urches. The secret offer of a
cardinal's hat proved Rome's sense that Laud was doing his work for her;
while his rejection of it, and his own reiterated protestations, prove
equally that he was doing it unconsciously. Union with the great body
of Catholicism indeed he regarded as a work which only time could bring
about, but for which he could prepare the Church of England by raising
it to a higher standard of Catholic feeling and Catholic practice. The
great obstacle in his way was the Puritanism of nine-tenths of the
English people, and on Puritanism he made war without mercy. Till 1633
indeed his direct range of action was limited to his own diocese of
London, though his influence with the king enabled him in great measure
to shape the general course of the government in ecclesiastical matters.
But on the death of Abbot Laud was raised to the Archbishopric of
Canterbury, and no sooner had his elevation placed him at the head of
the English Church, than he turned the High Commission into a standing
attack on the Puritan ministers. Rectors and vicars were scolded,
suspended, deprived for "Gospel preaching." The use of the surplice, and
the ceremonies most offensive to Puritan feeling, were enforced in every
parish. The lectures founded in towns, which were the favourite posts of
Puritan preachers, were rigorously suppressed. They found a refuge among
the country gentlemen, and the Archbishop withdrew from the country
gentlemen the privilege of keeping chaplains, which they had till then
enjoyed. As parishes became vacant the High Church bishops had long been
filling them with men who denounced Calvinism, and declared passive
obedience to the sovereign to be part of the law of God. The Puritans
felt the stress of this process, and endeavoured to meet it by buying up
the appropriations of livings, and securing through feoffees a
succession of Protestant ministers in the parishes of which they were
patrons: but in 1633 Laud cited the feoffees into the Star Chamber, and
roughly put an end to them.

[Sidenote: Sunday pastimes.]

Nor was the persecution confined to the clergy. Under the two last
reigns the small pocket-Bibles called the Geneva Bibles had become
universally popular amongst English laymen; but their marginal notes
were found to savour of Calvinism, and their importation was prohibited.
The habit of receiving the communion in a sitting posture had become
common, but kneeling was now enforced, and hundreds were