Chap. XIII. attempt anything at once. He accordingly con

1633.

tented himself with erecting Edinburgh into an Episcopal see, and making a progress through the country, visiting all the chief places.* Laud had accompanied the King to Scotland, and had been appointed to preach before him there, "in which," says Heylin, "some question may be made how he pleased the Scots, although it be out of question that he pleased the King." On the journey homeward, Charles, who was a very rapid traveller, and never so well as when he was using great exercise, far outstripped his suite, and rode post to the Queen at Greenwich. The Bishop of London, following more leisurely, only reached Fulham just in time to hear of Abbot's sickness and death. On Archbishop his very first interview with the King after their short separation, he was saluted with the words, "My lord's grace of Canterbury, you are very welcome." In six weeks the customary forms for the translation were gone through, and the new archbishop settled at Lambeth, Sept. 19, 1633.†

Laud made

of Canter

bury.

*Heylin's Laud, 241.

† Collier's Ch. Hist., viii., 67. It was with sad anticipations that Laud received the appointment. "I have had a heaviness hang upon me ever since I was nominated to this place, and I can give no account of it, unless it proceed from an apprehension that there is more expected of me than the craziness of these times will give me leave to do.”—Laud to Strafford, Works, vi., i., 311.

CHAPTER XIV.

1633.

Abbot and Laud contrasted-Bishops restrained in the matter of Chap. XIV. ordination-Church-ales and wakes forbidden by C. J. Richardson-The Archbishop indignant-Publication of the Book of Sports-Excitement caused by this-Acts of Parliament against profaning the Lord's Day-Decision by King in council for the placing the holy table altar-wise in St. Gregory's churchChurch affairs of Ireland from 1615-34-The Irish Convocation (1634) adopts the English 39 articles-Thereby abrogates the Irish articles-Frames canons-Laud persecutes the Dutch and French Churches in England-Report of the state of the province of Canterbury, January, 1634-Laud begins the work of Church restoration-Lambeth chapel-Canterbury cathedral--Winchester, Worcester, &c.-The holy table ordered to be placed altar-wise in parish churches, and railed in— Controversy on this matter-Case of the churchwardens of Beckington-Clergy begin to show more self-respect-Tithes of London churches-Report of Province for January, 1635Country gentlemen dissatisfied-Their resort to London and Westminster-Forbidden-Many clergymen emigrate to New England-Juxon made Lord Treasurer-Canons for Scotch Church-Statutes for cathedrals-Treatises on Sabbath-Report of Province for January, 1636-Liable to convey false impressions-Bishop Wren at Norwich-Prayer before sermonBishop Pierce at Bath and Wells-Laud's metropolitan claimsBishops' courts held in their own names.

IRCHBISHOP ABBOT had al

ways been a favourer of Puritans,
but during the latter years of his
life, through his extreme dislike to
Laud, he had been almost an
avowed partisan of that rising

faction. He was an honest man, and of good

Abbot and

Laud contrasted.

Chap. XIV. courage and resolution, as he showed well by re1633.

sisting the imperious will both of James and Charles; the first in the matter of Lady Essex's divorce, the latter in his refusal to license Sibthorp's sermon. But with all his good qualities, he was certainly the cause of much mischief to the Church. Exercising an inordinate strictness in the Court of High Commission, he was wont to browbeat and deal harshly with the unhappy clergy who were brought before him, while to influential laymen he was full of suavity and of popular manners. If, however, the clerk stood accused of a Puritanical non-conformity, he was likely enough to find in the Archbishop a friend and partisan. It was often remarked that as Abbot had never served as a parish priest, nor held any cure of souls before he was bishop, he did not know the trials, the difficulties, and the dangers, which beset the country clergy. Laud knew but little of them practically either, but he had at any rate this merit, that he had at heart the interests of his order, a commendation which cannot be given to his predecessor. While Abbot weakened the Church internally, by lending encouragement and support to the fantastic and diseased imaginings of Puritanism, Laud brought a host of foes on it externally, by the reckless impolicy and inconsideration with which he dealt his blows in all directions. But Laud will ever have a numerous party in the Church to look up to him as its devoted friend, and a martyr in its cause. Abbot, on the contrary, will scarce find any section of Churchmen to reve

1633.

rence his memory, and we must look for his com- Chap. XIV. mendation in the faint and hollow praises of the declared enemies of the Church.*

The first act of Laud's primacy was a salutary Bishops reone. He republished the Injunctions of 1629, strained in having an especial eye to the abuse of "vagrant ordination.

ministers and trencher-chaplains,"† insisting that no bishop should presume to ordain any man without a title, and enforcing the Injunction which prohibited any private gentleman, not qualified by law, from keeping a chaplain in his house. This abuse appears to have grown to a great head.§ "The Church," says Heylin, "was filled with indigent clerks, which either thrust themselves into gentlemen's houses to teach their children, and sometimes to officiate divine service at the table's end, or otherwise to undertake some stipendiary lecture

*We must except Mr. Marsden. "Abbot was a man of blameless life, learned, vigilant, of exemplary piety, an unwearied student, an able statesman."-Early Puritans, p. 370. + Heylin's Laud, 355.

Cardwell's Doc. Annals, ii., 184.

§ It is thus satirized by Bishop Hall:

"A gentle squire would gladly entertain
Into his house some trencher-chapellaine,

Some willing man that might instruct his sons,
And that would stand to good conditions.

First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,

While his young master lieth o'er his head;
Second, that he do, on no default,

Ever presume to sit above the salt;

Third, that he never change his trencher twice;
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies,
Sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait:
All these observed, he could contented be
To give five marks, and winter livery."

Hall's Works, x., 345.

the matter of

Chap. XIV. wheresoever they could find entertainment."* The 1633. same writer says that this violation of the 33rd canon was done by "some of the bishops of the poorer sees for their private benefit." Certainly the abuse required abatement, and was a fit subject for the energy and decision of the new primate.

On the very same day that the Archbishop wrote to his suffragans on this matter, was published the King's declaration about lawful sports on the Sunday, an act for which the King and the Archbishopt have been perhaps more severely censured than for any other. The Puritanical traditions of Sabbatarianism have survived most of their fellows, and we are hardly yet in a position to judge with fairness. upon the amount of observance which ought to be enforced for the Christian weekly festival. That it was impolitic and dangerous to publish the Book of Sports is doubtless true, but that under the circumstances of the case, it was almost necessary for the King and his advisers to do this, or abandon their own opinions, is perhaps also capable of proof. It must be remembered that the King and the High Church party were not the movers in the matter. The Judges had taken it upon themselves to forbid the celebration of the village feasts or wakes on the Sunday, and had ordered, most unwarrantably,

*Heylin's Laud, p. 253.

With regard to his own practice,Laud alleged at his trial that he always strictly observed the Lord's Day.-Fuller, Church Hist., xi., ii., 38.

There are five precedents on the Western Circuit before the act of C. J. Richardson, quoted in Canterbury's Doom, p. 151, sq.