William Laud

William Laud
Archbishop of Canterbury
Enthroned	1633
Ended	10 January 1645
Predecessor	George Abbot
Successor	William Juxon
Born	07 October 1573(1573-10-07) Reading, Berkshire
Died	10 January 1645 (aged 71) Tower Hill, London

Archbishop William Laud (7 October 1573 - 10 January 1645) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. He pursued a High Church course and 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.

Clergyman

Laud was born in Reading, Berkshire, of comparatively low origins, his father, also William, having been a cloth merchant (a fact about which he was to remain sensitive throughout his career). He was baptized at St Laurence's Church in Reading and educated at Reading School and, through a White Scholarship, St John's College, Oxford. Laud had been described as one of the Colleges "most learned and famous sons." He became a Fellow of the College in 1593, graduated with his BA the following year. He gained the BD in 1604 and his Doctor of Divinity degree.

Laud was ordained on April 5 1601 and took up appointment as chaplain to Charles Blount, 1st Earl of Devon. His Arminian, High Church tendencies and antipathy to Puritanism, combined with his intellectual and organizational brilliance, soon gained him a reputation. 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, by conducting his marriage to a divorcée. In 1607 he became vicar of Stanford in Northamptonshire and the following year chaplain to the bishop of Winchester. In 1610, when he was transferred to Caxton, he resigned his fellowship.

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. In 1616, he became Dean of Gloucester Cathedral. He was consecrated Bishop of St David's, Wales in 1622, resigning from St. John's. He was translated as the Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1626 and as the Bishop of London in 1628. Thanks to patrons, who included the king and George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, he reached the highest position the Church of England had to offer, the Archbishopric 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 Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford in all important matters. It is believed that he wrote the controversial Declaration of Sports issued by King Charles in 1633. H. R. Trevor-Roper describes him as the "powerful man in England from 1629 until 1640."

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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, appointing Edward Pococke and took an interest in acquiring Arabic manuscripts for the Bodleian Library. His most significant contribution was the creation of a new set of statutes for the university, a task completed in 1636. Laud served as the fifth Chancellor of the University of Dublin between 1633 and 1645.

High church policy

The famous pun "give great praise to the Lord, and little laud to the devil" is a warning to Charles attributed to the official court jester or "fool" Archie Armstrong. Laud was known to be touchy about his diminutive stature.

Laud in Cassell's History of the United States.

Laud was a sincere Anglican and loyal Englishman, who must have been frustrated at the charges of Popery levelled against him by the Puritan element in the Church. 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. It was inevitable that in this climate, Laud's aggressive 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, Rev. John Lothropp and Rev. Zechariah Symmes.

Laud's policy was influenced by another aspect of his character: his desire to impose total uniformity on the Church. This, too, was driven by a sincere belief that this was the duty of his office, but, to those of even slightly 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."

The Long Parliament of 1640 accused him of treason and named him as a chief culprit in the Grand Remonstrance of 1641. Laud was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he remained throughout the early stages of the English Civil War. In the spring of 1644, he was brought to trial, but it ended without being able to reach a verdict. The 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.

William Laud is remembered in both the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the United States of America with a Commemoration on 10 January.

Notes

He was a very bad king

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Carlton, Charles. 1987. Archbishop William Laud. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 9780710204639
• Trevor-Roper, H. R. 2000. Archbishop Laud, 1573-1645. London: Phoenix Press. ISBN 9781842122020
• Maxwell-Stuart, P. G. 2006. The Archbishops of Canterbury. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN 9780752437286
• Laud, William. 1839. The autobiography of Dr. William Laud: Archbishop of Canterbury, and martyr : collected from his remains. Oxford: J.H. Parker. OCLC 5081414
• Laud, William, William Scott, and James Bliss. 1847. The works of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud, D.D., sometime Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Library of Anglo-Catholic theology, [v. 51-57]. Oxford: J.H. Parker.

External links

• Royal Berkshire History: William Laud

Political offices
Preceded by: The Earl of Portland (Lord High Treasurer)	First Lord of the Treasury 1635–1636	Succeeded by: William Juxon (Lord High Treasurer)
Religious titles
Preceded by: George Abbot	Archbishop of Canterbury 1633–1645	Succeeded by: William Juxon in 1660
Academic offices
Preceded by: 3rd Earl of Pembroke	Chancellor of the University of Oxford 1630–1641	Succeeded by: 4th Earl of Pembroke

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