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FARNHAM CHAPEL.

the navicula, or vessel for holding the frankin

cense.

Otherwise, the chapel is very ordinary: there is the altar railed off, a credence, lectern, litany desk, as I have said, and return stalls for the clergy. There is subjoined a long list of copes and veils, and very elaborate altar furniture of flagons, basons, chalices, etc.

Laud's allusion to this, in his defence, is a very curious one. He becomes ironical. He is glad to learn, he says, that his estate was so plentiful at that time, that he could have afforded such sumptuous surroundings.

The truth is, that it is an excellent instance of Prynne's shameless malevolence; if it is mere carelessness, it is carelessness so culpable in such a matter as the trial of a public man as to be very nearly as criminal as deliberate perjury. The fact in reality being that Laud, when building his chapel, wrote to Bishop Lancelot Andrews for a description of the chapel at Farnham. One of the chaplains drew out a rough plan, which was enclosed. Thus the plan was the plan of the chapel at Farnham, which, for nearly twenty years, had been in different hands, and under a totally different régime.

I confess that it is still surprising to hear that

LAUD OFFERED A CARDINAL'S HAT.

109

incense was in common use in Bishop Andrews's chapel; and it appears from the evidence that wafers were used there instead of bread, which will be to many an unfamiliar fact.

With these proclivities, however, it was no wonder, in a land dry with Calvinism, that, as Laud notes in his Diary immediately after his nomination to Canterbury, "there came one secretly to me by night, and proffered me, as with authority, a Cardinal's hat, and the same offer was shortly after repeated. To whom I made answer, that I must first see Rome other than it was." And the answer was a very genuine one. Laud was hardly nearer Rome than he was to Calvinism. He was far too real an Erastian at heart, far too earnest a believer in the interdependence of Church and State to lie down either with the Pope or Luther. Nothing can be a greater mistake than to believe Laud to have been a Romanist at heart, restrained, by motives of timidity or prudence, from declaring himself. were instances of that.

Montague and Gardiner

Whatever his faults were,

Laud was no hypocrite. If he had believed the Pope right, to the Pope he would have gone. Perhaps he hated Protestantism the worse of the two, for he loved neither the soul of it nor the clothes it wore; whereas, he was well satisfied with

IIO

THE JESUITS ON LAUD.

the trappings of Romanism: but its arrogance of spirituality was quite outside his field of view. Compare the feeling at Rome with which the news of his death was received. They evidently did not regard him as their friend.

John Evelyn was at Rome at the time, and in the company of several of the English Romanists and Jesuit fathers. The news arrived, and copies of Laud's speech on the scaffold were circulated. They received the news with satisfaction; they commented on the speech with contempt, and evidently regarded his death as the removal of a great obstacle out of their path, the suppression of a dangerous rival. And yet his popish tendencies were the only serious charges brought against him. His definition of the Church of England would doubtless have been very much what a High Anglican of the present century would give—an uncorrupt Apostolic section; but he lacked the sympathy and toleration for the profession of which the better Anglicans are now so conspicuous.

JUXON HIGH TREASURER.

III

CHAPTER IX.

ONE of the achievements of which Laud speaks with the most profound satisfaction was the fact that he induced Charles to make Juxon, Bishop of London, Lord High Treasurer. If Laud had been a little more clear-sighted he would have felt that the little increase of secular dignity it gave to the Church was much more than counterbalanced by the natural jealousy of ecclesiastical interference that it suggested, and the uneasy suspicion that the Church was aiming at a civil tyranny. It only gave additional fuel to the flames.

Charles sent suddenly for the white staff, in the middle of a council, and delivered it to Juxon. It evidently took the councillors by surprise, though there had been a rumour to that effect circulating a few days before. Charles made a short speech, in which he explained his reasons: discretion and foresight were the qualities he wanted, if they could be found in a conscientious man. This

112

A SATISFACTORY APPOINTMENT.

combination he looked for among the clergy; and Juxon, as having no children, and thus with no private motive to self-enrichment, was the best.

"No churchman," notes Laud, "has had it since Henry the Seventh's time. I pray God to bless him in it. Now if the Church will not hold themselves up under God, I can do no more."

The elation to which Laud owns was general. Mr. Garrard, Master of the Charterhouse, writes to Strafford, "The Clergy are so high since the joining of the white sleeves with the white staff, that there is much talk of having a Secretary a Bishop, and a Chancellor of the Exchequer a Bishop, Dr. Bancroft. But this comes only from the Small Fry of the Clergy: little credit is given to it; but it is observed that they swarm mightily at Court."

Laud had discovered, by inquiry, that a Treasurer could honestly make £7000 a year without degrading the Treasury or abusing his privileges; that lately Treasurers, from mean private fortunes, had risen to the titles and estates of earls. If this was the case, a man with absolutely no personal motive would be a very useful servant for the king in his very impoverished condition.

Juxon's was an admirable appointment. He did his work quietly; unlike Laud, was gentle and courteous with all, and never became a party man.