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hearts of His servants. Therefore I have laid by all respects of you or myself, and moved the King for a letter to issue out a Commission to inquire, &c. And the Primate and the Archbishop of Dublin are two. And if the letter can be made ready, you shall receive it enclosed, if not, then by the next. I went about it so soon as ever I had read your letters, and the King granted it instantly."-P. 70.

And again :

"I am glad the Earl of Cork's tomb is down, and I doubt not but you will see the altar raised to his place again, and the wall made handsome behind it. But the making of it up like marchpanes in boxes, argues he will set it up no more in that church, where it had such mean welcome. Yet I am not of your mind, that it is going down to any christening; for no Christianity ever set a tomb there. I rather think 'tis sent to be set up at Lismore or Youghal, where he hath been so great a benefactor."-P. 116.

It may seem a small matter to be so often recurring in a state correspondence, but as Laud well knew, a deep principle lay underneath it; and we are more and more convinced that to Laud's restoration of the altar to its proper place, we mainly owe the preservation of sound doctrines on the Blessed Eucharist.

Before leaving these Irish affairs, we wish to notice a letter to Bishop Bedell, which is remarkable as showing a doubt on Laud's part as to the legality of Diocesan Synods. Bishop Bedell's Diocesan Synod has been lately appealed to, as showing the perfect lawfulness of such assemblies, and that the Act of Submission refers only to the Convocations of both Provinces, or to National Synods. And if we mistake not, great stress was laid upon this Synod as a precedent and warrant for the Diocesan Synod of Exeter, held in consequence of the Gorham Judgment, and the legality of which it surpassed even the hardihood of Whig lawyers to deny. It is curious then to find Laud doubting of the Bishop's power to do that, which in after years a Whig Premier stated could be done without breaking any law; and it is curious to find him misinformed respecting the relations to the Crown of a Provincial Synod. For it has been ruled again, that so long as Convocation abstains from entering upon discussions relating to Canons, it may occupy itself with "matters of religion without being authorised so to do under the Broad Seal." Truth compels us to admit that Laud's notions of the Regale in Church matters were excessive.

"Your Lordship seems further to be troubled about a letter of mine written (as you are told) to my Lord Primate. In which I should say you were in a præmunire about your Diocesan Synod; but that, at your coming to Drogheda, you understood by my Lord Primate himself, there was no such letter written to him. The truth is, my Lord,

I never writ so to him, nor to any man else. But hearing much speech about your Synod, I did write to my Lord of Derry about the beginning, that, out of my love to you, I was in very good hope, you had been so watchful over your proceedings, as that you had prevented the danger of running into a præmunire, by meddling with anything about matters of religion without being authorised so to do, under the Broad Seal. For so (if I much mistake not) is the Statute with us in England, and that concerning the Convocation, or Provincial, or National Synod. And thus much or to this effect I then writ. And if the Statute bind up a Provincial Synod from so doing, I doubt it will not be interpreted to leave a Diocesan free. But this I writ for the law as it stands with us; but how the law is with you I know not."-P. 579.

Our space will not allow us to go into the numerous questions of home and foreign policy upon which these letters throw light. They show, as others have done, that Laud, though he bore up bravely, was fighting against hope. The Lady Nina was too many for him. To his intimate friend Wentworth he hesitates not to pour out the forebodings of his heart.

"In the last place, you say my misgiving in the end of my letters troubles you. I wonder not at it; for I presume your Lordship thinks I do not use to give out for nothing. But, my Lord, though I dare

the King

not speak out, but only to 15, 25, 100, 308, to whom I have spoken most plainly, yet my life now is nothing but inward prophecies of such

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71, 40, 34, 14, 44, 54, 43, and we shall all feel them in their effects, if there be not a quite contrary course taken to that now in use. As for my failing, that is not half so considerable as while you look through spectacles of affection's making it may seem to be. Though I think Lord Northumberland Secretary Coke your next confidence will be in 177, and sure 114 is very honest to

Lord Cottington

you, and 110 will not be quite out for some particulars. But let this be as it may, your Lordship's loving, stout, careful intentions to me, in the close of all, comes but to that which I have upon some occasions written to you, though not so fully expressed as those of yours. And I hope you believe I shall not desert in myself the advice I have been bold to lay before you. Nor shall I, GOD willing, shrink at the tempest though it grow high, and blow strong, till it overbear me. My expressions only tend to this-that I have, can have, no hope in the ways taken, yet shall I go on to keep up whatsoever public good I may be able to support, and leave the rest in GOD's hands, I hope to show mercy."-Pp. 485, 486.

Again, apropos of the Scotch Rebellion :

"For their lion is rampant, I grant, and yet I believe (as you write) he is not so terrible as he is painted; but the truth is, our lions are too passant, and they have gone on too slowly.

VOL. XXII.

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And no help but too

"I cannot satisfy myself almost in anything."-P. 502.

A little later he seems more hopeful:

"But I will tell you a tale, which may have some hope in it. There always used to be a nightingale in the walks at Lambeth, and so there was the first year I came; but the second and so forward, there was none. Upon this, I prophesied that Mirth and Music had forsaken my dwelling. And so it hath proved hitherto. This year the nightingale is come again, and sings lustily. May not I prophesy now, that my times may be better? Sure I may, if it please GOD to bless the King with good success. And I would fain hope well of that, which I might do much the stronger were not 19, 25, 500, 112, 29, there. And had they good assurance of Mr. Money's company. But that family is extremely backward in the King's service, and one main reason of it is, because they think the King hath been too forward with them."P. 560.

Lord Holland

"GOD send us well out of these dark times."

But the despondency returns, and events soon verified his forebodings. The fatal dissolution of the fourth Parliament took place, and the celebrated Long Parliament of 1640 sat but a little while before they committed the Archbishop to the Tower. With his committal the letters contained in these volumes naturally cease, but the last recorded bears witness, as many others, to the interest he took amid matters of overwhelming importance, in the affairs of his own College, S. John's at Oxford, and leaves a pleasing impression on the mind. But immured in the Tower, he was saved hearing and seeing much that would have vexed his soul. And with his friend Strafford gone, and his beloved sovereign powerless to help him, the headsman's axe was a welcome release to his tormented spirit. Let us listen reverently to the last words of one who with all his faults, was a great man, who loved his Church, and because he loved her truly, saw in her as presented to his eyes no spotless perfection, but strove by life and death to efface the spots which marred her beauty. If to the spirits of just men made perfect it be permitted, as we fondly dream, to take interest

in what is passing upon earth, then indeed must the soul of this martyr rejoice as he sees the work for which he shed his blood in so many ways accomplished. Our restored churches, our musical services, our high teaching of sacramental truths, our improved ritual, our altars in their very position, have all been rendered possible by him; and the present position of the English Church is mainly, under GOD, due to Laud, who at the cost of his own life saved her from her downward progress, and boldly bade her act on her true principles. In the last hours of such a man we cannot but be interested; and if in reading some of the correspondence any be tempted to look on Laud as a mere politician, such impression must be effaced by the following paper now printed (p. 660) from a MS. of Dr. Sterne:

66

I have diligently examined my self & narowly searched every corner of my heart between GOD & my self, & can not find so much as a thought (to wch I have given consent) of doing any thing whereby I have deserved death by any Law of the Land.

'I confess I have many sinnes, wch though not deserving temporall death by the Lawes of man, yet by GoD's Lawe deserve eternall death. But I trust for pardon of them, by the infinite mercies of GOD in JESUS CHRIST.

"For my faith & religion, as I was born & baptised in the Church of England, so I have ever lived in the constant profession of the Doctrine & Discipline thereof, as it yet stands established by Lawe. I have (by the testimonie even of mine adversaries) been still the same man, not changing with the times for any hopes of advantage. And in the same professio I shall

With one word we will conclude. It has been for years the fashion to represent Laud as an enemy to the liberties of the country, as an accomplice in Charles's so-called attempt to establish arbitrary power. That he was not over fond of Parliaments we do not deny, and we may ask, what reason had he to be fond of Parliaments? Every Parliament he had seen assembled had only added to the embarrassments of his Sovereign, and left him without money for the wars into which they drove him. The traditions of the most glorious reign in English history were still fresh in men's minds, and they were traditions of monarchy not parliaments. And further, we assert that Charles governed the nation better without parliament than the parliament without Charles. The bright spot in his reign is the period during which he reigned as a king indeed. And moreover, we contend that the event proved the prescience with which Charles and his ministers (among them Laud) resisted the pretensions of Parliament. The Parliamentary leaders were fair but false. The constitutional maxims which were in their mouths only veiled the settled republicanism of their hearts-and the struggle really was not between a despotic King or constitutional King-but between King and no King.

The Whig theory of a British constitution existing in its integrity since the days of Alfred, or possibly before, is utterly untenable. In many of the largest stretches of his prerogative, law and precedent were on Charles's side, and Laud upheld the rights of a monarchy which, up to his time, had never been fettered by constitutional restraints. He was the conservatist of his day, and had it not been for the tenacity with which Charles and his ministers contended for the rights of the crown, there would have been no crown in existence at the present day. Their gallant resistance saved "Church and King"-though both their heads rolled on the scaffold.

We contend, therefore, that it is no reproach to Laud that he was such a thorough asserter of the prerogatives of the crown. The pretensions of Parliament were new to history, and untried paths had no charm for him. What he found the King, that he would have left him—and therefore we offer no apology for his ignorance of constitutional maxims which first date from 1688. And surely the same reasons may be allowed to plead for the unfortunate Charles in his pertinacious adherence to his hereditary rights. It has lately been urged against him by an able but singularly prejudiced writer, (and it is remarkable how prejudiced the loudest denouncers of prejudice can be,) that the attempted seizure of the five members was no sudden freak, but a settled plan, deliberately taken in hand by the King. Very likely it was; what then? had the Parliament of 1640 deserved any very nice considerations of their privileges at the King's hand? Had they not shown a settled determination to subvert the Church and the monarchy? had they not been guilty of greater injustice than Charles ever had, when unable to convict Strafford by process of law, they passed an act of attainder? What terms could be made with men like those? Charles never did anything so subversive of the fundamental laws of the kingdom, as dooming a man to death by Act of Parliament! What would have been said had he even proposed an attainder against Hampden? His contemplated arrest of the firebrands who were rendering all government impossible, was a well laid scheme, perfectly justifiable under the circumstances; for why should the House of Commons have sheltered men who hung back from meeting charges legally made? Had it succeeded, peace might have been restored. But it failed; and Parliament gained the upper hand. But, not to speak of the horrors of the civil war, the result of the ascendancy of Parliament was a grinding tyranny, setting at nought all law and justice, and finally, by a remarkable Nemesis, ending in absolute power being wielded by one who, if Charles had chastised the people with whips, chastised them with scorpions. Under Laud's administration and Charles's absolute rule the country flourished, and its prosperity increased; while bloodshed, misery, rapine, plunder, injustice, and wrong were the results of the triumph of those principles which they, might and main, opposed.

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