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 broke the unity of the Church, they rent the seamless coat, they altered, in however slight a degree, the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and all this they did, not by the authority of a General Council or a Papal Consistory, but by the mere motion of a despotic king and an unscrupulous minister, or, at best, of a national synod, which moved but as its strings were pulled by a lay supreme head, or a lay vicegerent, or even a lay vicegerent's lay deputy. The changes in ritual were probably slighter still, and with ignorant people these are apt to be felt and resented when changes in doctrine may pass almost unperceived. The mass of the English people would scarcely have discovered the difference had Henry confined his action to the changes actually made in the doctrines and services of the Church. That which really caused what popular discontent existed—and there can be little doubt that some did exist—was the abolition of pilgrimages and holy days, the destruction of images and shrines, and still more the demolition of the monasteries, and the consequent cessation of their doles and alms.

The last few years of Henry's reign show us the first experiment that was made in maintaining what was afterwards known as the Anglican via media—the only one, in fact, which was tried with the combined advantages of unlimited power and unscrupulous use of it; and how it appeared in the eyes of as disinterested and well-informed a spectator as the times could afford, we may learn from the despatch of Marillac, the French Ambassador, to his master Francis I., quoted by Mr. Froude. He is speaking of the simultaneous execution, on July 30, 1540, of three Protestants for heresy and three Roman priests for treason, and, after mentioning the indignation excited among people of the most opposite opinions, he