censure of the indignant parliament, from whose sentence he appealed to Cæsar with so much effect, that though the legislature had pronounced him unworthy of the ministry, Charles raised him to a bishoprick. The commons presented also to his majesty a petition against the papists, to which he gave such a reply, that nothing farther was wanting to gain the hearts of his subjects but sincere adherence to his fair promises; but he early showed that he regarded his professions, like a true son of James, only as a necessary piece of kingcraft +. But the germ of all the mighty mischiefs of this reign was Laud, who was born at Reading, educated on a charitable foundation at Oxford, and after having halted between protestants and papists, was ex-alted to the see of Canterbury. He seemed to study how far he could go towards Rome, without being a papist; and how absolutely he could reign over kingdoms, without exchanging his mitre for a crown. At the coronation of Charles, he introduced some additional ceremonies, and said to his majesty, "as you see the clergy come nearer the altar than others, so remember that you give them greater honour." He would have forced his idol, arminianism, upon the convocation; but being better advised, he procured a private conference, which, like that at Hampton Court, was not designed to elicit truth, but to enforce the reigning creed; so that it was archly observed, no one returned thence an arminian who went thither a calvinist ‡. The king, finding his parliaments hostile to arminianism, popery, and arbitrary power, studied to * Fuller, book II. p. 119. Warner, p. 510. + Ibid, p. 513. 125, book II. govern without them, and was only prevented by want of troops from throwing off the mask, and rendering himself absolute*. By various illegal acts, he extorted money from his subjects; and as the puritans were peculiarly hateful to the high priest who ruled the nation, they were fined in the star chamber, till many of them were reduced from affluence to beggary +. Preachers were employed by the court to exalt the king's prerogative, to the ruin of the constitution. Dr. Sibthorp, in an assize sermon, affirmed, that if princes command any thing, which the subjects may not perform, because it is against the laws of God or nature, or impossible, subjects are bound to undergo the punishments without resisting or reviling." The king was so pleased with this sermon, at which common sense revolts, that he ordered archbishop Abbot to licence it for the press; but he had too much honesty and religion to consent, for which he was banished to an unhealthy place. Warner says, "I shall make no remarks on this single instance of despotic arbitrary power, when the whole nation was treated as a conquered province." The king imitated his father, both in publishing a royal declaration to encourage dancing, masks, and interludes on the Lord's days, and in disgusting his Scotch subjects, by forcing upon them bishops, and a liturgy, which they dreaded more than the plague. In a visit to Scotland, Laud displayed all the foppery of Rome, on a stage where it was exposed only to * Warner, vol. II. p. 515. + As St. Pauls cathedral was repaired at this time, the fines were aggravated to meet the expense, which gave birth to the saying, the church was built with the sins of the people. ridicule, and induced his majesty to enforce the new religion with severities, which added to that ridicule an unconquerable horror and detestation. Had this ill-starred favourite conceived the deadliest hatred to his master, and formed a settled determination to ruin him; he could not have pursued more effectual methods; for every step of his administration laid the train by which at last he blew up the throne of the Stuarts. While all men of decency were shocked at the debaucheries which profaned the Sabbath, so that the judges, and all the justices of one of the most considerable counties, remonstrated against it; Laud insulted them for it as puritans; and chief justice Richardson* complained, with tears, that he had been miserably shaken by the archbishop, who had nearly choked him with his lawn sleeves. It was now becoming every day more difficult, and less important, to distinguish between the church of England and that of Rome. Though it is not proved that Laud wished to re-unite the two churches, it is evident that he was even more compliant than James, who wished to meet half-way; for our protestant archbishop seemed mad after something like the Gallican church, which should possess all the splendor of popery, with the peculiar advantage of absolute submission to the bishops instead of the pope. The Lord's supper had been celebrated in the midst of the churches, at a table, which Laud now ordered to be removed, and placed as an altar against the east wall, fenced round with a rail to keep the profane laity at an awful distance. The people were solemnly instructed in the sacred * Warner, p. 525. duty of paying reverence, on entering and leaving the consecrated buildings; of bowing to the altar, which Laud said was the only place on earth where God resided; and of doing homage to the clergy, who were to be called priests. The pompous ritual, which was now introduced, gave such encouragement to papists, that they abounded through the kingdom; and when Laud asked the daughter of the earl of Devon why she turned catholic, she replied, "because I hate to travel in a crowd, and as I see you and your party making such haste towards Rome, I determined to go before you*." Dr. Cozens was accused, by the parliament, of setting up in the cathedral of Durham a marble altar with cherubim ; a cope with the Trinity, God the Father being represented as an old man; and a crucifix with the image of Christ, who was adorned with a red beard and a blue cap. He was also charged with lighting up two hundred tapers at the altar, on Candlemas-day, and procuring a consecrated knife to cut the sacramental bread†. But all who opposed these new beauties of holiness, were pursued with the utmost severity of Laud's vindictive spirit. Dr. Alexander Leighton, the father of the celebrated archbishop, was brought into the star chamber, for publishing an appeal to the parliament, or Zion's Plea, against Prelacy, and received a sentence so equitable, that when it was pronounced Laud pulled off his cap and gave God thanks. That we may justly appreciate his lordship's devotion, he * Warner, p. 520. Mr. Smart, a prebend of the cathedral, was cruelly persecuted for preaching against these superstitions. Fuller, book II. P: 173. has recorded in his diary, the sentence which raised his gratitude to heaven. “His ears were cut off, his nose slit, his face branded with burning irons; he was tied to a post, and whipped with a treble cord, of which every lash brought away his flesh. He was kept in the pillory near two hours, in frost and snow.' He was then imprisoned, with peculiar severity, for about eleven years, and when released by the parliament, he could neither hear, nor see, nor walk*. In the year one thousand six hundred and thirtyseven, a most infamous tragedy was acted in the treatment of a divine, a lawyer, and a physician, whose names were Burton, Prynne, and Bastwick. They had before been imprisoned for libels, but were now accused of publishing new reflections on the bishops, their innovations, and encouraging of Sunday revellings. Unable to procure counsel, and forbidden to plead their own cause, they were condemned to stand in the pillory, where their ears were cut off; and as Prynne had before suffered this indignity, the stumps of his ears were barbarously mangledt, by which, the temporal artery being cut, the blood flowed down in streams. Who can wonder that our much-injured forefathers should now turn their eyes towards other lands, and address each other thus? "The sun shines as pleasantly on America as on England, and the Sun. of Righteousness much more clearly. We are treated here in a manner which forfeits all claim upon our * Pierce, p. 179. + Fuller, book XI. p. 155. Who also records, that when Prynne was branded on the cheek with S. L. for slanderous libeller, he made the following distich : Stigmata maxillis referens, insignia Laudis, |