LAUD, William, archbishop of Canterbury in the seventeenth century, was born at Reading in 1573, and educated in St John’s College, Oxford, of which he was afterwards a fellow and reader. In 1610, he took orders. In 1611, he was elected president of St John’s College; but his election being disputed, it was confirmed by his majesty. The same year he was sworn the king’s chaplain. In 1621, he was nominated bishop of St David’s. In 1628, he was translated to the bishopric of London. In 1630, he was elected chancellor of the University of Oxford. In 1633, he attended the king into Scotland, and was sworn a privy councillor of that kingdom. During his stay in Scotland, he formed the resolution of bringing the church of that country to an exact conformity with the church of England. In the same year he succeeded Archbishop Abbot in the see of Canterbury; and soon afterwards came out his majesty’s declaration about lawful sports on Sundays, which the archbishop was charged with having revived and enlarged, besides encouraging the vexatious prosecutions of such clergymen as refused to read it in their churches. In 1634-35, the archbishop was put into the great committee of trade and the king’s revenue; on the 4th of March following, he was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Treasury; and on the 6th of March 1635-36, he received the staff of lord high treasurer of England. In order to prevent the printing and publishing of what he thought improper books, he procured a decree to be passed in the Star-chamber, on the 11th of July 1637, by which it was enjoined that the master printers should be reduced to a certain number, and that none of them should print any books until they were licensed either by the archbishop or the bishop of London, or by some of their chaplains, or by the chancellors or vice-chancellors of the two universities. A new parliament being summoned, met on the 13th of April 1640, and the convocation assembled the day following; but the Commons launching out into complaints against the archbishop, and insisting upon a redress of grievances before they granted any supply, the parliament was dissolved on the 7th of May. The convocation, however, continued sitting, and made seventeen canons, which were supposed to be formed under the immediate direction of the archbishop. In the beginning of the long parliament he was attacked on account of those canons, which were condemned by the House of Commons on the 16th of December 1640, “as containing many things contrary to the king’s prerogative, to the fundamental laws and statutes of this realm, to the rights of parliament, to the property and liberty of the subject, and tending to sedition, and of dangerous consequence.” On the 18th of December, he was accused by the Commons of high treason, and committed to the Tower. Being tried before the House of Lords, for endeavouring to subvert the laws, and to overthrow the Protestant religion, he was found guilty, and beheaded on Tower-hill on the 10th of January following, in the seventy-second year of his age. Laud was temperate in his diet, and regular in his private life; but his fondness for introducing new ceremonies, in which he showed a hot and indiscreet zeal, his encouraging of sports on Sundays, his illegal and cruel severity in the Starchamber and High Commission Courts, and the fury with which he persecuted the dissenters, and all who presumed to contradict his sentiments, exposed him to popular hatred. The following is a correct list of his works, viz. 1. Seven

Sermons preached on several occasions, 1651, in 8vo; 2. Short Annotations upon the Life and Death of the most August King James; 3. Answer to the Remonstrance made by the House of Commons in 1628; 4. His Diary by Wharton in 1694, with six other pieces, and several letters, especially one to Sir Kenelm Digby on his embracing Popery; 5. The second volume of the Remains of Archbishop Laud, written by himself, 1700, in folio; 6. Officium Quotidianum, or a Manual of Private Devotions, 1650, in 8vo; 7. A Summary of Devotions, 1667, in 12mo. About eighteen Letters of Laud to Gerard John Vossius have been printed by Colomesius in his edition of Vossii Epistolae, London, 1690, in folio; some others are published at the end of the Life of Usher by Parr, 1686, in folio; and a few more have been inserted by Dr Twells in his Life of Dr Pococke, prefixed to the theological works of that author, 1645, in two vols. folio.