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dear, they at least clung obstinately to the plank which was destined to prove the instrument of their preservation.*

* This remark is not true as to the Tudors, until the reign of Elizabeth. Montesquieu observes, "If the nobles were formerly possessed of an immoderate power, and the monarchy had found means of abusing them by taxing the people, the extreme point of servitude must have been humbling the people, and that in which the nobility began to feel their power."-Esprit des Lois, Book V. c. 27. In England during all preceding reigns the power which restrained the exorbitant exercise of the royal prerogative was that of the barons and prelates. Henry VII. prostrated the strength of the first, and Henry VIII. destroyed the authority of the second. If Henry VII., as he enfeebled the strength of the nobility, had not the power of preventing the Commons from rising higher-that is, if he could prevent the confiscated estates of the Lords from being purchased by those among the people who had acquired money to pay for them-the balance of the English government would have been lost, the whole liberties of the nation extinguished, and the government would have become a monarchical despotism.-See Lelland, Bacon's Life, Hall, Rymer, Year Book, Speed, Stowe.-Ed.

The reign of Henry VIII. is remarkable as the culminating point of the English monarchical despotism. The power of the Crown over the Parliament was so absolute as to render its meeting an event of terror to the people, who had by experience found it to be merely the King's instrument for oppressive taxation. Henry VIII. denied the supremacy of the Pope, and confiscated the lands of the church and monasteries, which had been in possession of the clergy since the days of St. Augustine; and the legislature during his reign appears to have sunk nearly as low in political degradation as the State, which Montesquieu during the last century prophesied would be the end of our liberties. "England," says he, "will perish when the legislative power shall become more corrupt than the executive."

The liberties of the nation must indeed have been smothered, though not utterly destroyed, when Henry could have passed the six bloody articles, by which every person should be burnt or hanged who-1. in word or writing denied Transubstantiation; 2. maintained that the communion was unnecessary; 3. or maintained that it was lawful for priests to marry; 4. or that vows of chastity might be broken; 5. or that private mass was unprofitable; 6. or that auricular confession was not necessary to salvation.

Those articles were drawn up by Bonner, and although argued against for three days by Cranmer, were supported by the King and the prelates, and passed pro forma through the House of Commons. Not one of the twenty-eight mitred abbots in the Lords opposed this law. Nor were they repealed when the King by proclamation was declared supreme head under Christ of the Church of England; nor did the clergy oppose the King's authority, when Henry burnt Protestants as heretics, and Papists as traitors: among the latter, Sir Thomas More.

The confiscation of the church and monastery lands during the years

Under Edward the Sixth, the absurd tyrannical laws against high treason (instituted under Henry the Eighth) were abolished.* But this young and virtuous prince having soon passed away, the blood-thirsty Mary astonished the world with cruelties which nothing but the fanaticism † of a part of her subjects could have enabled her to execute.

Under the long and brilliant reign of Elizabeth, England began to breathe anew; and the protestant religion, being seated once more on the throne, brought with it some more freedom and toleration.

The Star-chamber, that effectual instrument of the tyranny of the two Henrys, yet continued to subsist: the inquisitorial tribunal of the high commission was even instituted; and the yoke of arbitrary power lay still heavy on the subject. But the general affection of the people for a queen whose former misfortunes had created such general concern, the imminent dangers which England escaped, and the extreme

1536 to 1539, tended greatly to increase that class of the English people of whom the country may justly be proud. Those usually styled country gentlemen were a class who boldly came forward during the reigns of Charles I. and James II. to assert and defend the political, civil, and religious liberties of England.-Ed.

* Historians who extol that amiable youth, Edward VI., who died in his 16th year, are mere adulators, for the acts of his reign were those of the unfortunate and popular Somerset, and of the ambitious and tyrannical Dudley, Earl of Warwick.-Ed.

Mary was a superstitious zealot, inheriting all the persecuting spirit of her mother, Catharine of Aragon, the sister of Joanna, mother of Charles V. She was therefore grand-daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who had put in practice that most horrible tribunal, the Inquisition.-Ed.

Mary, although a merciless bigot, was not a hypocritical zealot. The immediate reaction which enabled her to burn Protestants alive, and subvert all the acts favourable to the Reformation passed during the late reign, is not astonishing. Errors and delusions cannot be suddenly dissipated and supplanted by new forms of worship and doctrines of faith, however rational and consistent with those of primitive christianity, among a whole people, who, under the influences of fear and hope, of traditions and social usages, and of heritable forms of devotion and creeds, have been born in ignorance, and trained to believe the obscure dogmas, alluring precepts, and fascinating ceremonies framed by cunning and worldly churchmen, and who, therefore, adhere with pious sincerity to the forms of worship and the doctrines which they have observed and learnt at other times and in other churches.-Ed.

glory attending that reign, lessened the sense of such exertions of authority as would, in these days, appear the height of tyranny, and served at that time to justify, as they still do to excuse, a princess whose great talents, though not her principles of government, render her worthy of being ranked among the greatest sovereigns.*

* It was the policy of Queen Elizabeth to tyrannise over and enfeeble the nobility, and to court the people. But no sovereign was ever so jealous of the rising authority of the House of Commons, and she openly declared that the assembling of parliament was more than she ever embraced, except when constrained by the necessity of her affairs: and yet it is true, as observed by Hurd, that, "from the first to the last of the Tudors, no act of despotic power was ventured upon by them but under the countenance and protection of an act of parliament."

The Star Chamber, though the jurisdiction of this court had the authority of common law, and was confirmed by statute, the proceedings of Empson and Dudley, had the sanction of the Parliament of Henry VIII.; the supremacy, and every arbitrary act, had the same founda

tion.

But before the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Commons boldly asserted their legislative authority; the Puritans arose; and even Hume admits that "the precious sparks of liberty had been kindled and preserved by the Puritans alone: to this sect, whose principles were so frivolous, and habits so ridiculous, the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution."

The first and the last of the Tudors were the most economical sovereigns that ever ruled in England. Yet Henry VII. not only resorted to arbitrary and unjust methods of taxation, but he appears to have had scarcely any object in view except that of hoarding, for no king was so remarkable for the meanness of his expenditure.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, practised economy, first, in order to render her prerogative independent of Parliamentary control; and, secondly, for laudable purposes. There was no item in the expenditure, however small, beneath her personal scrutiny; and she was never extravagant except when she made profuse gifts to some of her favourites. But it was evident, from the money she raised by exclusive patents and monopolies, that her economy was not the result of "any tender concern for her people." Yet no shade of avarice sullied her character; and although she resolved to be independent of Parliament, she never hoarded treasure, and she honourably paid her own debts, as well as those of Edward VI. and her sister Mary. Considering the expense of suppressing the rebellions in Ireland, and the other great acts of her reign, -such as fitting out a powerful navy for the defence of the country against the Spanish Armada,-there is nothing so remarkable in the history of the finances of any country in the world, as the success of her great undertakings. Although she received considerable sums by selling a portion of the crown lands, and from monopolies, she only received from

Under the sway of the Stuarts, the nation began to recover from its long lethargy. James the First, a prince rather imprudent than tyrannical, drew back the veil which had hitherto disguised so many usurpations, and made an ostentatious display of what his predecessors had been contented to enjoy.

He was incessantly asserting, that the authority of kings was not to be controlled any more than that of God himself. Like Him, they were omnipotent; and those privileges to which the people so clamorously laid claim as their inheritance and birthright, were no more than an effect of the grace and toleration of his royal ancestors.*

These principles, hitherto only silently adopted in the cabinet and in the courts of justice, had maintained their ground in consequence of this very obscurity. Being now announced from the throne, and resounded from the pulpit, they spread an universal alarm. Commerce, besides, with its attendant arts, and, above all, that of printing, diffused more salutary notions throughout all orders of the people; a new light began to rise upon the nation; and the spirit of opposition frequently displayed itself in this reign, to which the English monarchs had not, for a long time past, been accustomed.

But the storm, which was only gathering in clouds during the reign of James, began to mutter under Charles the First; and the scene which opened to view, on the accession of that prince, presented the most formidable aspect.

Parliament during her own reign, according to Lord Salisbury, £2,800,000. Her financial wisdom and economy are therefore alike remarkable, and, if we forget her vices and despotism, claim for her, as a monarch, the admiration and honour, at all times, of the English nation.-Ed.

* James I. was in every meaning of the terms a bad and despicable monarch, and a pedantic, mean, and selfish man. He was from moral and personal cowardice a peaceful king. He was vain of his obscure scholastic learning, which scarcely comprised any knowledge of the sciences; proud of being told by the flatterers who duped and despised him that he was the most wise and potent of kings; and he was jealous of the prerogatives which he most unconstitutionally arrogated as be longing to him by divine right, and which proved fatal to his most arbitrary and unfortunate son. Yet, in consequence of the long peace which alone distinguished his policy, England acquired great commercial ascendancy and wealth.-Ed.]

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The notions of religion, by a singular concurrence, united with the love of liberty: the same spirit which had made an attack on the established faith now directed itself to politics the royal prerogatives were brought under the same examination as the doctrines of the Church of Rome had been submitted to; and as a superstitious religion had proved unable to support the test, so neither could an authority, pretended to be unlimited, be expected to bear it.

The Commons, on the other hand, were recovering from the astonishment into which the extinction of the power of the nobles had, at first, thrown them. Taking a view of the state of the nation, and of their own, they became sensible of their whole strength; they determined to make use of it, and to repress a power which seemed, for so long a time, to have levelled every barrier. Finding among themselves men of the greatest capacity, they undertook that important task with method and by constitutional means; and thus had Charles to cope with a whole nation, put in motion and directed by an assembly of statesmen.

And here we must observe how different were the effects produced in England by the annihilation of the power of the nobility, from those which the same event had produced in France.

In France, where, in consequence of the division of the people, and of the exorbitant power of the nobles, the people were accounted nothing-when the nobles themselves were suppressed, the work was completed.

In England, on the contrary, where the nobles had ever vindicated the rights of the people equally with their own,*— in England, where the people had successively acquired most effectual means of influencing the motions of the government, and, above all, were undivided,-when the nobles themselves were cast to the ground, the body of the people stood firm, and maintained the public liberty.

The unfortunate Charles, however, was totally ignorant of the dangers which surrounded him. Seduced by the example of the other sovereigns of Europe, he was not aware how different, in reality, his situation was from theirs :

* This is one of the most incorrect passages in this Essay. All English history refutes it until the meeting of the Long Parliament.-Ed.

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