William Laud

William Laud
Archbishop of Canterbury
William Laud
Enthroned	1633
Reign ended	10 January 1645
Predecessor	George Abbot
Successor	William Juxon
Personal details
Born	(1573-10-07)7 October 1573 Reading, Berkshire
Died	10 January 1645(1645-01-10) (aged 71) Tower Hill, London
Signature	${{{signature_alt}}}$

William Laud (7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism. This, and his support for King Charles I, resulted in his beheading in the midst of the English Civil War.

1 Clergyman
2 High Church policy
3 Trial and execution
4 See also
5 Bibliography
6 References
7 External links

Clergyman [edit]

William Laud was born in a house on Broad Street in Reading, of comparatively lowly origins; his father, also named William, was a cloth merchant (a fact about which Laud was to remain sensitive throughout his career). He was baptised at St Laurence's Church in Reading.^[1] He was educated at Reading School and, through a White Scholarship, St John's College, Oxford.

Laud was ordained on 5 April 1601; he soon gained a reputation for Arminian and High Church tendencies and antipathy to Puritanism and for intellectual and organisational brilliance. At that time the Calvinist party was strong in the Church of England and Laud's affirmation of apostolic succession was unpopular in many quarters. In 1605, somewhat against his will, he obliged his patron, Lord Devonshire, by conducting his marriage to a divorcée, Penelope, Lady Rich. In 1609 he became rector of West Tilbury in Essex.

Laud continued to rise through the ranks of the clergy, becoming the President of St John's College in 1611; a Prebendary of Lincoln in 1614 and Archdeacon of Huntingdon in 1615. James I distrusted him, predicting correctly that he would in time cause great trouble in the Church, and held him back for several years, despite the urgings of the future Charles I, who admired Laud.^[2] He was consecrated Bishop of St David's in 1621 and was translated as the Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1626 and the Bishop of London in 1628. Thanks to patrons, who included the King and the Duke of Buckingham, he reached the highest position in the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and with it the episcopal primacy of All England in 1633. As Archbishop of Canterbury he was prominent in government, taking the King's line and that of Lord Wentworth in all important matters: their political programme, centring on the unquestioned authority of the King, was generally called the Thorough policy. It is believed that he wrote the controversial Declaration of Sports issued by King Charles in 1633.

In 1630, Laud was elected as Chancellor of the University of Oxford and became much more closely involved in the running of the university than many of his predecessors had been. Laud was instrumental in establishing Oxford's Chair of Arabic and took an interest in acquiring Arabic manuscripts for the Bodleian Library. He also acquired, at some expense, two Arabic script printing sets from the Netherlands, first publishing in Oxford in 1639.^[3] His most significant contribution was the creation of a new set of statutes for the university, a task completed in 1636.^[4] Laud served as the fifth Chancellor of the University of Dublin between 1633 and 1645.

He has been called "a public man without a private life"; as he seems to have lived entirely for his work, in that he had neither pastimes nor recreation, and remarkably few friends.^[5] He was indeed far more inclined to make enemies than friends, due to his irritable temper and the extraordinary sharpness with which he reprimanded anyone, even his social superiors, with whom he disagreed. When he clashed with the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Thomas Richardson, in 1632, Laud so humiliated Richardson in public that the judge left the room in tears.^[6]Among his few friends was Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, the future Lord Chancellor. In his History, Hyde praised Laud's integrity and decency, and sympathised with his faults of rudeness and bad temper, which Hyde acknowledged he himself shared.

Etching by Wenceslaus Hollar, Laud being tried for treason, with several people present labelled

High Church policy [edit]

The pun "give great praise to the Lord, and little Laud to the devil" is a warning to King Charles attributed to the official court jester Archibald Armstrong. Laud was known to be touchy about his diminutive stature. He was almost sixty when he became Archbishop, and having waited with increasing impatience for a decade to replace Abbot, was no longer prepared to compromise on any aspect of his policy.^[7]

Whereas Strafford saw the political dangers of Puritanism, Laud saw the threat to the episcopacy. But the Puritans themselves felt threatened: the Counter-Reformation was succeeding abroad and the Thirty Years' War was not progressing to the advantage of the Protestants. In this climate, Laud's high church policy was seen as a sinister development. A year after Laud's appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury, the ship Griffin left for America, carrying religious dissidents such as Anne Hutchinson, the Reverend John Lothropp and the Reverend Zechariah Symmes.

Laud's policy was influenced by his desire to impose uniformity on the Church of England, which was driven by a belief that this was the duty of his office but, to those of differing views, it came as persecution. Perhaps this had the unintended consequence of garnering support for the most implacable opponents of the Anglican compromise. In 1637, William Prynne, John Bastwick and Henry Burton were convicted of seditious libel and had their ears cropped and their cheeks branded. Prynne reinterpreted the "SL" ("Seditious Libeller") branded on his forehead as "Stigmata Laudis". Laud moved to silence his principal episcopal critic John Williams who was convicted of various offences in Star Chamber; but contrary to Laud's expectation, Williams refused to resign as Bishop of Lincoln, and waited patiently until 1641 when he moved to bring about Laud's downfall.

Charles I towards the end of his life admitted that he had put too much trust in Laud, and allowed his "peevish humours ", and obsession with points of ritual, to inflame divisions within the Church: he warned his son not to rely entirely on anyone else's judgement in such matters. Laud, on his side, could not forgive the King for allowing Strafford's execution and dismissed him as " a mild and gracious Prince, that knows not how to be or be made great".^[8]

Trial and execution [edit]

For more details on this topic, see Trial of Archbishop Laud.

The Long Parliament of 1640 accused Laud of treason and, in the Grand Remonstrance of 1641, called for his imprisonment.^[9] Laud was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he remained throughout the early stages of the English Civil War. Apart from a few personal enemies like William Prynne, and possibly Bishop Williams, Parliament showed little anxiety to proceed against Laud; given his age, most members would probably have preferred to leave him to die of natural causes. In the spring of 1644 he was brought to trial which, however, ended without a verdict: as with Strafford, it proved impossible to point to any specific action which could be seen as treasonable. Parliament took up the issue and eventually passed a bill of attainder under which he was beheaded on 10 January 1645 on Tower Hill, notwithstanding being granted a royal pardon. He died with courage and dignity, unwavering in his religious beliefs.^[10]

Laud is remembered in both the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the United States with a Commemoration on 10 January. He is buried at St. John's College, Oxford.

Bibliography [edit]

Carlton Charles. Archbishop William Laud. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. ISBN 978-0-71020463-9
Hugh Trevor-Roper. Archbishop Laud, 1573-1645. ISBN 1-84212-202-9

References [edit]

^ Phillips, Daphne (1980). The Story of Reading. Countryside Books. p. 47. ISBN 0-905392-07-8.
^ Trevor-Roper, Hugh Archbishop Laud Phoenix Press reissue 2000 p.27
^ Roper, Geoffrey (1985), "Arabic Printing and Publishing in England before 1820", British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin (12/1), pp. 14–5 .
^ Anthony Milton, "Laud, William (1573–1645)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. (Accessed 5 October 2006.)
^ Trevor-Roper pp.33-35
^ Trevor-Roper pp.156-8
^ Trevor-Roper p.42
^ Trevor-Roper p.409
^ points 123-124. See Samuel Rawson Gardiner, ed. (1906). "The Grand Remonstrance, with the Petition accompanying it". The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution 1625-1660. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2010-02-19.
^ Wedgwood, C.V The King's War Fontana Reissue pp.376-8

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: William Laud

Royal Berkshire History: William Laud
"Laud, William". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
Archival material relating to William Laud listed at the UK National Archives
Portraits of William Laud at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Political offices
Preceded by The Earl of Portland as Lord High Treasurer	First Lord of the Treasury 1635–1636	Succeeded by William Juxon as Lord High Treasurer
Church of England titles
Preceded by Richard Milbourne	Bishop of St David's 1621–1626	Succeeded by Theophilus Feild
Preceded by Arthur Lake	Bishop of Bath and Wells 1626–1628	Succeeded by Leonard Mawe
Preceded by George Montaigne	Bishop of London 1628–1633	Succeeded by William Juxon
Preceded by George Abbot	Archbishop of Canterbury 1633–1645	Vacant Title next held by William Juxon
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Preceded by The 3rd Earl of Pembroke	Chancellor of the University of Oxford 1630–1641	Succeeded by The 4th Earl of Pembroke
Preceded by John Buckeridge	President of St John's College, Oxford 1611-1621	Succeeded by William Juxon

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Early modern	Cardinal Adriano Castellesi Cardinal Thomas Wolsey John Clerk William Knight William Barlow Gilbert Bourne Gilbert Berkeley Thomas Godwin John Still James Montague Arthur Lake William Laud Leonard Mawe Walter Curle William Piers Robert Creighton Peter Mews Thomas Ken Richard Kidder George Hooper John Wynne Edward Willes Charles Moss

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Late modern	Thomas Parkinson Thomas Middleton James Hook John Hollingworth The Hon Henry Yorke Francis McDougall Gerald Vesey Thomas Hodgson Kenneth Knowles William Uthwatt James Jones Arthur Royle Dennis Page David Young Richard Sledge John Beer Hugh McCurdy, Archdeacon of Huntingdon and Wisbech

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Persondata
Name	Laud, William
Alternative names
Short description	Archbishop of Canterbury
Date of birth	7 October 1573
Place of birth	Reading, Berkshire
Date of death	10 January 1645
Place of death	Tower Hill, London

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