own hands to piece the shattered fragments together. This reformation was not confined to his Lambeth Chapel, but he urged all his clergy to follow his example in this respect. Laud considered that copes, vestments, and genuflexions were very important aids to public worship. And it is because of these opinions that so many people have called him a Romanist. But we shall see the truth of this charge later in our Lecture.
It was when Laud became Bishop of London that he began to wield great influence over the ecclesiastical life of England. He was then the confidant of the king, and in many ways his adviser. One of his first acts as Bishop of that See, was to exert his authority against the growing Calvinism of the country. He drew up a declaration which he attached to the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, to prevent the Calvinists from putting a Calvinistic interpretation on the Articles. By this declaration he forbad any clergyman to read any other than the literal and grammatical sense into the Articles. This declaration was put forward afterwards by Royal authority. The Puritans were greatly enraged at it. The Commons drew up a "vow" in reply, which said: [1]"We, the Commons, do claim, protest, and avow for truth, the sense of the Articles of Religion, which were established by Parliament in the thirteenth reign of Queen Elizabeth … and we reject the sense of the Jesuits, Arminians, and all those wheresoever they differ from us." Here you see they accused Laud and the king of being Jesuits. Laud is clearly getting out of favour with the Puritans. His troubles began, however, with the part he
- ↑ Hore, p.341.
