of the knights and burgesses, Wriothesley proclamation shall not have the power of the chancellor announced to them the de- repealing laws, or of abolishing the ancient cease of their late dread lord, which," says usages of the realm. Offenders were to the record, "was unspeakably sad and sor- be tried in the court of star-chamber; and rowful to all the hearers; the chancellor if they took refuge from its mercy in a himself being almost disabled by his tears foreign land, were declared to be guilty of from uttering the words: at last, however, high treason. One of the reasons assigned when they had composed their lamentations for it, (as Mr. Hallam has, with his usual and consoled their grief by calling to mind sagacity and manliness, observed), "that the promise of ability and virtue already the king should not be driven to extend the given by prince Edward, and having heard liberty and supremacy given him by God, a great part of the king's testament read by the wilfulness of froward subjects," is by Sir William Paget, secretary of state, more shocking than the statute itself. The the present parliament was declared by the exception of heresy showed how widely the lord chancellor to be dissolved by the de- undefined supremacy had thrown open the Imise of the crown.' ""* door for the entrance of despotism; for no

This parliamentary consideration of a bounds seemed possible to an authority royal testament implying that right of be- which united the power of the king with queathing a nation which had been so deci- that of the pope, and the pretext of heresy sively repelled in the minority of Henry VI., furnished the ready means of crushing any requires some explanation. The act of set- opponent. ¶ tlement passed on Henry VIII.'s marriage But though no language can adequately with Jane had vested the power of bequeath- condemn the base subserviency of Henry's ing the realm in the crown on failure of the parliament, it may be reasonably doubted king's legitimate issue, no such issue being whether his reign was, in its ultimate conthen in existence. About three years be- sequences, injurious to public liberty. The fore the king's decease, this unbounded and immense revolutions of his time, in proporiental power was abridged by a statute, erty, in religion, and in the inheritance of which, after the failure of male progeny, the crown, never could have been effected limited the succession to Mary and Eliza- without the concurrence of parliament. beth, without any consideration of their ir- Their acquiescence and co-operation in the reconcilable claims, or of their common spoliation of property, and the condemnaillegitimacy; on condition, however, of tion of the innocent, tempted him to carry these princesses observing the terms, if all his purposes into execution, through any, to be prescribed by the king; and in their means. Those who saw the attainders the case of their death or forfeiture, the un- of queens, the alteration of an established limited power of devise was re-vested in religion, and the frequent disturbance of the crown. The king's property in his the regal succession, accomplished by acts people was still maintained, as his daugh- of parliament, considered nothing as beters were not to inherit by the fundamental yond the jurisdiction of so potent an assemlaws, but to receive a conditional and de- bly.** If the supremacy was a tremendous feasible authority under his will. By the power, it accustomed the people to set no will of Henry, executed on the 30th of De-bounds to the authority of those who becember preceding his death, all the powers stowed it on the king. The omnipotence of government were, during the minority, of parliament appeared no longer a mere vested in fifteen persons therein named hyperbole. Let it not be supposed, that to (called in the will executors, to keep up mention the good thus finally educed from the language of the doctrine of ownership). such evils, is intended or calculated to palIn 1539,|| the submissive parliament pass-liate crimes, or to lessen our just abhorrence ed an act "that proclamations by the king of criminals. Nothing, on the contrary, in council should be obeyed as though they seems more to exalt the majesty of virtue were made by act of parliament, under than to point out the tendency of the moral such pains as such proclamations shall ap- government of the world, which, as in this point:" providing, however, that the pun- instance, turns the worst enemies of all ishment shall not extend to death or forfeit- that is good into the laborious slaves of ure, except in case of heresy; and that the justice. Of all outward benefits, the most

conducive to virtue as well as to happiness is, doubtless, popular and representative.

An old writer very significantly said, "Henry was a king with a pope in his belly."

**The observations of Nathaniel Bacon, or rather of Selden, from whose MS. notes he is said to have written his book, deserve serious consideration. Bacon on the Laws and Government of England, chap. 27.

government. It is the reverse of a degra- But it is chiefly by its relation to the indation of it to observe, that its establishment fant reformation of religion that this reign among us was perhaps partially promoted became a period of great importance in the by the sensuality, rapacity, and cruelty of general history of Europe. The last twenty Henry VIII. The course of affairs is al- years of it is to be considered as a time of ways so dark, the beneficial consequences transition from Popery to Protestantism. of public events are so distant and uncer- It must be owned that it required a vigortain, that the attempt to do evil in order to ous, and even a harsh hand, to keep down produce good is in men a most criminal all the fear and hatred; all the conscienusurpation. tious but furious zeal of Catholics and gosSome direct benefits the constitution owes pellers; the whole mass of passion and of to this reign. The act which established a interest which were stirred up by so proparliamentary representation in so 'consid-digious a revolution in human opinion. erable a territory as Wales may be regard- An ecclesiastical dictatorship might have ed as the principal reformation in the com- been excused in a time full of peril. At position of the house of commons since its the beginning the Protestants (even if we legal maturity in the time of Edward I. number all the anti-papists among them) That principality had been divided into formed a small, though intelligent and bold twelve shires; of which eight were an- minority. They grew stronger by degrees, cient,* and four owed their origin to a stat- as opinions and parties which are the chilute of Henry's reign.† Knights, citizens, dren of the age naturally do. Their strength and burgesses were now directed to be lay in the towns on the southern and eastchosen and sent to parliament from the ern coasts, and among the industrious classes shires, cities, and burghs of Wales.f A of society. In the northern and midland short time before, the same privileges were provinces, and in the mountains of Wales, granted to the county-palatine of Chester, far removed from commerce with the hereof which the preamble contains a memo- tics of Flanders and Germany, the ancient rable recognition and establishment of the faith maintained its authority. At the end principles which are the basis of the elec- of this reign it is still doubtful whether the tive part of our constitution. Nearly thirty majority had changed sides. Henry had members were thus added to the house of few qualifications for an umpire. But it commons on the principle of the Chester was a public service that he restrained both bill: that it is disadvantageous to a province factions, and kept the peace during this to be unrepresented; that representation is dangerous process. Had he been only seessential to good government; and that vere and stern, instead of plunging into those who are bound by the laws ought to barbarism and butchery, his services might have a reasonable share of direct influence be commended, and some allowance might on the passing of laws. As the practical be made for the necessity of curbing undisadvantages are only generally alleged, civilized men by rough means. and could scarcely have been proved, they Had the Protestant party risen against must have been inferred from the nature him, they must have been vanquished, and of a house of commons. The British con- he would have been driven back into the stitution was not thought to be enjoyed by arms of Rome. The iron hand which held a district till a popular representation was back both parties from battle was advanbestowed on it. Election by the people tageous to the Protestant cause, humanly was regarded, not as a source of tumult, speaking; only because the opinions and but as the principle most capable of com- institutions which spring up in an age are posing disorder in territories not represented. likely to be the most progressive. His gro

* Glamorgan, Carmarthen, Pembroke, Cardigan,

Flint, Carnarvon, Anglesea, and Merioneth.

† Radnor, Brecknock, Montgomery, and Denbigh.

27 Hen. 8. c. 26.

34 & 35 Hen. 8. c. 26. s. 50.

tesque authority as head of the church, his therans, his passion for transubstantiation, double persecution of Romanists and Luand his abhorrence of appeals to a court at Rome, may be understood, if we regard his reign as a bridge which the nation was § 34 & 35 Hen. 8. c. 13. "That the said county to pass on its road to more complete reformparliament, to have any knights and burgesses with- ation. This peculiar character was given in the said court, by reason whereof the inhabitants to the latter portion of his reign by the comhave sustained manifold damages in their lands, goods, and bodies, as well as in the good governance bined power of his adherence to the Cathof the commonwealth of their said country; and for olic doctrines, and of his impatience of papal as much as they have been bound by the acts of the authority, by the connexion of this last dis

have hitherto been excluded from the high court of

said court, and yet have had no knights and bur

gesses therein, for lack whereof they have been position with the validity of his marriages often touched and grieved by the acts of the said and the legitimacy of his children; by the parliament, prejudicial to the commonwealth, quiet-manifold and intricate ties which at various ness, rest, and peace of your highness's bounden

subjects, inhabiting within the said county," &c. times blended the interest of each religious

party with the succession to the crown; an reputation thought it necessary to disavow. object which the recent remembrance of Notes of his table-talk, published many the war of the Roses might render very years after his death, and then, perhaps, important to any prince, but which became very inacurately, continued to furnish the the ruling frenzy of Henry's mind. The viler sort of antagonists with means of reformers needed the acquisition of one abuse, in the ardent phrases which fell great state for the stability and solidity of from him amidst the negligence of familiar their reform. They gained England. As conversation.*

soon as the hand was withdrawn which At the moment of his death, Lutheranism held the statesmen and the people dumb, was established only in Scandinavia, and in the reformation was established. England those parts of Germany which had embraced continues to this day to be the only power it when it was first preached. The extent, of the first class which maintains the re- however, of its invisible power over the formed doctrines. minds of men was not to be measured by

Eleven months before the decease of the the magnitude of the countries where it English monarch, Luther breathed his last was legally predominant. Bold inquiry, acin his native town of Eisleben, which he tive curiosity, excited reason, youthful enhad not visited for many years. He died thusiasm, throughout every country of Euof an inflammation in his chest, which cut rope, in secret cherished a Lutheran spirit. him off in twenty-four hours, in the sixty- Henry, as we have seen, was impelled, by third year of his age. His last moments a singular combination of circumstances, to were placid, and employed in prayers for prepare the way in England for embodying the well-being of the church, now more that spirit in a civil establishment. Calvin, than ever threatened by the Roman pontiff, who was called by his eminent contemposupported as he was by the great council of rariest the greatest divine since the aposhis followers convoked at Trent. It ought tles, had now spread the seeds of reformanot to be doubted by a just man, of what- tion throughout France. Had Luther surever communion, that Martin Luther was vived a few years longer, he would have an honest, disinterested, and undaunted seen the second and more terrible eruption man, magnanimous in prosperous as well as of the reformation in the civil wars of adverse fortune, without the slightest taint France, in which the Protestant party mainof any disposition which rested on self as tained their ground for thirty years, and obits final aim, elevated by the consciousness tained a partial establishment for near a of this purity in his motives, and by the century, though they were finally doomed humble desire to conform his mind to the to defeat and dispersion. In Italy, most model of supreme perfection, and to adapt well-educated men, who were not infidels, his actions to the laws which flowed from became secret Protestants. The inquisition the source of all good, through reason and did not entirely exempt the Spanish peninthrough revelation. On the other hand, it sula from innovation. If 100,000 or 50,000 must be allowed that his virtues were bet-Protestants suffered for religion in the Neter fitted for revolutions than for quiet; that therlands, during the government of Charles he often sacrificed peace and charity to V., we can desire no better proof of the trivial differences of opinion, or perhaps un- prevalence of the reformation in these rich meaning oppositions of language; and that and lettered provinces. Already monarchs, his scurrilous and merciless writings, as a now become absolute, began to apprehend controversialist, both manifested and ex- that the spirit of inquiry would extend from cited very odious passions. But the object religion to civil government,§ or, in their of his life was religious truth; and, in the language, prove as fatal to the state as to pursuit of this single and sublime end, he the church. Such, at a much earlier peridelivered reason from the yoke of human od, were the fears with which the insurrecauthority, and contributed to set it free tion of the German peasants had filled the from all subjection, except that which is mind of Sir Thomas More. The intendue to Supreme Wisdom" whose service is perfect freedom."

The tales propagated against this great man prove his formidable power. He was said openly to deride all that he taught, to have composed hymns to his favorite vice of drunkenness, to disbelieve the immortality of the soul; nay, even to have been an atheist. He was represented to have been the fruit of the commerce of his mother with a demon,-a fable which, in the end of the seventeenth century, writers of some

* Bayle, art. Luther.

་ † Scaliger. "Postquam carnificata plusquam centum millia.” -Grot. Ann. lib. i.

§"Plerisque principibus infixum, unum reipublicæ corpus una religione velut spiritu contineri. Cæsari persuasum fuit proculcata sacerdotum reverentia ne ipsi quidem mansurum obsequium."-Ibid. On the other side a decisive principle had begun to dawn on the mind of the wise,-"NEMINEM VOLEN TEM ERrare aut nolentem CREDERE."—Grot. Ann. lib. ii.

of those ungracious people who of late entered "Of this sect (the Lutherans) was the great part Rome with the duke of Bourbon, who like very beasts

tion of quelling this general revolt of the formers, and because they owed their sudminds of men by a confederacy of princes, den rise in wealth to a share in the spoils although not fully unfolded, was, we are of the church. Generally speaking, they told, one of the motives of the treaty of were gentlemen of ancient lineage; but Francis I. with Charles V., which preceded their fortune and rank commonly sprung the last peace between France and Eng- from this dubious source. Few of the land. But points like these are long dis- highest houses were without some taint of cussed among statesmen, and acquire some it. The main body of the English peersteady place in their minds, before the age are a modern nobility raised out of an perils grow large enough and come near ancient gentry. The description is, howenough to be contemplated with practical ever, only accurate when the words are seriousness, and long before they are felt to strictly confined to their English sense; for make urgent demands on rulers for the se- in the vocabularies of continental nations curity of the commonwealth against the the class whom we call "gentry" would threatening tempest. At the death of Hen- be considered as a portion of the nobility. ry VIII. the preponderance of visible force As the selection was made at the very

in the scale of establishment was immense: moment of the downfall of the house of and even the moral force of the state and Howard, the leaders of the old nobility and the church retained its commanding posture the chiefs of the old faith, the preponderand its aspect of authority, at the moment ating influence of the earl of Hertford when its foundation in opinion was silently must be supposed to have presided over the crumbling from beneath it. It is easy to choice of the executors. The will was blame this want of foresight after events executed when the king lay on his deathhave taught knowledge. But contemporary bed, in the hands of Seymour, Catharine statesmen would have acted unwisely, if Parr, and Cranmer. The delay of three they were to be influenced in their deliber- days in taking any formal measures relating ations concerning present events by proba- to the demise, if it could in our time legally bilities of future danger so uncertain, even occur, would be censured as a daring asfrom their distance, as to be beyond the sumption. At that time no notice was taken scope of the active politician, who is never of it. The young prince, who was at the to forget the shortness of his foresight, and royal mansion of Hatfield, was conducted the moral duty of walking warily when he to his sister Elizabeth at her residence at cannot see clearly. It was not wonderful Enfield; whence he was brought in regal that the masters of Europe should adjourn state, and proclaimed king of England, on the consideration of perils which still seem- Monday, the 31st of January, 1546, or ed to belong more to speculation than to rather 1547. He was born on the 12th of practice, and of a religious revolution October, 1537; and his proclamation took which, in the course of thirty years, had place when he was nine years and about gained no outward dominion in the more three months old. As the late king, in cultivated parts of Europe, except a small execution of a power vested in him by number of German cities and principalities. statute, had appointed the council called

CHAP. XIII.

EDWARD VI. 1547-1553.

executors to exercise the royal authority in the minority of his son, they do not seem to have gone substantially beyond their power by nominating one of their number to preside in their deliberations, and to represent the state on fit and urgent occaIn the list of executors appointed by the sions. Hertford was created duke of Somwill of Henry VIII. we see the decisive erset, and assumed, or received, the titles predominance of "the new nobility," invidi- of "governor of his majesty, lord-protector ously so called by their enemies, both be- of all his realms, lieutenant-general of all cause they were partisans of the new re- his armies." This appointment was vainly

resisted by the chancellor Wriothesley, outraged wives in the sight of their husbands, and who considered it as the grave of the anslew the children in the sight of their fathers."More's Dialogue on the pestilent Sect of Luther and cient institutions, of which he was now Tindal, book iv. c. 7. London, 1530. the most forward champion. In February "They teach the common people that they be in Edward was crowned; and a few days affull freedom, and discharged from all laws spiritual and temporal."-Ibid. terwards the great seal was taken from the "If the world were not near an end, it never refractory chancellor, and placed in the could have come to pass that so many people should fall to the following of so beastly a sect."-c. 9. more trustworthy hands of lord St. John. Fra Paolo, lib. ii. in the beginning. The speech It might have been difficult to have reguascribed by this great writer, in his first book, to the larly removed the chancellor, placed as he cardinal de Volterra, is such as might have been made in any age of revolutions, by an undistinguish was among the executors by the late king's ing antagonist of reformation. appointment. But he afforded a pretext,

perhaps a reason, for his removal by a very tensive abuse is, indeed, the only solid obrash usurpation on his part. Preferring his jection to this ancient practice. The gov political power to his judicial duties, he, ernment, almost entirely Protestant, prowithout the knowledge of his colleagues, ceeded to the grand object of completing issued a commission under the great seal, the religious revolution, and of establishing to four persons, therein named, to hear and a church not only independent of the disdetermine all causes in the court of chan- cipline of the see of Rome, but dissenting cery during the chancellor's absence. The from many doctrines which had been for judges, twice consulted, pronounced the ages held sacred by the whole western chancellor's act to be an offence, punisha church. The protector began his task ble by imprisonment, fine, and loss of office, through the ancient prerogative of the or in other words, a high misdemeanor; crown, through the supremacy over the and, perhaps, the forfeiture of office was church, and by means of the statute which thought a necessary consequence of impris gave to proclamations the authority of laws. onment. The terror of these penalties Persecutions under the act of the six arcompelled Wriothesley to resign. ticles ceased; prisoners were released,

The panegyrics on Edward at this time exiles were recalled. The obedience of are a good example of the folly of excessive the clergy was enforced by the adoption of praise. He was in truth a diligent, docile, the principle, that the appointment of gentle, sprightly boy, whose proficiency in bishops, like every other, was determined every branch of study was remarkable, and by the demise of the crown, which comwho showed a more than ordinary promise pelled all prelates to receive their bishopof capacity. Sycophants, declaimers, en- rics by letters patent from the king, during thusiasts, lovers of the marvellous, almost good behavior. Preaching, which had been drowned in a flood of panegyric his agree- so rare in Catholic times, that it would able and amiable qualities. The manu- have been impossible to impose it on an unscripts still extant, either essays or letters, trained clergy, was in some measure supmight have been corrected or dictated by plied by homilies, composed by Cranmer, his preceptors. It is not probable that "the which the parish priests were directed to diary of his life," which is the most inter- read to their congregations. Visitors were esting of them, should be copied from the dispatched throughout the kingdom, with a production of another hand; neither does scarcely limited authority in ecclesiastical it indicate the interposition of a corrector. cases, who were instructed to require that It is, perhaps, somewhat brief and dry for four sermons in the year should be preachso young an author; but the adoption of ed in every church against the papal ausuch a plan, and the accuracy with which thority; that sermons should be directed it is written, bear marks of an untainted against the honor or worship of images; taste and of a considerate mind. that all images abused by being the object

On the 13th of March the council, no of pilgrimages and offerings should be delonger restrained by the presence of Wrio-stroyed; that the English Bible, with Erasthesley, proceeded to enlarge the protector's mus's commentary on the gospels, should authority in a manner which was at vari- be placed in every church for the use of ance with the foundation of their own the people; together with many other power. They addressed the king to name points selected, not always so much on acthe duke of Somerset protector of the king count of their intrinsic importance, as beand the kingdom; and the royal boy, like cause they were brought by public worship Henry VI. in his earliest infancy, was into daily contact with the minds of the made to go through the ceremony of or- people; and because, taken altogether, dering the great seal "to be affixed to let- they carried into every hamlet the assu ters patent, granting the title of protector rance that the government were no longer to that nobleman, with full authority to do to be neutral. Gardiner, bishop of Winevery thing that he thought for the honor chester, a man of great learning and ability, and good of the kingdom; to swear such but one of Henry's devoted agents in the other commissioners as he should think fit; suit for a divorce, and who did not scruple and to annul and change what they thought to hold his diocese during the whole schis fitting; provided that the council was to matic establishment, now made a manly act by the advice and consent of the pro- and becoming resistance to these injunctector." tions, on principles of civil liberty, as much The populace now began to destroy the as of ecclesiastical discipline. He was imimages in churches, which Luther had prisoned for his disobedience. Bonner of tolerated as aids to devotion, and of which London, more violent and more subservient, Cranmer vindicated the moderate use, as escaped a prolonged imprisonment by an constantly preaching to the eyes of the ig- humble submission. Tunstall, bishop of norant. The likelihood of gross and ex-Durham, a prelate of various and eminent