1904.] on WesUahister Ahheij in tlic Seventeenth Century. 523 



July 1620, and William Laud as Prebendary in Jan. 1621. I concern 

 myself only with them as they appear as figures on our domestic 

 stage. At the age of sixteen Williams had entered St. John's College, 

 Cambridge ; at the same age, but nine years before, Laud had entered 

 St. John's College, Oxford. Williams's friend and biographer was a 

 Cambridge man, John Hacket : Laud's was an Oxford man, Peter 

 Heylyn. Williams was promoted early ; he was Dean of Westminster 

 at thirty-nine. Laud was promoted late ; and embittered thereby ; 

 he was Prebendary of Westminster at forty-eight, and there is a trace 

 of dissatisfaction in the entry in his Diary : ' Having had the 

 advowson of it ten years the November before.' The rivalry of these 

 two able men came to be an important element in the history of their 

 time : they both sought Canterbury, and they ended one at Canterbury 

 and the other at York. There is one piece of paper, and perhaps 

 only one, which contains their autographs together, before they had 

 arrived at episcopal signatures. Laud's first Chapter Meeting was on 

 May 4, 1621, and the following Order is signed at the top by ' John 

 Williams ' as Dean, and at the bottom by ' William Laud ' as the 

 junior of the Prebendaries : — 



It is also consented unto in full chapter and now ordered and decreed that 

 Mr. Deane of Westminster and the Prsebendaries resident here or as many as 

 he shall call to the nomber of six shall have full powre ... to the altering of 

 a lease now taken in trust for the good of the colledg. in the name of Mr. Ellis 

 Wynn ; and any other thinge or thinges, concerning the quieting of a contro- 

 versye like to prove a suite in law, about an house for Mr. Dr. Laud, Dean of 

 Glocester, belonging to him as Praebendary of this churche, and the which he is 

 dispossessed of, which we hope to end in peaceable and quiet manner. . . 



Before Laud signed another Chapter Order he had become Bishop 

 of St. Davids, and wrote himself Guil: Menevens. His rival had 

 attained far greater distinction. When Lord Keeper Francis Bacon 

 was ejected from his office for scandalous practices, King James pro- 

 tested that ' he would have a clergyman : he would have no more 

 lawyers, for they are all so nursed in corruption that they cannot get 

 away from it.' So he chose the Dean of Westminster, who had been 

 Chaplain to Lord Keeper Egerton. When the Lords objected that 

 they were to have over them a man who was not one of themselves, 

 the King made him Bishop of Lincoln, wi^^h a special license to retain 

 the Deanery of AYestminster. 



We are now ready to read the Chapter Order of December 4, 

 1622:— 



It is ordered and decreed by common consent of the Eight reverend Father 

 in God, the Lord Bishop of Lincolne. Lord Keeper of tlie great scale of England. 

 and Deane of the Collegiate churche of St. Peter in Westm., and the chapter of 

 the same, whereas for the regaining of one of the Prebendaries houses, situate 

 in St. Margaret's churche yard, lately in the possession of Dr. Bulkeley Prebendary, 

 and since demised by lease unto \Villiam Man Gent., to the use of the Lord 

 Bishop of London then Deane of "VVefctm . the sum of 200U., was to be repaid to 

 the said Bishop of London in consideration of his charges expended in re- 

 pairing the said house, that the sum of ICOZi. should be paid by the Lord Bishop 

 YOL. XVII. (No. 98.) 2 N 



