He justified, and did all he could to support Charles I. in all the illegal and arbitrary measures[measures] of his government. In 1626, after he had dissolved his Parliament, because they were too intent upon the redress of grievances, though they had voted four subsidies, and three fifteenths, he resolved to raise money by the illegal method of a loan. And to promote this, who so fit as Laud; who, with others of his brethren, were, as the complete historian expresses it, unhappily “engaged in the interest of Buckingham, and very forward in those measures which the king unfortunately took.” Accordingly Laud received a command from the king to draw up instructions to shew the urgency of the king’s affairs, and his occasions of supply. These instructions Laud soon got ready; and the king sent them as letters of precept to the two archbishops, to be communicated to their suffragans, to be published in all the parishes of the kingdom. This was justly looked upon as a stratagem of state to promote the raising of money without a parliament, and Laud was employed as the fittest tool to promote these arbitrary measures of the king. The papists joined with the bishops, and were very forward in the loan: whilst the puritans were backward in it; and some of the best gentlemen in the kingdom, upon their refusal to lend money, were immediately committed to several jails.
Besides this, the court had their parsons to preach up absolute obedience to the king’s commands. Sibthorp, in his sermon at Northampton, laid it down as gospel, that “It is the king’s duty to direct and make laws; that he doth whatever pleaseth him; and that it is the subject’s duty to yield a passive obedience.” Manwaring, in a sermon, spoke more plainly, and affirmed, that “the king was not bound to observe the laws of the realm concerning the subject’s rights and liberties; but that his royal will and command, in imposing loans and taxes, without common consent of Parliament, doth oblige the subject’s conscience, upon pain of eternal damnation;”[damnation;”] and that those who refused the loan, became guilty of impiety, disloyalty, and rebellion. And yet infamous as this doctrine was, and subversive of all the laws of the kingdom, Laud was their patron and advocate; and in contempt of the censure of the House of Lords on Manwaring, gave him first as his reward a good benefice, and afterwards advanced him to the Bishoprick of St. David. And because this parliament, which had censured Manwaring, had also complained of Laud himself, and passed a vote against innovations in religion, and against such as should counsel and advise the levying of tonnage and poundage without grant of parliament; Laud, out of his great love for the liberties of the kingdom, advised the king to dissolve it; which he accordingly did, to the great discontent of the nation in general.
Another illegal project for raising money, was by a tax to provide and maintain a certain number of ships to guard the seas; and writs were sent all over the kingdom, An. 1636, for this purpose. Laud was peculiarly active in this affair; and as several persons refused to pay the sums they were rated at, they were summoned before the council table, where they were brow-beaten, and sentenced to jail by Laud, and others of the council.[[352]] Laud acknowledges he gave his vote with the rest, and he had an hand in these and almost all other illegal pressures for ship-money; and in his diary he tells us, that “Dec. 5, 1639. A resolution was voted at the council board,” when he was present, “to assist the king in extraordinary ways, if the parliament should prove peevish, and refuse, &c.”
[[353]]The endeavouring arbitrarily to reduce the kirk of Scotland to the discipline of the church of England, was also by Laud’s persuasion and advice; who was ordered by the king to hold continual correspondence with the bishops and council of Scotland, and to take with them the necessary measures to accomplish the design. [[354]]The Scots bishops were so lifted up, says Burnet, with the king’s zeal, and so encouraged by Archbishop Laud, that they lost all temper. And when the violent measures that were used to impose the liturgy, &c. drove the Scots to an open rupture, he forwardly procured an order of council, directed to the two archbishops, to write their several letters to the bishops, that they might incite their clergy to assist the king to reduce the Scots. Laud accordingly wrote to his several suffragans, and raised by the clergy a very great sum on this occasion. The queen also wrote letters to promote contributions amongst the Roman catholics, to further the same good cause. So that Laud and his clergy, the queen and her papists, joined hand in hand to destroy or enslave the protestants of Scotland; who rose in their own defence, and to preserve themselves from the arbitrary measures of this tyrannical archpriest.
But it would be endless to reckon up all the instances of his illegal proceedings. He was a confederate with all the enemies of the liberties of these kingdoms, and pushed on the unhappy king to such fatal measures, as at last produced the civil wars and the subversion of the constitution. He was chief counsellor and minister after Buckingham’s death; so that as Sir Edward Deering said of him, to the parliament, “Our manifold griefs do fill a mighty and vast circumference, yet so that from every part our lines of sorrow do lead unto him, and point at him the centre, from whence our miseries in this church, and many of them in the commonwealth, do flow.” Sir Harbottle Grimstone was more severe, who called him, “The sty of all pestilential filth—The great and common enemy of all goodness, and good men—A viper near his majesty’s person, to distill poison into his sacred ears.”
These and the like violences of Laud and his creatures, drew down the just vengeance of the parliament on his head, and involved the church of England itself in his ruin. Bishops and common prayer were now no more. The church was formed after a quite different model, and the presbyterian discipline received and established, both the lords and commons taking the solemn league and covenant, which was intended for the utter abolishing prelatical government. The writers of the church party think this an everlasting brand of infamy upon the presbyterians. But how doth this throw greater infamy upon them, than the subversion of presbytery in Scotland, and the imposing canons and common prayer on that nation, doth on Laud and his creatures? If the alteration of the established religion, in any nation, be a crime in itself, it is so in every nation; and I doubt not but the Scotch presbyterians, think that that archbishop, and the prelatical party, acted as unjustly, illegally, and tyrannically, in introducing the English form of church government and worship into Scotland, contrary[contrary] to their former settlement, and the inclination of almost the whole nation, as the high-church party can do with respect to the presbyterians, for altering the form of the establishment in England; And, indeed, the same arguments that will vindicate the alterations made in Scotland by the king and the bishops, will vindicate those made in England by the parliament and the presbyterians.
[[355]]It would have been highly honourable to the presbyterian party, had they used their power, when in possession of it, with moderation, and avoided all those methods of persecutions and suspensions they had themselves felt the effects of in former times. But to do them justice, they had no great inclination for moderate measures, or allowing any form of religion but their own; as appears from the larger catechism of the Westminster divines, approved by the general assembly of the kirk of Scotland; in which the “tolerating a false religion” is ranked amongst the sins forbidden in the second commandment. And accordingly as soon as they came into the church, all others must out who would not comply, and submit to sequestrations and imprisonments.
“The solemn league and covenant” was imposed, and rigorously exacted of all people, as they would escape their brand and penalty of malignants. Many of the episcopal clergy, both in the city and country, were expelled their livings; though by a generosity, not afterwards imitated by them, provision was made for the support of their wives and children. The lord-mayor, aldermen, and common-councilmen of London, presented a remonstrance to the parliament, desiring a strict course for suppressing all private and separate congregations; that all anabaptists, heretics, &c. as conformed not to the public discipline, may be declared and proceeded against; that all be required to obey the government settled, or to be settled; and that none disaffected to the presbyterian government, be employed in any place of public trust.
An ordinance of parliament was also made; by which every minister that should use the common prayer, in church or family, was to forfeit five pounds for the first time, ten pounds for the second, and to suffer a year’s imprisonment for the third. Also every minister, for every neglect of the directory, was to pay forty shillings; and for every contempt of it, by writing or preaching, to forfeit, at the discretion of those before whom he was convicted, any sum not under five pounds, nor above fifty pounds. The parliament also appointed elderships to suspend, at their discretion, such whom they should judge to be scandalous, from the sacrament, with a liberty of appeal to the classical eldership, &c. They set up, also, arbitrary rules about the examination and ordination of ministers by Triers, who were to be sound in faith, and such as usually received the sacrament. And in these things they were quickened by the Scots, who complained that reformation moved so slowly, and that sects and errors encreased, and endeavours were used for their toleration. Great restraints also were put upon the liberty of the press, by several ordinances made for that purpose. And, to say the truth, when they once got presbytery established, they used the same methods of suspensions, sequestrations and fines, that the prelatical party had done before, though not with equal severity; and were as zealous for uniformity in their own covenant and discipline, as the bishops were for hierarchy, liturgy, and ceremonies.
[[356]]But the triumphs of the presbytery and covenant were but short. Upon the restoration of the “royal wanderer,”[wanderer,”]Charles II. prelacy immediately revived, and exerted itself in its primitive vigor and severity. In his majesty’s first declaration to his loving subjects, he was pleased to promise “a liberty to tender consciences, and that no man should be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion; and that he would consent to an act of parliament for the full granting that indulgence.” But other measures soon prevailed. In the second year after his restoration, the act of uniformity was passed; by which all ministers were to read, and “publicly declare unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained in, and prescribed by the book of common prayer,” before the feast of St. Bartholomew then ensuing, under the penalty of immediate and absolute deprivation. The consequence of this act was, that between two and three thousand excellent divines were turned out of their churches; many of them, to say the least, as eminent for learning and piety as the bishops, who were the great promoters of this barbarous act; and themselves and families, many of them, exposed to the greatest distress and poverty.