Note 120 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

Clarendon, iii. 366; State Papers, i. 338. "Lord Scudamore, the English ambassador, set up an altar, etc., in the Laudean style. His successor, Lord Leicester, spoke to the archbishop about going to Charenton; and telling him Lord Scudamore did never go thither, Laud answered, 'He is the wiser.' Leicester requested his advice what he should do, in order to sift his disposition, being himself resolved how to behave in that matter. But the other would only say that he left it to his discretion. Leicester says, he had many reasons to think that for his going to Charenton the archbishop did him all the ill offices he could to the king, representing him as a puritan, and consequently in his method an enemy to monarchical government, though he had not been very kind before. The said archbishop, he adds, would not countenance Blondel's book against the usurped power of the pope." Blencowe's Sydney Papers, 261.

"To think well of the reformed religion," says Northumberland, in 1640, "is enough to make the archbishop an enemy; and though he cannot for shame do it in public, yet in private he will do Leicester all the mischief he can." Collins's Sydney Papers, ii. 623.

Such was the opinion entertained of Laud, by those who could not reasonably be called puritans, except by such as made that word a synonym for protestant. It would be easy to add other proofs. The prosecution in the star-chamber against Sherfield, recorder of Salisbury, for destroying some superstitious pictures in a church, led to a display of the aversion many of the council entertained for popery, and their jealousy of the archbishop's bias. They were with difficulty brought to condemn Sherfield, and passed a sentence at last very unlike those to which they were accustomed. Rushworth; State Trials. Hume misrepresents the case.