fore taking his degree, and, having travelled nine years on the Continent, took the degree of M.D. at Padua; Burton was A.]\I. and B.D. at Oxford, and had been clerk of the closet to the Prince of Wales, and rector of St. Matthew's, Friday Street, London. Prynne, for his Ilis- trio-Mustyx, had already been condemned to pay a fine of £5000, to be expelled from Oxford and from Lincoln's Inn, to stand in the pUlorj' at Westminster and at Cheap- side, and at each place to have an ear cut off, to have his book burnt before his face, and to remain a prisoner for life. In the execution of the sentence it is said that Prynne had nearly been suffocated Avith the smoke of his book. From prison, however, the irrepressible Prynne, as soon as he could procure writing materials, continued audaciously, and with amazing industr}', to send forth his pamphlets against his persecutors; and now the doctor Bastwick and the rector Burton had joined the lawyer in the fray. These pamphlets were no doubt in- temperate and extravagant, coarse and violent in their language; they were naturally branded as scurrilous and seditious by the other side. But it is to be remem- bered their authors were persecuted fanatics ; and it is a better excuse for them to say that the controversial lan- guage of the age was coarse, than it is for their enemies to say that the punishments of the age were barbarous. The use of epithets is largely a matter of taste and fash- ion ; but humanit}' itself, wherever it exists, is shocked at the sight of torture, and cruelty, and blood. All three of the accused were condemned ; Prynne to pay a fine of £5000, to lose the remainder of liis ears in the pillory, to be branded on both cheeks with the initials of slanderous libeler, and to be immured for life in Caer- narvon Castle. Bastwick and Burton were to paj^ the same fine, were to lose their cars in the pillory, and to be imprisoned for life in separate castles. On tliis occa- sion. Laud, who was a member of the court, made a long speech. As he had everything under his own control, he had no temptation to use violent language. He as- sumed an air of studied coolness and dignity. Having descanted upon the merits of his own immaculate ad- ministration in Church and State, and set forth in strong colors the dangerous and abominable character of fac- tious and seditious libeling, he added," But because the business hath some reflection upon myself , I shall forbear to censui-e them, and leave them to God's mercy and the king's justice." That is to say, having fully given his views, he would not cast his formal vote in the case, but, knowing full well what the decision, yea, the " unani- mous" decision of the judges would be, he concludes his speech thus . " I give all your lordships hearty thanks for j'our noble patience, and your just and honorable sentence upon these men, and your unanimous dislike of them and defence of the Church." Who can doubt that Prynne was riglit in afterwards declaring that Laud was " the cause and contriver of the sentence before it was given, and that he a]iproved and thanked the lords for it when it was given T The three victims under- went their " punishment'' (as Laud's friends delight to call it) with tlie most astonishing heroism. Such "pun- ishment" of such men, however ignominious or degrad- ing it was meant to be, coidd never elevate the dignity or strengthen the position of the party that inflicted it. The sufferers were no doubt supported by the sympa- thies of an immense mass of the people, as well as by their own courage or obstinacy, their religious principle or fanaticism. No wonder that libels against the arch- bishop were niultijilitMl and intensified, and that his vic- tims were honored with aliundant and galling demonstra- tions of popular favor. It was found necessary, in order to remove them out of the reach of tlieir friends, to transfer them from the prisons to which they had been condemned to other castles in the Channel Islands.
Having now seen the leaders of the "malignant fac- tion" visited with condign " iiunislimcnt" and put out of the way. Laud had the pleasure of having his early pa- tron, bishop Williams — against whom ho seems to liavc nursed a rancorous grudge, as though fearing- that one
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day he might be a dangerous rival — arraigned before him in the Star Chamber, at first on the old charge of revealing the king's secrets, and afterwards in that of suborning a witness ; and, having again delivered him- self of a long and dignified speech, magnifying the enor- mity of the crime of subornation of perjurj', especially in a clergyman and a bishop, and at the same time protest- ing his personal friendliness, he graciously and humbly leaves the accused to the tender mercies of a court thus " tuned," who sentenced him to pay a fine of £10,000, to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and to be sus- pended from all his offices, preferments, and functions. Upon Laud's recommendation, a decree was passed by the Star Chamber in 1637 for restraining the freedom of the press. The provisions of the edict were sufii- ciently severe. It limited the number of master print- ers under penalty of whipping; it forbade the printing of books -svithout a license from the archbishop or the bishop of London, or their chaplains, or from the chan- cellors or vice-chancellors of the universities. It pro- hibited the sale of imported books without a similar li- cense; it authorized the Company of Stationers to seize on all such books as they found to be schismatical or of- fensive, and to lay them before the ecclesiastical authori- ties; it enacted that no one in England should cause to be printed any books in English beyond tlie seas, or to import them into the country; and finally it provided that offences against the decree should be punished by the court of Star Chamber or Ilicrh Commission. Such