mons obtained a greater power and figure than they ever had before."*

The conduct of Henry VII. to one of his principal servants, by whom he had been sumptuously entertained, is thus narrated. † "At the King's going away, the servants stood (in a seemly manner) in their livery coats, with cognizances, ranged on both sides, and made the King a lane. The King called his host unto him, and said, 'My Lord, I have heard much of your hospitality, but I see it is greater than the speech. These handsome gentlemen and yeomen that I see on both sides of me, are sure your menial servants.' The Earl smiled and said, 'They are most of them my retainers that are come to do me service at such a time as this, and chiefly to see your Grace.' The King started a little, and said, 'By my faith, my Lord, I thank you for my good cheer, but I may not endure to have my laws broken in my sight. My attorney must speak with you."" The fine imposed was no less than fifteen thousand marks. This anecdote, though trivial in itself, shows the King's apprehen

* We may fairly conclude that the numerous armies in these days mentioned by historians, consisted chiefly of ragamuffins who followed the camp, and lived by plunder.”—Bady Hist., vol. ii. p. 92.

"One successful campaign, by pay and plunder, and the ransom of prisoners, was supposed to be a small fortune for men who lived idle all the rest of the year, and commonly all their lives after."— Ibid.

↑ Lord Verulam's Life of Henry VII.

sion of retainers, and the increasing power of the crown and of the laws over the barons.

"The barons, thus controlled by the King, instead of vieing with each other in the number and boldness of their retainers, began to acquire by degrees a more civilised species of emulation, and endeavoured to excel in the splendour and elegance of their equipages, houses, and tables. The common people, no longer maintained in vicious idleness by their superiors, were obliged to learn some calling or industry, and became useful to themselves or others; and it must be acknowledged, that as much as an industrious tradesman is a better man and a better citizen than one of those idle retainers, who formerly depended on the great families, so much is the life of a modern man of fortune more laudable than that of an ancient chief or baron of former times."

It cannot however be denied, that at this period (the 15th century), the condition of trade and manufactures, and the state of commerce of the people of England, were inferior to that of most commnunities in the southern portion of Europe.

"The great revolutions that have happened in manners and property have paved the way by imperceptible but sure degrees for as great a revolution in government: yet while that revolution was effecting, the crown became more arbitrary than ever, by the progress of those very means that af terwards reduced its power. It is obvious to every observer, that, until the close of the Lancastrian

civil wars, the property and the power of the nation were chiefly divided between the king, the nobility, and the clergy. The commons were generally in a state of great ignorance; their personal wealth, before the extension of trade, was comparatively small, and the nature of their landed property was such as kept them in continual dependence upon their feudal lord, being usually some powerful baron, some opulent abbey, or sometimes the king himself. Our ancestors heard with detestation and horror those sentiments rudely delivered, and pushed to most absurd extremes, by the violence of a Cade and a Tyler, which have since been applauded with a zeal rising almost to idolatry when softened and recommended by the cloquence, the moderation, and the arguments of a Locke, a Sidney, and a Milton."*

Blackstone, book iv. chap. 33.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE REFORMATION.

Its Origin.-Selfish Motives of Henry VIII.- His Persecution of Protestants. The Bloody Statute.- National System of Belief dictated by the King. - Luther and Leo the Tenth.— Cruelty and Folly of Henry VIII. — Slow Progress of Civilisation. Wickliffe's Failure and Luther's Success. - The Reformation forwarded by the Art of Printing.-Commercial State of England under Henry VIII. Augmentation of the Middle Class.

THIS memorable event in our annals was most beneficial to civilisation, although it can scarcely be said to have been the fruit of conscientious conviction on the part of all those by whom it was abetted. The abuses in the Church of Rome had indeed reached to a pitch of the utmost folly and atrocity. Still the people of England would probably have acquiesced in them, had not Henry VIII., who ruled the nation with a rod of iron, found it convenient to quarrel with the Pope, who would not sanction his repudiation of Queen Catherine when he desired to marry Anne Bullen. Of consistency in opinion, Henry was audaciously regardless. He was a partizan on both sides in the dispute between Martin Luther and the Pope; at first acrimoniously vituperating the German reformer in a book which, being sent to

Rome, so gratified the Pontiff as to induce him to reward Henry with the title of "Defender of the Faith," a distinction inconsistently borne to the present day by the Tudor king's protestant successors. Leo the Tenth little anticipated, that in styling Henry the defender of papacy, he was conferring a decoration on one who would soon become the most formidable enemy that had ever arisen against the Church of Rome.

"Henry VIII." says Milton, "was the first that rent this kingdom from the Pope's subjection totally; but his quarrel being more about supremacy, than other faultiness in religion that he regarded, it is no marvel if he stuck where he did. The next default was in the bishops, who, though they had renounced the Pope, still hugged the popedom, and shared the authority among themselves."

This is perfectly true; for though Henry defied the Pope's supremacy, he was not a favourer of Protestants. On the contrary, he considered their doctrines so dangerous to the spiritual domination he sought to exercise, that he enacted rigorous laws against them, some of which were as arbitrary and cruel as, in a spiritual sense, was any anathema ever thundered from the Vatican. Being determined to show that, in abolishing the papal authority, he had not changed his religion, Henry hastened to give a signal proof of the hatred he bore to the reformed tenets.

* Milton, "Of Reformation in England."