Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/581

] doctrines of the Reformation. The return of theologic despotism under Mury only added force to the spirit of reform, by showing how terrible and bloody was the animus of ancient superstition. The fires of Smithfield lit up the dark places of spiritual tyranny to the remotest corners of the nation, and gave the blow to the tottering Bastile of restringent faith in this country. Elizabeth, with all the self-will of her father, lived to see, both in people and Parliament, a spirit that made her lion-heart shrink with awe, and own, however reluctantly, a power looking already gigantically down upon her own. She felt more than once, in the pride of her power, the terror of that national will which, in less than half a century from her death, shattered the throne of her successor, and gave to the world the unheard-of spectacle of a king decapitated for treason to his people.

The grand underlying impulse of the forward movement of this age was that of the general progress of the world in knowledge—knowledge of its rights and the powers inherent in popular association. The restoration of classical literature, and especially of the Greek, had rekindled the lofty and independent sentiments of antiquity; but still more, the knowledge of the doctrines, principles, and promises of the Bible, which had been disseminated amongst the people by the Reformers, had spread like a flame amongst them, and had given them totally new ideas of human prerogative and dignity. Henry VIII., after being induced to make public the Scriptures, saw so clearly their effect that he withdrew the boon as far as was possible, and pronounced the most severe penalties on any of the common people consulting that Divine fountain of truth and freedom. Throughout the civilised world, far even beyond the countries in which the Reformation had established itself, the stimulating boon of this knowledge was diffused, and gave a perilous and uneasy feeling to the most slavish nations and despotic sovereigns.

But in England many other causes had co-operated to raise the power and condition of the people. The long civil wars had, by the time of the accession of Henry VII., reduced the old nobility to a mere fragment. Such extraordinary specimens of baronial wealth and dominion as the Warwicks, Beauchamps, and Shrewsburys, no longer existed. In the first Parliament of Henry VII. the peers amounted to only twenty-eight; in that of Henry VIII. they had risen only to thirty-six. With their extinction had lapsed their vast estates to the Crown, and this property had in part been sold to defray the costs by which the throne had maintained its struggles against various claimants and their factions. Henry VII., as we have said, carefully kept down this haughty class to the limits into which it had fallen. His son, Henry VIII., like him, pursued the policy of Edward IV., who had established a system of fine and recovery to cut off entails; and by liberal use of attainders, with their consequent forfeitures of title and estate, made the nobility entirely subservient to the Crown, which augmented its wealth and power on their ruin. By conferring their estates in part on new aspirants to the peerage from the families of the lesser gentry, and in many cases—as in those of Wolsey and Cromwell—from the ranks of the common people, he divided the aristocracy against itself, and thus added fresh influence to the throne. The old nobles looked with a jealous and disdainful eye on the new ones; the new ones repaid the scorn by an equal scorn of imbecile antiquity, and by the most assiduous endeavours at rise in affluence and official dignity to a parity with them, and even an ascendancy over them.

This predominance of the Crown once established, Henry VIII. proceeded to a still more startling blow at a power hitherto equal and often paramount to that of the Crown—the Church. To the terror and astonishment of the whole of Papal Christendom, he stretched his hand not only against the supreme rule, but the vast property of that august and time-honoured institution. In 1532 he abolished the annats, or first-fruits, before that time paid to the court of Rome—an act in itself proclaiming his independence of that court. In the following year he declared by Act of Parliament that his subjects might discuss the claims and condemn the acts and opinions of the Pope without incurring any charge of heresy. Another year, and he caused himself to be proclaimed "Supreme head of the Church" in his own realms; and prohibited not only all payments to the Pope, but all appeals to or recognition of his authority. In 1535, the very next year, he confiscated the property of the lesser monasteries; and this course, once begun, never stopped till he had made himself master of the whole vast demesnes of the monasteries, the collegiate churches, hospitals, and houses of the order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem; the bulk of which he appropriated to his own use, turning adrift 100,000 monks, priests, and nuns into the world. So daring a sweep of ecclesiastical property, power, and privilege never was made by any other man or in any other era of the world; and nothing could have emboldened even this impious and lawless monarch to so astounding a deed but the clear consciousness that the spirit of the age was with him, and that there was a host of candidates for the spoils of this ancient corporation, who would do battle to the death for his object, which was still more their own.

By this unexampled coup-d'etat Henry made himself master of 644 convents, 90 colleges, 2,374 chantries and free chapels, and 110 hospitals; the whole of which property, with very trifling exception, was speedily conveyed to the vast swarm of hungry parvenus, the Russells, the Brownes, the Seymours, &c., who rapidly bloomed into aristocratic greatness, and constituted an army of invincible defence against any restoration of this great and affluent but corrupt ecclesiastical princedom.

These new men, in their turn, were necessitated to subdivide a portion, more or less, amongst their followers, to establish their own position; and other great extents of lands were sold in minor amounts to the successful merchants and traders, so that by this means there grew up a new power in the country—that of small but sturdy freeholders, who, at once independent of the Crown and the aristocracy, soon made their might felt in the community, and added to the House of Commons that popular infusion of authoritative life which speedily electrified the Government by its tone, and prostrated it by its measures.

That a large number of such men of substance, whose wealth was the produce of industry, existed at the period, is an indication that the nation had grown rich by trade,