LAUD, William (1573-1645)

Few seventeenth-century Englishmen divided opinion so sharply as William Laud. To devotees such as Thomas Fuller, he was one of ‘the heroes of our nation’, ‘admirable in his naturals, unblameable in his morals’. At the opposite end of the scale, an anonymous libeller denounced him in 1637 as the ‘arch-wolf of Canterbury’, a man with the blood of Protestant martyrs on his hands. Subsequent commentators have been no less contradictory, Cardinal Newman praising Laud as ‘a character cast in a mould of proportions that are much above our own’, Macaulay dismissing him as ‘a ridiculous old bigot’.71 T. Fuller, Worthies of Eng. i. 129-30; Works, iii. 228; H. Trevor-Roper, Abp. Laud, 6. Even Edward Hyde^†, 1st earl of Clarendon, a broadly sympathetic observer, admitted that Laud, while moved by ‘most sincere worthy intentions’, was unduly harsh towards his religious opponents in later life, his judgment seemingly skewed by memories of the abuse to which he had himself long been subjected. In similar vein, Nicholas Tyacke, in a balanced modern assessment, proclaims Laud as one of the ‘greatest archbishops of Canterbury since the Reformation’, but adds that ‘to say this does not necessarily imply approval’. More than any of his clerical contemporaries, Laud was responsible for changing the character and direction of the Church of England, but in the process he helped wreck the broad consensus which had bound Jacobean Protestants together. Ultimately the hostility that his actions engendered would cost him his life, yet there was little about his early career to suggest that he would ever achieve that degree of prominence or influence.72 Clarendon, i. 82, 121; N. Tyacke, ‘Archbishop Laud’, Early Stuart Church, 1603-42 ed. K. Fincham, 51.

Ambition, controversy and disappointment, 1573-1620

Considering Laud’s commanding position within the Caroline regime, surprisingly little is known about his formative years. A man of ‘low stature’ and ‘piercing eyes’, he was born in Reading in 1573, the son of a wealthy clothier, and the nephew of a lord mayor of London, Sir William Webb. Despite this mercantile background, he was apparently encouraged by his family to pursue an academic career. Aged 15, he entered St John’s College, Oxford, an institution noted for its religious conservatism. His tutor, John Buckeridge^* (later bishop of Rochester and then Ely), is thought to have been a major influence, encouraging his ‘reverence for patristic learning, liturgical ceremonialism, anti-Calvinist views on grace, and a hatred of puritanism’. Laud evidently approved of the late-Elizabethan crackdown on nonconformity, one of his guiding principles being the importance of order and discipline in the Church.73 Fuller, i. 129; Tyacke, 57; Oxford DNB, viii. 508-9; K. Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, 280; A. Cromartie, ‘Mind of William Laud’, England’s Wars of Religion, Revisited ed. C.W.A. Prior and G. Burgess, 76-80. More controversially, he combined an exalted view of the role of bishops with a firm belief in the apostolic succession, the idea that spiritual authority in the Church was passed down, generation by generation, through ordination. As early as 1603, according to his first biographer Peter Heylyn, he began lecturing at Oxford that the Church of Rome had remained the visible Church of Christ, the embodiment of true religion, right down to the Reformation. He thereby rejected the preferred notion of more radical Protestants, namely that the corrupt late-medieval papacy had surrendered the mantle of truth to sects such as the Hussites and Lollards, the forerunners of Lutheranism and the other reformed churches. When Laud took his bachelor’s degree in divinity in 1604, he asserted that diocesan bishops were an essential component of the true Church, an implied attack on presbyterianism in Scotland and elsewhere. (A more developed version of this argument provided the central thrust of his doctoral thesis four years later.) He also quoted approvingly the Catholic divine Bellarmine on the sacrament of baptism, whereupon, unsurprisingly, he found himself accused of popish leanings. In fact, Laud was decidedly hostile to the Roman Church in its current form, as he would demonstrate repeatedly throughout his life. Nevertheless, in an environment where sectarian hatred of Catholicism was normal, Laud’s desire to emphasize elements of continuity between the medieval Church and modern Anglicanism was perceived as provocative and even dangerous. It was supposedly through these episodes that he first aroused the enmity of the vice chancellor of Oxford, the theologically Calvinist George Abbot^* (later archbishop of Canterbury).74 Heylyn, 53; Works, iii. 132; A. Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 468-90. In 1603, while Laud was serving as a proctor, the two men had actually collaborated over the university’s damning reply to the radical ‘millenary petition’ presented by godly clergy to James I, but thereafter their paths markedly diverged.75 Cromartie, 82.

In the short term, Laud enjoyed some protection from criticism, for in 1603 he had acquired a powerful patron at court, Charles Blount^*, earl of Devonshire, a proponent of toleration for Irish Catholics, and one of the most influential government ministers in the opening years of James’s reign. Becoming chaplain to such an important figure was generally a guaranteed route to preferment in the Church, but in the event Laud’s ambitions were almost fatally damaged by this association. In December 1605, he agreed to officiate when Devonshire married his long-term mistress, Penelope Rich, who had recently divorced her previous husband, Robert Rich^*, 3rd Lord Rich (later 1st earl of Warwick). This was a serious error of judgment, as it was illegal for either party to remarry during the lifetime of their former spouse. Not surprisingly, Devonshire’s nuptials caused a huge scandal, in which Laud himself was heavily implicated. To make matters worse, the earl died a few months later, leaving Laud without a protector. He subsequently marked each anniversary of the wedding as a day of personal mortification, but his disgrace was not easily lifted. According to his enemy Abbot, the king refused to countenance any significant promotion for the erring chaplain for years afterwards on account of this episode.76 CHARLES BLOUNT; Works, iii. 81, 132; State Trials ed. T.B. Howell, ii. 1460-1. In view of the heavy impact of these events on him personally, it seems likely that the Devonshire débâcle contributed significantly to Laud’s later well-documented insecurity, the nagging fear that, however high he rose in the Church, he might still lose everything overnight.77 Works, iii. 199, 210, 227.

More trouble swiftly ensued. In October 1606, in a sermon at Oxford, Laud commended the practice of bowing at the name of Jesus. He was promptly censured by the university authorities for advocating what was generally considered a Catholic custom, and Abbot went on the offensive, openly branding him as ‘papist, or at least very popishly affected’. However, Laud was not entirely isolated, as one of his former St John’s associates, Sir William Paddy^‡, lobbied on his behalf at court. Paddy was the king’s physician, and following his intervention the university was ordered by its lord chancellor, the lord treasurer Thomas Sackville^*, 1st earl of Dorset, to end this controversy. As a result, Laud was spared any further punishment.78 Works, iii. 133; Heylyn, 54; Coll. of Arms, I.24, f. 19v.

This latest setback perhaps persuaded Laud to look once more outside Oxford, and in 1607 he obtained the first of his many benefices, at Stanford upon Avon, Northamptonshire. This appointment was most likely arranged by his old mentor Buckeridge, who was both the local archdeacon and president of St John’s. In the following year, Laud also secured the living of North Kilworth, Leicestershire, apparently in succession to Buckeridge.79 Works, iii. 133; CCEd. A few months later, again with Buckeridge’s help, he attracted a rather more significant patron, becoming chaplain to Richard Neile^*, bishop-elect of Rochester (later archbishop of York), another notable anti-Calvinist, and one with excellent connections at court. In September 1609, Neile arranged for Laud to preach before James I for the first time, an early indication that the Devonshire incident was no longer such a hot topic. Six weeks later, Laud exchanged North Kilworth for the Essex benefice of West Tilbury in order to be closer geographically to Neile, who provided him with a further living at Cuxton, Kent in 1610. From there, finding the district unhealthy, he moved after just six months to another Kent parish, Norton.80 Heylyn, 59-60; P.E. McCullough, Sermons at Court, 113; Works, iii. 134; Al. Ox. Evidently pleased with his ecclesiastical progress, in October that year Laud resigned the fellowship he had held at St John’s College since 1593. In the following month, at Neile’s request, the king granted him the reversion of a prebend at Westminster Abbey.81 Works, iii. 134; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 644; Fasti, vii. 79.

No sooner had Laud left Oxford, than an opportunity arose for him to return on a much improved basis. Neile’s translation from Rochester to Lichfield diocese in late 1610 created a vacancy in the former see for Buckeridge, who accordingly resigned as head of St John’s. Laud promptly set about trying to replace him as president. However, this prospect appalled George Abbot, himself now a rising star at court, and soon to be archbishop of Canterbury. Abbot persuaded the lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton^*, Lord Ellesmere (later 1st Viscount Brackley) to obstruct Laud’s appointment by informing the king that he was ‘cordially addicted unto popery’, and ‘kept company with none but professed and suspected papists’. Fortunately for Laud, Neile was on hand to reassure James that this was not the case, and the election for the presidency went ahead.82 Heylyn, 61; Works, iii. 134. Nevertheless, Laud prevailed only with the greatest difficulty. He won the ballot by just a single vote, and following allegations that the election had been rigged, the college’s visitor, Thomas Bilson^*, bishop of Winchester, ruled that the result was invalid. Not until the king personally intervened, in August 1611, was the matter resolved in Laud’s favour. The date of this final verdict became another special anniversary, when Laud remembered how James had delivered him from the hands of his ‘powerful enemies’. Three months later, by Neile’s procurement, he was appointed a royal chaplain.83 Carlton, 17-18; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 33, 43, 66, 75; Works, iii. 135, 172; Heylyn, 64.

If Laud believed that his career was finally taking off, he was to be disappointed. The next decade was one of gradual consolidation rather than spectacular advances. In Oxford he purged St John’s of any fellows who openly opposed his presidency, but thereafter avoided controversy within the college during his term of office. While achieving little of scholarly note during these years, he strengthened the college finances, overhauled the library, and improved the buildings, especially the chapel, which acquired a new organ loft, stained glass, and fine velvet hangings for the communion table.84 Carlton, 19-21. However, ecclesiastical preferment was slow in coming, and it was only Neile’s steadfast support which prevented Laud from abandoning his place at court altogether. When in London, he routinely stayed with Neile, who in 1617 became bishop of Durham. It was during these years that Neile’s household became the focal point for critics of Abbot-style Anglicanism. Laud and Buckeridge were both key members of the so-called ‘Durham House set’; another occasional visitor was the saintly and scholarly bishop of Ely, Lancelot Andrewes^* (later bishop of Winchester), who was sympathetic to, but somewhat aloof from the group. A leading authority on the Church Fathers, Andrewes rejected the stern Calvinist doctrine that people were predestined to salvation or damnation by God’s immutable will. Instead, he advocated older traditions of spirituality which emphasized the sacraments, liturgical richness, and the availability of God’s grace to all believers. Already the king’s favourite preacher, he would exercise a growing influence over James’s theological outlook as the decade wore on. Laud, who came to revere Andrewes as ‘the great light of the Christian world’, clearly also embraced his teachings with enthusiasm.85 Heylyn, 64-5; Fincham, 47; Works, iii. 196; LANCELOT ANDREWES.

However, in the short term, the initiative remained with Abbot. In 1615 Laud again caused offence in Oxford with a sermon which not only denounced presbyterians as being as bad as Catholics, but also included some points ‘which might indifferently be imputed either to popery or Arminianism’, the Dutch protestant theological movement which rejected Calvinist predestination in favour of a more Catholic understanding of salvation. Laud’s actual arguments were not recorded, but the label of Arminianism was almost certainly unjustified; while he subsequently questioned the Calvinist doctrine of predestination to damnation, he seems never to have embraced the key Arminian teaching that salvation was in some measure earned through individual righteousness. Nevertheless, even speculation about these issues remained controversial. Robert Abbot^* (later bishop of Salisbury), the archbishop’s brother, and Regius professor of theology, responded with a vicious public attack on Laud, challenging him to declare whether he was Protestant or papist. George Abbot then ensured that Laud was summoned before the king to explain his comments, but this time the archbishop had overreached himself. Influenced by Neile, James concluded that Robert Abbot had been more at fault than Laud, and demanded an end to such controversies at the university.86 N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 70; Heylyn, 66-8; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 288, 290; Fincham, 304; Cromartie, 89-91.

Although the king continued to nurse some reservations about Laud, the tide was slowly turning in the latter’s favour. Neile, currently bishop of Lincoln, continued to find him additional roles, arranging his appointment as a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral and archdeacon of Huntingdon. Laud was also appointed to preach before James in August 1616, on the day when the king’s new favourite, George Villiers^* (later 1st duke of Buckingham), was created Viscount Villiers, a telling sign of royal favour. Rising to the occasion, Laud delivered ‘a most laudable sermon which gave his Majesty exceeding contentment, upon the subject of Miriam being struck with leprosy for murmuring against Moses’, the exposition being an attack on ‘detractors from princes’ government’. In the following November, James nominated him as the new dean of Gloucester Cathedral.87 Works, iii. 135; SP14/88/61; SO3/6, unfol. (Nov. 1616).

Installed by proxy in December, Laud did not visit Gloucester until early 1617. Instructed by the king to make reforms, he introduced practices he was familiar with from the royal chapels, relocating the communion table from the body of the cathedral to the site of the medieval high altar, and instructing the prebendaries to bow towards the east end during services. This liturgical reordering was virtually unprecedented in an English cathedral, and immediately provoked local complaints of popery. Laud brushed these aside, and urged the bishop of Gloucester, Miles Smith^*, to silence the critics. As a precaution, he also requested Neile to brief the king on his ‘successes’ at Gloucester.88 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 435; Fincham, 239; Works, vi. 239-41; K. Fincham and N. Tyacke, Altars Restored, 116-17, 119. Shortly afterwards, in his capacity as Neile’s chaplain, Laud accompanied James on his progress to Scotland. The monarch used this visit to his presbyterian homeland to import some English liturgical practices, and Laud, who naturally approved of this agenda, contrived to offend the Scots by wearing a surplice during a funeral.89 Works, iii. 135; HMC Downshire, vi. 139; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 82. James’s religious reforms met with fierce resistance, and were not finally forced through until the following year, at which point the king undertook not to push the matter any further. However, Laud had enthusiastically embraced the concept of religious uniformity between both kingdoms, and subsequently produced two sets of proposals for bringing Scotland into line with England, both of which were rejected out of hand by James. This ill-judged intervention prompted the king’s famous assessment of Laud, that ‘he hath a restless spirit, and cannot see when matters are well, but loves to toss and change, and to bring things to a pitch of reformation floating in his own brain, which may endanger the steadfastness of that which is in a good pass’. It was to prove a prescient observation.90 Hacket, i. 64.

Bishop of St Davids, 1621-3

At a personal level, the next two years passed quietly for Laud, though events on the Continent were markedly more dramatic. The decision of the king’s son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, to accept the crown of Bohemia in 1618 sparked the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, and a crisis in English foreign policy. In 1619 the Dutch Synod of Dort condemned Arminianism. James publicly endorsed the synod’s outcome, but in reality he now found Andrewes more congenial than Abbot, and at court the rise of the Durham House set continued unabated. In January 1621, Laud’s reversion of a Westminster prebend finally fell in, and by June he was being tipped as the next dean of the abbey, in succession to John Williams^* (later archbishop of York), who was about to become bishop of Lincoln and lord keeper. Laud’s relations with James were now quite cordial, the monarch finally conceding that his chaplain had been poorly rewarded for his long service.91 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 382; Works, iii. 136.

On 19 June, following the adjournment of a parliamentary session which had generated calls for military intervention to defend the Palatinate, Laud preached one of the most important sermons of his life. Addressing the king on his birthday, he offered his unequivocal support for James’s policy of a negotiated solution to the European conflict. Arguing that ‘it is not cowardice to pray for peace, nor courage to call for troubles’, Laud both praised the king for resisting the drive to war, and implicitly criticized Archbishop Abbot, who favoured military action. Just ten days later, a grateful James informed Laud that he would be the next bishop of St Davids. The sermon was also published by royal command.92 McCullough, 139; Works, i. ed. W. Scott, 1; iii. 136. However, there was more to this promotion than met the eye. Behind the scenes, the favourite Villiers, now marquess of Buckingham, had been lobbying hard for Laud to become a bishop, while Abbot had been no less strenuously resisting this development. Williams later claimed credit for breaking the deadlock on Buckingham’s behalf, supposedly talking the king out of his remaining doubts about Laud, which centred on his ‘restless spirit’ and the Devonshire scandal. Given his subsequent hostility to Laud, Williams may well have exaggerated the strength of James’s concerns, since the monarch had been hinting at a promotion for some time. Even so, Buckingham was certainly influencing clerical appointments by this date, and his decision to back Laud was highly significant, the first clear evidence that the latter had found favour with this pivotal courtier.93 Hacket, i. 63-4; State Trials, ii. 1461.

By a twist of fate it was Abbot, not Laud, who suffered disgrace at this juncture, following the archbishop’s accidental manslaughter of a gamekeeper. Laud probably took some pleasure in refusing to be consecrated by him, and indeed found himself in October on the commission which ruled on whether Abbot should be permanently suspended. He was eventually consecrated on 18 Nov. 1621 in the private chapel of the bishop of London, George Montaigne^* (later archbishop of York), the latter being assisted by five other bishops: John Thornborough^* of Worcester, George Carleton^* of Chichester, Nicholas Felton^* of Ely, Theophilus Field^* of Llandaff (later of Hereford), and John Howson^* of Oxford (later of Durham). With the new bishops of Salisbury and Exeter, John Davenant^* and Valentine Carey^*, being consecrated in the same ceremony, it was a crowded event.94 CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 285; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 399; Works, iii. 137.

After taking his seat in the Lords on 22 Nov., two days into the winter phase of the third Jacobean Parliament, Laud attended every sitting until the session ended on 19 December. Indeed, throughout his parliamentary career, he made a point of turning up regularly, considering it his duty to monitor all legislation that affected the Church. During this session he received three nominations. In a nod to the location of his new diocese, he was added on 27 Nov. to the committee for the bill to amend the Henrician ordinances on Welsh government. His two other committees were for bills to help crown tenants in arrears with their rent, and creditors of attainted persons.95 LJ, iii. 171a, 172b, 182a-b; Fincham, 59.

Ironically, now that he was a Welsh bishop, Laud actually spent more time in London. On the day before his consecration, he had resigned as president of St John’s, despite being granted a dispensation to keep the post, and thus lost his base in Oxford. However, he retained his Westminster prebend, and also continued to reside with Neile at Durham House.96 T. Rymer, Foedera, vii. pt. 3, pp. 214-15; Works, iii. 137, 177. Laud conducted a visitation of his diocese in the summer of 1622, but he dealt with most business from the capital, even expecting his clergy to travel there on the rare occasions that he conducted ordinations.97 Works, iii. 137, 139-40; Fincham, 53-4; ex inf. Kenneth Fincham. After years of waiting, he was finally in demand at court. On 24 Mar. 1622, the anniversary of the king’s accession, Laud preached at length on the blessings of monarchy, describing James as a ‘mediate fountain of God’s goodness and bounty streaming to the people’, and condemning the ‘gross ingratitude’ of anyone who dared find fault with him. Even though the king was not present for this sermon, he ordered its publication.98 McCullough, 41, 140. A month later, the bishop was selected for a particularly delicate task. Buckingham’s mother was wavering in her allegiance to the Church of England, and Laud and Francis White^* (later bishop of Ely) were instructed to try and dissuade her from converting to Rome. The chosen method was a ‘conference’ in May with a Jesuit, John Percy (alias Fisher). White’s arguments having failed to hit their mark, Laud entered the fray on the third day of this debate, addressing the complex question of what constituted a ‘continual, infallible, visible Church’. While highly critical of Catholic corruption, he conceded that Rome remained fundamentally a true Church, some of whose adherents might be capable of salvation. He also predictably emphasized points at which the Anglican Church shared common ground with Catholic traditions, such as the retention of episcopacy. This message of continuity between Rome and Canterbury seemed briefly to achieve the desired outcome, the return of the marquess’ mother to the Anglican fold, and although she relapsed a few months later, Laud’s temporary success secured him a closer relationship with the favourite. Indeed, he later claimed that he had settled Buckingham’s own nascent doubts about the Church of England. However strong their previous ties had been, the marquess was now ‘pleased to enter upon a near respect’ to Laud, who became his chaplain in mid-June.99 Works, ii. pp. viii-xiii; iii. 138-9; iv. 64; Stuart Dynastic Policy and Religious Pols. 1621-5 ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xxxiv), 30; Milton, 148, 163-4, 192-3, 298, 306; Cromartie, 95; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 439, 451.

In the autumn of 1622, Fisher circulated copies of the May conference, prompting Laud to pen a response, which the king ordered him to publish. Now very much in favour with James, Laud was tipped in the following January to become the royal almoner. Although this promotion did not materialize, the king continued to consult him over Catholic tracts, and in February 1623 appointed him to a high-profile commission to hear grievances not amenable to resolution through the usual channels.100 Works, iii. 140-1; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 470; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 491; Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 368. No less significantly, Laud had become one of Buckingham’s confidantes. When the marquess secretly departed for Spain with Prince Charles (Stuart^*, prince of Wales) later that month, on a journey undertaken to determine whether the latter would marry a Spanish infanta, Laud was apparently one of the first people to hear the news.101 Works, iii. 140-1. He corresponded intermittently with Buckingham during the latter’s time in Madrid, but the bishop was not yet trusted enough to be briefed fully on the negotiations. After months of speculation in England about how a Spanish match would affect the country’s religious settlement, the prince and the favourite finally returned in October. By now Laud and his allies were desperate to know what had been agreed, and they summoned Charles’s chaplain, Matthew Wren^† (later bishop of Ely) to Winchester House, Lancelot Andrewes’ London residence. There, Neile and Laud questioned him at length about the prince’s likely attitude towards the Church of England once he became king. Wren responded by assuring them that Charles would still uphold ‘the doctrine and discipline, and the right estate of the Church’, a statement which they took to mean that he would continue his father’s policies.102 Ibid. iii. 141-3; C. Wren, Parentalia (1750), 45-7.

In fact, Charles and Buckingham, now a duke, arrived home dissatisfied with their reception in Spain, and keen to cover up the fact that they had been prepared to concede a substantial degree of toleration for English Catholics in order to conclude the match. While James still hoped to free the Palatinate through peaceful diplomacy, by the end of the year the prince and the favourite were convinced that the Spanish Match should be ditched in favour of a military solution. The resulting tensions within the government caused a breach between Buckingham and Lord Keeper Williams, who blamed Laud in part for undermining their previously close relationship. While there is no evidence that Laud initially sought to weaken Williams’ position, he certainly exploited this new development to his own advantage, conveniently forgetting his own former opposition to war, and insinuating himself further into the duke’s favour at the lord keeper’s expense. His conscience evidently troubled by his own behaviour, in December he recorded in his diary a dream in which he learned of Williams’ death, while in the following month he admitted feeling ‘much concerned at the envy and undeserved hatred’ of the lord keeper.103 Works, iii. 143-4, 146. Now increasingly confident of his own standing with Buckingham, Laud warned the duke on 30 Dec. that plans to send Sir Edward Coke^‡ and other potential troublemakers to Ireland, to prevent them from sitting in the forthcoming Parliament, would be counter-productive. However, he remained somewhat in awe of Charles, excitedly recording a remark by the ‘most illustrious prince’ in February 1624 to the effect that he could never ‘defend a bad, nor yield in a good cause’.104 Ibid. iii. 144, 147-8.

The 1624 Parliament

Laud was again a very regular figure in the Lords during the final Jacobean Parliament, attending roughly 90 per cent of its sittings. Since four of his absences were on afternoons when the House sat twice in one day, he actually missed only four days entirely. During this session, he held the proxies of two former bishops of Llandaff, George Carleton^* and Francis Godwin^*, now serving at Chichester and Hereford respectively. That the staunchly Calvinist Carleton felt he could trust Laud in this way shows that the latter was not judged purely on theological grounds by other members of his bench. Laud took his responsibilities seriously, and on 1 May presented a petition on behalf of one of Godwin’s chaplains.105 Add. 40087, f. 3r-v; LJ, iii. 277a; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 40.

In the course of this Parliament, Laud received 16 appointments and made four speeches. On 23 Mar. he recommended that a lawyer who had drafted a libellous petition against Lord Keeper Williams should be placed in the pillory. Laud evidently attached some importance to this debate, for he mentioned it in his diary, presumably as evidence of his own even-handedness towards his rival.106 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 45; Works, iii. 149. Four days later, Valentine Carey^*, bishop of Exeter, informed the House that one of Laud’s servants had been attacked. The assailants were brought to the bar on 28 May, but discharged without further punishment after they made their submission.107 LJ, iii. 411b, 415a; Add. 40088, f. 136. As in 1621, Laud was named to the committee for the bill on Welsh government, and then to two conferences on the same measure. He was also appointed to legislative committees concerned with the Welsh cloth trade, the repression of drunkenness, and the continuance or repeal of expiring statutes.108 LJ, iii. 273a, 274b, 303b, 304b, 314b, 384a. Another item of business noted by Laud in his diary was the complaint levelled by the Commons at Samuel Harsnett^*, bishop of Norwich (later archbishop of York), for suppressing sermons and promoting a more ceremonial liturgy in his diocese, actions of which Laud naturally approved.109 Works, iii. 152-3.

On 1 Mar., in what was probably his maiden speech, Laud joined forces with the bishop of Bangor, Lewis Bayly^*, to demand the disarming of Catholics, and the blocking of the harbour at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, to prevent a Spanish landing there.110 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 16; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/2, f. 22v. He took no other part in the debates about possible war with Spain, but in his diary on 22 Mar. he recorded the Lords’ motion justifying contentious statements in Buckingham’s ‘Relation’ to both Houses of the Spanish Match negotiations. The next day, he also noted the king’s declaration that the treaties with Spain would be abandoned, and observed that bonfires had been lit in London to celebrate this news, adding disapprovingly: ‘dissipa gentes, quae bella volunt’ [scatter the peoples who delight in war].111 Works, iii. 149-50; Psalm 68:30 (67:31 in Vulgate). Perhaps on the basis of his earlier speech, he was appointed on 7 Apr. to the committee for the bill to review the country’s military preparedness.112 LJ, iii. 293a.

One unexpected consequence of Parliament’s inquiries into military supplies was the emergence of corruption allegations against the lord treasurer, Lionel Cranfield^*, 1st earl of Middlesex, who was hampering the drive for war. On 1 May Laud was nominated to help consider the earl’s answers to these charges, and his interrogatories for the examination of witnesses. Over the next few days, the bishop attended eight such interviews, signing depositions made by several witnesses, including the chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Richard Weston^* (later 1st earl of Portland), and merchants and financiers such as Sir Arthur Ingram^‡ and George Lowe^‡. Laud evidently attended the audience with the king at Whitehall on 5 May, at which James set out his position on Middlesex’s impeachment, since this occasion is recorded in his diary, as are the penalties imposed on the earl eight days later.113 Ibid. 329a, 358b-60a, 361a; Works, iii. 152.

Laud’s close ties to Buckingham came under the spotlight on 14 May, when he spoke in favour of a bill to allow the diocese of York to surrender York House in London to the crown in return for other properties. Several other bishops, including both Abbot and Neile, were unhappy about this measure, which was intended to benefit the duke. Buckingham was currently ill, and thus absent from the Lords. However, Laud conferred with him overnight, then assured the House the next day that the favourite had no intention of damaging the Church’s interests, and guaranteed that the diocese would be fully compensated. The bill then passed without any further objections.114 LJ, iii. 384a; LD 1624 and 1626, p. 95.

A handful of Laud’s colleagues will have known that the bishop had good reason to help his patron in this way. At the end of March, Convocation, which was meeting simultaneously with the Parliament, had voted four clerical subsidies. Laud, conscious of the hardship that this heavy tax burden would cause to poor incumbents, promptly lobbied Buckingham for the payments to be made in easy instalments. The duke agreed to this proposal, whereupon Laud informed both Lord Keeper Williams and Neile, both of whom congratulated him on his initiative. However, Archbishop Abbot responded angrily to the news, accusing him of damaging the Church by allowing the laity a say in the matter, and observing that only Laud would have contemplated such a step. The bishop, genuinely surprised that his good intentions had been thus interpreted, duly reported Abbot’s reaction to Buckingham, to guard against any bad reports to the king or prince.115 Works, iii. 150-1.

Laud spent the summer of 1624 in the country, visiting the two midlands parishes that he held in commendam to boost his income. Upon his return in September he was appointed by the Privy Council to help authorize the disbursement of funds raised for the redemption of captives on the Barbary Coast, in line with an order of the House of Lords made in the previous May.116 Ibid. 154; APC, 1623-5, pp. 335-6. By now, Buckingham was confiding in him about such delicate matters as the health of his brother, John Villiers^*, Viscount Purbeck, and the adulterous behaviour of the latter’s wife. It was to the bishop’s credit that he did not automatically go along with all of the duke’s proposals. In October he persuaded him to drop a scheme to dissolve the Charterhouse hospital, a wealthy London charity, and reallocate the funds towards the maintenance of a standing army. Asserting that the hospital’s foundation was ‘the greatest work that hath been done since the reformation of religion’, he warned Buckingham that the proposed closure would be a scandal to both Church and State, ‘and give the Roman party just occasion to triumph’, adding that, after the furore over York House, the necessary legislation might well not get through Parliament. He also shrewdly questioned the wisdom of establishing this new force without first identifying all the revenues needed to fund it.117 Works, iii. 154-6; vi. 1-4. At this juncture Laud remained cautious about seeking favours from his patron. That same month, the anti-Calvinist controversialist Richard Montagu^* (later bishop of Norwich), a longstanding associate of the Durham House set, requested him to use his ‘great credit’ with the duke to arrange some preferment for him, but Laud declined to help. Nevertheless, it was Buckingham’s intervention that finally secured the bishop a seat on the Canterbury High Commission in January 1625, after years of obstruction by Abbot. A few days later, clearly confident of a sympathetic hearing from the favourite, Laud broached the painful subject of the Devonshire marriage, putting his side of the story, and detailing the hardships that his error of judgment had brought down on him.118 Corresp. of John Cosin ed. G. Ornsby, i (Surtees Soc. lii), 22, 24; Works, vi. 243-4; Rymer, vii. pt. 4, p. 172.

Buckingham’s loyal client: the parliaments of 1625 and 1626

On 27 Mar. 1625 Laud was preaching at Whitehall when the news broke of James I’s death. Interrupted by the ‘dolorous complaints made by the duke of Buckingham’, he left the pulpit ‘to bestow his pains and comforts where there was more need’. Such solicitude was wise, for the accession of Charles I if anything strengthened the duke’s place at court, and Laud now stood to gain even more from his patronage. He also still needed Buckingham’s protection, for on 9 Apr. the favourite warned him that an unnamed enemy had attempted to blacken the bishop’s name with the new king by raking up the Devonshire business.119 Heylyn, 131; Works, iii. 157-60.

Charles’s accession opened the door for Laud to exert real influence over the Church. On the duke’s instructions, he compiled a list of the leading English clergy, marking their names with either ‘O’ for ‘orthodox’ or ‘P’ for ‘puritan’. At this date most people understood the term ‘puritan’ to signify nonconformists, but Laud, like Montagu, controversially employed it to denigrate the Church’s Calvinist mainstream, which he targeted on the basis of theology rather than obedience to Anglican canons. This partisan survey was then passed to Charles, who apparently used it marginalize Calvinist prelates during the following months. Within the next three years, Buckingham also entrusted Laud with the management of clerical promotions in the Church, thereby enabling him to advance his friends and allies. This was a vitally important issue, for in 1624 the House of Commons had finally taken notice of Arminianism, and attacked Richard Montagu for supposedly promoting its teachings. One of Charles’s first priorities was to determine his government’s position on this question, and when he turned for advice to the frail and elderly Lancelot Andrewes, it was Laud who was dispatched to collect his opinions.120 Works, iii. 159-61; Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 167; Clarendon, i. 82, 120; Fincham and Tyacke, 120; K. Fincham, ‘William Laud and the Exercise of Caroline Eccles. Patronage’, JEH, li. 75.

The first Caroline Parliament began in June 1625 with the shadow of plague hanging over London. Laud, appointed to preach prior to the State opening, delivered his sermon in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall rather than at Westminster Abbey because of this threat. Effectively setting the tone for the whole reign, he proclaimed a message of royal absolutism. The king’s authority came from God, not from the people, and ‘all judges and courts of justice, even … this great council now ready to sit’, derived their own power from the crown. Indeed, the proper function of Parliament was to provide the monarch with the necessary funds for him to rule as he saw fit: ‘the king is the sun; … if the sun draw up no vapours, it can pour down no rain.’ Playing repeatedly on the word ‘dissolution’, he warned that this was the inevitable fate of a disordered state – and by implication a disorderly Parliament. Charles signalled his approval of the sermon by having it published just weeks later.121 Works, i. 93-117; iii. 165; L.A. Ferrell, ‘Preaching and Eng. Parls. in the 1620s’, Managing Tudor and Stuart Parls. ed. C.R. Kyle (PH, xxxiv. pt. 1), 149. This duty performed, Laud took his place in the Lords, and attended all but four sittings thereafter. During this session he held the proxies of Bishop Godwin of Hereford, and Bishop Thornborough of Worcester.122 Procs. 1625, p. 590.

Despite his regular presence in the upper House, Laud received only five appointments, and, perhaps wisely, made no further speeches. On 23 June, he was nominated to confer with the Commons about the joint petition for a general fast. The next day, the king ordered him to help prepare the form of prayer for the fast, focussing on the plague threat and the fleet being prepared for action against Spain. When Parliament observed the fast in Westminster Abbey on 2 July, Laud read the litany.123 Ibid. 43; Works, iii. 166; Liber Famelicus of Sir J. Whitelocke ed. J. Bruce (Cam. Soc. lxx), 103-4. Prior to this, he was named to committees for bills to punish abuses of the Sabbath and improve the standard of the kingdom’s arms. During the Westminster phase of this session he also monitored the Commons’ attack on Richard Montagu, noting the latter’s appearance in the lower House on 6 July, and the king’s intervention on his behalf two days later.124 Procs. 1625, p. 72; Works, iii. 167. Laud misdated the Montagu incidents to 7 and 9 July.

When Parliament was adjourned to Oxford to escape the plague, Laud headed out into the country, by chance meeting Montagu himself, and informing him that Charles had appointed him a royal chaplain, affording him a measure of protection from the Commons. Arriving at the university, he took up temporary residence at St John’s, but two days later suffered a fall in the president’s lodging, injuring his left shoulder and hip. Despite his pain, he attended virtually the whole of the Oxford sitting, and although he received no further nominations, he was active behind the scenes. On 2 Aug. he and his friends Buckeridge and Howson wrote to Buckingham in defence of Montagu, arguing that much of what he had said in his two recent anti-Calvinist books was in fact ‘the resolved doctrine of the Church of England’, and that judgment on the more debatable points properly belonged to the king and bishops, not to Parliament. Montagu’s first publication, the New Gagg, had the approval of James I, whereas his critics were relying on the decrees of foreign assemblies such as the Synod of Dort, which should have no bearing on the English Church. Noting that Charles had now ‘taken this business into his own care’, they expressed the hope that it would be settled ‘without further trouble to the state, or breach of unity in the Church’. However, events now took another course entirely, as the lower House turned on the duke instead. A disbelieving Laud noted this ‘great assault’ in his diary, before recording the premature dissolution on 12 Aug., ‘the Commons not hearkening, as was expected, to the king’s proposals’.125 Works, iii. 167-9; vi. 244-6.

Laud’s shock at the Commons’ attack on Buckingham did not simply stem from political miscalculation. By this juncture, he had developed an emotional bond with the duke, and therefore took this sudden crisis personally. In the following weeks, as his diary attests, he had at least two dreams about his patron. In one, Laud’s ‘imagination ran altogether upon the duke …, his servants and family; all seemed to be out of order’. In the other, Buckingham joined him in bed, ‘where he behaved himself with great kindness’. It is impossible at this distance to judge whether there was a sexual element to the latter fantasy, but at the very least the relationship between Laud, a life-long bachelor, and the duke was now more than purely business-like.126 Ibid. iii. 170, 172; Carlton, 56. For the next three months the bishop retreated to his diocese, and even though he returned to England in November, it was not until late December that he finally reappeared at court. There, he learnt that he had been selected to help organize the king’s forthcoming coronation. A few days later, he was also appointed to preach at the opening of the new Parliament. When Williams, still dean of Westminster but currently in disgrace, was barred in mid-January from attending the coronation, Laud was chosen to deputize for him. By the end of the month, rumour had it that he would shortly be translated to London, where a vacancy was anticipated.127 Works, iii. 170, 174-6, 178-9; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 627; Birch, Chas. I, i. 73. The latter report proved premature, but Laud was kept very busy with all the other preparations. In the midst of this activity, he, Neile, Andrewes, Montaigne and Buckeridge were instructed to advise the king on the best course to follow regarding Richard Montagu. On 16 Jan. they again affirmed that the controversial cleric’s writings were ‘agreeable’ to orthodox Anglican doctrine, but recommended a ban on further debate of the issues raised in his books, to preserve ‘the peace of this Church’. However, a fortnight later, it became apparent that Charles, anxious to avoid unnecessary battles in his second Parliament, intended to let Montagu fend for himself against his critics. Laud gloomily noted in his diary: ‘methinks I see a cloud arising, and threatening the Church of England’.128 Works, iii. 178-9; vi. 249.

The coronation on 2 Feb. 1626 was a personal triumph for Laud. According to overheard remarks which he recorded, the assembled peers had never ‘seen any solemnity … performed with so little noise, and so great order’.129 Ibid. iii. 180-2 The same could not be said for the ensuing Parliament. Although Laud’s opening sermon condemned ‘disjointed factions’, and promoted the merits of secular and religious unity, he once again indicated that harmony was best achieved through an all-powerful crown, working in close partnership with the bishops. As a corollary to his customary exalted view of episcopacy, he strongly condemned the Calvinist approach to Church government as unscriptural, and warned darkly that advocates of presbyterianism were also instinctive republicans. These were not messages calculated to appease the House of Commons, and predictably they were ignored, though as in 1625 the sermon was published.130 Ibid. i. 63-90; M. Parry, ‘Bp. William Laud and the Parl. of 1626’, HR, lxxxviii. 237-8; Ferrell, 150. The York House Conference, staged shortly afterwards by Buckingham to allow debate of Montagu’s arguments away from Parliament, ended without a clear victory for either side, though most observers concluded that the duke now favoured the Arminians. Laud himself did not attend these debates, and while his January letter in support of Montagu received mention, its authorship was not revealed. Indeed, for the moment Laud again distanced himself from the controversial cleric, presumably fearing that the lower House would start targeting anti-Calvinists in general. He did not even record in his diary the Commons’ attacks on Montagu during this session.131 Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 166, 180.

In the Lords, Laud was once again very regular in his attendance, missing just three sittings during the entire session, including 15 Apr., when he was formally excused. As in 1625, he held the proxies of bishops Godwin and Thornborough.132 Procs. 1626, i. 10, 267. Laud made eight speeches this time, but still attracted only 12 nominations, a poor tally which suggests that he was not popular in the upper House. Indeed, one isolated speech on 30 Mar., denouncing simony, may have been prompted by some personal attack which went unrecorded, since that particular clerical offence was not otherwise discussed during this Parliament. Laud was accustomed to receiving abuse, but his growing influence at court brought him new critics, and in late April he was alarmed to discover that the Calvinist secretary of state, Sir John Coke^‡, was briefing against him, almost certainly on religious grounds.133 Ibid. 228; Works, iii. 188.

Laud’s legislative committee nominations included a range of private matters such as the estates of another of Buckingham’s close associates, Edward Sackville^*, 4th earl of Dorset, as well as two economic concerns, cloth exports and the American fisheries. He was again named to the committee for the bill to make the kingdom’s arms more serviceable, and also appointed to the committee to review the nation’s defences.134 Procs. 1626, i. 53, 110, 128, 292, 300, 327. In addition, he received two nominations in late April to scrutinize bills to maintain the clergy and prevent Sabbath abuses. Laud presumably took particular interest in the former issue, for on 12 Apr., as part of a general review into the state of the Church, he reported to the king on the question of ‘restoring impropriations’, in other words returning revenues to the clergy which had passed into lay hands since the Reformation. However, Charles was dissatisfied with the efforts made by most of his bishops in the Lords to address such problems. On 23 Apr. he called them before him, and rebuked them for remaining ‘silent in the cause of the Church’ during Parliament, when he was himself only too willing to help.135 Ibid. 292, 300; Works, iii. 187-9; R. Cust, Chas. I, 102.

On 25 Feb., in an early attempt to weaken Buckingham’s political influence, the Lords voted to limit the number of proxies that any one peer could hold in a single session. Laud opposed this move, calling for the ‘ancient privileges’ to be maintained, and arguing that the new standing order should be only a probationer. Ostensibly, he remained silent throughout most of the impeachment of his patron, merely recording the key moments in his diary and expressing his discontent in letters to his old friend Sir John Scudamore^‡: ‘I doubt much, if things go on a fortnight longer in the course they are now in, that all will be stark nought. … the same spirit moves still, and with greater violence’.136 Procs. 1626, i. 72; Works, iii. 184, 189-90, 192; Trevor-Roper, 443-4. However, behind the scenes, Laud was rather more active, drafting the speeches which Charles delivered to both Houses on 29 Mar. and to the Lords on 11 May, defending Buckingham’s conduct.137 Works, iii. 186, 191; iv. 354; Procs. 1626, i. 398; ii. 391-5; Parry, 239. Similarly, in mid May, when the Commons requested that the duke be imprisoned during the impeachment hearings, Laud drafted Buckingham’s reply, asserting his innocence, and criticizing the tactics being used by his enemies. This speech was delivered largely as written, except for the final lines; in place of a diplomatic offer to withdraw voluntarily from the Lords, Buckingham substituted a defiant refusal to do so.138 Procs. 1626, i. 399-400; SP16/26/80 (printed in Procs. 1626, iv. 161). On 16 May Laud himself backed this stance, concurring with the lord president of the Council, Henry Montagu^*, 1st earl of Manchester that the Commons’ demand infringed the Lords’ privileges. A day earlier, he tacitly supported the duke’s contention that Sir Dudley Digges^‡ had spoken treasonable words while delivering the impeachment charges, refusing to declare his opinion when numerous other peers and bishops dismissed this claim. On 24 May he criticized a crown lawyer, Serjeant Davenport, who was trying to avoid serving as Buckingham’s counsel on the grounds that he would be breaching his oath of office if he represented a defendant in an impeachment. Laud, displaying a casual disregard for the law, argued that an oath of this kind was conditional, and should be disregarded in present circumstances.139 Procs. 1626, i. 478, 483, 489-90, 547; C. Russell, PEP, 306; Parry, 240. In early June, once again behind the scenes, he was consulted about the duke’s formal answer to the impeachment charges, which he described to Scudamore as ‘very sufficient’.140 Parry, 239; Trevor-Roper, 445.

At least one of Laud’s interventions during this session backfired. On 15 May, discussing the detention of Thomas Howard^*, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel, he argued that the king was perfectly within his rights to order his sequestration, just as Elizabeth I had once locked up a troublesome Member of the Commons, Peter Wentworth^‡. However, in his zeal to defend the royal prerogative, he contradicted Charles’s contention that Arundel’s arrest had nothing to do with parliamentary activity. When the Lords suspended business ten days later in protest at the earl’s continued imprisonment, Laud complained in his diary that such behaviour was playing into the hands of the pope and Spain.141 Procs. 1626, i. 158-9; Russell, 313; Works, iii. 192; Parry, 242. He may have had a hand in drafting the speech in which the king on 2 June promised to resolve the Arundel dispute but played for more time.142 Procs. 1626, i. 558; Parry, 243. Laud was predictably unimpressed by the decision of John Digby^*, 1st earl of Bristol, to accuse Buckingham of treason over his conduct during the Spanish Match negotiations, correctly predicting in the diary that this was as likely to ruin the earl as it was the duke. On 2 May, in his only speech on this business, he merely advised against the Commons being allowed to get involved. However, when Bristol himself was charged with treason by the crown, Laud was appointed to help examine witnesses, including Digges and Endymion Porter^‡.143 Works, iii. 188; Procs. 1626, i. 346-7, 540, 597, 599, 631. A private survey of peers’ likely voting intentions, probably compiled by Laud around this time, may relate to the Bristol case, though it could equally represent an attempt to assess the mood of the House towards Buckingham.144 SP16/20/36; Russell, 311; E. Cope, ‘Groups in the House of Lords, May 1626’, PH, xii. 164-70; Parry, 238.

On 10 June Laud wrote again to Scudamore: ‘we are in as hot skirmishes as ever we were, and for my part I cannot look for any good end’. Five days later, with the close of the session imminent, he joined calls for a joint appeal by both Houses requesting more time. However, when Charles failed to relent, the bishop served as a commissioner to dissolve Parliament, observing in his diary that ‘after many debates and strugglings, private malice against the duke of Buckingham prevailed, and stopped all public business’.145 Trevor-Roper, 445-6; Procs. 1626, i. 634-5; Works, iii. 192. Nevertheless, Laud had some cause to feel satisfied with the final outcome, for on 14 June the king issued a proclamation for ‘establishing of the peace and quiet of the Church of England. This imposed a blanket ban on the propounding of ‘any new inventions, or opinions concerning religion’, and was initially devised as a sop to the puritan element in Parliament. However, prior to its publication, Laud was allowed to prune the text of all references to Arminianism, so that it could be interpreted as applying equally to Calvinism. In its final form, it became an effective means of silencing Montagu’s critics, and was soon being deployed to that end.146 Stuart Royal Proclamations II: Chas. I ed. J.F. Larkin, 90-2; Cust, Chas. I, 91-2. Indeed, only three weeks later, in a sermon at court, Laud attacked men who were ‘a great deal too busy’ in determining for themselves who God intended to save, when the vital question was whether they themselves had turned away from sin. This was an unambiguously anti-Calvinist standpoint, and the sermon was shortly approved for publication.147 Works, i. 130-1; Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 269.

Buckingham’s ‘assured friend’, 1626-8

The old bishop of Bath and Wells, Arthur Lake^*, died during the 1626 session. Five days after the dissolution, Laud was named as his successor. The latter had for some time been eager to ‘get out of Wales’, as he informed Scudamore, but within a few days of his translation on 18 September, he discovered that he had missed out on a much greater prize. The death of his idol Lancelot Andrewes created a vacancy in the wealthy and prestigious diocese of Winchester, but, as Laud recognized, he could not very well pursue this post so soon after his removal to Somerset. This disappointment was partially alleviated when the king appointed him to replace Andrewes as dean of the Chapel Royal, while in early October he was informed that Charles intended him to be the next archbishop of Canterbury.148 Works, iii. 190, 192, 196; Trevor-Roper, 448-9. Perhaps emboldened by that prospect, Laud decided in November to start asserting his own agenda, and persuaded Charles to end a Jacobean custom whereby prayers in the Chapel Royal ended abruptly when the monarch arrived, so that he could instead listen to the sermon. No longer would preaching take priority over the rest of the liturgy.149 Works, iii. 197; McCullough, 155.

Meanwhile, Laud also began to get more involved in government business generally. The 1626 Parliament having ended without any grant of supply to fund the ongoing war with Spain, the king resorted instead to arbitrary taxation. In mid September, at Buckingham’s request, Laud drafted ‘instructions’ for preachers around the country, which highlighted Parliament’s failure to provide for the current emergency as justification for the imposition of a forced loan. Explaining that it was the Church’s duty to support the State in a struggle which might determine the very survival of Protestantism, he asserted that failure to lend should be accounted a sin, since ‘aid and supply for the defence of the kingdom … are due to the king from his people by all law both of God and men’. These ‘instructions’ were duly approved by the Council, printed, and forwarded to Abbot and the archbishop of York, Tobie Matthew^*, for distribution throughout their respective provinces.150 Works, iii. 195; Heylyn, 161-6; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 440; R. Cust, Forced Loan, 49-50; Lords Procs. 1628, p. 635. Laud’s relations with the duke were now closer than ever. In March 1627, in the first ceremony of its kind since Buckingham became chancellor of Cambridge University, Laud’s Oxford doctorate was incorporated there. Later that month, the bishop was chosen to conduct the funeral of the favourite’s infant son.151 Works, iii. 200-2; Birch, Chas. I, i. 204. As Laud’s standing at court rose, rumours began to spread of further advancement. In December it was reported, incorrectly, that he was about to made bishop of Durham. His appointment in April 1627 to the Privy Council in turn prompted speculation that he was about to emulate his old rival Bishop Williams, and become lord keeper, replacing the independent-minded Sir Thomas Coventry^* (later 1st Lord Coventry).152 Birch, Chas. I, i. 179; APC, 1627, p. 253; HMC Buccleuch, iii. 318. This notion was wide of the mark. Although Laud attended the Council quite assiduously at first, from July his appearances became more haphazard, in part because he accompanied the king on his summer progress. His record briefly improved at the end of the year, coinciding with Buckingham’s return from campaigning in France, but he rarely turned up at all during 1628. For the moment the Church remained his primary sphere of activity. That being said, with the duke’s backing he now emerged as the leading anti-Calvinist bishop at court, finally eclipsing his mentor Neile, whose stock had fallen since the death of James I.153 APC, 1627, p. 259 and passim; 1627-8, passim; 1628-9, passim.; Heylyn, 169.

Laud’s perennial feud with Archbishop Abbot came to the fore again in April 1627, when the primate refused to license a sermon by Robert Sibthorpe in support of arbitrary taxes, claiming that it contained several statements contrary to the law. The matter was referred to Laud, whom Abbot subsequently described as ‘the only inward counsellor with Buckingham, sitting with him sometimes privately whole hours, and feeding his humour with malice and spite’. The bishop, together with his close associates Neile, Buckeridge, Howson and Montaigne, revised the sermon to meet Abbot’s objections, but the archbishop still declined to approve it. The king, infuriated by this obstruction of a key government policy, sequestered Abbot from his ecclesiastical jurisdiction in July, and in October handed his duties to a commission comprising Laud and the other bishops who had approved the sermon.154 Works, iii. 204-6; State Trials, ii. 1460-1; CSP Dom. 1627-8, pp. 157-8; Birch, Chas. I, i. 254. As a further sign of royal favour, Laud was also in June promised the diocese of London, in succession to Montaigne. Laud was not in fact entirely insensitive to the concerns raised by Abbot about Sibthorpe’s arguments, and in August actually tried to dissuade the king from publishing two further sermons in favour of the current Forced Loan, written by Roger Manwaring^† (later bishop of St Davids). Laud recognized that ‘there were many things therein which will be very distasteful to the people’, and accordingly counselled caution. However, when the king insisted on publication, he opted to suppress his own doubts and comply.155 Works, iii. 205; Lords Procs. 1628, p. 642.

By now Laud was probably feeling more vulnerable, Buckingham having gone off to France in a futile bid to relieve the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle. According to Heylyn, the duke intended his ‘assured friend’ the bishop to protect his interests at court in his absence, but Laud still very much needed Buckingham’s support to maintain his own position. From late June until November, he was largely starved of news of his patron, with only occasional exchanges of letters.156 Works, iii. 205-6; CSP Dom. 1627-8, pp. 267, 391; Trevor-Roper, 455; Heylyn, 169. Once the favourite was back in England, however, it was business as usual. Shortly after the duke’s return, Laud helped to secure the censure in High Commission of the adulterous Viscountess Purbeck. Around the same time, he firmly backed continuation of the war, despite recent military setbacks, and reiterated his support for arbitrary taxation, stating in a Privy Council debate that ‘where public necessity presses, extraordinary ways are to be admitted’. In December he was appointed by the Council to help consider a proposal to increase funding for the Savoy hospital in London, to equip it to care for sick and wounded soldiers.157 CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 451; M. Parry, ‘William Laud and the Parlty. Pols. of 1628-9’, PH, xxxvi. 141-2; APC, 1627-8, p. 166. A few weeks later, Matthew Wren briefed him on some controversial history lectures at Cambridge, which located ‘the right of monarchy in the people’s voluntary submission’, and included many other ‘dangerous passages … appliable [sic] to the exasperations of these villainous times’. The Privy Council was about to be informed, and Wren reasoned that, as Buckingham was bound to consult Laud about this matter, he should alert him to his concerns. Similarly, in January 1628 the ambassador at The Hague, Dudley Carleton^*, Lord Carleton (later Viscount Dorchester), raised concerns with Laud about the activities of English and Scottish nonconformist ministers in the Netherlands, on the assumption that he would communicate this information to the duke.158 CSP Dom. 1627-8, pp. 470, 514-15.

Towards the end of January, the Privy Council agreed to recommend summoning a new Parliament. At around this time Laud prepared two papers, probably at Buckingham’s request. One set out the benefits and drawbacks of another session, while the other compared Parliament’s track-record in voting supply with its attacks on the royal prerogative. Unsurprisingly, both documents were critical of the legislature. Laud recognized that popular resistance to arbitrary rule could not be ignored indefinitely; if the divisions between the king and his subjects could be healed, then the nation would benefit both at home and abroad. Moreover, there was a pressing need for a fresh grant of supply. Nevertheless, he was concerned about what concessions the Commons might seek in return for taxes. Reiterating his view that it was Parliament’s duty to fund the king on demand, he argued that the crown had fared badly in previous sessions, surrendering valuable prerogative rights without adequate compensation, and the largest conceivable vote of subsidies now would not meet all the king’s needs. In addition, Laud feared a fresh attack on the anti-Calvinist wing of the Church. In his view, Parliament should never have been allowed to interfere in ecclesiastical affairs at all, and had certainly exceeded its authority by questioning Montagu, and pontificating on doctrinal questions. The Church needed to be built up again, not undermined further, and a new session was highly unlikely to deliver that outcome. In short, if a realistic alternative to summoning Parliament had availed itself, Laud would have been in favour of it.159 SP16/94/88; 16/96/31; Russell, PEP, 52-3; Cust, Chas. I, 69-70; Parry, ‘Laud and Parlty. Pols.’, 143-7.

Parliamentary attacks and the death of Buckingham, 1628-9

In February 1628 Laud sprained his ankle, rendering himself lame for at least two months. He was still struggling to stand comfortably when he preached in Westminster Abbey on 17 Mar., prior to the State opening of Parliament. Once again, his sermon was designed to set the tone for the ensuing session, and although the substance of his oration was much the same as in 1626, he adopted a more conciliatory line. Taking as his text Ephesians 4:3, ‘endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace’, he applied this theme to both Church and State, observing sombrely that ‘the schisms and divisions of the one, are both mothers and nurses of all disobedience and disjointing in the other’. The subtext, for Laud at least, was clear; secular divisions would not be healed by raking over theological disputes. However, the king chose to focus on the implications for the State. In his brief remarks to both Houses later that day, Charles referred to the sermon, undertaking that he would draw a line under the disputes in previous parliaments if Members also left off ‘such distractions’, and entered into the ‘unity of the spirit’. Once again the sermon was rushed into print, but it would take more than pious sentiments to achieve genuine agreement.160 Works, i. 155-82; iii. 207; CD 1628, ii. 3; Parry, ‘Laud and Parlty. Pols.’, 145-6; Ferrell, 152.

Laud attended just over four-fifths of the 1628 session. He was formally excused five times, the early absences at least relating to his injured leg. At a call of the House of Lords on 22 Mar., his lameness was cited as the cause of his non-attendance, while on 3 Apr. he sought permission to miss part of the forthcoming fast day, for fear of exacerbating the injury.161 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 72, 87, 112, 148, 374, 563, 678. Laud was entrusted with the proxies of Bishop Thornborough of Worcester, and also of Thomas Dove^*, bishop of Peterborough. In addition, he was offered the proxies of Archbishop Matthew and Lewis Bayly, bishop of Bangor, but was unable to accept them, on account of the 1626 ruling on the holding of multiple proxies. On the king’s orders, Archbishop Abbot awarded Laud his proxy for the concurrent meeting of Convocation, though this instruction did not also apply to Parliament.162 Ibid. 25; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 3.

At the opening of this session, in a clear signal of royal favour, Laud was named as a trier of petitions from England, Scotland and Ireland. As usual, he contributed comparatively little to the Lords’ proceedings, receiving 13 other nominations, and making eight speeches. Predictably he was appointed to the bill committees concerned with recusancy, reform of Sabbath abuses, and leases made by bishops.163 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 62, 389, 421, 627. He was also named to the committee to consider proposals tabled by Buckingham for increasing trade, and nominated to scrutinize bills to preserve the crown’s revenues, confirm the queen’s ownership of her principal residences, and naturalize Balthazar Gerbier, the duke’s favourite architect.164 Ibid. 103, 146, 606, 641. On 31 May he commented on a privilege claim on behalf of the chaplain of Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex, which had arisen from a dispute between two members of St John’s College. Untypically, on 6 May, in Buckingham’s absence, Laud broke ranks with the government’s spokesmen, and gave his backing to the demand that peers should be allowed to testify in court on their honour rather than on oath.165 Ibid. 385-6, 572.

Laud evidently followed the debates on the liberties of the subject, collecting and annotating several transcripts of speeches and reports. These included the Commons’ resolutions on liberties, agreed on 3 Apr., Bishop Harsnett’s subsequent comments on them, and declarations by the king on 4 Apr. and 12 May intended to address Members’ concerns. He took particular interest in a speech by Sir Benjamin Rudyard^‡ on 28 Apr., which called for a bill to guarantee liberties, but which was also broadly conciliatory to the crown. Laud interpreted Rudyard’s proposals rather differently, noting with disapproval their author’s ‘aim for frequent parliaments’, rejecting his correlation of the common law and the common good, and alleging that his real objective was to limit the royal prerogative.166 SP16/100/1, 32; 16/102/14, 43; 16/103/68; Parry, ‘Laud and Parlty. Pols.’, 148-50. Apart from an inconclusive observation on 21 Apr. about the workings of arbitrary imprisonment, the bishop did not engage in the Lords’ debates on liberties until 19 May, by which time the Petition of Right was under discussion, with peers pushing for several amendments, including the addition of a proviso upholding the royal prerogative. Having first suggested that the Lords should give way to the Commons over minor phrasing issues, but stand their ground over the more contentious saving clause, he then changed his mind, asserting that the word ‘unlawful’ (relating to an oath imposed in connection with the Forced Loan) must be altered. He then attempted to argue that the saving clause could in fact be interpreted as protecting subjects’ liberties, because the prerogative was exercised only in cases of ‘emergent’ necessity. Not until 7 June, when Buckingham belatedly changed tack over the Petition to protect himself, did Laud finally drop his own objections, and join calls for the king to give the document a more satisfactory, traditional answer.167 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 313, 462, 467-8, 602; R. Lockyer, Buckingham, 440.

By this juncture, Laud was probably anxious for the session to finish, since he himself had come under attack by the Commons. As early as 27 May he had obtained details of eight bills in the lower House which he regarded as meddling in Church affairs, asserting lay influence, and promoting Calvinist opinions.168 SP16/105/26. However, the situation deteriorated significantly on 12 June, when the lower House sent a message to the Lords, requesting punishment of the men responsible for the publication of Roger Manwaring’s sermons in support of the Forced Loan. Laud was not specifically named, but in his diary the bishop noted this as a personal criticism. Indeed, two days later, it was confirmed in the upper House that Bishop Montaigne of London had authorized the printing on Laud’s instructions. Put on the spot, the bishop blustered that he could ‘give no sudden answer unto this report’, but admitted that he had written to Montaigne ‘by his Majesty’s express commandment’. After a friendly intervention by Philip Herbert^*, 1st earl of Montgomery, who explained that Laud had tried to dissuade the king, the House cleared him of blame.169 CD 1628, iv. 282-3; Works, iii. 207-8; Lords Procs. 1628, p. 642. However, he was not yet out of the woods. That same day, 14 June, the Commons’ remonstrance against Buckingham and his policies named both Laud and Neile as suspected Arminians. Ironically, the draft text had merely referred to clergy near the king, but when the courtier Richard Spencer^‡ objected that this might reflect upon the bishops generally, Members opted to be more specific. When the remonstrance was presented to Charles at Whitehall three days later, Neile faced down his critics, but Laud withdrew from the room.170 CD 1628, iv. 313; HMC Cowper, i. 350-1.

Following the prorogation, the king commissioned Laud and another of Buckingham’s leading clients, Sir Richard Weston, now 1st Lord Weston, to produce a reply to the remonstrance. This counterblast, which was not ultimately used, emphatically denied the Commons’ complaint of ‘the daily growth and spreading of the Arminian faction, called a cunning way to bring in popery’. However, rather than addressing the issue of what constituted doctrinal orthodoxy, Laud’s draft stuck by the government’s policy of avoiding theological controversy, and merely described as absurd the notion that ‘any opinion or faction or whatever it be called’ could be introduced to England without the crown’s knowledge. There were no plans for ‘alteration’ or ‘innovation’. The accusation against the two bishops was condemned as lacking any supporting evidence. As for the remonstrance’s complaint about the premature collapse of so many recent parliaments, Laud countered that these assemblies had brought this upon themselves: ‘forgetting their ancient and fair way of proceeding, [they] have swelled till they broke themselves’.171 Procs. 1628, pp. 52-6; Parry, ‘Laud and Parlty. Pols.’, 152-4.

As early as March 1628, rumours circulated of Laud’s imminent translation to the diocese of London, in anticipation of the translation of Bishop Montaigne to Durham. In the event, the latter actually became archbishop of York at the start of July, whereupon Laud was immediately nominated as his successor. He took up his new role less than a fortnight later, on 15 July, the same day that Weston became lord treasurer. As the bishop wrote to his friend Scudamore, ‘it was a day of change both for clergy and lay’, but he felt serious misgivings, seeing ‘all things made uncertain by the necessities of the time’, and wondering: ‘How I shall comply with that, having always gone upon constant ways, I cannot tell’. In conclusion, he expected ‘nothing but trouble and danger’.172 Birch, Chas. I, i. 330, 371; CSP Dom. 1628-9, pp. 189-90; Works, iii. 208; Trevor-Roper, 455.

Ostensibly, despite the unsettling events of the recent parliamentary session, events were moving decisively in Laud’s preferred direction. In March he had procured the promotion of his old mentor Buckeridge to the diocese of Ely, the vacancy at Rochester being filled by another of his friends, Walter Curle^*. In July, at Buckingham’s behest, Richard Montagu was appointed bishop of Chichester, Laud personally notifying the signet office of the king’s decision. Other allies such as Matthew Wren were being pushed forward as preachers at court.173 CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 47; J. Davies, Caroline Captivity of the Church, 41 n. 190; Works, iv. 273; LC5/132, p. 38. A storm was brewing at Durham, where John Cosin^† (later bishop of Durham) stood accused of introducing popish rituals at the cathedral, and tampering with the contents of the Book of Common Prayer, after Laud identified some faults in the text. However, Cosin’s accuser had been summoned before High Commission, and his attempts to counter-attack through the common law courts had thus far failed, so that issue seemed to be under control.174 CSP Dom. 1628-9, pp. 187, 243, 259-60, 266.

On 22 Aug. Laud was instructed to prepare a form of prayer for the success of the fleet currently being prepared against France, emphasizing that the expedition was in support of true religion, and for the relief of oppressed Protestants. The next day, his beloved patron Buckingham was assassinated at Portsmouth, Hampshire. The news reached Laud on 24 Aug., while he was attending Montagu’s consecration at Croydon, Surrey, Archbishop Abbot’s country residence, and shook him to his core. Writing to Edward Conway^*, 1st Viscount Conway, the senior secretary of state and another of the duke’s closest associates, the bishop described the ‘accursed fact’ as the ‘saddest accident’ of his life.175 Ibid. 264; Works, iii. 208; CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 269. Three weeks later, he was still struggling to comprehend what had happened. As he explained to Scudamore: ‘I purpose not to write these [words] either to declaim in his [Buckingham’s] commendations, which so few would believe, or to express my grief, which as few would pity, but only to let your lordship know that though I have passed a great deal of heaviness, yet I have cause to expect more to come’. Although the king had sent him several ‘very gracious letters’, Laud had only just returned to court, and felt out of place there without his long-term protector.176 Trevor-Roper, 456; Works, iii. 209. Despite speculation that he might himself fill the void left by the duke at the head of the government, this role was swiftly assumed by Weston, and Laud resumed his duties in London, where he had launched a vigorous assault on nonconformist clergy, the first serious attempt to tackle this issue for nearly two decades.177 M.V.C. Alexander, Chas. I’s Lord Treasurer, 130; Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, 217.

In fact, Laud was right to feel apprehensive. Although Parliament was prorogued in October, the next session was still due to begin in January 1629, and the Calvinists on the Privy Council lobbied hard for concessions conducive to a more successful encounter between the king and his Commons. Laud and his allies achieved an early victory, securing a reissue of the Thirty-Nine Articles, with a vague preface stating that they should be taken according to their ‘true, usual and literal meaning’. However, by November Archbishop Abbot and his friends had the upper hand, and Richard Montagu was forced to disown the Arminian views expressed in his published works. When, on 27 Nov., the king proposed that the bishops currently in the capital should review the tenets of Arminianism, and condemn any which were contrary to the Anglican Articles, the lord steward, William Herbert^*, 3rd earl of Pembroke, countered that this task should instead be referred to Convocation, since most of the prelates at court were themselves Arminian. Now feeling under serious pressure, Laud distanced himself from Montagu, and publicly renounced Arminianism himself at a meeting of the High Commission. In December Abbot was formally restored to royal favour, after nearly 18 months in disgrace, and just three days before Parliament met again, Montagu’s most notorious book, Appello Caesarem, was officially suppressed by proclamation.178 R. Cust, ‘Was there an Alternative to the Personal Rule? Chas. I, the Privy Council and the Parl. of 1629’, History, xc. 341-2; Cosin Corresp. i. 152; Birch, Chas. I, i. 439.

Laud attended all but four sittings of the short 1629 session, once again holding the proxies of bishops Thornborough and Dove. He attracted eight appointments, but spoke only twice in the upper House. Steering well away from controversial topics, on 7 Feb. he affirmed the good character of a printer responsible for a libellous brief circulated in Parliament by Francis Leak^*, 1st Lord Deincourt. A week later, he defended the system of briefs issued by bishops for church repairs, which had just been criticized by Lord Keeper Coventry. Following on from this speech, Laud was appointed to help draft bills to prevent the decay of church buildings, and to improve curates’ stipends. He had already been named on 21 Jan. to the committee for another bill on clergy maintenance.179 LJ, iv. 3a, 7b, 23b, 31a; HMC Buccleuch, iii. 338. By comparison, Laud can scarcely have welcomed two other nominations, to help draft a resolution and petition concerning peers’ objections to Englishmen being granted Scottish or Irish titles, since this business constituted an attack on the royal prerogative. Both statements were markedly critical of the crown, and the bishop evidently failed to moderate their tone, assuming that he attended these committees. In the session’s final weeks Laud was appointed to attend the king when the Lords petitioned him to augment the estates of the impoverished Robert de Vere^*, 19th earl of Oxford, and to consider a proposal for an academy for aristocratic children, the revival of a project last mooted by Buckingham in 1628. He was also named to the committee to review the kingdom’s defences.180 LJ, iv. 25b, 27b, 34b, 37b, 39b.

Meanwhile, trouble was once again brewing in the Commons. On 29 Jan. Members formally rejected all Catholic or Arminian interpretations of the Thirty-Nine Articles, Laud noting this development in his diary as a ‘challenge … in matters of religion’. Five days later, he and Neile were blamed for Montagu’s appointment as a bishop, notwithstanding the assurances of a privy councillor, Sir Humphrey May^‡, that both men had renounced Arminianism. On 4 Feb. Laud was accused of blocking the re-publication of the Calvinist Articles of Ireland.181 SP16/133/27; CD 1629, pp. 35, 125. Next came a petition from London booksellers on 11 Feb., complaining that the bishop had authorized the publication of Arminian and popish works, but prevented the printing of Calvinist polemics. From the Commons’ point of view, a clear pattern was emerging, and when the House generated its own articles of religion, they included the complaint that Laud and Neile, ‘prelates near the king, have gotten the chief administration of ecclesiastical affairs …, have discountenanced and hindered the preferment of those that are orthodox, and favoured such as are contrary’. The hasty dissolution of Parliament ensured that this attack went no further, but on 2 Mar., as Members briefly postponed the inevitable, Laud was once more denounced as a supporter of Arminianism or popery, and in consequence a traitor to the king and State.182 CD 1629, pp. 100, 138; Birch, Chas. I, ii. 12.

Laud’s triumph and fall, 1629-45

Almost 12 more years would pass before such accusations were voiced in Parliament again. In the interim, Laud consolidated his position as one of the king’s chief ministers. Although he had to wait until 1633 to succeed George Abbot as archbishop of Canterbury, he enjoyed very considerable influence over the English Church from 1629. While Charles retained ultimate control over ecclesiastical affairs, in practice he allowed Laud free rein to push through his reform agenda.183 CSP Ven. 1628-9, p. 589; Birch, Chas. I, ii. 332; Works, v. 359-60. Continuing the pattern already established during Buckingham’s lifetime, Laud promoted his clerical allies as bishops, deans and royal chaplains, substantially reshaping the Anglican hierarchy.184 Fincham, ‘Laud and Eccles. Patronage’, 72, 75-81, 83, 88, 92-3; N.W.S. Cranfield, ‘Chaplains in Ordinary at the Early Stuart Ct.’, Patronage and Recruitment in the Tudor and Stuart Church ed. C. Cross, 124-5. As bishop of London, and then archbishop, he encouraged the repair of church buildings, and drove through the long-delayed restoration of St Paul’s Cathedral. He also endeavoured to improve the financial position of the lesser clergy.185 Fincham and Tyacke, 136-7, 142; G. Parry, Arts of the Anglican Counter-Reformation, 47; Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, 140. Simultaneously, through his control over the licensing of new publications, he strictly enforced royal edicts designed to end the theological controversies which had dogged the early years of Charles’s reign.186 C.S. Clegg, Press Censorship in Caroline Eng. 83; CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 525. However, what Laud saw as the renewal of good order in the Church, equipping it better to answer Catholic criticisms, was open to other interpretations. The increased emphasis on ceremonial, the widespread introduction of altar-rails enclosing communion tables at the east end of churches, the heavy-handed suppression of nonconformity, and brutal censorship of Calvinist polemic, served to alienate and enrage the puritan element within society, and convince many people that he was really intent on converting England back to Catholicism.187 Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 202-6; State Trials, iii. 549-51, 553, 562; Procs. against William Prynne ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. n.s. xviii), 27-8; Works, iii. 228; Birch, Chas. I, ii. 227-8; Clegg, 111; G. Parry, 102. The offer of a cardinal’s hat as soon as Laud became archbishop merely confirmed that impression, which was not dispelled by his intermittent clashes with Queen Henrietta Maria over her Catholic chaplains, or his occasional praise of Calvin. Laud attempted to address these concerns in 1639 by republishing his tract on the conference with Fisher, but this failed to have the desired effect.188 Works, iii. 219, 229-30; Harl. 7000, ff. 348-9; Milton, 86. The widespread perception that Laud possessed too much influence was encouraged by his interference in ecclesiastical affairs in Ireland and Scotland, which officially lay outside his jurisdiction. With the help of his close political ally, Thomas Wentworth^*, 1st Viscount Wentworth (later 1st earl of Strafford), lord deputy of Ireland from 1632, he encouraged the introduction of new Irish Canons, which he partially drafted, and agitated for the restitution of church lands which had passed into lay hands.189 C115/106/8397; HMC Hastings, iv. 55, 62-6. In Scotland, Laud possessed no equivalent leverage, and the Scottish Parliament was guaranteed to obstruct any efforts to bring the Kirk more in line with English patterns. Accordingly, he relied on the crown’s prerogative powers to force through changes to the canons, and the imposition of a new prayer book, brushing aside any objections from the Scottish bishops. How far these innovations revived Laud’s Jacobean proposals for Scotland is unclear, but they were certainly designed to weaken the presbyterian system which he so despised.190 L. James, ‘William Laud, Chas. I and the Making of Scottish Eccles. Policy, 1634-6’, HR, xc. 507, 509-15, 517-19.

By comparison with the ecclesiastical sphere, Laud enjoyed rather less influence over secular affairs during the Personal Rule. As chancellor of Oxford University from 1630, he enhanced his reputation as a reformer, with a comprehensive overhaul of the statutes, and confirmation of the university’s privileges.191 K. Fincham, ‘Oxford and the Early Stuart Polity’, Hist. of Univ. of Oxf. iv. ed. N. Tyacke, 199, 201, 203. However, his views on reform of the country at large carried much less weight. It was Lord Treasurer Weston (later Portland) who emerged as chief minister in Buckingham’s place, his suave political skills and superior grasp of domestic and foreign policy easily trumping his rival’s prickly demands for sweeping changes. Laud strongly disapproved of Portland’s crypto-Catholicism, financial strategies and management style, firmly believing that he was lining his own pockets at the crown’s expense, and mismanaging the king’s revenues. Nevertheless, Laud never mastered the art of court politics, and once Wentworth departed for Ireland he had few genuine allies within the government apart from his friend Francis Windebank^‡, for whom he obtained the post of junior secretary of state in 1632. Laud finally began sitting on more important Privy Council committees in 1633, shortly before his translation to Canterbury, but a determined effort to dislodge Portland in the following year on grounds of corruption missed its mark.192 Alexander, 68, 129, 188-9, 191, 195-8; Works, iii. 215. When the lord treasurer died in 1635, Laud became a Treasury commissioner, but even then he was unable to introduce the changes that he desired, since the chancellor of the Exchequer, Francis Cottington^†, Lord Cottington, proved as adept as Portland at outmanoeuvring Laud, and maintaining the old policies.193 Clarendon, i. 130-2; Works, vii. 143-5, 159. The archbishop’s hopes that Wentworth might become the new lord treasurer came to nothing, the king proving reluctant to recall him from Dublin, and Laud seems briefly to have sought the office for himself. In the event, the post went instead in 1636 to William Juxon^†, Laud’s successor as bishop of London, and sometime protégé. The archbishop noted in his diary that this was the first time since before the Reformation that the treasurership had been held by a cleric, seemingly a sign that he approved of Juxon’s appointment. However, while this development seemed to many to symbolize the growing closeness of Church and State, in practice Juxon found Cottington more congenial than Laud, and continued most of the existing policies.194 B. Quintrell, ‘The Church Triumphant? The Emergence of a Spiritual Lord Treasurer, 1635-6’, Political World of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford ed. J.F. Merritt, 81, 84, 88-91, 94-8, 100-1; Works, iii. 215-16, 226; Fincham, ‘Eccles. Patronage’, 70, 79.

Laud’s interference in the Scottish Kirk, particularly the introduction of an English-style liturgy, did much to precipitate the Covenanter uprising of 1637. As the rebellion’s scale became clear, the archbishop endeavoured publicly to downplay his personal influence. However, behind the scenes he was kept fully briefed on developments, and became the key intermediary between Charles and the latter’s principal agent in Scotland, James Hamilton^*, 2nd earl of Cambridge and 3rd marquess (later 1st duke) of Hamilton [S]. Following the inconclusive First Bishops’ War of 1639, Laud and Wentworth finally emerged as the king’s most important advisers. It was they who persuaded Charles that the Scottish rebellion must be crushed, regardless of the cost, thereby precipitating the final crisis that led to the re-summoning of Parliament.195 Autobiog. of Sir John Bramston ed. P. Braybrooke (Cam. Soc. xxxii), 64; Birch, Chas. I, ii. 346; L. James, This Great Firebrand, 122-6, 128-9, 136; M.C. Fissel, Bishops’ Wars, 39, 47, 114; Works, iii. 233, 282-3; HMC Hastings, iv. 83-4; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 182. In the Convocation which accompanied the Short Parliament of 1640, Laud pushed through a new set of Canons intended to confirm all the ecclesiastical changes of the preceding decade, but this proved to be a pyrrhic victory.196 CSP Dom. 1640, p. 40; Works, iii. 236. When the Long Parliament met later that year, he and Strafford were both accused of high treason, impeached by the Commons, and imprisoned. Strafford was tried and executed in 1641, but Laud was left in confinement for another three years before facing a travesty of a trial, the outcome of which was never in doubt. He was beheaded on Tower Hill in January 1645. Nevertheless, 15 years later, the restoration of the monarchy saw the reconstruction of the Church of England, and it was Laud’s vision of Anglicanism, in terms of both liturgy and theology, which ultimately triumphed.197 HMC Cowper, ii. 268-9; LJ, iv. 112b; Works, iii. 239, 242; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 387; CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 228, 241; Tyacke, ‘Abp. Laud’, 51.