Archbishop Laud

Archbishop Laud 1573-1645 by Hugh Trevor-Roper, 436 pages

 

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 until his death, was the primary ecclesiastical adviser of King Charles I.  An admirer of Lancelot Andrewes but lacking some of his finer qualities, Laud attempted to heal the wounds of the Church of England after its disembowlment under the Tudors.  Although fully supported by Charles, this brought him into conflict with the Puritans, led by those who had profited most from the sack of the Church.   In the midst of the Civil War, Laud was imprisoned on trumped-up charges of treason and illegally executed, four years before his master.

 

Trevor-Roper writes with his customary smug superiority, although his sense of irony makes palatable references to "Popery" and its "arsenal of Antichrist" or "the redskins of Massachusetts".  Less forgivable is the author's acceptance of Henrician propaganda against the pre-Reformation English church, for although he did not have access to Duffy's work on the subject, he certainly was aware of Cobbett's.  Still, reading past the sneer, Trevor-Roper's learning is sufficient to produce an enlightening study of a tried man in a trying time.