These words are surely strong enough.
[1]"It was one of the most effectual acts" of the Puritans, said Southey, "to possess the people with an opinion that the king, in his heart, favoured Popery and that Laud was seeking to re-establish it. In both cases the imputation was nefariously false." The principle here indicated is very largely responsible for our difficulties to-day.
Laud was no Papist. It was through his influence that the great Chillingworth was urged to leave the ranks of Rome, not an action likely to have been undertaken by a Jesuit in disguise. In fact, Laud was a strong and very successful controversialist against the Romanists. He wrote a book called "Conference with Fisher," justifying the reformation movement. He said that the Papists were the cause of religious schisms in our country. He was so successful in his proofs of this that the Puritans even said that [2]"he had muzzled the Jesuit and smote the Papist under the fifth rib." Laud refuted the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility from the history of the early Fathers. He made himself an enemy of the queen because of his opposition to the Roman religion. The Romanists certainly did not love him. Several times he refused a Cardinal's hat, which was offered him in the hope that he might render England subservient to the Pope. But Laud replied that before England could acknowledge the Pope's authority many things would have to be altered in the Roman religion. Then when Laud was beheaded there was great rejoicing at Rome. This could not have been the case had he been a Papist. Evelyn was at Rome at the time of Laud's death. He wrote in his diary:
