Chapter 6 - Religious Issues Flashcards
Religious Issues
What did Prynne, Bastwick and Burton do? How were they punished?
- wrote pamphlets attacking the policies of Archbishop William Laud
- found guilty of seditious libel
- three of them stood outside Westminster with their head fixed on pillories
- shocking punishment as pillories weren’t usually used for gentlemen
- suggested that Laud, who pushed for their trials, wasn’t respectuful of society’s hierarchies and traditions
- 1644, Prynne led the trial of William Laud that resulted in his execution for treason
William Prynne already had the tops of his ears chopped off in 1634 as punishment for writing a book that attacked Henrieeta Maria’s court.
Now he lost his ears entirely and had the letters SL for ‘seditious libel’ burned onto his cheecks.
William Laud’s rise in the ranks?
Dean of the Chapel Royal in 1626
Bishop of Loondon in 1628
Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633
Why did the King like Laud?
Admired Laud’s desire for order, hierarchy and ceremony.
Reflected his own love for these things.
Distictive features of Laudianism
The physical setting of the church as the holy house of God
- Beauty of Holiness
- Decoration of churches lay the Church open to charges of churches being Catholic in apperance
The status and role of minsters
- priests
- emphasis on the sacred status of clergy, more like Catholic priests (special powers to mediate bewteen God and man) than Puritan brothers
The set prayers and rituals increased in priority and enforced more rigidly
- liturgy
- emphasis on conformity posed a challenge to the tolerance of the Jacobean church, where all Protestant practice weas tolerated as long as it did not try and impose itself elsewhere
Priority of prayer rather than on preaching, especially public prayers through liturgy
- a direct challenge to the Puritan emphasis on preaching as the main purpose of church services
Emphasis on the sacraments, especially the Eucharist
- altar
- generated controversy over the physical location of the altar
- open to charges of being Catholic because Catholicism also put a very high value on sacraments
Activity on Sunday a matter for the Church to decide; not a scriptual imperative
- Anti-sabbatariansim
- direct challenge to central Puritan theology of the Sabbath, heightened by the revised Book of Sports
What was the altar controversy?
- Laud rigorously pursued decency and order in church practice
- the altars had become a plain table in the central body of the church, they weren’t used for prayer
Laud insisted on a new policy:
- North-South alignment of the altar against the easternmost wall of the church, where the catholic altar would have been
- the Chancel, where the altar stands, was raised by steps and separated by a rail from the rest of the Church
- Covered with a decorated embroidered cloth
- Enforcement checked by annual ‘visitations’
What were the consequences of Laud’s altar policy?
- some thought this would presage a return to Catholic mass
- many felt alarmed at such a dramatic break with tradition, particularly because churchgoers sat in the same place in church each week
- people of higher status sitting in the same pews, towards the front, as their ancestors had occupied for generations
- it was often necessary to remove these family pews to accommodate the new locations of the altar, implying dangerous innovation and a lack of respect for tradition and the social status quo
- strict enforcement narrowed the broad tolerance that was essential for religious stability
Politicisation of the clergy
The laudian emphasis on the status of the clergy was matched by the way Charled promoted many of them into other areas of public life.
- All Scottish Bishops were made Justices of Peace in 1634, and this quickly spread to England and Ireland
- Archbishop Spottiswoode became Lord Chancellor of Scotland in 1635
- Bishop William Juxon of London because Lord Treasurer of England (1636) - the first cleric to hold this title since the 15th century
- Laud became Chancellor of Oxford University in 1630, and served as a Treasury Commissoner and joined a Privy Council committe on foreign affairs
What was the consequence of the politicisation of the clergy?
- overlap of religious and political spheres
- allowed his circle of advisors to narrow further and made his clergy vulnerable to political assault
- clerical confidence grew and churchmen began to feel more powerful
- they began to be percieved as a threat to the power and influence of the gentry
Laudianism and Absolutism
- Laudiansim appeared to threaten religious expression in England and Scotland
- drive for conformity in the Church was evidence that Charles was absolutist at heart
- Laudian expressions in favour of authority and order connected the religious and political spheres together
Establishing conformity
Asserting conformity
- Laud tightened up on the use of liturgy as a way of creating uniformity in church services
- Clergy were givern renewed instructions about the format and words to use in each service
- Church canons (rules) were revised to include the new altar policy
- Proclamations requiring churches to attend to maintaenance and repairs were issued at frequent intervals
Auditing conformity
- 1629, Laud ordered all the bishops to return to their dioceses and take responsibility for ensuring that their parish priests were obeying instructions
- visitations and Presentment Bills were used to report on conformity to Laud
Enforcing conformity
- Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission wer used with great frequency
- punishments were harsher
- 1634 = Laud orchestrated the removal of Robert Heath, Chief Justice of Common Pleas, because he though Heath would decide against him in court cases relating to religious uniformity
Charles I and Scottish churches
Chares showed a terrible lack of awareness of the delicate balance that needed to be maintained between the Churches of Scotland and England and the distanctive nature of Scottish Protestantism
The Beauty of Holines
Laudiansim in Scotland
- Charles attempted to take back old church lands that had been given or sold to the Scottish gentry since 1540
- this was done in order to bring wealth back into the Scottish Church
- in particular, he wanted St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh to be refurbished
- his efforts were met with anger, panic among the gentry, and resulted in widespread disobedience, while at the same time raising public fears that bishops would become over-mighty
Charles’ coronation in Scotland
- When Charles travelled to Scotland to be crowned in 1633, he arranged for a ceremony that sent further shockwaves around the Church
- a railed-off, raised altar decorated with candles and a crucifix representing the cross of Christ was built for the occation in Holyrood Kirk
- 6 Scottish bishops, includings, Spottiswoode, wore ornate golden vestments as thye helped William Laud officiate
- Charles swore a new Coronation Oath that promised to defend the bishops and preserve the privilages of the Church
Conformity in Scotland
- in 1629, all Scottish subjects were told they had to kneel to take communion in their parish church at least once a year
- To a Scottish Protestant, kneeling carried dangerous connotations of Catholicism and it indicated that Charles was ensuring that his royal authority extended across height by publishing a new set of Scottish canons, a revision of Church law as it applied in Scotland
- for the first time, the Scottish canons were based on the English canons, not on traditional Scottish articles
- these canons were dramatically different in several important respects
- these new canon were to be imposed on the Church without needing to be ratified by the Scottish General Assembly
- Bishops were given their authority by a formal ceremony of consecration not be election by other minsters, which would have been a compromise with the Presbyterian tradition
- There was no mention of the traditional institutions of Scottish Church government such as the General Assembly, presbyterians or kirk sessions
- There would be a new Prayer Book which everyone had to use
- Dissenters would be excommunicated
Growth of opposition from Puritans
Two major reasons for the growth of opposition to Laudianism
1) Laudianism specifically challenged beliefs and practices central to Puritanism. Sensing an increasing threat, many Puritans began to become more radical and dogmatic
2) Laudianism looked dangerously close to Catholicims and raised fears that Charles was steering towards Rome. It united the majority of Proestants against the spectre of a Popish plot
Dogmatic - insisting on pursuing your beliefs to the full
