Laud
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
WILLIAM, an English pre- Harvard late; Archbishop of Canterbury in the year reign of Charles I.; born in Reading, political Berkshire, England, Oct. 7, 1573. He assistan was educated at the free school of his 1887. F native place and at Oxford; was or- - economy dained in 1601; became president of his $1890 to college in 1611; accompanied James I. to o of the at the U Scotland, as one of his chaplains, in 1617; was installed prebendary of Westto 1916. minster in 1620; and obtained the see of f portant St. David's in the following year. On nmuch on the accession of Charles I. he was trans- - United lated to the see of Bath and Wells, and include in 1628 to that of London. In 1630 he e (1885); United was elected chancellor of the University Money" of Oxford; which he enriched with an a (1909). invaluable collection of manuscripts in a great number of languages, ancient, mod- LAUT ern, and Oriental. He was promoted to co Tasman the see of Canterbury, and chosen chan- Hobart, cellor of the University of Dublin. His Es chief pe endeavors to introduce the liturgy into co It stand Scotland created him numerous enemies. 3. the jung At the commencement of the Long Par- It is ac liament, therefore, he was impeached by y burden, the Commons and sent to the Tower. merce After lying there three years he was 8 ports. brought to his trial before the Lords, from S by whom he was acquitted, but the Lower er was inc House passed a bill of attainder, declara city h ing him guilty of treason, which they X compelled the peers to pass; and the LAU 20 archbishop was accordingly beheaded on speciall of the Tower Hill, Jan. 10, 1645.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The bare facts Collier's gave in 1921 — Reading-born in 1573, St David's in 1621, Canterbury in 1633, beheaded on Tower Hill on 10 January 1645 — still stand, and the manuscript collection he gave Oxford is still the Laudian collection in the Bodleian. What has moved is the verdict rather than the record. The Whiggish frame Collier's takes for granted, in which Laud's "endeavors to introduce the liturgy into Scotland" simply made him enemies, was overturned by the revisionist historians of the 1970s and 1980s, who read him instead as an anti-Calvinist (Arminian) reformer pursuing "the beauty of holiness" and argued that his religious policy, not merely his unpopularity, helped precipitate the Scottish rebellion of 1638 and the Civil War. One detail of the old account is now usually told differently: his 1644 trial did not end in acquittal by the Lords but simply collapsed without a verdict, which is why his opponents fell back on an ordinance of attainder.
Written for this edition, 2026.