NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. BISHOP COSIN'S BOOK OF pile such a work; and presently, the bishop naming Dr. Cosin, the king told him to charge the doctor in his name to set about it immediately. This the dean told me he did, and three months after, bringing the book to the king, he com (From Evelyn's Diary.) "The Dean (Cousin), dining this day at our house, told me the occasion of pub-manded the Bishop of London to read it lishing those offices which, among the Puritans, were wont to be called Cosin's Cozening Devotions by way of derision. At the first coming of the queen into England, she and her French ladies were often upbraiding our religion, that had neither appointed nor set forth any hours of prayer nor breviaries, by which ladies and courtiers, who have much spare time, might edify and be in devotion, as they had. Our Protestant ladies, scandalised it seems at this, moved the matter to the king, whereupon his Majesty presently called Bishop White to him, and asked his thoughts of it, and whether there might not be found some forms of prayer proper on such occasions, collected out of some already approved formns; on which the bishop told his Majesty that it might be done easily, and was very necessary. Whereupon the king commanded him to employ some person of the clergy to com over and make his report. This was so well liked, that (contrary to former custom of doing it by a chaplain) he would needs give it imprimatur under his own hand. Upon this there was at first only 200 copies printed, nor, said he, was there anything in the whole book of my own composure, nor did I set any name as author to it, but only those necessary prefaces out of the Fathers touching the times and seasons of prayer, all the rest being entirely translated and collected out of an office published by authority of Queen Elizabeth, anno 1560, and our own Liturgy. This I rather mention to justify that industrious and pious dean, who had exceedingly suffered for it, as if he had done out of his own head to introduce Popery, from which no man was more. averse, and one who, in this time of temptation and apostacy, held and confirmed many to our Church." CHAPTER XXVI. LAUD'S POLICY IN CHURCH MATTERS. 1629-1639. § 1. Character of Laud. § 2. His Erastian policy. § 3. The King's Instruc tions as to Church discipline. § 4. Great complaints against this. § 5. Censured Bishop Davenant. § 6. Dissolution of the Collectors of St. A. Antholin's. § 7. Case of Mr. Sherfield. § 8. The foreign religious communities compelled to conform. § 9. Laud made Primate. § 10. Publication of the Book of Sports. § 11. Orders for removing the Holy Table. 12. Church restoration. § 13. Discontent at "The Innovations. 14. Proceedings in Diocese of Norwich. § 15. Extemporary prayer stopped. § 16. Star-Chamber sentences. § 17. Case of Bishop Williams. § 18. Laud not a promoter of Romanism. § 19. The control of the press. § 20. Apparent conformity established. § 1. THAT the Church of England owes much to Archbishop Laud is incontestable. He was almost the first bishop after the Reformation period who perceived the need of a decent ceremonial and comely external face of worship for a great historical church such as the Church of England. This he set himself resolutely to produce, and he either succeeded in doing so, or at any rate laid the foundation for future success. But though his end was good, the means used to produce it were often highly objectionable, and these objectionable means were made still worse by the personal peculiarities of the man who employed them. "There has seldom, perhaps," says one of his biographers, "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 ungracious and unpopular, and his temper offensively irascible and hot. There was nothing affable or engaging in his general behaviour. 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. The consequence of this ignorance, or this disdain of the ways of the world, was unspeakably hurtful to the cause which at all times was nearest to his heart."1 To this, however, something more must be added. "He was," says M. Guizot, "alike incapable of conciliating opposing interests and of respecting rights." 2 In the view of Laud there seemed to be no right save the "divine right of kings." 1 Le Bas, Life of Laud, p. 331. 2 English Revolution, p. 39 (Trans.). 2 With this he was ever ready to assail both the liberties of the State and of the Church. § 2. Against the Church in particular he wielded the royal prerogative in such a fashion as to make the ecclesiastical government of his day more completely Erastian than it had been in the time of Henry VIII. In none of his measures were the clergy consulted. They were simply ordered to carry out the royal will. The king censures bishops for their sermons, ordains by his sole will a body of canons for Scotland, even sets forth a declaration to interpret the articles of religion. For these illegal acts Laud was responsible as ecclesiastical adviser, but the clergy no less than himself had to pay the penalty. § 3. Laud began his work of church reformation with a most salutary measure. "He saw," says Heylin, "the church decaying both in power and patrimony; her patrimony dilapidated by the avarice of several bishops in making havoc of their woods to enrich themselves, and in filling up their grants and leases to the utmost term after they had been nominated to some other bishopric, to the great wrong of their successors. Her power he found diminished partly by the bishops themselves in leaving their dioceses unguarded and living altogether about Westminster, to be in a more ready way for the next preferment; partly by the great increase of chaplains in the houses of many private gentlemen; but chiefly by the multitude of irregular lecturers, both in city and country, whose work it was to undermine both the doctrine and the government of it."1 Laud accordingly presented to the king a paper of Considerations on these points, and shortly afterwards the king issued a body of Instructions to the bishops founded on these Considerations. They are bid to be specially careful in their ordinations not to admit unfitting persons to the ministry. They are not to allow afternoon sermons, but to enforce catechising. They are to compel all lecturers 2 to read divine service, properly vested, before their lecture. They are to arrange if possible for lectures to be taken by a body of the neighbouring clergy preaching in turn, who are to preach in gowns, not in cloaks, as was the fashion. No one is to preach a lecture who is not ready when occasion offers to take a benefice or cure. The bishops are to ascertain how the lecturers "behave themselves in their sermons." None save noblemen and those qualified by law are to be allowed to retain chaplains in their 1 Heylin's Laud, p. 199. The Lecturer was a divine appointed to a church by a special arrangement or endowment. His services were to be rendered independently of the parish priest. He had no cure of souls, but was merely a preacher. It was by this plan that the Puritans especially strove to propagate their principles. houses. Regular attendance at divine service is to be exacted from all. Bishops are not to grant leases after they have been nominated to another see, nor to cut down timber, but merely "to receive the rents due and to quit the place;" otherwise their nominations will be cancelled. An account is to be sent in at the beginning of each year as to the way in which these Instructions have been carried out."1 4. Heylin says that these Instructions raised a great storm of complaint and discontent. The archbishop refused to carry out the directions as to lecturers; the bishops loudly complained of the hardship of being banished to their dioceses; the country gentlemen considered themselves ill-used at not being allowed to keep chaplains in their houses; and the chaplains themselves resented the loss of their comfortable posts.2 Nevertheless, the Instructions, though their authority may be questionable, were certainly salutary and much needed. Non-resident bishops, puritanical lecturers, and secularised chaplains, were all mischiefs which required to be removed. § 5. A much more questionable exercise of the royal supremacy soon followed the issue of these Instructions. Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury, preaching in Lent (1630) before the Court, touched somewhat on the doctrines of predestination and election. He was Calvinistical in his views. He had been one of the English deputies at Dort, and he attached probably an exaggerated importance to these questions. The king considered that he had disobeyed the Declaration prefixed to the Articles, and he was ordered to appear at the Council-table. There Harsnet, now Archbishop of York, vehemently spoke against him, and the king censured him for what he had preached, and ordered him not to handle such points for the future. For a similar offence against this Declaration three clergymen at Oxford-Mr. Ford of Magdalen Hall, Mr. Thorne of Balliol, and Mr. Hodges of Exeter-were summoned before the king at Woodstock, severely censured, and expelled from the university. The officers of the university also incurred punishment and reproof for their slackness in animadverting upon the preachers. Everywhere it was seen that there was no safety for those who differed from the views of Bishop Laud, who had the king completely at his disposal, and large numbers of puritanical clergy now emigrated to join their brethren in America. Here they speedily showed an Rushworth, ii. 30. Heylin's Laud, p. 202. 3 Davenant to Ward; Fuller, Ch. Hist. xi. 11-15. They appear to have been very turbulent persons, and to have invited their punishment. 5 For an account of the first and other migrations of the Puritans see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. intolerance to one another greater than that from which they had fled. Some of their ordinances even went to the pitch of decreeing death for the profanation of the "Sabbath day." § 6. One principal source of strength to the Puritanical cause was the formation of a society or corporation known by the name of the Collectors of St. Antholin's. The object of this society was to buy up impropriations and advowsons with a view of presenting to the livings persons of whose views the "collectors" approved, and of establishing and paying lecturers. Laud saw in this organisation a danger to the Church, and though the feoffees offered to submit themselves to his directions as to the carrying out their plans, he insisted on the immediate dissolution of the society, which appears a somewhat harsh as well as impolitic proceeding. Any attempt to better the condition of the clergy and improve their revenues, which was one object of the "collectors," might well have been welcomed, especially by one who was ever sincerely anxious to help his poorer brethren. § 7. The next exercise of violent discipline in which Laud figured was one where indeed the censure may be readily excused, but the absurd exaggeration of the punishment furnished great cause for scandal. Mr. Sherfield, Recorder of Salisbury, had procured the removal of a painted window in St. Edmund's Church, wherein the Almighty was represented after a fashion common in earlier times, though perhaps indefensible in itself. Not content with obtaining the removal of the painting, Mr. Sherfield further showed his zeal by smashing it with his stick, for which irreverence he was cited into the Star Chamber, where he was condemned, at Laud's instance,3 to be deprived of his recordership, fined £500, committed to prison, and obliged to make a public apology before the bishop of the diocese.* § 8. Probably a still greater amount of unpopularity than that which arose from this monstrously disproportioned punishment may / have accrued to Laud from his treatment of the communities of foreign Christians established in England. He compelled these, although the freedom of worship had been guaranteed to them by Elizabeth and James, to conform to the Church of England under the threat of excommunication.5 1 Rushworth, ii. 151. 2 Dissolved by order of the Court of Exchequer Feb. 1533. The impropriations were forfeited to the Crown, not restored to the parishes.-Le Bas, p. 152. 3 Heylin's Laud, p. 229. Rushworth, ii. 152, sq. The terrible punishment inflicted on Dr. Leighton for publishing Zion's Plea against Prelates has not been mentioned, as there is no proof that Laud had any special hand in this. great offence was calling the queen a daughter of Heth." 5 Heylin's Laud, p. 235. 66 Dr. Leighton's |