[It will be necessary, ere long, to establish a Society for the Preservation of the Memory of the Stuart Kings of England, from Universal Execration; so much is it now seen, that, stripped of the mantle of their Kingship, they were unworthy of the name of English Gentlemen. Scotland could have sent us many a better bred family!
What a picture has the good Archbishop given us of the English King and Court in the first days of the reign of the so called Royal Martyr. Charles, first claiming for himself an unbounded power over his subjects, and then lavishly bestowing it on his favourite Buckingham, is the modern counterpart of Nebuchadnezzar setting up his golden image "in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon."
Note that this Narrative was written without the faintest conception or realisation of such a possibility as a national rising under the guidance of the Long Parliament. The two characters, of Laud at p. [548], and of Buckingham at p. [574], are Eye-Witness portraits, and should be included, unabridged, in every future History of England. Imagine an Archbishop scornfully speaking (p. [548]) of Bishop Laud as "what a sweet man he was likely to be!"
It should be also remembered that Laud records in his Diary, that on the 2nd October, 1626 (i.e., nine months before the Archbishop's present Narrative was written), Charles I. promised him the reversion of the Archbishopric, when Doctor Abbot should die.]
[Historical Collections, i. 435. Ed. 1659.]
Archbishop Abbot, having been long slighted at Court, now fell under the King's high displeasure; for refusing to license Doctor Sibthorp's sermon, entitled Apostolical Obedience, as he was commanded; and, not long after, he was sequestered from his Office, and a Commission was granted to the Bishops of London, Durham, Rochester, Oxford, and Doctor, Laud, Bishop of Bath and Wells, to exercise archiepiscopal jurisdiction.
The Commission is followeth—
Charles, by the grace of GOD, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland; Defender of the Faith, &c. To the Right Reverend Father in GOD, George [Montaigne], Bishop of London; and to the Right Reverend Father in GOD, our trusty and well beloved Councillor, Richard [Neyle], Lord Bishop of Durham; and to the Right Reverend Father in GOD, John [Buckeridge], Lord Bishop of Rochester; and to the Right Reverend Father in GOD, John [Howson], Lord Bishop of Oxford; and to the Right Reverend Father in GOD, our Right Trusty and Well Beloved Councillor, William [Laud], Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells.