Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.Phillimore, Lucy
History
Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.
Phillimore, Lucy
Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714 -- Biography; Wren family; Wren, Christopher, Sir, 1632-1723
The Archbishop being secured, the Bishops were next attacked. Hampden
came to the Lords with a message to acquaint their lordships that the
Commons had received matters of a high kind against the Bishop of Ely,
for the 'setting up of idolatry and superstition in divers places, and
acting the same in his own person;' adding that he was intending to
escape from England, and that they therefore desired he might be put in
security, to be forthcoming and abide the judgment of Parliament. Bishop
Wren was in his place in the House when this summons came, and was
ordered to find bail for 10,000_l._; helped by three of the bishops, he
managed to do so. When the Primate was in custody, and Wren under
censure, at the beginning of the next year Lord Strafford was attacked.
Dr. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, not long released from the Tower,
anxious to please the Commons, declared that the canon law forbade the
Bishops to sit as judges in a case of blood. He spoke in the name of the
other Bishops; and the decision was too welcome to Strafford's enemies
not to be agreed to instantly; but it was a concession afterwards very
dangerous to those who made it. The issue of that iniquitous trial,
perhaps as great a perversion of justice as England had ever then known,
needs no repetition here.
The King's best advisers were in prison or under restraint, except good
Bishop Juxon, who bravely told him he ought not, upon any considerations
in the world, to do anything against his conscience; and Bishop
Williams, who hated Strafford and Laud alike, sent by the Commons to
induce the King to sign the death-warrant, had a fatal success.
Bishop Wren came to Windsor after this to marry Princess Mary, the
King's eldest daughter, to William, eldest son of Henry Frederick,
Prince of Orange, whom he succeeded in six years. The alliance was one
which gratified the Parliament, being so Protestant a connection.
Little, however, could they have guessed how deadly an enemy Princess
Mary's son would prove to the house of Stuart. Ten days after this
wedding came May 12, when 'the wisest head in England was severed from
the shoulders of Lord Strafford.' So writes John Evelyn. To the
Archbishop, his friend's death must have been a terrible blow. He was
just able to bestow a parting blessing through his prison window, and to
hear Lord Strafford say, 'Farewell, my lord. God protect your
innocency.' The Princess's marriage was the last occasion on which
Bishop Wren was to officiate as Dean of the Chapels Royal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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