William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury
A Copy of Vandyck in Lambeth Palace.
By STONE.
Three-quarter Length.
Born at Reading, 1573.—Beheaded, 1645. Son of a clothier. Fellow of St. John’s College, Oxford. He afterwards took Orders, and was very vehement against the Puritans. Had many different livings; became Chaplain to James I., whom he accompanied to Scotland. Became Prebendary of Westminster, and consecutively Bishop of St. Davids, Bath and Wells, and London, and subsequently Prime Minister and Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1622 he held a famous conference with Fisher the Jesuit in the presence of the Duke of Buckingham and his mother, who were wavering in their allegiance to the Protestant faith, and were fixed therein by the eloquence of Laud. He was more than once tempted to abjure his own religion by the offer of a Cardinal’s hat, but each time he gave an emphatic denial. He was very strict in requiring the revision and licensing of published books by high ecclesiastical authority, and concerned in several prosecutions of the Star Chamber against Bishop Williams, the master of Westminster School, &c.
When the Parliament of 1639 was abruptly dissolved, the odium of the measure was thrown on Laud, and he was attacked in his Palace at Lambeth by the mob. The execution of Strafford was the forerunner of his own; he had made himself unpopular with the Nation and with the Commons, and on the accusation of Sir Henry Vane, he was sent to the Tower in 1641, where he was detained for three years and treated with much severity. In 1644 he was tried, and though nothing treasonable was proved, a bill of attainder was passed. He made an eloquent defence, but all in vain, and he suffered death on Tower Hill in 1645, displaying great courage. Clarendon says: “His learning, piety, and virtue, have been attained by few, and the greatest of his infirmities are common to all men.”
Of all the Prelates of the Anglican Church, Macaulay says that Laud departed farthest from the principles of the Reformation and nearest to Rome. He hated Calvinism, he had a passion for forms and ceremonies, disapproved of the marriage of ecclesiastics; all which opinions would have made him detested by the Puritans, even if he had used legal and gentle means only for the attainment of his ends. His understanding was narrow, he had but scanty knowledge of the world under his direction; every corner of the realm, every separate congregation, even the devotions of private families were subjected to the vigilance of his spies. Unfortunately for himself and for the country, the King was influenced in all public matters by the counsels of the Primate.