Laud, William 1573-1645
English prelate

He was born in Reading, Berkshire, the son of an affluent clothier. Educated at Reading Free School, he went to St John's College, Oxford, at the age of 16, becoming a Fellow four years later. Ordained in 1601, he made himself unpopular with the university authorities by his open antipathy to the dominant Puritanism, but his solid learning, amazing industry, administrative capacity, and sincere and unselfish churchmanship, soon won him friends and patrons. One of these was Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire, whom in 1605 Laud married to the divorced Lady Rich; another was George, 1st Duke of Buckingham, to whom he became confessor in 1622. Meanwhile he rose steadily - incumbent of five livings (1607-10), president of his old college and king's chaplain (1611), prebendary of Lincoln (1614), archdeacon of Huntingdon (1615), dean of Gloucester (1616), prebendary of Westminster and Bishop of St Davids (1621), Bishop of Bath and Wells, dean of the Chapel Royal, and a privy councillor (1626), Bishop of London (1628), Chancellor of Oxford (1630), and finally Archbishop of Canterbury (1633). He was also offered two cardinalships. After Buckingham's assassination, he had virtually become the first Minister of the Crown, working with Thomas Strafford and Charles I towards absolutism in Church and State. He was to raise the Church of England to its rightful position as a branch of the Church Catholic, to root out Calvinism in England and Presbyterianism in Scotland. In England he drew up a list of 'Orthodox' and 'Puritan' ministers, whom he proceeded to separate by scolding, suspending and depriving. Freedom of worship was withdrawn from Walloon and French refugees, Englishmen abroad were forbidden to attend Calvinistic services, and at home 'gospel preaching', justification by faith, and Sabbatarianism were superseded by an elaborate ritual, by the doctrine of the real presence, celibacy and confession, and by the Book of Sports - changes rigorously enforced by the court of High Commission and the Star Chamber. In Scotland, his attempt (1635-37) to anglicize the Church led to the 'Bishops' war', and this to the meeting of the Long Parliament, which in 1640 impeached the Archbishop of treason, and 10 weeks later sent him to the Tower. He would not escape (Grotius urged him to do so), and at last, in December 1644, he was voted 'guilty of endeavouring to subvert the laws, to overthrow the Protestant religion, and to act as an enemy to Parliament'. The judges declared that this was not treason, but under an unconstitutional ordinance of attainder, he was beheaded on Tower Hill.

Bibliography: H R Trevor-Roper, Archbishop Laud, 1573-1645 (1962)