Cathedral again while the altar was at the east end, and, though he lived eight years longer, he is said to have kept his word. Commotions against Laud's 'innovations' were raised in the city, but Laud, as usual, quietly persisted and carried his point. And here it must be observed once for all, that it was for no mere point of external decency and order (much as he valued both) that Laud, at Gloucester and at countless other places, insisted upon placing the Holy Table at the east end, and railing off the Sanctuary in which it stood. This was, in fact, the field on which the battle was fought between the Puritan and the Anglican theory of Divine Service. According to the former, preaching held the first place; according to the latter, worship, and the highest act of worship was the Holy Eucharist. The pulpit typified the one, the altar the other. So it may be said without exaggeration that every instance of Laud's success in altering the position of the Holy Table was an instance of his turning a Puritan into an Anglican place of worship.

Laud was certainly now in favour with the king, whose chaplain he was. Immediately after the disturbance at Gloucester (which, more suo, he left to settle itself, having carried his points), he accompanied James on a visit to Scotland, on which occasion the king, with his usual insouciance, told the Scotch divines that he had brought some English theclogians to enlighten their minds.' This implies that he had confidence in Laud's ability to meet the argumentative Scots on their own ground. The king had also shown his approval of Laud's work at Oxford by sending in 1616 instructions to the Vice-Chancellor respecting the theological studies of the place, which quite fell in with Laud's views and clashed with those of the Puritans. Preachers were to adhere to the distinctive teaching of the Church, and students in divinity were to be 'excited to bestow their time on the fathers and councils, schoolmen, histories and controversies, making them the grounds of their studies.'' Laud also began to win the confidence of the heir-apparent to the throne, and also that of the favourite, Buckingham. So that in every way he was the man marked out for preferment when the opportunity occurred. It is necessary to bear this in mind, because it throws light upon what soon happened. In 1621 he was appointed Bishop of St. David's by the desire of the king, who, in offering the post to him, said that he knew the Deanery of Gloucester was 'a shell without a kernel.' Prince Charles and the Marquis of Buckingham are 1 See Hutton, p. 18.

also said to have pressed his claims, as it is highly probable that they would. But Bishop Williams also claimed the whole credit of the appointment; and Laud has been accused of base ingratitude for afterwards turning against the man who procured his first elevation to the bench. The charge is sanctioned by the highly respectable name of Bishop Hacket, who recounts at full length a conversation between King James and Bishop Williams, in which the bishop urges upon the reluctant king the claims of Laud. That Hacket recorded accurately what Williams told him we have not the shadow of a doubt; but about Williams's veracity we may be permitted to have considerable doubt. He was notorious for drawing the long bow; and especially, according to Clarendon, for inventing and recounting imaginary conversations which never occurred. That he may have mentioned Laud to the king is very likely, but that he had to use all his powers to persuade the king, as he said he had, is most improbable. There was the best of reasons why Williams should desire Laud out of the way. The king had intimated his wish to have Laud Dean of Westminster, that he might be always at hand. Williams was now Dean of Westminster, but in this very year, 1621, he was appointed Bishop of Lincoln, and he desired still to hold the deanery in commendam. By procuring the appointment of Laud to St. David's he got rid of an obstacle, and succeeded in his design of holding both Lincoln and Westminster. There was, therefore, no question of gratitude in the matter. The deanery of Westminster, which Williams prevented Laud from receiving, was a more eligible piece of preferment than the distant see of St. David's, which Williams may have been partly instrumental in procuring for him.

Adhering to our plan of touching only upon the crucial points of Laud's career, we pass over his doings in his far-off diocese, and turn to his famous controversy with the Jesuit, Fisher. This was important in two ways; it brought him into closer relationship with Buckingham, and it gave him an opportunity of showing the strength of his position as against Rome a position from which he never swerved one hair's breadth. The circumstances which led to this controversy in 1622 must be briefly told. The Countess of Buckingham, mother of the all-powerful favourite, was being drawn towards Rome by a Jesuit Father who went by the name of Fisher, but whose real name was Percy or Perse. In the extreme sensitiveness to danger from Rome which then prevailed, it would have been highly inconvenient if one so

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nearly connected with the Court had joined the Roman Communion. The king, always ready to air his controversial abilities, first tried to argue with Fisher himself, but found the Jesuit more than a match for him. Then he arranged two conferences, which were to be held in the presence of the Countess, between Fisher and Dr. Francis White, at that time rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill. The king seems to have thought Dr. White hardly a strong enough man for the work, and called in Laud as a stronger, who held a third conference with Fisher. The Countess was not permanently impressed, but her son was; Buckingham henceforth took Laud for his spiritual father, and was ruled by him in ecclesiastical matters until his death. Laud's Relation of the Conference, which he published with considerable enlargements in 1639 at King Charles's command, on purpose to show that his attitude had not changed in the seventeen years which had elapsed, is, in our opinion, one of the best and most convincing works on the tenableness of the Anglican position in relation to Rome that is extant. The 'Romish Recusant' is wise in his generation when, fortified by the opinion of Mr. Benson, he dissuades his readers from reading it. In support of an opposite view, we will give our readers a specimen, asking them to remark how characteristic it is of Laud in every way of his exalted estimate of the part the king should play, of his firm belief in the via media, and his contempt for the cry of 'persecution':

'Let me be bold to observe to your Majesty in particular, concerning your great charge in the Church of England. She is in hard condition. She professes the ancient Catholic faith, and yet the Romanist condemns her for novelty of doctrine. She practises Church government as it hath been in use in all ages and all places where the Church of Christ hath been established both in and since the days of the Apostles, and yet the separatist condemns her for anti-christianism in her discipline. The plain truth is she is between these two factions as between two mill-stones, and unless your Majesty look to it, to whose trust she is committed, she will be ground to powder, to an irreparable dishonour and loss to this kingdom. And it is very remarkable that while both these press hard upon the Church of England, both of them cry out against persecution like froward children, who scratch, and kick, and bite, and yet cry out all the while as if they were killed. Now, to the Romanist I shall say this. The errors of the Church of Rome are grown now (many of them) very old, and when errors are grown by age and continuance to strength, they which speak for the truth, though it be of an older, are usually challenged for the bringers in of new opinions. And there is no greater absurdity stirring this day in Christendom than that the reformation of an old, corrupted Church, whether we will or not, must be taken for the building a new. And were not

this so we should never be troubled with that idle and impertinent question of theirs, "Where was your Church before Luther?" for it was just there where theirs is now; one and the same Church still, no doubt of that; one in substance, but not one in condition of state and purity; their part of the same Church remaining in corruption, and our part of the same Church under reformation. The same Naaman, and he a Syrian still; but leprous with them, and cleansed with us-the same man still. And for the separatist, and him that lays his grounds for separation, or change of discipline, though all he says, or can say, be in truth of divinity and among learned men little better than ridiculous, yet since these fond opinions have gained some ground among the people, to such among them as are wilfully set to follow their blind guides through thick and thin, till they fall into the ditch together, I shall say nothing. But so many of them as mean well, and are only misled by artifice and cunning, concerning them I shall say thus much only, they are bells of passing good metal, and tuneable enough of themselves and in their own disposition; and a world of pity it is that they are rung so miserably out of tune as they are by those who have acquired power in and over their consciences. And for this there is remedy, but how long there will be I know not' (Introduction).

Admirers of Bishop Andrewes will observe in this passage the resemblance to Andrewes's cramped and jerky style. Perhaps it was a conscious imitation, for Laud made no secret of following Andrewes as his master. In life and doctrine he could not have done better; but in style perhaps he might. However, he makes his meaning perfectly plain. He could almost as easily have turned Puritan as Roman. And this was his attitude from first to last; he never changed. Most truly did Sir Edward Dering (a hostile and therefore an unexceptionable witness) say of him, that he was always one and the same man, that beginning with him at Oxon. and so going on to Canterbury, he was unmoved and unchanged; that he never complyed with the times, but kept his own stand until the times came up to him'-' as they afterwards did,' adds Heylin.' An able reply to Laud was published about the middle of the century, the full title of which is: 'Labyrinthus Cantuariensis, or Doctor Laud's Labyrinth. Being an Answer to the late Archbishop of Canterburies Relation of a Conference between Himself and Mr. Fisher. Wherein the true grounds of the Roman Catholic Religion are asserted, the principal Controversies betwixt Catholiques and Protestants thoroughly examined, and the Bishops Meandrick windings throughout his whole worke layd open to publique view. By T. C.'

In the same year (1622) Laud dealt a severe blow to his

1 Cypr. Angl.

enemies on the other side; for there is no doubt that the 'Royal Injunctions' to the Clergy of that year were issued on Laud's advice. These 'Injunctions' forbade any preacher under the degree of a bishop, or a dean at the least, to preach the deep points of predestination, election, reprobation, or the universality, efficacy, resistibility or irresistibility of God's grace; they enjoined catechizing instead of preaching on the Sunday afternoons; and they required bishops to be more careful in licensing preachers. These ' Injunctions' were of course as applicable to Anglicans as to Puritans; but it was the latter alone who were practically affected by them; it was they who loved to discuss the 'deeper points' which their adversaries would have been content to leave untouched; it was they who magnified preaching above all other ordinances, and despised catechizing as mere food for babes, it was they who profited by the indiscriminate licensing of preachers who would be sure to be of their way of thinking. They raised, therefore, a vehement outcry against the 'Injunctions,' and laid the blame of them on the right shoulders, viz. those of Laud, who was now becoming one of the most unpopular men in the kingdom. His unpopularity was not decreased by the fact that the Lord Keeper, Williams, who had never been his friend, and was now less so than ever, was in the ascendant during the closing years of James I.'s reign. Laud's Diary,' from 1622 to 1625, is full of mysterious hints about the hostility of the Lord Keeper: I was with my Lord Keeper, to whom I found some had done me very ill offices'; 'I did dream that the Lord Keeper was dead'; 'I found that all went not right with the Lord Keeper'; 'My Lord K. met with me in the withdrawing chamber, and quarrelled with me gratis'; 'I was much concerned at the envy and undeserved hatred borne to me by the Lord Keeper';-these are some of the entries. Laud attributes Williams's enmity to his jealousy of the Duke of Buckingham's favour, and this may have been the occasion; but the fact is, Laud and Williams represented two very different lines of policy: Laud was all for 'thorough,' Williams for compromise; Williams did not altogether identify himself with the Puritans, but still less did he identify himself with the Anglicans; and the practical result of the line he took would, but for Laud, have undoubtedly been to keep Puritanism predominant. Laud's other great enemy, Archbishop Abbot, made no secret of his desire to puritanize England. He knew that Laud was the great obstacle to this design; and one of the last acts that need be recorded in connexion with this part of Laud's career shows how ready