Brancepeth. An interesting letter now in the Record
Office thanks Laud for his religious care, and promises
to be guided by him, especially in such things as
belong to his soul. He had on Tuesday last received the
Blessed Sacrament, most reverently here administered,
intending to continue in the religion and communion of
the Church of England so long as he shall live. 3
Chillingworth, the famous writer of the Religion of
Protestants, was a man of much greater fame. He was
Laud s godson, had been Fellow of Trinity, and then,
being converted to Romanism by the adroit Fisher,
had gone to study at Douay. He did not find satis
faction in the Roman Communion, and eventually
1 Works, iii. 6366, iv. 413, 414, note. "At his going
forth Mr. Peter (sic) told him there were those ministers that could
prove not only 22 but 200, yea, some above 500, that were con
verted by then diligent and faithful labours in the work of the
ministry, and might have recalled more had they not been
silenced by him" (Clarke MS.). Of. Works, as above.
2 Grandson of his uncle Sir W. Webbe, Lord Mayor of London.
3 Cal. State Papers, 1633-4, p. 154.
THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME 157
returned to Oxford. Laud had not lost sight of him.
In March 1628 several letters passed between him and
Juxon, and the latter procured interviews between
Sheldon (then Fellow of All Souls , and described by
Juxon as " an ingenuous and discreet man ") and
Chillingworth. Eventually Juxon brought Chilling-
worth directly under Laud s influence, though he
doubted if "all his motives be spiritual, protest he
never so much." 1 The position which Laud had taken
up in his controversy with Fisher was one which
appealed with great force to the acute and critical mind
of Chillingworth. Perplexed and doubting when con
fronted by the mass of authorized teaching and com
pulsory belief which confronted him at Douay, he
found satisfaction in a theory such as Laud had
expressed when he said, " the Church of England never
declared that every one of her articles are fundamental
in the faith ; for it is one thing to say, No one of them
is superstitious or erroneous/ and quite another to say,
Every one of them is fundamental, and that in every
part of it, to all men s belief. " 2
Chillingworth returned to the English Church, and
before long set himself to write a defence of his position
against the Roman controversialist Knott. "Nothing
is necessary to be believed but what is plainly revealed,"
was his thesis, and it is not difficult to see that he was
indebted for it to the teaching of Laud. The Religion
of Protestants appeared in 1637, the Controversy with
Fisher in 1639. They were both signs of the same
movement. Chillingworth was more of the logician
and critic, Laud leaned more towards theology and
1 For the correspondence, see Cal. State Papers.
2 Works, ii. 60.
153 WILLIAM LAUD
history, but their contention was in the main the same.
It was a protest against the all-embracing dogmatism
of the Papacy. 1
Sir Kenelm Digby, the eccentric Cavalier who fills
so much space in the Memoirs of the time, does not
appear to have been one of Laud s own converts, but
he none the less felt that the Archbishop had a pecu
liar and personal interest in his faith. The son of
the Sir Everard Digby who had taken part in the
Gunpowder Plot, he was brought up as a Romanist, but
had come over to the English Church, and afterwards
became intimate with Laud, through whom he pre
sented many valuable MSS. to the University of
Oxford. Laud had no concern in his conversion, but
speaks of it as occurring when he was of full discretion
to examine the contested questions for himself. 2 In
1636 Digby returned to the Roman Communion, but
with no loss of his affection for the Archbishop. At
the very point of his conversion, he wrote, " I acknow
ledge myself excessively bound to my Lord s Grace of
Canterbury for his wonderful goodness and affection
shown to me " : and Laud s letter to him in answer
to his announcement is one of the most natural and
pathetic that he ever penned. 3
For a man who felt so deeply as did Laud on the
1 For Laud s connection with the book, see Works, vi. pct Ssim.
Of. Sir James Stephen, Horae Sabbaticae. With the greatest re
spect, I am unable to agree with Mr. Gardiner s statement that
Cheynell, who tormented Chillingworth as he lay dying, descried,
dimly in the distant future, " behind " his " deathbed, the shadowy
forms of Voltaire and the Commune of Paris."
2 Laud s Works, vii. 450, 452 ; cf. Life, by * A Komish Recusant,
pp. 272, 273.
3 The * Romish Recusant, kindly though his tone is, perhaps
hardly does it full justice.
THEOLOGY, AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME 159
" Roman question," it was no slight exercise of gener
osity to write with no touch of bitterness; and while
deploring the silence that Digby had observed towards
him during the period of his doubts, to end, " a poor
but respective friend I have been ever since I knew
you ; and it is not your change that can change me,
who never yet left but where I was first forsaken, and
not always there." And Digby at least appreciated the
friendship, for amid the danger that beset every one
who would say a word for Laud during his trial, he bore
witness strongly in his favour, and ever spoke of him
with respect and affection.
It was not only in his writings or in his dealings
with individuals that Laud showed himself a decided
foe of the Roman claims. The very principles of his
theology, his appeal to reason, to criticism, and to
history, made those Romanists who knew England best
rejoice at his fall. " They had cause to rejoice," said
one of them, when the news of his death reached Rome,
" that the greatest enemy of the Church of Rome in
England was cat off, and the greatest champion of the
Church of England silenced." l
Yet foe though Laud was to the Roman claims, he
observed a distinction which was far from common in
his time. He was always opposed to the enforcement
of persecuting laws against the English Romanists.
He was willing to recognize the ministrations of their
clergy, within certain limits, in England. He spoke
with respect of the Roman bishop of Chalcedon, and
does not seem to have been actively adverse to a
spiritual jurisdiction over Romanists in England being
1 See Works, iv. 504.
160 WILLIAM LAUD
exercised by a Vicar- Apostolic. 1 And he again and
again decisively pronounced against any punishment
for mere opinion, and adhered to the principle upon
which the English government had always claimed to
act. "When divers Romish priests and Jesuits have
deservedly suffered death for treason," he declared at
the trial of Prynrie, Burton, and Bastwick, " is it not
the constant and just profession of the State, that they
never put any man to death for religion, but for rebel
lion and treason only ? Doth not the State truly
affirm, that there was never any law made against the
life of a Papist, yuatenus a Papist only ? And is not
all this stark false, if their very religion be rebellion ?
For if their religion be rebellion, it is not only false,
but impossible, that the same man, in the same act,
should suffer for his rebellion and not for his religion.
And this King James understood very well, when in
his Premonition to all Christian Monarchs he saith,
I do constantly maintain that no Papist, either in my
time, or in the time of the late Queen, ever died for his
conscience. " 2
To the end, amid the wildest terrors of alarmed
Protestantism, and when, between the intrigues of the
Court, the weakness of the King, and the fierce attacks
of his adversaries, it was difficult indeed to keep a clear
head and a brave heart, he steered an even course.
Rome could not lure nor could Geneva affright him.
His heart stood fast, for he believed in the Divine
mission which God had given to the English Church.
1 See Brady s Annals of the Catholic Hierarchy in England
and Scotland, p. 102. But lie utterly opposed the establishment
of "any Popish hierarchy" (Works, iii. 419).
2 Works, vi. 54, 55.
CHAPTER VI.
FOREIGN REFORMED BODIES : IRELAND AND SCOTLAND.
LAUD S relations to foreign reformed bodies might
appear to be likely to throw light on his position with
regard to the Roman claims. As a matter of fact, there
is little in them of any interest. One of his earliest
essays in Divinity had been to " unchurch " the foreign
Protestants 1 ; and there is nothing in his public action
to show that he ever changed his opinion. He spoke
at his trial in condemnation of the English custom of
setting great store by foreign opinion in religious
matters. 2 His own opinion was clean contrary. " The
worst thought I had of any reformed Church in
Christendom/ he said, 3 and the passage admirably
expresses his whole attitude on the question, " was to
wish it like the Church of England ; and so much
better as it should please God to make it. And the
deepest intention I had concerning all or any of them
was how they might not only be wished, but made
so." Political exigencies, the national interest in the
1 Of. also Cont. Fisher, Works, ii. 194, note u ; iv. 307.
- Works, iii. 352. 3 Hid., iii. 374.
M
162 WILLIAM LAUD
Thirty Years War, and the sad plight of the King s
sister Elizabeth and her children, made it impossible
for him to avoid much correspondence on German
politics. We find him constantly corresponding with
Sir Thomas Roe (whose wife he had known as a child),
Charles s envoy to the Swedish king, but the subject
of the correspondence is mainly political. A project
for an union between the Lutheran and Calvinist bodies,
which was undertaken by a Scots clergyman named
John Durie. received but "languid support" 1 from the
Archbishop. The negotiations dragged on from 1632
to 1636. The greater part of the letters that passed
have been preserved, and are now among the MSS. of
Lord Braye and of the House of Lords. Laud was
ready to advocate an union between the two divisions
of German Protestants, and spoke of Mr. Durie s in
tentions as " very pious " ; but he was careful in no
way to commit the King, the Church, or himself to
any further project.
The pressing requests of Sir Thomas Roe were en
tirely unavailing. 2 Laud instructed Sir Robert Anstru-
ther that the King s name was on no account to be
engaged without his express warrant. 3 He endeavoured
as much as possible to keep out of foreign complications.
1 The phrase is Mr. Gardiner s (Hist. Eng., vol. vii. p. 314),
and appears like to be fully justified by the correspondence (see
Cal. State Papers, Laud s Works, and especially the MSS. of
Lord Braye, Hist. MSS. Comm., Report X., App., pt. 6, p. 130
sqq.}. A different view is taken in the Life of Archbishop Laud,
by * A Romish Recusant, p. 191 sqq., in which it is contended
that Laud was anxious for an union of all Protestant bodies,
including the Church of England. The author does not appear
to have seen the correspondence in Lord Braye s MSS., which
seems to me absolutely conclusive evidence to the contrary.
2 See Cal. State Papers, 1633-4, July 31, 1633, p. 161. "
3 Braye MSS., p. 131.
FOREIGN REFORMED BODIES 163
The letters of Elizabeth and her son Charles Louis
received but tepid replies. " I do not doubt," Sir
Thomas Roe was obliged to write to Elizabeth in 1635, 1
" my Lord of Canterbury hath good inclinations, and
as much credit as ever any servant had, but he is not
versed in foreign affairs, and he is fearful to engage
himself and his master in new ways and of doubtful
event." That he did not meddle with foreign politics
where he could help it was due no doubt both to
prudence and to the feeling which he entertained to
wards the religious dissensions of the Protestants. The
King too held a middle course. He "no doubt felt
an interest in his nephew s fortunes and desired to
assist him, but when definite proposals were put before
him he never could see anything in them but their
difficulties." 2 The Elector Charles Louis and his brother
Rupert paid a long visit to England, and remained till
the end of July 1637, but achieved nothing.
The relations between Laud and the pastors of the
Swiss Reformed bodies bear out the view that the English
Church was not willing to enter into anything of the
nature of ecclesiastical union with the foreign Protest
ants. The missions of Wake and Fleming were con
fined to the encouragement of a general alliance against
the Hapsburgs. When the Swiss pastors endeavoured to
appeal to religious agreement, and to espouse the cause
of the Scots Presbyterians, they were met with polite
but chilling replies. 3 At home his action towards the
1 Cal. State Papers, 1635, July &, p. 244. There are a
number of letters from the Queen of Bohemia to Laud, e.g. Feb.
A, 1634 ; April |, 1635 ; J| 1636.
2 Cal. State Papers, 1637, Preface, p. xxv.
3 See the letters printed by Professor Stern from Zurich archives
in his interesting paper, Die Reformirte Schweiz in ihren Bczie-
164 WILLIAM LAUD
foreign reformed bodies was more decided. He set him
self resolutely to win them to the Church of England.
Both as bishop and archbishop, in his own name and
the King s, he urged and required that they should
attend the worship of the national Church, In his
memoranda for his metropolitical visitation 1 he put
under the sees of Canterbury and Norwich a special
inquiry as to what liturgy was used in the foreign
refugee churches, and whether those who were born
English subjects would not conform. His vicar-
general, Sir Nathaniel Brent, found the French and
Dutch ministers willing to do their best to meet the
Primate s wishes, and some degree of conformity at least
was attained. 2 It was Laud s belief that, having settled
in England, the refugees should conform to the uses of
the Catholic Church in the country. He urged that
they should be present at the Eucharist, and hoped
that in the next generation their children would be
definitely brought up as English Churchmen. 3
As Bishop of London he was charged with the
superintendence of British congregations abroad. It
was his care to see that they did not lapse into the
customs of the foreign Protestants. In 1633 the British
hungen zu Karl I. von England, William Laud, Erzbischof von
Canterbury, und den Covenanters.
1 Col. State Papers, 1634-5, p. 575.
2 Mr. Gardiner speaks of this policy with severity, vol. viii.
pp. 120-21.
3 A Romish Recusant (p. 214) says, " The late Dean Stanley
was blamed by High Churchmen for admitting people who did
not believe in the Divinity of our Lord to Communion ; yet the
great champion of their own school, Archbishop Laud, would not
only have admitted them, but would have exempted them from
penalties in return for their compliance." I can find no ground
for this statement.
FOREIGN REFORMED BODIES 165
ambassador at the Hague wrote to the English Council
that the merchant adventurers at Delft had fallen en
tirely into Presbyterianism. 1 Laud took the matter in
hand. He was placed on the committee for consider
ing the business of the merchant adventurers. In
1634 a new priest was sent to them, and the merchants
were strictly enjoined that in all things they conform
to " the doctrine and discipline settled in the Church
of England." 2 In 1637 3 Laud is found to be paying
special attention to the appointment of the deputies or
resident agents at the staple towns, on whose action it
was found that the regulation of Church matters in the
towns greatly depended. He had previously succeeded
in obtaining the use of the Prayer-Book by the English
regiments in the Dutch service. His hopes went further.
He had drawn up, with Juxon, a Form of Penance and
Reconciliation of Apostates from the Christian Religion
to Turcism/ 4 He and his brother prelates hoped to
remove the horrible scandal of apostasy. They planned,
says Heylin, that there should be " a Church of England
in all courts of Christendom, in the chief cities of the
Turk and other great Mahometan princes, and in all
our factories and plantations in every known part of the
world, by which it might be rendered as diffused and
Catholic as the Church of Rome."
The idea shows the width and enthusiasm of Laud s
outlook. But difficulties nearer home prevented the
1 Cal. State Papers, March 18, 1633.
2 Ibid., June 21, 1634. a Ibid., 1637. Preface, p. xxvii.
4 A Romish Recusant, Life of Laud, p. 310, somewhat
strangely censures this office for its lack of any attractive character.
But surely a severely penitential treatment is the only public
recognition the Church could give of her horror of the sin of one
who had put Christ to an open shame.
166 WILLIAM LAUD
realization of any such magnificent schemes. The
claims of Ireland and of Scotland came upon the
Primate as more pressing and immediate.
Towards Ireland Laud was drawn both as an educa
tionalist and as a friend of Wentworth. Perhaps his
first Irish interest was that in Trinity College, Dublin.
The history of his relations with that body may serve
as an introduction to that of his connection with the
Irish Church as a whole.
His letters to Straff ord show him always an enthu
siastic admirer of his own University. There is many
a mock at the " Cambridge man " l and the customs of
his alma mater, and Strafford replies with jests at
Oxford and S. John s. When he was called upon to
undertake the reform of Trinity College, Dublin, it was
upon the Oxford model that he proceeded to work.
Abbot had been Chancellor. On his death, Archbishop
Usher, the Irish Primate, was eager that Laud should
succeed him. He was the most powerful friend the
College could win, and his intimate knowledge of
University life, no less than his generous patronage of
learning, seemed to mark him as peculiarly fitted for
the post. The Fellows readily chose him, and he some
what reluctantly accepted the honour. " I am sorry
they have chosen me Chancellor," he wrote to Strafford,
"and if they will follow the directions I have given
them by my Lord Primate, I hope they will send me a
1 E. g. " I pray what means tins Johnnism of yours, till the
rights of the Pastors be a little more settled ? You learnt this
from old Alvye or Billy Nelson ; for where, I pray, in all the
ancient Fathers do you find Pastor applied to any but a Bishop 1
Well, I see the errors of your breeding will stick by you : Pastors
and elders and all will come in if I let you alone." L. to S.,
Worts, vi. 373.
IRELAND 167
resignation that I may give it over and your lordship
be chosen, being upon the place, and able to do them
more good." He was elected September 14, 1633. The
condition of the college was such as to suggest if not
to demand revision of the statutes. His action as
Chancellor was of a piece with the work, in which he so
heartily joined with the Lord-Deputy, of reviving and
strengthening the Irish Church. Trinity College had
fallen into neglect. Its members were few and its
scholars indifferent. The provision that Fellowships
should be held only for seven years after the M.A.
degree was believed to act disadvantageously, as pre
venting a permanent interest among the officials in the
progress of the college. The Fellows also were a
quarrelsome body, and Strafford had frequently to inter
vene to make peace. Laud took up the work of
Chancellor in the same spirit in which he took up the
rest of his multifarious activities. He could not abide
my Lady Mora. " Since they have made me Chancellor,
and your Lordship approves them in so doing " he
wrote the day after he had news of his appointment
"I will begin to take them to task." Two provosts
successively held office during his Chancellorship,
Robert Usher, a kinsman of the Irish Primate, and
a man of slight merit, and William Chappell, Dean
of Cashel, a " very worthy person," who " begot a
mighty reformation among them." During the latter
provostship the college was greatly increased, and
the Deputy himself did his utmost to encourage it
by entering his son William, a little boy of eleven.
Laud s measures may be thus briefly summarized.
He procured new statutes under the Great Seal. By
these the number of Visitors (a source of considerable
168 WILLIAM LAUD
confusion and contention) was reduced to two himself
as Chancellor, and the Archbishop of Dublin. The
appointment of Vice-Chancellor was given to the
Chancellor, to whom also all cases of moment were to
be referred, and who was given power to appoint to a
Senior Fellowship when the Board failed to fill it up.
The Fellowships were made tenable for life under the
usual conditions, and further powers were conferred on
the Crown. These changes, it will be seen, were all
designed simply to give the college the organization of
the older Universities, and to prevent the anarchy
which naturally arose in an ill-regulated oligarchy of
scholars. Laud did his best to raise the standard of
Irish education in Dublin by recommending to Fellow
ships several Irish scholars, and he encouraged the
teaching of Irish in the college. " There is no doubt,"
says the latest historian of Trinity College, " of the
wisdom which is conspicuous in Laud s emendation of
the statutes, and of the excellent fruit which it after
wards produced in the growth and success of the
college." * Trinity College was to be the intellectual
training-ground for an Irish ministry, purged of the
narrow Calvinism which was so hateful to their country
men, and instructed in the doctrines of the Catholic
Church to which the Irish were so loyal. That Irish
Catholicism need not be Roman it was Laud s strenuous
and persistent endeavour to show. And in this Stafford
was of one heart and mind with him. They would
substitute learning for vulgar invective, and the influence
of personal piety for that of persecution.
1 Stubbs, Hist Trinity College, Dublin, p. 78. This statement is
controverted, but with very small argument, by Mr. Urwick,
Early History of Trinity College, Dublin, p. 36 sqq.
IRELAND 169
" I am most confident," wrote Laud, " that since the
Keformation there was never any deputy in that king
dom intended the good of the Church so much as your
lordship doth."
Strafford s own letters and the testimony of Carte
show the condition of the Irish Church at the time
of his appointment to the deputyship to have been
deplorable. Many of the cathedrals were destroyed,
and a great number of the parish churches ruined,
unroofed, or unrepaired. The rapacity of the lay lords
who carried out the Keformation had appropriated the
tithes, most of which before the dissolution had be
longed to religious houses; many were in private
hands, others in those of the Crown. The bishoprics
were wretchedly endowed some paying no more than
50 a year ; and " in the whole province of Connaught
scarce a vicar s stipend exceeded forty shillings a year,
and in many places only sixteen shillings." This account
is substantiated by a graphic letter of Bramhall to
Laud, August 10, 1633. 1
Several of the Irish bishops were only waiting for
some official encouragement from England to under
take in earnest the needed reformation of their dioceses.
In January 1633 the Archbishop of Cashel wrote to
Laud, begging that some steps might be taken for the
restoration of " Church manses and glebes " to the incum
bents, " a thing very necessary for the better plantation
of the gospel by the residence of sufficient curates, by
whom the daily service may be performed, and at least
the children of the parish catechised." 2 This was in
1 Col. State Papers, 1633-4, p. 179.
2 Hist. M38. Comm., 12th Report, App., Part 2 ; Coke MSS.
p. 2.
170 WILLIAM LAUD
Laud s own spirit. He wrote to Wentworth l his wish
" that the Divine Service may be read throughout the
Churches, be the Company that vouchsafe to come
never so few. Let God have His whole service with
Reverence, and He will quickly send in more to help
to perform it."
A Reformation in Ireland had not been called for
as in England by national sentiment, by a revival of
learning, and by the long growth of opposition to the
Papacy. The Act of Supremacy was rejected by a
Dublin Parliament of 1536, and, though it was after
wards carried, the reformed liturgy was only set forth
by royal proclamation. Elizabeth s Acts of Supremacy
and Uniformity were established by a packed Parlia
ment. The Reformation in Ireland came from above ;
there was no popular feeling from below to meet it.
Still, the leaders of the Irish Church had accepted the
change, and Wentworth found an ecclesiastical body
established in full communion with the English Church,
though differing in its Articles and Canons. Both as
the representative of Charles, and as himself a sincere
Churchman, his action was natural. It may be traced
in all its aspects in Laud s letters, with his replies
for Laud from the first took a keen missionary interest
in the progress of the Irish Church. Its leading lines
may be thus summarized.
Towards Romanists he adopted a policy of gentleness.
He saw that persecution was no way to win over the
recusants, or to build up a united Irish Church. He
ceased to exact the irritating fines which Elizabethan
policy levied on those who did not attend church.
" This course," he wrote to Secretary Coke, " will never
1 Straff. Papers, vol. i. p. 256.
IRELAND 171
bring them to church, being rather an engine to drain
money out of their pockets than to raise a right belief
and faith in their hearts." Laud wrote especially on
this point to Bishop Bedell, assuring him of the
wisdom of this mildness. It was accompanied by an
endeavour to put forward the Irish Church as the
national Church, and as holding all Catholic doctrines.
Here Strafford acted with a firmness that bordered on
despotism. The Lambeth Articles had been passed
in Ireland in 1616, mainly under Usher s influence.
They were, Calvinistic and anti-sacerdotal. Several of
them "gave great offence to the Roman Catholics and
hindered their conversion, and others of them gave as
much encouragement to the Puritans brought out of
Scotland into Ulster : and both made their advantage
of them to the prejudice of the Church of Ireland."
Strafford would have the English Articles instead.
It was a sharp piece of business. Convocation was
reluctant, and the Primate timid; but Strafford
triumphed, and the English Articles were accepted
unanimously. "I have gone herein with an upright
heart, to prevent a breach, seeming indeed, between
the Churches of England and Ireland."
To the Articles were added Canons designed to
establish the Catholicism of the Church, and there was
talk of the establishment of a High Commission to
enforce them. But such measures could not materially
assist an unworthy hierarchy. The episcopate was
therefore enriched by learned and able men Bedell,
Bramhall, Chappell. Then began that line of dis
tinguished bishops which has been the pride of the
Irish Church to this day. But Strafford and Laud
worked below as well as above. New schools were
172 WILLIAM LAUD
built, and new endowments given to education. The
financial difficulty was the greatest which the reformers
had to meet. In Ulster as well as in Connaught the
clergy were wretchedly poor. A Commission was ap
pointed to remedy the evil. But the great work of
Laud and Strafford was the restoration of the impro-
priated tithes. " That in the great cause of the im-
propriations which are yet remaining in his Majesty s
gift," wrote Laud on April 30, 1633, "and which he
is most willing to give back to God and His service,
you will do whatsoever may justly be done for the
honour and service of your two great masters, God
and the King, that you would countenance and assist
the Lord Primate of Armagh in all things belonging
to this great service ; and particularly for the procuring
of a true and just valuation of them, that the King
may know what he gives to the Church. I pray, my
Lord, be hearty in this, for I shall think myself very
happy if God be pleased to spare my life to see this
business ended." The great desire of the Archbishop
was fulfilled, and the whole of the tithes impropriated
by the Crown were restored to the Church.
It is a curious instance of the readiness of his accusers
to take up any stone to cast at him, that on his trial
this matter of the impropriations was styled " robbing
the King." The answer was easy, as was that to the
complaint of the increase of Popery. " Is there a better
way to hinder this growth than to place an able clergy
among the inhabitants ? Can an able clergy be had
without means ? Is any means fitter than impro
priations restored ? My Lords, I did this as holding
it the best means to keep down Popery, and to
advance the Protestant religion. And I wish with
IRELAND 173
all my heart I had been able to do it sooner, before
so many impropriations were gotten from the Crown
into private hands."
Private persons were not so amenable to the Arch
bishop s or the Deputy s influence. " I foresee," said
Stratford, " this is so universal a disease that I shall
incur a number of men s displeasure of the best rank
among them. But were I not better to lose these
for God Almighty s sake than lose Him for theirs?"
In spite of the difficulties Stafford s " thorough "
succeeded, and he left the Irish Church richer by
30,000 a year than he found it. " Thorough " in its
conduct as well as in its aims the policy certainly was.
The Earl of Cork, whose huge family tomb blocked
up the east end of S. Patrick s where the altar should
have been, had to remove it in spite of all his protests
and his indignation. He wrote to Laud : the reply
was courteous, but firm. In a few weeks Strafford
reported that the Earl had taken the whole of it away.
" How he means to dispose of it I know not ; but up
it is put in boxes, as if it were marchpanes and ban
queting stuffs going down to the christening of my
young master in the country." The bishops were no
more gently treated than the lay lords when they
opposed the Deputy s policy. When Bishop Adair of
Killala approved the Covenant he was deposed.
A policy like this had undoubted defects. It had
all the appearance of Erastianism, though it is true
that Laud s policy was never to subordinate the Church
to the State. Its aim was to give the Irish Church
just that form of restorative stimulus which it had
never received a " goodly and thorough Reformation."
But unhappily the projects for Church reform were
174 WILLIAM LAUD
linked to those baleful theories of English political
action which Elizabeth had made traditional in Ireland,
which the Stewarts rather modified than abandoned,
and which Cromwell and William III. were to make
a cause of irreconcilable international hatred. Laud
had to act in Ireland through the arm of the State,
and his Church policy thus became identified in
appearance with the most questionable of the proceed
ings of Wentworth. Yet all through, the Archbishop,
though acting through the State, felt his work to be
stifled by it. The Canon Law, he complained to the
Bishop of Kilmore, had " been so blasted in these
kingdoms " that almost any ill custom contrary to it
will have strength to prevail; and to Stratford, "as
for the Church, it is so bound up in the forms of the
Common Law that it is not possible for me, or for any
man, to do that good which he would do or is bound
to do. For your lordship sees, no man clearer, that
they which have gotten so much power over the
Church will not let go their hold : they have indeed,
fangs with a witness, whatsoever I was once said in
passion to have."
Still, in spite of its defects, the policy was not with
out good result. It raised the tone of the Irish clergy,
as well as re-endowed the Church. It did something,
though but little, to stem that torrent of Puritanism, the
fear of which did so much to arouse the terrible revolt
of 1641.
From Ireland to Scotland in the seventeenth century
is a far cry. Across the Tweed there was no phantom
of English ascendency to preserve, no traditional blood
feud to overcome. The nation was proud and jealous
of its independence : neither barons, clergy, nor people
SCOTLAND 175
could be hectored into submission. Above all, it had
undergone a Reformation which, whether godly or not,
was unmistakably thorough, and the Reformation had
produced a hierarchy more powerful and despotic than
England had ever known, and fostered a type of
character which was strange and repugnant to men of
Southern race.
There can be no better introduction to the Scots
troubles in which Laud was so prominent an actor than
the words of Clarendon, which, though not strictly
accurate, show so clearly the strength, and the limit
ations, of the great outburst of Scots feeling. "The
Scotch nation," he says, " how capable soever it was of
being led by some great men and misled by the clergy,
would have been corrupted by neither into a barefaced
rebellion against their King, whose person they loved
and reverenced his government; nor could they have
been wrought upon towards the lessening the one or
the other by any other suggestions or infusions, than
such as should make them jealous or apprehensive of a
design to introduce Popery; their whole religion con
sisting in an entire detestation of Popery, in believing
the Pope to be Antichrist, and hating perfectly the
persons of all papists and I doubt all others who did
not hate them."
Interesting and significant though the history of the
religious change in Scotland is throughout, we need not
look back further than the beginning of the century to
see the particular set of circumstances with which
Charles and Laud had to deal.
James s earlier years had proved to the full the
difficulties which the Reformation had introduced into
Scots politics. "Presbytery," said the King it was
176 WILLIAM LAUD
the result of many years bitter experience "agreeth
as well with monarchy as God and the devil." In 1599,
after years of labour and intrigue, he appointed three
ministers to vote in Parliament with the title of
bishops. Step by step, with infinite patience, varied by
sudden fits of masterful energy, he proceeded till he had
obtained the consent of various packed Assemblies to
the appointment of "constant moderators" of the
Assemblies, officers of ecclesiastical status whose position
should be permanent: these were the titular bishops.
From this the transition to a legal episcopacy was no
great matter. In 1610, an Assembly at Glasgow gave
to these officers power to excommunicate, and to
institute and deprive, and directed that oaths of
obedience to them should be taken by those appointed
to benefices. The time was come to add to their posi
tion the weight of the apostolic sanction. To this end
Spottiswoode, Archbishop of Glasgow, Lamb, Bishop of
Brechin, and Hamilton, Bishop of Galloway, were sum
moned to England, and received consecration by the
hands of Abbot, Andrewes, Neile, and Parry. On their
return to Scotland they consecrated other bishops, and
Scotland again had an apostolic ministry. For the
time the King s action provoked no open resistance.
" The new bishops," says the Presbyterian Caldervvood,
"were become so awful with their grandeur and the
King s assistance, that there was little resistance to
them, howbeit great murmuring and malcontentment."
The Scots Church could not, however, be regarded
to be yet in happy plight. James desired to provide
for the permanent endowment of the clergy who had
been stripped and spoiled by the greedy lords who
carried through the Keformation; and he hoped to
SCOTLAND 177
give the Church a bond of union in a new liturgy.
In 1617 he succeeded in the former aim. He procured
the settlement of a regular stipend upon the ministers,
and by securing local payments freed the clergy from the
precarious charity of an impoverished general fund.
Scotland had suffered the worst that Disestablishment
brings with it. James again brought religious minis
trations within the reach of all. His second intention
was not so easily carried out. Few would now question
either James s sagacity or his good intentions, but all
must admit the rashness of his measures. His methods
were thoroughly Erastian. Nothing more intolerable to
Scots sentiment could be conceived, nor anything more
certain in the long run to cause the failure of the
scheme. Thus early indeed we may see at work that
fatal characteristic of the ecclesiastical policy of the
later Stewarts its inseparable connection with the
aims and the machinery of the State. The real cause
of the failure of the policy of James, of Charles, and of
Laud, when it was applied to the Scots Church, was
not its opposition to the popular will for there are
not wanting signs that the people were becoming re
conciled to Episcopacy and Church order 1 but the fact
that it was forced upon the ministers, who had become
the real leaders of the hardy Scots, by the power of the
autocratic State, and that a power now coming to the
nation with a more and more foreign aspect. Typical
of James s measures was an act introduced into the
Scots Parliament in 1617, to provide that "whatever
his Majesty should determine in the external govern
ment of the Church, with the advice of the archbishops,
1 See Mr. Sprott s valuable introduction to his Scottish Liturgies,
etc. (Edinb. 1871), p. Ixvii.
N
178 WILLIAM LAUD
bishops, and a competent number of the ministry,
should have the force of law." That he was forced to
withdraw it should have taught the King wisdom, but
he marched on to the destruction of his whole system.
Various tentative steps were taken towards the ad
mission of a liturgy. The Articles of Perth which
were passed by the Assembly under the strongest
pressure from the Crown provided for kneeling at
the Holy Eucharist, and for the permissive restoration
of private baptism and communion for the sick. Con
firmation and the observance of festivals also resumed
place in the decent order of the Church.
After this, a service-book was compiled, but was not
enforced. James became fully occupied by his English
difficulties, by foreign intrigues and Parliamentary
opposition ; and it was not till his son turned his
attention to the northern kiogdom that the Church
in Scotland underwent any further changes at the
hands of those who would bring her to their own
model.
When Charles visited Edinburgh in 1633, his fixed
intent was to introduce a service-book. Laud accom
panied him as Dean of the Chapel Royal. It was not
his first visit to Scotland. In 1617 he attended Neile
as one of his chaplains when James went north. He
then made acquaintance with the chief Churchmen,
notably Dr. Forbes, who in 1633 became Bishop of
Edinburgh. He was a witness of all the proceedings
of the Perth Assembly, but left no record of his im
pressions. Even in that short visit he had aroused
indignation, by wearing a surplice at the funeral of one
of the King s Scots Guards.
He came now with a mind made up, like the King,
SCOTLAND 179
to bring the Scots Church into complete harmony with
the English. u The worst thought I had," he said at
his trial, when they charged him with plotting against
the Kirk, " was to wish it like the English ; and so
much the better as it would please God to make it."
Yet he was far from proceeding precipitately. The
King was crowned in Holy Rood with solemn cere
monial, 1 and Laud turned back a bishop who disobeyed
the King s order to wear his " whites." The Scots saw
a dignified service and heard a fixed liturgy. There
was no more.
Then came the demand for Canons. How was the
Church to be governed without rules ? The Scots
bishops drew up Canons, and by the King s direction
sent them to Laud. He revised them, but, as he was
careful to declare at his trial, with Juxon s aid. There
was, indeed, no reason why he should be anxious to
work alone at the matter. His letters to the Scots
bishops show him eager that the work should be theirs,
not his : yet as to the lines on which it should proceed
he was clear and firm. The bishops, indeed, were
ready to lead, not to follow him : it was the people to
whom the proposals were anathema. The Scots charges
against him at his trial, descending to the mere child
ishness of details in these Canons, show how deep was
the divergence concerning matters about which it would
now seem the veriest trifling to wrangle.
The Archbishop of S. Andrews and a number of
the bishops writing to him in 1635 2 say, " They have
1 I have not space to discuss the interesting details of the
coronation (see Coron. of Charles I., Henry Bradshaw Society,
p. xxvi sqq.). Laud was admitted of the Scots Privy Council
June 15, 1633 (Cal State Papers, 1633-4, p. 100).
2 Cal State Papers, 1635, p. 4.
180 WILLIAM LAUD
made a further progress than could have bee a expected
in many years, and hope to still go forward, if the
Archbishop do return in health and life. * Laud
showed no desire to hurry the progress; he endorsed
the letter. " Conformity must be a work of time."
" Our prelates have not the boldness to trouble us in
their canons, with altars, fonts, chancels, reading of a
long liturgy before sermons, etc. But Canterbury is
punctual and peremptory in all these " was a serious
charge in the eyes of his accusers. His answer, with
its quaint ironical humour, would seem to them but
unseemly jesting. 1
" What s the crime which prelates had not the
boldness to trouble you with/ and in which Canterbury,
that strange man, is so punctual and peremptory ?
! grave crimen Caie Caesar ! Tis a charge indeed,
indeed a mighty charge ! a novation of above
thirteen hundred years old."
" I was no master of this work/ " he said, " but a
servant to it, and commanded thereunto by his sacred
Majesty." 2 Such, and such-like, " wicked intentions"
of " Canterbury and Ross " did not escape comment at
the time.
The next step was the issue of a Book of Common
Prayer. It was a necessary consequence of what had
gone before : and here again the work was that of
the Scots bishops. "I ever did desire," said Laud
very truly, "it might come to them with their own
liking and approbation. Nay, I did ever, upon all
occasions, call upon the Scottish bishops to do nothing
in this particular but by warrant of law. And further,
I professed unto them before his Majesty that though
ks, iii. 327. 2 Ibid., iii. 317.
SCOTLAND 181
I had obeyed his commands in helping to order that
book, yet, since I was ignorant of the laws of that
kingdom, I would have nothing at all to do with the
manner of introducing it, but left that wholly to them
who do, or should, understand both that Church and
their laws." 1 Yet the book, though it was the Scots
in beginning, was certainly largely Laud s in carrying
out, and received the most careful revision from him and
the bishops of his opinion. His own copy of the book,
now in the library of the city of Norwich another copy
is at Lambeth contains his careful interlineations. It
was to be " as near that of England as might be." Yet
the bishops themselves desired that there should be differ
ences, both because it seemed easier to content the
Scots with a book which was their own than with an
attempt to introduce the English form, and because the
" order of the prayers " was the better and the " more
agreeable to the use in the primitive Church." .No doubt
a chief cause of the failure of this ill-fated endeavour
was the mistaken way in which it was attempted to
carry it through. Again and again, in his letters to
Stafford, Laud complains of the folly and perverseness
of the Scots bishops, and of the traitorous counsels of
the King s political advisers in Scotland. Indeed, till
the time when it should have been publicly used, all
went smoothly. In May 1637 Laud was writing to
the city of Edinburgh as to the care of S. Giles s and
to other church buildings. 2
It was not till July 23, 1637, when, the service book
was used for the first time in S. Giles s Cathedral, that the
1 Worts, iii. 336.
2 This letter, which is in my possession, was printed in
Hist. .Rcr., October 1892.
182 WILLIAM LAUD
tumult burst forth. The scene is historic, though some
of its details are apocryphal. Amid the crash of broken
windows, and the hurtling of stools, the service was
completed : but the next day its use was suspended till
the King s will was known. Charles s obstinacy " I
mean to be obeyed " had no effect against the rising
indignation of the Scots. It became more than ever
clear to them that this new book was being forced
upon them by the State power and by the English
government. Disturbance became riot, and riot rebel
lion. The Common Prayer was met by the Covenant
and the national war broke out, which swept away
every vestige of ecclesiastical order, which set alight
the smouldering discontent in England, and which, in
its conclusion at the treaty of Ripon, left Charles,
for the time at least, powerless in the hands of his
opponents.
The rising of Scots nationalism was against Eras-
tianism and against England : but it was much more
it was a genuine assertion of extreme Protestant
doctrine, which had won its way to the minds and
hearts of the people, against the danger, which their
experience did not lead them to consider illusory, of
Romanism. Primitive Christianity was too near Rome
to be safe and the Prayer-Book itself took its char
acteristics from the liturgies of the earliest days of the
Christian past.
Men had now had time to look clearly on doctrine and
worship, apart from the storm and stress of the Reforma
tion movements. A school of liturgiologists had arisen, to
whom the English forms were meagre and incomplete,
and to whom it seemed possible, without going beyond
what the English Prayer-Book admitted, to present to the
SCOTLAND 183
ecclesiastics and antiquaries of Europe a liturgy which
should be deficient in no primitive expression of
Catholic truth. Thus in the Eucharistic service stress
was laid upon the Christian sacrifice. " The priest
shall offer up and place the bread and wine prepared
for the Sacrament on the Lord s Table," says Laud s
MS. ; and the offering is a memorial of the Lord s
"precious death and sacrifice." And the primitive
invocation of the Holy Ghost is restored at consecra
tion : " Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly
beseech Thee, and of Thy Almighty goodness vouchsafe
so to bless and sanctify these Thy gifts and creatures
of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the Body
and Blood of Thy most dearly beloved Son." So also
no loophole for Zwinglianism is left in the words of
administration : the second clause of the English form,
put into the Second Prayer-Book of Edward VI., is
excised. These alterations, and such as these, un
doubtedly brought the service more into accord with
primitive usage ; and that seemed to Laud a sufficient
authority. 1 He was never able to understand the
position of those who wished to escape from primi
tive tradition and Church order. To him the past
was the very ground of his belief and his worship;
forms were supports, not bondages. The Scots view
1 At liis trial lie said, " Though I shall not find fault with the
order of the prayers as they stand in the Communion-book of
England (for, God be thanked, tis well), yet if a comparison
must be made, I do think the order of the prayers, as now they
stand in the Scottish Liturgy, to be the better and more agree
able to use in the primitive Church ; and, I believe, they which
are learned will acknowledge it" (Works, iii. 344). Again, "As
for the oblation of the elements, that s fit and proper ; and I am
sorry for my part that it is not in the book of England" (Il>id.,
iii. 359).
184 WILLIAM LAUD
was utterly opposed to this : they had found a new
world of religious thought, and they clung to its ex
pression with irresistible tenacity. But the Scots
Revolution was not wholly religious. It was a popular
uprising inspired by fierce hatred against the Royal
power, which sought to hurry the people along a path
which they were not yet prepared to tread. It was an
aristocratic movement led by selfish politicians who
dreaded the strengthening of the monarchy. It was
the expression of the feeling, narrow but intense, of
the clergy, who had become the masters of the people.
" Of liberty of thought these Scottish preachers neither
knew anything nor cared to know anything
Spiritual and mental freedom would have one day to
be learnt from England." 1 Thus the antagonism of
the Scots to the Laudian movement was twofold. It
was to them at once too conservative in its foundations
and too liberal in its outlook. The very merits of its
ideal, no less than the glaring defects of the methods by
which men sought to enforce it, caused its unhesitating
and unalterable rejection.
An interesting illustration of Scots feeling is to be
found in a long letter of the Earl of Argyll to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, dated February 28, 1639. 2
"With your lordship s favour," he says, " I believe you
shall find that the complaint of the Presbytery your
lordship mentions, which we call our Church or General
Assembly, is concerning very essential differences be
twixt the Reformed Church and that of Rome; and
so far only against bishops as they transgress the laws
1 Gardiner, Hist. Enyl, vol. viii. p. 374.
2 Hist. MSS. Comm,, Report XII., App., Part 2, Coke MSS.,
p. 213, in answer to a letter of Laud s of November 25, 1638.
SCOTLAND 185
and lawful constitutions of this Church and kingdom.
.... So with your lordship s good leave, I must say
still your lordship is mistaken if you think the book
that was offered and pressed here was only the English
service, for in the very reading any man may see the
contrary. Yet truly I think all his Majesty s subjects
ought to thank God for his Majesty s paternal care
of his own children, and as all (I hope) do acknow
ledge it to proceed from his Majesty s own goodness,
so I believe they are the leather to come under the
hands of indiscreet pedants or rude task-masters, that
want the affection and moderation of a father." The
letter is a plain enough direction to the English to
mind their own business. It bases the Scots forms
of worship and Church order on Scripture alone. " It
seems they desire rather to be like Moses, who would
not suffer any to remain in Egypt, lest it should give
occasion to return."
In Scotland, where the aim rather than the measures
had been his, Laud saw for the first time the decisive
failure of his policy. His gradual awakening to the
failure is to be traced almost pathetically in his letters.
Most of all was he distressed that the good intentions
of his master should be mistaken and misliked. Charles
clung to the Episcopal order to the last : he would cut
down their powers, circumscribe their action, till they
became like the Culdee bishops whom the Scots had
known of old in their earlier home ; but he would not
consent to their abolition. This was no struggle for
the appearance of victory it was a stand for the
essentials of the Catholic Church. So it appeared to
Charles and to Laud : but the time was past to save
anything from the wreck, and the triumph of the
186 WILLIAM LAUD
Scots army but foreshadowed the fate of the English
Church.
Misfortune dogged every step which Laud took in
Scotland and Ireland. Yet the completeness of the
failure should not blind us to the greatness of the aim.
He longed to see a great communion recognizing its
unity in the Church, as the kingdoms that owned the
sway of James and Charles recognized the links which
bound them together. But when political bonds were
snapping it was no time to knit with ecclesiastical ties.
What earlier or later in the history of the kingdoms
might have won success, was in the seventeenth century
at best but a visionary ideal. Something to oppose
to the menacing ostentation of the Roman obedience
was what Laud sought a great Anglican unity firm
in the faith of the undivided Church, primitive in
doctrine, apostolic in ministry, restrained and sanctified
in individual life. It was a great ideal, but it took
no count of the times and men. It fell inevitably, yet
even while it fell it did good work. The Church in
Scotland and Ireland to-day cannot but look back to
Laud as one of the greatest of its benefactors.
CHAPTER VII.
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH.
IN the year 1640 Laud s troubles began in earnest.
The Scots war brought to a head all the discontent
that was smouldering in England. Political grievances
were supported by religious disorder; and the insur
rection in the North, which so boldly placed religion in
the forefront of its complaints, drew to itself the sympathy
of all those in England who were seeking to change the
constitution in Church or State.
The bold action of Convocation in 1640 was the last
effort and the last evidence of Laud s power. It was
significant that the House had to be protected in its
session by a military force, and that Charles hurried on
the conclusion of its proceedings because he saw the
daily increasing animosity which was aroused by the
sight of the guard which surrounded the Churchmen in
council. When the King left for the North, Laud, with
the rest of the Privy Council who did not go to the war,
was placed in charge of the government, " with orders
by all good ways to provide for the safety of the
kingdom and people." 1 In the great debate of th e
1 Ceil. State Papers, Sept. 2, 1040.
188 WILLIAM LAUD
Council on Scots affairs four months before, lie had
spoken boldly. " Tried all ways and refused all ways,
by the law of God you should have subsistence, and
ought to have it, and lawfully to take it." l Lawfully,
he still believed, the King was acting, and when
Parliament was u peevish," and the Scots were menacing,
he believed that there were other means by which the
King could lawfully obtain supplies besides the grant of
the House of Commons.
Every day the troubles thickened. Laud had news
of a Popish plot, which one Habernfeld professed to
have discovered, and which he revealed to the English
Ambassador at the Hague (Sir William Boswell).
The extraordinary tissue of absurdities which the story
unfolded was not too strange to be credible to a
generation which still remembered the Gunpowder Plot.
It seemed to Laud a " great business," 2 and Prynne,
when he found the papers at Lambeth, served them up
in his own style as an accusation against the Archbishop
himself.
The difficulty of providing for the troops, the increas
ing successes of the Scots, the gallant struggle of
Wentworth against overwhelming odds, and the intrigues
and self-seeking which marred the efforts of the King s
party, all were felt in London, and Laud shared to the
full in the troubles and the unpopularity.
Already he had learnt something of the feeling of
London. On May 9, when Parliament had been dissolved,
1 Gal State Papers. Vane s notes, May 5, 1640.
2 See Gal. State Papers, Sept. 11, 1640; Oct. 515, 1640.
Prynne s Rome s Masterpiece, an ingenious falsification of the
whole story, is reprinted, with Laud s MS. notes, in his Works, iv.
463 s.
TEOUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 189
and Convocation was still sitting, a paper had been
posted on the Exchange, summoning all apprentices to
meet the next holiday in S. George s Fields, and to
sack the palace at Lambeth. Laud had warning, and
the next day, Sunday, " a drum was beat up in South-
wark, and charge given to the train band there to
guard the Archbishop s house." l About twelve or one
at night some five hundred rioters assembled, but after
two hours were unable to force an entrance, " and God
be thanked," wrote Laud in his Diary, " I had no harm."
The attempt, however, had been made, and was widely
talked of. It was reported that the Archbishop had
been " compelled to take a grey cloak and escape over
the Thames." 2 He had indeed slept the night at
Whitehall. One of the ringleaders was executed ; but
the riots continued. The White Lion prison in South-
wark was broken open, and prisoners were rescued from
thence and from the King s Bench.
The Scots as they entered England were threatening
vengeance on the Archbishop as " a raging tyrant and
blood-sucking wolf." 3 The prentices were again being
hired to fall on him during the King s absence, by fly-
sheets scattered about the city. And, while the Great
Council of Peers was debating at York, and when the
richer citizens of London were coming forward to aid
the King with money, a mob of " near two thousand
Brownists" made tumult in the High Commission
Court, then sitting in S. Paul s " because of the trouble
of the times." They " tore down all the benches in the
. - 1 Woodford s Diary, in Hist. MSS. Comni., Report IX. >
Appendix, p. 498.
2 Ibid.
3 Letter in Prynne s Hidden Works of Darkness, pp. 187-8.
190 WILLIAM LAUD
Consistory, and cried out that they would have no
bishop, nor no High Commission." 1
From that time the end was near. In nothing was
the popular feeling more evident than in the enormous
growth of broadsheets and pamphlets, libels and ballads,
that were issued on every topic of current affairs.
As early as 1629 Laud had knowledge of the bitter
hatred that was rising against him, through the libels
that were printed and circulated through the land. On
March 29 he wrote in his Diary "Two papers were
found in the Dean of Paul s his yard before his house.
The one was to this effect, concerning myself: Laud,
look to thyself; be assured thy life is sought. As thou
art the fountain of all wickedness, repent thee of thy
monstrous sins, before thou be taken out of the world,
etc. And assure thyself, neither God nor the world
can endure such a vile counsellor to live, or such a
whisperer ; or to this effect. The other was as bad as
this, against the Lord Treasurer. Mr. Dean delivered
both papers to the King that night. Lord, I am a
grievous sinner; but I beseech Thee deliver my soul
from them that hate me without a cause." From that
day letters of accusation and fly-sheets, imputing every
kind of crime, dogged his path. His Diary records
some of the worst. His familiar letters comment on
them, but always in the same tone of sorrow rather
than anger. "The best is," he writes to Strafford in
1636, " they have called my Master by the worst name
they have given me, and He has taught me how to
bear it." Two years later it is the same. "Within
this fortnight I have received four bitter libels. I only
tell the King of them, and put them in my pocket."
1 Diary, in Works, iii. 237.
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 191
" All to Westminster : newes from Elizium " ; " Can-
terburie s Tooles, or Instruments wherewith he hath
effected many rare feats and egregious exploits, as is
very well known, and notoriously manifest to all men.
Discovering his projects and policies, and the ends and
purposes of the prelates in effecting their facinorous
actions and enterprises " ; " Rome for Canterbury, or a
true relation of the Birth and Life of William Laud " ;
" Rome s ABC " ; " Canterbury s Will " ; " Canterburie s
Amazement, or the Ghost of the Young Fellow Thomas
Bensted, who appeared to him in the Tower " ; "A
Parallel between Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York,
and William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury " ; " Can
terburie s Dreame " (a vision of Wolsey) ; " Mercurie s
Message, or the Coppy of a Letter sent to William
Laud, late Archbishop of Canterbury, now prisoner in
the Tower." These are a few of those which came out
in 1641. The list is endless. Many of them show a
coarse humour : many more a savage bitterness. It is
pathetic to see them in Lambeth Library, carefully
kept and noted, with the date and manner in which
they reached him. They became so common that he
grew to treat them often with a spice of their own
humour. " WILLIAM LAUDE WELL AM A DIVIL," says
one foolish anagram. The Archbishop wrote below
u He y* of this would better English make,
Snail find a task will make his brain to ake."
Perhaps the foulest of them all but it is ill setting
precedence in such a matter is "Canterbury s Will,
with a Serious Conference between bis Scrivener and
him," printed in 1641, after his imprisonment, which
threatens his death by hanging, and makes the usual
192 WILLIAM LAUD
accusations against him. " Dost thou not hear," he is
made to say, "as thou walkest along the streets, how
each school-boy s mouth is filled with a Give Little
Laud to the Devill ? "
Another, of no little interest, is " The Recantation
of the Prelate of Canterbury, being his last Advice to
his Brethren the Bishops of England to consider his
Fall, observe the Times, forsake their wayes, and to
joyne in their good work of Reformation." In this
Laud is made to confess his design of erecting a
hierarchy which should rule England, and sow the
seeds of Arminianism, superstition, and Popery, and to
give himself up to despair and penitence. One pas
sage, as he read it in the Tower, may have well startled
him by the confidence with which it predicted that
it would be impossible now to recover, or to avoid the
extreme penalty.
"We have already," he was made to say, "received
sentence from the House of Commons; their wisdom
and justice have pronounced the people s mind, and
denounced the kingdom s pleasure. And though the
influence of some frolick faction (now fugitive as our
hopes are) should yet a little prolong the life of our
expectation, and entertain us with a possibility of
wrestling through, tell me if ever any person did thrive
being once condemned by them. It is certainly a
great loss, not to have the Parliament s affection, and
very hard, as they say, to sit in Rome and strive
against the Pope. No, no, Nature and Grace, Time
and Fortune, have taken such a good course to destroy
us, that it is impossible we can be saved without a
miracle." x
1 P. 38. For this interesting libel I am indebted to the kind-
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 193
The writer had indeed hit upon the reason which
made escape impossible. Though the Commons might
be compelled by the pressure of military and civil
difficulties to delay for years the settlement of their
great quarrel with the Archbishop, it was the war itself
which made it impossible that his life should ulti
mately be spared. As the fratricidal strife more and
more embittered the feelings of the combatants, the
English Erastians began to feel, as the Scots had long
felt, an unquenchable personal hatred against the great
surviving exponent of the Stewart policy in Church and
State, while those who might have preserved his life
were scattered over all England when the fatal hour
arrived. Slowly the libellers came to represent the
feelings of those who had the power to strike, and then
Laud s death was inevitable.
But to return to the period when the popular cries
were first finding expression in the literature of the
street. Libels such as these were constant in the
autumn of 1640. Abroad and at home the air seemed
full of omens against the Archbishop. He was still
busy with his works of generosity, sending the last of
his magnificent gift of MSS. to his loved University.
One night he found his picture, " taken by the life " in
Vandyke s studio if not entirely by his own hand, 1
" fallen down upon the face and lying on the floor, the
string being broken by which it was hanged against
the wall." Even his stalwart heart was startled. " I
am almost every day threatened with my ruin in
ness of A Romish Recusant. 3 The portrait of Laud which it
contains has been reproduced as the frontispiece of his own
interesting life of Laud.
1 The picture still hangs at Lambeth.
o
194 WILLIAM LAUD
Parliament," he wrote; "God grant this be no
omen." 1
The Long Parliament met on Tuesday, November 3.
From that date events moved quickly. On the llth
Strafford was impeached; on December 4 Laud was
examined as to his friend s speeches in the Privy
Council; on the 10th Windebanke fled; on the 16th
the new Canons were condemned in the House of
Commons, and Laud was named as the author of them,
and in the House of Lords the Scots Commissioners
accused him by name as " an incendiary." On Friday,
December 18, he was formally impeached of High
Treason by the Commons, and charged further by
the Scots Commissioners. No particular articles were
alleged ; these it was said should follow in convenient
time.
Within six weeks the face of English affairs had
been completely changed. Charles had lost his two
most devoted servants. No one raised a finger to save
them. Terror seemed to , have fallen on the Court as
the Commons became the masters of the State.
Laud was committed to the custody of the Usher of
the Black Rod, Mr. Maxwell, till the charges against
him should be particularized. He was allowed to
spend a few hours for the last time at Lambeth, taking
a few books and materials for his defence. " I stayed
at Lambeth till the evening," is the touching entry in
his Diary, " to avoid the gazing of the people. I went
to evening prayer in my chapel. The psalms of the
day, Psalms 93 and 94, and chapter 50 of Esai, gave
me great comfort. God make me worthy of it, and fit
to receive it. As I went to my barge, hundreds of my
1 Diary, Works, iii. 237.
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 195
poor neighbours stood there and prayed for my safety
and return to my house. For which I bless God and
them." He had some little talk with his steward and
other faithful friends, who felt with him the comfort of
the psalms " Dominus regnavit" and lt Deus ultionum " :
he could study in them again the power of the
Almighty and the comforts of the righteous. " Blessed
is the man whom Thou chastenest, Lord, and teachest
him in Thy law : that Thou mayest give him patience
in time of adversity. ... In the multitude of the
sorrows that I had in my heart Thy comforts have
refreshed my soul." Every day after he read over these
psalms again for the comfort he then received.
Special prayer, which had been his habitual solace in
times of distress, was now his resort. On the day of
his imprisonment, perhaps during his last hours at
Lambeth, he wrote down the words in which he
commended his cause to God " eternal God and
merciful Father, I humbly beseech Thee look down
upon me in this time of my great and grievous afflic
tion. Lord, if it be Thy blessed will, make mine
innocency appear, and free both me and my profession
from all scandal thus raised on me. And howsoever, if
Thou be pleased to try me to the uttermost, I humbly
beseech Thee give me full patience, proportionable
comfort, contentment with whatsoever Thou sendest,
and an heart ready to die for Thy honour, the King s
happiness, and the Church s preservation. And my
zeal to these is all the sin yet known to me in this
particular for which I thus suffer. Lord, look upon me
in mercy, and for the merits of Jesus Christ pardon all
my sins many and great, which have drawn down this
judgment upon me ; and then in all things do Thou
196 WILLIAM LAUD
with rne as seems best in Thine own eyes, and make me
not only patient under, but thankful for whatsoever
Thou doest, O Lord my Strength and my Redeemer.
Amen." l
He could rest at peace in his trust in God and with
the love of the poor. He remained for ten weeks in
the custody of Maxwell, " during which time he gained
so much on the good opinion of the gentlewoman of
the house, that she reported him to some of her gossips
to be one of the goodest men and most pious souls,
but withal one of the silliest fellows to hold talk
with a lady that ever she met with in all her
life." 2 In the house of Black Rod he would hear
all that was happening without; and strange news
indeed it must have seemed to one who had never
understood how the times were moving. He was fined
500 for his imprisonment of Sir Robert Howard, 3 and
made to pay the money at once. Prynne, Burton, and
Bastwick were released and received with triumph in
London. Williams was set at liberty, and " more
honoured by the Lords and Commons than ever any
of his order, his person looked upon as sacred, his
words deemed as oracles." 4 Changes among the
judges, resolutions against ship-money, orders on public
worship, " root and branch " propositions, and the signs
of severance between the men who had been united
when the Parliament began these might cause hope
and fear to alternate day by day in Laud s ever buoyant
mind.
At last, on February 26, 1640, fourteen articles were
1 Works, iii. 84.
2 Heylin, Cyprianus Anglicus, p. 405.
3 See above, p. 102.
4 Heylin, p. 464.
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 197
brought up by the Commons against him, and he was
sent for to the bar of the Lords to hear them. He
made a spirited reply. False he was declared to be
to God, the King, and the people; and that with no
particular proof but a general accusation. " It is not
possible for any man/ he answered, " to be true to the
King, as King, that shall be found treacherous to the
State established by law, and work to the subversion of
the people." Most nearly of all did he feel it that he
should be charged with falseness in religion : " but for
corruption in the least degree I fear no accuser that
will speak the truth."
The articles touched upon every point of the policy
in Church or State that w r as associated with his name.
He had subverted the fundamental laws. " What were
they ? " was his answer ; and he stood, as always, on
the judgment of the lawyers themselves in each case.
He had, it was said, procured the publication of
assertions of arbitrary power ; he had perverted
justice in the law-courts; he had taken bribes and
sold justice ; he had < traitorously published canons con
trary to the King s prerogative and the people s rights ;
he had assumed a papal and tyrannical power in con
tempt of the Royal Supremacy ; he had endeavoured to
alter God s true religion by law established in the
realm, and set up popish superstition and idolatry ; he
had abused the power and patronage given him, and
the licensing of books; he had confederated with Jesuits,
and deprived godly ministers; he had endeavoured to
cause dissensions between the Church of England and
"other reformed Churches"; he had stirred up strife
between England and Scotland ; and he had laboured
to incense the King against the people and the people
198 WILLIAM LAUD
against the King : and all these charges were made to
sound the more grievous by the addition of the word
"traitorously" to each.
Laud may well have been astonished at the list, as it
is plain he was. Yet he answered with courage and
patience to each article, premising nevertheless that
general charges were worthless, and that lie could
reply in detail to any particular evidence or allegation.
His answer made, the Lords committed him to the
Tower, whither he was brought three days later, on
March 1, 1641. As he passed through the city the
prentices raised a shout, and a crowd assembled. " And
so they followed me with clamour and revilings, even
beyond barbarity itself; not giving over till the coach
was entered in at the Tower gate. Mr. Maxwell, out
of his love and "care, was exceedingly troubled at it ; but
I bless God for it, my patience was not moved : I
looked upon a higher cause than the tongues of Shimei
and his children." Safe there, it might seem that he
was forgotten, for while the tide surged outside, while
Strafford was beheaded, and the war began, he still
remained in prison. It was not till three years later
that he was actually brought to trial.
He petitioned for a copy of the charge against him,
and that he might have counsel. The Lords ordered
that he should have such counsel as were not of counsel
to the Earl of Strafford, and that he and the Earl of
Strafford should not be suffered to come together in
the Tower. In the Tower he betook himself to writing
that pathetic memoir, the History of his Troubles. He
noted down what he heard of the proceedings of
Parliament, where day by day his cherished reforms
were being destroyed. He recorded in the expressive
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 199
brevity of a severe restraint what he knew of the last
hours of the friend who had been as his other self in
the service of Church and King. The pathos of the
words cannot suffer from their constant repetition. It
is a classic passage in the literature of affliction.
"His lordship, being to suffer on the Wednesday
morning, did upon Tuesday in the afternoon desire the
Lord Primate of Armagh, then with him, to come to
me, and desire me that I would not fail to be at my
chamber window at the open casement the next morn
ing, when he was to pass by it as he went to execution ;
that though he might not speak with me, yet he might
see me, and take his last leave of me. I sent him word
I would, and did so. And the next morning as he
passed by, he turned towards me, and took the solemnest
leave that I think was ever by any at distance taken one
of another; and this in the sight of the Earl of New
port, then L Lord Constable of the Tower ; the Lord
Primate of Armagh, the Earl of Cleveland, the Lieu
tenant of the Tower, and divers other knights and
gentlemen of worth. Besides, during the time of our
restraints, and the nearness of our lodgings, we held no
intercourse each with other ; yet Sir W. Balfore, then
Lieutenant of the Tower, told me often what frequent
and great expressions of love the Earl made to me . . .
But I leave that honourable person in his grave, and
while I live shall honour his memory."
The old man fainted as he gave his blessing to his
staunch friend. When he came to himself he said to
those around him, " that he hoped by God s assistance,
and his own innocency, that when he came to his own
execution (which he daily longed for) the world should
perceive he had been more sensible of the Lord
200 WILLIAM LAUD
Stratford s loss than of his own : and good reason it
should be so (said he), for the gentleman was more
serviceable to the Church (he would not mention the
State) than either himself or any of all the Churchmen
had ever been." It was indeed, as Heylin adds, "a
gallant farewell to so eminent and beloved a friend."
From the day of Sfcrafford s execution Laud, it is
clear, gave up hope of life; but he preserved his courage
unaltered, and thought only to prove his innocence to
posterity if he could not to his judges. His prayers in
prison are in the Psalmist s words of confidence and
trust.
News reached him of the strange changes that so
rapidly succeeded each other outside. The King in
November feasted in London, in January was scouted on
all hands for his attempt to arrest the five members.
Williams, his old rival, at one moment the idol of the
Parliamentary party, and the base adviser of the King
to consent to Stafford s death, was before the end of
the year committed, with eleven other bishops, to the
Tower for their protest against their practical exclu
sion from Parliament. The Courts of Star Chamber
and High Commission were abolished, and the whole
machinery of personal government dislocated. For him
self, his jurisdiction in certain particulars was seques
tered, and he resigned his Chancellorship of Oxford
in a dignified and pathetic letter of farewell. Ballads
were sung up and down the streets of him. He could
hear them, it may be, in prison. " The new year of
the bishops fear," as one libel called it, 1 found the
prentices crying
1 The Apprentices Advice to the XII. Bishops, 1642.
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 201
" Go twelve Apostates, not Apostles, view,
Your Arch. Guil. Cant, the head o th damned crew,
Who hath his King, country, and State betray d,
And to be hang d with you hath so long stayd."
When he could get to service he was preached against
" with vehemency becoming Bedlam/ he writes, with
something of his old spirit, of one Joslin, on May 15,
1642, " with treason sufficient to hang him in any
other state, and with such particular abuse to me, that
women and boys stood up in the church to see how
I could bear it." There was still no stirring for his
trial ; but from time to time orders reached him from
the Lords as to appointments to benefices. Lambeth
was placed in charge of a military guard, " to keep it
for the public service," and his goods were sold. For a
time visitors were allowed to see him, and among them
there came one who seemed to lure him to incrimi
nate himself by speaking against Parliament. 1 Usher
was often allowed to be with him, and they spoke no
doubt of the last hours of Strafford. It seemed as if
at one time the Commons would not have been sorry
that he should escape. He wrote to Pococke of the
chance, but said he scorned to fly. 2 Rumours reached
him too that he should be sent to New England, 3 and
the suggestion indeed was actually debated in the
Commons, but was rejected. Since his imprisonment
began he had been allowed to walk for a short space
daily alone. But at length an order came against this,
that he might not go out without his keeper, 4 "so much
as to take the air."
Before the end of the month he suffered a more
1 Diary, Feb. 20, 1642. a Twells, Life of Pococke, p. 84.
3 Diary, March 24, 1643. 4 Ibid., May 10, 1643.
202 WILLIAM LAUD
grievous outrage. An order was issued by the Com
mons that all the prisoners in the Tower should be
searched for letters and other papers. Just as Leighton
had been set to search Lambeth, Prynno was com
missioned to deal with Laud himself. Early in the
morning of May 31, 1643, when the Archbishop was
still in bed, and his servants had not risen, his " impla
cable enemy," having left sentries without, entered his
room with three musketeers, their muskets at full cock,
and began to rifle his pockets. Laud was soon up, and,
half-dressed, stood by while the search proceeded. The
papers he had prepared for his defence were taken
from him the King s letters about a vacant benefice,
the Scots service-book, his own Diary, and even his
book of private prayers. " Nor could I get him," he
says, " to leave this last ; but he must needs see what
passed between God and me, a thing I think scarce
ever offered to any Christian." Having searched up
and down, in cupboards and boxes, the eager Prynne
peeped even into a bundle of gloves, of which Laud
gave him a pair, and at last went his way with the
spoil. " I was somewhat troubled to see myself used in
this way," is all the prisoner s comment, " but knew no
help but in Cod and the patience which He had given
me. And how His gracious providence over me, and
His goodness to me wrought upon all this I shall in
the end discover, and will magnify, however it succeed
with me."
The search for papers was for the object, there could
be no doubt, of procuring evidence against the Arch
bishop. Already committees had been searching for
information. They had taken notes of all the com
plaints that could be got together against the Star
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 203
Chamber or High Commission, with a view of using
them in the trial. They had examined Sir Kenelm
Digby as to Laud s relations with Rome, from whom
they gained nothing but an assurance that the Arch
bishop was a true Anglican. Parliament a few days
after the search suspended him a~b qfficio ct leiujlcio ct
omni et omnimodo jurisdictione archiepiscopali.
The preparations for the trial now began to proceed
apace. He was allowed only to have copies of the papers
that had been taken from him made at his own expense.
The documents themselves were preserved for use
against him. The " popish plot " revealed by Habern-
fcld was served up by Prynne as Rome s Master
piece," an ingenious attempt to turn a supposed scheme
against the King s and the Archbishop s lives into a
proof of the latter s collusion with Roman agents. The
Diary and the Prayer-Book proved a mine of informa
tion ; and soon rumour reached the prisoner and
even preachers told their congregations in his presence
that great things had been discovered. He had been
promised that all should be returned within three or four
days, but the bitter lawyer was too keen to use every
possible evidence to think fit to keep his word. 1 After
five months Prynne s " malice had hammered out some
thing," and ten additional articles were brought up by
the Commons against Laud.
The next month was spent in petitions for counsel,
for papers, for distinction in the charges. At length
the trial began. From this period we are overwhelmed
with evidence. The Record Office has masses of papers
1 I think there can be liLtle doubt that the papers taken by
Prynne (twenty-one bundles) are those now preserved at the
Record Office. State Papers, Domestic) vol. ccccxcix.
204 WILLIAM LAUD
relating to the charges and the trial. The journals of
the House of Lords record all formal decisions. Rush-
worth 1 professes to give a detailed account of each
day s business, which is repeated with addition from
Laud s own MS. in the State Trials. Prynne s Canter-
lurie s Doome goes over the same ground with malicious
comment. William Clarke, then a young man begin
ning to study the law, attended the House from time
to time, and kept a more or less detailed account of
the proceedings, both from his own knowledge and from
report. The Archbishop himself, with painful per
sistence, each day recorded, after all the strain of the
examination and the speaking, the pitiful progress of
the trial which would, as he firmly believed, acquit him
with honour in the eyes of foreign nations and of pos
terity. The materials are so enormous that it would
be impossible to give any complete account of the case
in any form but a separate volume. It must suffice to
sketch the course of the proceedings, laying stress only
on the most vital points, and on those details which
the MS. of William Clarke, now used for the first time,
adds to the familiar authorities.
On November 13, 1643, Laud, after his long and
weary imprisonment, at last stood at the bar. He was
brought by Alderman Pennington, then Lieutenant of
the Tower, by water to Westminster. As he looked
across at Lambeth, which he was never again to enter,
he may well have thought of the night when his danger
was first made plain to him, and he fled over the river
in his grey cloak to take refuge where he was now
1 What appear to be Rnsliwortli s original notes are among
Lord Braye s MSS. (see Hist. MSB. Comm., Report X., part 6,
p. 118
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 205
to be tried for his life. " Upon the Archbishop s com
ing into the House of Peers," says Clarke, " the articles
and charges against him in the name of the House of
Commons and of the Commons of England were read,
unto which he pleaded Not Guilty in that manner and
form as it was there laid down; and then making a
short apology for himself, gave their honours thanks
that they were pleased to allow him counsel, and de
sired that in regard he was unacquainted with matters
of law, and unfit to speak for himself in that particular,
their lordships would be pleased to accept of his answer
from his counsel, which their lordships assented unto/
The proceedings indeed were little more than formal.
Laud made a pathetic allusion to his "great years, being
threescore and ten complete, and my memory and other
faculties by age and affliction much decayed." He saw
that some of the Lords watched him narrowly, and he
was thankful that they found him " in a calm " where
they thought he " would have been stormy."
He was not brought again before the Lords till
January 16. Meanwhile, that he " might not rust,"
as he quaintly says, he was called on to answer also
in the Commons, as a collateral defendant with Cosin,
to the charges of Peter Smart of Durham. Not con
tent with trying him for his life, his foes must needs
take each trumpery accusation that was brought for
ward, while the gravest charges were still pending.
When he again appeared in the House of Lords he
was to give an answer to the first general articles,
and this was deferred till the 22nd. On that day
he drove through the streets amid frost and snow,
and "a most bitter day," while the people railed on
him as he passed. He put in his answer, a plea of
206 WILLIAM LAUD
"not guilty" on all counts, with a special claim for
exemption from all charge in relation to the Scots dis
turbances by the Act of Indemnity, passed that session,
which covered all acts, howsoever they trenched upon
law or liberty, committed in the whole business.
So he departed, and was put off from day to day ;
now summoned in Smart s case, now ordered to attend,
now deferred. At length the trial began in earnest, on
Tuesday, March 12, 1643.
In the House of Lords, where he had so often sat as
the first subject in the realm, the Archbishop of Can
terbury stood at the bar for long hours, often from
early in the morning till two o clock, and then again
from four to half-past seven. Only a strong con
stitution though Laud was always ailing during his
long life could have borne the fatigue and anxiety.
Yet his extraordinary vivacity and acuteness, his won
derful memory, the readiness of his replies and the
absolutely fearless assertion of his opinions, won the
astonishment of his enemies, as they deserve the ad
miration of posterity.
The trial was indeed a pitiable performance. Only
the bitterness of Prynne, who managed the case
for the Commons, supplied the counsel with notes,
and " kept a kind of school of instruction for " the
witnesses, and the occasional outbreak of savage vin-
dictiveness in the evidence, could have suggested to
an ignorant bystander that a great man was standing
trial for his life. The peers treated the affair with
scandalous levity. At the most, on any day, there
were but thirteen or fourteen present, and of these
not two-thirds sat the whole day. Never was the
House the same in the afternoon, for the defence, as
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 207
it was in the morning, for the accusation ; and not a
single peer save the Speaker, Lord Grey of Warke,
whose presence was necessary to make a house, was
present at the whole trial. Never in English history,
it may be truly said, was a more monstrous viola
tion of justice and good feeling in the trial of a capital
charge.
We are able, from Hollar s print, 1 and some con
temporary allusions, to picture the scene. At the
end of the House stood the empty throne, raised
on three steps; behind and at the sides were such
persons as were privileged to stand where they could
best see the prisoner. Beneath sat Lord Grey on the
woolsack, with the judges and lawyers below. At
each side were the benches of the peers. Behind the
bar, and directly facing the Speaker, was the Arch
bishop, having on his right hand the Black Rod, and
on his left his counsel, while behind him the Lieu
tenant of the Tower kept guard over the prisoner. In
front, to the right of Laud, and between him and the
Speaker, stood the clerk, who read over the evidence ;
and on the same side, but behind the bar, was the
space where sat such of the Commons as came to the
hearing among them always " Mr. Prynne in the
midst/ Close to them were the witnesses, and the table
where lay the books and papers that were to be given
in evidence. The people stood without the high en
closure which faced the throne at the opposite end of
the hall, gossiping and tattling of the evidence and the
prospects of the trial.
1 Prefixed to Hidden Works of Darkness, and to some copies of
Canterburies Doome.
208 WILLIAM LAUD
It might seem to one who wandered in by chance,
that, with all the bustle of the accusers and the listless-
ness of the judges, the suit resolved itself into a combat
for life between the little old man, in his black gown,
with a large tight black cap covering nearly all his
head, and the dark, stern lawyer, with the long black
hair that concealed his cropped ears. And so it was.
Laud knew who was 1 his real accuser, and learnt soon
how little he regarded the rules of law in his eagerness
to slay the man he hated ; but though he fought
bravely for his life, he forbore to resent the personal
enmity of his antagonist, and "left him to the bar of
Christ, whose mercy," he prayed, "would give him
repentance and amend him."
The first day began with an order that each day s
evidence should each day be answered by the Arch
bishop an injustice made the more severe since he
had so short a time to prepare himself, and was not
allowed any help from his counsel, but only his faith
ful secretary Dell to hand him his papers. Serjeant
Wilde opened the case in a florid speech which seemed
more designed to catch the people than affect the
Lords. Laud s reply was in the highest eloquence he
ever attained. It was a masterly summary of the
difficulties under which he laboured, coupled with a
defence of his own religion and honour. " The laws of
the land and the religion of those laws established "
against both these he was said to have offended. To
both he stoutly asserted his entire obedience : and his
defence of his faith, as we read it, rings true with the
deep note of the full loyalty of an honest man. To
the charge of Popery he had a ready answer. What
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 209
was there that could lure him to it, to the betrayal of
his honour and the breach of every principle of his
life ? And what was there to keep him back if his
conscience led him to Rome ? Not wife, or children,
or worldly comfort, or honour : " ft r whatsoever the
world may be pleased to think of me, I have led a
very painful life, and such as I could have been very
well content to change, had I well known how. And
had my conscience led me that way, I am sure I might
have lived at far more ease; and either have avoided
the barbarous libellings, and other bitter and grievous
stories which I have here endured, or at the least been
out of the hearing. Nay, my lords, I am as innocent
in this business of religion, as free from all practice, or
so much as thought of practice, for any alteration to
Popery, or any way blemishing the true Protestant
religion established in the Church of England, as I
was when my mother first bare me into the world.
And let nothing be spoken against me but truth," he
cried, rising to the note of passion which his enemies
looked for on charges less vital ^to his honour, " and I
do here challenge whatsoever is between heaven and
hell to say their worst against me in point of my
religion : in which, by God s grace, I have ever hated
dissimulation ; and had I not hated it, perhaps it
might have been better with me, for worldly safety,
than now it is. But it can no way become a Christian
bishop to halt with God."
Clarke summarizes his contention briefly, and says
that he declared, " that if he had desired preferment
for compliance with the Church of Rome, he might have
had more honour in foreign parts than ever he was
likely to obtain here, and that it was no outward
210 WILLIAM LAUD
honour but his conscience that caused him to refuse
the cardinal s hat." l
But the strongest argument against any fondness
for Rome was the number of men that he had stayed,
or brought back, from her fold. These he named one
by one, that their cases might be patent evidence of his
faith, and this touched his foes most nearly. As he
went out Hugh Peters met him and told him, "that
there were those ministers that could prove not only
twenty-two, but two hundred, yea, some above five
hundred that were converted by their diligent and
faithful labours in the work of the ministry, and might
have recalled more, had they not been silenced by
him/ 2
The next day he was ordered to attend at nine in the
morning, though the trial rarely began till two hours
later. This /lay the political charges were taken the
endeavour to subvert the fundamental laws of the
kingdom and the disparagement of Parliament. The
counsel who introduced the charge was Maynard, and
among the chief witnesses was Sir Henry Vane, who
swore that "after the ending of the Short Parliament,
Laud had told the King that " now he might use his
own power." 3
Laud s summary of his answer gives the points clearly
" The subversion of the fundamental laius* 1. I
1 Clarke MS. The other authorities do not mention the refer
ence to the cardinalate ; but Laud may not have remembered
everything he had said, and Clarke was probably present. But
see Wharton s note, Works, iv. 66.
2 Clarke MS. The last clause is omitted by Laud, who adds,
however, that Peters " came as if he would have struck " him.
3 The evidence was taken on commission, Vane being ill. Laud
had of course no opportunity to cross-examine.
4 State Papers, Domestic, vol. ccccxcix., no. 54. These are
TEOUBLES, TEIAL, AND DEATH 211
humbly conceive this cannot be meant of the breach of
any one or two laws, but of the whole frame of the law.
For else every breach upon one or few laws were treason,
which no man can say. 2. I never did or intended any
thing (against) any main law of the kingdom, which
may in any construction be capital, much less against
the frame and body of the law. 3. I humbly conceive
there can be no rational attempt against the body of the
law but by force : I never had either power or inten
tion for the use of any force. 4. For the Irish army l
it is to me as non ens. I never so much as heard it
spoken of for England, but for Scotland only. 5. For
the words in Sir Henry Vane s paper, I am sure I spake
them not as he hath set them down. But if such words
were spoken, they cannot be forced to make the speaker
guilty of any intended subversion of the law. For
some course must be taken cannot imply that that
course must needs be illegal. 6. And this I am sure of,
that at the Council table, where I had the honour to
sit, I did to the uttermost of my understanding keep
myself as much to legal ways as any man. And this I
know the Lord-Keeper Coventry would witness were
he living ; and I hope the honourable great men which
yet sit there will testify as much for me."
Evidence of particular sharp sayings was brought
against him in most cases by only one witness and
stoutly denied by him. Much that was childish and
incredible was alleged ; some things that might be but
slight perversions of the obiter dicta of an impetuous
man. His promotion of Man waring and Heylin were
probably the notes from which Laud spoke. He wrote his answer
more fully in his history.
As in the charge against StraiTord.
212 WILLIAM LAUD
charged against him, and the grant of subsidies in
Convocation, neither, surely, on the worst construction,
evidence of high treason. So " this tedious day "
ended.
The third day was but a brief session. In the
interval he had been deprived even of the faithful Dell,
and he made a vigorous protest to which the Lords
were compelled to listen. The trial was resumed on
Monday the 18th of March. He was then charged in
relation to the restoration of S. Paul s, "a strange
piece of treason, the repair of S. Paul s," said he : " the
manner of doing it, by demolishing of men s houses,"
they retorted, was the charge. The day was spent ill
petty accusations, which Laud met with indomitable
spirit and some sly touches of humour. He was
charged from his Diary with projecting to give the
London tithes to the clergy. He commented upon their
condition under the new rfyime. " They are now under
the taskmaster of Egypt; the tale of brick must be
made, they must preach twice a Sunday, get straw
where they can." He had already had experience, from
the sermons he had heard since he was imprisoned, of
the shifts the ministers were set to to " get straw " for
their discourses.
Then came the cases of Prynne, Burton, and Bast-
wick. It was easy for him to show how little Prynne
limited himself to the truth. After more petty baiting
about S. Paul s, the day ended with Laud s terse
observations
" First, that here have been thirteen witnesses at
least produced in their own cause. Secondly, that
whereas here have been so many things urged this day
about the Star Chamber and the Council table, the
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 213
Acfc made this Parliament for the regulating of the one
and the taking away of the other takes no notice of
anything past ; and yet acts past (and those joint acts
of the Council and not mine) are urged as treasonable,
of conducing to treason, against me. Nay, the Act is
so far from looking back, or making such offences
treason, as that if any offend in future, and that several
times, yet the Act makes it but misdemeanour, and
prescribes punishments accordingly."
So the trial went on from day to day, March 22,
April 16, May 4, 16, 20, 27, June 6, 11, 17, 20, 27,
July 5, 17, 24, 21), September 2, 11, 14, October 11,
and November 16. Laud s trouble was greatly increased
and the expense alone was six or seven pounds a day
to him by his being frequently summoned, and then
obliged, after waiting some hours, to return to the
Tower unheard. This happened on April 4, 8, 22, 28,
30, May 13, 22, 25, June 6, July 15. The accounts of
the trial are full to tediousness : Laud noted the evidence
and the replies with indomitable patience, and the young
law student Clarke grew more eager each day to put
down the particulars. There is little to relieve the
bitterness and malice that disfigure the dreary record,
save the quaint flashes of humour that break out now
and again in the old man s history. The terse shrewd
ness with which from time to time he summed up in a
word his reply to long charges shows the vigour and
concentration of mind which never deserted him.
" I did in general put the Lords in mind that nothing
of late times was done either in Star Chamber or at
Council table which was not done in King James s
or Queen Elizabeth s times, before I was born," an
unanswerable argument if they stood by precedents.
214 WILLIAM LAUD
" I had liturgies, all I could get, both ancient and
modern. I had also the Alcoran in divers copies. If
this be an argument, why do they not accuse me to be
a Turk ? "
" Shall I bow to man in each House of Parliament,
and shall I not bow to God in His House ? "
When one said there were copes used in the Oxford
colleges, and that a traveller would say "that he saw
just such a thing on the Pope s back," " This wise man
might have said as much of a gown. He saw a gown
on the Pope s back, therefore a Protestant may not wear
one; or, entering into S. Paul s, he may cry, Down
with it, for I saw the Pope in just such another church
in Home. "
They made a great matter of his denying the Pope
to be Antichrist. He had said nothing about it, he
declared, but " Tis true I did not, I cannot, approve foul
language in controversies. Nor do I think the calling
of the Pope Antichrist did ever yet convert an under
standing Papist."
The patience and self-control of the man were
indeed marvellous. Day after day he had to stand
and hear himself railed upon in the coarsest language ;
day after day to see his trial conducted with a dis
regard of the rules of ordinary procedure of which even
a country justice might have been ashamed. As he went
to and fro in the streets, and at the landing-stage at
Westminster, his enemies reviled him. One day a
coarse fellow came up and asked aloud " What the Lords
meant to be troubled so long and so often with such a
base fellow they should do well to hang him out of
the way." The last and bitterest blow was the publica
tion of his Diary, the record of his most private thoughts
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 215
garbled and distorted by the annotations of Prynne.
On September 2 he was to make the recapitulation
of his whole cause. " But as soon as I came to the bar
I saw every lord present with a thin new book in folio,
in a blue coat. I heard that morning that Mr. Prynne
had printed my Diary, and printed it to the world to
disgrace me. 1 Some notes of his own are made upon
it. The first and the last are two desperate untruths,
besides some others. This was the book then in the
Lords ^hands, and, I assure myself, that time picked
for it that the sight of it might damp me and disenable
me to speak. I confess I was a little troubled at it.
But after I had gathered up myself, and looked up to
God, I went on the business of the day."
It was indeed the extremity of cruelty ; but it might
speak to the mind of honest men all the more loudly
in favour of his innocence.
"My very pockets searched; my Diary, my very
Prayer-book taken from me, and after used against
me ; and that in some cases not to prove but to make a
charge. Yet I am thus far glad, even for this sad
accident. For by my Diary your Lordships have seen
the passages of my life; and by my Prayer-book the
greatest secrets between God and my soul ; so that you
may! be sure you have me at the very bottom : yet,
blessed be God, no disloyalty is found in the one, no
Popery in the other."
His speech was brief and pointed. With a dignified
1 " A Breviate of the Life of William Laud, extracted (for the
most part) verbatim out of his own Diary, and other writings
under his own hand," 1644. The first scandal is that he caused
the "cage" at Reading to be pulled down because it was opposite
to the house he was born in ; the second, that he dreamed at
Oxford he should rise to great power, but in the end be hanged.
216 WILLIAM LAUD
answer to the unworthy charges that had been made,
he appealed to the statute of Edward III. which
defined and limited the offence of high treason.
Having so done he commended himself to the Pro
vidence of God. "And under that Providence, which
will I doubt not work to the best to my soul that loves
God, I repose myself."
At the next sitting his counsel, Hearn, addressed
himself to the question of treason a clear, conclusive
argument. In none of the acts alleged, however
grievous, was there "any treason by any established
law of this kingdom." When the strange argument of
"cumulative treason" had been used he had replied
already, " I cry you mercy. This is the first time that
e er I heard that a thousand black rabbits did make
one black horse."
The tedious trial had so far brought at least one
result. It was clear even to the managers of the
impeachment that not even the small body of terrorized
peers could find the prisoner guilty on the counts with
which he was charged. As in StrafFord s case, it was
plain that the formal process of law must be abandoned,
and a bill of attainder must be brought in. Since
Laud could not be proved to be a traitor, Parliament
must declare that he was one, and condemn him as such.
On October 28, a petition of Londoners demanded
that he should be executed as a traitor. On Novem
ber 1 he was suddenly summoned to the House of
Commons. Speaker Lenthall told him as he stood at
the bar that a bill of attainder was brought in, and he
was desired to hear the summary of evidence. He was
refused the aid of counsel, and required to answer
on the llth.
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 217
The long trial and the scattered evidence had now
been compressed. The Commons charged him with an
endeavour to "alter the true Protestant religion into
Popery," and " an endeavour to subvert the laws of the
kingdom." To the former charge there were the petty
proofs of ceremonies, of the statue over S. Mary s
porch at Oxford, of pictures in Bibles, and such like 5
to the latter the old charge of Sir Harry Vane, the
Canons, and so forth. His answer was to the same
effect as in the Lords a denial of particulars, and an
appeal to statute law.
"Mr. Speaker," he said, with the simple pathos of
unvarnished truth, " I am very aged, considering the
turmoils of my life, and I daily find in myself more
decays than I make show of; and the period of my
life, in the course of nature, cannot be far off. It
cannot but be a great grief unto me, to stand at these
years thus charged before ye. Yet give me leave to say
thus much without offence : whatsoever errors or faults
I may have committed by the way, in any my pro
ceedings, through human infirmity as who is he that
hath not offended, and broken some statute laws too,
by ignorance, or misapprehension, or forge tfulness, at
some sudden time of action ? yet if God bless me
with so much memory, I will die with these words in
my mouth, * That I never intended, much less en
deavoured, the subversion of the laws of the kingdom ;
nor the bringing in of Popish superstition upon the
true Protestant religion established by law in this
kingdom. "
So ended the day, a "heavy business," and physical
weakness at length broke down the stout old man for a
while. Two days later he was called again to hear the
218 WILLIAM LAUD
counsel reiterate the charge : he might not reply ; and
when he left the House the Bill was passed without
more ado. William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury,
was attainted of High Treason, and to suffer the pains
of death. The Bill was taken up to the Lords on
November 16. 1
It was urged with every argument of passion. The
people, it was said, stood at the gates of the House
clamouring to see justice done. " They should do well
to agree to the ordinance," said Strode, " or else the
multitude would force them to it." Essex returned a
bold answer on behalf of the Lords independence : but
it was an independence which had long passed away.
It was little more than a form that the ordinance
was debated by the Lords on four occasions, or that they
desired a conference with the Commons as to the law
of treason. The judges unanimously declined to give
opinion as to the treason, "because they could not
deliver any opinion in point of treason but what was
particularly expressed to be treason in the statute of
25 Edward III." 2
Thus the shadow of death hung over Laud through
Christmas and the New Year. Christmas Day was
kept by the Houses order as a strict fast " a fast never
before heard of in Christendom." It was a sign that
the historic Church which Laud had so faithfully served
was powerless to save him.
On January 4 the Lords passed the Attainder, 3 and
1 Lords Journals : Clarke MS.
2 Lords Journals. There is doubt as to the number of peers
present. Clarendon says not above twelve. The highest number
asserted is fourteen.
3 Lords Journals : Cal State Papers, Dow., 1644-5, pp. 228,
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 219
two days later it was ordered " that on Friday next the
Lieutenant of the Tower of London do deliver the
said Archbishop into the custody of the Sheriffs of
London, who are to see the execution of justice upon
him performed according to the sentence of Parliament." l
The next day Laud sent in a pardon of the King
dated April 12, 1643, but it was not allowed. The House
even refused to abate any of the cruel rigours of the
execution; but on the following morning they, (t upon a
most humble petition of the Archbishop, wherein he did
not desire the Parliament for his life, but only that he
might not die that of hanging by the neck, in that he
was once a member of the Parliament, and some other
reasons, the House of Commons concurred with the
Lords that he] should be beheaded on Friday next, and
then the Sheriffs of London should see him executed in
that manner accordingly." 2
The same day that the Attainder was passed, the
Lords agreed to the substitution of the " Directory " for
the Book of Common Prayer, so that, as a member of
the Commons wrote to his friend, "the Archbishop
and the service-book died together." 3
The last page of the History was written in a clear,
bold hand, very unlike that of an old man on the verge
of death, on January 3. " The rest shall follow as it
comes to my knowledge," are the last words. Next day
the Lieutenant of the Tower came to tell him that the
ordinance was passed. He heard it calmly, and prepared
229. It was to be made no precedent of treason for the judges
a curious commentary on the justice of the Act.
1 Clarke MS. 2 j^Z.
3 W. Ashurst to Col. Moore, Hist. M88. Comm,, Report X.,
Appendix, pt. 4.
220 WILLIAM LAUD
for death. He pleaded that lie might have three of his
friends to minister to him, Dr. Stern, Dr. Hey wood, and
Dr. Martin. The Lords agreed, but the Commons
refused even this last request. They would allow only
Dr. Stern, with two Puritan ministers one or both to
be present whenever Stern was with him. To one
whose opinions on sacramental confession were well
known, the Commons sank so low as thus to deny the
possibility of its private use at the hour of death.
Burton in those last days " with two other godly
reverend brethren" went to give him counsel; but ho
returned him thanks and would not see him. 1
The calmness which his enemies had often declared
that he lacked in life did not desert him at last.
Prayer and fasting, the touching outpourings of humili
ation and faith which his Devotions have made familiar,
prepared his soul for the last agony. " He that had so
long been a confessor could not but think it a release
of miseries to be made a martyr." 2
His last night was spent in peaceful slumber. He
had prepared himself for the morrow, and to avoid any
chance of ill-considered or distracted lanmia^e in his
O O
last speech, he wrote out carefully all that he intended
to say. Heylin, who almost worshipped him, and who
has made the record of these last days read like the
triumphant march of a victorious general, says quaintly
"As he did not fear the frowns, so neither did he
covet the applause of the vulgar herd, and therefore
rather chose to read what he had to speak unto the
people than to affect the ostentation either of memory
1 The Grand Imposter Unmasked, by Henry Burton.
2 A Briefe Relation of the Death and Sufferings, &c. Oxford,
1644, p. 14.
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 221
or wit in that dreadful agony. As for the matter of his
speech, besides what did concern himself and his own
purgation, his great care was to clear his Majesty and
the Church of England from any inclination to
Popery."
When the morning came he continued in prayer till
the officers arrived, when he went forth with them,
having so cheerful and ruddy a countenance that men
thought he had painted it till they saw it turn pale as
ashes after the fatal blow. As he mounted the steps
some still questioned and taunted him, but all was
hushed when he stood forth on the scaffold to speak to
the dense crowd that covered Tower Hill. It was a
last sermon that he delivered, for in it he thought more
of others than himself, and the pathos of it turned many
who had reviled him to grieve at his murder.
" Good people," he began, " this is an uncomfortable
time to preach ; yet I shall begin with a text of Scrip
ture, Hebrews xii. 2 Let us run with patience the
race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author
and Finisher of our faith ; who for the joy that was set
bofope 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," he said, " and how
I have looked to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of my
faith, He best knows. I am now come to the end of
my race, and here I find the Cross a death of
shame." Then he spoke of the affliction and its end,
and still stoutly declared that he would not follow the
imaginations that the people were setting up, as the
three children would not worship the king s image.
"Nor will I forsake the temple and the truth of God"
222 WILLIAM LAUD
it was his last word on Puritanism " to follow the
bleating of Jeroboam s calves in Dan and Bethel." He
spoke of the people, " miserably misled " ; of the King,
"as sound a Protestant (according to the religion by
law established) as any man in this kingdom " ; of the
Londoners, who cried round the Parliament House for
blood ; of his predecessors who had suffered before
him, S. Alphege and Simon Sudbury "though I am
not only the first Archbishop, but the first man, that
hath ever died by an ordinance in Parliament ; " and
lastly, of his religion and faithfulness to the laws.
" What clamours and slanders I have endured for
labouring to keep a uniformity in the external service
of God, according to the doctrine and discipline of this
Church, all men know and I ha,ve abundantly felt."
And so at last, " I have done. I forgive all the
world, all and every of those bitter enemies which have
persecuted me : and humbly desire to be forgiven of
God first, and then of every man, whether I have
offended him or not, if he do but conceive that I have.
Lord, do Thou forgive me, and I beg forgiveness of
him. And so I heartily desire you to join with me."
Then he prayed aloud, for pardon for the people and
himself. When the Lord s Prayer had been said for
the last time, he gave his manuscript to Stern, spoke to
one whom he saw noting his speech and begged him not
to publish a false or imperfect copy, and then prepared
to die.
At the last moment, he saw through the boards of
the scaffold the heads of the people below, and begged
that they might be moved, lest his blood should fall
upon them. Even then he was not to have peace, for
Sir John Clotworthy, a rough Irishman, asked him,
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 223
" What was the comfortablest saying which a dying
man would have in his mouth ? " He answered meekly,
" Cupio dissolvi et esse cum Christo." Still pressed, he
said that the assurance was, "The Word of God con
cerning Christ and His dying for us." And then he
turned away, to the executioner, "as the gentler and
discreeter person." To him he said, giving him money,
" Honest friend / God forgive thee, and I do : and do
thy office upon me without mercy." Then he knelt
down and prayed
" Lord, I am coming as fast as I can : I know I must
pass through the shadow of death before I can come
to Thee ; but it is but umbra mortis, a mere shadow of
death, a little darkness upon nature : but Thou, by
Thy merits and passion, hast broken through the jaws
of death. The Lord receive my soul, and have mercy
upon me, and bless this kingdom with peace and plenty,
and with brotherly love and charity, that there may
not be this effusion of Christian blood amongst them,
for Jesus Christ His sake, if it be Thy will." A moment
more in silent prayer, and then he said, " Lord, receive
my soul," and all was over.
Beautiful and courageous the death seemed even to
his enemies, and the prayer breathed the confidence of
one who had learned to know God as his Redeemer
and Friend. " Never did man," as Heylin truly says,
" put off mortality with a better courage, nor look upon
his enemies with more Christian charity." His worst
foes would say that nothing in his life became him like
his leaving it. The boldest heart might rejoice to
meet death so nobly.
From the hour of his death the reaction set in. The
tide of war surged far away from where his body was
224 WILLIAM LAUD
laid to rest ; but in his grave the first strength of
the new Restoration movement was sown. The King
might fight and fall, but the permanence of the English
Church was assured by the martyrdom, as it was soon
felt to be, of her greatest son.
Within a few days came out the copy of his last
speech, which Hinde the printer had taken down as it
was spoken. 1 A little later Heylin published at Oxford
"A briefe relation of the death and sufferings ....
with a more perfect copy of his speech and other
passages on the scaffold than hath been hitherto im
printed." 2 Dering, who had so bitterly attacked him,
and whose shallow mind so faithfully reflected the
currents of popular feeling, soon came to say that
S. Paul s would be his perpetual monument, and his
book against the Jesuit his lasting epitaph.
The enemies of the Church soon saw the effects of
1 The Archbishop of Canterbury s Speech, or His Funerall
Sermon,
Preaclit by himself on the Scaffold on Tower Hill, on Friday
the 10th January, 1644, Upon Hebrews 12, 1, 2.
Also, the Prayers which he used at the same time and place
before his Execution.
All faithfully Written by John Hinde, whom the Archbishop
beseeched that he would not let any wrong be done him
by any phrase in false Copies.
Licensed & Entered according to Order.
London, granted by Peter Cole, at the signe of the Printing-
Presse in Cornhill, neer the Royall Exchange, over against
Pope s-head-alley, 1644.
The copy lent me by my friend Mr. Firth has corrections,
" where the dashes or lines are drawn is more than was in the
perfeckt copy of my Lord s own writing and what is written in
the margent or interlined is left out and it hath been carefully
perused."
2 Oxford, 1644 (1645). It is not stated to be by Heylin, but
its practical identity with the last pages of his Cyprianus Anglicus
leaves little doubt of the authorship.
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 225
their act, and endeavoured too late to prevent them.
The Mercwriua Britannicus, before the month was out,
declared that the last speech ought never to have been
printed " by a penman and printer of our own " ; and
thought it worth while to contradict its statements
seriatim, as a " piece of cunning close-couched scandal
against religion, reformation, and the Parliament."
Burton burst out into a frenzied denunciation,
accusing the murdered man of hypocrisy, blasphemy,
and many crimes, and calling him " Satan s second
child," and an "inveterate adversary of Christ" "wil
fully damning his own soul." Other libels as bitter
were published. 1 They were signs that all right-
thinking men regretted the act when it could not
be recalled. The ballad-mongers who had sung his
crimes and his disgrace now sang his merits and his
martyrdom. 2
His body lay for some hours in the Tower, and was
buried next day in a vault in the church of All Hallows,
Barking, followed to the grave by " great multitudes of
people whom love, or curiosity, or remorse of conscience
had drawn together purposely to perform that office."
The Prayer-Book service, though long disused and now
1 " The Grand Imposter unmasked, or a detection of the notori
ous hypocrisy and desperate impiety of the late Archbishop (so
styled) of Canterbury, cunningly couched in that written copy
which he read on the scaffold at his execution, Jan. 10, 1644,
alias, called by the public his funeral sermon. By Henry
Burton."
2 Cf. Cal. State Papers, Dam., 1644-5, p. 24
" Can Britain s patriarchal peer expire,
And bid the world good-night, without a choir
Of saints to sing his requiem, and toll
A blessing bell unto his dying soul?" etc.
9
226 WILLIAM LAUD
condemned, was read by a priest named Fletcher. 1 Dr.
Layfield the vicar, Laud s nephew, had been some years
in prison.
The parish of All Hallows never ceased to cherish
the memory of the great man who was buried in its
noble church. Round the place where his body was
laid clustered before long the graves of devoted friends
and eminent Churchmen, as though the place where
the martyr slept were counted holy by those who best
loved the Church. Eusebius Andrewes, George Snaith
(his faithful friend and servant), John Kettle well, and
the vicars Edward Layfield and John Gaskarth, were
laid to rest near the spot where the Archbishop was
interred. Nor did the people remember him less than
the priests and scholars: Laud became a Christian
name in Barking.
Memorials soon began to appear. In 1646 the House
of Commons were informed that an almanack had been
put forth by Captain George Wharton, student in
astronomy, " wherein the Archbishop is entered in the
Calendar for a martyr " ; 2 and Thomas Vaughan 3 in
his poetic epitaph exclaimed
" Now a new list of martyrs is begun."
Some years later, after the King too had mounted
the scaffold, a beautiful medal testified to the popular
feeling. On one side is a fine portrait of the Archbishop,
1 The entry in the Register is
Burialls. Ano Do: 1644 and 1645.
January
Died
Buried I William Laude Archbishop of
11 I Canterbury Beheaded [erasure]
2 Col. State Papers, Dom., 1645-7, pp. 600, 601.
3 Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius PhUalethes), brother of Henry
Vaughan the Silurist. Canon Wilton has published a beautiful
translation of the Epitaphium Gulielmi Laud.
TROUBLES, TRIAL, AND DEATH 227
probably one of the best likenesses that exist, with the
inscription GVIL. LAVD. ARCHIEPISC. CANTVAR.
X. JAN. 1644. The reverse shows a view of London,
the Thames and Lambeth, while above one cherub is
carrying np a mitre and pastoral staff, and is followed
by two others bearing a crown, sceptre, and orb. The
legend reads SANCTI CAROLI PRAECURSOR. 1
The Restoration brought back Laud to S. John s,
where he had wished to be buried, " under the altar or
Communion table there." Juxon had been buried with
great state in the chapel of his old college on July 9,
1663. Three weeks later the leaden coffin containing
the remains of Laud was removed from All Hallows, 2
1 This medal was executed by John Roettier, soon after the
Restoration. Another medal has the portrait, but with plain
reverse.
2 He was not forgotten at All Hallows. The following poem,
in the Vestry book for 1663, records the removal of his body and
eulogizes his fame.
Upon the Remoue of y* most Rev end William
Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterburie his bodie from
Allhallowes Barking London, to S fc John s Colledg in
Oxford, July y? 21* 1663.
When first Injustice Pack t up his High-Court,
When Vsurpation grau d a Broad Seale for t,
When Death, in Butchers : dres did th axe advance,
And Tragique : purpose with all Circumstance
Of Fright & Feare tooke up the fatall Stage
To act Rebellion in it s Rule, and Rage
When Friendship fainted, and late : Love stark dead,
When few own d him, whom most men honored,
Then Barkinge home, then (thus by th world forsooke)
The butcherd Bodie of y e Martyre tooke,
Tore up her quiett Marble, lodg d him sure
In y e cheife Chamber of her Sepulture ;
Where he intire, and undisturb d hath bin,
Murther d & mangl d tho at s laying in,
Where he s vntainted too, free from distrust
Of a vile mixture with Rebellious dust ;
228 WILLIAM LAUD
and brought privately as had been his express direction
by a number of the Fellows at 10 o clock at night
through the deserted streets, and in by the gate of the
grove to the chapel. Then when the Vice-President
had spoken a solemn oration in the presence of the
college and of the Vice-Chancellor, and some heads of
houses, the coffin l was laid in a vault under the altar
between the founder and Juxon. There it still rests;
and the college which he loved so dearly and endowed
so generously counts it her highest honour to guard the
bones of the greatest of her sons.
To make that sure, Braue Andrew s 2 begg d it meet
To Rott at s Coffin, and to rise at s Feet.
But now our Learned Lawd s to Oxford sent,
St. John s is made St. William s Monument,
Made so bym self ; This pious Primate s knowne
Best, by the Bookes, and Buildings of his owne,
Whome, though th accursed age did then deny
To lay him, where y e Royall Reliques lye,
Which was his due ; At s Bodies next Eemoue
Hee l Rise, and Reigne amongst y e blest aboue.
1 The coffin had on it a small brass plate, with the Archbishop s
arms and the following inscription : " In hac cistula con-
duntur exuviae Gulielmi Laud, Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis ; qui
securi percussus, immortalitatem adiit die x Januarii, aetati suae,
LXXII, Archiepiscopatus XII." A similar plate was affixed by
William Dell, the Archbishop s faithful secretary, to the south wall
of the college chapel, above the sedilia, and within a few feet of
the grave, where it still remains.
2 Colonel Eusebius Andrewes.
CHAPTER VIII.
MEMORIALS AND CHARACTER.
SOMETHING has already been said of the devotion
with which Laud came to be regarded from the moment
of his death. A character which had seemed to some
hard and unsympathizing, was recognized to contain
the strength and the spiritual power in which are found
the seed of the Church of Christ. Men soon began to
cherish his memory, to preserve his relics, and to carry
out his principles.
The Church of England as she now stands, it has
been said, is Laud s truest memorial. His energy,
and his devotion that true spirit of the ecclesiastical
statesman who builds not for the present but for the
future preserved her through the storms of political
revolution, and gave her the unity and solidarity with
which she returned at the Restoration. But his memory
was kept alive in the mind of future generations by
many tangible memorials. His will, written in the
Tower a year before his death, is a simple but glowing
record of the generosity which had been one of the
brightest features of his life. He was a poor man : no
230 WILLIAM LAUD
archbishop for centuries, it was said, had ever been so
poor. As he had given in his life, so he bequeathed
in death, with a particular generosity which was the
evidence of a personal affection. To his kinsfolk, the
grandchildren of his mother, he left each some money ;
to all who had been his chaplains some memorial, a
ring or watch that had been his own. To each of his
servants he left money, and for many he had already
provided. To the poor of all the parishes with which
he had been connected S. Mary Magdalen and S.
Giles in Oxford, Stanford, North Kilworth, Ibstoke,
Ctickston, Norton, West Tilbury, Crick, Huntingdon,
Lincoln, Carmarthen, Abergwili, Brecon, Wells, Ful-
ham, Canterbury, Croydon, and Lambeth he left bene
factions. The University of Oxford he had endowed
with an Arabic Readership, and his munificent gift of
MSS. had enriched the Bodleian. Reading, his birth
place, had been especially favoured. He bequeathed to
it property, besides the money he had already given
endowments for ministers, for scholars, apprentices, and
maidens deserving of a marriage-portion. Most of
these are enjoyed, not always without contest, to the
present day. 1 His benefactions to other places in
Berkshire were also large. 2 His personal friends, the
Duchess of Buckingham, widow of his dear friend
whom he had never forgotten, her son and daughter,
1 See Statement of the Municipal Charities, Heading, 1890 ;
and a Criticism of the Eev. C. R. Honey (declaring that no
restriction to Church folk was intended by Laud). Particulars
of the early use of the benefactions will be found in Hist. MSS.
Comm., Report XI., App., pt. 7, pp. 197, 198, 205, etc. It appears
that some of the early applicants for the charity claimed to be of
kin to the Archbishop.
2 These have been chronicled by Mr. John Bruce for the
Berkshire Ashmolean Society, 1841.
MEMORIALS AND CHARACTER 231
and his " much-honoured friend, William Lord, Marquis
of Newcastle," received tokens of his remembrance.
And there was a bequest more touching still. " Item :
I take the boldness to give to my dear and dread
Sovereign, King Charles (whom God bless), 1000,
and I do forgive him the debt which he owes me,
being 2000, and require that the two tallies for it be
given up."
To S. Paul s he left 800; to his own college all
his chapel plate and furniture, all the books in his
study at the time of his death, and 500 to buy land.
" Something else I have done for them already, accord
ing to my ability; and God s everlasting blessing be
upon that place and that society for ever." "Some
thing else " he had indeed done, " according to his
ability." When the college, at her founder s prayers,
yearly reads the commemoration of " rich men fur
nished with ability," she cannot choose but think of the
most generous of them whom in all her past history she
has known.
The college which he loved is indeed his abiding
memorial. The beautiful and unique building which
he added to the glories of Oxford architecture stands
yet, with its dark panelled rooms and its bright com
fortable library, as the witness of his munificence and
his taste. Pictures of him, one at least, it may be,
from Vandyke s own hand, and busts by Hubert le
Sueur, who made for him the royal statues which
stand still in their sculptured niches where his loyalty
placed them, recall to those who yet read his books
and enjoy his benefactions what manner of man he was.
There are other still dearer relics. A pastoral staff,
found in the college after the Restoration, may or may
232 WILLIAM LAUD
not have been his. The gorgeous vestments which
the founder gave to the chapel may never have been
worn by Laud, though they were almost certainly used
in his time. But the large skull-cap, which fell from
his head on the scaffold, and the staff on which he
leant as he walked to execution, were undoubtedly
his own. 1
And most precious of all are the two books in which
his clear bold hand traced the record of his life and
of his troubles. The Diary is a small octavo volume,
written in very neat penmanship, in lines small and close
together. There are many erasures and insertions, as
in a book which was much used and intended for no
eye but the writer s. A large part of the year 1640 is
burnt out : this was done when the book was in Prynne s
hands, whether by carelessness or malice it is impossible
to say. Upon the old cover of the book were written
by Archbishop Bancroft the following words "Arch
bishop Laud s original Diary. Great care to be taken
of it." The History of his Troubles and Trial is a larger
1 The following inscription is placed on the case containing
the ebony and ivory walking-stick
Hoc baculo dextrans subeunte
Gressus suos firmavit
Gulielmus Laud.
Archiepiscopus Cantuar.
idemque hujus collegii Benefactor
insignis, cum ad mortem
immeritam ductus esset.
Praesidenti et sociis
Coll. Divi Johannis Baptistae
d. d.
Gul. Aubrey Phelp, A.M.
Ecclesiae de Stanwell
in Com. Middlesex Vicarius.
A.D. MDCCCXV.
MEMORIALS AND CHARACTER 233
volume, written on one side of the page, with occasional
additions and corrections opposite. It was first placed
in the college most probably by Dr. Baylie, his executor,
and was, with the Diary, for a time in the hands of
Archbishops Sheldon and Bancroft. Both were pub
lished by Henry Wharton in 1694.
From these two volumes it may be said that the
great Tory and Church movement which was so striking
a feature of the age of Anne received no inconsiderable
part of its strength. The great figure round whom the
later Caroline divines, the eminent writers of the reign
of Charles II. and the learned and chivalrous non-jurors,
clustered, was undoubtedly William Laud, in whom
the Church principles which they held dear seemed to
be personified and hallowed. The publication of Laud s
Works, and particularly his Devotions, exercised on
Church feeling a parallel influence to that exercised on
politics by the immortal history of Clarendon.
An qfficium quotidianum, being the earlier part of
his Devotions, was issued in 1660 and in 1663. In
1667, 1683, 1688, 1705, other and enlarged editions
appeared. The Diary and the History were published
in 1695 by Henry Wharton. 1 The public mind had
been prepared both by the general loyal reaction and
by the great influence of the Devotions to regard the
Archbishop as a great and sincere champion of the
Faith. But the Diary and the History for the first
time revealed fully to the world what manner of man
was he who had so profoundly affected the history of
the Church. Sheldon and Sancroft were both eager
1 Pry nne s garbled version of the Diary gives no true idea of
its contents. Laud himself regarded the History as his vindication,
and especially desired that it should be translated into Latin, to
explain his position to foreign nations.
234 WILLIAM LAUD
to vindicate Ins memory by issuing these genuine
memorials of his life, but it was reserved for Henry
Wharton to carry out their intention. His aim in the
matter is quite clear. He was enthusiastic for the
memory of the great English Churchman. " I regard
it," he wrote in the preface to the edition of 1605, " the
most fortunate transaction of my whole life to have
contributed herein to the vindication of the memory
and the cause of that most excellent prelate and blessed
martyr, to whom I have always paid a more especial
veneration, ever since I was able to form any judgment
in these matters, as firmly believing him to have taken
up and prosecuted the best and most effectual method,
(although then in great measure unsuccessful, through
the malignity of the times), and to have had the noblest,
the most zealous, and most sincere intentions therein,
towards re-establishing the beauty, the honour, and the
force of religion in that part of the Catholic Church (the
Church of England) to the service of which I have
entirely devoted my life, my labours, and my fortunes."
To Wharton Laud was the martyr of the Catholic
faith in the English Church. The Church, however,
which deemed Charles a martyr did not bestow the
same honour upon the Archbishop. In a sense indeed
it may be said that Laud did not deserve the title as
did the King. He died unquestionably in consequence
of his bold profession of opinions for which he would
gladly have given his life, but he had no choice to
change those opinions, or to save his life by abandoning
his principles. But he had taught Charles to suffer for
the truth : he had instilled into him, there can be no
question, that one last consistent faith, the belief in
the paramount claim on his allegiance of the English
MEMORIALS AND CHARACTER ^
Church in its spiritual completeness, which, amid all
his changes and in all his desperate shifts, he never
abandoned. The one firm point in Charles s mind was
his devotion to the essential system of the Church its
threefold ministry and its Catholic faith. Everything
but this he would sacrifice : he would consent that the
bishops should be controlled by synods or by presbyters,
he would agree to the establishment of Presbyterianism
for five years, but he would never abandon the founda
tions upon which the historic Church was laid.
To the superficial or unobservant there might seem a
very small, difference between a moderated episcopacy
responsible to assemblies and the direct government of
the assemblies themselves, between a state-established
Presbyterianisni and a suppression of the episcopal
order and the threefold ministry; but Charles had
learnt that in the difference, small though it seemed,
lay the core of the whole matter. Should the English
Church divide itself from the historic Christianity with
which its Reformation in all its iconoclastic vehemence
had so carefully preserved the essential links ? Laud
had confirmed the clergy in the answer which had
been made by the fathers of the Church under
Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. Charles had learnt from
him to cling desperately to the essential fabric of the
Church. "I assure you," he wrote at a time of the
deepest stress, " the change would be no less and worse
than if Popery were brought in, for we should have
neither lawful priests, nor sacraments duly administered,
nor God publicly served, but according to the foolish
fancy of every idle parson." l The words, written a
year after the Archbishop s execution, have a curious
1 See Gardiner s History of Civil War, vol. iii. p. 135.
236 WILLIAM LAUD
Laudian ring about them. The King s confessor had
not lived and died in vain. He had taught Charles
that if everything else was made matter of barter, was
used to snatch a temporary advantage, in negotiation
or intrigue, never for the Crown s necessities must
the historic Church itself be abandoned or put in
pawn.
As Charles in his controversy with Henderson l
showed this one last firmness of his vacillating mind,
so when the last struggle came he still refused to save
his life, as there can be little doubt he could have done,
by surrendering and deserting the Church of his
fathers. In this sense it is that Charles was, and that
Laud made him, a martyr. This is the real meaning of
the long contest. In this sense Dr. Mozley s statement
is fully justified " Laud saved the English Church."
Beside interest of such historic importance as this
the petty criticisms of controversialists, or of narrowly
prejudiced writers such as Macaulay or Hallam, sink
into insignificance. Argument as to the right or wrong
of the details of Laud s action is irrelevant till the
issues before him and the principles upon which he
acted are intelligently appreciated. Laud claimed to
be the devoted son of the historic Church in England.
" I die as I have lived," it is the solemn profession of
faith in his last testament, " in the true orthodox pro
fession of the Catholic faith of Christ, foreshadowed by
the prophets and preached to the world by Christ
Himself, His blessed Apostles and their successors;
and a true member of His Catholic Church, within the
communion of a living part thereof, the present Church
of England, as it stands established by law." That
1 See Von Ranke, History of England) vol. ii. p. 466.
MEMORIALS AND CHARACTER 237
was his claim and his firm belief. It would take a
theological treatise to examine his opinions in relation
to every article of the Christian creed ; but on two at
least, which are central points of historic criticism and
controversy, it is clear that he trod in the footsteps of
the primitive and historic Church.
In the doctrine of the Eucharist, as his Jesuit critic 1
states, he admits neither the transubstantiation of
Roman theologians nor the consubstantiation of Luther.
He has no need to resort to such modern definitions.
He will not pass beyond the reverent reticence of the
early Church. " In the Most Blessed Sacrament," he
says to Fisher, "the worthy receiver is by his faith
made spiritually partaker of the true and real Body
and Blood of Christ truly and really, and of all the
benefits of His Passion." But he does not restrict the
Presence, though he does limit the benefits, to the
worthy communicant. The corporal (in the sense of
carnal) Presence he does again and again deny ; but he
is far from denying the objective Reality. He quotes
with approbation the statement of Ridley, that he and
his opponents were agreed and it would be well, he
says, if some Protestants did not " except against it "
" that 2 in the Sacrament is the very true and natural
Body and Blood of Christ, even that which was born
of the Virgin Mary, which ascended into Heaven,
which sitteth on the right hand of God the Father,
which shall come again to judge the quick and the
dead ; only we differ in modo, in the way and manner
of being ; we confess all one Thing to be in the Sacra
ment, and dissent in the manner of being there." The
1 Laud s Labyrinth, p. 308.
2 JForfcs, ii. 330.
238 WILLIAM LAUD
dispute to him was simply between the rigid Roman
definition and the reverent Catholic faith. " The altar
is the place of God s Presence, and the Sacrament
commemorates and represents (i. e. presents again in
memorial) the great sacrifice offered up by Christ
Himself." l Laud s language on the Eucharist, to say
the very least, is undeniably patient of a fully Catholic
interpretation.
The same is true of the " doctrine of intention." He
recognized, as do so many modern theologians of the
Roman obedience, the difficulty of any definition which
should require a definitely Catholic belief on each occa
sion of the celebration of a sacrament. 2 Still more clear
is his assertion of apostolic succession and the essential
necessity of Episcopacy. The Church government by
bishops is not alterable by human law. " Bishops may
be regulated and limited by human laws in those things
which are but incidents to their calling ; but their
calling, as far as it is jure divino, by Divine right, cannot
be taken away." 3 He accepts the statements of Hall
and Bilson, and appeals to the historical statement
of the English Ordinal. Laud certainly held no less
strong an opinion than Parker. " Up to the period of
the Reformation there was no other idea of Episcopacy
except that of transmission of Apostolic commission :
that the ministry of Episcopal government could be
introduced without such a link was never contemplated
until Bubenhagen reconstituted a nominal Episcopate
in Denmark, and this was an example not likely to be
1 See Works, ii. 340.
2 Of. the Abbe Duchesne in tlie Bulletin Critique of July 15,
1894 : "N oublions pasqu une partie clu clerge frai^ais derive son
ordination de M. de Talleyrand."
3 Works, iv. 309311.
MEMORIALS AND CHARACTER 239
taken in England; nor was it so accepted." 1 It is
perfectly clear that it was not accepted by Laud.
Laud never consciously departed from the standards
of the English, or of the Universal, Church. In this
lay the value of the service which he rendered to Eng
land. At a time when political difficulties and religious
enthusiasms were tending more than ever to accen
tuate the differences between the great body of the
Latin Church and the foreign reformed sects, Laud s
determination and force asserted, with a clearness which
it was impossible to mistake, the claim of the English
Church to be part of the continuous historic fold, joined
still, in spite of division, by the one Catholic faith. How
far the claim was justified may be a point for theolo
gians to dispute upon : it is impossible to deny that
it was made and repeated by Laud with a power which
impressed it upon succeeding generations. When the
Church came back at the Restoration, it came back
with no thought of withdrawing one jot of its Catholic
claim. Juxon, Laud s nearest friend among ecclesiastics,
and Sheldon, who was almost his pupil, acted entirely
upon the principles for which Laud had been insistent.
There was no question now, as there had been before
1645, of the possibility of a great Anglican schism.
The Church adhered firmly to the Catholic creeds and
the Apostolic ministry.
Carlyle said that Laud was " an ill-starred pedant,"
and " like a college tutor whose whole world is forms,
college rules." There is this truth in the statement
that he had learnt by his Oxford training at least the
way to teach men. His methods, rough or formal
1 See the weighty words of the Bishop of Oxford in his Second
Charge, 1893, pp. 48 sqq.
240 WILLIAM LAUD
though they might seem, were the methods of a man
who has studied the art of education. They might be
disliked, they might appear even to fail, but in the end
they were successful, and their result proved indelible.
Laud was, in the seventeenth century, the school-master
of the English Church. She has not yet outgrown his
teaching, nor is it probable that she ever will.
There were some noble words said by the Puritan
Stephen Marshall at the funeral of Pym : " I beseech
you let not any of you have one sad thought touching
him ; nor would I have you mourn out of any such
apprehension as the enemies have, and for which they
rejoice, as if our cause were not good, or we should lose
it for want of hands to carry it on. No, beloved, this
cause must prosper; and although we were all dead,
our armies overthrown, and even our Parliament dis
solved, this cause must prevail." These fine words are
true of Pym s best work, but in matters of religion how
much more truly may they be used of Laud ! The
more Englishmen study the history of the critical age
in which he lived, the more they will reverence the
memory of the man who preserved to the Church of
England both her Catholicity and her freedom.
THE END.
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay.
A LIST OF NEW BOOKS
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OCTOBER 1894
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Also 15 copies on Japanese paper. Demy %vo. 2, 2s.
Few living writers have been more loving students of fairy and folk lore than Mr.
Baring Gould, who in this book returns to the field in which he won his spurs.
This volume consists of the old stories which have been dear to generations of
children, and they are fully illustrated by Mr. Gaskin, whose exquisite designs
for Andersen s Tales won him last year an enviable reputation.
Baring Gould. A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS AND
RHYMES. Edited by S. BARING GOULD, and illustrated by the
Students of the Birmingham Art School. Crown 8vo. 6s.
Also 50 copies on Japanese paper. 4/0. 30^.
A collection of old nursery songs and rhymes, including a number which are little
known. The book contains some charming illustrations by the Birmingham
students under the superintendence of Mr. Gaskin, and Mr. Baring Gould has
added numerous notes.
Beeching. A BOOK OF CHRISTMAS VERSE. Edited
oy H. C. BEECHING, M.A., and Illustrated by WALTER CRANE.
Croiun 8vo. 6s.
Also 50 copies on hand-made paper. Demy^vo. i, is.
Also 15 copies on Japanese paper. Demy 8vo. 2, 2s.
A collection of the best verse inspired by the birth of Christ from the Middle Ages
to the present day. Mr. Walter Crane has designed some beautiful illustrations.
A distinction of the book is the large number of poems it contains by modern
authors, a few of which are here printed for the first time.
Jane Barlow. THE BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND MICE,
translated by JANE BARLOW, Author of Irish Idylls, and pictured
by F. D. BEDFORD. Small 4/0. 6s. net.
Also 50 copies on Japanese paper. 4*0. 30^. net.
This is a new version of a famous old fable. Miss Barlow, whose brilliant volume
of Irish Idylls has gained her a wide reputation, has told the story in spirited
flowing verse, and Mr. Bedford s numerous illustrations and ornaments are as
spirited as the verse they picture. The book will be one of the most beautiful
and original books possible.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
HDefootionai
With full-page Illustrations.
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. By THOMAS A KEMPIS.
With an Introduction by ARCHDEACON FARRAR. Illustrated by
C. M. GERE. Fcap. Svo. $s.
Also 25 copies on hand-made paper. i$s.
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. By JOHN KEBLE. With an Intro
duction and Notes by W. LOCK, M. A., Sub- Warden of Keble College,
Author of The Life of John Keble. Illustrated by R. ANNING
BELL. Fcap. Zvo. 55.
Also 25 copies on hand-made paper. i$s.
These two volumes will be charming editions of two famous books, finely illus
trated and printed in black and red. The scholarly introductions will give them
an added value, and they will be beautiful to the eye, and of convenient size.
General Literature
Gibbon. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN
EMPIRE. By EDWARD GIBBON. A New Edition, edited with
Notes and Appendices and Maps by J. B. BURY, M.A., Fellow of
Trinity College, Dublin. /;; seven volumes. Crown %vo.
The time seems to have arr ved for a new edition of Gibbon s great work furnisher 1 .
with such notes and appendices as may bring it up to the standard of recent his
torical research. Edited by a scholar who has made this period his special study,
and issued in a convenient form and at a moderate price, this edition should fill
an obvious void.
Flinders Petrie. A HISTORY OF EGYPT, FROM THE
EARLIEST TIMES TO THE HYKSOS. By W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE,
D.C.L., Professor of Egyptology at University College. Fully Illus
trated. Crown 8vo. 6s.
This volume is the first of an illustrated History of Egypt in six volumes, intended
both for students and for general reading and reference, and will present a com
plete record of what is now known, both of dated monuments and of events, from
the prehistoric age down to modern times. For the earlier periods every trace of
the various kings will be noticed, and all historical questions will be fully discussed.
The volumes will cover the following periods ;
I. Prehistoric to Hyksos times. By Prof. Flinders Petrie. II. xvinth to xxth
Dynasties. III. xxist to xxxth Dynasties. IV. The Ptolemaic Rule.
V. The Roman Rule. VI. The Muhammedan Rule.
The volumes will be issued separately. The first will be ready in the autumn, the
Muhammedan volume early next year, and others at intervals of half a year.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 5
Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN DECORATIVE ART. By
W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, D.C.L. With 120 Illustrations. Crown
&vo. 3-r. 6d.
A book which deals with a subject which has never yet been seriously treated.
Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN TALES. Edited by W. M.
FLINDERS PETRIE. Illustrated by TRISTRAM ELLIS. Crown 8vo.
3-y. >d.
A selection of the ancient tales of Egypt, edited from original sources, and of great
importance as illustrating the life and society of ancient Egypt.
Southey. ENGLISH SEAMEN (Howard, Clifford, Hawkins,
Drake, Cavendish). By ROBERT SOUTHEY. Edited, with an
Introduction, by DAVID HANNAY. Crown 8vo. 6s.
This is a reprint of some excellent biographies of Elizabethan seamen, written by
Southey and never republished. They are practically unknown, and they de
serve, and will probably obtain, a wide popularity.
Waldstein. JOHN RUSKIN : a Study. By CHARLES WALD-
STEIN, M.A., Fellow of King s College, Cambridge. With a Photo
gravure Portrait after Professor HERKOMER. Post Svo. $s.
Also 25 copies on Japanese paper. Demy 8vo. 2is.
This is a frank and fair appreciation of Mr. Ruskin s work and influence literary
and social by an able critic, who has enough admiration to make him sym
pathetic, and enough discernment to make him impartial.
Eenley and Whibley. A BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE.
Collected by W. E. HENLEY and CHARLES WHIBLEY. Cr. 8vo. 6s.
Also 40 copies on Dutch paper. 2is. net,
Also 15 copies on Japanese paper. 42^. net.
A companion book to Mr. Henley s well-known Lyra Heroica. It is believed that
no such collection of splendid prose has ever been brought within the compass of
one volume. Each piece, whether containing a character-sketch or incident, is
complete in itself. The book will be finely printed and bound.
Bobbins. THE EARLY LIFE OF WILLIAM EWART
GLADSTONE. By A. F. ROBBINS. With Portraits. Crown
Svo. 6s.
A full account of the early part of Mr. Gladstone s extraordinary career, based on
much research, and containing a good deal of new matter, especially with regard
to his school and college days.
Baring Gould. THE DESERTS OF SOUTH CENTRAL
FRANCE. By S. BARING GOULD. With numerous Illustrations by
F. D. BEDFORD, S. HUTTON, etc. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. 32^.
This book is the first serious attempt to describe the great barren tableland that
extends to the south of Limousin in the Department of Aveyron, Lot, etc., a
country of dolomite cliffs, and canons, and subterranean rivers. The region is
full of prehistoric and historic interest, relics of cave-dwellers, of mediaeval
robbers, and of the English domination and the Hundred Years War. The
book is lavishly illustrated.
6 MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
Baring Gould. A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG:
English Folk Songs with their traditional melodies. Collected and
arranged by S. BARING GOULD and H. FLEETWOOD SHEPPARD.
Royal 8z>o. 6s.
In collecting West of England airs for Songs of the West," the editors came across
a number of songs and airs of considerable merit, which were known throughout
England and could not justly be regarded as belonging to Devon and Cornwall.
Some fifty of these are now given to the world.
Oliphant. THE FRENCH RIVIERA. By Mrs. OLIPHANT
and F. R. OLIPHANT. With Illustrations and Maps. Crown 8vo.
6s.
A volume dealing with the French Riviera from Toulon to Mentone. Without fall
ing within the guide-book category, the book will supply some useful practical
information, while occupying itself chiefly with descriptive and historical matter.
A special feature will be the attention directed to those portions of the Riviera,
which, though full of interest and easily accessible from many well-frequented
spots, are generally left unvisited by English travellers, such as the Maures
Mountains and the St. Tropez district, the country lying between Cannes, Grasse
and the Var, and the magnificent valleys behind Nice. There will be several
original illustrations.
George. BATTLES OF ENGLISH HISTORY. By H. B.
GEORGE, M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford. With numerous
Plans. Crown Svo. 6s.
This book, by a well-known authority on military history, will be an important
contribution to the literature of the subject. All the great battles of English
history are fully described, connecting chapters carefully treat of the changes
wrought by new discoveries and developments, and the healthy spirit of patriotism
is nowhere absent from the pages.
Shedlock. THE PIANOFORTE SONATA: Its Origin anc
Development. By J. S. SHEDLOCK. Crown Svo. 55.
This is a practical and not unduly technical account of the Sonata treated histori
cally. It contains several novel features, and an account of various works little
known to the English public.
Jenks. ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT. By E JENKS,
M.A., Professor of Law at University College, Liverpool. Crown
Svo. 2s. 6d.
A short account of Local Government, historical and explanatory, which will appear
very opportunely.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 7
Dixon. A PRIMER OF TENNYSON. By W. M. DIXON,
M.A., Professor of English Literature at Mason College. Fcap. 8vo.
is. 6d.
This book consists of (i) a succinct but complete biography of Lord Tennyson ;
(2) an account of the volumes published by him in chronological order, dealing with
the more important poems separately ; (3) a concise criticism of Tennyson in his
various aspects as lyrist, dramatist, and representative poet of his day; (4) a
bibliography. Such a complete book on such a subject, and at such a moderate
price, should find a host of readers.
Oscar Browning. THE AGE OF THE CONDOTTIERI : A
Short History of Italy from 1409 to 1530. By OSCAR BROWNING,
M.A., Fellow of King s College, Cambridge. Crown 8z><?. $s.
This book is a continuation of Mr. Browning s Guelphs and Ghibellines, and the
two works form a complete account of Italian history from 1250 to 1530.
Layard. RELIGION IN BOYHOOD. Notes on the Reli
gious Training of Boys. With a Preface by J. R. ILLINGWORTH.
By E. B. LAYARD, M.A. iSmo. is.
Chalmers Mitchell. OUTLINES OF BIOLOGY. By P.
CHALMERS MITCHELL, M.A., F.Z.S. Fully Illustrated. Crown
Sz 0. 6s.
A text-book designed to cover the new Schedule issued by the Royal College of
Physicians and Surgeons.
Maiden. ENGLISH RECORDS. A Companion to the
History of England. ByH. E. MALDEN, M.A. Crown Svo. $s. 6d.
A book which aims at concentrating information upon dates, genealogy, officials,
constitutional documents, etc., which is usually found scattered in different
volumes.
Hutton. THE VACCINATION QUESTION. A Letter to
the Right Hon. H. H. ASQUITH, M.P. By A. W. HUTTON,
M.A. Crown 8vo.
Leaders of Religion
NEW VOLUMES
Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d.
LANCELOT ANDREWES, Bishop of Winchester. By R. L.
OTTLEY, Principal of Pusey House, Oxford, and Fellow of Mag
dalen. With Portrait.
ST. AUGUSTINE of Canterbury. By E. L. CUTTS, D.D.
With a Portrait.
THOMAS CHALMERS. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. With a
Portrait. Second Edition.
JOHN KEBLE. By WALTER LOCK, Sub- Warden of Keble
College. With a Portrait. Seventh Edition.
8 MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
English Classics
Edited by W. E. HENLEY.
Messrs. Methuen propose to publish, under this title, a series of the masterpieces of
the English tongue.
The ordinary cheap edition appears to have served its purpose : the public has
found out the artist-printer, and is now ready for something better fashioned.
This, then, is the moment for the issue of such a series as, while well within the
reach of the average buyer, shall be at once an ornament to the shelf of him that
owns, and a delight to the eye of him that reads.
The series, of which Mr. William Ernest Henley is the general editor, will confine
itself to no single period or department of literature. Poetry, fiction, drama,
biography, autobiography, letters, essays in all these fields is the material of
many goodly volumes.
The books, which are designed and printed by Messrs. Constable, will be issued in
two editions
(1) A small edition, on the finest Japanese vellum, limited in most
cases to 75 copies, demy 8vo, 2is. a volume nett ;
(2) The popular edition on laid paper, crown 8vo, buckram, $s. 6d. a
volume.
The first six numbers are :
THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY.
By LAWRENCE STERNE. With an Introduction by CHARLES
WHIBLEY, and a Portrait. 2 vols.
THE WORKS OF WILLIAM CONGREVE. With an Intro
duction by G. S. STREET, and a Portrait. 2 vols.
THE LIVES OF DONNE, WOTTON, HOOKER, HERBERT,
AND SANDERSON. By IZAAK WALTON. With an Introduction
by VERNON BLACKBURN, and a Portrait.
THE ADVENTURES OF HADJI BABA OF ISPAHAN.
By JAMES MORIER. With an Introduction by E. S. BROWNE, M. A.
THE POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. With an Introduction
by W. E. HENLEY, and a Portrait. 2 vols.
THE LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. By SAMUEL
JOHNSON, LL.D. With an Introduction by JOHN HEPBURN
MILLAR, and a Portrait. 3 vols.
Classical Translations
NEW VOLUMES
Crown 8vo. Finely printed and bound in blue buckram.
LUCIAN Six Dialogues (Nigrinus, Icaro-Menippus, The Cock,
The Ship, The Parasite, The Lover of Falsehood), Translated by S.
T. IRWIN, M.A., Assistant Master at Clifton ; late Scholar of Exeter
College, Oxford. -$s. 6d.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 9
SOPHOCLES Electra and Ajax. Translated by E. D. A.
MORSHEAD, M.A., late Scholar of New College, Oxford; Assistant
Master at Winchester. 2s. 6d.
TACITUS Agricola and Germania. Translated by R. B.
TOWNSHEND, late Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. 2s. 6d.
CICERO Select Orations (Pro Milone, Pro Murena, Philippic II.,
In Catilinam). Translated by H. E. D. BLAKISTON, M.A., Fellow
and Tutor of Trinity College, Oxford. 5*.
University Extension Series
NEW VOLUMES. Crown ^vo. zs. 6d.
THE EARTH. An Introduction to Physiography. By EVAN
SMALL, M.A. Illustrated.
INSECT LIFE. By F. W. THEOBALD, M.A. Illustrated.
Social Questions of To-day
NEW VOLUME. Crown Zvo. zs.td.
WOMEN S WORK. By LADY DILKE, Miss BULLEY, and
MlSS WlIITLEY.
Cheaper Editions
Baring Gould. THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS : The
Emperors of the Julian and Claudian Lines. With numerous Illus
trations from Busts, Gems, Cameos, etc. By S. BARING GOULD,
Author of Mehalah, etc. Third Edition. Royal 8vo. i$s.
A most splendid and fascinating book on a subject of undying interest. The great
feature of the book is the use the author has made of the existing portraits of the
Caesars, and the admirable critical subtlety he has exhibited in dealing with this
line of research. It is brilliantly written, ana the illustrations are supplied on a
scale of profuse magnificence. Daily Chronicle.
Clark Russell. THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COL-
LINGWOOD. By W. CLARK RUSSELL, Author of < The Wreck
of the Grosvenor. With Illustrations by F. BRANGWYN. Second
Edition. 8ve. 6s.
A most excellent and wholesome book, which we should like to see in the hands of
every boy in the country." St. James s Gazette.
A 2
io MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
Fiction
Baring Gould. KITTY ALONE. By S. BARING GOULD,
Author of Mehalah, Cheap Jack Zita, etc. 3 vols. Crown 8vo.
A romance of Devon life.
Norris. MATTHEW AUSTIN. By W. E. NORRIS, Author of
* Mdle. de Mersai, etc. 3 vols. Crown 8vo.
A story of English social life by the well-known author of The Rogue.
Parker. THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD. By GILBERT
PARKER, Author of Pierre and his People, etc. 2 vols. Crown 8vo.
A historical romance dealing with a stirring period in the history of Canada.
Anthony Hope. THE GOD IN THE CAR. By ANTHONY
HOPE, Author of A Change of Air, etc. 2 vols. Crown 8vo.
A story of modern society by the clever author of The Prisoner of Zenda.
Mrs. Watson. THIS MAN S DOMINION. By the Author
of A High Little World. 2 vols. Crown &vo.
A story of the conflict between love and religious scruple.
Conan Doyle. ROUND THE RED LAMP. By A. CONAN
DOYLE, Author of The White Company, The Adventures of Sher
lock Holmes, etc. Crown Quo. 6s.
This volume, by the well-known author of The Refugees, contains the experiences
of a general practitioner, round whose Red Lamp cluster many dramas some
sordid, some terrible. The author makes an attempt to draw a few phases of life
from the point of view of the man who lives and works behind the lamp.
Barr. IN THE MIDST OF ALARMS. By ROBERT BARR,
Author of From Whose Bourne, etc. Crown &vo. 6s.
A story of journalism and Fenians, told with much vigour and humour.
Benson. SUBJECT TO VANITY. By MARGARET BENSON.
With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d.
A volume of humorous and sympathetic sketches of animal life and home pets.
X. L. AUT DIABOLUS AUT NIHIL, and Other Stories.
By X. L. Crown 8vo. 3*. 6d.
A collection of stories of much weird power. The title story appeared some years
ago in Blackwood s Magazine, and excited considerable attention. The
Spectator spoke of it as distinctly original, and in the highest degree imagina
tive. The conception, if self-generated, is almost as lofty as Milton s.
Morrison. TALES OF MEAN STREETS. By ARTHUR
MORRISON. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A volume of sketches of East End life, some of which have appeared in the National
Observer, and have been much praised for their truth and strength and pathos.
O Grady. THE COMING OF CURCULAIN. By STANDISH
O GRADY, Author of Finn and his Companions, etc. Illustrated
by MURRAY SMITH. Crown 8vo. 3$. 6d.
The story of the boyhood of one of the legendary heroes of Ireland.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 11
New Editions
E. F. Benson. THE RUBICON. By E. F. BENSON, Author
of Dodo. Fourth Edition, Crown %vo. 6s.
Mr. Benson s second novel has been, in its two volume form, almost as great a
success as his first. The Birmingham Post says it is well written, stimulat
ing , unconventional, and, in a word, characteristic . the National Observer
congratulates Mr. Benson upon an exceptional achievement, and calls the
book a notable advance on his previous work.
Stanley Weyman. UNDER THE RED ROBE. By STANLEY
WEYMAN, Author of * A Gentleman of France. With Twelve Illus
trations by R. Caton Woodville. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A cheaper edition of a book which won instant popularity. No unfavourable review
occurred, and most critics spoke in terms of enthusiastic admiration. The West
minster Gazette called it a book of which we have read every word for the sheer
pleasure of reading, and which we put down "with a pang that we cannot forget
it all and start again. The Daily Chronicle said that every one who reads
Books at all must read this thrilling romance, from the first page of which to the
last the breathless reader is haled along. It also called the book an inspiration
of manliness and courage. The Globe called it a delightful tale of chivalry
and adventure, vivid and dramatic, with a wholesome modesty and reverence
for the highest.
Baring Gould. THE QUEEN OF LOVE. By S. BARING
GOULD, Author of Cheap Jack Zita, etc. Second Edition.
Crown Svo, 6s.
The scenery is admirable and the dramatic incidents most striking. Glasgow
Herald.
Strong, interesting, and clever. Westminster Gazette.
You cannot put it down till you have finished it. Punch.
Can be heartily recommended to all who care for cleanly, energetic, and interesting
fiction. Sussex Daily News.
Mrs. Oliphant. THE PRODIGALS. By Mrs. OLIPHANT.
Second Edition. Crown Sz>0. 3^. 6d.
Richard Pryce. WINIFRED MOUNT. By RICHARD PRYCE.
Second Edition. Crown Sz o. %s. 6d.
The Sussex Daily News called this book l a delightful story, and said that the
writing was uniformly bright and graceful. The Daily Telegraph said that the
author was a deft and elegant story-teller, and that the book was an extremely
clever story, utterly untainted by pessimism or vulgarity.
Constance Smith. A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND.
By CONSTANCE SMITH, Author of The Repentance of Paul Went-
worth, etc. New Edition. Crown 2>vo. 3*. 6d.
12 MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
School Books
A VOCABULARY OF LATIN IDIOMS AND PHRASES.
By A. M. M. STEDMAN, M.A. iSwo. is.
STEPS TO GREEK. By A. M. M. STEDMAN, M.A. i8mo.
is. 6d.
A SHORTER GREEK PRIMER OF ACCIDENCE AND
SYNTAX. By A. M. M. STEDMAN, M.A. Crown Zvo. is. 6d.
SELECTIONS FROM THE ODYSSEY. With Introduction
and Notes. By E. D. STONE, M.A., late Assistant Master at Eton.
Fcap. 8vo. 2s.
THE ELEMENTS OF ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM.
With numerous Illustrations. By R. G. STEEL, M.A., Head Master
of the Technical Schools, Northampton. Crown 8vo. 45. 6d.
THE ENGLISH CITIZEN : His RIGHTS AND DUTIES. By
H. E. MALDEN, M.A. Crown 8vo. is. 6d.
A simple account of the privileges and duties of the English citizen.
INDEX POETARUM LATINORUM. By E. F. BENECKE,
M.A. Crown 8v0. 4^. 6d.
An aid to Latin Verse Composition.
Commercial Series
A PRIMER OF BUSINESS. By S. JACKSON, M.A. Crown
Svo. is. 6d.
COMMERCIAL ARITHMETIC. By F. G. TAYLOR. Crown
8vo. is. 6d.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 13
anti Decent Bookg
Poetry
Rudyard Kipling. BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS; And
Other Verses. By RUDYARD KIPLING. Seventh Edition. Crown
%vo. 6s.
A Special Presentation Edition, bound in white buckram, with
extra gilt ornament, *js. 6d.
1 Mr. Kipling s verse is strong, vivid, full of character. . . . Unmistakable genius
rings in every line. Times.
The disreputable lingo of Cockayne is henceforth justified before the world ; for a
man of genius has taken it in hand, and has shown, beyond all cavilling, that in
its way it also is a medium for literature. You are grateful, and you say to
yourself, half in envy and half in admiration : " Here is a book ; here, or one is a
Dutchman, is one of the books of the year." National Observer.
" Barrack- Room Ballads" contains some of the best work that Mr. Kipling has
ever done, which is saying a good deal. " Fuzzy- Wuzzy," " Gunga Din," and
" Tommy," are, in our opinion, altogether superior to anything of the kind that
English literature has hitherto produced. Athenceum.
1 These ballads are as wonderful in their descriptive power as they are vigorous in
their dramatic force. There are few ballads in the English language more
stirring than "The Ballad of East and West," worthy to stand by the Border
ballads of Scott. Spectator.
The ballads teem with imagination, they palpitate with emotion. We read them
with laughter and tears ; the metres throb in our pulses, the cunningly ordered
words tingle with life ; and if this be not poetry, what is? Pall Mall Gazette.
Henley. LYRA HEROICA : An Anthology selected from the
best English Verse of the i6th, I7th, i8th, and iQth Centuries. By
WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY, Author of A Book of Verse, Views
and Reviews, etc. Crown ?>vo. Stamped gilt buckratn t gilt top,
edges unctit. 6s.
Mr. Henley has brought to the task of selection an instinct alike for poetry and for
chivalry which seems to us quite wonderfully, and even unerringly, right.
Guardian.
Tomson. A SUMMER NIGHT, AND OTHER POEMS. By
GRAHAM R. TOMSON. With Frontispiece by A. TOMSON. Fcap.
Svo. 2 s &d.
An edition on hand-made paper, limited to 50 copies. ios. 6d. net.
1 Mrs. Tomson holds perhaps the very highest rank among poetesses of English birth.
This selection will help her reputation. Black and White.
14 MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
Ibsen. BRAND. A Drama by HENRIK IBSEN. Translated by
WILLIAM WILSON. Crown 8vo. Second Edition. -$s. 6d.
The greatest world-poem of the nineteenth century next to "Faust." "Brand
will have an astonishing interest for Englishmen. It is in the same set with
"Agamemnon," with "Lear," with the literature that we now instinctively regard
as high and holy. Daily Chronicle.
" Q." GREEN BAYS : Verses and Parodies. By " Q., Author
of Dead Man s Rock etc. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2 s - &d.
The verses display a rare and versatile gift of parody, great command of metre, and
a very pretty turn of humour. Times.
"A. G." VERSES TO ORDER. By "A. G." Cr. 8vo. 2s.6d.
net.
A small volume of verse by a writer whose initials are well known to Oxford men.
A capital specimen of light academic poetry. These verses are very bright and
engaging, easy and sufficiently witty. St. James s Gazette.
Hosken. VERSES BY THE WAY. BY J. D. HOSKEN.
Crown 8vo. $s.
A small edition on hand-made paper. Price 12s. 6d. net*
A Volume of Lyrics and Sonnets by J. D. Hosken, the Postman Poet. Q, the
Author of The Splendid Spur, writes a critical and biographical intro
duction.
Gale. CRICKET SONGS. By NORMAN GALE. Crown Svo.
Linen. 2s. 6d.
Also a limited edition on hand-made paper. Demy 8vo. los. 6d.
net.
They are wrung out of the excitement of the moment, and palpitate with the spirit
of the game. Star.
As healthy as they are spirited, and ought to have a great success. Times.
Simple, manly, and humorous. Every cricketer should buy the book. Westminster
Gazette.
Cricket has never known such a singer. Cricket.
Langbridge. BALLADS OF THE BRAVE : Poems of Chivalry,
Enterprise, Courage, and Constancy, from the Earliest Times to the
Present Day. Edited, with Notes, by Rev. F. LANGBRIDGE.
Crown &vo. Buckram 3$. 6d. School Edition, 2s. 6d.
A very happy conception happily carried out. These "Ballads of the Brave" are
intended to suit the real tastes of boys, and will suit the taste of the great majority.
Spectator. The book is full of splendid things. World.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 15
General Literature
Collingwood. JOHN RUSKIN : His Life and Work. By
W. G. COLLINGWOOD, M.A., late Scholar of University College,
Oxford, Author of the Art Teaching of John Ruskin, Editor of
Mr. Ruskin s Poems. 2 vols. %vo. $2s. Second Edition.
This important work is written by Mr. Collingwood, who has been for some years
Mr. Ruskin s private secretary, and who has had unique advantages in obtaining
materials for this book from Mr. Ruskin himself and from his friends. It contains
a large amount of new matter, and of letters which have never been published,
and is, in fact, a full and authoritative biography of Mr. Ruskin. The book
contains numerous portraits of Mr. Ruskin, including a coloured one from a
water-colour portrait by himself, and also 13 sketches, never before published, by
Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Arthur Severn. A bibliography is added.
No more magnificent volumes have been published for a long time. . . . Times.
This most lovingly written and most profoundly interesting book. Daily News.
4 It is long since we have had a biography with such varied delights of substance
and of form. Such a book is a pleasure for the day, and a joy for ever. Daily
Chronicle.
1 Mr. Ruskin could not well have been more fortunate in his biographer. Globe.
4 A noble monument of a noble subject. One of the most beautiful books about one
of the noblest lives of our century. Glasgow Herald.
Gladstone. THE SPEECHES AND PUBLIC ADDRESSES
OF THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. With Notes
and Introductions. Edited by A. W. HUTTON, M.A. (Librarian of
the Gladstone Library), and H. J. COHEN, M.A. With Portraits.
Svo. Vols. IX. and X. 125. 6d. each.
Clark Russell. THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COL
LINGWOOD. By W. CLARK RUSSELL, Author of The Wreck
of the Grosvenor. With Illustrations by F. BRANGWYN. Second
Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A really good book." Satitrday Review.
1 A most excellent and wholesome book, which we should like to see in the hands of
every boy in the country. St. James s Gazette.
Clark. THE COLLEGES OF OXFORD : Their History and
their Traditions. By Members of the University. Edited by A.
CLARK, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Lincoln College. 8vo. izs. 6d.
Whether the reader approaches the book as a patriotic member of a college, as an
antiquary, or as a student of the organic growth of college foundation, it will amply
reward his attention. Times.
1 A delightful book, learned and lively. Academy.
A work which will certainly be appealed to for many years as the standard book on
the Colleges of Oxford. Athenaum.
16 MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
Wells. OXFORD AND OXFORD LIFE. By Members of
the University. Edited by J. WELLS, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of
Wadham College. Crown &vo. $s. 6d.
This work contains an account of life at Oxford intellectual, social, and religious
a careful estimate of necessary expenses, a review of recent changes, a statement
of the present position of the University, and chapters on Women s Education,
aids to study, and University Extension.
We congratulate Mr. Wells on the production of a readable and intelligent account
of Oxford as it is at the present time, written by persons who are, with hardly an
exception, possessed of a close acquaintance with the system and life of the
University. A then&um.
Perrens. THE HISTORY OF FLORENCE FROM THE
TIME OF THE MEDICIS TO THE FALL OF THE
REPUBLIC. By F. T. PERRENS. Translated by HANNAH
LYNCH. In Three Volumes. Vol. I. &vo. 123. 6d.
This is a translation from the French of the best history of Florence in existence.
This volume covers a period of profound interest political and literary and
is written with great vivacity.
1 This is a standard book by an honest and intelligent historian, who has deserved
well of his countrymen, and of all who are interested in Italian history. Man
chester Guardian.
Browning. GUELPHS AND GHIBELLINES : A Short History
of Mediaeval Italy, A.D. 1250-1409. By OSCAR BROWNING, Fellow
and Tutor of King s College, Cambridge. Second Edition. Crown
8vc. 5*.
A very able book. Westminster Gazette.
A vivid picture of mediaeval Italy. Standard.
O Grady. THE STORY OF IRELAND. By STANDISH
O GRADY, Author of Finn and his Companions. Cr. %vo. 2s. 6d.
1 Novel and very fascinating history. Wonderfully alluring. Cork Examiner.
Most delightful, most stimulating. Its racy humour, its original imaginings, its
perfectly unique history, make it one of the freshest, breeziest volumes.
Methodist Times.
A survey at once graphic, acute, and quaintly written. Times.
Dixon. ENGLISH POETRY FROM BLAKE TO BROWN
ING. By W. M. DIXON, M.A. Crown 8vo. y. 6d.
A Popular Account of the Poetry of the Century.
Scholarly in conception, and full of sound and suggestive criticism. Times.
1 The book is remarkable for freshness of thought expressed in graceful language.
Manchester Examiner.
Bowden. THE EXAMPLE OF BUDDHA: Being Quota
tions from Buddhist Literature for each Day in the Year. Compiled
by E. M. BOWDEN. With Preface by Sir EDWIN ARNOLD. Third
Edition. i6mo. 2s. 6d.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 17
Flinders Petrie. TELL EL AMARNA. By W. M. FLINDERS
PETRIE, D.C.L. With chapters by Professor A. H. SAYCE, D.D.;
F. LL. GRIFFITH, F.S.A.; and F. C. J. SPURRELL, F.G.S. With
numerous coloured illustrations. Royal 4/0. 2OJ. net.
Massee. A MONOGRAPH OF THE MYXOGASTRES. By
GEORGE MASSES. With 12 Coloured Plates. Royal Svo. iSs. net.
A work much in advance of any book in the language treating of this group of
organisms. It is indispensable to every student of the Mxyogastres. The
coloured plates deserve high praise for their accuracy and execution. Nature.
Bushill. PROFIT SHARING AND THE LABOUR QUES
TION. By T. W. BUSHILL, a Profit Sharing Employer. With an
Introduction by SEDLEY TAYLOR, Author of Profit Sharing between
Capital and Labour. Crown %vo. 2s. 6d.
John Beever. PRACTICAL FLY-FISHING, Founded on
Nature, by JOHN BEEVER, late of the Thwaite House, Coniston. A
New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author by W. G. COLLINGWOOD,
M.A. Also additional Notes and a chapter on Char-Fishing, by A.
and A. R. SEVERN. With a specially designed title-page. Crowr.
Svo. 3-r. 6d.
A little book on Fly-Fishing by an old friend of Mr. Ruskin. It has been out of
print for some time, and being still much in request, is now issued with a Memoir
of the Author by W. G. Collingwood.
Theology
Driver. SERMONS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH
THE OLD TESTAMENT. By S. R. DRIVER, D.D., Canon of
Christ Church, Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of
Oxford. Crown 2>vo. 6s.
A welcome companion to the author s famous Introduction. No man can read these
discourses without feeling that Dr. Driver is fully alive to the deeper teaching of
the Old Testament." Guardian,
Cheyne. FOUNDERS OF OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM:
Biographical, Descriptive, and Critical Studies. By T. K. CHEYNE,
D.D., Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at
Oxford. Large crown Svo. 7*. 6d.
This important book is a historical sketch of O.T. Criticism in the fonn of biographi
cal studies from the days of Eichhorn to those of Driver and Robertson Smith.
It is the only book of its kind in English.
* The volume is one of great interest and value. It displays all the author s well-
known ability and learning, and its opportune publication has laid all students of
theology, and specially of Bible criticism, under weighty obligation. Scotsman.
A very learned and instructive work. Times.
1 8 MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
Prior. CAMBRIDGE SERMONS. Edited by C. H. PRIOR,
M. A. , Fellow and Tutor of Pembroke College. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A volume of sermons preached before the University of Cambridge by various
preachers, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Westcott.
A representative collection. Bishop Westcott s is a noble sermon. Guardian.
Full of thoughtfulness and dignity. Record.
Beeching. BRADFIELD SERMONS. Sermons by H. C.
BEECHING, M.A., Rector of Yattendon, Berks. With a Preface by
CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
Seven sermons preached before the boys of Bradfield College.
James. CURIOSITIES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY PRIOR
TO THE REFORMATION. By CROAKE JAMES, Author of
Curiosities of Law and Lawyers. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
1 This volume contains a great deal of quaint and curious matter, affording some
"particulars of the interesting persons, episodes, and events from the Christian s
point of view during the first fourteen centuries." Wherever we dip into his pages
we find something worth dipping into." John Bull.
Kaufmann. CHARLES KINGSLEY. By M. KAUFMANN,
M.A. Croivn 8z>o. Buckram. $s.
A biography of Kingsley, especially dealing with his achievements in social reform.
The author has certainly gone about his work with conscientiousness and industry."
Sheffield Daily Telegraph.
Leaders of Religion
Edited by H. C. BEECHING, M.A. With Portraits, crown %vo.
A series of short biographies of the most pro- i *- . ^
minent leaders of religious life and thought of O/(\ 5?r O l|\
all ages and countries. ^ I ^^^ ^Jl ^^
The following are ready 23. 6d.
CARDINAL NEWMAN. By R. H. HUTTON. Second Edition.
1 Few who read this book will fail to be struck by the wonderful insight it displays
into the nature of the Cardinal s genius and the spirit of his life. WILFRID
WARD, in the Tablet.
Full of knowledge, excellent in method, and intelligent in criticism. We regard i
as wholly admirable. Academy.
JOHN WESLEY. By J. H. OVERTON, M.A.
It is well done : the story is clearly told, proportion is duly observed, and there is
no lack either of discrimination or of sympathy." Manchester Guardian.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 19
BISHOP WILBERFORCE. By G. W. DANIEL, M.A.
CARDINAL MANNING. By A. W. HUTTON, M.A.
CHARLES SIMEON. By H. C. G. MOULE, M.A.
3 s. 6d.
JOHN KEBLE. By WALTER LOCK, M.A. Seventh Edition.
THOMAS CHALMERS. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. Second Edition.
Other volumes will be announced in due course.
Works by S. Baring Gould
OLD COUNTRY LIFE. With Sixty-seven Illustrations by
W. PARKINSON, F. D. BEDFORD, and F. MASEY. Large Crown
8vo, doth super extra, top edge gilt, los, 6d. Fourth and Cheaper
Edition. 6s.
"Old Country Life," as healthy wholesome reading, full of breezy life and move
ment, full of quaint stories vigorously told, will not be excelled by any book to be
published throughout the year. Sound, hearty, and English to the core. World.
HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. Third
Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
1 A collection of exciting and entertaining chapters. The whole volume is delightful
reading. Times.
FREAKS OF FANATICISM. Third Edition. Crown ^vo. 6s.
Mr. Baring Gould has a keen eye for colour and effect, and the subjects he has
chosen give ample scope to his descriptive and analytic faculties. A perfectly
fascinating book. Scottish Leader.
SONGS OF THE WEST: Traditional Ballads and Songs of
the West of England, with their Traditional Melodies. Collected
by S. BARING GOULD, M.A., and H. FLEETWOOD SHEPPARD,
M.A. Arranged for Voice and Piano. In 4 Parts (containing 25
Songs each), Parts /., 77, 777., 3.5-. each. Part IV., $s. In one
Vol., French morocco, \^s,
A rich and varied collection of humour, pathos, grace, and poetic fancy. Saturday
Review.
YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS.
Fourth Edition. Crown 8v0. 6s.
2o MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
STRANGE SURVIVALS AND SUPERSTITIONS. With
Illustrations. By S. BARING GOULD. Crown 8vo. Second Edition.
6s.
A book on such subjects as Foundations, Gables, Holes, Gallows, Raising the Hat, Old
Ballads, etc. etc. It traces in a most interesting manner their origin and history.
4 We have read Mr. Baring Gould s book from beginning to end. It is full of quaint
and various information, and there is not a dull page in it. Notes and Queries.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS: The
Emperors of the Julian and Claudian Lines. With numerous Illus
trations from Busts, Gems, Cameos, etc. By S. BARING GOULD,
Author of Mehalah, etc. Third Edition. IZoyal &vo. l$s.
1 A most splendid and fascinating book on a subject of undying interest. The great
feature of the book is the use the author has made of the existing portraits of the
Caesars, and the admirable critical subtlety he has exhibited in dealing with this
line of research. It is brilliantly written, and the illustrations are supplied on a
scale of profuse magnificence. Daily Chronicle.
The volumes will in no sense disappoint the general reader. Indeed, in their way,
there is nothing in any sense so good in English. . . . Mr. Baring Gould has
presented his narrative in such a way as not to make one dull page. Athenaum.
MR. BARING GOULD S NOVELS
To say that a book is by the author of " Mehalah" is to imply that it contains a
story cast on strong lines, containing dramatic possibilities, vivid and sympathetic
descriptions of Nature, and a wealth of ingenious imagery. Speaker.
1 That whatever Mr. Baring Gould writes is well worth reading, is a conclusion that
may be very generally accepted. His views of life are fresh and vigorous, his
language pointed and characteristic, the incidents of which he makes use are
striking and original, his characters are life-like, and though somewhat excep
tional people, are drawn and coloured with artistic force. Add to this that his
descriptions of scenes and scenery are painted with the loving eyes and skilled
hands of a master of his art, that he is always fresh and never dull, and under
such conditions it is no wonder that readers have gained confidence both in his
power of amusing and satisfying them, and that year by year his popularity
widens. Court Circular.
SIX SHILLINGS EACH
IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA : A Tale of the Cornish Coast.
MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGENVEN.
CHEAP JACK ZITA.
THE QUEEN OF LOVE.
THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE EACH
ARMINELL : A Social Romance.
URITH : A Story of Dartmoor.
MARGERY OF QUETHER, and other Stories.
JACQUETTA, and other Stories.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 21
Fiction
SIX SHILLING NOVELS
Corelli. BARABBAS : A DREAM OF THE WORLD S
TRAGEDY. By MARIE CORELLI, Author of A Romance of Two
Worlds, Vendetta, etc. Eleventh Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
Miss Corelli s new romance has been received with much disapprobation by the
secular papers, and with warm welcome by the religious papers. By the former
she has been accused of blasphemy and bad taste ; a gory nightmare ; a hideous
travesty ; grotesque vulgarisation ; unworthy of criticism ; vulgar redun
dancy ; sickening details these are some of the secular flowers of speech.
On the other hand, the Guardian praises the dignity of its conceptions, the
reserve round the Central Figure, the fine imagery of the scene and circumstance,
so much that is elevating and devout ; the Illustrated Church News styles the
book reverent and artistic, broad based on the rock of our common nature, and
appealing to what is best in it ; the Christian World says it is written by one
who has more than conventional reverence, who has tried to tell the story that it
may be read again with open and attentive eyes ; the Church of England
Pulpit welcomes a book which teems with faith without any appearance of
irreverence.
Benson. DODO : A DETAIL OF THE DAY. By E. F.
BENSON. Crown Svo. Fourteenth Edition. 6s.
A story of society by a new writer, full of interest and power, which has attracted
by its brilliance universal attention. The best critics were cordial in their
praise. The Guardian spoke of Dodo as unusually clever and interesting ;
the Spectator called it a delightfully -witty sketch of society \ the Speaker
said the dialogue was a. perpetual feast of epigram and paradox ; the
Athenaeum spoke of the author as a writer of quite exceptional ability ;
the Academy praised his amazing cleverness ; the World said the book was
brilliantly -written , and half-a-dozen papers declared there was not a dull page
in the book.
Baring Gould. IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA: A Tale of
the Cornish Coast. By S. BARING GOULD. New Edition. 6s.
Baring Gould. MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGENVEN.
By S. BARING GOULD. Third Edition. 6s.
A story of Devon life. The Graphic speaks of it as a novel of vigorous humour and
sustained power ; the Sussex Daily News says that the swing of the narrative
is splendid \ and the Speaker mentions its bright imaginative power.
Baring Gould. CHEAP JACK ZITA. By S. BARING GOULD.
Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A Romance of the Ely Fen District in 1815, which the Westminster Gazette" calls
a powerful drama of human passion ; and the National Observer a story
worthy the author."
Baring Gould. THE QUEEN OF LOVE. By S. BARING
GOULD. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
The Glasgow Herald says that the scenery is admirable, and the dramatic inci
dents are most striking. The Westminster Gazette calls the book strong,
interesting, and clever. Punch says that you cannot put it down until you
have finished it." The Sussex Daily News says that it can be heartily recom
mended to all who care for cleanly, energetic, and interesting fiction."
22 MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
Norris. HIS GRACE. By W. E. NORRIS, Author of
Mademoiselle de Mersac. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
The characters are delineated by the author with his characteristic skill and
vivacity, and the story is told with that ease of manners and Thackerayean in
sight which give strength of flavour to Mr. Norris s novels No one can depict
the Englishwoman of the better classes with more subtlety. Glasgow Herald.
Mr. Norris has drawn a really fine character in the Duke of Hurstbourne, at once
unconventional and very true to the conventionalities of life, weak and strong in
a breath, capable of inane follies and heroic decisions, yet not so definitely por
trayed as to relieve a reader of the necessity of study on his own behalf.
A then&um.
Parker. MRS. FALCHION. By GILBERT PARKER, Author of
Pierre and His People. New Edition. 6s.
Mr. Parker s second book has received a warm welcome. The Athenaeum called
it a splendid study of character; the Pall Mall Gazette spoke of the writing as
but little behind anything that has been done by any -writer of our time ; the
St. James s called it a very striking and admirable novel \ and the West
minster Gazette applied to it the epithet of distinguished.
Parker. PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. By GILBERT
PARKER. Crown 8z>o. Buckram. 6s.
Stories happily conceived and finely executed. There is strength and genius in Mr.
Parker s style. Daily Telegraph.
Parker. THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE. By GILBERT
PARKER, Author of Pierre and His People, Mrs. Falchion, etc.
Crown %vo. 5*.
The plot is original and one difficult to work out ; but Mr. Parker has done it with
great skill and delicacy. The reader who is not interested in this original, fresh,
and well-told tale must be a dull person indeed. Daily Chronicle.
A strong and successful piece of workmanship. The portrait of Lali, strong, digni
fied, and pure, is exceptionally well drawn. Manchester Guardian.
1 A very pretty and interesting story, and Mr. Parker tells it with much skill. The
story is one to be read. St. James s Gazette.
Anthony Hope. A CHANGE OF AIR: A Novel. By
ANTHONY HOPE, Author of The Prisoner of Zenda, etc.
Crown 8vo. 6s.
A bright story by Mr. Hope, who has, the Athenaum says, a decided outlook and
individuality of his own.
A graceful, vivacious comedy, true to human nature. The characters are traced
with a masterly hand. Times.
Pryce. TIME AND THE WOMAN. By RICHARD PRYCE,
Author of Miss Maxwell s Affections, The Quiet Mrs. Fleming,
etc. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vv. 6s.
Mr. Pryce s work recalls the style of Octave Feuillet, by its clearness, conciseness,
its literary reserve. Athene? nm.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 23
Marriott Watson. DIOGENES OF LONDON and other
Sketches. By II. B. MARRIOTT WATSON, Author of The Web
of the Spider. Crown %vo. Buckram. 6s.
By all those who delight in the uses of words, who rate the exercise of prose above
the exercise of verse, who rejoice in all proofs of its delicacy and its strength, who
believe that English prose is chief among the moulds of thought, by these
Mr. Marriott Watson s book will be welcomed. National Observer.
Gilchrist. THE STONE DRAGON. By MURRAY GILCHRIST.
Crown 8vo. Buckram. 6s.
The author s faults are atoned for by certain positive and admirable merits. The
romances have not their counterpart in modern literature, and to read them is a
unique experience. National Observer.
THREE-AND-SIXPENNY NOVELS
Baring Gould. ARM I NELL : A Social Romance. By S.
BARING GOULD. New Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d.
Baring Gould. URITH : A Story of Dartmoor. By S. BARING
GOULD. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. -$s. 6d.
The author is at his best. Times.
He has nearly reached the high water-mark of " Mehalah." National Observer.
Baring Gould. MARGERY OF QUETHER, and other Stories.
By S. BARING GOULD. Crown %vo. -$s. 6d.
Baring Gould. JACQUETTA, and other Stories. By S. BARING
GOULD. Crown 8vo. 3-y. 6d.
Gray. ELSA. A Novel. By E. M QUEEN GRAY. Crown^vo.
y. 6d.
A charming novel. The characters are not only powerful sketches, but minutely
and carefully finished portraits. Guardian.
Pearce. JACO TRELOAR. By J. H. PEARCE, Author of
Esther Pentreath. New Edition. Crown 8vo. -$s.6d.
A tragic story of Cornish life by a writer of remarkable power, whose first novel has
been highly praised by Mr. Gladstone.
The Spectator speaks of Mr. Pearce as a "writer of exceptional power , the Daily
Telegraph" calls the book powerful and picturesque , the Birmingham Post*
asserts that it is a novel of high quality.
Edna Lyall. DERRICK VAUGHAN, NOVELIST. By
EDNA LYALL, Author of Donovan, etc. Crown 8vo. 3*. 6d.
Clark Russell. MY DANISH SWEETHEART. By W.
CLARK RUSSELL, Author of The Wreck of the Grosvenor, etc.
Illustrated. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. %s. 6d.
24 MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
Author of Vera. THE DANCE OF THE HOURS. By
the Author of Vera. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d.
Esme Stuart. A WOMAN OF FORTY. By ESME STUART,
Author of Muriel s Marriage, Virginia s Husband, etc. New
Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d.
The story is well written, and some of the scenes show great dramatic power.
Daily Chronicle.
Fenn. THE STAR GAZERS. By G. MANVILLE FENN,
Author of Eli s Children, etc. New Edition. Cr. Svo. 35. 6d.
A stirring romance. Western Morning News.
Told with all the dramatic power for which Mr. Fenn is conspicuous. Bradford
Observer.
Dickinson. A VICAR S WIFE. By EVELYN DICKINSON.
Crown &vo. 3-r. 6d.
Prowse. THE POISON OF ASPS. By R. ORTON PROWSE.
Crown 8vo. ^. 6d.
Grey. THE STORY OF CHRIS. By ROWLAND GREY.
Crown 8vo. $s.
Lynn Linton. THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVID
SON, Christian and Communist. By E. LYNN LINTON. Eleventh
Edition. Post 8vo. is.
HALF-CROWN NOVELS
A Series of Novels by popular Authors, tastefully
bound in cloth.
2/6
1. THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. By F. MABEL ROBINSON.
2. DISENCHANTMENT. By F. MABEL ROBINSON.
3. MR. BUTLER S WARD. By F. MABEL ROBINSON.
4. HOVENDEN, V.C. By F. MABEL ROBINSON.
5. ELI S CHILDREN. By G. MANVILLE FENN.
6. A DOUBLE KNOT. By G. MANVILLE FENN.
7. DISARMED. By M. BETHAM EDWARDS.
8. A LOST ILLUSION. By LESLIE KEITH.
9. A MARRIAGE AT SEA. By W. CLARK RUSSELL.
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 25
10. IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. By the Author of Indian
Idylls.
11. MY STEWARDSHIP. By E. M QUEEN GRAY.
12. A REVEREND GENTLEMAN. By J. M. COBBAN.
13. A DEPLORABLE AFFAIR. By W. E. NORRIS.
14. JACK S FATHER. By W. E. NORRIS.
Other volumes will be announced in due course.
Books for Boys and Girls
Baring Gould. THE ICELANDER S SWORD. By S.
BARING GOULD, Author of Mehalah, etc. With Twenty-nine
Illustrations by J. MOYR SMITH. Crown 8v0. 6s.
A stirring story of Iceland, written for boys by the author of In the Roar of the Sea.
Cuthell. TWO LITTLE CHILDREN AND CHING. By
EDITH E. CUTHELL. Profusely Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth,
gilt edges. 33. 6d.
Another story, with a dog hero, by the author of the very popular Only a Guard-
Room Dog.
Blake. TODDLEBEN S HERO. By M. M. BLAKE, Author of
The Siege of Norwich Castle. With 36 Illustrations. Crown
&vo. 2 s - 6d.
A story of military life for children.
Cuthell. ONLY A GUARD-ROOM DOG. By Mrs. CUTHELL.
With 16 Illustrations by W. PARKINSON. Square Crown %>vo. $s. 6d.
This is a charming story. Tangle was but a little mongrel Skye terrier, but he had a
big heart in his little body, and played a hero s part more than once. The book
can be warmly recommended. Standard.
Collingwood. THE DOCTOR OF THE JULIET. By HARRY
COLLINGWOOD, Author of The Pirate Island, etc. Illustrated by
GORDON BROWNE. Crown 8ve. 35-. 6</.
1 "The Doctor of the Juliet," well illustrated by Gordon Browne, is one of Harry
Coliingwood s best efforts. Morning Post.
26 MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST
Clark Russell. MASTER ROCKAFELLAR S VOYAGE. By
W. CLARK RUSSELL, Author of The Wreck of the Grosvenor, etc.
Illustrated by GORDON BROWNE. Second Edition* Crown %vo.
3s. 6d.
Mr. Clark Russell s story of "Master Rockafellar s Voyage "will be among the
favourites of the Christmas books. There is a rattle and " go" all through it, and
its illustrations are charming in themselves, and very much above the average in
the way in which they are produced. Gtiardian.
Manville Fenn. SYD B ELTON : Or, The Boy who would not
go to Sea. By G. MANVILLE FENN, Author of * In the King s
Name, etc. Illustrated by GORDON BROWNE. Crown Kvo. 3^. 6d.
Who among the young story-reading public will not rejoice at the sight of the old
combination, so often proved admirable a story by Manville Fenn, illustrated
by Gordon Browne? The story, too, is one of the good old sort, full of life and
vigour, breeziness and fan. Journal of Education.
The Peacock Library
A Series of Books for Girls by well-known Authors, I X
handsomely bound in bhie and silver, and ^vell illustrated, ^L I f~)
Crown Svo. *J \
1. A PINCH OF EXPERIENCE. By L. B. WALFORD.
2. THE RED GRANGE. By Mrs. MOLESWORTH.
3. THE SECRET OF MADAME DE MONLUC. By the
Author of Mdle Mori.
4. DUMPS. By Mrs. PARR, Author of Adam and Eve.
5. OUT OF THE FASHION. By L. T. MEADE.
6. A GIRL OF THE PEOPLE. By L. T. MEADE.
7. HEPSY GIPSY. By L. T. MEADE. 2s. 6d.
8. THE HONOURABLE MISS. By L. T. MEADE.
9. MY LAND OF BEULAH. By Mrs. LEITH ADAMS.
University Extension Series
A series of books on historical, literary, and scientific subjects, suitable
for extension students and home reading circles. Each volume is coin-
MESSRS. METHUEN S LIST 27
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