Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/200

Laud argued that parliament had the right of declaring any crimes it pleased to be treasonable. On 4 Jan. the House of Lords gave way, and passed the ordinance ('History of the Troubles and Trials,' in Works, vols. iii. and iv.).

Laud had in his possession a pardon from the king, dated in April 1643. This he tendered to the houses, but though the lords were inclined to accept it, it was rejected by the commons. He then asked that the usual barbarous form of execution for treason might in his case be commuted for beheading, and though the commons at first rejected his request, they on the 8th agreed to give the required permission (Lords' Journals, vii. 127, 128; Commons' Journals, iv. 12, 13). On 10 Jan. Laud was brought to a scaffold on Tower Hill. He declared that he could find in himself no offence 'which deserves death by the known laws of the kingdom,' and protested against the charge of 'bringing in of popery,' expressing commiseration for the condition of the English church, and asserting himself to 'have always lived in the protestant church of England.' 'What clamours and slanders I have endured,' he added, 'for labouring to keep an uniformity in the external service of God according to the doctrine and discipline of the church all men know, and I have abundantly felt.' After a prayer he moved forward to take his place at the block. Sir John Clotworthy, however, thought fit to interrupt him with theological questions. Laud answered some of them, and then turned away and, after a prayer, laid his head upon the block. He was beheaded in the seventy-second year of his age. His body was buried in the chancel of All Hallows Barking, whence it was removed to the chapel of St. John's College, Oxford, on 24 July 1663.

It has often been said that Laud's system, and not that of his opponents, prevailed in the church of England, and that the religion of that church showed itself at the end of the seventeenth century to be less dogmatic than that of the puritans, while its ceremonies were almost precisely those which had been defended by Laud. The result, however, was only finally obtained by a total abandonment of Laud's methods. What had been impossible to effect in a church to the worship of which every person in the land was obliged to conform became possible in a church which any one who pleased was at liberty to abandon.

Laud published seven of his sermons at the times of their delivery; they were collected in one volume, 12mo, in 1651; a reprint of this edition was published in 1829. A relation of the conference between Laud and Fisher the jesuit appeared first as an appendix to Dr. Francis White's 'Replie to Jesuit Fisher's Answere to Certain Questions,' &c., London, 1624. It was signed R[ichard] B[aily], Baily being Laud's chaplain. The second and first complete edition was in 1639, fol., third edition 1673, fourth edition 1686; a reprint was published at Oxford in 1839. Laud's 'Diary,' the manuscript of which is at St. John's College, Oxford, first appeared in Prynne's garbled edition of 1644. It was published by Wharton in full in 1695. Parts of the 'Sum of Devotions' were printed in 1650 and 1663. A complete edition appeared at Oxford in 1667; other editions, London, 1667, 1683, 1687, 1688, 1705; a reprint of the 1667 edition was published in 1838. The manuscript of this work is missing. 'The History of the Troubles and Tryal of William, Archbishop of Canterbury,' of which the manuscript is at St. John's, was edited by Wharton in 1695. 'An Historical Account of all Material Transactions relating to the University of Oxford' during Laud's chancellorship was published from the manuscript at St. John's by Wharton in 1695. A collected edition of Laud's works was edited by Henry Wharton, 1695–1700. Wharton died before the second volume appeared, and it consequently was supervised by his father, Edmund Wharton. It contains, besides the works noted above, the speech delivered on 14 June 1637 at the censure of Bastwick, Burton, and Prynne, which had appeared separately in 1637, and a few letters and papers. An edition of the whole works (Oxford, 1847–60, 8vo) forms part of the 'Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology;' vols. i and ii. were edited by W. Scott, vols. iii. to vii. by W. Bliss.

Portraits of Laud by Vandyck, or after Vandyck, are at St. John's College, Oxford, at St. Petersburg, at Lambeth Palace, and in the possession of Earl Fitzwilliam at Wentworth. A copy of the Lambeth picture by Henry Stone is in the National Portrait Gallery. At St. John's College is also a bust by an unknown artist, possibly by Le Sueur.

[The main source of our knowledge of Laud's opinions is his own Works, including his Correspondence. His biography was written by his disciple and admirer, Heylyn, under the title of Cyprianus Anglicus. Prynne's Hidden Works of Darkness and Canterbury's Doom contain many documents of importance, but they are characterised by a violent and uncritical spirit. References to Laud are constantly to be found in the Letters and State Papers of the time. See also Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 117–144.] 