[1358] Born at Reading, Oct. 7, 1573; ordained 1601; Bishop of St. David's, 1621; of Bath and Wells, 1626; of London, 1628; Chancellor of Oxford University, 1630; Archbishop of Canterbury, 1633; impeached of high-treason, 1641; beheaded Jan. 10, 1645.
[1359] 'Because,' as King James said, in keen discernment of his character, 'he hath a restless spirit, and can not see when matters are well, but loves to toss and change, and to bring things to a pitch of reformation, floating in his own brain, which may endanger the steadfastness of that which is in a good pass.' He restrained his early plans 'to make that stubborn [Scotch] Kirk stoop to the English pattern,' for 'he knows not the stomach of that people.'
[1360] He was called 'the little Archbishop.'
[1361] 'His influence extended every where, over every body, and every thing, small as well as great--like the trunk of an elephant, as well suited to pick up a pin as to tear down a tree.'--Stoughton, Vol. I. p. 33.
[1362] I must add, however, that in his book against Fisher the Jesuit there are a few favorable allusions to Calvin as a theologian, especially to his doctrine of the spiritual real presence.
[1363] Works (Oxf. 1847), Vol. I. pp. 161, 167, 180, 181.
[1364] That Laud is the author of this Declaration was charged by Prynne, and is proved by the Oxford editor of his Works, Vol. I. pp. 153 sq. Comp. above, p. 617.
[1365] He informed the king of 'a very ill accident which happened at Taplow, by reason of not having the communion-table, railed in, that it might be kept from profanations. For in the sermon time a dog came to the table and took the loaf of bread prepared for the Holy Sacrament in his mouth, and ran away with it. Some of the parishioners took the same from the dog and set it again on the table. After sermon the minister could not think fit to consecrate this bread, and other fit for the Sacrament was not to be had in that town, so there was no Communion.'--Works, Vol. V. p 367. This brings to mind the grave and curious disputes of the mediæval schoolmen on the question what effect the consecrated wafer would have upon a mouse or a rat.
[1366] Diary, March 8, 1626 (Works, Vol. III. p. 201).
[1367] He relates, in his Diary, Aug. 4, 1633 (on the day of Archbishop Abbot's death), that 'there came one to me, seriously, . . . and offered me to be a Cardinal. I went presently to the King and acquainted him both with the thing and the person.' On the 17th of August, having in the mean time (Aug. 6) been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, he had a second offer of a red hat, and again answered 'that something dwelt within him which would not suffer that till Rome were other than it is' (Works, Vol. III. p. 219). In his Marginal Notes on Prynne's Breviate (p. 266), he adds that his 'conscience' also went against this. But it is by no means certain or even probable that the pope himself (as Fuller states without proof) authorized such an offer. It may have been a trap laid for Laud on the eve of his elevation to the primacy. Lingard, the Roman Catholic historian of England, says that Laud was 'in bad repute in Rome' (Vol. X. p. 139), and Dean Hook, his Anglo-Catholic biographer, asserts that he was 'dreaded and hated at Rome,' and that his death was greeted there with joy (Life of L. p. 233). Lingard adds, however, that 'in the solitude of his cell, and with the prospect of the block before his eyes, Laud began to think more favorably of the Catholic [Roman] Church,' and he shows that Rosetti inquired of Cardinal Barberini whether, if Laud should escape from the Tower, the pope would afford him an asylum in Rome with a pension of 1000 crowns. But this is inconsistent with Laud's last defense. He was then over seventy, and anxious to die.
[1368] Hist. of the Puritans, Vol. I. p. 280.
[1369] The Conference with Fisher (whose real name was Piersey or Percy) took place, by command and in the presence of King James, May 24, 1622, and was edited, with final corrections and additions, by Laud himself in 1639. It was republished 1673 and 1686, and by the Oxford University Press 1839, with an Introduction by Edward Cardwell. It is also included in Vol. II. of the Oxf. ed. of his Works. Laud thought that his way of defense was the only one by which the Church of England could justify her separation from the Church of Rome. He bequeathed £100 for a Latin translation of this book.
[1370] The Works of Laud embrace five volumes in the Oxford 'Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology.' His seven sermons preached on great state occasions abound with his high notions of royalty, episcopacy, and uniformity, but do not rise above mediocrity. His Diary--the chief source of his autobiography--though not 'contemptible' (as Hallam characterizes it), is dry and pedantic, and notices trifling incidents as important occurrences, e.g., the bad state of the weather, his numerous dreams, the marriage of K. C. with a minister's widow, the particular posture of the Elector of the Palatinate at communion 'upon a stool by the wall before the traverse, and with another and a cushion before him to kneel at' (Dec. 25, 1635), and his unfortunate affairs with 'E. B.' (of which he deeply repented; see his Devot. Vol. III. p. 81). His Devotions are made up mostly of passages of the Psalms and the fathers, and reveal the best side of his private character. His last prayer, as he kneeled by the block to receive the fatal stroke, is the crown of his prayers, and worth quoting: 'Lord, I am coming as fast as I can. I know I must pass through the shadow of death before I can come to see 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. So, 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.' The opinions on Laud are mostly tinctured by party spirit. His friend Clarendon says, 'His learning, piety, and virtue have been attained by very few, and the greatest of his infirmities are common to all, even the best of men.' Prynne, who lost his two ears by Laud's influence, calls him the most execrable traitor and apostate that the English soil ever bred ('Canterbury's Doome'). His biographers, Peter Heylin (Cyprianus Anglicanus, Lond. 1671), John Parker Lawson (The Life and Times of William Laud, Lond. 1829, 2 vols.), and Dr. Hook (in the Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, Vol. XI. Lond. 1875), are vindicators of his character and policy. May, Hallam, Macaulay, Lingard, Green, Häusser, and Stoughton (Vol. I. pp. 402 sq.) condemn his public acts, but give him credit for his private virtues. May (History of Parliament, approvingly quoted by Hallam, chap. viii. Charles I.) says: 'Laud was of an active, or, rather, of a restless mind; more ambitious to undertake than politic to carry on; of a disposition too fierce and cruel for his coat. He had few vulgar and private vices, as being neither taxed of covetousness, intemperance, nor incontinence; and, in a word, a man not altogether so bad in his personal character as unfit for the state of England.'
[1371] Burton called the bishops step-fathers, cater-pillars, limbs of the beast, blind watchmen, dumb dogs, new Babel-builders, antichristian mushrumps, etc. Prynne called them 'silk and satin divines,' and said that 'Christ himself was a Puritan, and that, therefore, all men should become Puritans.' But their opponents could be equally abusive. Lord Cottington, one of Prynne's judges, said that, in writing the Histrio-Mastix, 'either the devil had assisted Prynne or Prynne the devil.' Another judge, the Earl of Dorset, called him 'omnium malorum nequissimum. '
[1372] One of the noblest specimens of a Puritan officer was Col. Hutchinson, whose character and life have been so admirably described by his widow (pp. 24 sqq. Bohn's ed.).
[1373] Comp. Marsden, The Later Puritans, pp. 40 sqq. Baxter himself allows that 'some able, godly preachers were cast out for the war alone.' Among these was also the excellent Thomas Fuller, the author of the incomparable books on Church History and the Worthies of England, although in the days of Laud he had been stigmatized as a Puritan in doctrine.
[1374] On his last days and utterances, see the Mercurius Politicus for Sept. 2-9,1658, and Stoughton, The Church of the Commonwealth, p. 511. Macaulay pays the following tribute to Cromwell's foreign policy: 'The Protector's foreign policy at the same time extorted the ungracious approbation of those who most detested him. The Cavaliers could scarcely refrain from wishing that one who had done so much to raise the fame of the nation had been a legitimate king; and the Republicans were forced to own that the tyrant suffered none but himself to wrong his country, and that, if he had robbed her of liberty, he had at least given her glory in exchange. After half a century, during which England had been of scarcely more weight in European politics than Venice or Saxony, she at once became the most formidable power in the world, dictated terms of peace to the United Provinces, avenged the common injuries of Christendom on the pirates of Barbary, vanquished the Spaniards by land and sea, seized one of the finest West India islands, and acquired on the Flemish coast a fortress which consoled the national pride for the loss of Calais. She was supreme on the ocean. She was the head of the Protestant interest. All the Reformed Churches scattered over Roman Catholic kingdoms acknowledged Cromwell as their guardian. The Huguenots of Languedoc. the shepherds who, in the hamlets of the Alps, professed a Protestantism older than that of Augsburg, were secured from oppression by the mere terror of that great name. The pope himself was forced to preach humanity and moderation to popish princes. For a voice which seldom threatened in vain had declared that, unless favor were shown to the people of God, the English guns should be heard in the Castle of Saint Angelo. In truth, there was nothing which Cromwell had, for his own sake and that of his family, so much reason to desire as a general religious war in Europe. In such a war he must have been the captain of the Protestant armies. The heart of England would have been with him. His victories would have been hailed with a unanimous enthusiasm unknown in the country since the rout of the Armada, and would have effaced the stain which one act, condemned by the general voice of the nation, has left on his splendid fame. Unhappily for him. he had no opportunity of displaying his admirable military talents except against the inhabitants of the British Isles.'--History of England, ch. i. Carlyle says that Cromwell was the best thing that England ever did.
[1375] 'Almost all the gentry of all parts went--some to fetch him over, some to meet him at the sea-side, some to fetch him into London, into which he entered on the 29th day of May, with a universal joy and triumph, even to his own amazement; who, when he saw all the nobility and gentry of the land flowing in to him, asked where were his enemies. For he saw nothing but prostrates, expressing all the love that could make a prince happy. Indeed, it was a wonder in that day to see the mutability of some, and the hypocrisy of others, and the servile flattery of all. Monk, like his better genius, conducted him and was adored like one that had brought all the glory and felicity of mankind home with this prince.'--Memoirs of the Life of Col. Hutchinson, p. 402.