10 



Parker's, the second, was essentially Calvinist. Now the first 

 of these forms was a state religion of compromise, the second 

 .to religion of pugnacity. This phase of religious belief, 

 fed especially on the militant histories of the Old Testament, 

 and fed so to the great advantage of mankind, gradually 

 une less rational and less useful, as the religious strife 

 was exhausted, for a time at least ; for in its last effort, 

 that of the Thirty Years' War, it was degenerating into mere 

 brigandage and monarchical ambition. In a sense, Laud's 

 revival was more kindly, more generous, more human than 

 the Puritanism to which it was opposed, for the despotism 

 of rulers is hardly felt by the mass of men, and more rarely 

 understood. Laud was faithful to the Anglican Church, which 

 he refounded, and no one in these days would charge him 

 with the design of conceding in any particular to the Papal 

 claims of his time, unless such a person were entirely 

 ignorant of the facts, and of the man. Had Laud been 

 merely a churchman, and never meddled with affairs of 

 state, he would, I am persuaded, have only provoked enmity 

 from his contemporaries, and would have had as high 

 a reputation as any Anglican prelate of the second rank 

 could have earned. I mean a reputation inferior only to that 

 of Langton and Grostete. 



Unfortunately for himself, most unfortunately for Charles, 

 he elected to be a politician, and to be a politician of the 

 aggressive school. So he quarrelled with Abbot, who sym- 

 pathised with the Puritans, and with Williams, the last 

 clerical Lord Keeper, who had been bred a lawyer, and 

 who cared for none of these things. Thus there came on 

 him the wrath of that section of the English Church which 

 has always been wisely Erastian. With this was joined 

 the wrath of the Puritans, who having grievances to cure, 

 allowed themselves to quarrel over the reconstruction of 

 a religious organisation. These fanatics, to the infinite 

 amusement of their adversaries, wrecked their own cause 

 socially when they had been victorious in everything else, 



