In August 1633 a great alteration took place in the state of the English Church. George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury was removed by death; a man who himself inclined to Puritanism, for he was a zealous Calvinist, and in the exercise of ecclesiastical authority displayed an amount of indulgence and clemency that brought on him the reproaches of many. He had long ago ceased to influence the court, or the relations which the church and the crown bore towards each other. Charles I reposed his whole confidence in William Laud, at that time Bishop of London, whose opinions agreed with his own, or at any rate were in harmony with his tendencies. But in regard to doctrine Laud’s Arminianism went even beyond that of Arminius; and the combination witnessed at Dort, of strict Calvinistic opinions, which he rejected, with resistance to episcopal government turned him completely into a declared opponent of the Synod. For his own part he considered episcopacy a divine institution, and contested the Christian character of all those churches which were not episcopally organised. And just because this institution was so deeply rooted in Christian antiquity, he endeavoured in every respect to return to the oldest usages. Before his eyes and those of the King floated the vision of an episcopal church independent of the Papacy, which, purified from all human additions, should embrace the whole world. Laud was very highly educated, and showed an appreciation of universal learning: he did much for the printing of Greek, for the acquisition of Arabic and Persian manuscripts, and for the promotion of Oriental studies in general. He was blameless in private life, and extremely beneficent: out of his ecclesiastical revenue he always set aside a considerable portion for the poor. But he was one of those men in whom the temper of persecuting orthodoxy seems to be innate. Even in his youth he noticed chiefly those passages in the lectures of professors which ran counter to the Anglican system, [A.D. 1633.] of which he early formed a high conception. In this temper he read the writings which were called forth by the controversies of the day, and then invoked the vengeance of the temporal and spiritual power on the deviations from accepted formulas which he noticed in them. In the disputes between the Government and the Parliament be lent his pen to the service of the former with vigour and not without success; and Buckingham, with whom he was most closely connected, promoted him to the see of London. After Buckingham’s death the King transferred to the Bishop a portion of the confidence and favour which he had bestowed upon the Duke. Laud might be considered his ecclesiastical favourite. On the first intelligence of Abbot’s death, Charles I saluted the Bishop of London as Archbishop of Canterbury. For what could be nearer to his heart than to transfer the authority of Primate of England to the man who fully shared his point of view? On this the Anglican