Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Concepts
- Part II Practice
- 3 Thomas Wentworth, First Earl of Strafford
- 4 William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury
- 5 Connor Lord Maguire, Second Baron of Enniskillen
- 6 Charles Stuart, King of England
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
4 - William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Concepts
- Part II Practice
- 3 Thomas Wentworth, First Earl of Strafford
- 4 William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury
- 5 Connor Lord Maguire, Second Baron of Enniskillen
- 6 Charles Stuart, King of England
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
Summary
… there is not a more cunning trick in the world, to withdraw the people's hearts from their sovereign, than to persuade them that he is changing true religion, and about to bring in gross superstition upon them.
The trial of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury has not received the same degree of attention as that of Strafford. While the articles exhibited against Laud did share certain similarities with those against Strafford, Laud's trial was not simply a replaying of the events of March and April 1641. Both men stood charged for their roles in the personal rule of the 1630s and, essentially, with the unlawful usurpation of the sovereign power. However, while much of the evidence against Strafford turned on the question of the constitutional relationship between the kingdoms of Ireland and England, the crux of Laud's trial was the relationship of church and state. The bulk of the articles against Strafford, the Irish articles, charged that Strafford had taken one of the king's kingdoms and ruled it as his own – an act of usurpation consistent with Roman law conceptions of treason. The charges against Laud held that he had expanded clerical jurisdictions during the personal rule to the extent of creating an ecclesiastical state within a state.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Treason and the StateLaw, Politics and Ideology in the English Civil War, pp. 101 - 140Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002