10 January 1645 A.D. The Axe Drops: Willy Laud’s Head Rolls—Couldn’t Have Happened to a More Lovely Chap
Graves, Dan. “William Laud Lost His Head.” Christianity.com. May 2007.
http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1601-1700/william-laud-lost-his-head-11630110.html. Accessed 7 Jul 2014.
On this day, January
10, 1645,
William Laud's head was chopped off. If you had to sum up the reason why, you
could say power went to his head.
Laud was born in 1573,
twenty-eight years after King Henry VIII
broke from the Roman Catholic church because it would not give him a divorce.
Except for a few years under Queen Mary, the established English church has
been Protestant ever since.
Not everyone was comfortable in
the Church of England. The Puritans thought it hadn't moved far enough away
from the old Catholic ways, and wanted to purify it. Christians quarreled
about where the altar should be and whether or not they should bow toward it.
Some thought stained glass windows were idolatrous. While many found the prayer
book inspiring, critics argued that no one should be made to pray out of a
book. The government set the rules for worship, but of course it couldn't
please everyone and not all priests followed the rules. That is how things
stood when William Laud came to power.
Laud was educated for the
church. He earned a position as a tutor and then as a chaplain. Elected
president of St. John's college, Oxford, he ran a peaceful school for eleven
years. His success won him an appointment as a chaplain to the king and then as
bishop of Gloucester. At Gloucester he upset some of his congregation by moving
the altar to the east as it would have been in a Catholic church. He did not
explain to anyone why he did it. As far as he was concerned, he had the
authority to make the move and that was enough.
Laud was a friend of prince
Charles. When Charles I became king, he asked Laud to draw up a list of
clergymen who were worthy of promotion. On Laud's list each clergyman suspected
of Puritanism was marked with a "P." It was a safe bet that no
"P" would get a promotion because Charles did not like Puritans.
Incidents like this caused people to say that Laud wanted to return the church
to Catholicism. This was not true. In debate with a Jesuit, he argued strongly
for the Church of England.
Laud was a detail man. Charles
trusted his work and liked Laud's theory that kings have divine right to rule
and should be obeyed in everything. The king brought Laud into the Star Chamber
(a powerful court of inquisition), and eventually made him Archbishop of
Canterbury, the highest post in the Church of England.
Laud was strict. Rules were
rules and he meant to enforce them. He tried to force an identical church
service on everyone, believing that the way to develop unity of spirit was to
have unity in the form of worship. The Puritans resisted and Laud persecuted
them. He joined in ordering that William Prynne's ears be cut off when Prynne
wrote an attack on the theatre that reflected badly on the king and queen.
Laud supported the king against
the Puritans in Parliament. Eventually Parliament and king fought each other.
Parliament accused Laud of treason. Laud almost won his case, because he had
acted with strict legality. The House of Commons was able to convict him only
by arguing that it could declare any crimes it pleased to be treason.
When Laud was brought to the
scaffold, he preached, taking as his text Hebrews 12:2, "Let us run with
patience the race that is set before us." He forgave his enemies and asked
their forgiveness. His last prayer was, "Lord, I am coming as fast as I
can: I know I must pass through the shadow of death before I can come to Thee;
but it is but umbra mortis, a mere shadow of death...Thou, by thy merits
and passion, hath broken through the jaws of death." He prayed for peace
in England. After a moment of silence he added, "Lord receive my
soul." He was seventy-two when the blade lopped off his head.
Bibliography:
"Laud, Willam." Dictionary of
National Biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee.
London: Oxford University Press, 1921-1996.
Hook, Walter Farquhar, 1798-1875. Lives of the
Archbishops of Canterbury. London, R. Bentley, 1865-1884.
Hutton, W. H. A Story of the English Church. London:
Macmillan, 1903.
McKilliam, Annie E. A Chronicle of the Archbishops
of Canterbury. London: J. Clarke, 1913.
Last updated May,
2007.
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