Volume 1

A new general biographical dictionary / projected and partly arranged by the late Rev. Hugh James Rose.

  • Hugh James Rose
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new general biographical dictionary / projected and partly arranged by the late Rev. Hugh James Rose. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    p. 437)—a refusal to license a sermon of Dr. Sibthorpe’s, entitled ‘ Apostol- ical Obedience,’ containing sentiments which the archbishop disliked. “ This sermon was brought unto the duke,” he says, “ when it came into his head, or was suggested unto him by some malicious person, that thereby the archbishop might be put to some remarkable strait. For if the king should send the sermon unto him, and command him to allow it to the press, one of these two things would follow; that either he should au- thorize it, and so all men that were in- different should discover him for a base and unworthy beast (!); or he should refuse it, and so should fall into the king’s indignaton, who might pursue it at his pleasure, as against a man that was contraiy to his service. Out of this fountain flowed all the water that after- wards so wet.” Such was the archbishop’s surmise, resting only on suspicion, and upon an observation of Lord Conway, a creature of the duke’s. The archbishop’s suspicion is scarcely probable ; for had it been the real reason, it is not likely that Conway would have revealed it to the archbishop. Had the duke been desirous of displacing Abbot, he had a much plainer and easier course. The grounds for his suspension, mentioned in the com- mission, were simple and obvious, and involved much less odium. Another rea- son assigned is by Fuller, (mistaking, ap- parently, the authority of L’Estrange, in his Life of Charles I. p. 69) : “ A commission,” he says, “ was granted unto five bishops (whereof Bishop Laud of the quorum) to suspend Archbishop Abbot from exercising his authority any longer, because uncanonical for casual homicide.” And in his Appeal of Injured Innocence, defending himself against some remarks of Heylyn for this inac- curacy in saying that Bishop Laud was of the quorum, Fuller observes that he used that word not in its legal strictness, and then justifies his assertion by the following anecdote: that “ when the writing for the archbishop’s suspension was to be subscribed by the bishops aforesaid, the four seniors, London, Durham, Rochester, and Oxford, all declined to set their hands thereunto, and seemingly at the last showed much reluctance and regret thereat. ‘ Then give me the pen,’ said Bishop Laud; and though last in place, first subscribed his name. Encouraged by whose words and example, the rest after some demur did the like. This was attested to me by him who had best 23 cause to know it, the good and credible register, still alive, who attended in the place upon them.” This, though a very positive statement, is certainly in- accurate. There was no commission of this kind ever issued: the archbishop was removed directly by the king; and the commission by which the king sus- pended him, and delegated his archi- episcopal powers to the bishops above named, is still in existence. This anec- dote, therefore, respecting Laud is utterly false, or else some misrepresentation. The suspension was of brief duration ; for about Christmas, 1628, the arch- bishop was restored to favour, at the re- quest of the House of Lords, who made suit to the king to receive him into grace, (L’Estrange, 81.) The king as- sented, sent for the archbishop to come to court, and appointed the archbishop of York and the earl of Dorset to receive him as he came out of his barge. They conducted him to the king, who, giving him his hand to kiss, enjoined him not to fail the council-table twice a-week; and from henceforth he continued to sit in parliament in the exercise of his juris- diction till the day of his death, (lb. p. 95.) Upon the Friday after his return, the hishops met him at his house in Lambeth, in order to settle the contro- versies occasioned by a letter which Dr. Richard Mountague had addressed to the archbishop. Towards the latter period of his life he seems to have recovered his health, for this year he consecrated Richard Mountague bishop of Chichester, attended his parliamentary duties, and spoke at a conference held between the lords and commons on the petition of right (Rushworth, i. 546); and in 1632, the year before his death, the following pleasing anecdote of him is introduced in a MS. letter in the British Museum, from J. Pory to Sir Thomas Puckering, dated Sept. 20, 1632: “One day the last week, my lord of Arundel, and his son, my lord Maltravers, having espied my lord of Canterbury’s coach on Barn- sted Down coming towards theirs, before they came a butt’s length short of it, both their lordships alighted and went a great pace towards his grace’s coach, who, when they were approached, said, 1 What! and must my lord marshal of England take so great pains to do me so much honour ? W ere my legs as good as my heart, I should have met your lord- ships the better half of the way.’ Then my lord of Arundel replied, ‘ It might well become an earl marshal to give so
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