Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/357

Rh THK SUCCESSION.] ENGLAND 337 it became systematic. Some of his parliaments lived in this way for four successive years. Cromwell was thoroughly master of the art of packing and managing parliaments, an art to which the succeeding reigns added the practice of summoning members from a crowd of petty places, with the express object of securing subservient re turns. The parliaments of Henry s time passed, though not always without opposition, whatever the king wanted, even to the act which gave the king s proclamation, with certain exceptions, the force of a statute. But in the fact that parliaments for a while became so slavish lay the hope of the final revival of freedom. It was under the despotism of Henry exactly as it had been under the despotism of the Conqueror. There was no need to abolish institutions which could so easily be turned to work the despot s will. There was no need seriously to encroach upon their formal powers. The institutions and their powers thus remained, to be again quickened into full life in the seventeenth century, as they had before been quickened in the thirteenth century. Had Henry met with a stronger parliamentary opposition, our liberties might have passed away, like the liberties of the lands which went to make up the monarchies of France and Spain. Parliaments went on, because parliaments voted whatever the king wished. Juries went on, because they convicted whomever the king wished. But, because they were allowed to go on, a time came when parliaments learned to pass measures which kings did not wish to have passed, and when juries karned to acquit men whom kings wished to destroy. In this way, as William the Conqueror in one age, so Thomas Cromwell in another, may be looked on as the indirect preserver of English freedom. After the fall of Cromwell the reign of Henry loses much of its interest; or at least the interest is, as at the beginning of his reign, again transferred to the wars with France and Scotland. But these wars, with their momentary successes, are of little importance, except that in the course of the Scottish war we see the beginning of the train of events which sixty years later united the English and Scottish crowns. James V. of Scotland, it must be remembered, was Henry s nephew, the son of his sister Margaret. According to genealogical notions, he was next in succession to the crown after Henry s own children. The prospect of this contingent succession was dangled by Henry before the eyes of James. And when James died, leaving an infant daughter, the famous Queen Mary, Henry s schemes now took the form of a marriage between her and his son Edward. This was exactly the same scheme which had been proposed by Edward I. when Scotland had an earlier child queen. In neither case did the scheme bear immediate fruit. The marriage of Edward and Mary formed one of the terms of a momentary peace between England and Scotland in 1543. But the Avar began again, and was carried on, in connexion with the reforming party in Scotland, both during this reign and during the early years of the next, Avith the avoAved object of bringing about the marriage. It is needless to say that the marriage A r as never carried out. But Mary came to be, on other grounds, a claimant of the crown of England, nnd her son came to possess it. During these later years of Henry, no commanding figure stands out like those of Wolsey and Cromwell. Henry himself, toAvards the end of his reign, lost much of his energy. Martyrdoms on both sides still Avent on, though, as compared Avith the slaughter of later times, they were rare on both sides. There is yet no open change ; but the gap between the tAvo parties gets Avider and wider. Katharine Howard, married in 1540, was beheaded early in 1542. In the next year Henry married his last wife, a third Katharine, commonly called Katharine Parr, but who was then the widoAv of Neville Lord Latimer. Her leaning Avas KatLa- to the neAv doctrines, and at one time she was in danger on riue Parr their account. On the whole, the tendency was noAv in favour of change. Things seemed to sAvay backAvards and forwards between Bishop Gardiner and the duke of Nor folk on one side and Cranmer and EdAvard earl of Hertford, a brother of Queen Jane Seymour, on the other side. At the moment of Henry s death the reforming party had the greater influence. The last who were sentenced to die in his time were Norfolk himself and his son the famous earl of Surrey. The son perished ; the father Avas saved by the king s death. But though the reforming party had politically the upper hand, no step Avas taken as long as Henry lived in the direction of strictly religious reformation. The most important question during these later years The sue- was the settlement of the succession. By a statute passed cession. in 1544, the croAvn was to pass to Henry s three children in order, EdAA-ard, Mary, and Elizabeth. Both the king s daughters had been declared illegitimate ; but IIOAV, without any reversal of their illegitimacy, they Avere placed in the succession to the croAvn. On no theory could Mary and Crown Elizabeth both be legitimate; the laAv had declared that entailed neither of them was. The point is of importance, because 9? , in truth neither Mary nor Elizabeth reigned by any right of children, birth, but by a purely parliamentary title. But the statute went on further to bestow on Iletiry a pOAver Avhich never Avas bestoAved on any other king before or after. In default of the issue of his OAvn children, the croAA-n was to pass to such persons as he might himself appoint by his last will, signed with his own hand. By his last will he exercised this poAver by leaving the crovn in remainder to the issue of his younger sister, Mary the French queen, AA^ho, after the death of LeAA is XII., had married Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. He thus passed by the queen of Scots and the other issue of his elder sister Margaret. The Henry s provisions of this will become of great importance at a later wiu - time; and it shows on what small accidents great questions may depend, that it is matter of controversy Avhether the will was signed by the king s own hand, according to the statute, or Avhether it was merely signed with a stamp. In this memorable reign then, though no strictly religious reformation was wrought, yet a step was taken which made religious reformation ineA itable. One marked feature of the fully developed English character Avas now added. England Avas from this time, with a momentary interruption, the enemy of the Roman see. But the reign of Henry helped in another Avay towards the welding together of the whole isle of Britain. Wales was noAA r fully incorporated Avith the Incorpor- kingdom of England. It Avas brought wholly under English atlon of law and was fully represented in the English parliament. Ireland too was brought into more complete submission than it had ever been before, and in 1542 Henry exchanged his title of Lord of Ireland for that of King, or, as an Irish Act words it, &quot; King and Emperor of the realm of England and of the land of Ireland.&quot; Ireland Avas a dependent kingdom ; still from this time it was a kingdom attached to the croAvn of England, and by making it such a distinct step Ava.3 taken tOAA-ards the union of the British islands. kingdom On the reign of Henry followed the reigns of his three children in succession, according to the order laid down in the statute of 1544. The marked historical feature of these reigns is that they are the time of strictly religious reformation. It was found that the middle system of Henry could not last, that the English Church and nation must throw in its lot with one side or the other in the great controversy of the age. Under Edward the religious reformation was wrought. Under Mary, first the work of Edward, and then the work of Henry, was undone, and the authority of the Roman see was aijain admitted. Under VIII. - 43 Reigns of Henry s children. Begin ning of strictly religious chamn-s