A true Description, OR Rather a Parallel between Cardinal Wolsie, Archbishop of YORK, AND WILLIAM LAUD, Archbishop of Canterbury.  
Printed in the year 1641.   

A true Description, or rather a Parallel, between Cardinal Wolsie, Archbishop of York, and William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, &c.  
THere be two Primates, or archbishops throughout England and Wales, Canterbury and York, both Metropolitans, York of England, Canterbury of all England, for so their Titles run. To the Primate of Canterbury be subordinate thirteen Bishops in England, and four in Wales. But the Primate of York hath at this time but two Suffragans in England: Namely, the Bishops of Carliele, and Durhan: though he had in King Lucius days, (who was the first Christian King of this our Nation) all the Prelacy of Scotland within his jurisdiction: Canterbury commanding all from this side the River Trent to the furthest limits of Wales; and York commanding all from beyond the Trent to the utmost bounds of Scotland, and hitherto, their prime archiepiscopal Prerogatives may (not unproperly) be paralleled.  
In the time of Henry the first were potent two famous Prelates, Anselm of Canterbury, who durst contest against the King, and Girald of York, who denied to give place or any precedence at all to Anselm. Thomas Becket, who was first chancellor, and after Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of Henry the second, bore himself so insol●ntly against the King his sovereign. that it cost him his life, being slain in the Church as he was going to the Altar. But above all, the pride, tyranny, and oppression of the Bishop of Ely, in the reign of Richard the first wants example, who was at once chancellor of England, and Regent of the Land, and held in his hand at once the two archbishoprics of York and Canterbury, who never rid abroad without a thousand horse for his guard to attend him, whom we may well parallel with the now great Cardinal of France: and need he had of such a train to keep himself from being pulled to pieces by the oppressed Prelates, and people, equally extorting from the clergy, and laity; yet he in the end, disguising himself in the shape of an old Woman, thinking to pass the Sea at Dover, where he awaited on the Strand, a pinnace being hired for that purpose, he was discovered by a sailor, and brought back to abide a most severe sentence. Stephen Lancthon, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the time of King John, would not absolve the Land, being for six years together indicted by the Pope, till the King had paid unto him and the rest of the Bishops eighteen thousand marks in gold; and thus I could continue the pride of the prelacy, and their great tyranny through all the King's reigns: But I now fall upon the promised parallel betwixt Thomas Wolsie, Archbishop of York, and Cardinal, and William Laud, Doctor in divinity, and Archbishop of Canterbury.  
They were both the sons of mean and mechanic men, Wolsie of a Butcher, Laud of a Clothworker. The one borne in Ipswitch, (threescore miles) the other in Reading thirty miles distant from the City of London, both of them very toward, forward, and pregnant grammar scholars, and of singular apprehensions, as suddenly rising to the first form in the school. From thence, being young, they were removed to the university of Oxford, Wolsey admitted into Maudlin college, Laud into St. John's, and as they were of different times, so they were of different statures; yet either of them well shaped according to their proportions: Wolsie was of a competent tallness, Laud of a less size, but might be called a pretty man, as the other a proper man: both of ingenious and acute aspects, as may appear by this man's face, the others picture. In their particular colleges they were alike proficients, both as active of body as brain, serious at their private studies, and equally frequent in the schools, eloquent Orators, either to write, speak, or dictate, dainty Disputants, well versed in Philosophy, both moral, physical, and metaphysical, as also in the mathematics, and neither of them strangers to the Muses, both taking their degrees according to their time; and through the whole academy, Sir Wolsie was called the boy-bachelor, and Sir Laud the little bachelor.  
The main study that either of them fixed upon was theology: for though they were conversant in all the other Arts and Sciences, yet that they solely professed, and by that came their future preferment; Wolsie being bachelor was made schoolmaster of Maudlin school in Oxford, but Laud came in time to be Master of St. John's college in Oxford; therein transcending the other, as also in his degrees of Master of Art, bachelor of divinity, and Doctor of divinity, when the other being suddenly called from the Rectorship of his school, to be resident upon a country Benefice, he took no more academical degrees, than the first of bachelor, and taking a strange affront by one Sir Amius Paulet, a Knight in the country, who set him in the Stocks, he endured likewise divers other disasters: but that disgrace he made the Knight pay dearly for, after he came to be invested in his dignity. Briefly, they came both to stand in the Prince's eye; but ere I proceed any further, let me give the courteous Reader this modest caveat, that he is to expect from me only, a parallel of their Acts and Fortune., but no legend of their lives; it therefore briefly thus followeth,  
Both these from academics coming to turn Courtiers; Wolsie by his diligent waiting, came to insinuate himself into the breasts of the privy counsellors. His first employment was in an embassy to the Emperor, which was done by such fortunate, and almost incredible expedition, that by that only he grew into first grace with King Henry the seventh, father to King Henry the eighth. Laud, by the mediation and means wrought by friends, grew first into favour with King James of sacred memory, father to our now royal sovereign King Charles. They were both at first the King's chaplains, Wolsey's first preferment was to be Deane of Lincoln, of which he was after Bishop. Laud's first ecclesiastical dignity was to be dean of Saint David's, of which he was after Bishop also. And both these prelatical Courtiers came also to be privy counsellors. Woolsey in the beginning of Henry the eighths reign, was made Bishop of Tourney in France, soon after Bishop of Lincoln, and before his full consecration (by the death of the Incumbent) was ended, translated to the archbishopric of York, and all this within the compass of a year; Laud, though not so suddenly, yet very speedily, was from St. David's removed to London, and from London to Canterbury, and this in the beginning of the reign of King Charles. Thus you see they were both archbishops, and as Laud was never Cardinal, so Woolsey was never Canterbury.  
But in some things the Cardinal much exceeded Canterbury, as in holding all these bishoprics at once, when the other was never possessed but of one at one time. The Cardinal also held the bishopric of Winchester, of Worcester, Bath and W●lls, with a fourth, and two Abbat-ships in Commendam: He had besides an Hat sent him from Rome, and made himself Cardinal, (that being before but York) he might overtop Canterbury. But our William howsoever he might have the will, yet never attained to that power, and howsoever he could not compass a Hat from Rome, yet made the means to have a consecrated mitre sent from Rome; which was so narrowly watched, that it came not to his wearing. Moreover, the Cardinal extorted the Chancellourship from Canterbury; but we find not that Canterbury ever either trenched upon the jurisdiction, or took any thing away from the archbishopric of York.  
Woolsey likewise far outwent him in his numerous train, and the nobleness thereof, being waited on not only by the prime gentry, but even of Earls, and Earls sons, who were listed in his family, and attended him at his Table, as also in his hospitality, his open house being made free for all comers, with the rare and extraordinary state of his Palace, in which there were daily uprising and down-lying a thousand persons, who were his domestic servants. Moreover in his many entertainments of the K. with Masks, and mighty sumptuous banquets, his sumptuous buildings, the princelike state he carried in his foreign Embassages, into France, to the Emperor, &c. in which he spent more coin in the service of his King, for the honour of his country, and to uphold the credit of his Cardinal's Cap, than would (for the time) have paid an army Royal. But I answer in behalf of our Canterbury, that he had never that means or employment, by which he might make so vainglorious a show of his pontificality, or ā archiepiscopal dignity: For unbounded minds may be restrained within narrow limits, and therefore the parallel may something hold in this too.  
They were also in their judicial Courts equally tyrannous; the one in the chancery, the other in the High Commission: both of them at the council board, and in the star-chamber alike Draconically supercilious. Blood drawn from Doctor Bonner's head by the fall of his cross presaged the Cardinal's downfall. Blood drawn from the ears of Burton, Prin, and Bastwick, was a prediction of Canterbury's ruin; the first accidental, the last premeditate and of purpose. The Cardinal would have expelled all the Lutherans and Protestants out of the realm, this our Canterbury would have exiled both our Dutch and French Church out of the kingdom. The Cardinal took main delight in his fool Patch, and Canterbury took much delight in his party coloured Cats. The Cardinal used for his agents Bonner and others, Canterbury for his Ministers, Duck, Lamb, and others. They both favoured the Sea of Rome, and respected his holiness in it. The Cardinal did profess it publicly, the Archbishop did reverence it privately. The Cardinal's ambition was to be Pope, the Archbishop strove to be Patriarch, they both bid fairly for it, yet lost their aim; and far easier it is for men to descend, than to ascend.  
The Cardinal (as I have said) was very ambitious; the Archbishop was likewise of the same mind, though better moulded, and of a more politic brain, having a close and more reserved judgement in all his observations, and more fluent in his delivery. The Cardinal was very curious in his attire, and ornament of his body, and took great delight in his train, and other his servants for their rich apparel; the Archbishop his attire was neat and rich, but not so gaudy as the Cardinals was, yet took as much felicity in his gentlemen's rich apparel, especially those that waited on his person, as ever the Cardinal did, though other men paid for them: and if all men had their own, and every bird her Feather, some of them would be as bare as those that profess themselves to be of the Sect of the Adamists: To speak truth, the archbishops men were all given to covetousness and wantonness; that I never heard of was in the Cardinal's men.  
As the Cardinal was sumptuous in his buildings, as that of White Hall, Hampton Court, &c. as also in laying the foundation of two famous Coledges, the one at Ipswitch, where he was borne, the other at Oxford where he had his breeding: so Christ-Church which he left unfinished, Canterbury hath since repaired; and wherein he hath come short of him in building, though he hath bestowed much on St. John's college, yet he hath outgone him in his bounty of brave voluminous Books, being fourscore in number, late sent to the Bodleian or university library: Further, as the Cardinal was chancellor of England, so Canterbury was chancellor of Oxford: And as the Cardinal by plucking down of some small abbeys, to prepare stone for 〈◊〉 greater Structures, opened a gap for the King, by which he took the advantage utterly to raze and demolish the rest: so Canterbury by giving way for one Bishop to have a temporal trial, and to be convicted, not by the clergy, but the laity, so he left the same path open both for himself, and the rest of the episcopacy: of which, there before scarce remained a precedent.  
I have paralleled them in their dignities: I will conclude with a word or two concerning their downfalls. The Cardinal fell into the displeasure of his King, Canterbury into an extreme hatred of the Commons: both were arrested of high Treason, the Cardinal by process, Canterbury by Parliament. The Cardinal at Keywood Castle near York, Canterbury at Westminster near London; both their falls were speedy and sudden: The Cardinal sat as this day in the high Court of chancery, and within two days after was confined to his house; Canterbury as this day sat at the council-board, and in the upper house of Parliament, and the same day committed to the black Rod, and from thence to the Tower: The Cardinal died at Leicester some say of a Flux; Canterbury remains still in the Tower, only sick of a fever. Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas.  
FINIS.