History of the English People, Volume V: Puritan England, 1603-1660Green, John Richard
History
History of the English People, Volume V: Puritan England, 1603-1660
Green, John Richard
Great Britain -- History
And as Laud aimed at a more Catholic standard of doctrine in the clergy,
so he aimed at a nearer approach to the pomp of Catholicism in public
worship. His conduct in his own house at Lambeth brings out with
singular vividness the reckless courage with which he threw himself
across the religious instincts of a time when the spiritual aspect of
worship was overpowering in most minds its aesthetic and devotional
sides. Men noted as a fatal omen an accident which marked his first
entry into Lambeth; for the overladen ferry-boat upset in the passage of
the river, and though the horses and servants were saved, the
Archbishop's coach remained at the bottom of the Thames. But no omen,
carefully as he might note it, brought a moment's hesitation to the
bold, narrow mind of the new Primate. His first act, he boasted, was the
setting about a restoration of his chapel; and, as Laud managed it, his
restoration was a simple undoing of all that had been done there by his
predecessors since the Reformation. With characteristic energy he aided
with his own hands in the replacement of the painted glass in its
windows, and racked his wits in piecing the fragments together. The
glazier was scandalized by the Primate's express command to repair and
set up again the "broken crucifix" in the east window. The holy table
was removed from the centre, and set altarwise against the eastern wall,
with a cloth of arras behind it, on which was embroidered the history of
the Last Supper. The elaborate woodwork of the screen, the rich copes of
the chaplain, the silver candlesticks, the credence table, the organ and
the choir, the stately ritual, the bowings at the sacred name, the
genuflexions to the altar made the chapel at last such a model of
worship as Laud desired. If he could not exact an equal pomp of devotion
in other quarters, he exacted as much as he could. Bowing to the altar
was introduced into all cathedral churches. A royal injunction ordered
the removal of the communion table, which for the last half-century or
more had in almost every parish church stood in the middle of the nave,
back to its pre-Reformation position in the chancel, and secured it from
profanation by a rail. The removal implied, and was understood to imply,
a recognition of the Real Presence, and a denial of the doctrine which
Englishmen generally held about the Lord's Supper. But, strenuous as was
the resistance which the Archbishop encountered, his pertinacity and
severity warred it down. Parsons who denounced the change from their
pulpits were fined, imprisoned, and deprived of their benefices.
Churchwardens who refused or delayed to obey the injunction were rated
at the Commission-table, and frightened into compliance.
[Sidenote: The Puritan panic.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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