Who was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I and persecuted Puritans?

• A. William Laud
• B. Thomas Cranmer
• C. Richard Hooker
• D. Lancelot Andrewes

Answer: (A)

William Laud is the one who fits this description. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in the 1630s, Laud championed a strong, ceremonial form of Anglicanism and pushed for strict conformity to royal religious policy. He advocated the use of bishops, the Book of Common Prayer, and the enforcement of worship practices through ecclesiastical courts and other mechanisms. Puritans, who favored further reform and less ceremony, were targets of these measures, leading to expulsions, discipline, and a climate of persecution aimed at rooting out nonconformity.

This approach reflected Charles I’s effort to unify religion under royal authority, but it intensified tensions with Puritans and helped fuel the conflicts that contributed to the English Civil War. The other figures—though important reformers or theologians from earlier periods—were not archbishops appointed by Charles I nor associated with persecuting Puritans in this context.