CHARLES I. 331 CHAPTER XIII. S. PAUL'S UNDER CHARLES I.-RESTORATION BY INIGO JONES. BEFORE these dark days, however, thus anticipated, during the reign of Charles I. and the episcopate of Laud, designs had been formed and partially carried out to restore the Cathedral to its old august majesty. S. Paul's, under King Charles and Bishop Laud, was to rise out of the miserable decay and neglected, or but partially averted, ruin, in which it had lain during the latter part of Elizabeth's reign and that of James. This was a work which appealed to the higher nature of Laud. Laud is, in my judgement, a melancholy exemplification of the appalling fact that some of the nobler qualities of the Churchman may coexist with the total want of the purest Christian virtues, and blend with some of the worst, most unchristian vices. Laud must have been a man of ability. Though he owed his great advancement too much to sycophancy of unworthy favourites and to court intrigues; yet to rise as he did, implies no common man: his daring design of establishing an episcopal tyranny side by side with a kingly tyranny, was no vulgar ambition. He was earnest, sincere, full of strong though strangely blind and misjudging zeal for what he held to be the purest form of Christianity. He was a prodigal patron of letters and of erudition, beyond the narrow range to which erudition was then confined. He had some learn CHAP. XIII. BISHOP LAUD. thagh we may wonder that the age which could rad Chillingworth Chillingworth wrote somewhat later) svald dwell with admiration on the dull scholastic reply : Faber the Jesuit. The rest of his writings are below Patent, and betray, or rather dwell with pride on, a delle superstition, and a most debasing view of God and Laperrilare. With a mind expanding in some respects by of the Law Calvinism of his day, Laud is cowering bed ce dreams and omens. He was munificent, almost BATINI: no one ever accused Laud of avarice or love ć moey. Ee was himself rigid to austerity: though mit to the profligates around him, his own ncus vere maimpeached; he was never charged with intemperance of excess. But the peculiar virtues which Laud wanted were Beckness, humility, forbearance, forgiveness, meny, danty in its wide and Pauline sense. The vices wind be displayed were the more fatal from his high postura, whilk commanded, and still commands, the desperare aimintita of those who dwell more on the Church than a the religion which that Church was founded to promuigate and maintain. Among those vices were servility to the great landsiness to the lowly; the sternest, most impuscatur intuerance, hard cruelty. His excuse for his share the barbarous punishment of some of the more audamous Puritans, that he was but one member of the High Commissie Coat, and that others were as harsh as himSÜSTIDst hateful subterfuge, as if in such a court, and a sath cases, a gentle word, a merciful hint or a look Hm the Primate, would not have arrested the barbarous pixweza Ner can he be acquitted of the savage exultaand the adders of passionate gratefulness to God for the Sting punishment awarded to Leighton. Absolve Laud rates inclinations to Rome (the story of the - sad of the rejection of the Cardinal's hat is of very loubtful authority); admit that his scheme was to expand he doctrine of the Church of England to wider views, to reak the iron bonds of the Calvinism in which she was ound hand and foot. We condone, more than condone, ve enter fully into, his Arminianism, then as odious as Arianism, Pelagianism, Deism, and Atheism, with which it vas consorted in popular language. Admit that he would have raised the services of the Church to a more stately ceremonial, and no more. Yet he was singularly unfortunate, as well as unwise; his very person was against him, his mean stature, and dark, harsh features were unfitted for the character of a lofty and imposing highpriest. But, what is most remarkable, Laud, who held the highest notion of the divine rights of episcopacy, so long as those rights were to be maintained in remote and obscure dioceses, was singularly remiss in the divine duties of episcopacy. For eight years he held the Bishopric of S. David's, and that of Bath and Wells. After his first visitation of S. David's, which he held for six years, the Welsh clergy and the Welsh people saw the face of their Bishop (as appears from his diary) but once, and after an interval of five years. I find no record of his visiting even once the bishopric of Bath and Wells. Laud must remain in London, to watch his opportunities of advancement, to take care of the interests of his ambition, to haunt the splendid saloons or private chamber of Buckingham, and to preach before the King. And sin in high places had not much to dread from the rebukes of Laud. He even gave a scandalous sanction to one of the worst acts of a profligate favourite, which he confessed himself with words of the bitterest repentance. Meanwhile to the too austere life, to the extravagant, no doubt, and intolerant discipline of the Puritans, he showed no indulgence. His presence, too, is necessary in the Star Cham CHAP. XIII. Of his own acts led tung, with a touch of pity, Lada Land was in the high sphere of Doined the er duties of S. Derma Bar and a Cne of his first objects Is the restoration of S. Paul's. T watch to work, for such an m mai f the King. Of the royal mof the most kingly, perhaps the This is allérced re of the fine arts. the walls of Whitehall rising under To me most criste paintings of Raffaelle f them the glory of the gallery at In-fers. be without interest in the restomå vi moment of the rathedral of the metropolis the height of his renown. He destined the great palace of Whitehall, one na alus' be was to achieve, the Banthat line was enough for his fame. 3. via Samaj ti the King; be had been included in the -you rinsert of King James for the repair of the Ee was not only at the summit of, but stood Do the nible profession of architecture.1 The role & wel maily in. The King, when the design Des petit appeared, expressed his determination med betray the cost of that part of the work. Laud, de arters from his own statement, and he was not a man -Vac f is munificence, contributed, first and last, that Inigo Jones a the mameliste neighbourof S. Penis, as Str C. Barry in Bridge Street, Westminster, close upon the site of his great work. The XIII. welve hundred pounds, in those days a great sum. But CHAP. Laud, in his blind zeal, loaded the fund with a very proluctive but highly unpopular source of revenue. High Commission Court had assumed the power, as Claendon more than admits, the illegal power, of inflicting heavy mulcts, not for recusancy only, but for all kinds of noral delinquencies, and these fines were imposed with no sparing hand. This was afterwards bitterly remembered, no doubt by those on whom the fines were levied. The common saying spread abroad again, that, in another sense, S. Paul's was restored out of the sins of the people. The works commenced without delay, and were carried on with a high hand. The mean shops and houses which crowded on the church, especially on the West front, disappeared. The owners and tenants were compelled to accept what the authorities thought adequate, they, of course, inadequate, compensation.2 The demolition of these houses, and the ejection of their inhabitants, was among the charges against Laud at his trial. Laud excused himself by alleging that it was done by Commissioners under the authority of the Council. He threw, too, the chief blame on the Dean and Chapter, who, to increase their own revenues, had allowed these houses to be built on consecrated ground. By an extraordinary, and it 6 2 Mr. Hallam, I think, makes too much of this. The Privy Council, on 'a suggestion that the demolition of some houses and shops in the vicinity ' of S. Paul's would show the Cathedral to more advantage, directed that such 'owners should receive such satisfaction 'as should seem reasonable; or, on 'their refusal, the sheriff was required to see the buildings so pulled down, 'it not being thought fit the obstinacy 'of those persons should hinder so 'commendable a work.' By another order in council, scarcely less oppres- |