Chap. XIV. We see, in our own day, persons of every shade of 1636. religious belief meet on the common ground of the fitness of decency and splendour in the House of God. But to step beyond the material to the spiritual, to invade the domain of conscience, and not content with exacting subscription to recognised formularies, to go farther and insist on a certain method of treatment of the doctrines contained in them-this was pushing ecclesiastical tyranny to an inordinate excess, and was, as might be expected, repaid by a corresponding tyranny, when the opinions now proscribed got the upper hand. hand. The Archbishop no doubt believed it possible to drill several thousands of ministers into the exact phraseology of his own opinions, but this is only one of the many proofs of that intellectual imbecillity which, combining with an ardent zeal, an untiring activity, and an unrivalled power of business, constituted a character most exactly adapted to obtain for the Church apparent triumphs, but a real and inevitable overthrow. present, like a combatant warming to the fray, he went on from one success to another, figuring to himself nothing less than a patriarchal and almost pontifical power, and looking forward to the time, when in alliance with, rather than in subjection to, the King, he should order and direct from Lambeth the whole ecclesiastical concerns of the three kingdoms. We may easily read his thoughts and views by the way in which we see him intent upon disembarrassing his metropolitan authority from the necessity of royal sanction, and his eager endeavour to prove its inherent greatness and vigour.

At

claims.

Immediately on his appointment to the primacy, Chap. XIV. he had begun to exercise the Metropolitan authority 1636. which had long lain dormant, some of the dioceses Laud's Mein his province not having been visited by the metropolitan tropolitan for over two hundred years; and this power which had been conceived to be limited to semel in vitá, he expressly claimed for "as often as he liked."* Not content, however, with this admitted authority, he next proceeded to make an entirely new assertion of his archiepiscopal power. He claimed to visit both the Universities by his rights as metropolitan, though these august corporations had ever been held to be exempt from all but royal interference. It was useless to urge in reply, that his grace might visit them both without cavil, if only he would condescend to ask the royal commands; or to urge, that being already Chancellor of Oxford, for that University, at any rate, he required no new power. This was beside the mark. The Earl of Holland, Chancellor of Cambridge, in vain suggested, "If you will visit, you may do it by commission, the King can grant it. The Bishop replied, No; I desire to have my own power." The King, docile in all things to his imperious minister, consented that it should be so, and a formal order of King in Council was made, declaring that the Archbishop, as metropolitan, had power to visit both the Universities. I

Encouraged by the erection of this imperium in Bishops' imperio, the bishops generally now began to take a courts held in higher stand, and to drop their semi-Erastian notions

* Rushworth, ii., 326. ↑ Ibid, ii., 327.

Ibid., p. 332.

their own

names.

Chap. XIV. of leaning on the King's prerogative. The Court 1636. of High Commission declined in their estimation in comparison with their own consistories, which were held in their own names, and by their own power, ecclesiastical processes being issued out of them, and citations, examinations, suspensions and other censures proceeding under the seal of the bishop of the diocese. In this stretch of power they were encouraged by the King, a truly devout son of the Church, and fortified by the opinion of the judges,* and thus the Church seemed to be set free from all shackles of legal restraint, and to be invested with the almost unlimited power of wielding at its will the tremendous weapon of the undefined subtleties of the Canon Law. The bishops now began to frame new sets of articles of inquiry in their own names, each as he thought best, and to administer an oath to the churchwardens to make the presentments and returns according to the inquiries.

Thus, with the highest offices of the state in the hands of its bishops; with a monarch devoted to its interests, and an absolute and uncontrolled authority over men's consciences, opinions, and private lives entrusted to its chief ministers; with the terrors of

* Rushworth, ii., 451.

†“I should not deem it improbable," says Hallam," that Laud had formed, or rather adopted from the canonists, a plan not only of rendering the spiritual jurisdiction independent, but of extending it to all civil causes, except perhaps in questions of freehold. He asserts episcopacy to be of divine right, a doctrine not easily reconcileable with the Crown's supremacy over all causes. He would, I have no doubt, have put an end to this badge of subordination to the Crown."-Const. Hist., i., 458, and note.

1636.

the Star-Chamber and High Commission Court at Chap. XIV. its beck; with no Parliament to criticize and question, no free press to review and discuss the grounds of its claims; the Church might seem to an observer who looked no deeper than the surface, to have obtained a resistless and complete power over the minds of the English people.

Chap. XV. 1637.

Court of Star-Chamber.

CHAPTER XV.

The Court of Star-Chamber-Trials of Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick-Their sentence-Laud's speech-Laud not vindictive-Trial of Bishop Williams-His second trial-Publication of the Scotch Liturgy-Tumults at Edinburgh-The league and Covenant-Laud's part in this business-Laud not justly charged with favouring Popery-State of Province of Canterbury, Jan., 1637-Bishop Wren at Ipswich-Sir S. D'Ewes's account of his visitation-Laud's system best exemplified at NorwichLaud's manifold employments-The press restrained-Punishment of Lilburne-Popery on the increase-Laud's measures to meet it-Chillingworth's treatise-State of Province, Jan., 1638-John Hales of Eton, and Laud-Hales on schism-The King's Commissioner sent to Edinburgh-Concessions to the Scotch-Assembly at Glasgow-Montagu at NorwichPatriots and Puritans-War with Scotland-Benevolence from the clergy-Mr. Harrison's case-Mr. Powell's case-State of Province, Jan., 1639-Mr. Goodwin of St. Stephen's-Mr. Workman of Gloucester-Nonconforming clergy fly or yield to Laud's strict discipline-Atrocities in New England-Bishop Morton-Davenant-Hall: His treatise on episcopacy-Laud hated by the laity-First campaign against the Scotch-Preparations for a Parliament.

HE Concilium regis ordinarium, or Court of Star-Chamber-so called from the ornaments of the room in which it was usually held-was an institution of great antiquity. It exercised civil jurisdiction in certain

cases, as in disputes between alien merchants and