Whilst he was Proctor at Cambridge, he conducted a magnificent entertainment, given to the Lord Chancellor Egerton, and to the Spanish ambassadors, on which occasion Egerton told him that he “was fit to serve a king,” and afterwards introduced him at court.[[367]]
The chief circumstance that brought Williams into notice was his figuring at Cambridge in a disputation, before Prince Charles, in 1612-13,[[368]] when he was made a Bachelor of Divinity by special grace, in order that he might become a disputant in the Theological Controversy.[[369]]
Still, great subserviency was expected even from the Lord Keeper in those days of despotic rule. The industrious letter writer, John Chamberlain, who supplies us with all the gossip and news which, in those days, had no outlet in the public press, writes of this new appointment in these terms:—
“The King has made the Dean of Westminster Lord Keeper for a year and a half; if he behave well, he is to retain office for a year and a half longer, and then to surrender it: he is to consult one of the Chief Justices in all cases of importance.”[[370]]
He quietly adds, immediately afterwards, that the Bishop of Bangor had been sent to the Fleet for disputing “malapertly” with the King on the Sabbath; and that Dr. Price had shared the same punishment for his sermon at Oatlands. The “Prevaricator” of Cambridge was expelled the University for saying, at a banquet that he gave, that he would have all sorts of instruments except Gondomar’s pipe.[[371]] The Lord Keeper’s “good behaviour,” therefore, meant an absolute subjection of reason and understanding; and, more especially, an entire adherence to that line of politics which might happen to be agreeable at the time to the King.
The Great Seal, when it had been fetched from the miserable Bacon, was delivered by the King, in presence of the Prince and the Privy Council, to Williams, and was received with a short speech, “marvelling at His Majesty’s benignity,” and promising to be pastor of the sheep. In his first speech in the Court of Chancery, the Lord Keeper vindicated the principle on which the King had determined to fill up the post with one who was not a lawyer.[[372]]
A few months before Buckingham, who, as “Steward of the City and College of Westminster,” was patron of the Deanery, had made the young disputant Dean of Westminster. Williams, nevertheless, abstained from paying any court to the Favourite; his pride and honesty kept him aloof. “For he had observed,” says Bishop Hacket, “that the Marquis was very apt suddenly to look cloudy upon his creatures, as if he had raised them up on purpose to cast them down.” One day, however, whilst the Dean was attending upon King James, in the absence of the Marquis, the Monarch suddenly inquired, without any relation to the previous discourse, “when he was at Buckingham?” “Sir,” replied Williams, “I have had no business to go to his lordship.” “But,” rejoined the King, “you must go to him about my business,” and Williams accordingly sought an interview with the Marquis. The Favourite and the Dean were thus brought into contact, and the result was favourable to both. To Buckingham it procured an able and, for the time, a zealous friend, to whom he owed the great service which Williams afterwards performed in converting Lady Katherine Manners from Popery; and Williams obtained, for his part, a munificent and deserving patron. A different version of the causes of Williams’s elevation was given by a scandalous historian. According to Sir Anthony Weldon, it was owing to the hopes which the Countess of Buckingham entertained of becoming, in her third nuptials, the wife of Williams, who is said to have “thought otherwise of that marriage when he was Lord Keeper Williams, than he had done as Dean of Westminster,”[Westminster,”][[373]] “which,” he adds, “was the cause of his downfall.” But this report was wholly without foundation. “Williams was generally beloved by his neighbours,” says Bishop Goodman, “and for that report, that he should be great with Buckingham’s mother, it is an idle, foolish report, without any colour of truth.”[[374]] His appointment as Lord Keeper gave, however, great offence to the members of the bar. It was loudly resented that the highest post in the law should be bestowed upon a doctor of divinity; and this step was, it was supposed, preparatory to filling all the courts of judicature with churchmen. Williams, nevertheless, proved himself to be admirably adapted for the office. He had already gained general confidence by persuading the King to suffer Parliament to sit, and to go on, in opposition to those who, being afraid of exposure, had endeavoured to prejudice Buckingham and his royal master against that assembly.[[375]] As a chancellor, he was acknowledged, even by the most distrustful, to be a faithful counsellor; and by the friendship and instruction of the Lord Chancellor, Egerton, to whom he had been domestic chaplain, he had been prepared for the great duties of his legal office. Egerton, on his death, had addressed to Williams these words:—“If you want money, I will leave you such a legacy as shall furnish you to begin the world like a gentleman. I know,” he added, “you are an expert workmen. Take these tools to broach with: they are the best I have.” He then gave him some books and papers, which he had written with his own hand, being directions concerning the regulation of the High Court of Parliament, the Court of Chancery, and the Star Chamber, for the dying Chancellor foresaw that his chaplain might, in the course of his career, require such materials.[[376]]
The promotion of Williams involved very important consequences to the English Church. It was by his instrumentality that Bishop Laud was first brought forward at the Court of James.
Williams foresaw the rise of that eminent and unfortunate man, but few persons could have predicted his fall.
An accidental circumstance drew upon Laud the attention which his learning, his zeal, and his ardent piety, tainted as it was by bigotry, might not have procured him. Bishops, and even archbishops, in those days, were, as we have seen, by no means restricted from the diversions of the hunting-field, nor even, if occasion occurred, from martial exploits. Archbishop Abbot, among the rest, had been a jovial huntsman. The practice was, it is true, forbidden by the canons of the church, but those had not been admitted by the law of the land. There was a high and violent party in the church, who were eager that Abbot should be deprived of his ecclesiastical dignities, on account of the accident in which he shot a keeper, a mishap which the worst construction could only render into justifiable homicide. Laud was amongst the most vehement of these, and his views of the case were so rigid, that he did not consider the orders which Archbishop Abbot conferred afterwards to be valid. There were others who judged differently, and amongst the rest, the justly celebrated Lancelot Andrews, who maintained that since Bishop Juxon was famous for breeding the best dogs in England, and was yet worthy to be promoted to a see, Abbot was excusable.