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II

KING'S DECLARATION, 1626

21

Arminius under the name and pretence of the doctrine and faith of the Church of England" (London, printed for Nicholas Bourne at the Exchange, 1626), was addressed "to the High and Honourable Court of Parliament, praying that you will (1) take this cause into your consideration; (2) preserve the faith of our Church in the purity it hath had hitherto ; (3) endeavour to prevent the corrupting of it in time to come." A good example of the feeling which was now readily finding expression, it protested against all the points on which Mountague had controverted the Puritan view, as on the authority of the Church, the efficacy of baptism, and the real presence. A "second parallel" tried to convict Mountague of Arminianism, and "Pelagius Redivivus" compared "the new to the old error." Charles determined to silence the disputants. Parliament was dissolved on June 15. On the following day was issued a proclamation to enforce silence on controverted points. Who was the gainer by these disputes but only the Church of Rome? Let men be silent on the deep points which had "given much offence to the sober and well grounded readers and hearers of these late written books on both sides."

Declaration of the

king.

Did men think then that Reason would suggest articles of peace? If they did they must have known little of the history of mankind. It was no day in which the

The two parties.

voice of wise moderation could be heard. "The bishops were more liberal than the House of Commons," says a great modern authority. Students understood their subject as amateurs could not; and with the students was the knowledge and the temper which alone, and in the future, should make settlement possible. Charles, with real delicacy of insight, looked beyond the petty disputes to larger and more statesmanlike issues for the Church. At his back stood a man of clear vision and determined will, who would not palter with his conscience. Unity was the passion of their lives, and for nothing was the age, in England or abroad, less prepared. The king's declaration, and many a wise saying of wise men, fell on empty ears.

AUTHORITIES. Besides those given for Chap. I., Hacket, Scrinia Reserata; Fuller, Church History; the works of the chief divines, most of which are reprinted in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology. The pamph

let literature is voluminous and important. There are many contemporary diaries, the most notable of which is Laud's. The State Papers, Domestic, are full of details of importance. Among modern writers, S. R. Gardiner, History of England; G. G. Perry, History of the Church of England; and the lives of the prominent persons of the day in the Dictionary of National Biography. An excellent new edition of Laud's Controversy with Fisher, by C. H. Simpkinson, 1901.

CHAPTER III

THE RISE OF LAUD

power.

WITH the dissolution of Parliament and the issue of the king's proclamation it seemed perhaps for a moment as if there might be peace. Two years passed. Buckingham's The beginning murder removed one great danger from the king. of Laud's The news came to Laud as he was with the Archbishop at Croydon, consecrating Mountague to the see of Chichester, on August 24, 1628. Whatever the king might say in proclamations, it was clear that he had his own opinions in Church matters, and that they were those of Mountague and Laud. Such promotion indeed was "more magnanimous than safe." But Buckingham's place must be filled, and, though not outwardly, Laud filled it.

Williams.

Since 1626 much had happened, of which we have first to tell. The one competitor had already, by Buckingham himself, been swept from Laud's path. On October The rivalry 25, 1626, John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, of Bishop Dean of Westminster, and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, was required to give up the ensign of his high legal office. It seemed the end of a great career. A subtle Welshman, of ancient family and ready learning, he had been brought forward by Lord Chancellor Ellesmere. "The chaplain," says his friend and eulogist, Bishop Hacket, "understood the soil on which he had set his foot, that it was rich and fertile, able with good tendance to yield a crop after the largest dimensions of his desires." Preferments came rapidly to him. As a parish priest he "walked as a Burning Light before his brethren," a

constant and ready preacher, "he lived like a magnifico at home," full of hospitality and charity. Buckingham became his patron, and it was he who brought over the young duchess to the English Church. When he became Dean of Westminster, he was generous in the restoration of the abbey and the further endowment of the school. King James took a fancy to the astute, capable, supple ecclesiastic, and made him Lord Keeper and Bishop of Lincoln, so "he reaped no less than two harvests in one month." He won the reputation of a clever lawyer, and to the last he held the confidence of the old king. Charles looked upon him with another eye. On the day after the king's accession Williams " commended two out of his own family to be preferred," and the king coldly made no answer. Buckingham had already begun to distrust him. He was indeed not one whom men learnt to rely upon. Laud felt that he was his enemy. In the discharge of his duty as bishop he was shamefully lax. He had never, it seems, resided in his diocese; and to the king this was intolerable. From the very beginning of the reign he was in disgrace, and when the great seal was taken from him, he at last retired to the manor of Buckden, where he built a great house, laid out fine gardens and lived in stately fashion. There he waited, ready, if need be, to throw the weight of his ability on to the side of the opposition to the king's ministers.

From the date of Williams' retirement the advancement of Laud was unchallenged. He was indeed the only great man

The insigni- among the bishops. On September 25, 1626,

ficance of the Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, "lumen bishops. orbis Christiani," as Laud calls him in his diary, passed away. Abbot the Archbishop of Canterbury spent the last years of his life in insignificance, removed from all royal favour through his political opposition to the king's measures, and, as he thought, by the influence of Laud. Of this we shall hear more shortly. Bishop Morton of Lichfield, Bishop Field of Llandaff, Bishop Harsnet of Norwich, Bishop Howson of Oxford, Bishop Davenant of Salisbury, Bishop Mountaigne of London, Bishop Buckeridge of Rochester, Bishop Neile of Durham, were all men of eminence but not of power. Each had characteristic merits,

III

THE CAROLINE BISHOPS

25

none was without learning, and perhaps none was above criticism. Certainly Bishop Mountaigne is remembered now chiefly as the "swan-eating and canary-sucking" prelate of Milton's attack. One at least of the Elizabethan bishops lingered on, Toby Matthew, Archbishop of York, a doughty champion in the past of the English Church against Edmund Campion, a sturdy ruler of the North, and a man of humour also. He was near his end. Of the new bishops none was especially notable, save perhaps Goodman of Gloucester, whose Lenten sermon before the king in 1626 called attention to his approximation towards Roman doctrine, and who, though some of the most learned of the bishops decided that he spoke rather incautiously than falsely, was never sincere in his attachment to the Reformation. The bishops were not men, as the king felt, to guide the Church in difficult ways. He "chid" them all, Laud tells, in the spring of 1626, "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 ready to promote the cause of the Church." There was in truth no leader till Laud came forward to fill the place. On August 26, 1626, he was elected Bishop of Bath and Wells. When Andrewes died he succeeded him as Dean of the Chapel Royal. On July 15, 1628, he was translated to London. By this time the Puritans looked on him as the head and front of all offence against them. "Laud, look to thyself. 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," were the words of a paper in St. Paul's churchyard, the beginning of a long series of bitter libels.

On the political side of Laud's career it would be foreign to the purpose of this book to dwell. But his political position must be briefly noted, for it was an important cause of the unpopularity which was shown cal career. by the lampoons.

Laud's politi

The employment of ecclesiastics in offices of State was universal throughout Europe, and Laud, though he certainly did not seek office, was ready to undertake any work which the confidence of the king might thrust upon him. The State

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