7 October 1573 A.D. The Calamitous Willy Laudobate Born—76th of 105 Archbishops of Canterbury
7
October 1573 A.D. The
Calamitous Willy Laudobate Born—76th of 105 Archbishops of
Canterbury
Pennington, D.H.
“William Laud.” Encyclopedia Britannica. N.d. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/332198/William-Laud. Accessed 30 May 2014.
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of Contents
William Laud, (born Oct. 7, 1573, Reading, Berkshire, Eng.—died Jan. 10, 1645, London), archbishop of Canterbury (1633–45) and religious adviser to King Charles
I of Great Britain. His persecution of Puritans and other religious
dissidents resulted in his trial and execution by the House of Commons.
Early
life and career.
Laud
was the son of a prominent clothier. From Reading Grammar School he went on to
St. John’s College, Oxford, and until he was nearly 50 combined the successful
but unspectacular careers of academic and churchman. He was soon associated
with the small clerical group, followers of the patristic scholar Lancelot
Andrewes, who, in opposition to Puritanism, stressed the continuity of the visible church and the necessity, for true inward worship, of outward uniformity, order,
and ceremony. In 1608 Laud entered the service of Richard Neile, bishop of Rochester, with whose help he secured a succession of ecclesiastical
appointments. From 1611 he was a royal chaplain and came gradually to the
notice of King James
I. His lifelong conflict with John Williams,
later bishop of Lincoln and archbishop of York, began when both sought
advancement through the patronage of Charles’s favourite, the Duke of Buckingham.
During Buckingham’s years of power, Laud was his chaplain and
confidant, and he established a dominant voice in church policies and
appointments. He became a privy councillor in 1627 and, a year later, bishop of
London.
In
his London diocese, Laud devoted himself to combating the Puritans
and to enforcing a form of service in strict accordance with the
Book of Common Prayer. The wearing of surplices, the placing of the
communion table—railed off from the congregation—at the east end of the
chancel, and such ceremonies as bowing at the mention of the name of Jesus were
imposed, though cautiously enough to avoid unmanageable opposition. Churches,
from St. Paul’s Cathedral down to neglected village chapels, were repaired,
beautified, and consecrated. To religious radicals, all such reforms seemed
moves toward popery.
At Oxford, where Laud was
chosen president of St. John’s in 1611 and chancellor in 1629, new statutes,
new endowments, and new buildings improved the university, both as a centre of
learning and as a training ground for Laudian religion. On the death of George
Abbott in 1633, Laud became archbishop of Canterbury, but he had already, by
instructions issued in the King’s name and by his ruthless energy in the royal
prerogative courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, extended his
authority—with varying success—over the whole country.
Persecution of Puritans.
From
1634 to 1637 visitations of every diocese (including, after strong resistance
by Williams, that of Lincoln) showed the extent of deficiencies within the
Anglican Church and the strength of Puritan practices. A succession of detailed
orders from the Archbishop laid down the remedies. Preaching, to Puritans the
essential task of the ministry, was to Laud a most dangerous source of
“differences” in religion to be curtailed and controlled. In London his attack
on Puritan “lectureships” culminated in the overthrow of the “feoffees for
impropriations,” the City organization for buying up tithes and church
patronage for the benefit of Puritan clergy. The printed word was dangerous,
too: celebrated Puritan propagandists such as Alexander Leighton and William
Prynne were mutilated and imprisoned. Occasionally, Laud was less
harsh than his enemies admitted, especially to the clergy. But he rejected all
conciliation of the Puritan movement, whose strength and qualities he never
understood. He had, in fact, much in common with some forms of it: the
unrelenting quest for the godly life, the intolerant certainty of his own
rectitude, the hatred of corruption and extravagance. He could do much to
diminish inefficiency, pluralism, absenteeism, and sheer idleness. But his
wider efforts to overcome the poverty of clergy and parishes and restore
something of the church’s position as a great and powerful landowner had
extremely limited success.
To
Laud, the strength of the church was inseparable from that of the state.
Conflict between royal and ecclesiastical power was a possibility he never
faced: under Charles
I both could be exalted simultaneously. Holding no state
office, he used his position on the privy council and his influence over the
King to attack “the Lady Mora” (delay) in what he considered her first personification,
the treasurer Richard Weston, and afterward in other ministers. His most
effective direct impact on government was in the social policy he applied through the council and the courts.
Exacting landlords and unscrupulous officials were attacked, and the poor were
protected against everyone except the state itself.
In
all this his one constant ally was Thomas Wentworth (later the earl of Strafford),
from 1633 lord deputy in Ireland. Laud and Wentworth corresponded regularly and
frankly on their joint struggle to establish “thorough,” as their rigorous
policy came to be called. But by 1637 both began to see, dimly, the storm that
was about to break upon them. The further trial of Prynne, together with other
radical Puritans such as Bastwick and Burton, demonstrated not success for
Laudian suppression but rather huge popular support for the opposition. The
resistance of the gentry was consolidated by the extended demand for “ship
money,” the most hated of Charles’s non-parliamentary levies. Attempts by
Charles and Laud to impose Anglican forms of worship in Scotland provoked
fierce resistance there. English forces were sent northward, and in 1639 the
“Bishops’ Wars” began.
Trial
and execution.
In
the spring of 1640 Parliament met for the first time in 11 years and with it
the clerical assembly, the Convocation,
which laid down in a new set of canons the principles of the Laudian church.
They explained the prescribed ceremonies as “fit and convenient” rather than
essential. But they added to the popular hatred of Laud shown in mass
demonstrations, petitions, and leaflets. In December, formally accused of high treason, he was taken to the Tower. His trial, managed enthusiastically by Prynne,
began only in 1644, in the midst of the Civil War. As with Strafford, the
Commons had to abandon legal proof and resort to an ordinance of attainder,
accepted hesitantly by the lords. On Jan. 10, 1645, the Archbishop was beheaded.
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