Note 53 — INTRODUCTION.

We are here reminded of what Dunstan's biographer said of him—"Nec quisquam in toto regno Anglorum esset qui absque ejus imperio manum vel pedem moveret."—Angl. Sac., ii. 108. Dunstan, too, like Laud, descended to the notice and regulation of trivial matters. There can be little doubt that Laud, as an ecclesiastical and political statesman, was inferior to Dunstan. A man who grasps at such extensive influence is sure to be unpopular in England. Sir John Eliot accused Buckingham of this ambition, and in the memorable peroration to his speech in that nobleman's impeachment, when he instituted a parallel between him and the Bishop of Ely, in Richard II.'s reign, Eliot included this point—"No man's business could be done without his help."—See Speech in Rushworth, and Parliamentary History, and from his own MS. in Forster's Life of Eliot, i. 551.