of bribery and neglect of duty by the Peers, May 13, is fined £50,000, and declared incapable of sitting in parliament P.

The lord keeper (John Williams, bishop of Lincoln) is also complained of by Buckingham, but the Commons decline to impeach him.

A complaint of false doctrine is made to the Commons against Dr. Richard Montague, one of the king's chaplains.

A proclamation issued, forbidding the sale of books on religion, or on government in Church or State, unless licensed by the archbishops and other commissioners, Aug. 15.

A.D. 1625.

▸ He was sent to the Tower the next day, and formally deprived of office May 16. Cranfeild was originally a merchant of London, and had been brought forward by Buckingham, but had offended him by hesitating to sanction his lavish expenditure in the Spanish journey. He defended himself with spirit on his trial, and is believed to have been unjustly condemned. His fine was reduced to £20,000, and he was soon released from prison by Charles I., who granted him a special pardon, Aug. 20, 1626. He lived in retirement until his death, which occurred in the year 1645.

In a tract against the Romanists, entitled, "A Gag for the New Gospel," he had denied that the Calvinistic tenets were agreeable to the faith of the Church of England. This gave great offence to the Puritan party; he was summoned before the House, and condemned to silence by the archbishop

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1624

of Canterbury (Abbot), to whom they remitted the cause. He, however, appealed to the king, and he was saved from any present consequences by the dissolution of the parliament, which soon occurred, but his prosecution was revived in the next reign. See A.D. 1625.

Montague was born in 1578, and was educated at Cambridge. In spite of the anger of the parliament, he was in 1628 made bishop of Chichester (one William Jones, a London tradesman, publicly objecting to the election, but without effect), and in 1638 was translated to Norwich. He died April 13, 1641.

This calamitous event made a great impression on the king, who bitterly lamented having yielded to the persuasion of evil counsellors, and plunged into a war in his old age.

CHARLES, the second son of James VI. of Scotland and Anne of Denmark, was born at Dunfermline, Nov. 19, 1600, was brought to England shortly after his father's accession to the throne, and was, while yet very young, created duke of York and knight of the Garter; on the death of his brother Henry, in 1612, he became prince of Wales. In 1623 he engaged in a journey to Spain, in company with the marquis of Buckingham, in order to conclude a marriage that had long been pending with the Infanta Maria, the daughter of Philip IV., but the project failed, and shortly after his return he succeeded to the throne by the death of his father, March 27, 1625; he was crowned Feb. 2, 1626.

The first great unhappiness of Charles's reign was the evil influence of his favourite Buckingham. The

Dr. Sibthorp preached a sermon of this nature, ("Apostolical Obedience,") at Northampton, Feb. 22, 1627, from Rom. xiii. 7, "Render therefore to all their dues;" and Dr. Roger Manwaring, preach

young king had imbibed principles of arbitrary power, which made him regard parliaments only as instruments of taxation; hence his indignation was extreme when his first parliament brought charges of the gravest nature against the favourite, and declined to vote taxes, although the nation was, by its own urgent desire, at war with Spain, until these and other matters of grievance were redressed. By Buckingham's advice they were speedily dismissed, as was a second parliament, which pursued a like course, and the fatal step was then taken of attempting to govern without one. Clergymen were found to enlarge on the doctrine of passive obedience, and to declare in express terms that the king had an absolute right to such part of his subjects' property as he chose to take"; judges perverted the law in the

ing before the king at Whitehall, maintained that "those who refused to pay the loan offended against the law of God, and the king's supreme authority, and became guilty of impiety, disloyalty, and re

same spirit, and tunnage and poundage were levied, although they had only been granted for the late king's life. Forced loans were raised, those who refused to pay being imprisoned, or made to serve as soldiers or sailors, whilst the troops became mutinous for want of pay, and thus compelled a resort to martial law, which was misrepresented as if meant as a threat to the nation in general. In the midst of these difficulties a war was entered on with France, which was generally ascribed to some personal resentments of Buckingham, and in which, though he shewed headlong courage as a mere soldier, he discharged the office of general in a way calculated to expose the nation to contempt.

bellion," he also affirmed that the authority of parHament was not necessary for the raising of aids and subsidies, and that the slow proceedings of such assemblies were prejudicial to the just designs of princes. His sermons were published under the title, "Religion and Allegiance;" but they occasioned so much discontent that the king was obliged to suppress them by proclamation, June 24, 1628.

William Laud, the son of a Berkshire clothier, was born at Reading, Oct. 7, 1573, and was educated at the free-school of that town. He afterwards went to St. John's College, Oxford, and even when a student ventured to question the views of the Puritans, which drew upon him the censure of the vice-chancellor, Abbot, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. He at length became chaplain to Bishop Neile, of Rochester, and was by

Arms of Archbishop Laud.

him introduced to the court of James I. Laud accompanied the king into Scotland in 1617, was active in promoting his views as to the restoration of episcopacy there, and was himself raised to the see of St. David's in 1621. In 1626 he was translated to Bath and Wells, and two years later to London, when he became virtually primate, his ancient opponent Abbot having fallen into disgrace, though he did not receive the title till 1633. Laud had ever had the cause of the Church at heart, and when he became a bishop, he set himself to work, with more zeal and good intentions than success, to remedy various evils which had sprung up, particularly the

The expenses of the war obliged the king to call a third parliament in 1628. Their temper was in no manner changed, and, after a sharp struggle, they extorted the famous Petition of Right, in which the exactions and violences of former years were distinctly condemned; but the royal assent was given with such evident marks of reluctance, that a doubt of the king's sincerity was reasonably entertained. Shortly after, Buckingham was assassinated by a man who gave as his chief reason, the complaints of the parliament against him. Charles was thus more prejudiced than ever against parliaments, and he found two fitting instruments to his design of absolute monarchy in Bishop Laud and Sir

systematic disregard of holy places and seasons in which the Puritans indulged, which had reduced many churches to a condition of ruin, and had in too many places banished all decent order from the public service. Soon after, on the death of the duke of Buckingham, Laud was called to the king's council, and he had thenceforth a much larger share in the direction of public affairs than was suitable to his function; but, according to his own statement, this was against his will. It is certain, however, that he entered zealously on his new duties, and he bore the odium of devising many unwarrantable schemes for the improvement of the revenue, which he assisted to execute. He no doubt sincerely believed in the divine right of kings, and all its consequences of absolute lordship over the person and property of the subject; and finding these questioned, an unhappy infirmity of temper induced him to concur in any means, however arbitrary, which seemed likely to crush opposition, and render his master independent of parliaments. These expedients were successful for a while, but at length they utterly failed, when the king was compelled to call his last parliament, which met Nov. 3, 1640. Early in the following year the archbishop was impeached of treason by the Commons, and sent to the Tower, where he remained, exposed to many hardships, until his death. In March, 1643, charges were exhibited against him, accusing him of designs of overthrowing parliaments, and bringing about union with Rome. Prynne, a barrister, who had suffered from the Starchamber, and was his personal enemy, had with malignant industry collected all the evidence of these designs that was procurable, seizing his private papers, and even his Prayer-book, and tampering with them to suit the views of his party; but after all, the proofs were so weak, though repeatedly brought forward, that the House of Peers were disinclined to convict him. The Commons, however, were resolved on his destruction, and at last, in November, 1644, with a degree of illegality and cruelty very far exceeding anything with which they charged him, he was attainted by an ordinance, and, in contempt of a pardon which the king had granted him, was beheaded Jan. 10, 1645, his last words being a solemn denial of the charge of affection for Rome. His body was buried in the church of Allhallows Barking, near the Tower, but in 1663 was removed to his college at Oxford. He had been for several years chancellor of that University, to which he gave many valuable MSS., where he also founded the Greek press, and where many other proofs of his munificent patronage of learning yet remain.