be imprisoned during the King's pleasure: and Prynne's being a second offence, the stumps of his ears were cut off, and he was branded in both cheeks. The sentence was as bravely endured as it was cruelly performed, and the sufferers, already popular for their cause, became more so for their fortitude. The whole odium fell upon Laud, partly because the libels, which were of the foulest and most atrocious kind, were particularly directed against him; but still more because, by a series of systematic libelling and slander, he had been made the peculiar object of vulgar hatred. No regard was paid to the fact, that every member of the court concurred in the sentence, including some who were deeply implicated in the intrigues against the State; and as little was it considered that the principles which these criminals disseminated tended directly to excite rebellion, and that they aimed at nothing short of the destruction of those who opposed them. Prynne himself lived to be sensible of this, and to acknowledge in his old age' that "if the King had cut off his head, when he only cropt his ears, he had done no more than justice, and had done God and the nation good service."

But that which drew most obloquy and heaviest persecution upon the heads of the Clergy, was the promulgating a body of Canons wherein an oath was enjoined for preventing all innovations in doctrine and government. By this oath the Clergy declared their approbation of the Church of England both in doctrine and discipline, as containing all things necessary to salvation; and pledged themselves neither directly nor indirectly to bring in any popish tenets, nor subject it to the usurpations and superstitions of the See of Rome, nor consent ever to alter its Government by Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, and Archdeacons, &c., as it was at that time established. All Clergymen were required to take this oath, on pain of suspension and deprivation. No one who had conscientiously entered the ministry could object to its purport, and it was so worded that by every untainted mind it might have been taken as honestly as it was meant. Nevertheless an outcry was easily raised against it in those evil times, as if the common form of speech which had been used to save a needless enumeration of offices, covered some insidious meaning, and therefore it was branded with the name 1 Nalson, i. p. 798.

of the etcetera oath. Any clamour of this kind, which bids defiance to reason, is always favourable to the views of faction.

More formidable objections were brought against the first Canon, wherein it was declared that Monarchy is of Divine right; that it is treasonable to set up any independent coercive power, either papal or popular; and that for subjects to bear arms against their King upon any pretence whatsoever, is to resist the power ordained of God. This was touching the plaguesore of the age; for it was a doctrine which some of the Clergy in their zeal against the seditious spirit of the Puritans, and others more inexcusably for the purpose of recommending themselves to court-favour, had carried to an extreme hardly less dangerous than that to which it was opposed. Dr. Manwaring in particular had preached, that the authority of Parliament was not necessary for imposing taxes, but that the King might levy them by his own royal will and pleasure, which in such cases bound the subject's conscience on pain of damnation. For this he was condemned by the House of Lords to be imprisoned during pleasure, fined one thousand pounds, suspended for three years, disabled for ever from preaching at Court, and declared incapable of holding any ecclesiastical or secular preferment. He made a humble submission on his knees before both houses, acknowledging that he had preached rashly, scandalously, and unadvisedly, and entreating pardon of God, the King, the Parliament, and the Commonweal, for the dangerous errors which he had committed. But the opinions which he thus renounced were too congenial to those in which the King had been trained; and Charles, not satisfied with remitting the fine, (which would have been a commendable act of compassion,) most unfitly heaped preferment upon him, in disregard of his sentence, and finally promoted him to the bishopric of St. David's. It was too plain that he had been rewarded not for his submission, but for the opinions which had exposed him to punishment. Even moderate men therefore, interpreting this Canon by the known feelings of the Court, deemed it highly reprehensible, and imputing to it a wider meaning than the words themselves conveyed, considered it as asserting an absolute power in the Crown.

Yet it is apparent that in framing these Canons Laud proceeded not only (as he always did) with the best intentions for

the Church, but in a conciliatory temper. Ceremonies, to which he was devoutly attached, were merely recommended, not enjoined, and they who should observe or omit them were exhorted to judge charitably of each other; stricter measures against popish recusants were prescribed, than he as an individual could have approved, and regulations were made for preventing the abuses of ecclesiastical power. But whatever Laud did was maliciously interpreted. The Canons too were formed in a Convocation, which, meeting as usual with Parliament, should have broken up, according to custom, when Parliament was dissolved: but as the dissolution took place before the Clergy had completed these laws, or voted their subsidy, the Assembly was continued during the King's pleasure, in order to complete its business by virtue of a Commission under the Great Seal. There was a precedent for this in Elizabeth's reign, and the Judges had given their opinion in its favour. The legality therefore of its continuance would not have been denied, if the enemies of the Church had regarded either the reason or the justice of the case; but they were as ready to cry out for the rigorous observance of the law, when it suited their purposes, as to trample upon it when it opposed them.

Laud had long seen the cloud gathering over the Church of England. He knew also his own danger from those who were possessed with the spirit of sectarian rancour, and from an ignorant populace rendered ferocious by all the arts of faction. He had privately and publicly been threatened in papers, which denounced him as a wretch, whom neither God nor the world could suffer to live; and his house had been attacked by a mob at midnight. But he being as courageous as he was innocent, confided in his integrity, and in that plain evidence of good intentions which was borne by all his actions. In a diary which he meant that no eye but his own should see, he had written this prayer: "May God so love and bless my soul, as I declare and endeavour that all the never-to-be-enough deplored distractions of the Church may be composed happily to the glory of his name." His plans for the advantage of the Church, and for the promotion of sound learning, were of the most munificent kind; and he had employed his fortune as well as his influence in carrying them into effect. From his own private means he had

endowed a chapel in his native town of Reading, enlarged St. John's College at Oxford, where he had been bred, established an Arabic lecture in that University, and presented to the Bodleian Library as many Greek and Oriental manuscripts as he could procure from the East. He annexed commendams to five of the smaller bishoprics, and intended in the same manner to increase the revenues of all that needed augmentation. He raised funds for repairing St. Paul's, which had been materially injured by fire, and by continuing those funds after the repairs should be completed, it was his intention to pursue the plan of buying in impropriations, and re-annexing them to the churches from which they had been severed. At his request the King had restored to the Church of Ireland all the impropriations yet remaining in the Crown: and had the Government continued undisturbed, it cannot be doubted that Charles would heartily have entered into his plans for improving the condition of the inferior Clergy; one means, and not the least effectual, of removing the reproach which unworthy ministers brought upon the establishment. It was well said by Sir Benjamin Rudyard, one of the most upright and able men of that age, that scandalous livings cannot but have scandalous ministers: that poverty must needs bring contempt upon the Clergy among those who measure men by the acre and weigh them by the pound, which indeed is the greatest part of men; that to plant good ministers in good livings, was the strongest and purest means to establish true religion; that the example of Germany ought to be a warning to us, where the reformed ministers, though grave and learned men, were neglected and despised by reason of their poverty; and that it is comely and decent that the outward splendour of the Church should hold a proportion, and participate with the prosperity of the temporal estate.

By steadily enforcing discipline, Laud corrected many of the disorders at which his predecessor had connived. The Churches were placed in decent repair, the service was regularly performed, the Lord's Supper reverently administered. They who would not follow the rubric were silenced; and by refusing to ordain any person except to a cure of souls, the number of Calvinistic Lecturers was diminished, and of those who, being retained as Chaplains in the families of private gentlemen, disgraced the

Church by conforming to the humours and fancies of their patrons, by their incapacity, or by the irregularity of their lives. At the same time, through his munificent encouragement of learning, and his judicious patronage, means were taken for supplying the Establishment with men every way qualified for their holy office. The most zealous of the nonconformists, alike impatient of submission or of silence, withdrew from the kingdom: some to Holland, others to New England, whither the most strenuous of their parliamentary adherents, believing that the triumph of the Establishment was complete, would have followed them, if the vessel in which they were actually embarked had not been embargoed. From that act events of greater importance to society resulted, than was depending upon the ship which carried Cæsar and his fortunes; for Pym, Hambden, and Cromwell were on board. Had these men been allowed to emigrate, the kingdom might have remained in peace, but it would have been under an absolute government, the tendency of which is inevitably to corrupt the rulers and degrade the nation.

Hitherto the course of civil and of ecclesiastical affairs during this reign had in no degree depended upon each other. The course which the hierarchy pursued would have been the same, had the government been as popular as in the days of Elizabeth; it was in fact strictly conformable to the scheme of Church policy, which that Queen and her great minister Burleigh had approved. The obnoxious policy of the Court proceeded not from any spirit of bigotry or persecution (no former government had been so tolerant); but from the difficulties wherein it was involved, first by the injustice of the Commons in withholding supplies for a war which they themselves had excited, and then by arbitrary measures adopted less from inclination than in selfdefence, but carried too far, and persisted in too long. Men and parties, the most opposite in character and views, were combined therefore against a system, which, in whatever manner it had arisen, was plainly inconsistent with the liberties of the nation; and thus wise and honourable and loyal men, the true friends of the constitution, were engaged for a time, as if in a common cause, with those who aimed at establishing a sort of Venetian oligarchy, others whom nothing but a wild democracy would content, and others wilder still, who were for levelling thrones,