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AN ABUSE OF PRIVILEGE.

Of course the Commons-hard godly Puritans, stern and serious-were profoundly angry. It was a victory which Laud and his supporters keenly enjoyed to carry away the booty unharmed from out of the very jaws of the enemy. Heylyn makes very merry over it. He evidently feels that it was a wellmerited lesson; that the House was taking upon itself functions that lay quite outside its range. They were there, he believes, to vote subsidies, not to hold proceedings in controversial theology. He has a very amusing passage, where he contends that they caught the habit, like an epidemic, from a session held in the Divinity School at Oxford. He imagines it must have turned their heads. The House of Commons enthroned in a Divinity School! The Speaker in a Regius Professor's chair! A vision, he insists, must have flashed across them of supremacy, not only in politics, but in theology. And he ends with a most humorous comparison to Vibius Rufus, who, having married Cicero's widow and bought Cæsar's chair, felt himself in a fair way to acquire the eloquence of one and the power of the other.

In 1637 a measure of Laud's was passed in the Star Chamber which, perhaps, aroused a wider and more bitter hostility against him than any other of his unpopular enactments. It was a severe cur

LIBERTY OF PRESS CURTAILED.

79

tailment of the liberty of the press. The decree was a singularly stringent one. It limited the number of printers, and it forbade the printing or reprinting of any book without a licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, or the Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge. Laud held two of these dignities himself, and his friend and protégé, the gentle and submissive Juxon, was Bishop of London.

Thus the committee was a small one, and had a very decided bias. It was a grievous mistake for a man to make: but, on the other hand, it was a very excusable one; for a man accustomed to have his way, and determined to have his way, and devoid of the smallest intention of either interpreting or humouring the prejudices or wishes of the people, profoundly convinced that his duty was to govern them, it was a natural mistake-so natural, indeed, that it is impossible to conceive his acting otherwise.

The little pocket Bible, with foot-notes- the Genevan edition-was one of the first publications suppressed. Two whole editions were seized at the Hague. They were cheap, convenient, well-printed little books, and they were correct-while in the last English editions of the Bible and Prayer Book over a thousand errors had been detected; for instance,

80

THE GENEVA BIBLE.

in the Commandments in Exodus, the seventh stood as "Thou shalt commit adultery." For no step has the Archbishop incurred more odium. It has been called a piece of true prelatical oppression. He is even supposed to have deliberately set his face against the circulation of the Word of God.

But if we examine the character of this book, we are compelled to decide that, in the first place, Laud could not have done otherwise, and, in the second place, that it was a vile and fanatical work.

The notes were abominable; so wild are they, that they are little short of ludicrous to us now. They laid down the principles that kings might be disobeyed and assassinated if they were idolaters; that promises were not binding if upon examination they proved to run counter to the gospel; that the Presbytery was of Divine importance; adding, as a corollary established beyond the possibility of doubt, in so many words, that Archbishops, Bishops, and all holders of academical degrees were the locusts of the Apocalypse that came up out of the pit.

In his trial the Archbishop maintained that he was not in the least sorry for having thus acted, and that if he had the power he would do so again; and all rational people will be of his mind.

Whether he exerted his prerogative wisely in the

LAUD'S UNWISDOM.

case of other books may be doubted.

81

Probably

much was suppressed that would have condemned itself; and more harm was done by the keeping under of seditious nonsense than would ever have been caused by its appearance.

G

82

ATTRACTION OF CONTEMPLATIVE life.

CHAPTER VIII.

He

LAUD had evidently experienced that deep attraction to cloistered contemplative life that thoughtful men whose lines are cast in busy places are apt to feel. He sighed, in the whirl and rush of official work, for rest and study, peace and prayer. would not have been human if he had not. Just as the wistful eremite looks back, in moments of reaction, half-heartedly, to all the stir and freshness he has left, which reach him so faintly through the gratings of his retreat;-so Laud sighed for retirement, well knowing that he would make no sacrifices to win it, and that he would be unhappy under it, were it forced by fate upon him.

And so he sought out devotional men and made much of them. He promoted Cosin and Jeremy Taylor. He came across the path of George Herbert at the most critical moment of his life. Herbert was at Wilton, with his cousin the Earl of Pembroke, in an undecided mood, feeling drawn to the