LANY, Benjamin (1591-1675)

Benjamin Laney was an exponent of practical piety, one of the touchstones of the Restoration Church. His printed sermons suggest that he was also a powerful orator and an unashamed ecclesiastical politician, but a lack of sources makes it difficult to establish his true political and parliamentary significance. The son of a prosperous lawyer, Laney was financially comfortable, but he also spent heavily; on at least two occasions, he petitioned the king for an extended period over which to pay his first fruits. Bodl. Tanner 141, f. 3; CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 128; CSP Dom. 1667, p. 136. Accounts from 1669 revealed that over the previous two years, Laney had received some £4,700 in fines and rents, and spent nearly £4,300. Tanner 141, f. 35; Tanner 147, f. 49.

By 1632 Laney had already served as vice-chancellor of Cambridge proving an energetic supporter of university privileges. Add. 32093, f. 140. He was at the heart of the establishment during the reign of Charles I and as far as William Prynne^‡ was concerned was one of those introduced to the university by Archbishop Laud^†, of Canterbury to oversee ‘Popish innovations’ there. W. Prynne, Canterburies Doome, 73. He joined Gilbert Sheldon, the future archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry Ferne, later bishop of Chester, as Church representatives at the abortive Uxbridge treaty negotiations in January 1644 and joined Charles II in exile after being ejected from his academic post at Cambridge. CJ, vii. 205; Walker Revised, 186.

Laney’s name appeared on the planning lists drawn up before the Restoration by Edward Hyde, the future earl of Clarendon. In July 1660 he was rewarded for his political loyalty with the deanery of Rochester followed by the see of Peterborough in the autumn. His primary visitation at Peterborough was concerned with conformity and with restoring churches to their former decorum. Articles … in the Primary Episcopal Visitation of … Benjamin Lord Bishop of Peterborough (1662). In March 1661 a similar concern for conformity marked his first sermon at court. He rounded on those who resisted the counsels of the Church’s ‘shepherds’, reducing arguments for liberty of conscience to a ‘true arbitrary will-worship, instead of a lawful orderly serving of God’. B. Laney, Sermon Preached before his Majesty at Whitehall Mar. 9th 1661, pp. 4-21, 39.

Laney took his seat in the Lords at the re-admission of the bishops on 20 Nov. 1661. There is little evidence with which to illuminate his parliamentary career, but he was conscientious in his attendance and was an active member of the sessional committees for the Journal, helping to examine the Lords’ proceedings on 27 occasions (17 as bishop of Lincoln and ten as bishop of Ely). He chaired select committees in 1663 (on legislation regarding the Sabbath) and in 1667 (on the lead mines bill).

He attended this first session for 67 per cent of sittings and was present throughout the passage of the Uniformity bill. Following its passage he held a special ordination ceremony in advance of the effective date for the Act of Uniformity to allow as many clerics as possible to conform. Green, Re-establishment of Church of England, 150. Trying to distance himself from the more vindictive aspects of the legislation, he informed his clergy that its stringent requirements were not of his personal doing, but the exercise of the law. He is remembered for having looked ‘through his fingers’ at Dissenters. W. Kennett, Register and Chronicle, i. 376, 804, 817; Stoughton, Restoration Church, i. 503; Calamy Revised, 3, 416. Sir Roger Burgoyne^‡ thought the bishop to be ‘sufficiently severe’ but others disagreed. When reports of lax discipline in the diocese reached Sheldon he advised Laney to use his ‘best endeavour to hinder the reign and gravity of this spreading evil’. Bodl. Add. C308, f. 29v. Laney clearly distinguished between the more conservative of the ejected ministers, but retained his hatred for the ‘vile and contemptible wretches’ who, for him, epitomized Interregnum sectarianism. B. Laney, The Study of Quiet (1668), 79, 148-9; Two Sermons … Preached at Whitehall before the King in Lent (1668), 16.

Laney attended the spring 1663 session of Parliament for nearly 97 per cent of sittings. During the session he was translated to the more lucrative see of Lincoln. Over the next four sessions Laney attended each for more than 90 per cent of sittings. Laney was translated to Ely in the spring of 1667. He attended the 1667-9 session for nearly 74 per cent of sittings, including the days on which the fate of Clarendon was debated. On 31 Jan. 1668 he received the proxy of John Hacket, of Lichfield and Coventry (vacated at the end of the session).

In the absence of evidence about what Laney actually did in Parliament his general political outlook can be gleaned from the speeches that he delivered to the king in the form of sermons. Five were brought together and published in a single volume in 1669 when proposals for a conventicles act were under discussion. They carried a consistent message against comprehension and toleration. A homily on the nature of prayer, first delivered in 1663, condemned dissenters in passing as ‘a kind of godly atheists’ who meet together ‘only to tell one another their dreams’ but reserved its real venom for those who pressed for alterations in the liturgy. Another, originally delivered in 1665, affirmed that to separate from the head of the Church was akin to treason against the state. B. Laney, Five Sermons, Preached before his Majesty at Whitehall, (1669), 16-28, 81-82.

Laney attended the autumn 1669 session for nearly 90 per cent of sittings and the following session (1670-1) for 85 per cent. On 28 Mar. 1670, together with the majority of the bishops, he opposed the bill which would allow John Manners, styled Lord Roos, (later 9th earl of Rutland) to remarry. In preparation for the 1670-1 session he received the proxy of Robert Creighton, of Bath and Wells, on 7 Oct. 1670 which he held until the prorogation. Laney continued to attend Parliament regularly. He attended the February 1673 session for 53 per cent of sittings, the brief autumn 1673 session for every sitting, the January 1674 session for 32 per cent of sittings and the late spring session in 1675 for just 17 per cent.

In February 1674, in the aftermath of revelations about the conversion to Catholicism of James Stuart, duke of York, Parliament considered another comprehension bill. Laney voted in favour of leniency over wearing a surplice or making the sign of the cross in baptism. Tanner 42, f. 89. Yet he was still vehemently opposed to comprehension. On Palm Sunday 1674, he delivered his final highly politicized sermon at court, reminding listeners that ‘many hundreds of parishes’ were served by clergymen who earned less than a footman and declaring that comprehension would simply bring the sectaries’

divisions into the bowels of the church, where the flame will be more fierce and dangerous, then when it burnt only without. All the benefit can be hoped for by taking away the confessions and canons, is but to secure them from punishment, but leaves them free to all other causes of dissension, or rather fortifies and animates them to pursue their differences with more violence. … It is not toleration but mastery they aim at … and when we refuse them, we do not condemn them to hell. All we say is if they will not go to heaven our way, they shall not go in our company. B. Laney, Sermon Preached Before the King, 23, 28-29.

On 24 Jan. 1675 Laney died at Ely House in London. Six of his sermons were promptly reprinted ‘to give satisfaction in certain points to such who have thereupon endeavoured to unsettle the state and government of the Church’. B. Laney, Six Sermons Preached before his Majesty at Whitehall (1675).

During his lifetime Laney had already contributed £3,000 to the expenses of his nephew, John Laney, but made a further bequest to him of £1,100 and left £1,000 to the rebuilding of St Paul’s and for schooling in Cambridge.