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 CHAPTER VI

REIGN OF EDWARD VI

reign of Edward VI., from January 1547 to June 1553, is a period of great importance, but one also with which it is difficult to deal. Cromwell's system was kept up till the end of his master's life to the full extent of that degree of completeness to which he himself had brought it; but it ceased to move forward from the moment of his own death, or perhaps, more strictly speaking, from the moment when his influence began to decline, and Cromwell's system may be shortly defined as an absolutism in Church and State, established and maintained by the connivance of Parliament. It is almost inconceivable that such a system could have lasted long in any case; though we may see, from its partial resuscitation under Elizabeth, that it was more possible in the sixteenth century than it could have been before or after. Still to us, looking at the matter by the help of that somewhat profitless wisdom which comes to us so readily after the event, it seems obvious enough that a system which admitted the full rights of Parliament, and calculated upon Parliament always lending its support to the King, could hold good only so long as Parliament chose actually to grant that support; and as soon as circumstances should arise to cause some wide divergence between the interests or washes of Parliament and the King's will, the alliance between them would break down, and not improbably