III

CHARLES AND CHURCH MATTERS

29

king. He escaped for the time, but was imprisoned by the Long Parliament, and died in great poverty in 1653.

These cases, if they show that neither Charles nor Laud was as vehement in assertion of royal prerogative as is sometimes supposed, sufficiently illustrate the indiscretion of the master, for which the servant often suffered.

Charles's

Church

Charles was by no means interested only in the political aspect of religion. The State Papers of his reign show him still more interested in moral reform, and most of all in seeing that the bishops and clergy did activity in their duty. He was incurably Erastian. His eye matters. everywhere followed the investigations of Laud. It lighted in 1630 even on the good Bishop Bayly of Bangor, whose Practice of Piety was the devotional guide of three generations. Bayly had been Vicar of Evesham, where he had preached the sermons which were afterwards adapted for his book. Afterwards in London as chaplain to Henry Prince of Wales he had won wider fame, and in 1616 he was consecrated to Bangor, where he worked assiduously till 1631. In the year before his death he had to defend himself from the charge of admitting to holy orders persons who had not subscribed to the Prayer-book and Articles. He vindicated his action, and declared that he had everywhere provided "preaching ministers," and preached every Sunday himself; that he had taken care that catechising was duly observed, and that he was assiduous in visiting, in confirming, and in holding synods of his clergy. Charles was ever on the watch. He was determined to see that every bishop did his duty as he thought it ought to be done; and he was impatient of interference. To the end of his life he was hopelessly obstinate and incautious. His treatment of Manwaring and Sibthorpe was foolish the later history of Mountague is an instance still more significant of the king's want of wisdom.

We have seen the nature of the dispute which arose over the works of that eager controversialist, and the hopes that it would die down after the king's declaration in

The promotion of Mountague.

favour of peace. But the hopes were disappointed; and indeed Charles was, in his early years at least, no friend to half measures. Parliamentary opposition made

"The

him the more determined to support his friends. Before the controversy about the Appello Cæsarem had had time to abate, Bishop Carleton of Chichester, one of Mountague's bitterest opponents, died. Charles, by the advice of the hot-headed Buckingham, nominated to the vacant bishopric the man who lay under the censure of Parliament. On July 14, 1628, Richard Mountague was elected Bishop of Chichester. When the election came to be confirmed in Bow Church nine articles were presented against him, charging him with Popery. A contemporary pamphlet, "The Appeal of the Orthodox Ministers of the Church of England against Richard Mountague," thus describes the scene. judge aforenamed [Dr. Neve], taking the paper of objections, first seemed to read them over silently to himself; and then delivered them to the said elect Bishop Mountague, who seemed also to read them over silently to himself, and then with an untoward look and trembling hand gave them back again to the judge, who called to him one Dr. Samms of the Arches, advising with him what to do with the business; and he told him he would run into a præmunire if he did not proceed: who thereupon gave the objector, Mr. Jones, an answer to this effect: My good friend, you have given here objections against this my lord of Chichester, but your objections are not in due form of law, because they have not a Doctor's hand unto them, neither have you an advocate to plead your objections. Therefore, nevertheless, by virtue of his Majesty's commission under the great seal I proceed to confirm him." Mountague himself then spoke. He had subscribed, he said, the Articles and Homilies, and given all the pledges of his loyalty to the Church that it was possible to give. If any one would, privately or publicly, confute his books, himself would be the first to burn them. The controversialist would not budge an inch.

By such men, whom he was to some extent obliged to Weakness support, the cause which Laud had at heart was of Laud's certainly not advanced. It was his misfortune that position. he could not rely upon the discretion as well as the good intentions of his agents; and he was not always discreet himself. Many stories of his sharpness of retort are told, in which, if they are exaggerated, there is a clear foundation of

III

truth.

LAUD'S BEGINNING OF WORK

31

Many people "spoke extreme ill of him, as the cause

of all that was amiss,"

pernicious protector, dangerous peer,

That smooth'st it so with King and commonweal.

As the years went on it became clearer and clearer that he was without any strong personal support, a minister, like Richelieu in France, who depended wholly on the king. "But then I have nothing but the king's word to me; and should he forget or deny it, where is my remedy?" So he wrote to Strafford in 1636. It was all along the weakness of his position.

This

But, none the less, in spite of his own personal defects of manner and the mistakes of his indiscreet supporters, Laud won his way to the achievement of his great aim. was simply to restore to the Church of England a dignified simplicity of worship and a loyal obedience to the formularies which had come to her from the past through the age of her Reformation.

His prepara

work.

Laud was prepared for the great work which he was to undertake by experience of every branch of clerical labour. At Oxford he had been a fellow, a lecturer, and the head of his college. He knew academic life and tion for his its weaknesses intimately, and when he came to be Chancellor of the University of Oxford he instituted a thorough reformation of the statutes, which provided a code destined to endure for more than two hundred years. As a parish priest, too, he had considerable experience of country life. If he did not reside long on any of his benefices he visited them regularly and preached often. As Dean of Gloucester he had the king's instructions to restore the dignity of the Cathedral worship, and he succeeded, though he was "much pestered with the Puritan faction." As Bishop of St. David's he paid only two visits to his diocese, but he left distinct marks of his activity and munificence, and he kept a close watch upon his see from London. He was Bishop of Bath and Wells for only two years, and cannot be said to have left much impression there.

But when he came to London, on July 15, 1628, he was able personally to direct the work of what was already a great diocese.

Laud as

His wide interests.

As

His clergy urged him to the suppression of nonconformity; and he set about the task, as letters sent to him show, Bishop of with discretion. "Prudent, moderate, courteous," London. the clergy found him, "patiently forbearing them, giving them time to consult conformable ministers, and vouchsafing to confer with them himself." So a letter describes him. Not only in London was he busy in the duties of his office, and in social work such as the suppression of play-houses that tended to vice, but outside he had much work to do. superintendent of the English congregations on the continent of Europe it was his duty to see that they conformed to the established use of the English Church. He was concerned in the conversion of Mohammedan visitors to England and the restoration of "renegados." He was responsible, too, for a serious reminder of the obligations of the episcopal office addressed by the king to Archbishop Abbot. Seeing that divers bishops live in and about London, wrote Charles to the primate, to the ill example of the inferior clergymen and the hindrance of God's service and the king's, the archbishop is required to command all bishops to their sees, those only excepted whose attendance at court is necessarily required. And further, none were to be permitted to reside upon their own lands or on benefices held in commendam, but only in their episcopal houses. The order was certainly needed, as the bitter wailing of Bishop Williams when he was ordered to leave London for his diocese well evidenced.

Again, he was active in the restoration of St. Paul's Cathedral church, a work which was to win again the most solemn associations for what should be the great His care for the public centre of London worship, but had for long been used services of almost as an alley on 'Change. Under his guidance the Church. eminent preachers began to attract crowds to the

services, and the fabric was repaired to be a worthy setting for the Divine offices celebrated within. The quiet dignity of Cathedral worship had always a great attraction for Laud. His visitation inquiries show how careful he was in requiring an exact obedience to the statutes of the different chapters from those who were bound to them. He took great interest in the disturbance which occurred at Durham, when Peter

III

CATHEDRAL SERVICES

33

Smart, one of the prebendaries, protested against the use of the canonical vestments and against the Cathedral service, and was in consequence of his contumacy deprived of his prebend. In 1630 Bishop Howson, who had been translated from Oxford to Durham, wrote to Laud, then Bishop of London, giving an historical narrative of the "innovations " in the service in his cathedral church. They began, he said, with the omission of the prayers at six in the morning, intended especially for householders and servants, and usual in other cathedral churches. This alteration gave great offence, and at the request of Justice Hutton and many others the six o'clock prayers were restored, whereupon the innovating part ordered the customary morning service so, by reading more than is usually read and by a great variety of music, that they wearied the congregation with extraordinary long service, beginning after eight of the clock and continuing till after eleven." To remedy this, Bishop Howson directed that the Nicene creed should occasionally be said instead of sung, as also the responses after the commandments. "These alterations gave general content, the people, after their own parochial services, which were early, coming by troops to the cathedral, there being no set sermon in the morning in the whole city."

Letters such as these show both Laud's interest in the detailed arrangements of cathedral services and the important position which he had already assumed before the death of Abbot. He was consulted indeed on every subject of interest to the Church, by all classes, from the king and the lords of the council down to parish priests in difficulties "among false brethren."

Puritan

activity.

Of Laud's relations with the parochial clergy, a characteristic example is to be found in the letter of one Dr. Samuel Brooke, written to the Bishop of London on December 15, 1630. With a postscript skilfully eulogising Laud's tractate against Fisher as one of the most novel, pure, lively and yet substantial, judicious and learned pieces he ever read in his life, and with the commendation of a little tract of his own to such sober judgment as that of the author whose work he was commending, he concludes an acute summary of the situation with which the Episcopate

D