Archbishop of Canterbury Archbishop of Canterbury The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justin Welby, who was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 21 March 2013. Welby is the 105th in a line which goes back more than 1400 years to Augustine of Canterbury, the "Apostle to the English", sent from Rome in the year 597. Welby succeeded Rowan Williams. From the time of Augustine until the 16th century, the Archbishops of Canterbury were
Trial of Archbishop Laud Trial of Archbishop Laud 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