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After the death of Buckingham, who had somewhat alienated Charles from the queen, she is to be considered as his chief friend and favorite. That rustic contempt of the fair sex which James affected, and which, banishing them from his court, made it resemble more a fair or an exchange than the seat of a great prince, was very wide of the disposition of this monarch. But though full of complaisance to the whole sex, Charles reserved all his passion for his consort, to whom he attached himself with unshaken fidelity and confidence. By her sense and spirit, as well as by her beauty, she justified the fondness of her husband; though it is allowed that, being somewhat of a passionate temper, she precipitated him into hasty and imprudent measures. Her religion likewise, to which she was much addicted, must be regarded as a great misfortune; since it augmented the jealousy which prevailed against the court, and engaged her to procure for the Catholics some indulgences which were generally distasteful to the nation.[*]

In the former situation of the English government, when the sovereign was in a great measure independent of his subjects, the king chose his ministers either from personal favor, or from an opinion of their abilities, without any regard to their parliamentary interest or talents. It has since been the maxim of princes, wherever popular leaders encroach too much on royal authority, to confer offices on them, in expectation that they will afterwards become more careful not to diminish that power which has become their own. These politics were now embraced by Charles; a sure proof that a secret revolution had happened in the constitution, and had necessitated the prince to adopt new maxims of government.[**]

* May, p 21.

** Sir Edw. Walker, p. 328.

But the views of the king were at this time so repugnant to those of the Puritans, that the leaders whom he gained, lost from that moment all interest with their party, and were even pursued as traitors with implacable hatred and resentment. This was the case with Sir Thomas Wentworth, whom the king created, first a baron, then a viscount, and afterwards earl of Strafford; made him president of the council of York, and deputy of Ireland; and regarded him as his chief minister and counsellor. By his eminent talents and abilities, Strafford merited all the confidence which his master reposed in him: his character was stately and austere; more fitted to procure esteem than love: his fidelity to the king was unshaken; but as he now employed all his counsels to support the prerogative, which he had formerly bent all his endeavors to diminish his virtue seems not to have been entirely pure, but to have been susceptible of strong impressions from private interest and ambition. Sir Dudley Digges was about the same time created master of the rolls; Noy, attorney-general; Littleton, solicitor-general. All these had likewise been parliamentary leaders, and were men eminent in their profession.[*]

* Whitlocke, p. 13. May, p. 20.

ENLARGE

In all ecclesiastical affairs, and even in many civil, Laud, bishop of London, had great influence over the king. This man was virtuous, if severity of manners alone, and abstinence from pleasure, could deserve that name. He was learned, if polemical knowledge could entitle him to that praise. He was disinterested; but with unceasing industry he studied to exalt the priestly and prelatical character, which was his own. His zeal was unrelenting in the cause of religion; that is, in imposing by rigorous measures his own tenets and pious ceremonies on the obstinate Puritans, who had profanely dared to oppose him. In prosecution of his holy purposes, he overlooked every human consideration; or, in other words, the heat and indiscretion of his temper made him neglect the views of prudence and rules of good manners. He was in this respect happy, that all his enemies were also imagined by him the declared enemies to loyalty and true piety, and that every exercise of his anger by that means became in his eyes a merit and a virtue. This was the man who acquired so great an ascendant over Charles, and who led him, by the facility of his temper, into a conduct which proved so fatal to himself and to his kingdoms.

The humor of the nation ran at that time into the extreme opposite to superstition; and it was with difficulty that the ancient ceremonies to which men had been accustomed, and which had been sanctified by the practice of the first reformers, could be retained in divine service: yet was this the time which Laud chose for the introduction of new ceremonies and observances. Besides that these were sure to displease as innovations, there lay, in the opinion of the public, another very forcible objection against them. Laud, and the other prelates who embraced his measures, were generally well instructed in sacred antiquity, and had adopted many of those religious sentiments which prevailed during the fourth and fifth centuries; when the Christian church, as is well known, was already sunk into those superstitions which were afterwards continued and augmented by the policy of Rome. The revival, therefore, of the ideas and practices of that age, could not fail of giving the English faith and liturgy some resemblance to the Catholic superstition, which the kingdom in general, and the Puritans in particular, held in the greatest horror and detestation. Men also were apt to think, that, without some secret purpose, such insignificant observances would not be imposed with such unrelenting zeal on the refractory nation; and that Laud’s scheme was, to lead back the English by gradual steps to the religion of their ancestors. They considered not, that the very insignificancy of these ceremonies recommended them to the superstitious prelate, and made them appear the more peculiarly sacred and religious, as they could serve to no other purpose. Nor was the resemblance to the Romish ritual any objection, but rather a merit with Laud and his brethren; who bore a much greater kindness to the mother church, as they called her, than to the sectaries and Presbyterians, and frequently recommended her as a true Christian church; an appellation which they refused, or at least scrupled to give to the others.[*] So openly were these tenets espoused, that not only the discontented Puritans believed the church of England to be relapsing fast into Romish superstition: the court of Rome itself entertained hopes of regaining its authority in this island; and, in order to forward Laud’s supposed good intentions, an offer was twice made him in private of a cardinal’s hat, which he declined accepting.[**] His answer was, as he says himself, “That something dwelt within him, which would not suffer his compliance, till Rome were other than it is.”[***]

* May, p. 25.

** Rushworth, vol. ii. p. 190. Welwood, p. 61.

*** Rushworth, vol. iii. p. 1327. Whitlocke, p. 97.

A court lady, daughter of the earl of Devonshire, having turned Catholic, was asked by Laud the reason of her conversion: “‘Tis chiefly,” said she, “because I hate to travel in a crowd.” The meaning of this expression being demanded, she replied, “I perceive your grace and many others are making haste to Rome; and therefore, in order to prevent my being crowded, I have gone before you.” It must be confessed, that though Laud deserved not the appellation of Papist, the genius of his religion was, though in a less degree, the same with that of the Romish: the same profound respect was exacted to the sacerdotal character, the same submission required to the creeds and decrees of synods and councils; the same pomp and ceremony was affected in worship; and the same superstitious regard to days, postures, meats, and vestments. No wonder, therefore, that this prelate was every where among the Puritans regarded with horror, as the forerunner of Antichrist.