Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/168

154 prelatical evil through Parker, Whitgift, and Bancroft, but Laud completed the climax. As Charles marched far ahead of his father in daring absolutism, so Laud far transcended his predecessors in a daring hardihood, more haughty and cruel than they ever reached.

Leighton had published a pamphlet called "An Appeal to Parliament, or Zion's Plea against Prelacy." In this he had certainly made use of most bold and unsparing language. He declared that the king was misled by the bishops to the undoing of himself and people; that the queen was a daughter of Heth; that the bishops were men of blood; and that there never was a greater persecution, nor higher indignities done to God's people in any nation than in this, since the death of Elizabeth; that prelacy was notoriously anti-Christian; and the true laws of the church were derived from the Scriptures, not from the king, for no king could give laws to the house of God. This was so root and branch a denial of all that both church and state had assumed since the revolt of Henry VIII. from Rome, that it was certain to meet with severe castigation. It quickly attracted the eye of Laud, who in June, 1630, had him dragged into the High Commission Court, where he was condemned to the following horrible punishment, than which the records of the Spanish or Italian inquisitions preserve nothing more infernal. That he should be imprisoned for life, should pay a fine of ten thousand pounds, be degraded from his ministry, whipped, set in the pillory, have one of his ears cut off, one side of his nose slit, and be branded on the forehead with a double S.S., as a sower of sedition. He was then to be carried back to prison, and after a few days be pilloried again, whipped, have the other side of his nose slit, the other ear cut off, and shut up in his dungeon, to be released only by death!

When Laud heard this merciless sentence pronounced, he pulled off his cap and gave God thanks for it!

By the 26th of November the whole of these incredible barbarities, except the imprisonment, had been perpetrated on this learned and excellent man, formerly professor of moral philosophy in the University of Edinburgh; and when on the sitting of the long parliament he sent in his petition for release, the whole house was moved to tears by the recital of those sufferings which Laud and the government of Charles had inflicted and rejoiced in. They were thus expressed:—"That he was apprehended coming from a sermon, by a High Commission warrant, and dragged along the streets with bills and staves to London House. That the gaoler of Newgate clapped him in irons, and carried him, with a strong force, into a loathsome and miserable dog-hole, full of rats and mice, that had no light but a little grate, the roof being uncovered, so that the snow and rain beat upon him, and where he had no bed or place for fire, but a ruinous old smoky chimney. In this woful place he was shut up fifteen weeks, nobody being permitted to come to him. That the fourth day after his commitment, the pursuivant, with a mighty multitude, came to his house to search for Jesiut books, and used his wife in such a barbarous and inhuman manner, as he was ashamed to express. That they rifled every person and place, holding a pistol to the head of a child five years old, threatening to kill him if he did not discover the books; broke open chests, presses, boxes; carried everything away, even household stuff, &c. That, at the end of fifteen weeks, he was served with a subpoena, on an information laid against him by the attorney-general, whose dealing with him was full of cruelty and deceit. That he was then so sick that his physician thought he had been poisoned, because all his hair and skin came off; and that, in the height of his sickness, the cruel sentence was passed upon him, and executed November 26th, 1630, when he received thirty-six stripes upon his naked back with a three-fold cord, his hands being tied to a stake, and then stood almost two hours in the pillory, in frost and snow, before he was branded on the face, his nose slit, and his ears cut off, after which he was carried by water to the Fleet, shut up in a room where he was never well, and after eight years turned into the common gaol!"

Such were religion and government in this country in those days!

The endeavours of Laud to compel conformity to the church were as active and unsparing against public bodies as against individuals. There had been a general subscription set on foot, and association formed, for the purpose of buying up lay impropriations, and employing them in the support of the ministry. Laud soon discovered that this party was of the puritan class. In the words of that thorough courtier. Sir Philip Warwick, "he prevented a very private and clandestine design of introducing nonconformists into too many churches; for that society of men, that they might have preachers to please their itching ears, had a design to buy in all the lay impropriations which the parish churches in Henry VIII.'s time were robbed of, and lodging the advowsons and presentations in their own feoffees, to have introduced men who would have introduced doctrines which the court already felt too much the smart of." That Laud, with his notions, should endeavour to stop this process is not to be wondered at. Noye, the attorney-general, brought the twelve trustees in whom this property was invested into the court of exchequer, and after counsel had been heard on both sides, it was decided that they had usurped on the prerogative by erecting themselves into a corporation, and that both the impropriations and the money in hand were forfeited to the crown, to be employed by the king for the benefit of the church, as he should see fit.

Having reduced the refractory members of the church and of parliament in England to silence for the present, Charles determined to make a journey into Scotland, there to be crowned, to raise revenue, and to establish the Anglican hierarchy in that part of his dominions. For the latter purpose he took Laud with him. He reached Edinburgh on the 12th of June, 1633, where he was received by the inhabitants by demonstrations of lively rejoicing, as if they were neither aware of the character and views of the monarch, nor remembered the consequences of the visit of his father. On the 18th he was crowned in Edinburgh by the archbishop of St. Andrews; but Laud did not let that opportunity pass without giving them a foretaste of what was coming. "It was observed," says Rushworth, "that Dr. Laud was high in his carriage, taking upon him the order and managing of the ceremonies; and, for instance, Spotswood, archbishop of St. Andrews, being placed at the