Archbishop William Laud

“ BRAY, WILLIAM (d. 1644) , chaplain to Archbishop Laud, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1616-17, M.A. in 1620, and B.D. in 1631. At the outset of his clerical career he was a popular lecturer in puritan London, but changing his views he became one of Archbishop Laud's chaplains in ordinary, and obtained considerable church preferment. ”

“ William Laud (1573-1645) , archbishop of Canterbury (1633) , executed for treason by the Long Parliament for opposing puritan protestantism.
225 Gideon: a hero responsible for defeating the Midianites (Judges 7:18-19) . ”

“ He had several personal discussions with Laud, who paid a high tribute to his scholarship, but, after being much harassed for various acts of nonconformity, he was suspended by the archbishop in 1629. ”

“ The chief feature of Laud’s administration is attention to countless details, to the most trivial of which he attached excessive importance, and which are uninspired by any great underlying principle. His view was always essentially material. The one element in the church which to him was all essential was its visibility. This was the source of his intense dislike of the Puritan and Nonconformist conception of the church, which afforded no tangible or definite form. ”

“ The foundation of belief was the Bible, not any one branch of the Catholic church arrogating to itself infallibility, and when dispute on matters of faith arose, “a lawful and free council, determining according to Scripture, is the best judge on earth.” A close and somewhat strange intimacy, considering the difference in the characters and ideals of the two men, between Laud and Buckingham now began, and proved the chief instrument of Laud’s advancement. ”

“ The works written by Laud are but few in number. They are Officium Quotidianum, or a Manual of Private Devotions; A Summary of Devotions; his Diary; and A History of his Troubles and Tryal; together with some smaller pieces, sermons, and speeches. A Relation of the Conference between him and Fisher the Jesuit, by Laud's chaplain John Baily, was printed in 1624. A collected edition of his works, edited by Henry Wharton, was printed in 1695-1700, and a second one in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, in six volumes in 1847-49.
Portraits of him are to be found in St. ”

“ The second ground of resentment was that they thought Archbishop Laud and many of the bishops and clergy, concealed Roman Catholics, “disguised Papists,” as the common expression ran. We do not believe this charge with regard to Laud or most of the others so rashly accused. We are quite sure it was not so if their writings are to be taken as a test of their feelings. Whatever may have been the truth, there is no [Pg 194] doubt that even the more tolerant of what may be called the low-church party feared the worst. ”

“ Laud's Intellectual Position. 1629-1633.—For all matters relating to the Church Charles's principal adviser was William Laud, now Bishop of London. As far as doctrine was concerned Laud carried on the teaching of Cranmer and Hooker. He held that the basis of belief was the Bible, but that the Bible was to be interpreted by the tradition of the early church, and that all doubtful points were to be subjected, not to heated arguments in the pulpits, but to sober discussion by learned men. ”

“ This small event roused the nation. The congregation was roused to protest against this new reform. This spread to the streets, throughout the whole town, and so passed from there to all Scotland. It is not my duty to show what followed this opposition. It was a very unfortunate stroke of business for Archbishop Laud. It lead to his downfall. He was altogether too arbitrary in his measures. "Stony Sunday," as that day was called, was not soon forgotten by the nation. Another fact led to the fall of Laud. ”

“ Never had so many favourable circumstances seemed combined to enable the clergy to achieve independence of the crown, dominion over the people. Laud set himself to work with his accustomed vehemence. First, it was essential that all dissensions in the bosom of the church itself should cease, and that the strictest uniformity should infuse strength into its doctrines, its discipline, its worship. He applied himself to this task with the most unhesitating and unscrupulous resolution. Power was exclusively concentrated into the hands of the bishops. ”

“ Thus all the relative holiness which concerns public worship, whether as to persons, places, or things, must be derived from the congregation; and nothing sure, can be more absurd, than to imagine the Clergy, by any form of words, can bestow any permanent holiness, whether real or relative, on timber, stone, etc. And therefore, the method used by Archbishop Laud, in consecrating of a Church, was generally cried out on as profane, and tending to justify those consecrations used in the Greek and Latin Churches; whereby they cheat the people of immense sums. ”

“ Archbishop Laud typified and embodied the spirit of the dominant church, and in addition he had unwearied energy, industry, and determination. Sincere, practical, and brave, but narrow-minded and unsympathetic, he set about the work of reducing the church of England to absolute uniformity in accordance with the law as he interpreted it. The Nonconformists had no rest; Puritan clergymen must conform; Puritan laymen must suffer under the power of the church, which, dominated by its bishops and wedded to its idols, was becoming steadily more powerful and all-inclusive. ”

“ The judgment of history is necessarily stern; it can make no allowance for good intentions: it must pass beyond immediate success or failure, and must estimate all the results of action which it has the penetration to perceive. First, then, I should say that William Laud has an unfailing claim upon the homage of English Churchmen, because he did much to fix the character of the system of the English Church. ”

“ So that, if the church ministers of this parish could report to their bishop, that no dissenter lived in this very profitable part of his diocese, it would convey to him no more accurate notion of the feeling of the people respecting the management of the state-church than the bishops conveyed to Laud “on the very eve of troubles, fatal to himself, and to his order,” when they reported to him “that not a single dissenter was to be found within their jurisdiction.” ”

“ Spiritual influence, in Laud’s opinion, was not enough for the church. The church as the guide of the nation in duty and godliness, even extending its activity into state affairs as a mediator and a moderator, was not sufficient. Its power must be material and visible, embodied in great places of secular administration and enthroned in high offices of state. ”

“ Was Laud a Roman Catholic? You know the Puritans were his enemies, and you can seldom gather the truth about anyone from his enemies. Most decidedly Laud was not a Papist. He repudiated most of the essential papal doctrines. Laud's only object, as I have already said, was to restore the Catholic teaching of the Church of England. So far was he from being a Papist that he urged his clergy to take an oath to keep the papal power out of England. ”

“ In his letters to Cardinal Barberini, he tells him that Laud is "short in stature, aged about sixty, is unmarried, and is first in the privy council. His views are moderate, and he is not unfriendly to the Catholic religion. He has the King's interests thoroughly at heart; he studies to increase the revenue, and perhaps for this reason is preferred by the King to all his other advisers. He is ready for any amount of work, and all ecclesiastical affairs receive his personal attention. He is reputed an Arminian, and in nearly all dogmas approaches nearly to the Roman Church. ”

“ In every gathering of the Church and of the people, in every synod, in every gemót, the Archbishop of Canterbury held a place which had no equal or second, a place which was shared by no other bishop or earl or ætheling. If we reckon the King as the head of the assembly, the Archbishop is its first member. If we reckon the King as a power outside the assembly, the Archbishop is himself its head. His leadership of the nation. He is the personal counsellor of the King, the personal leader of the nation, in a way in which no other man in the realm could be said to be. ”

“ The Church of England under its new Primate, Archbishop Laud, was being drawn farther away from Protestantism and closer to Papacy; while Laud in order to secure Royal protection advocated the absolutism of the King, saying that James in his theory of "Divine right" had been inspired by the Holy Ghost, thus turning religion into an engine of attack upon English liberties. Laud's ideal was a purified Catholicism—retaining auricular confession, prayers for the dead, the Real Presence in the Sacrament, genuflexions and crucifixes, all of which were odious to Puritans and Presbyterians. ”

“ Flattered with success, Laud, being present at the coronation of Charles in Scotland, urged the forced establishment of Episcopacy and uniformity in that country, which resulted in revolt; and, contrary to the ambitious and narrow-minded Bishop's anticipation, ended in the adoption of the National Covenant, and so Presbyterianism triumphed. On his return from the ceremonies of coronation, and doubtless in aid of their enterprise to "kill out Puritanism" and to "harry the Puritans out of the land," he was appointed to the See of Canterbury. ”

“ The state of England in the time of Archbishop Laud was a subject upon which they were able to dwell with great force. They showed the cruel oppression endured by holy men, at the hands of [109] prelates, who sought to revive in this country the ceremonies renounced, and the doctrines condemned at the Reformation; and they insisted upon the obvious fact that the Church was then in danger of becoming thoroughly Romanized, under the pernicious culture of superstitious teachers. ”

“ He was perhaps less alert to seize an opening in relation to the great Roman church. While his desire for union among all Christians was very strong, he had no hope of anything being gained by intercourse with Rome, or even by direct co-operation with its English representatives on points of common interest, like religious education. Since the time of Laud, no such direct advance has been made by Rome to an archbishop of Canterbury as was made in 1894 to Archbishop Benson. ”

“ He was made Dean of the Chapel Royal, Chancellor of Oxford, and a Privy Councillor of Scotland. On Abbot’s death he was elevated to the primacy, and is said to have refused the offer of a cardinal’s hat. As archbishop he was responsible for the general Church persecution which produced his own unpopularity and downfall, and was one of the main causes of the Civil War. Prosecutions for non-conformity were enforced with the utmost severity. The courts of Star Chamber and High Commission were brought to bear on the Puritans, and Laud became universally detested. ”

“ Juxon. He was elected to the Bishopric of Hereford in 1633, and made Dean of the King’s Chapel, but before consecration was translated to the See of London, Laud having become Primate of England. Laud, it seems, had made himself unpopular in the diocese with many of its members, but the mild and genial temper of the new Bishop gained him much respect and kindly feeling. The Archbishop of Canterbury desired above most things the aggrandisement of Churchmen, and their preferment to public offices of State, and for that aim he worked both for himself and his friend. ”

“ Every art that could be used was employed by the congregations to avoid returning an answer to the Archbishop’s inquiries, whether the English-born members would conform and use the Liturgy in their own language. The two congregations in Norwich resisted vehemently and remonstrated with Bishop Corbet, who was then bishop of the diocese; but Archbishop Laud himself visited the diocese and caused the injunction to be published in the congregations. ”

“ The first generation of refugees were an exception, but when they reached a second and third generation, had their own ministers and pretended to the power of Ordination, they became an anomaly, and as Laud, when Bishop of London, said, ‘The example is of ill-consequence in Church affairs to the subjects of England, many being confirmed by it in their stubborn ways and inconformities.’ The matter was not likely to be mended by Archbishop Abbot ”

“ Laud first incurred the enmity of this man and his friends by his attempts to introduce some measure of ceremonial into the churches under him. When he began his reform, the places of public worship were nothing but buildings where discourses and diatribes against Popery were to be heard in luxuriously upholstered seats. "There wants nothing but beds to hear the Word of God on," said Bishop Corbet. The notion of a priesthood had died out of people's minds. They looked upon their clergy as preachers merely—the cure of souls was an obsolete term. ”

“ Certainly never was country more obliged to a man than New England to Archbishop Laud, who by his cruel and arbitrary proceedings drove thousands of families out of the kingdom, and thereby stocked the Plantations with inhabitants, in the compass of a very few years, which otherwise could not have been done in an age. ”

“ The headship of a college did not satisfy the mind of a man who was aiming at a reform of the church, and indeed Laud's position at Oxford was not altogether comfortable. In 1614 he was violently attacked by Dr. Robert Abbot from the university pulpit for having declared in a sermon that presbyterians were as bad as papists, and was scornfully asked whether he was himself a papist or a protestant. His isolation in the university may to some extent account for what would in the present day be considered as unseemly eagerness for promotion, shown in a complaint to his patron, Bishop Neile. ”