Laud's Trial
The trial of William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, took place in stages in the first half of the 1640s, and resulted in his execution on treason charges. At first an impeachment, the parliamentary legal proceedings became an act of attainder. Arrested in late 1640, Laud was held initially for tactical reasons in the struggle between Charles I of England and the English parliament. When charges were actually brought, their main thrust was that Laud had run an ecclesiastical state within a state. This was supposed to have happened under the cover of the personal rule of the king. The prosecution case was argued from the standpoint of Erastianism. The trial has been called a "travesty of justice", in that Laud was clearly innocent of the major charges, which were not seriously documented even given the run of his private papers. Testimony against him was subject to tampering. On the other hand, Laud's defence of his own actions was not conducted with full candour; and lesser cha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Laud
William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms, he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 and executed towards the end of the First English Civil War in January 1645. A firm believer in episcopalianism, or rule by bishops, "Laudianism" refers to liturgical practices designed to enforce uniformity within the Church of England, as outlined by Charles. Often highly ritualistic, these were precursors to what are now known as high church views. In theology, Laud was accused of Arminianism, favouring doctrines of the historic church prior to the Reformation and defending the continuity of the English Church with the primitive and medieval church, and opposing Calvinism. On all three grounds, he was regarded by Puritan clerics and laymen as a formidable and dangerous opponent. His use of the Star Chamber to persecute opponents su ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Laudian Canons
Under Charles I, the Puritans became a political force as well as a religious tendency in the country. Opponents of the royal prerogative became allies of Puritan reformers, who saw the Church of England moving in a direction opposite to what they wanted, and objected to increased Catholic influence both at Court and (as they saw it) within the Church. After the First English Civil War political power was held by various factions of Puritans. The trials and executions of William Laud and then King Charles himself were decisive moves shaping British history. While in the short term Puritan power was consolidated by the Parliamentary armed forces and Oliver Cromwell, in the same years, the argument for theocracy failed to convince enough of the various groupings, and there was no Puritan religious settlement to match Cromwell's gradual assumption of dictatorial powers. The distinctive formulation of Reformed theology in the Westminster Assembly would prove to be its lasting legac ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Joshua Toulmin
Joshua Toulmin ( – 23 July 1815) of Taunton, England was a noted theologian and a serial Dissenting minister of Presbyterian (1761–1764), Baptist (1765–1803), and then Unitarian (1804–1815) congregations. Toulmin's sympathy for both the American (1775–1783) and French (1787–1799) revolutions led the Englishman to be associated with the United States and gained the prolific historian the reputation of a religious radical. Rose, Hugh J., (1857). Google Book Search.''A New General Biographical Dictionary.'' Vol. I. London: B. Fellowes, 1857. Obtained 21 October 2006. Biography Early life Toulmin was born in London, England on 30 April 1740 to Caleb Toulmin and Mary Skinner, daughter of Thomas Skinner.On 14 September 1752, the British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar, making it necessary to skip eleven days (i.e. 2 September was followed directly by 14 September 1752). Since Toulmin was alive at the time of Gregorian calendar transition, his birth date was ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Daniel Neal
Daniel Neal Daniel Neal (14 December 16784 April 1743) was an English historian. Biography Born in London, he was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and at the universities of Utrecht and Leiden. In 1704 he became assistant minister, and in 1706 sole minister, of an independent congregation worshipping in Aldersgate Street, and afterwards in Jewin Street, London, where he remained almost until his death. He married Elizabeth Lardner (d. 1748), by whom he had one son, Nathanael, and two daughters. In 1720 Neal published his ''History of New England'', which obtained for its author the honorary degree of MA from Harvard College. He also undertook to assist Dr John Evans in writing a history of Nonconformity. Evans, however, died in 1730, and, making use of his papers for the period before 1640, Neal wrote the whole of the work himself. This History of the Puritans (book) deals with the time between the Protestant Reformation and 1689; the first volume appearing in 1732, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thomas Bayly Howell
Thomas Bayly Howell FRS (6 September 1767 – 13 April 1815) was an English lawyer and writer who edited and lent his name to ''Howell's State Trials''. Life Thomas Bayly Howell was born in Jamaica. His family returned to England in 1770 to settle at Prinknash Park near Gloucester. Howell studied at Christ Church, Oxford but did not graduate, instead moving on to Lincoln's Inn and being called to the bar in 1790.Goodwin (2004) In 1808, William Cobbett asked Howell to edit a new edition of the ''State Trials'', a work aspiring to aggregate all the important cases on public law in England. Former compilations of the subject were published by Thomas Salmon, Sollom Emlyn and Francis Hargrave over the previous century. Howell worked on the project from 1809 to 1814, his son, Thomas Jones Howell taking over from him. A modern edition of the ''State Trials'' was edited by Donald Thomas and published in two volumes in 1972. Honours *Fellow of the Royal Society The Royal ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sollom Emlyn
Sollom Emlyn (27 December 1697 – 28 June 1754) was an Irish legal writer. Life Emlyn was the second son of Thomas Emlyn. He was born at Dublin, where his father was at the time settled, on 27 December 1697. He studied law, entered as a student at Leiden University 17 Sept. 1714, became a member of Lincoln's Inn, and rose to be of great reputation as a chamber counsel. Emlyn was anxious for reforms of the law, and very forcibly pointed out the defects in the system as then practised. He remarked in 1730 on the 'tediousness and delays' of civil suits, 'the exorbitant fees to counsel, whereto the costs recovered bear no proportion,’ the overgreat 'nicety of special pleadings,’ the scandal of the ecclesiastical courts. In criminal law he objected to the forced unanimity of the jury, the Latin record of the proceedings, the refusal of counsel to those charged with felony, the practice of pressing to death obstinately mute prisoners, capital punishment for trifling offences, 'the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thomas Salmon (historian)
Thomas Salmon (1679–1767) was an English historical and geographical writer. Life Born at Meppershall in Bedfordshire, and baptised there on 2 February 1679, was son of Thomas Salmon, by his wife Katherine, daughter of John Bradshaw; Nathanael Salmon was his elder brother. William Cole wrote that he wrote much of his work in Cambridge, where he ran a coffee house, and then moved to London. He told Cole that he had spent time at sea, and in both the East and West Indies for some time. He also travelled in Europe. In 1739–40 Salmon accompanied George Anson on his voyage round the world. He died on 20 January 1767. Works Salmon's works were: * ''A Review of the History of England, as far as it relates to the Titles and Pretensions of four several Kings, and their Respective Characters, from the Conquest to the Revolution'', London, 1722; 2nd ed. 2 vols. London, 1724. * ''An Impartial Examination of Bishop Burnet's History of his own Times'', 2 vols. London, 1724. * ''Bi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Rushworth
John Rushworth (c. 1612 – 12 May 1690) was an English lawyer, historian and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1657 and 1685. He compiled a series of works covering the English Civil Wars throughout the 17th century called ''Historical Collections'' and also known as the ''Rushworth Papers''. Early life Rushworth was born at Acklington Park in Warkworth, Northumberland, the son of Lawrence Rushworth and his wife Margaret Cuthbert, daughter of the vicar of Carnaby in Yorkshire. His father was an extensive landowner and Justice of the Peace at Heath, Yorkshire although he was in prison for debt in 1629. Rushworth was a solicitor at Berwick on Tweed from 1638 and entered Lincoln's Inn in 1640. He also began work as clerk assistant at the House of Commons in 1640: assisting Henry Elsynge, Clerk of the House of Commons, he was the first recorded individual to hold the office.. Civil Wars Rushworth followed the lead of John Pym, who, in a speech in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Prynne
William Prynne (1600 – 24 October 1669), an English lawyer, voluble author, polemicist and political figure, was a prominent Puritan opponent of church policy under William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury (1633–1645). His views were presbyterian, but he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for overall state control of religious matters. Early life Born at Swainswick, near Bath, Somerset, William Prynne was educated at Bath Grammar School and Oriel College, Oxford. He graduated as a BA on 22 January 1621, entered as a student of Lincoln's Inn in the same year, and was called to the bar in 1628. According to Anthony Wood, he was confirmed in his militant puritanism by the influence of John Preston, then a lecturer at Lincoln's Inn. In 1627 he published his first of over 200 works, a theological treatise titled ''The Perpetuity of a Regenerate Man's Estate''. This was followed in the next three years by three others attacking Arminianism and its teachers. In the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harleian Collection
The Harleian Library, Harley Collection, Harleian Collection and other variants ( la, Bibliotheca Harleiana) is one of the main "closed" collections (namely, historic collections to which new material is no longer added) of the British Library in London, formerly the library of the British Museum. The collection comprises 7,660 manuscripts, including 2,200 illuminated manuscripts, more than 14,000 original legal documents; and more than 500 rolls. It was assembled by Robert Harley (1661–1724) and his son Edward (1689–1741). In 1753, it was purchased for £10,000 by the British government. Together with the collections of Sir Robert Cotton (the Cotton library) and Hans Sloane (the Sloane library) it formed the basis of the British Museum's collection of manuscripts, which were transferred to the new British Library in 1973.British Library.History of the Harley Library. The collection contains illuminated manuscripts spanning the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance. There ar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Pym
John Pym (20 May 1584 – 8 December 1643) was an English politician, who helped establish the foundations of Parliamentary democracy. One of the Five Members whose attempted arrest in January 1642 sparked the First English Civil War, his use of procedure to outmanoeuvre opponents was unusual for the period and he was respected by contemporaries rather than admired. In 1895, the political historian Goldwin Smith described him as "the greatest member of Parliament that ever lived". His father died when he was seven months old, and Pym was brought up by his stepfather Sir Anthony Rous, inheriting his Puritan views and deep opposition to the reforms of Archbishop William Laud. He was also a leading member of the Providence Island Company, an attempt to establish a Puritan colony in Central America. Described as 'a true revolutionary', he led the opposition to arbitrary rule under first James I, then Charles I. His leadership in the early stages of the war was essential to the Pa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Francis Hargrave
Francis Hargrave (c.1741–1821) was an English lawyer and antiquary. He was the most prominent of the five advocates who appeared on behalf of James Somersett in the case which determined, in 1772, the legal status of slaves in England. Although the case was Hargrave's first, his efforts on the occasion secured his reputation. Life Hargrave was born in London, the son of Christopher Hargrave of Chancery Lane. He entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn in 1760. He came to prominence because of his performance in 1772, in Somersett's case, and shortly afterwards was made King's Counsel. Thereafter, he specialised in legal history and commentary and did not take further part in the abolitionist campaign. In 1797 he was made Recorder of Liverpool, and for many years was treasurer of Lincoln's Inn and a leading parliamentary lawyer. He continued the celebrated compendium of State Trials begun by Thomas Salmon and Sollom Emlyn, which was later expanded by Thomas Bayly Howell. He fell i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |