formity; the Puritans hated ceremonial
and wished to make every one accept their doctrines. Many of the reforms
introduced by Laud after he became archbishop in 1633 were needful, but
they offended the Puritans and were enforced in a harsh and tyrannical
manner, for he lacked wisdom and sympathy. Under his rule nonconforming
clergy were deprived and sometimes imprisoned. The cruel punishments
inflicted by the Court of Star Chamber of which he was a member, the
unpopularity of the High Commission Court, his own harsh dealing, and
the part which he took in politics as a confidential adviser of the
king, combined to bring odium upon him and upon the ecclesiastical
system which he represented. The church was weak, for the Laudian system
was disliked by the nation. A storm of discontent with the course of
affairs both in church and state gathered. In 1640 Charles, after
dissolving parliament, prolonged the session of convocation, which
issued canons magnifying the royal authority and imposing the so-called
"_et cetera_ oath" against innovations on all clergy, graduates and
others. The Long Parliament voted the canons illegal; Laud was
imprisoned, and in 1642 the bishops were excluded from parliament. The
civil war began in 1642; in 1643 a bill was passed for the taking away
of episcopacy, in 1645 Laud was beheaded, and parliament abolished the
prayer-book and accepted the Presbyterian directory, and from 1646
Presbyterianism was the legal form of church government. Many, perhaps
2000, clergy were deprived; some were imprisoned and otherwise
maltreated, though a fifth of their former revenues was assigned to the
dispossessed. The king, who was beheaded in 1649, might have extricated
himself from his difficulties if he had consented to the overthrow of
episcopacy, and may therefore be held a martyr to the church's cause.
The victory of the army over the parliament secured England against the
tyranny of Presbyterianism, but did not better the condition of the
episcopal clergy; the toleration insisted on by the Independents did not
extend to "prelacy." Churchmen, however, occasionally enjoyed the
ministrations of their own clergy in private houses, and though their
worship was sometimes disturbed they were not seriously persecuted for
engaging in it. Non-delinquent or non-sequestrated private patronage and
the obligation of tithes were retained. Community of suffering and the
execution of Charles I. brought the royalist country ge