THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM THE
ACCESSION OF JAMES II.
BY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.
VOL. I.
PHILADELPHIA
PORTER & COATES
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
Introduction
Britain under the Romans
Britain under the Saxons
Conversion of the Saxons to Christianity
Danish Invasions; The Normans
The Norman Conquest
Separation of England and Normandy
Amalgamation of Races
English Conquests on the Continent
Wars of the Roses
Extinction of Villenage
Beneficial Operation of the Roman Catholic Religion
The early English Polity often misrepresented, and why?
Nature of the Limited Monarchies of the Middle Ages
Prerogatives of the early English Kings
Limitations of the Prerogative
Resistance an ordinary Check on Tyranny in the Middle Ages
Peculiar Character of the English Aristocracy
Government of the Tudors
Limited Monarchies of the Middle Ages generally turned into
Absolute Monarchies
The English Monarchy a singular Exception
The Reformation and its Effects
Origin of the Church of England
Her peculiar Character7
Relation in which she stood to the Crown
The Puritans
Their Republican Spirit
No systematic parliamentary Opposition offered to the Government
of Elizabeth
Question of the Monopolies
Scotland and Ireland become Parts of the same Empire with England
Diminution of the Importance of England after the Accession of
James I
Doctrine of Divine Right
The Separation between the Church and the Puritans becomes wider
Accession and Character of Charles I
Tactics of the Opposition in the House of Commons
Petition of Right
Petition of Right violated; Character and Designs of Wentworth
Character of Laud
Star Chamber and High Commission
Ship-Money
Resistance to the Liturgy in Scotland
A Parliament called and dissolved
The Long Parliament
First Appearance of the Two great English Parties
The Remonstrance
Impeachment of the Five Members
Departure of Charles from London
Commencement of the Civil War
Successes of the Royalists
Rise of the Independents
Oliver Cromwell
Selfdenying Ordinance; Victory of the Parliament
Domination and Character of the Army
Rising against the Military Government suppressed
Proceedings against the King
His Execution
Subjugation of Ireland and Scotland
Expulsion of the Long Parliament
The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell
Oliver succeeded by Richard
Fall of Richard and Revival of the Long Parliament
Second Expulsion of the Long Parliament
The Army of Scotland marches into England
Monk declares for a Free Parliament
General Election of 1660
The Restoration
CHAPTER II.
Conduct of those who restored the House of Stuart unjustly
censured
Abolition of Tenures by Knight Service; Disbandment of the Army
Disputes between the Roundheads and Cavaliers renewed
Religious Dissension
Unpopularity of the Puritans
Character of Charles II
Character of the Duke of York and Earl of Clarendon
General Election of 1661
Violence of the Cavaliers in the new Parliament
Persecution of the Puritans
Zeal of the Church for Hereditary Monarchy
Change in the Morals of the Community
Profligacy of Politicians
State of Scotland
State of Ireland
The Government become unpopular in England
War with the Dutch
Opposition in the House of Commons
Fall of Clarendon
State of European Politics, and Ascendancy of France
Character of Lewis XIV
The Triple Alliance
The Country Party
Connection between Charles II. and France
Views of Lewis with respect to England
Treaty of Dover
Nature of the English Cabinet
The Cabal
Shutting of the Exchequer
War with the United Provinces, and their extreme Danger
William, Prince of Orange
Meeting of the Parliament; Declaration of Indulgence
It is cancelled, and the Test Act passed
The Cabal dissolved
Peace with the United Provinces; Administration of Danby
Embarrassing Situation of the Country Party
Dealings of that Party with the French Embassy
Peace of Nimeguen
Violent Discontents in England
Fall of Danby; the Popish Plot
Violence of the new House of Commons
Temple's Plan of Government
Character of Halifax
Character of Sunderland
Prorogation of the Parliament; Habeas Corpus Act; Second General
Election of 1679
Popularity of Monmouth
Lawrence Hyde
Sidney Godolphin
Violence of Factions on the Subject of the Exclusion Bill
Names of Whig and Tory
Meeting of Parliament; The Exclusion Bill passes the Commons;
Exclusion Bill rejected by the Lords
Execution of Stafford; General Election of 1681
Parliament held at Oxford, and dissolved
Tory Reaction
Persecution of the Whigs
Charter of the City confiscated; Whig Conspiracies
Detection of the Whig Conspiracies
Severity of the Government; Seizure of Charters
Influence of the Duke of York
He is opposed by Halifax
Lord Guildford
Policy of Lewis
State of Factions in the Court of Charles at the time of his
Death
CHAPTER III.
Great Change in the State of England since 1685
Population of England in 1685
Increase of Population greater in the North than in the South
Revenue in 1685
Military System
The Navy
The Ordnance
Noneffective Charge; Charge of Civil Government
Great Gains of Ministers and Courtiers
State of Agriculture5
Mineral Wealth of the Country
Increase of Rent
The Country Gentlemen
The Clergy
The Yeomanry; Growth of the Towns; Bristol
Norwich
Other Country Towns
Manchester; Leeds; Sheffield
Birmingham
Liverpool
Watering-places; Cheltenham; Brighton; Buxton; Tunbridge Wells
Bath
London
The City
Fashionable Part of the Capital
Lighting of London
Police of London
Whitefriars; The Court
The Coffee Houses
Difficulty of Travelling
Badness of the Roads
Stage Coaches
Highwaymen
Inns
Post Office
Newspapers
News-letters
The Observator
Scarcity of Books in Country Places; Female Education
Literary Attainments of Gentlemen
Influence of French Literature
Immorality of the Polite Literature of England
State of Science in England
State of the Fine Arts
State of the Common People; Agricultural Wages
Wages of Manufacturers
Labour of Children in Factories
Wages of different Classes of Artisans
Number of Paupers
Benefits derived by the Common People from the Progress of
Civilisation
Delusion which leads Men to overrate the Happiness of preceding
Generations
CHAPTER IV.
Death of Charles II
Suspicions of Poison
Speech of James II. to the Privy Council
James proclaimed
State of the Administration
New Arrangements
Sir George Jeffreys
The Revenue collected without an Act of Parliament
A Parliament called
Transactions between James and the French King
Churchill sent Ambassador to France; His History
Feelings of the Continental Governments towards England
Policy of the Court of Rome
Struggle in the Mind of James; Fluctuations in his Policy
Public Celebration of the Roman Catholic Rites in the Palace
His Coronation
Enthusiasm of the Tories; Addresses
The Elections
Proceedings against Oates
Proceedings against Dangerfield
Proceedings against Baxter
Meeting of the Parliament of Scotland
Feeling of James towards the Puritans
Cruel Treatment of the Scotch Covenanters
Feeling of James towards the Quakers
William Penn
Peculiar Favour shown to Roman Catholics and Quakers
Meeting of the English Parliament; Trevor chosen Speaker;
Character of Seymour
The King's Speech to the Parliament
Debate in the Commons; Speech of Seymour
The Revenue voted; Proceedings of the Commons concerning Religion
Additional Taxes voted; Sir Dudley North
Proceedings of the Lords
Bill for reversing the Attainder of Stafford
CHAPTER V.
Whig Refugees on the Continent
Their Correspondents in England
Characters of the leading Refugees; Ayloffe; Wade
Goodenough; Rumbold
Lord Grey
Monmouth
Ferguson
Scotch Refugees; Earl of Argyle
Sir Patrick Hume; Sir John Cochrane; Fletcher of Saltoun
Unreasonable Conduct of the Scotch Refugees
Arrangement for an Attempt on England and Scotland
John Locke
Preparations made by Government for the Defence of Scotland
Conversation of James with the Dutch Ambassadors; Ineffectual
Attempts to prevent Argyle from sailing
Departure of Argyle from Holland; He lands in Scotland
His Disputes with his Followers
Temper of the Scotch Nation
Argyle's Forces dispersed
Argyle a Prisoner
His Execution.
Execution of Rumbold
Death of Ayloffe
Devastation of Argyleshire
Ineffectual Attempts to prevent Monmouth from leaving Holland
His Arrival at Lyme
His Declaration
His Popularity in the West of England
Encounter of the Rebels with the Militia at Bridport
Encounter of the Rebels with the Militia at Axminster; News of
the Rebellion carried to London; Loyalty of the Parliament
Reception of Monmouth at Taunton
He takes the Title of King
His Reception at Bridgewater
Preparations of the Government to oppose him
His Design on Bristol
He relinquishes that Design
Skirmish at Philip's Norton; Despondence of Monmouth
He returns to Bridgewater; The Royal Army encamps at Sedgemoor
Battle of Sedgemoor
Pursuit of the Rebels
Military Executions; Flight of Monmouth
His Capture
His Letter to the King; He is carried to London
His Interview with the King
His Execution
His Memory cherished by the Common People
Cruelties of the Soldiers in the West; Kirke
Jeffreys sets out on the Western Circuit
Trial of Alice Lisle
The Bloody Assizes
Abraham Holmes
Christopher Battiseombe; The Hewlings
Punishment of Tutchin
Rebels Transported
Confiscation and Extortion
Rapacity of the Queen and her Ladies
Grey; Cochrane; Storey
Wade, Goodenough, and Ferguson
Jeffreys made Lord Chancellor
Trial and Execution of Cornish
Trials and Executions of Fernley and Elizabeth Gaunt
Trial and Execution of Bateman
Persecution of the Protestant Dissenters
HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
I PURPOSE to write the history of England from the accession of
King James the Second down to a time which is within the memory
of men still living. I shall recount the errors which, in a few
months, alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House of
Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolution which
terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and their
parliaments, and bound up together the rights of the people and
the title of the reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the new
settlement was, during many troubled years, successfully defended
against foreign and domestic enemies; how, under that settlement,
the authority of law and the security of property were found to
be compatible with a liberty of discussion and of individual
action never before known; how, from the auspicious union of
order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which the annals of
human affairs had furnished no example; how our country, from a
state of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to the place of
umpire among European powers; how her opulence and her martial
glory grew together; how, by wise and resolute good faith, was
gradually established a public credit fruitful of marvels which
to the statesmen of any former age would have seemed incredible;
how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a maritime power, compared
with which every other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks
into insignificance; how Scotland, after ages of enmity, was at
length united to England, not merely by legal bonds, but by
indissoluble ties of interest and affection; how, in America, the
British colonies rapidly became far mightier and wealthier than
the realms which Cortes and Pizarro had added to the dominions of
Charles the Fifth; how in Asia, British adventurers founded an
empire not less splendid and more durable than that of Alexander.
Nor will it be less my duty faithfully to record disasters
mingled with triumphs, and great national crimes and follies far
more humiliating than any disaster. It will be seen that even
what we justly account our chief blessings were not without
alloy. It will be seen that the system which effectually secured
our liberties against the encroachments of kingly power gave
birth to a new class of abuses from which absolute monarchies are
exempt. It will be seen that, in consequence partly of unwise
interference, and partly of unwise neglect, the increase of
wealth and the extension of trade produced, together with immense
good, some evils from which poor and rude societies are free. It
will be seen how, in two important dependencies of the crown,
wrong was followed by just retribution; how imprudence and
obstinacy broke the ties which bound the North American colonies
to the parent state; how Ireland, cursed by the domination of
race over race, and of religion over religion, remained indeed a
member of the empire, but a withered and distorted member, adding
no strength to the body politic, and reproachfully pointed at by
all who feared or envied the greatness of England.
Yet, unless I greatly deceive myself, the general effect of this
chequered narrative will be to excite thankfulness in all
religious minds, and hope in the breasts of all patriots. For the
history of our country during the last hundred and sixty years is
eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual
improvement. Those who compare the age on which their lot has
fallen with a golden age which exists only in their imagination
may talk of degeneracy and decay: but no man who is correctly
informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or
desponding view of the present.
I should very imperfectly execute the task which I have
undertaken if I were merely to treat of battles and sieges, of
the rise and fall of administrations, of intrigues in the palace,
and of debates in the parliament. It will be my endeavour to
relate the history of the people as well as the history of the
government, to trace the progress of useful and ornamental arts,
to describe the rise of religious sects and the changes of
literary taste, to portray the manners of successive generations
and not to pass by with neglect even the revolutions which have
taken place in dress, furniture, repasts, and public amusements.
I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below
the dignity of history, if I can succeed in placing before the
English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of
their ancestors.
The events which I propose to relate form only a single act of a
great and eventful drama extending through ages, and must be very
imperfectly understood unless the plot of the preceding acts be
well known. I shall therefore introduce my narrative by a slight
sketch of the history of our country from the earliest times. I
shall pass very rapidly over many centuries: but I shall dwell at
some length on the vicissitudes of that contest which the
administration of King James the Second brought to a decisive
crisis.1
Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness
which she was destined to attain. Her inhabitants when first they
became known to the Tyrian mariners, were little superior to the
natives of the Sandwich Islands. She was subjugated by the Roman
arms; but she received only a faint tincture of Roman arts and
letters. Of the western provinces which obeyed the Caesars, she
was the last that was conquered, and the first that was flung
away. No magnificent remains of Latin porches and aqueducts are
to be found in Britain. No writer of British birth is reckoned
among the masters of Latin poetry and eloquence. It is not
probable that the islanders were at any time generally familiar
with the tongue of their Italian rulers. From the Atlantic to the
vicinity of the Rhine the Latin has, during many centuries, been
predominant. It drove out the Celtic; it was not driven out by
the Teutonic; and it is at this day the basis of the French,
Spanish and Portuguese languages. In our island the Latin appears
never to have superseded the old Gaelic speech, and could not
stand its ground against the German.
The scanty and superficial civilisation which the Britons had
derived from their southern masters was effaced by the calamities
of the fifth century. In the continental kingdoms into which the
Roman empire was then dissolved, the conquerors learned much from
the conquered race. In Britain the conquered race became as
barbarous as the conquerors.
All the chiefs who founded Teutonic dynasties in the continental
provinces of the Roman empire, Alaric, Theodoric, Clovis, Alboin,
were zealous Christians. The followers of Ida and Cerdic, on the
other hand, brought to their settlements in Britain all the
superstitions of the Elbe. While the German princes who reigned
at Paris, Toledo, Arles, and Ravenna listened with reverence to
the instructions of bishops, adored the relics of martyrs, and
took part eagerly in disputes touching the Nicene theology, the
rulers of Wessex and Mercia were still performing savage rites in
the temples of Thor and Woden.
The continental kingdoms which had risen on the ruins of the
Western Empire kept up some intercourse with those eastern
provinces where the ancient civilisation, though slowly fading
away under the influence of misgovernment, might still astonish
and instruct barbarians, where the court still exhibited the
splendour of Diocletian and Constantine, where the public
buildings were still adorned with the sculptures of Polycletus
and the paintings of Apelles, and where laborious pedants,
themselves destitute of taste, sense, and spirit, could still
read and interpret the masterpieces of Sophocles, of Demosthenes,
and of Plato. From this communion Britain was cut off. Her shores
were, to the polished race which dwelt by the Bosphorus, objects
of a mysterious horror, such as that with which the Ionians of
the age of Homer had regarded the Straits of Scylla and the city
of the Laestrygonian cannibals. There was one province of our
island in which, as Procopius had been told, the ground was
covered with serpents, and the air was such that no man could
inhale it and live. To this desolate region the spirits of the
departed were ferried over from the land of the Franks at
midnight. A strange race of fishermen performed the ghastly
office. The speech of the dead was distinctly heard by the
boatmen, their weight made the keel sink deep in the water; but
their forms were invisible to mortal eye. Such were the marvels
which an able historian, the contemporary of Belisarius, of
Simplicius, and of Tribonian, gravely related in the rich and
polite Constantinople, touching the country in which the founder
of Constantinople had assumed the imperial purple. Concerning all
the other provinces of the Western Empire we have continuous
information. It is only in Britain that an age of fable
completely separates two ages of truth. Odoacer and Totila, Euric
and Thrasimund, Clovis, Fredegunda, and Brunechild, are
historical men and women. But Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and
Rowena, Arthur and Mordred are mythical persons, whose very
existence may be questioned, and whose adventures must be classed
with those of Hercules and Romulus
At length the darkness begins to break; and the country which had
been lost to view as Britain reappears as England. The conversion
of the Saxon colonists to Christianity was the first of a long
series of salutary revolutions. It is true that the Church had
been deeply corrupted both by that superstition and by that
philosophy against which she had long contended, and over which
she had at last triumphed. She had given a too easy admission to
doctrines borrowed from the ancient schools, and to rites
borrowed from the ancient temples. Roman policy and Gothic
ignorance, Grecian ingenuity and Syrian asceticism, had
contributed to deprave her. Yet she retained enough of the
sublime theology and benevolent morality of her earlier days to
elevate many intellects, and to purify many hearts. Some things
also which at a later period were justly regarded as among her
chief blemishes were, in the seventh century, and long
afterwards, among her chief merits. That the sacerdotal order
should encroach on the functions of the civil magistrate would,
in our time, be a great evil. But that which in an age of good
government is an evil may, in an ago of grossly bad government,
be a blessing. It is better that mankind should be governed by
wise laws well administered, and by an enlightened public
opinion, than by priestcraft: but it is better that men should be
governed by priestcraft than by brute violence, by such a prelate
as Dunstan than by such a warrior as Penda. A society sunk in
ignorance, and ruled by mere physical force, has great reason to
rejoice when a class, of which the influence is intellectual and
moral, rises to ascendancy. Such a class will doubtless abuse its
power: but mental power, even when abused, is still a nobler and
better power than that which consists merely in corporeal
strength. We read in our Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who, when
at the height of greatness, were smitten with remorse, who
abhorred the pleasures and dignities which they had purchased by
guilt, who abdicated their crowns, and who sought to atone for
their offences by cruel penances and incessant prayers. These
stories have drawn forth bitter expressions of contempt from some
writers who, while they boasted of liberality, were in truth as
narrow-minded as any monk of the dark ages, and whose habit was
to apply to all events in the history of the world the standard
received in the Parisian society of the eighteenth century. Yet
surely a system which, however deformed by superstition,
introduced strong moral restraints into communities previously
governed only by vigour of muscle and by audacity of spirit, a
system which taught the fiercest and mightiest ruler that he was,
like his meanest bondman, a responsible being, might have seemed
to deserve a more respectful mention from philosophers and
philanthropists.
The same observations will apply to the contempt with which, in
the last century, it was fashionable to speak of the pilgrimages,
the sanctuaries, the crusades, and the monastic institutions of
the middle ages. In times when men were scarcely ever induced to
travel by liberal curiosity, or by the pursuit of gain, it was
better that the rude inhabitant of the North should visit Italy
and the East as a pilgrim, than that he should never see anything
but those squalid cabins and uncleared woods amidst which he was
born. In times when life and when female honour were exposed to
daily risk from tyrants and marauders, it was better that the
precinct of a shrine should be regarded with an irrational awe,
than that there should be no refuge inaccessible to cruelty and
licentiousness. In times when statesmen were incapable of forming
extensive political combinations, it was better that the
Christian nations should be roused and united for the recovery of
the Holy Sepulchre, than that they should, one by one, be
overwhelmed by the Mahometan power. Whatever reproach may, at a
later period, have been justly thrown on the indolence and luxury
of religious orders, it was surely good that, in an age of
ignorance and violence, there should be quiet cloisters and
gardens, in which the arts of peace could be safely cultivated,
in which gentle and contemplative natures could find an asylum,
in which one brother could employ himself in transcribing the
Æneid of Virgil, and another in meditating the Analytics of
Aristotle, in which he who had a genius for art might illuminate
a martyrology or carve a crucifix, and in which he who had a turn
for natural philosophy might make experiments on the properties
of plants and minerals. Had not such retreats been scattered here
and there, among the huts of a miserable peasantry, and the
castles of a ferocious aristocracy, European society would have
consisted merely of beasts of burden and beasts of prey. The
Church has many times been compared by divines to the ark of
which we read in the Book of Genesis: but never was the
resemblance more perfect than during that evil time when she
alone rode, amidst darkness and tempest, on the deluge beneath
which all the great works of ancient power and wisdom lay
entombed, bearing within her that feeble germ from which a Second
and more glorious civilisation was to spring.
Even the spiritual supremacy arrogated by the Pope was, in the
dark ages, productive of far more good than evil. Its effect was
to unite the nations of Western Europe in one great commonwealth.
What the Olympian chariot course and the Pythian oracle were to
all the Greek cities, from Trebizond to Marseilles, Rome and her
Bishop were to all Christians of the Latin communion, from
Calabria to the Hebrides. Thus grew up sentiments of enlarged
benevolence. Races separated from each other by seas and
mountains acknowledged a fraternal tie and a common code of
public law. Even in war, the cruelty of the conqueror was not
seldom mitigated by the recollection that he and his vanquished
enemies were all members of one great federation.
Into this federation our Saxon ancestors were now admitted. A
regular communication was opened between our shores and that part
of Europe in which the traces of ancient power and policy were
yet discernible. Many noble monuments which have since been
destroyed or defaced still retained their pristine magnificence;
and travellers, to whom Livy and Sallust were unintelligible,
might gain from the Roman aqueducts and temples some faint notion
of Roman history. The dome of Agrippa, still glittering with
bronze, the mausoleum of Adrian, not yet deprived of its columns
and statues, the Flavian amphitheatre, not yet degraded into a
quarry, told to the rude English pilgrims some part of the story
of that great civilised world which had passed away. The
islanders returned, with awe deeply impressed on their half
opened minds, and told the wondering inhabitants of the hovels of
London and York that, near the grave of Saint Peter, a mighty
race, now extinct, had piled up buildings which would never be
dissolved till the judgment day. Learning followed in the train
of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age was
assiduously studied in Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries. The
names of Bede and Alcuin were justly celebrated throughout
Europe. Such was the state of our country when, in the ninth
century, began the last great migration of the northern
barbarians
During many years Denmark and Scandinavia continued to pour forth
innumerable pirates, distinguished by strength, by valour, by
merciless ferocity, and by hatred of the Christian name. No
country suffered so much from these invaders as England. Her
coast lay near to the ports whence they sailed; nor was any shire
so far distant from the sea as to be secure from attack. The same
atrocities which had attended the victory of the Saxon over the
Celt were now, after the lapse of ages, suffered by the Saxon at
the hand of the Dane. Civilization,--just as it began to rise,
was met by this blow, and sank down once more. Large colonies of
adventurers from the Baltic established themselves on the eastern
shores of our island, spread gradually westward, and, supported
by constant reinforcements from beyond the sea, aspired to the
dominion of the whole realm. The struggle between the two fierce
Teutonic breeds lasted through six generations. Each was
alternately paramount. Cruel massacres followed by cruel
retribution, provinces wasted, convents plundered, and cities
rased to the ground, make up the greater part of the history of
those evil days. At length the North ceased to send forth a
constant stream of fresh depredators; and from that time the
mutual aversion of the races began to subside. Intermarriage
became frequent. The Danes learned the religion of the Saxons;
and thus one cause of deadly animosity was removed. The Danish
and Saxon tongues, both dialects of one widespread language, were
blended together. But the distinction between the two nations was
by no means effaced, when an event took place which prostrated
both, in common slavery and degradation, at the feet of a third
people.
The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Their
valour and ferocity had made them conspicuous among the rovers
whom Scandinavia had sent forth to ravage Western Europe. Their
sails were long the terror of both coasts of the Channel. Their
arms were repeatedly carried far into the heart of: the
Carlovingian empire, and were victorious under the walls of
Maestricht and Paris. At length one of the feeble heirs of
Charlemagne ceded to the strangers a fertile province, watered by
a noble river, and contiguous to the sea which was their
favourite element. In that province they founded a mighty state,
which gradually extended its influence over the neighbouring
principalities of Britanny and Maine. Without laying aside that
dauntless valour which had been the terror of every land from the
Elbe to the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more
than all, the knowledge and refinement which they found in the
country where they settled. Their courage secured their territory
against foreign invasion. They established internal order, such
as had long been unknown in the Frank empire. They embraced
Christianity; and with Christianity they learned a great part of
what the clergy had to teach. They abandoned their native speech,
and adopted the French tongue, in which the Latin was the
predominant element. They speedily raised their new language to a
dignity and importance which it had never before possessed. They
found it a barbarous jargon; they fixed it in writing; and they
employed it in legislation, in poetry, and in romance. They
renounced that brutal intemperance to which all the other
branches of the great German family were too much inclined. The
polite luxury of the Norman presented a striking contrast to the
coarse voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and Danish
neighbours. He loved to display his magnificence, not in huge
piles of food and hogsheads of strong drink, but in large and
stately edifices, rich armour, gallant horses, choice falcons,
well ordered tournaments, banquets delicate rather than abundant,
and wines remarkable rather for their exquisite flavour than for
their intoxicating power. That chivalrous spirit, which has
exercised so powerful an influence on the politics, morals, and
manners of all the European nations, was found in the highest
exaltation among the Norman nobles. Those nobles were
distinguished by their graceful bearing and insinuating address.
They were distinguished also by their skill in negotiation, and
by a natural eloquence which they assiduously cultivated. It was
the boast of one of their historians that the Norman gentlemen
were orators from the cradle. But their chief fame was derived
from their military exploits. Every country, from the Atlantic
Ocean to the Dead Sea, witnessed the prodigies of their
discipline and valour. One Norman knight, at the head of a
handful of warriors, scattered the Celts of Connaught. Another
founded the monarchy of the Two Sicilies, and saw the emperors
both of the East and of the West fly before his arms. A third,
the Ulysses of the first crusade, was invested by his fellow
soldiers with the sovereignty of Antioch; and a fourth, the
Tancred whose name lives in the great poem of Tasso, was
celebrated through Christendom as the bravest and most generous
of the deliverers of the Holy Sepulchre.
The vicinity of so remarkable a people early began to produce an
effect on the public mind of England. Before the Conquest,
English princes received their education in Normandy. English
sees and English estates were bestowed on Normans. The French of
Normandy was familiarly spoken in the palace of Westminster. The
court of Rouen seems to have been to the court of Edward the
Confessor what the court of Versailles long afterwards was to the
court of Charles the Second.
The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it, not
only placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne, but gave up
the whole population of England to the tyranny of the Norman
race. The subjugation of a nation by a nation has seldom, even in
Asia, been more complete. The country was portioned out among the
captains of the invaders. Strong military institutions, closely
connected with the institution of property, enabled the foreign
conquerors to oppress the children of the soil. A cruel penal
code, cruelly enforced, guarded the privileges, and even the
sports, of the alien tyrants. Yet the subject race, though beaten
down and trodden underfoot, still made its sting felt. Some bold
men, the favourite heroes of our oldest ballads, betook
themselves to the woods, and there, in defiance of curfew laws
and forest laws, waged a predatory war against their oppressors.
Assassination was an event of daily occurrence. Many Normans
suddenly disappeared leaving no trace. The corpses of many were
found bearing the marks of violence. Death by torture was
denounced against the murderers, and strict search was made for
them, but generally in vain; for the whole nation was in a
conspiracy to screen them. It was at length thought necessary to
lay a heavy fine on every Hundred in which a person of French
extraction should be found slain; and this regulation was
followed up by another regulation, providing that every person
who was found slain should be supposed to be a Frenchman, unless
he was proved to be a Saxon.
During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there
is, to speak strictly, no English history. The French Kings of
England rose, indeed, to an eminence which was the wonder and
dread of all neighbouring nations. They conquered Ireland. They
received the homage of Scotland. By their valour, by their
policy, by their fortunate matrimonial alliances, they became far
more popular on the Continent than their liege lords the Kings of
France. Asia, as well as Europe, was dazzled by the power and
glory of our tyrants. Arabian chroniclers recorded with unwilling
admiration the fall of Acre, the defence of Joppa, and the
victorious march to Ascalon; and Arabian mothers long awed their
infants to silence with the name of the lionhearted Plantagenet.
At one time it seemed that the line of Hugh Capet was about to
end as the Merovingian and Carlovingian lines had ended, and that
a single great monarchy would spread from the Orkneys to the
Pyrenees. So strong an association is established in most minds
between the greatness of a sovereign and the greatness of the
nation which he rules, that almost every historian of England has
expatiated with a sentiment of exultation on the power and
splendour of her foreign masters, and has lamented the decay of
that power and splendour as a calamity to our country. This is,
in truth, as absurd as it would be in a Haytian negro of our time
to dwell with national pride on the greatness of Lewis the
Fourteenth, and to speak of Blenheim and Ramilies with patriotic
regret and shame. The Conqueror and his descendants to the fourth
generation were not Englishmen: most of them were born in France:
they spent the greater part of their lives in France: their
ordinary speech was French: almost every high office in their
gift was filled by a Frenchman: every acquisition which they made
on the Continent estranged them more and more from the population
of our island. One of the ablest among them indeed attempted to
win the hearts of his English subjects by espousing an English
princess. But, by many of his barons, this marriage was regarded
as a marriage between a white planter and a quadroon girl would
now be regarded in Virginia. In history he is known by the
honourable surname of Beauclerc; but, in his own time, his own
countrymen called him by a Saxon nickname, in contemptuous
allusion to his Saxon connection.
Had the Plantagenets, as at one time seemed likely, succeeded in
uniting all France under their government, it is probable that
England would never have had an independent existence. Her
princes, her lords, her prelates, would have been men differing
in race and language from the artisans and the tillers of the
earth. The revenues of her great proprietors would have been
spent in festivities and diversions on the banks of the Seine.
The noble language of Milton and Burke would have remained a
rustic dialect, without a literature, a fixed grammar, or a fixed
orthography, and would have been contemptuously abandoned to the
use of boors. No man of English extraction would have risen to
eminence, except by becoming in speech and habits a Frenchman.
England owes her escape from such calamities to an event which
her historians have generally represented as disastrous. Her
interest was so directly opposed to the interests of her rulers
that she had no hope but in their errors and misfortunes. The
talents and even the virtues of her first six French Kings were a
curse to her. The follies and vices of the seventh were her
salvation. Had John inherited the great qualities of his father,
of Henry Beauclerc, or of the Conqueror, nay, had he even
possessed the martial courage of Stephen or of Richard, and had
the King of France at the same time been as incapable as all the
other successors of Hugh Capet had been, the House of Plantagenet
must have risen to unrivalled ascendancy in Europe. But, just at
this conjuncture, France, for the first time since the death of
Charlemagne, was governed by a prince of great firmness and
ability. On the other hand England, which, since the battle of
Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen, always by
brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of a trifler and a
coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John was
driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make
their election between the island and the continent. Shut up by
the sea with the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and
despised, they gradually came to regard England as their country,
and the English as their countrymen. The two races, so long
hostile, soon found that they had common interests and common
enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the tyranny of a bad king.
Both were alike indignant at the favour shown by the court to the
natives of Poitou and Aquitaine. The great grandsons of those who
had fought under William and the great grandsons of those who had
fought under Harold began to draw near to each other in
friendship; and the first pledge of their reconciliation was the
Great Charter, won by their united exertions, and framed for
their common benefit.
Here commences the history of the English nation. The history of
the preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and
sustained by various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English
ground, but which regarded each other with aversion such as has
scarcely ever existed between communities separated by physical
barriers. For even the mutual animosity of countries at war with
each other is languid when compared with the animosity of nations
which, morally separated, are yet locally intermingled. In no
country has the enmity of race been carried farther than in
England. In no country has that enmity been more completely
effaced. The stages of the process by which the hostile elements
were melted down into one homogeneous mass are not accurately
known to us. But it is certain that, when John became King, the
distinction between Saxons and Normans was strongly marked, and
that before the end of the reign of his grandson it had almost
disappeared. In the time of Richard the First, the ordinary
imprecation of a Norman gentleman was "May I become an
Englishman!" His ordinary form of indignant denial was "Do you
take me for an Englishman?" The descendant of such a gentleman a
hundred years later was proud of the English name.
The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over
continents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be
sought in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down
in maps, and rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the
history of our country during the thirteenth century may not
unaptly be compared. Sterile and obscure as is that portion of
our annals, it is there that we must seek for the origin of our
freedom, our prosperity, and our glory. Then it was that the
great English people was formed, that the national character
began to exhibit those peculiarities which it has ever since
retained, and that our fathers became emphatically islanders,
islanders not merely in geographical position, but in their
politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared
with distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through
all changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which
all the other free constitutions in the world are copies, and
which, in spite of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the
best under which any great society has ever yet existed during
many ages. Then it was that the House of Commons, the archetype
of all the representative assemblies which now meet, either in
the old or in the new world, held its first sittings. Then it was
that the common law rose to the dignity of a science, and rapidly
became a not unworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence. Then
it was that the courage of those sailors who manned the rude
barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of England terrible
on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient colleges which
still exist at both the great national seats of learning were
founded. Then was formed that language, less musical indeed than
the languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in
aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the
philosopher, and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece
alone. Then too appeared the first faint dawn of that noble
literature, the most splendid and the most durable of the many
glories of England.
Early in the fourteenth century the amalgamation of the races was
all but complete; and it was soon made manifest, by signs not to
be mistaken, that a people inferior to none existing in the world
had been formed by the mixture of three branches of the great
Teutonic family with each other, and with the aboriginal Britons.
There was, indeed, scarcely anything in common between the
England to which John had been chased by Philip Augustus, and the
England from which the armies of Edward the Third went forth to
conquer France.
A period of more than a hundred years followed, during which the
chief object of the English was to establish, by force of arms, a
great empire on the Continent. The claim of Edward to the
inheritance occupied by the House of Valois was a claim in which
it might seem that his subjects were little interested. But the
passion for conquest spread fast from the prince to the people.
The war differed widely from the wars which the Plantagenets of
the twelfth century had waged against the descendants of Hugh
Capet. For the success of Henry the Second, or of Richard the
First, would have made England a province of France. The effect
of the successes of Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth was to
make France, for a time, a province of England. The disdain with
which, in the twelfth century, the conquerors from the Continent
had regarded the islanders, was now retorted by the islanders on
the people of the Continent. Every yeoman from Kent to
Northumberland valued himself as one of a race born for victory
and dominion, and looked down with scorn on the nation before
which his ancestors had trembled. Even those knights of Gascony
and Guienne who had fought gallantly under the Black Prince were
regarded by the English as men of an inferior breed, and were
contemptuously excluded from honourable and lucrative commands.
In no long time our ancestors altogether lost sight of the
original ground of quarrel. They began to consider the crown of
France as a mere appendage to the crown of England; and, when in
violation of the ordinary law of succession, they transferred the
crown of England to the House of Lancaster, they seem to have
thought that the right of Richard the Second to the crown of
France passed, as of course, to that house. The zeal and vigour
which they displayed present a remarkable contrast to the torpor
of the French, who were far more deeply interested in the event
of the struggle. The most splendid victories recorded in the
history of the middle ages were gained at this time, against
great odds, by the English armies. Victories indeed they were of
which a nation may justly be proud; for they are to be attributed
to the moral superiority of the victors, a superiority which was
most striking in the lowest ranks. The knights of England found
worthy rivals in the knights of France. Chandos encountered an
equal foe in Du Guesclin. But France had no infantry that dared
to face the English bows and bills. A French King was brought
prisoner to London. An English King was crowned at Paris. The
banner of St. George was carried far beyond the Pyrenees and the
Alps. On the south of the Ebro the English won a great battle,
which for a time decided the fate of Leon and Castile; and the
English Companies obtained a terrible preeminence among the bands
of warriors who let out their weapons for hire to the princes and
commonwealths of Italy.
Nor were the arts of peace neglected by our fathers during that
stirring period. While France was wasted by war, till she at
length found in her own desolation a miserable defence against
invaders, the English gathered in their harvests, adorned their
cities, pleaded, traded, and studied in security. Many of our
noblest architectural monuments belong to that age. Then rose
the fair chapels of New College and of Saint George, the nave of
Winchester and the choir of York, the spire of Salisbury and the
majestic towers of Lincoln. A copious and forcible language,
formed by an infusion of French into German, was now the common
property of the aristocracy and of the people. Nor was it long
before genius began to apply that admirable machine to worthy
purposes. While English warriors, leaving behind them the
devastated provinces of France, entered Valladolid in triumph,
and spread terror to the gates of Florence, English poets
depicted in vivid tints all the wide variety of human manners and
fortunes, and English thinkers aspired to know, or dared to
doubt, where bigots had been content to wonder and to believe.
The same age which produced the Black Prince and Derby, Chandos
and Hawkwood, produced also Geoffrey Chaucer and John Wycliffe.
In so splendid and imperial a manner did the English people,
properly so called, first take place among the nations of the
world. Yet while we contemplate with pleasure the high and
commanding qualities which our forefathers displayed, we cannot
but admit that the end which they pursued was an end condemned
both by humanity and by enlightened policy, and that the reverses
which compelled them, after a long and bloody struggle, to
relinquish the hope of establishing a great continental empire,
were really blessings in the guise of disasters. The spirit of
the French was at last aroused: they began to oppose a vigorous
national resistance to the foreign conquerors; and from that time
the skill of the English captains and the courage of the English
soldiers were, happily for mankind, exerted in vain. After many
desperate struggles, and with many bitter regrets, our ancestors
gave up the contest. Since that age no British government has
ever seriously and steadily pursued the design of making great
conquests on the Continent. The people, indeed, continued to
cherish with pride the recollection of Cressy, of Poitiers, and
of Agincourt. Even after the lapse of many years it was easy to
fire their blood and to draw forth their subsidies by promising
them an expedition for the conquest of France. But happily the
energies of our country have been directed to better objects; and
she now occupies in the history of mankind a place far more
glorious than if she had, as at one time seemed not improbable,
acquired by the sword an ascendancy similar to that which
formerly belonged to the Roman republic.
Cooped up once more within the limits of the island, the warlike
people employed in civil strife those arms which had been the
terror of Europe. The means of profuse expenditure had long been
drawn by the English barons from the oppressed provinces of
France. That source of supply was gone: but the ostentatious and
luxurious habits which prosperity had engendered still remained;
and the great lords, unable to gratify their tastes by plundering
the French, were eager to plunder each other. The realm to which
they were now confined would not, in the phrase of Comines, the
most judicious observer of that time, suffice for them all. Two
aristocratical factions, headed by two branches of the royal
family, engaged in a long and fierce struggle for supremacy. As
the animosity of those factions did not really arise from the
dispute about the succession it lasted long after all ground of
dispute about the succession was removed. The party of the Red
Rose survived the last prince who claimed the crown in right of
Henry the Fourth. The party of the White Rose survived the
marriage of Richmond and Elizabeth. Left without chiefs who had
any decent show of right, the adherents of Lancaster rallied
round a line of bastards, and the adherents of York set up a
succession of impostors. When, at length, many aspiring nobles
had perished on the field of battle or by the hands of the
executioner, when many illustrious houses had disappeared forever
from history, when those great families which remained had been
exhausted and sobered by calamities, it was universally
acknowledged that the claims of all the contending Plantagenets
were united in the house of Tudor.
Meanwhile a change was proceeding infinitely more momentous than
the acquisition or loss of any province, than the rise or fall of
any dynasty. Slavery and the evils by which slavery is everywhere
accompanied were fast disappearing.
It is remarkable that the two greatest and most salutary social
revolutions which have taken place in England, that revolution
which, in the thirteenth century, put an end to the tyranny of
nation over nation, and that revolution which, a few generations
later, put an end to the property of man in man, were silently
and imperceptibly effected. They struck contemporary observers
with no surprise, and have received from historians a very scanty
measure of attention. They were brought about neither by
legislative regulations nor by physical force. Moral causes
noiselessly effaced first the distinction between Norman and
Saxon, and then the distinction between master and slave. None
can venture to fix the precise moment at which either distinction
ceased. Some faint traces of the old Norman feeling might perhaps
have been found late in the fourteenth century. Some faint traces
of the institution of villenage were detected by the curious so
late as the days of the Stuarts; nor has that institution ever,
to this hour, been abolished by statute.
It would be most unjust not to acknowledge that the chief agent
in these two great deliverances was religion; and it may perhaps
be doubted whether a purer religion might not have been found a
less efficient agent. The benevolent spirit of the Christian
morality is undoubtedly adverse to distinctions of caste. But to
the Church of Rome such distinctions are peculiarly odious; for
they are incompatible with other distinctions which are essential
to her system. She ascribes to every priest a mysterious dignity
which entitles him to the reverence of every layman; and she does
not consider any man as disqualified, by reason of his nation or
of his family, for the priesthood. Her doctrines respecting the
sacerdotal character, however erroneous they may be, have
repeatedly mitigated some of the worst evils which can afflict
society. That superstition cannot be regarded as unmixedly
noxious which, in regions cursed by the tyranny of race over
race, creates an aristocracy altogether independent of race,
inverts the relation between the oppressor and the oppressed, and
compels the hereditary master to kneel before the spiritual
tribunal of the hereditary bondman. To this day, in some
countries where negro slavery exists, Popery appears in
advantageous contrast to other forms of Christianity. It is
notorious that the antipathy between the European and African
races is by no means so strong at Rio Janerio as at Washington.
In our own country this peculiarity of the Roman Catholic system
produced, during the middle ages, many salutary effects. It is
true that, shortly after the battle of Hastings, Saxon prelates
and abbots were violently deposed, and that ecclesiastical
adventurers from the Continent were intruded by hundreds into
lucrative benefices. Yet even then pious divines of Norman blood
raised their voices against such a violation of the constitution
of the Church, refused to accept mitres from the hands of
William, and charged him, on the peril of his soul, not to forget
that the vanquished islanders were his fellow Christians. The
first protector whom the English found among the dominant caste
was Archbishop Anselm. At a time when the English name was a
reproach, and when all the civil and military dignities of the
kingdom were supposed to belong exclusively to the countrymen of
the Conqueror, the despised race learned, with transports of
delight, that one of themselves, Nicholas Breakspear, had been
elevated to the papal throne, and had held out his foot to be
kissed by ambassadors sprung from the noblest houses of Normandy.
It was a national as well as a religious feeling that drew great
multitudes to the shrine of Becket, whom they regarded as the
enemy of their enemies. Whether he was a Norman or a Saxon may be
doubted: but there is no doubt that he perished by Norman hands,
and that the Saxons cherished his memory with peculiar tenderness
and veneration, and, in their popular poetry, represented him as
one of their own race. A successor of Becket was foremost among
the refractory magnates who obtained that charter which secured
the privileges both of the Norman barons and of the Saxon
yeomanry. How great a part the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics
subsequently had in the abolition of villenage we learn from the
unexceptionable testimony of Sir Thomas Smith, one of the ablest
Protestant counsellors of Elizabeth. When the dying slaveholder
asked for the last sacraments, his spiritual attendants regularly
adjured him, as he loved his soul, to emancipate his brethren for
whom Christ had died. So successfully had the Church used her
formidable machinery that, before the Reformation came, she had
enfranchised almost all the bondmen in the kingdom except her
own, who, to do her justice, seem to have been very tenderly
treated.
There can be no doubt that, when these two great revolutions had
been effected, our forefathers were by far the best governed
people in Europe. During three hundred years the social system
had been in a constant course of improvement. Under the first
Plantagenets there had been barons able to bid defiance to the
sovereign, and peasants degraded to the level of the swine and
oxen which they tended. The exorbitant power of the baron had
been gradually reduced. The condition of the peasant had been
gradually elevated. Between the aristocracy and the working
people had sprung up a middle class, agricultural and commercial.
There was still, it may be, more inequality than is favourable to
the happiness and virtue of our species: but no man was
altogether above the restraints of law; and no man was altogether
below its protection.
That the political institutions of England were, at this early
period, regarded by the English with pride and affection, and by
the most enlightened men of neighbouring nations with admiration
and envy, is proved by the clearest evidence. But touching the
nature of these institutions there has been much dishonest and
acrimonious controversy.
The historical literature of England has indeed suffered
grievously from a circumstance which has not a little contributed
to her prosperity. The change, great as it is, which her polity
has undergone during the last six centuries, has been the effect
of gradual development, not of demolition and reconstruction. The
present constitution of our country is, to the constitution under
which she flourished five hundred years ago, what the tree is to
the sapling, what the man is to the boy. The alteration has been
great. Yet there never was a moment at which the chief part of
what existed was not old. A polity thus formed must abound in
anomalies. But for the evils arising from mere anomalies we have
ample compensation. Other societies possess written constitutions
more symmetrical. But no other society has yet succeeded in
uniting revolution with prescription, progress with stability,
the energy of youth with the majesty of immemorial antiquity.
This great blessing, however, has its drawbacks: and one of those
drawbacks is that every source of information as to our early
history has been poisoned by party spirit. As there is no country
where statesmen have been so much under the influence of the
past, so there is no country where historians have been so much
under the influence of the present. Between these two things,
indeed, there is a natural connection. Where history is regarded
merely as a picture of life and manners, or as a collection of
experiments from which general maxims of civil wisdom may be
drawn, a writer lies under no very pressing temptation to
misrepresent transactions of ancient date. But where history is
regarded as a repository of titledeeds, on which the rights of
governments and nations depend, the motive to falsification
becomes almost irresistible. A Frenchman is not now impelled by
any strong interest either to exaggerate or to underrate the
power of the Kings of the house of Valois. The privileges of the
States General, of the States of Britanny, of the States of
Burgundy, are to him matters of as little practical importance as
the constitution of the Jewish Sanhedrim or of the Amphictyonic
Council. The gulph of a great revolution completely separates the
new from the old system. No such chasm divides the existence of
the English nation into two distinct parts. Our laws and customs
have never been lost in general and irreparable ruin. With us the
precedents of the middle ages are still valid precedents, and are
still cited, on the gravest occasions, by the most eminent
Statesmen. For example, when King George the Third was attacked
by the malady which made him incapable of performing his regal
functions, and when the most distinguished lawyers and
politicians differed widely as to the course which ought, in such
circumstances, to be pursued, the Houses of Parliament would not
proceed to discuss any plan of regency till all the precedents
which were to be found in our annals, from the earliest times,
had been collected and arranged. Committees were appointed to
examine the ancient records of the realm. The first case reported
was that of the year 1217: much importance was attached to the
cases of 1326, of 1377, and of 1422: but the case which was
justly considered as most in point was that of 1455. Thus in our
country the dearest interests of parties have frequently been on
the results of the researches of antiquaries. The inevitable
consequence was that our antiquaries conducted their researches
in the spirit of partisans.
It is therefore not surprising that those who have written,
concerning the limits of prerogative and liberty in the old
polity of England should generally have shown the temper, not of
judges, but of angry and uncandid advocates. For they were
discussing, not a speculative matter, but a matter which had a
direct and practical connection with the most momentous and
exciting disputes of their own day. From the commencement of the
long contest between the Parliament and the Stuarts down to the
time when the pretensions of the Stuarts ceased to be
formidable, few questions were practically more important than
the question whether the administration of that family had or had
not been in accordance with the ancient constitution of the
kingdom. This question could be decided only by reference to the
records of preceding reigns. Bracton and Fleta, the Mirror of
Justice and the Rolls of Parliament, were ransacked to find
pretexts for the excesses of the Star Chamber on one side, and of
the High Court of Justice on the other. During a long course of
years every Whig historian was anxious to prove that the old
English government was all but republican, every Tory historian
to prove that it was all but despotic.
With such feelings, both parties looked into the chronicles of
the middle ages. Both readily found what they sought; and both
obstinately refused to see anything but what they sought. The
champions of the Stuarts could easily point out instances of
oppression exercised on the subject. The defenders of the
Roundheads could as easily produce instances of determined and
successful resistance offered to the Crown. The Tories quoted,
from ancient writings, expressions almost as servile as were
heard from the pulpit of Mainwaring. The Whigs discovered
expressions as bold and severe as any that resounded from the
judgment seat of Bradshaw. One set of writers adduced numerous
instances in which Kings had extorted money without the authority
of Parliament. Another set cited cases in which the Parliament
had assumed to itself the power of inflicting punishment on
Kings. Those who saw only one half of the evidence would have
concluded that the Plantagenets were as absolute as the Sultans
of Turkey: those who saw only the other half would have concluded
that the Plantagenets had as little real power as the Doges of
Venice; and both conclusions would have been equally remote from
the truth.
The old English government was one of a class of limited
monarchies which sprang up in Western Europe during the middle
ages, and which, notwithstanding many diversities, bore to one
another a strong family likeness. That there should have been
such a likeness is not strange The countries in which those
monarchies arose had been provinces of the same great civilised
empire, and had been overrun and conquered, about the same time,
by tribes of the same rude and warlike nation. They were members
of the same great coalition against Islam. They were in communion
with the same superb and ambitious Church. Their polity naturally
took the same form. They had institutions derived partly from
imperial Rome, partly from papal Rome, partly from the old
Germany. All had Kings; and in all the kingly office became by
degrees strictly hereditary. All had nobles bearing titles which
had originally indicated military rank. The dignity of
knighthood, the rules of heraldry, were common to all. All had
richly endowed ecclesiastical establishments, municipal
corporations enjoying large franchises, and senates whose consent
was necessary to the validity of some public acts.
Of these kindred constitutions the English was, from an early
period, justly reputed the best. The prerogatives of the
sovereign were undoubtedly extensive. The spirit of religion and
the spirit of chivalry concurred to exalt his dignity. The sacred
oil had been poured on his head. It was no disparagement to the
bravest and noblest knights to kneel at his feet. His person was
inviolable. He alone was entitled to convoke the Estates of the
realm: he could at his pleasure dismiss them; and his assent was
necessary to all their legislative acts. He was the chief of the
executive administration, the sole organ of communication with
foreign powers, the captain of the military and naval forces of
the state, the fountain of justice, of mercy, and of honour. He
had large powers for the regulation of trade. It was by him that
money was coined, that weights and measures were fixed, that
marts and havens were appointed. His ecclesiastical patronage was
immense. His hereditary revenues, economically administered,
sufficed to meet the ordinary charges of government. His own
domains were of vast extent. He was also feudal lord paramount of
the whole soil of his kingdom, and, in that capacity, possessed
many lucrative and many formidable rights, which enabled him to
annoy and depress those who thwarted him, and to enrich and
aggrandise, without any cost to himself, those who enjoyed his
favour.
But his power, though ample, was limited by three great
constitutional principles, so ancient that none can say when they
began to exist, so potent that their natural development,
continued through many generations, has produced the order of
things under which we now live.
First, the King could not legislate without the consent of his
Parliament. Secondly, he could impose no tax without the consent
of his Parliament. Thirdly, he was bound to conduct the executive
administration according to the laws of the land, and, if he
broke those laws, his advisers and his agents were responsible.
No candid Tory will deny that these principles had, five hundred
years ago, acquired the authority of fundamental rules. On the
other hand, no candid Whig will affirm that they were, till a
later period, cleared from all ambiguity, or followed out to all
their consequences. A constitution of the middle ages was not,
like a constitution of the eighteenth or nineteenth century,
created entire by a single act, and fully set forth in a single
document. It is only in a refined and speculative age that a
polity is constructed on system. In rude societies the progress
of government resembles the progress of language and of
versification. Rude societies have language, and often copious
and energetic language: but they have no scientific grammar, no
definitions of nouns and verbs, no names for declensions, moods,
tenses, and voices. Rude societies have versification, and often
versification of great power and sweetness: but they have no
metrical canons; and the minstrel whose numbers, regulated solely
by his ear, are the delight of his audience, would himself be
unable to say of how many dactyls and trochees each of his lines
consists. As eloquence exists before syntax, and song before
prosody, so government may exist in a high degree of excellence
long before the limits of legislative, executive, and judicial
power have been traced with precision.
It was thus in our country. The line which bounded the royal
prerogative, though in general sufficiently clear, had not
everywhere been drawn with accuracy and distinctness. There was,
therefore, near the border some debatable ground on which
incursions and reprisals continued to take place, till, after
ages of strife, plain and durable landmarks were at length set
up. It may be instructive to note in what way, and to what
extent, our ancient sovereigns were in the habit of violating the
three great principles by which the liberties of the nation were
protected.
No English King has ever laid claim to the general legislative
power. The most violent and imperious Plantagenet never fancied
himself competent to enact, without the consent of his great
council, that a jury should consist of ten persons instead of
twelve, that a widow's dower should be a fourth part instead of a
third, that perjury should be a felony, or that the custom of
gavelkind should be introduced into Yorkshire.2 But the King had
the power of pardoning offenders; and there is one point at which
the power of pardoning and the power of legislating seem to fade
into each other, and may easily, at least in a simple age, be
confounded. A penal statute is virtually annulled if the
penalties which it imposes are regularly remitted as often as
they are incurred. The sovereign was undoubtedly competent to
remit penalties without limit. He was therefore competent to
annul virtually a penal statute. It might seem that there could
be no serious objection to his doing formally what he might do
virtually. Thus, with the help of subtle and courtly lawyers,
grew up, on the doubtful frontier which separates executive from
legislative functions, that great anomaly known as the dispensing
power.
That the King could not impose taxes without the consent of
Parliament is admitted to have been, from time immemorial, a
fundamental law of England. It was among the articles which John
was compelled by the Barons to sign. Edward the First ventured to
break through the rule: but, able, powerful, and popular as he
was, he encountered an opposition to which he found it expedient
to yield. He covenanted accordingly in express terms, for himself
and his heirs, that they would never again levy any aid without
the assent and goodwill of the Estates of the realm. His powerful
and victorious grandson attempted to violate this solemn compact:
but the attempt was strenuously withstood. At length the
Plantagenets gave up the point in despair: but, though they
ceased to infringe the law openly, they occasionally contrived,
by evading it, to procure an extraordinary supply for a temporary
purpose. They were interdicted from taxing; but they claimed the
right of begging and borrowing. They therefore sometimes begged
in a tone not easily to be distinguished from that of command,
and sometimes borrowed with small thought of repaying. But the
fact that they thought it necessary to disguise their exactions
under the names of benevolences and loans sufficiently proves
that the authority of the great constitutional rule was
universally recognised.
The principle that the King of England was bound to conduct the
administration according to law, and that, if he did anything
against law, his advisers and agents were answerable, was
established at a very early period, as the severe judgments
pronounced and executed on many royal favourites sufficiently
prove. It is, however, certain that the rights of individuals
were often violated by the Plantagenets, and that the injured
parties were often unable to obtain redress. According to law no
Englishman could be arrested or detained in confinement merely by
the mandate of the sovereign. In fact, persons obnoxious to the
government were frequently imprisoned without any other authority
than a royal order. According to law, torture, the disgrace of
the Roman jurisprudence, could not, in any circumstances, be
inflicted on an English subject. Nevertheless, during the
troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the
Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political
necessity. But it would be a great error to infer from such
irregularities that the English monarchs were, either in theory
or in practice, absolute. We live in a highly civilised society,
through which intelligence is so rapidly diffused by means of the
press and of the post office that any gross act of oppression
committed in any part of our island is, in a few hours, discussed
by millions. If the sovereign were now to immure a subject in
defiance of the writ of Habeas Corpus, or to put a conspirator to
the torture, the whole nation would be instantly electrified by
the news. In the middle ages the state of society was widely
different. Rarely and with great difficulty did the wrongs of
individuals come to the knowledge of the public. A man might be
illegally confined during many months in the castle of Carlisle
or Norwich; and no whisper of the transaction might reach London.
It is highly probable that the rack had been many years in use
before the great majority of the nation had the least suspicion
that it was ever employed. Nor were our ancestors by any means so
much alive as we are to the importance of maintaining great
general rules. We have been taught by long experience that we
cannot without danger suffer any breach of the constitution to
pass unnoticed. It is therefore now universally held that a
government which unnecessarily exceeds its powers ought to be
visited with severe parliamentary censure, and that a government
which, under the pressure of a great exigency, and with pure
intentions, has exceeded its powers, ought without delay to apply
to Parliament for an act of indemnity. But such were not the
feelings of the Englishmen of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. They were little disposed to contend for a principle
merely as a principle, or to cry out against an irregularity
which was not also felt to be a grievance. As long as the general
spirit of the administration was mild and popular, they were
willing to allow some latitude to their sovereign. If, for ends
generally acknowledged to be good, he exerted a vigour beyond the
law, they not only forgave, but applauded him, and while they
enjoyed security and prosperity under his rule, were but too
ready to believe that whoever had incurred his displeasure had
deserved it. But to this indulgence there was a limit; nor was
that King wise who presumed far on the forbearance of the English
people. They might sometimes allow him to overstep the
constitutional line: but they also claimed the privilege of
overstepping that line themselves, whenever his encroachments
were so serious as to excite alarm. If, not content with
occasionally oppressing individuals, he cared to oppress great
masses, his subjects promptly appealed to the laws, and, that
appeal failing, appealed as promptly to the God of battles.
Our forefathers might indeed safely tolerate a king in a few
excesses; for they had in reserve a check which soon brought the
fiercest and proudest king to reason, the check of physical
force. It is difficult for an Englishman of the nineteenth
century to imagine to himself the facility and rapidity with
which, four hundred years ago, this check was applied. The people
have long unlearned the use of arms. The art of war has been
carried to a perfection unknown to former ages; and the knowledge
of that art is confined to a particular class. A hundred thousand
soldiers, well disciplined and commanded, will keep down ten
millions of ploughmen and artisans. A few regiments of household
troops are sufficient to overawe all the discontented spirits of
a large capital. In the meantime the effect of the constant
progress of wealth has been to make insurrection far more
terrible to thinking men than maladministration. Immense sums
have been expended on works which, if a rebellion broke out,
might perish in a few hours. The mass of movable wealth collected
in the shops and warehouses of London alone exceeds five
hundredfold that which the whole island contained in the days of
the Plantagenets; and, if the government were subverted by
physical force, all this movable wealth would be exposed to
imminent risk of spoliation and destruction. Still greater would
be the risk to public credit, on which thousands of families
directly depend for subsistence, and with which the credit of the
whole commercial world is inseparably connected. It is no
exaggeration to say that a civil war of a week on English ground
would now produce disasters which would be felt from the Hoang-ho
to the Missouri, and of which the traces would be discernible at
the distance of a century. In such a state of society resistance
must be regarded as a cure more desperate than almost any malady
which can afflict the state. In the middle ages, on the contrary,
resistance was an ordinary remedy for political distempers, a
remedy which was always at hand, and which, though doubtless
sharp at the moment, produced no deep or lasting ill effects. If
a popular chief raised his standard in a popular cause, an
irregular army could be assembled in a day. Regular army there
was none. Every man had a slight tincture of soldiership, and
scarcely any man more than a slight tincture. The national wealth
consisted chiefly in flocks and herds, in the harvest of the
year, and in the simple buildings inhabited by the people. All
the furniture, the stock of shops, the machinery which could be
found in the realm was of less value than the property which some
single parishes now contain. Manufactures were rude; credit was
almost unknown. Society, therefore, recovered from the shock as
soon as the actual conflict was over. The calamities of civil war
were confined to the slaughter on the field of battle, and to a
few subsequent executions and confiscations. In a week the
peasant was driving his team and the esquire flying his hawks
over the field of Towton or of Bosworth, as if no extraordinary
event had interrupted the regular course of human life.
More than a hundred and sixty years have now elapsed since the
English people have by force subverted a government. During the
hundred and sixty years which preceded the union of the Roses,
nine Kings reigned in England. Six of these nine Kings were
deposed. Five lost their lives as well as their crowns. It is
evident, therefore, that any comparison between our ancient and
our modern polity must lead to most erroneous conclusions, unless
large allowance be made for the effect of that restraint which
resistance and the fear of resistance constantly imposed on the
Plantagenets. As our ancestors had against tyranny a most
important security which we want, they might safely dispense with
some securities to which we justly attach the highest importance.
As we cannot, without the risk of evils from which the
imagination recoils, employ physical force as a check on
misgovernment, it is evidently our wisdom to keep all the
constitutional checks on misgovernment in the highest state of
efficiency, to watch with jealousy the first beginnings of
encroachment, and never to suffer irregularities, even when
harmless in themselves, to pass unchallenged, lest they acquire
the force of precedents. Four hundred years ago such minute
vigilance might well seem unnecessary. A nation of hardy archers
and spearmen might, with small risk to its liberties, connive at
some illegal acts on the part of a prince whose general
administration was good, and whose throne was not defended by a
single company of regular soldiers.
Under this system, rude as it may appear when compared with those
elaborate constitutions of which the last seventy years have been
fruitful, the English long enjoyed a large measure of freedom and
happiness. Though, during the feeble reign of Henry the Sixth,
the state was torn, first by factions, and at length by civil
war; though Edward the Fourth was a prince of dissolute and
imperious character; though Richard the Third has generally been
represented as a monster of depravity; though the exactions of
Henry the Seventh caused great repining; it is certain that our
ancestors, under those Kings, were far better governed than the
Belgians under Philip, surnamed the Good, or the French under
that Lewis who was styled the Father of his people. Even while
the wars of the Roses were actually raging, our country appears
to have been in a happier condition than the neighbouring realms
during years of profound peace. Comines was one of the most
enlightened statesmen of his time. He had seen all the richest
and most highly civilised parts of the Continent. He had lived in
the opulent towns of Flanders, the Manchesters and Liverpools of
the fifteenth century. He had visited Florence, recently adorned
by the magnificence of Lorenzo, and Venice, not yet bumbled by
the Confederates of Cambray. This eminent man deliberately
pronounced England to be the best governed country of which he
had any knowledge. Her constitution he emphatically designated as
a just and holy thing, which, while it protected the people,
really strengthened the hands of a prince who respected it. In no
other country were men so effectually secured from wrong. The
calamities produced by our intestine wars seemed to him to be
confined to the nobles and the fighting men, and to leave no
traces such as he had been accustomed to see elsewhere, no ruined
dwellings, no depopulated cities.
It was not only by the efficiency of the restraints imposed on
the royal prerogative that England was advantageously
distinguished from most of the neighbouring countries. A:
peculiarity equally important, though less noticed, was the
relation in which the nobility stood here to the commonalty.
There was a strong hereditary aristocracy: but it was of all
hereditary aristocracies the least insolent and exclusive. It had
none of the invidious character of a caste. It was constantly
receiving members from the people, and constantly sending down
members to mingle with the people. Any gentleman might become a
peer. The younger son of a peer was but a gentleman. Grandsons of
peers yielded precedence to newly made knights. The dignity of
knighthood was not beyond the reach of any man who could by
diligence and thrift realise a good estate, or who could attract
notice by his valour in a battle or a siege. It was regarded as
no disparagement for the daughter of a Duke, nay of a royal Duke,
to espouse a distinguished commoner. Thus, Sir John Howard
married the daughter of Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolk. Sir
Richard Pole married the Countess of Salisbury, daughter of
George, Duke of Clarence. Good blood was indeed held in high
respect: but between good blood and the privileges of peerage
there was, most fortunately for our country, no necessary
connection. Pedigrees as long, and scutcheons as old, were to be
found out of the House of Lords as in it. There were new men who
bore the highest titles. There were untitled men well known to be
descended from knights who had broken the Saxon ranks at
Hastings, and scaled the walls of Jerusalem. There were Bohuns,
Mowbrays, DeVeres, nay, kinsmen of the House of Plantagenet, with
no higher addition than that of Esquire, and with no civil
privileges beyond those enjoyed by every farmer and shopkeeper.
There was therefore here no line like that which in some other
countries divided the patrician from the plebeian. The yeoman was
not inclined to murmur at dignities to which his own children
might rise. The grandee was not inclined to insult a class into
which his own children must descend.
After the wars of York and Lancaster, the links which connected
the nobility and commonalty became closer and more numerous than
ever. The extent of destruction which had fallen on the old
aristocracy may be inferred from a single circumstance. In the
year 1451 Henry the Sixth summoned fifty-three temporal Lords to
parliament. The temporal Lords summoned by Henry the Seventh to
the parliament of 1485 were only twenty-nine, and of these
several had recently been elevated to the peerage. During the
following century the ranks of the nobility were largely
recruited from among the gentry. The constitution of the House of
Commons tended greatly to promote the salutary intermixture of
classes. The knight of the shire was the connecting link between
the baron and the shopkeeper. On the same benches on which sate
the goldsmiths, drapers, and grocers, who had been returned to
parliament by the commercial towns, sate also members who, in any
other country, would have been called noblemen, hereditary lords
of manors, entitled to hold courts and to bear coat armour, and
able to trace back an honourable descent through many
generations. Some of them were younger sons and brothers of
lords. Others could boast of even royal blood. At length the
eldest son of an Earl of Bedford, called in courtesy by the
second title of his father, offered himself as candidate for a
seat in the House of Commons, and his example was followed by
others. Seated in that house, the heirs of the great peers
naturally became as zealous for its privileges as any of the
humble burgesses with whom they were mingled. Thus our democracy
was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our
aristocracy the most democratic in the world; a peculiarity which
has lasted down to the present day, and which has produced many
important moral and political effects.
The government of Henry the Seventh, of his son, and of his
grandchildren was, on the whole, more arbitrary than that of the
Plantagenets. Personal character may in some degree explain the
difference; for courage and force of will were common to all the
men and women of the House of Tudor. They exercised their power
during a period of a hundred and twenty years, always with
vigour, often with violence, sometimes with cruelty. They, in
imitation of the dynasty which had preceded them, occasionally
invaded the rights of the subject, occasionally exacted taxes
under the name of loans and gifts, and occasionally dispensed
with penal statutes: nay, though they never presumed to enact any
permanent law by their own authority, they occasionally took upon
themselves, when Parliament was not sitting, to meet temporary
exigencies by temporary edicts. It was, however, impossible for
the Tudors to carry oppression beyond a certain point: for they
had no armed force, and they were surrounded by an armed people.
Their palace was guarded by a few domestics, whom the array of a
single shire, or of a single ward of London, could with ease have
overpowered. These haughty princes were therefore under a
restraint stronger than any that mere law can impose, under a
restraint which did not, indeed, prevent them from sometimes
treating an individual in an arbitrary and even in a barbarous
manner, but which effectually secured the nation against general
and long continued oppression. They might safely be tyrants,
within the precinct of the court: but it was necessary for them
to watch with constant anxiety the temper of the country. Henry
the Eighth, for example, encountered no opposition when he wished
to send Buckingham and Surrey, Anne Boleyn and Lady Salisbury, to
the scaffold. But when, without the consent of Parliament, he
demanded of his subjects a contribution amounting to one sixth of
their goods, he soon found it necessary to retract. The cry of
hundreds of thousands was that they were English and not French,
freemen and not slaves. In Kent the royal commissioners fled for
their lives. In Suffolk four thousand men appeared in arms. The
King's lieutenants in that county vainly exerted themselves to
raise an army. Those who did not join in the insurrection
declared that they would not fight against their brethren in such
a quarrel. Henry, proud and selfwilled as he was, shrank, not
without reason from a conflict with the roused spirit of the
nation. He had before his eyes the fate of his predecessors who
had perished at Berkeley and Pomfret. He not only cancelled his
illegal commissions; he not only granted a general pardon to all
the malecontents; but he publicly and solemnly apologised for his
infraction of the laws.
His conduct, on this occasion, well illustrates the whole policy
of his house. The temper of the princes of that line was hot, and
their spirits high, but they understood the character of the
nation that they governed, and never once, like some of their
predecessors, and some of their successors, carried obstinacy to
a fatal point. The discretion of the Tudors was such, that their
power, though it was often resisted, was never subverted. The
reign of every one of them was disturbed by formidable
discontents: but the government was always able either to soothe
the mutineers or to conquer and punish them. Sometimes, by timely
concessions, it succeeded in averting civil hostilities; but in
general it stood firm, and called for help on the nation. The
nation obeyed the call, rallied round the sovereign, and enabled
him to quell the disaffected minority.
Thus, from the age of Henry the Third to the age of Elizabeth,
England grew and flourished under a polity which contained the
germ of our present institutions, and which, though not very
exactly defined, or very exactly observed, was yet effectually
prevented from degenerating into despotism, by the awe in which
the governors stood of the spirit and strength of the governed.
But such a polity is suited only to a particular stage in the
progress of society. The same causes which produce a division of
labour in the peaceful arts must at length make war a distinct
science and a distinct trade. A time arrives when the use of arms
begins to occupy the entire attention of a separate class. It
soon appears that peasants and burghers, however brave, are
unable to stand their ground against veteran soldiers, whose
whole life is a preparation for the day of battle, whose nerves
have been braced by long familiarity with danger, and whose
movements have all the precision of clockwork. It is found that
the defence of nations can no longer be safely entrusted to
warriors taken from the plough or the loom for a campaign of
forty days. If any state forms a great regular army, the
bordering states must imitate the example, or must submit to a
foreign yoke. But, where a great regular army exists, limited
monarchy, such as it was in the middle ages, can exist no longer.
The sovereign is at once emancipated from what had been the chief
restraint on his power; and he inevitably becomes absolute,
unless he is subjected to checks such as would be superfluous in
a society where all are soldiers occasionally, and none
permanently.
With the danger came also the means of escape. In the monarchies
of the middle ages the power of the sword belonged to the prince;
but the power of the purse belonged to the nation; and the
progress of civilisation, as it made the sword of the prince more
and more formidable to the nation, made the purse of the nation
more and more necessary to the prince. His hereditary revenues
would no longer suffice, even for the expenses of civil
government. It was utterly impossible that, without a regular and
extensive system of taxation, he could keep in constant
efficiency a great body of disciplined troops. The policy which
the parliamentary assemblies of Europe ought to have adopted was
to take their stand firmly on their constitutional right to give
or withhold money, and resolutely to refuse funds for the support
of armies, till ample securities had been provided against
despotism.
This wise policy was followed in our country alone. In the
neighbouring kingdoms great military establishments were formed;
no new safeguards for public liberty were devised; and the
consequence was, that the old parliamentary institutions
everywhere ceased to exist. In France, where they had always been
feeble, they languished, and at length died of mere weakness. In
Spain, where they had been as strong as in any part of Europe,
they struggled fiercely for life, but struggled too late. The
mechanics of Toledo and Valladolid vainly defended the privileges
of the Castilian Cortes against the veteran battalions of Charles
the Fifth. As vainly, in the next generation, did the citizens of
Saragossa stand up against Philip the Second, for the old
constitution of Aragon. One after another, the great national
councils of the continental monarchies, councils once scarcely
less proud and powerful than those which sate at Westminster,
sank into utter insignificance. If they met, they met merely as
our Convocation now meets, to go through some venerable forms.
In England events took a different course. This singular felicity
she owed chiefly to her insular situation. Before the end of the
fifteenth century great military establishments were
indispensable to the dignity, and even to the safety, of the
French and Castilian monarchies. If either of those two powers
had disarmed, it would soon have been compelled to submit to the
dictation of the other. But England, protected by the sea against
invasion, and rarely engaged in warlike operations on the
Continent, was not, as yet, under the necessity of employing
regular troops. The sixteenth century, the seventeenth century,
found her still without a standing army. At the commencement of
the seventeenth century political science had made considerable
progress. The fate of the Spanish Cortes and of the French States
General had given solemn warning to our Parliaments; and our
Parliaments, fully aware of the nature and magnitude of the
danger, adopted, in good time, a system of tactics which, after a
contest protracted through three generations, was at length
successful
Almost every writer who has treated of that contest has been
desirous to show that his own party was the party which was
struggling to preserve the old constitution unaltered. The truth
however is that the old constitution could not be preserved
unaltered. A law, beyond the control of human wisdom, had decreed
that there should no longer be governments of that peculiar class
which, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, had been common
throughout Europe. The question, therefore, was not whether our
polity should undergo a change, but what the nature of the change
should be. The introduction of a new and mighty force had
disturbed the old equilibrium, and had turned one limited
monarchy after another into an absolute monarchy. What had
happened elsewhere would assuredly have happened here, unless the
balance had been redressed by a great transfer of power from the
crown to the parliament. Our princes were about to have at their
command means of coercion such as no Plantagenet or Tudor had
ever possessed. They must inevitably have become despots, unless
they had been, at the same time, placed under restraints to which
no Plantagenet or Tudor had ever been subject.
It seems certain, therefore, that, had none but political causes
been at work, the seventeenth century would not have passed away
without a fierce conflict between our Kings and their
Parliaments. But other causes of perhaps greater potency
contributed to produce the same effect. While the government of
the Tudors was in its highest vigour an event took place which
has coloured the destinies of all Christian nations, and in an
especial manner the destinies of England. Twice during the middle
ages the mind of Europe had risen up against the domination of
Rome. The first insurrection broke out in the south of France.
The energy of Innocent the Third, the zeal of the young orders of
Francis and Dominic, and the ferocity of the Crusaders whom the
priesthood let loose on an unwarlike population, crushed the
Albigensian churches. The second reformation had its origin in
England, and spread to Bohemia. The Council of Constance, by
removing some ecclesiastical disorders which had given scandal to
Christendom, and the princes of Europe, by unsparingly using fire
and sword against the heretics, succeeded in arresting and
turning back the movement. Nor is this much to be lamented. The
sympathies of a Protestant, it is true, will naturally be on the
side of the Albigensians and of the Lollards. Yet an enlightened
and temperate Protestant will perhaps be disposed to doubt
whether the success, either of the Albigensians or of the
Lollards, would, on the whole, have promoted the happiness and
virtue of mankind. Corrupt as the Church of Rome was, there is
reason to believe that, if that Church had been overthrown in the
twelfth or even in the fourteenth century, the vacant space would
have been occupied by some system more corrupt still. There was
then, through the greater part of Europe, very little knowledge;
and that little was confined to the clergy. Not one man