ARCHBISHOP LAUD.
[Sidenote: Archbishop Laud.]
In getting so deeply involved in difficulties with his people, King
Charles did not act alone. He had, as we have already explained, a
great deal of help. There were many men of intelligence and rank who
entertained the same opinions that he did, or who were, at least,
willing to adopt them for the sake of office and power. These men he
drew around him. He gave them office and power, and they joined him
in the efforts he made to defend and enlarge the royal prerogative,
and to carry on the government by the exercise of it. One of the most
prominent and distinguished of these men was Laud.
[Sidenote: The Church.]
[Sidenote: 1633-6.]
[Sidenote: System of the English Church.]
[Sidenote: The Archbishop of Canterbury.]
The reader must understand that _the Church_, in England, is very
different from any thing that exists under the same name in this
country. Its bishops and clergy are supported by revenues derived
from a vast amount of property which belongs to the Church itself.
This property is entirely independent of all control by the people
of the parishes. The clergyman, as soon as he is appointed, comes
into possession of it in his own right; and he is not appointed by
the people, but by some nobleman or high officer of state, who has
_inherited_ the right to appoint the clergyman, of that particular
parish. There are bishops, also, who have very large revenues, likewise
independent; and over these bishops is one great dignitary, who
presides in lofty state over the whole system. This officer is called
the Archbishop of Canterbury. There is one other archbishop, called
the Archbishop of York; but his realm is much more limited and less
important. The Archbishop of Canterbury is styled the Lord Primate of
all England. His rank is above that of all the peers of the realm. He
crowns the kings. He has two magnificent palaces, one at Canterbury
and one at London, for his residences, and has very large revenues to
maintain a style of living in accordance with his rank. He has the
superintendence of all the affairs of the Church for the whole realm,
except a small portion pertaining to the archbishopric of York. His
palace in London is on the bank of the Thames, opposite Westminster. It
is called Lambeth Palace.
[Illustration: LAMBETH PALACE.]
[Sidenote: Canterbury.]
[Sidenote: The Cathedral.]
[Sidenote: Officers.]
The city of Canterbury, which is the chief seat of his dominion, is
southeast of London, not very far from the sea. The Cathedral is there,
which is the archbishop's church. It is more than five hundred feet in
length, and the tower is nearly two hundred and fifty feet high. The
magnificence of the architecture and the decorations of the building
correspond with its size. There is a large company of clergymen and
other officers attached to the service of the Cathedral. They are more
than a hundred in number. The palace of the archbishop is near.
[Sidenote: Laud made archbishop.]
The Church was thus, in the days of Charles, a complete realm of
itself, with its own property, its own laws, its own legislature,
and courts, and judges, its own capital, and its own monarch. It was
entirely independent of the mass of the people in all these respects,
as all these things were entirely controlled by the bishops and clergy,
and the clergy were generally appointed by the noblemen, and the
bishops by the king. This made the system almost entirely independent
of the community at large; and as there was organized under it a
vast amount of wealth, and influence, and power, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who presided over the whole, was as great in authority as
he was in rank and honor. Now Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury.
[Sidenote: His business capacity.]
King Charles had made him so. He had observed that Laud, who had been
advanced to some high stations in the Church by his father, King James,
was desirous to enlarge and strengthen the powers and prerogatives
of the Church, just as he himself was endeavoring to do in respect
to those of the throne. He accordingly promoted him from one post of
influence and honor to another, until he made him at last Archbishop
of Canterbury. Thus he was placed upon the summit of ecclesiastical
grandeur and power.
[Sidenote: Laud's character.]
[Sidenote: Episcopacy in England and the United States.]
He commenced his work, however, of strengthening and aggrandizing the
Church, before he was appointed to this high office. He was Bishop of
London for many years, which is a post, in some respects, second only
to that of Archbishop of Canterbury. While in this station, he was
appointed by the king to many high civil offices. He had great capacity
for the transaction of business, and for the fulfillment of high
trusts, whether of Church or state. He was a man of great integrity
and moral worth. He was stern and severe in manners, but learned and
accomplished. His whole soul was bent on what he undoubtedly considered
the great duty of his life, supporting and confirming the authority
of the king, and the power and influence of English Episcopacy.
Notwithstanding his high qualifications, however, many persons were
jealous of the influence which he possessed with the king, and murmured
against the appointment of a churchman to such high offices of state.
There was another source of hostility to Laud. There was a large
part of the people of England who were against the Church of England
altogether. They did not like a system in which all power and influence
came, as it were, from above downward. The king made the noblemen, the
noblemen made the bishops, the bishops made the clergy, and the clergy
ruled their flocks; the flocks themselves having nothing to say or do
but to submit. It is very different with Episcopacy in this country.
The people here choose the clergy, and the clergy choose the bishops,
so that power in the Church, as in every thing else here, goes from
below upward. The two systems, when at rest, look very similar in
the two countries; but when in action, the current of life flows in
contrary directions, making the two diametrically opposite to each
other in spirit and power. In England, Episcopacy is an engine by which
the people are ecclesiastically governed. Here, it is the machinery by
which they govern. Whatever the forms are, the fact must be that the
people govern here.
[Sidenote: Opposition to the Established Church.]
[Sidenote: The Puritans.]
Now in England there was a large and increasing party who hated and
opposed the whole Episcopal system. Laud, to counteract this tendency,
attempted to define, and enlarge, and extend that system as far as
possible. He made the most of all the ceremonies of worship, and
introduced others, which were, indeed, not exactly new, but rather
ancient ones revived. He did this conscientiously, no doubt, thinking
that these forms of devotion were adapted to impress the soul of the
worshiper, and lead him to feel, in his heart, the reverence which his
outward action expressed. Many of the people, however, bitterly opposed
these things. They considered it a return to popery. The more that
Laud, and those who acted with him, attempted to magnify the rites and
the powers of the Church, the more these persons began to abhor every
thing of the kind. They wanted Christianity itself, _in its purity_,
uncontaminated, as they said, by these popish and idolatrous forms.
They were called _Puritans_.
[Sidenote: Disputes about the services of the Church.]
There were a great many things which seem to us at the present day
of very little consequence, which were then the subjects of endless
disputes and of the most bitter animosity. For instance, one point was
whether the place where the communion was to be administered should
be called the communion table or the altar; and in what part of the
church it should stand; and whether the person officiating should be
called a priest or a clergyman; and whether he should wear one kind of
dress or another. Great importance was attached to these things; but it
was not on their own account, but on account of their bearing on the
question whether the Lord's Supper was to be considered only a ceremony
commemorative of Christ's death, or whether it was, whenever celebrated
by a regularly authorized priest, _a real renewal_ of the sacrifice of
Christ, as the Catholics maintained. Calling the communion table an
altar, and the officiating minister a priest, and clothing him in a
sacerdotal garb, countenanced the idea of a renewal of the sacrifice
of Christ. Laud and his coadjutors urged the adoption of all these and
similar usages. The Puritans detested them, because they detested and
abhorred the doctrine which they seemed to imply.
[Sidenote: Controversy about amusements on Sunday.]
Another great topic of controversy was the subject of amusements.
It is a very singular circumstance, that in those branches of the
Christian Church where rites and forms are most insisted upon, the
greatest latitude is allowed in respect to the gayeties and amusements
of social life. Catholic Paris is filled with theaters and dancing,
and the Sabbath is a holiday. In London, on the other hand, the number
of theaters is small, dancing is considered as an amusement of a more
or less equivocal character, and the Sabbath is rigidly observed; and
among all the simple Democratic churches of New England, to dance or
to attend the theater is considered almost morally wrong. It was just
so in the days of Laud. He wished to encourage amusements among the
people, particularly on Sunday, after church. This was partly for the
purpose of counteracting the efforts of those who were inclined to
Puritan views. They attached great importance to their sermons and
lectures, for in them they could address and influence the people.
But by means of these addresses, as Laud thought, they put ideas
of insubordination into the minds of the people, and encroached on
the authority of the Church and of the king. To prevent this, the
High-Church party wished to exalt the _prayers_ in the Church service,
and to give as little place and influence as possible to the sermon,
and to draw off the attention of the people from the discussions
and exhortations of the preachers by encouraging games, dances, and
amusements of all kinds.
[Sidenote: Laud's contention with the judges.]
The judges in one of the counties, at a regular court held by them,
once passed an order forbidding certain revels and carousals connected
with the Church service, on account of the immoralities and disorders,
as they alleged, to which they gave rise; and they ordered that public
notice to this effect should be given by the bishop. The archbishop
(Laud) considered this an interference on the part of the civil
magistrates with the powers and prerogatives of the Church. He had the
judges brought before the council, and censured there; and they were
required by the council to revoke their order at the next court. The
judges did so, but in such a way as to show that they did it simply
in obedience to the command of the king's council. The people, or at
least all of them who were inclined to Puritan views, sided with the
judges, and were more strict in abstaining from all such amusements on
Sunday than ever. This, of course, made those who were on the side of
Laud more determined to promote these gayeties. Thus, as neither party
pursued, in the least degree, a generous or conciliatory course toward
the other, the difference between them widened more and more. The
people of the country were fast becoming either bigoted High-Churchmen
or fanatical Puritans.
[Sidenote: Severe punishments for expression of opinion.]
Laud employed the power of the Star Chamber a great deal in the
accomplishment of his purpose of enforcing entire submission to the
ecclesiastical authority of the Church. He even had persons sometimes
punished very severely for words of disrespect, or for writings in
which they censured what they considered the tyranny under which they
suffered. This severe punishment for the mere expression of opinion
only served to fix the opinion more firmly, and disseminate it more
widely. Sometimes men would glory in their sufferings for this cause,
and bid the authorities defiance.
[Sidenote: Case of Lilburne.]
[Sidenote: His indomitable spirit.]
One man, for instance, named Lilburne, was brought before the Star
Chamber, charged with publishing seditious pamphlets. Now, in all
ordinary courts of justice, no man is called upon to say any thing
against himself. Unless his crime can be proved by the testimony of
others, it can not be proved at all. But in the Star Chamber, whoever
was brought to trial had to take an oath at first that he would answer
all questions asked, even if they tended to criminate himself. When
they proposed this oath to Lilburne, he refused to take it. They
decided that this was contempt of court, and sentenced him to be
whipped, put in the pillory, and imprisoned. While they were whipping
him, he spent the time in making a speech to the spectators against the
tyranny of bishops, referring to Laud, whom he considered as the author
of these proceedings. He continued to do the same while in the pillory.
As he passed along, too, he distributed copies of the pamphlets which
he was prosecuted for writing. The Star Chamber, hearing that he was
haranguing the mob, ordered him to be gagged. This did not subdue him.
He began to stamp with his foot and gesticulate; thus continuing to
express his indomitable spirit of hostility to the tyranny which he
opposed. This single case would be of no great consequence alone, but
it was not alone. The attempt to put Lilburne down was a symbol of
the experiment of coercion which Charles in the state, and Laud in the
Church, were trying upon the whole nation; it was a symbol both in
respect to the means employed, and to the success attained by them.
[Sidenote: The young lawyers' toast.]
[Sidenote: Ingenious plea.]
One curious case is related, which turned out more fortunately than
usual for the parties accused. Some young lawyers in London were
drinking at an evening entertainment, and among other toasts they drank
confusion to the Archbishop of Canterbury. One of the waiters, who
heard them, mentioned the circumstance, and they were brought before
the Star Chamber. Before their trial came on, they applied to a certain
nobleman to know what they should do. "Where was the waiter," asked the
nobleman, "when you drank the toast?" "At the door." "Oh! very well,
then," said he; "tell the court that he only heard a part of the toast,
as he was going out; and that the words really were, 'Confusion to the
Archbishop of Canterbury's enemies.'" By this ingenious plea, and by
means of a great appearance of humility and deference in the presence
of the archbishop, the lawyers escaped with a reprimand.
[Sidenote: Laud's designs upon the Scotch Church.]
Laud was not content with establishing and confirming throughout all
England the authority of the Church, but he wanted to extend the same
system to Scotland. When King Charles went to Scotland to be crowned,
he took Laud with him. He was pleased with Laud's endeavors to enlarge
and confirm the powers of the Church, and wished to aid him in the
work. There were two reasons for this. One was, that the same class
of men, the Puritans, were the natural enemies of both, so that the
king and the archbishop were drawn together by having one common foe.
Then, as the places in the Church were not hereditary, but were filled
by appointments from the king and the great nobles, whatever power
the Church could get into its hands could be employed by the king to
strengthen his own authority, and keep his subjects in subjection.
[Sidenote: Motives of Laud and the king.]
We must not, however, censure the king and his advisers too strongly
for this plan. They doubtless were ambitious; they loved power; they
wanted to bear sway, unresisted and unquestioned, over the whole
realm. But then the king probably thought that the exercise of such a
government was necessary for the order and prosperity of the realm,
besides being his inherent and indefeasible right. Good and bad
motives were doubtless mingled here, as in all human action; but then
the king was, in the main, doing what he supposed it was his duty to
do. In proposing, therefore, to build up the Church in Scotland, and to
make it conform to the English Church in its rites and ceremonies, he
and Laud doubtless supposed that they were going greatly to improve the
government of the sister kingdom.
[Sidenote: The Liturgy.]
There was in those days, as now, in the English Church, a certain
prescribed course of prayers, and psalms, and Scripture readings, for
each day, to be read from a book by the minister. This was called the
Liturgy. The Puritans did not like a liturgy. It tied men up, and did
not leave the individual mind of the preacher at liberty to range
freely, as they wished it to do, in conducting the devotional services.
It was on this very account that the friends of strong government _did_
like it. They wanted to curtail this liberty, which, however, they
called license, and which they thought made mischief. In extemporaneous
prayers, it is often easy to see that the speaker is aiming much more
directly at producing a salutary effect on the minds of his hearers
than at simply presenting petitions to the Supreme Being. But,
notwithstanding this evil, the existence of which no candid man can
deny, the enemies of forms, who are generally friends of the largest
liberty, think it best to leave the clergyman free. The friends of
forms, however, prefer forms on this very account. They like what they
consider the wholesome and salutary restraints which they impose.
[Sidenote: The Scotch.]
[Sidenote: Laud prepares them a Liturgy.]
Now there has always been a great spirit of freedom in the Scottish
mind. That people have ever been unwilling to submit to coercion or
restraints. There is probably no race of men on earth that would
make worse slaves than the Scotch. Their sturdy independence and
determination to be free could never be subdued. In the days of Charles
they were particularly fond of freely exercising their own minds, and
of speaking freely to others on the subject of religion. They thought
for themselves, sometimes right and sometimes wrong; but they would
think, and they would express their thoughts; and their being thus
unaccustomed, in one particular, to submit to restraints, rendered them
more difficult to be governed in others. Laud thought, consequently,
that _they_, particularly, needed a Liturgy. He prepared one for
them. It was varied somewhat from the English Liturgy, though it
was substantially the same. The king proclaimed it, and required the
bishops to see that it was employed in all the churches in Scotland.
[Sidenote: 1637.]
[Sidenote: Scenes of tumult.]
[Sidenote: Preaching to an empty church.]
The day for introducing the Liturgy was the signal for riots all
over the kingdom. In the principal church in Edinburgh they called
out "_A pope! A pope!_" when the clergyman came in with his book and
his pontifical robes. The bishop ascended the pulpit to address the
people to appease them, and a stool came flying through the air at his
head. The police then expelled the congregation, and the clergyman
went through with the service of the Liturgy in the empty church, the
congregation outside, in great tumult, accompanying the exercises with
cries of disapprobation and resentment, and with volleys of stones
against the doors and windows.
[Sidenote: The Scotch rebel.]
The Scotch sent a sort of embassador to London to represent to the king
that the hostility to the Liturgy was so universal and so strong that
it could not be enforced. But the king and his council had the same
conscientious scruples about giving up in a contest with subjects,
that a teacher or a parent, in our day, would feel in the case of
resistance from children or scholars. The king sent down a proclamation
that the observance of the Liturgy must be insisted on. The Scotch
prepared to resist. They sent delegates to Edinburgh, and organized a
sort of government. They raised armies. They took possession of the
king's castles. They made a solemn covenant, binding themselves to
insist on religious freedom. In a word, all Scotland was in rebellion.
[Sidenote: The king's fool.]
It was the custom in those days to have, connected with the court, some
half-witted person, who used to be fantastically dressed, and to have
great liberty of speech, and whose province was to amuse the courtiers.
He was called the _king's jester_, or, more commonly, _the fool_. The
name of King Charles's fool was Archy. After this rebellion broke
out, and all England was aghast at the extent of the mischief which
Laud's Liturgy had done, the fool, seeing the archbishop go by one day,
called out to him, "My lord! who is the fool now?" The archbishop, as
if to leave no possible doubt in respect to the proper answer to the
question, had poor Archy tried and punished. His sentence was to have
his coat pulled up over his head, and to be dismissed from the king's
service. Had the archbishop let it pass, it would have ended with a
laugh in the street; but by resenting it, he gave it notoriety, caused
it to be recorded, and has perpetuated the memory of the jest to all
future times. He ought to have joined in the laugh, and rewarded Archy
on the spot for so good a witticism.
[Sidenote: A general assembly called in Scotland.]
The Scotch, besides organizing a sort of civil government, took
measures for summoning a general assembly of their Church. This
assembly met at Glasgow. The nobility and gentry flocked to Glasgow
at the time of the meeting, to encourage and sustain the assembly,
and to manifest their interest in the proceedings. The assembly very
deliberately went to work, and, not content with taking a stand against
the Liturgy which Charles had imposed, they abolished the fabric of
Episcopacy--that is, the government of bishops--altogether. Thus Laud's
attempt to perfect and confirm the system resulted in expelling it
completely from the kingdom. It has never held up its head in Scotland
since. They established Presbyterianism in its place, which is a sort
of republican system, the pastors being all officially equal to each
other, though banded together under a common government administered by
themselves.
[Sidenote: 1639.]
[Sidenote: The king's expedition to the north.]
The king was determined to put down this rebellion at all hazards. He
had made such good use of the various irregular modes of raising money
which have been already described, and had been so economical in the
use of it, that he had now quite a sum of money in his treasury; and
had it not been for the attempt to enforce the unfortunate Liturgy
upon the people of Scotland, he might, perhaps, have gone on reigning
without a Parliament to the end of his days. He had now about two
hundred thousand pounds, by means of which, together with what he could
borrow, he hoped to make one single demonstration of force which would
bring the rebellion to an end. He raised an army and equipped a fleet.
He issued a proclamation summoning all the peers of the realm to attend
him. He moved with this great concourse from London toward the north,
the whole country looking on as spectators to behold the progress of
this great expedition, by which their monarch was going to attempt to
subdue again his _other_ kingdom.
[Sidenote: The army at York.]
[Sidenote: The oath.]
Charles advanced to the city of York, the great city of the north of
England. Here he paused and established his court, with all possible
pomp and parade. His design was to impress the Scots with such an idea
of the greatness of the power which was going to overwhelm them as to
cause them to submit at once. But all this show was very hollow and
delusive. The army felt a greater sympathy with the Scots than they
did with the king. The complaints against Charles's government were
pretty much the same in both countries. A great many Scotchmen came
to York while the king was there, and the people from all the country
round flocked thither too, drawn by the gay spectacles connected with
the presence of such a court and army. The Scotchmen disseminated their
complaints thus among the English people, and finally the king and his
council, finding indications of so extensive a disaffection, had a form
of an oath prepared, which they required all the principal persons to
take, acknowledging allegiance to Charles, and renouncing their having
any intelligence or correspondence with the enemy. The Scotchmen all
took the oath very readily, though some of the English refused.
At any rate, the state of things was not such as to intimidate the
Scotch, and lead them, as the king had hoped, to sue for peace. So he
concluded to move on toward the borders. He went to Newcastle, and
thence to Berwick. From Berwick he moved along the banks of the Tweed,
which here forms the boundary between the two kingdoms, and, finding a
suitable place for such a purpose, the king had his royal tent pitched,
and his army encamped around him.
[Sidenote: The king's march.]
[Sidenote: Artifice of the Scots.]
Now, as King Charles had undertaken to subdue the Scots by a show of
force, it seems they concluded to defend themselves by a show too,
though theirs was a cheaper and more simple contrivance than his. They
advanced with about three thousand men to a place distant perhaps seven
miles from the English camp. The king sent an army of five thousand men
to attack them. The Scotch, in the mean time, collected great herds of
cattle from all the country around, as the historians say, and arranged
them behind their little army in such a way as to make the whole appear
a vast body of soldiers. A troop of horsemen, who were the advanced
part of the English army, came in sight of this formidable host first,
and, finding their numbers so much greater than they had anticipated,
they fell back, and ordered the artillery and foot-soldiers who were
coming up to retreat, and all together came back to the encampment.
There were two or three military enterprises of similar character,
in which nothing was done but to encourage the Scotch and dishearten
the English. In fact, neither officers, soldiers, nor king wanted to
proceed to extremities. The officers and soldiers did not wish to fight
the Scotch, and the king, knowing the state of his army, did not really
dare to do it.
[Sidenote: The compromise.]
[Sidenote: The army disbanded.]
[Sidenote: The king's difficulties.]
Finally, all the king's council advised him to give up the pretended
contest, and to settle the difficulty by a compromise. Accordingly,
in June, negotiations were commenced, and before the end of the month
articles were signed. The king probably made the best terms he could,
but it was universally considered that the Scots gained the victory.
The king disbanded his army, and returned to London. The Scotch leaders
went back to Edinburgh. Soon after this the Parliament and the General
Assembly of the Church convened, and these bodies took the whole
management of the realm into their own hands. They sent commissioners
to London to see and confer with the king, and these commissioners
seemed almost to assume the character of embassadors from a foreign
state. These negotiations, and the course which affairs were taking in
Scotland, soon led to new difficulties. The king found that he was
losing his kingdom of Scotland altogether. It seemed, however, as if
there was nothing that he could do to regain it. His reserved funds
were gone, and his credit was exhausted.
[Sidenote: He thinks of a Parliament.]
There was no resource left but to call a Parliament and ask for
supplies. He might have known, however, that this would be useless, for
there was so strong a fellow-feeling with the Scotch in their alleged
grievances among the people of England, that he could not reasonably
expect any response from the latter, in whatever way he might appeal to
them.