In 1172 Alexander III. canonized Becket as St. Thomas of Canterbury. In 1221 his remains were deposited by Henry III. in a rich shrine, which became a great resort for pilgrims.
After the Reformation, Henry VIII. despoiled the shrine of its treasures of silver and gold, which were of incredible value; and he had the saint's name stricken from the calendar, and his bones burnt to ashes and scattered. The shrine was in the cathedral, back of the high altar, and now its only traces are in the marble floor where it rested, and in the worn and sunken line encircling it, made by the feet and knees of pilgrims who for three centuries had there paid tribute.
As we stood there we could in imagination see the incessant train coming in with demure look, and with a pious reverence kneel and offer their humble petition for the repose of his soul and for the prosperity of the religion he defended. Fearfully in earnest were these honest but superstitious ones, and so was Henry VIII. when he said to the enslaving service, "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." What determination, what intrepidity, were requisite for the inauguration of reform like this! What master-work to do! Becket and his adherents meant well, but they were superstitious and blind to truth and fact. Henry VIII. did a great work, but when he did it he also did unchristian things. So of Queen Mary, when to the stake must go Rogers and Hooper, Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley. We cannot well stop there. Puritanism established, somebody was responsible for the persecutions of Roger Williams, of Marmaduke Stevenson, and others. Persecution for opinion's sake is not yet done, but "out of the bitter comes forth the sweet." Becket and his coadjutors, the kings and queens of England, Boston ministers and judges of old, form one long connected chain of defenders of the faith,—not always of clear vision, but outside of themselves governed and overruled; and so, by the work done, humanity steps up higher, and walks on towards the perfection attainable, and in the end sure to be attained.
That work, done in the time of Becket, was the transition period from the Papal Church to the Protestant. Our next man of renown was the noted Archbishop Laud; and his administration was the transition period, from intense formality and ritualism, into a somewhat similar form of Christian worship and work, out of which has come our New England's existence and element and life,—and so, indirectly, our Great West, which in its early days New England people and customs did so much to mould and establish.
William Laud was born at Reading in England, Oct. 7, 1573, but eighteen years after the death of the martyrs at Oxford. He nursed from his mother's breast the spirit of the time, or, like Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, was able to date his nature and inclinations to acting and influencing elements at a day the very earliest in his history. He was educated at St. John's College, Oxford; obtained his fellowship in 1593, clerical orders in 1601; and in 1605 became chaplain to Charles, Lord Mountjoy, Earl of Devonshire; and here, he showed pliability of conscience which was ever a distinguishing feature of his life, for he was willing to perform the marriage ceremony between the Earl and Lady Rich, whose first husband was still living.
In 1608 he was made bishop of Nene, being then but thirty-five years of age. In 1611 he was president of the college at which he was educated. In 1616 he was Dean of Gloucester; was a prebendary of Westminster in 1620, and Bishop of St. David's in 1621. In 1624 he was member of the Court of High Commission; in 1626, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and in 1628 Bishop of London; and now begins his great life-work, for he became confidential adviser of Charles I. in ecclesiastical affairs. Succeeding Buckingham in the royal favor he began to play important parts in politics, and his first object and step was to force Puritans, and all Dissenters from the Established Church, into conformity. Macaulay says:—
Under this direction every corner of the realm was subjected to a constant minute inspection. Every little congregation of Separatists was tracked out and broken up. Even the devotion of private families could not escape the vigilance of his spies. Such fear did his rigor inspire, that the deadly hatred of the Church, which festered in innumerable bosoms, was generally disguised under an outward show of conformity.
In 1628 Robert Leighton, a Scottish prelate, published a book, "Sion's Plea against the Prelacy." At the instigation of Laud he was in 1630 brought before the Star Chamber, condemned to pay a fine of £10,000; and he was twice publicly whipped and pilloried in Cheapside, London, had his ears cut off, his nostrils split open, and his cheeks branded with S. S. (Sower of Sedition), and he was incarcerated ten years in the Fleet Prison.
Flattered with success, Laud, being present at the coronation of Charles in Scotland, urged the forced establishment of Episcopacy and uniformity in that country, which resulted in revolt; and, contrary to the ambitious and narrow-minded Bishop's anticipation, ended in the adoption of the National Covenant, and so Presbyterianism triumphed. On his return from the ceremonies of coronation, and doubtless in aid of their enterprise to "kill out Puritanism" and to "harry the Puritans out of the land," he was appointed to the See of Canterbury. He became a politician in the more odious sense of that word, and so worked himself in as one of the committee of the king's revenue, and in 1634 he became a commissioner of the treasury; and soon after, and finally, was made Censor of the Press under decree of the Star Chamber in 1637.
He was powerful, overbearing, and injudicious, and the public odium soon manifested itself largely against him. The Long Parliament in 1640, impeached him for high treason, and he was committed to the Tower. After an imprisonment of more than three years he was tried and condemned,—and, as now thought, according to the letter of the law, illegally,—and was executed in the Tower, Jan. 10, 1645, at the age of seventy-two.