PREFACE.

Two reasons induced me to try and sketch the life of Laud. The first was that it has been customary to take an extravagant view of him-either to set him forward as the champion of all that is traditional and venerable in Church doctrine or discipline, the type of the moderate High Churchman, with a clearly defined position neither Romanist nor Lutheran; or, on the other hand, to decry him as an obstinate bigot, self-willed and important, who fell a victim to his own intolerant prejudices. Neither of these seemed to me a fair or worthy view he was certainly not the latter, he was far from being the former; he holds an intermediate position. I have not endeavoured to make him. into a hero or a saint, but to depict him as a man of an undaunted spirit, of an inflexible if not heroic mould, as one of the most vivid and interesting figures in the very centre of one of the

most gigantic tragedies that has ever been played out on the stage of English history.

And in the second place, living in the house which is so closely connected with him, being often brought into contact with some little memorial of him, talking beneath his portrait, worshipping beneath his chapel screen, seeing his signature written in the stiff tall hand, all this created a strong wish to try and realize, as he moved and spoke and looked, one of the most definite personalities that has ever occupied the chair of St. Augustine.

Few people have received so much damage from their defenders as Laud. His apologists, not content with making much out of the amiable features of his character, have not only slurred over a great deal that is undeniably unamiable, but have in many cases endeavoured to put a favourable construction on what is harsh and unpleasing, and should have been otherwise. Thus they have succeeded in producing a portrait that we feel at once to be exaggerated and disproportionate, and not even lifelike. He has been damned with praise.

Now, Laud's was a vehement, almost violent character, and there was much that was angular and disagreeable about him. Offensive peculiarities in a great man have often their humorous side; and that, combined with the natural veneration which

the biographer feels, or grows to feel, may, as in the case of Boswell's "Johnson," produce a delightful result. But it must not be done deliberately. The picture must be made complete, and framed, and hung; and others must be left to judge whether they can love the original well enough to condone his uglinesses.

First comes Heylyn-Peter Heylyn, chaplain to the Archbishop, and, after the Restoration, Subdean of Westminster. He is Laud's Boswell. His biography-" Cyprianus Anglicanus," as he calls it, for Cyprian was a decapitated prelate is very nearly a first-rate book. It is racy, humorous, vivid, and affectionate; but it is portentously long, and has no index. No one but a student would read it now.

But to Heylyn every biographer of Laud must be deeply indebted. Again and again he must be quoted. He is sometimes, I think, sublime. The death scene is a noble piece of writing. I have given it in full.

I subjoin here, as most appropriate, Heylyn's own account of his first interview with the Archbishop. It is a good specimen of his style; and it will give the reader a good idea of the character of the man, his pomposity, his complacency, and his zeal for his patron.

"The Archbishop," he writes, "being kept to his chamber at the time with lameness, I had both the happiness of being taken into his special knowledge of me, and the opportunity of a longer conference than I should otherwise have expected. I went to present my service to him, as he was preparing for this journey, and was appointed to attend him the same day seven-night, when I might presume on his return.

"Coming precisely at the time, I heard of his mischance, and that he kept himself to his chamber; but order had been left among his servants that if I came he should be made acquainted with it, which being done accordingly, I was brought into his chamber, where I found him sitting on a chair with his lame leg resting on a pillow. Commanding that nobody should come and interrupt him till he called for them, he caused me to sit down by him, and inquired first into the course of my studies, which he well approved of, exhorting me to hold myself in that moderate course in which he found me. He fell afterwards to discourse of some passages in Oxford in which I was specially concerned, and told me thereupon the story of such opposition as had been made against him in the University by Archbishop Abbot and others, and encouraged me not to shrink if I had already found

and should hereafter find the like. I was with him thus remotis arbitris, almost two hours. It grew almost twelve of the clock, and then he knocked for his servants to come to him; he dined that day in his ordinary dining-room, which was the first time he had done so since his mishap. He caused me to tarry dinner with him, and used me with no small respect, which was much noticed by some gentlemen (Elphinstone, one of his Majesty's cupbearers being one of the company) who dined that day with him. A passage, I confess, not pertinent to my present story."

Next must be mentioned Le Bas, who wrote a life in 1840. He was a Fellow of Trinity, and afterwards Principal of the East India College at Haileybury. He did a good deal of theological work, such as the life of Cranmer and the Wyclif movement,―lively writing enough, though superseded now.

Thus there is a gap of two hundred years between the two biographers. During that period Laud was accepted and forgotten. With the Oxford movement was felt considerable curiosity as to the life and character of a man so sympathetically inclined to the Ritualistic creed, a man, it was said, of so primitive a mould, the staunch upholder of Church tradition and authority. Le Bas was a man of