Douglas was followed to Rome by Sir William Hamilton, to prosecute this secret business, but it all came to nothing, for the king, who was sincere in his attachment to the English Church, was not likely to listen to any proposal for submitting again to the yoke of Rome; and the Pope, on his part, would not comply with Charles's request to exert his influence with Catholic Austria for the restoration of his sister and her son in the Palatinate so long as they continued Protestants. Laud was therefore relieved from his temptation to receive the cardinal's hat by the resolve of the king to yield not one jot of his spiritual or political power; and a Scottish Catholic named Conn being at Rome, was mentioned as candidate for the purple instead. He came to England and was graciously received, not only by the queen, but the king too. He resided in England three years, but without the cardinal's hat, and was succeeded by Count Rossetti as the Pope's envoy. The rumours of the offers of the scarlet hat to Laud, and the residence of these Papal envoys in London, excited the jealousy of the people and added immensely to Charles's unpopularity; for no one felt sure of his real faith.
As Laud, however, could not array himself in scarlet as a cardinal, he determined to make the Anglican Church as Popish, and himself as much of a Pope, as possible. Before reaching the Primacy he had gone a good way. The spoliation of the Church by Henry VIII. and Edward VI., and their greedy nobility, had deprived it of the means of keeping the ecclesiastical buildings in repair. The Catholic Church in England had devoted the property of the Establishment to three objects: one, to the maintenance of the clergy and religious orders; the second, to the maintenance of the buildings of the churches and cathedrals; and the third to the support of the poor. Thus the patrimony of the poor was swallowed up by the aristocracy, and the maintenance of the poor thrown upon the country; and fixed there by the 43rd of Elizabeth. The patrimony of the public for the maintenance of Church buildings being equally shared by the Russells, Villierses, Seymours, Dudleys, and a thousand other Court leeches, neither Charles nor Laud, with all their stickling for the Church, dared to call upon them to disgorge their prey; but a proclamation was issued to the bishops for the repairs of all the churches and chapels, and they were to levy the necessary rates on the parishioners at large, and to exert the powers of the ecclesiastical courts against all such as resisted.
DUNBLANE IN THE 17TH CENTURY.
This excited a serious ferment amongst the people, which was greatly increased by the general opinion that these repairs should be done out of the tithes which they paid either to lay or clerical personages. Laud carried matters with far too high a hand to pay the slightest regard to these complaints, and he proceeded to consecrate such churches as were thus repaired, with all the splendid ceremony of Catholicism, as if they had been desecrated by their neglect.
He obtained a commission under the Great Seal for the repair of St. Paul's Cathedral. The judges of the prerogative courts, and their officials throughout England and Wales, were ordered to pay into the chamber in London all moneys derived from persons dying intestate, to be applied to the restoration of this church. The clergy were called on by the bishops in their several dioceses to furnish an annual subsidy for this object. The king contributed at various times ten thousand pounds, Sir Paul Pindar four thousand pounds, and Laud gave one hundred pounds a year. He was bent on making St. Paul's a rival of St. Peter's; and as more money became necessary, he summoned wealthy people into the High Commission Court on all possible pleas, and fined them heavily; so that there was a plentiful crop of money and of murmurs against the Primate, who was said to be building the church out of the sins of the people.
Laud had obtained for his devoted adherents Windebank and Juxon, Dean of Westminster, the posts of Secretary of State and of Clerk of the King's Closet respectively; thus, as Heylin observes, the king was so well watched by his staunch friends that it was not easy for any one to insinuate anything to Laud's disadvantage; and the Primate went on most sweepingly in his own way. He put down all evening lecturing, evening meetings, and extemporary praying. He re-introduced in the churches painted glass, pictures, and surplices, lawn-sleeves, and embroidered caps; had the communion-tables removed, and altars placed instead, and railed in; and he carried his innovations with such an arbitrary hand that many who might have approved of them in themselves were set against them. The stricter reformers complained of the looseness with which the Sabbath was kept, and the Lord Chief Justice Richardson and Baron Denham issued an order in the western circuit to put an end to the disorders attending church-ales, bid-ales, clerk-ales, and the like. But no sooner did Laud hear of it than he had the Lord Chief Justice summoned before the Council and severely reprimanded as interfering with the commands of King James for the practice of such Sunday sports, as recommended in his Book of Sports, and since confirmed by Charles.
ARCHBISHOP LAUD.
The country magistrates, who had seen the demoralisation consequent on these sports and Sunday gatherings at the ale-houses, petitioned the king to put them down; and the petition was signed by Lord Paulet, Sir William Portman, Sir Ralph Hopeton, and many other gentlemen of distinction. But they were forestalled by the agility of Laud, who procured from the king a declaration sanctioning all the Sunday amusements to be found in the Book of Sports, and commanding all judges on circuit, and all justices of the peace, to see that no man was molested on that account. This declaration was ordered to be read in all parish churches by the clergy. Many conscientious clergy, who had seen too much of the dissolute riots resulting from these rude gatherings on Sundays, refused to read the declaration, and were suspended from their duties, and prosecuted to such a degree that they had no alternative but to emigrate to America.