ANTIQUITIES, ETC. DISPOSAL OF HIGHER CHURCH PREFERMENT. (Continued from Vol. xii. p. 631.) In the extracts already given we have traced to its close the varying politics of Buckingham's administration. We have seen him first, in the career of a popular minister, endeavouring to gain the puritan party in the House of Commons, by means of the church patronage, which the King had put into his hands; and then, when he found it impossible to buy their favour but at the cost of that of their opponents, bestowing all his favours upon the church party, whose support he hoped to gain in his new line of politics. By this means, however, the disposal of church preferment came back into episcopal hands; and though, by the use that had been made of it for merely political purposes, mischief had been done which could not soon be remedied, yet we shall find abundant evidence of the benefit to the church from this return to a better system. The seed, meanwhile, which Buckingham's administration had sown, was to be reaped in a baleful harvest. "The duke had observed and discovered, that the channel in which the church promotions had formerly run had been liable to some corruptions-at least, to many reproaches-and therefore had committed the sole representation of those affairs, and the recommending of the vacancies which should happen, to Dr. Laud, then Bishop of Bath and Wells, and sworn of the privy council. And the king, after the duke's death, continued that trust in the same hands, infinitely to the benefit and honour of the church; though it may be no less to the prejudice of the poor bishop, who, too secure in a good conscience, and most sincere worthy intention, (with which no man was ever more plentifully replenished,) thought he could manage and discharge the place and office of the greatest minister in the court (for he was quickly made Archbishop of Canterbury) without the least condescension to the arts and stratagems of the court, and without any other friendship, or support, than what the splendour of a pious life, and his unpolished integrity, would reconcile to him; which was an unskilful measure in a licentious age, and may deceive a good man, in the best of times, that shall succeed; which exposed him to such a torrent of adversity and misery, as we shall have too natural an occasion to lament in the following discourse, in which it will be more seasonable to enlarge upon his singular abilities and immense virtue."* "And I cannot but say, for the honour of the king, and of those who were trusted by him in his ecclesiastical collations, (who have received but sad rewards for their uprightness,) in those reproached, condemned times, there was not one churchman, in any degree of favour or acceptance, (and this, the inquisition that hath been since made upon them, a stricter never was in any age, must confess,) of a scandalous insufficiency in learning, or of a more scandalous condition of life; but on the contrary, most of them of confessed eminent parts in knowledge, of virtuous and unblemished lives. And therefore, wise men knew that that, which looked like pride in some, and like petulance in others, would, by experience in affairs, and conversation amongst men, both of which most of them wanted, be in a time wrought off, or, in a new succession, reformed, and so * Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, book i. thought the vast advantage from their learning and integrity an ample recompence for any inconvenience from their passion; and yet, by the prodigious impiety of those times, the latter was only looked on with malice and revenge, without any reverence or gratitude for the former."* "But greater were the alterations amongst the bishops in the church than amongst the officers of court, and greater his (Laud's) authority in preferring the one, than in the disposing of the other. Buckeridge, his old tutor, dying in the see of Ely, makes room for White, then Bishop of Norwich, and Lord Almoner, to succeed in his place; a man who, having spent the greatest part of his life on his private cures, grew suddenly into esteem, by his zealous preachings against the papists, his conference with the Jesuit Fisher, and his book wrote against him by the command of King James. Appointed by that king to have a special eye on the Countess of Denbigh, (whom the priests much laboured to pervert,) he was encouraged thereto with the deanery of Carlisle, advanced, on that very account, to the bishopric thereof by the duke, her brother. The duke being dead, his favour in the court continued-removed to Norwich first, and to Ely afterwards. Corbet, of Oxon, one of Laud's fellow-sufferers in the university, succeeds him in the see of Norwich; and Bancroft, master of University College, is made Bishop of Oxon. Houson, of Durham, being dead, Morton removes from Litchfield thither; a man who, for the greatest part of his time, had exercised his pen against the papists, but gave, withal, no small contentment to King James, by his learned book in the defence of the three harmless ceremonies against the puritans. Wright follows him at Litchfield, and Cooke, (brother to Secretary Cooke,) follows Wright at Bristol, tied to the same conditions, and with like encouragement. The secretary had formerly done our bishop some bad offices. But great courtiers must sometimes pay good turns for injuries, break, and be pieced again, as occasions vary... "Nor were these all the alterations which were made this year, Archbishop Harsnet having left this life the year before, care must be taken for a fit man to succeed at York: a man of an unsuspected trust, and one that must be able to direct himself in all emergencies. Neile's known sufficiencies had pointed him unto the place, but he was warm at Winton; and perhaps might not be persuaded to move toward the north, from whence he came not long before with so great contentment. Yet such was the good man's desire to serve his Majesty and the church in what place soever, though to his personal trouble and particular loss, that he accepted of the offer, and was accordingly translated in the beginning of this year, or the end of the former. Two offices fell vacant by this remove; one in the court, which was the clerkship of the closet; and another in the church of Winton, which was that of the bishop. To the clerkship of the closet he preferred Dr. William Juxon, (whom before he had made President of St. John's College,) and recommended to his Majesty for the deanery of Worcester, to the end that he might have some trusty friend to be near his Majesty, whensoever he was forced by sickness, or any other necessary occasion, to absent himself.... To find another fit man for Winton must be his chief business.... He thought it most conducible to his peace and power to prefer Curle from Bath and Wells to the see of Winton; which being accordingly effected, Pierce is removed from Peterborough to the see of Wells, upon the like consideration as Wright was about the same time translated to Litchfield. There was a rich parsonage called Castor, which belonged to his patronage as Bishop of Peterborough, about three or four miles from that small city, designed, whensoever it fell void, to serve for a perpetual commendam to the bishops of it. And falling void, it was so ordered, by the care of our Bishop of London, that Pierce should wave the preferment of a friend unto it, and take it for the present unto himself, leaving it afterwards to his Ibid. 1630. + "By the power and favour of this his chaplain" (Laud), he had been promoted to the see of Winton.-Heylyn's Laud, lib. i., anno 1608. successors. For his reward therein, he was preferred to Bath and Wells, and Peterborough procured by Laud for his old friend and fellow-servant, Dr. Augustine Lyndsell, for whom he formerly had obtained the deanery of Litchfield. And, to say truth, the man deserved it, being a very solid divine and a learned linguist; to whom the Christian world remains indebted for Theophylact's Comment on the Epistles, and the Catena upon Job, published by him in Greek and Latin."* "It was within one week after the king's return from Scotland, that Abbot died at his house at Lambeth. The king took very little time to consider who should be his successor; but the very next time the Bishop of London (who was longer on his way home than the king had been) came to him, his Majesty entertained him very cheerfully with this compellation, My Lord's grace of Canterbury, you are very welcome,' and gave order the same day for the despatch of all the necessary forms for the translation; so that within a month or thereabouts after the death of the other archbishop, he was completely invested in that high dignity, and settled in his palace at Lambeth. This great prelate had been before in great favour with the Duke of Buckingham, whose chief confidant he was, and by him recommended to the king as fittest to be trusted in the conferring all ecclesiastical preferments, when he was but Bishop of St. David's, or newly preferred to Bath and Wells; and from that time he entirely governed that province without a rival, so that his promotion to Canterbury was long foreseen and expected; nor was it attended with any increase of envy or dislike. "He was a man of great parts and very exemplary virtues, allayed and discredited by some unpopular natural infirmities; the greatest of which was (besides a hasty, sharp way of expressing himself,) that he believed innocence of heart and integrity of manners was a guard strong enough to secure any man in his voyage through this world, in what company soever he travelled, and through what ways soever he was to pass; and sure never any man was better supplied with that provision. . . . He was always maligned and persecuted by those who were of the Calvinian faction, which was then very powerful, and who, according to their usual maxim and practice, call every man they do not love papist; and under this senseless appellation they created him many troubles and vexations, and so far suppressed him, that though he was the king's chaplain, and taken notice of for an excellent preacher and a scholar of the most sublime parts, he had not any preferment to invite him to leave his poor college, which only gave him bread, till the vigour of his age was past; and when he was promoted by King James, it was but to a poor bishopric in Wales, which was not so good a support for a bishop as his college was for a private scholar, though a doctor. "Parliaments in that time were frequent, and grew very busy; and the party under which he had suffered a continual persecution appeared very powerful and full of design, and they who had the courage to oppose them begun to be taken notice of with approbation and countenance; under this style he came to be first cherished by the Duke of Buckingham, who had made some experiments of the spirit of the other people, nothing to his satisfaction. From this time he prospered at the rate of his own wishes, and being transplanted out of his cold, barren diocese of St. David's into a warmer climate, he was left, as was said before, by that great favourite in that great trust with the king. "In the end of September of the year 1633, he was invested in the title, power, and jurisdiction of Archbishop of Canterbury, and entirely in possession of the revenue thereof, without a rival in church or state; that is, no man professed to oppose his greatness; and he had never interposed or interfered in matters of state to this time. His first care was, that the place he was removed from might be supplied with a man who would be vigilant to pull up those weeds which the London soil was too apt to nourish, and so drew his old friend and companion Dr. Juxon as near to him as he could. They had been fellows together in one • Heylyn's Laud, anno 1632. college in Oxford, and when he was first made Bishop of St. David's he made him president of that college; when he could no longer keep the deanery of the chapel royal, he made him his successor in that near attendance upon the king; and now he was raised to be archbishop, he easily prevailed with the king to make the other Bishop of London, before or very soon after he had been consecrated Bishop of Hereford, if he were more than elect of that church."* "Thus have we brought him to his height, and from that height we may take as good a prospect into the church, under his direction, as the advantage of the place can present unto us. And if we look into the church as it stood under his direction, we shall find the prelates more intent upon the work committed to them, more earnest to reduce this church to the ancient order, than in former times; ... If you will take her character from the mouth of a protestant, he will give it thus: He that desires to portray England (saith he) in her full structure of external glory, let him behold the church shining in transcendent empyreal brightness, and purity of evangelical truths..... The set and suit of her whole tribe renowned for piety and learning, are all those in so supereminent a degree, that no church on this side of the apostolic can or could compare with her in any one...."t SACRED POETRY. A NOVEMBER SCENE. O'ER the bleak wold the dun autumnal sky It must not be such thoughts but tempt the soul But rather let me look where yonder breaks Sleep calmly. All the heav'ns are moving on, Count the bright pearls on th' Ethiop brow of sorrow. For our true sun behind yon vapoury screen The lark is lowly housed, and, from beyond Clarendon's Rebellion, book i. 1633. + Heylyn's Life of Laud, lib. iv., anno 1633. VOL. XIII.-Jan. 1838. F O'er all below: yet not so, one e'en now And from these chequer'd scenes builds a bright bow 'Tis thou who tunest all things, if the soul That bindeth all things in the solemn swell Shall be her music; autumn's manlier throat, Within that lowly chaunt a strain divine, For there is that within us, heavenly sown, Takes up its annual tale of stern decay, That Presence which to feel alone is life, CHRISTIAN RESERVE. "Thou art a place to hide me in."-Psalm xxxii. Things which abide nearest the fountain spring Secret, and shade. There is a subtle blight Watches the door, and lets the spoiler in, Shorn the charm'd lock, when once the charm is read. |