INTRODUCTION. XXIU
ever in some places. Bishop Williams, the Lord Keeper, the favorite and confidential adviser both of the King and of Buckingham, was a great power in religious affairs. He was inclined to be tolerant alike of Puritans and Roman- ists, and it was only those breaches of the canons too flagrant to be overlooked which provoked him to harsh treatment. On the death of James and the accession of Charles, Williams lost the power which he had up to that time enjoyed in church and state, and retired in disgrace to his diocese of Lincoln. Buckingham, who held the same place in the affections of the new King which he had gained in those of his father,* committed to Dr. Laud, his great confidant, then Bishop of Bath and Wells, and sworn a member of the Privy Council, the sole presentation of church promotions and the vacancies which should happen. King Charles, after the assassination of Buckingham, continued that trust in the same hands, infinitely to the benefit and honor of the Church, in Clarendon's opinion, f but greatly to the sorrow and discomfort of the Nonconform- ists, whose bitter opponent Laud had been from the very first. Slowly but surely this intolerant prelate got into his hands the power which would enable him to indulge his malevolent feelings towards the Puritans. He thus did all he could to kindle the flame which was to break out before long into the dreadful fire of civil war, and in which he was to lose his life. Besides the Romanists, whose numbers cannot be estimated, there was the extreme class of Puritans known as Separatists, who comprised in their ranks only a trifling proportion of the population. The Established
- Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, Bk. i. p. 48.
t Ibid., p. 145.
�� �
