Laud's character may be considered with reference to the Tightness of his general purpose, or to the wisdom of his aiming at its accomplishment, or to the manner in which he endeavored to effect it. As to the right or wrong of his general purpose, his theory and aim, whether in Church or State, but particularly in the Church, it always has been, and perhaps alwaj's will be, a matter of dispute. It is useless to discuss it. Any judgment of his character based upon the assumption of this question is no better than a jjefitio j)rincijni. As to the wisdom or folly of undertaking to accompUsh that purpose in those times and under those circumstances, it is more and more generall}^ admitted that he made a mistake in the attempt. His friends regard it as a ve- nial error, his enemies reckon the blunder a crime. As to the means he employed, and, in general, his whole manner and bearing in seeking his end, there is a very general verdict against him. He had great personal faults. Prominent among them were an overweening ambition, self-sufficiency, and insolence. An aristocratic estimate of the structure of society, and a sovereign con- tempt for the people and the popular will — very natu- ral, but the more inexcusable in a man of his origin and profession — an utter destitution of the grand idea of humanitt/, underlie all the mistakes and all the misfor- tunes of his lile.
We conclude our sketch with the following candid admissions from Le Bas, one of Laud's most earnest apologists and admirers. '' Tliat the administration of Laud was in some respects injurious to the Church can hardly be denied; but then it is most important to keep in mind that the injury was inflicted not so much by the measures which he adopted as by the manner in which he enforced them. There has seldom, perhaps, lived a man who contrived that his good should be so virulently evil spoken of. From all that we learn of him, his manner appears to have been singularly ungra- cious and unpopular, and his temper offensively irascible and hot. If we are to trust the representations of him left us either by friend or foe, he must have been one of the most disagreeable persons in the three kingdoms except to those who were intimately acquainted with his worth. There was nothing affable or engaging in his general behavior. His very integrity was often made odious by wearing an aspect of austerity and haughtiness. It would almost seem as if prudence had been struck out of his catalogue of the cardinal virtues. He was unable, as Warbtirton remarks, to comprehend one important truth, with which liichelieu was so fa- miliar, when he said that if he had not spent as much time in civilities as in business he had undone his mas- ter. The consequence of this ignorance, or of this dis- dain, of the ways of tlie world was unspeakably hurtful to the cause which at all times was nearest his heart. In the minds of many who were ignorant of the essen- tial excellence of the man, the interests of the Estab- lishment were, by his demeanor, associated with almost everything that is harsh and repulsive. For a consid- erable portion of his life he was regarded not only as the leader, but,the represent<itivc of the ecclesiastical body ; and the impression which he communicated to the pub- lic was too often that of unfeeling arrogance and lofty impatience of control. Whether the Church could have been saved by any combination, in the person of its
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ruler, of those rare endowments which secure at once both reverence and attachment, no human sagacity can at this day be competent to pronounce ; but it certainly is not altogether surprising that this unhappy defect should, even in the minds of judicious and impartial men, have connected his administration with the ruin of the Establishment.* In such unquiet times, more es- pecially, a man like Laud would not only be dreaded as a firm and conscientious disciplinarian, but as the rigor- ous and overbearing priest; and the Church would be sure to suffer most grievously for the unpopularity of her governor."
In England, the parties with which Laud's life was implicated have not yet passed away, so that it is al- most impossible even now to get an impartial estimate of the man from his own countrymen; but it can hardly be doubted that the ultimate verdict of historj' will be his final condemnation. The English monarchy has gloriously survived the political princijiles which he de- fended; bis ecclesiastical principles will ultimately lie found equally mmecessary, nay, hostile, to the true strength and glory of the English Church. (D. II. G.) Laud's writings are few. Wharton published his J)i- arij in 1694, and Parker his Wurls (Oxford, 1847-GOi, containing, among other things, his letters and miscel- laneous papers, many of them then published for the first time, and, like his Diarij, invaluable as contribu- tions to the personal histor}' of this noted archbish<i]i and his associates. See Hume, Hist, of Fjigl. chap, lii; Hallam, Constit. Hist, of Engl. (Lond. 1854), ii, 38, 167 ; Macaulay, Essays (1854), i, 159 sq., 424 sq. ; Short, Ch. Hist. (Lond. 1840), p. 486 sq., 553 sq.; Tulloch, English Puritanism, p. 45 sq. ; Fletcher, History of Indejiendenaj , vols, ii, iii, iv ; Collier, Eccl. Hist, (see Index) ; Prynne, Heylin, Le Bas, Lawson, and Baines, on the Life of Laud; IFes^m. /?«'. xvii, 478 sq. ; 1870, p. 294; London Afonth. Rev. cxviu, 317 sq.; Lemd.Retrosp.Reiwn (1827), 49 sq.; LUachv. 3fag. xxv, G19 sq. ; xxvii, 179; xxix, 523; 1,806; Lond. Quart. Eev. x, 101 sq.; North. Ama: Bevieu; 1864, 606 sq.