For example, the Committee for plundered ministers sequestered a Mr. Leader, vicar of the parish of Thaxted, in Essex, and settled in his room a Mr. Hall. The patroness, Lady Maynard, would not present Mr. Hall, and preferred to appoint a Mr. Croxon, a man represented as notorious for drunkenness and profanity. Articles accordingly were exhibited against the latter, in consequence of which Croxon was sequestered. Lady May nard being allowed again to nominate, the well-affected parishioners protested against the concession of that privilege. The Commissioners, however, stood by her ladyship's rights as patroness, and she now recommended another person of the same name as before. But on his being submitted to the Assembly, they would not sanction his appointment. Three times they declined, and the Lords approved of the refusal, yet after all, in some clandestine way, the candidate obtained an order for induction. This person, whom the Divines pronounced the most troublesome they ever had to do with, came to Thaxted Church, and insisted upon preaching. The sequestrators stood at the door of the desk to prevent his doing so; but the mayor and churchwarden espoused his cause, as did also the rabble of the parish. The latter assaulted the sequestrators, tore their hair, rent their neck-bands, and seized their hats and cloaks. "Let them alone," said the mayor, "and let the women decide the case." This fray in the parish church ended in the commitment of parson, mayor, and town-clerk to prison, "whence they were released on submission." This case gives us a curious insight into the local church politics of those days.

'Great Fight in the Church at Thaxted, 1647. Quoted in Davis's Nonconformity in Essex.

LAUD, the principal author of the evils which in

duced the revolution, remained a prisoner. He had

become a helpless old man; and it would have been better for the Puritans had they checked their resentment, and suffered their vanquished enemy to linger out his days as a captive or an exile; but unfortunately they determined otherwise. The Scotch Commissioners had presented Articles against him in the House of Lords on December the 17th, 1640; and on the following day the Commons had resolved to accuse him of high treason. In the following February, articles of accusation had been exhibited by the Commons, after which his case had been kept in abeyance for more than two years and a half. Though the idea of bringing him to trial had never been abandoned, mild views of his punishment had been entertained; for, in a newspaper published in May, 1643, it is stated that

1 Rushworth, iv. 113-123.

These articles, charging him with introducing Popish innovations into Scotland, are given by Laud, together with his replies, in the History of his Troubles. Works, iii. 301. Laud's answers are not those of a Papist, but those of a thorough

Anglo-Catholic. Another set of charges was presented against the bishops generally. Works, iii. 379. How the thing was talked about in Scotland appears in the History of the Troubles in England and Scotland (Ballatyne Club), 275.

bishop of Canterbury and of Bishop Wren to New England had been agitated in the House, and that Parliament would not banish them without a trial." In the opening of the year 1644, it was resolved that Laud should take his trial.

The trial lasted from March to July. The accused prelate received three or four days' notice of the time of his appearance, and of the particular articles which were to be alleged against him. From ten until one o'clock the managers of the prosecution stated their case and produced their evidence, when an adjournment followed till four o'clock in the afternoon. Then the prisoner made his defence, and one of the managers replied. The proceedings terminated between the hours of seven and eight, when the fatal boat moored at Westminster,-which had so often glided backwards and forwards on errands of vengeance, returned with its grey-haired passenger to the archway of the Traitors' Gate.2

The principal managers for the Commons were Serjeant Wylde, Mr. Maynard, and Mr. Nicolas. Prynne acted as solicitor, and arranged the whole proceedings. He had suffered so much at the Archbishop's hands, that, however watchful he might be over himself, he could scarcely suppress feelings which were incompatible with a just discharge of his legal responsibilities. With all his

'Laud, in his Diary, March 24, 1642-3, alludes to plots to send him and Wren to New England.-Works,

iv. 19.

* Neal, iii. 176. Laud says, under date January 22, 1643-4:-"This day the Thames was so full of ice that I could not go by water. It was frost and snow, and a most bitter day. I went, therefore, with the Lieutenant in his coach, and twelve wardens, with

halberts, went all along the streets." "So from the Tower-gate to Westminster I was sufficiently railed on and reviled all the way. God, of his mercy, forgive the misguided people! My answer being put in, I was for that time dismissed; and the tide serving me, I made a hard shift to return by water."-Works, iv. 45.

learning and great ability, we must admit that he was not remarkable for self-control; and the utmost stretch of candour cannot prevent our receiving, from his conduct on this occasion, the unpleasant impression that, in preparing materials for the conviction of his old enemy, he was swayed, to some extent at least, by personal resentment.1

The accusations brought against Laud may be reduced to three: first, that he had aimed at subverting the rights of Parliament; secondly, that he had attempted to subvert the laws of the land by his conduct in reference to shipmoney, by his illegal commitments, and by his support of the Canons of 1640; thirdly, that he had endeavoured to alter and subvert God's true religion established in this realm, to set up instead of it Popish superstition and idolatry, and to reconcile the Church of England to the Church of Rome. In support of this grave indictment relating to religion, much stress was laid on such facts as these his introducing innovations, using images and crucifixes, consecrating churches and altars by superstitious rites and ceremonies, commanding the Book of Sports to be read, upholding doctrinal errors, persecuting

It has been justly remarked that the Greek orators were careful to impress upon their audience that, in bringing a charge against any one, they were actuated by the strongest personal motives. Eschines, in his oration against Ctesiphon, expresses his intense personal spite against Demosthenes. Christianity has taught us a different lesson, and happily the authority of that lesson is acknowledged, and its spirit generally exemplified by the English bar, and in the British Senate.

With regard to Prynne, let me add that, though his prejudices might warp his judgment, he shewed himself throughout his whole life to be an honest man. Of his learning, there cannot be two opinions. His great work on Parliamentary writs, in four volumes, is pronounced by a competent judge to be so admirable, that "it is impossible to speak of it in terms of too high commendation.” -Parry's Parliaments and Councils, Preface, 21. See also Spilsbury's Lincoln's Inn, 283.

Puritans, corresponding with Roman Catholic priests, and discouraging foreign Protestants.1

Laud, in his defence, when speaking of his ecclesiastical career, did not profess that he had sought, as the highest objects of his life, the gathering of souls into Christ's fold, and the promotion of truth and charity; but he plainly said that his main endeavour had been to secure an outward conformity. Nor did he, as most men would have done under the same circumstances, qualify his avowal of ritualistic zeal by expressing large and noble Christian sentiments. On the contrary, he simply declared: "Ever since I caine in place I laboured nothing more than that the external worship of God (too much slighted in most parts of this kingdom) might be preserved, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be; being still of opinion that unity cannot long continue in the Church, where uniformity is shut out at the Church door; and I evidently saw that the public neglect of God's service in the outward face of it, and the nasty lying of many places dedicated to that service, had almost cast a damp upon the true and inward worship of God, which, while we live in the body, needs external helps, and all little enough to keep it in any vigour."2 Yet we must confess that for Laud to adopt this strain was honest; and certainly, amongst his many faults, hypocrisy is not to be reckoned. Indeed, he made it his boast, and he had ground for so doing, that he did not shift from one opinion to another for worldly ends; and that he had never attempted to slide through the difficulties of the times by trimming his religious opinions.

1 See Rushworth. v. 763-780. A fuller account of the trial may be found in Neal, iii. 172—242.

2 This is taken, not from Rush

worth's report (v. 777), but from Laud's own copy of his speech. They differ somewhat.-Works, iv. 60.