Archbishop Laud

370 years ago, on January 10th 1645, Archbishop William Laud of Canterbury was beheaded on Tower Hill by the Parliamentarian regime.

Archbishop William Laud

Image: evelynsdiary.com

There is an online account of his life and trial here, and the excellent account of him and his career by Anthony Milton from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography can be read at William Laud

As these live show the Reading born Archbishop was intimately associated with Oxford, where he proved to be one of the greatest Chancellors of the University. In 1663 he was buried at St John's, his old college, which he had enriched, notably by the building of Canterbury Quad, and the college still possesses vestments he gave and the scull cap he is said to have worn to the scaffold.

Elsewhere in Oxford the porch and statue of the Virgin and Child at St Mary's and the crucifixion scene in the east window of Lincoln College Chapel (built by his great rival John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln and later Archbishop of York) were both cited as evidence to support the charges brought against him in 1644 at his show-trial. This and his ultimate fate displayed the vicious hatred of his opponents.

High Church rather than the Romaniser he was alleged or believed to be Laud made visible a vision and reality of a Church of England that sought to stand in the tradition of historic Christianity.By his life work ,a nd more importantly perhaps, his martyrdom, he gave an enduring strength to that possibility. It informed the Restoration Church and the High Church party of the period up to the Oxford Movement. that revered Laud, and doubtless could not have come about as it did, if at all, without his example.

He remains a controversial figure - the late Professor Patrick Collinson in 1980 condemned Laud as "the greatest calamity ever visited upon the English Church." Others, myself included, would disagree and see Laud as one of its greatest blessings.

My previous posts about the Archbishop can be read at Archbishop William Laud, at Archbishop William Laud, and at Vilifying and celebrating Archbishop Laud

St John's College Oxford vestments on display on November 30th

On Saturday November 30th St John's College here in Oxford is once again holding its termly public exhibition of its remarkable collection of medieval and Laudian vestments. These include two banners used at the dedication of the college chapel at the foundation in the reign of Queen Mary I and the scull cap worn by Archbiship Laud to the scaffold in 1645.

The vestments are on show from 2pm until 5pm. The collection is housed in a display room in the Garden Quadrangle - itself worth seeing as a fine example of skillful and inventive 1990s collegiate architecture - and entrance, free of charge, will be via the Main Lodge on St Giles.

If you are able to go to this exhibition I would recommend it, as the vestments are rare survivals of great historic interest.

St John's College Oxford - Laudian and other vestments on show on show

On Saturday March 3rd from 2pm until 5pm the Laudian vestments will again be on view at St John's College here in Oxford. Admission is free to see this fascinating collection. They are usually on show each term in their specially constructed display room. That they have survived is no small wonder - it is said that they were recovered from the 'dressing up box' of a nineteenth century President of St John's children or grandchildren.

The collection includes two banners made for the dedication of the college chapel when it was refounded as St John's in 1555 by Sir Thomas White. These very rare survivals would doubtless have been seen by such recusant martyrs as st Cuthbert mayne and Sy Edmund Campion who were both members of the college.

There are also late medieval vestments said to have been given by Archbishop Laud - a former President and great benefactor of St John's - and, perhaps most poignant, his violet scull cap which he wore on the scaffold in January 1645. The archbishop is buried in the college chapel, his body having been moved there at the Restoration in fulfillment of his will.

If you are in or near Oxford on March 3rd and at all interested in such things (and what right thinking person is not?) I would urge you to go along and see these remarkable treasures.

Vilifying and celebrating Archbishop Laud

The fact that Archbishop Laud, about whom I posted earlier today, was a controversial figure, both in his own times and subsequently, is undoubted. There are two contrasting, but not unreasonable, interpretations, both of which make some good points, which can be read here and here.

The Archbishop was described by Fuller as "low of stature, little in bulk, cheerful in countenance (wherein gravity and quickness were all compounded), of a sharp and piercing eye, clear judgment and (abating the influence of age) firm memory."

The presentation of his readily recognisable image in picture and word expressed the views of others about him.

An engraving by William Marshall is unsympathetic in showing the Archbishop in his later years after his fall from power

Image:npg.org.uk

A hostile cartoon of 1644: The Devil offers a horned Archbishop Laud a cardinal's hat.

Presumably this is to go with his mitre - something in itself which Laud would never have worn.

The figure on the left is presumably an allusion to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, whilst that on the right proffers a biretta, rosary,a cross and surpliceas well as a bag of relics or for a pyx.

The items on the table may be meant to be money or Hosts.

Image:gutenburg.org

Another hostile pamphlet from the time of the Archbishop's execution

scholarsresource.com

The Oxford Movement rediscovers Laud

Image:openlibrary.org

Archbishop William Laud

Archbishop Laud by Sir Anthony van Dyke

Image from Mercurius Politicus blog

Archbishop William Laud was judicially murderd by the Long Parliament on January 10th 1645. It is in no way unreasonble to see him as a martyr, although officially the Church of England has never recognised him as such - I do n't think he made it to the rather curious calendar contained in Common Worship in 2000.

He has, of course, always been esteemed by High Anglicans. Whether he can really be classed as an Anglo-Catholic is open to debate. I think he is more what one would term a High Anglican or a Catholic Anglican, and believed in the branch theory. His Arminian (if that is what it was) base does not, I think, quite follow on from the Elizabethan Church Papists, although I am not sufficiently versed in the subject to make a definite assertion as to the influences that formed him. He did of, of course, belong to St John's College, here in Oxford, which had strong Papistical inclinations stemming from its founder Sir Thomas White.

To call him an Anglo-Catholic or Romaniser is, perhaps, to fall for the arguments of his opponants - including those of my odious fellow Orielensis William Prynne - and not to see what he sought to do. His vision was an Anglican one of a reformed, purified Catholicism for the realms of his King. In obedience to the pursuit of that vision that he was a good and great man - arguably the greatest Archbishop of Canterbury since 1558.

The post 1660-62 Church of England was not operating in quite the way he had, but the vision he and others had encouraged, even if it became a minority interest, survived to provide a key element in the thought of the founders of successive Oxford Movements. Without Laud, Andrewes, Wren, Cosin and others there would have been neither Wesley and 'Methodism' in the 1730s, still less Keble, Pusey, Foude and Newman in the 1830s. Anglo-Catholicism, in the outward forms as we used to know it, might have been very different from Laud's version, but Laud gave it an historical pedigree which helped legitimate it.

There is something fitting (dignum et justum est) that it was in the church over whose south porch stands the statue of Our Lady and the Christ Child whose very existence was used as one of the ridiculous charges to destroy Laud in 1644 that the Oxford Revival of 1833 was launched.

If you are visiting Oxford do not fail to go and see Canterbury Quad at St John's College, built in the 1630s by Laud, and one of the greatest buildings in the city, redolent of those tranquil, halcyon, visionary years of Court High Anglicanism in the middle of the reign of King Charles I - a truly moving place to be when one reflects on the storm of destruction that was to follow.

Canterbury Quad at St John's

Photo by fr Laurence Lew OP on Flickr

St John's still possesses vestments he gave to the college, and the purple scull cap he wore to the scaffold, and these and other treasures are displayed, and can be seen at advertised times.

In 1660 Laud's body was reinterred in the chapel of his beloved St John's. When I was a regular worshipper at Pusey House, which is almost opposite the college on St Giles, I developed the conceit that poor Laud must be not only turning, but positively spinning in his grave over the current state of the Church of England. I came to envisage the Pusey faithful assembled in the choir stalls one day at 1662 Mattins or Evensong when one of the paving stones would be lifted from underneath, pushed aside and a pair of lawn clad sleeves would lift out the Archbishop's head, and then he would lift himself out and join us in reciting the Office - his sepulchral rotations had finally brought him under the road to a safe haven with us.

A revised version of a post from this day last year.

Archbishop William Laud

Archbishop Laud by Sir Anthony van Dyke

Image from Mercurius Politicus blog

Archbishop William Laud was judicially murderd by the Long Parliament on January 10th 1645. It is in no way unreasonble to see him as a martyr, although officially the Church of England has never recognised him as such - I do n't think he made it to the rather curious calendar in Common Worship in 2000.

He has, of course, always been esteemed by High Anglicans. Whether he can really be classed as an Anglo-Catholic is open to debate. I think he is more what one would term aHigh Anglican or a Catholic Anglican, and believed in the branch theory. His Arminian (if that is what it was) base does not, I think, quite follow on from the Elizabethan Church Papists, although I am not sufficiently versed in the subject to make a definite assertion as to the influences that formed him. He did of, of course, belong to St John's College, here in Oxford, which had strong Papistical inclinations stemming from its founder Sir Thomas White.

To call him an Anglo-Catholic or Romaniser is, perhaps, to fall for the arguments of his opponants - including that my odious fellow Orielensis William Prynne - and not to see what he sought to do. His vision was an Anglican one of a reformed, purified Catholicism for the realms of his King. In that he was a good and great man - arguably the greatest Archbishop of Canterbury since 1558.

The post 1660-62 Church of England was not operating in quite the way he had, but the vision he and others had encouraged, even if it became a minority interest, survived to provide a key element in the thought of the founders of successive Oxford Movements. Without Laud, Andrewes, Wren, Cosin and others there would have been neither Wesley and 'Methodism' in the 1730s, still less Keble, Pusey, Foude and Newman in the 1830s. Anglo-Catholicism as we used to know it might have been very different from Laud's vision, but Laud gave it an historical pedigree which helped legitimate it.

There is something fitting (dignum et justum est) that it was in the church over whose south porch stands the statue of Our Lady and the Christ Child whose very existence was used as one of the ridiculous charges to destroy Laud that the Oxford Revival was launched.

If you are visiting Oxford do not fail to go and see Canterbury Quad at St John's College, built in the 1630s by Laud, and one of the greatest buildings in the city, redolent of those tranquil, visionary years of the middle of the reign of King Charles I - a truly moving place to be when one reflects on the storm of destruction that was to follow.

Canterbury Quad at St John's

Photo by fr Laurence Lew OP on Flickr

St John's still possesses vestments he gave to the college, and the purple scull cap he wore to the scaffold, and these and other treasures are displayed, and can be seen at advertised times.

In 1660 Laud's body was reinterred in the chapel of his beloved St John's. When I was a regular worshipper at Pusey House, which is almost opposite the college on St Giles, I developed the conceit that poor Laud must be not only turning, but positively spinning in his grave over the current state of the Church of England. I came to envisage the Pusey faithful assembled in the choir stalls one day at 1662 Mattins or Evensong when one of the paving stones would be lifted from underneath, pushed aside and a pair of lawn clad sleeves would lift out the Archbishop's head, and then he would lift himself out and join us in reciting the Office - his sepulchral rotations had finally brought him under the road to a safe haven with us.