pire to
subject Englishmen to the tyranny of the Church!

The consequences belong to general history. Never was scheme of
ecclesiastical ambition more completely shattered than Laud's;
never was historical retribution more condign. Among the first
acts of the Long Parliament (November 1640) was the release of
Prynne and Bastwick and Burton; who were brought into the City,
says Clarendon, by a crowd of some ten thousand persons, with
boughs and flowers in their hands. Compensation was subsequently
voted to them for the iniquitous fines imposed on them by the
Star Chamber, and Prynne before long was one of the chief
instruments in bringing Laud to trial and the block. But this was
not before that ambitious prelate had seen the bishops deprived
of their seats in the House of Lords, and the Root and Branch
Bill for their abolition introduced, as well as the Star Chamber
and High Commission Courts abolished. This should have been
enough; and it is to be regretted that his punishment went beyond
this total failure of the schemes of his life.

Of the heroes of the books whose condemnation contributed so much
to bring about the Revolution, only Prynne continued to figure
as an object of interest in the subsequent stormy times. As a
member of Parliament his political activity was only exceeded by
his extraordinary literary productiveness; his legacy to the
Library of Lincoln's Inn of his forty volumes of various works is
probably the largest monument of literary labour ever produced by
one man. His spirit of independence caused him to be constant to
no political party, and after taking part against Cromwell he was
made by the Government of the Restoration Keeper of the Records
in the Tower, in which congenial post he finished his eventful
career.

FOOTNOTES:

[78:1] Whitelock's _Memorials of Charles I._, 1822. Laud is
represented as mainly instrumental in the conduct of the whole of
this nefarious proceeding, especially in procuring the sentence
in the Star Chamber.

[79:1] _Life of Laud_, 294.

[80:1] From the account in the _State Trials_, III. 576.

[82:1] In his defence he says that he always voted last or last
but one. In that case he must always have heard the sentence
passed by those who spoke before him, and not dissented from it.
His sole excuse is, that he was no worse than his colleagues; to
which the answer is, he ought to have been better.

[85:1] Prynne, _New Discovery_, 132.

[91:1] Laud's _Diary_