Page:Hazlitt, Political Essays (1819).djvu/343

 Princess is, however, just the reverse of that which Cardinal Wolsey gave to a Popish ruler of these realms, Henry VIII., before that Monarch saw reason to change his religious principles for a wife, as Mr. Southey has changed his political ones for a pension. The Cardinal was almost as wise a man in his generation as Mr. Southey is in his; saw as far into reasons of state, and charged by anticipation all the evils of anarchy and rebellion since his time on that very Protestant religion, which the modern courtier under the Protestant succession considers as the only support of passive obedience and non-resistance. Cavendish, in his Memoirs, in the Harleian Miscellany, makes Wolsey on his death-bed give this testamentary advice to his Sovereign:—"And, Master Kingston, I desire you further to request his Grace, in God's name, that he have a vigilant eye to suppress the hellish Lutherans, that they increase not through his great negligence, in such a sort as to be compelled to take up arms to subdue them, as the King of Bohemia was; whose commons being infected with Wickliff's heresies, the King was forced to take that course. Let him consider the story of King Richard the Second, the second son of his progenitor, who lived in the time of Wickliff's seditions and heresies: did not the commons, I pray you, in his time, rise against the nobility and chief governors of this realm; and at the last, some of them were put to death without justice or mercy? And, under pretence of having all things common, did they not fall to spoiling and robbing, and at last took the King's person, and carried him about the city, making him obedient to their proclamations?"—[The author of Wat Tyler has given a very different version of this story.]—"Did not also the traitorous heretick, Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, pitch a field with hereticks against King Henry the Fourth, where the King was in person, and fought against them, to whom God gave the victory? Alas! if these be not plain precedents and sufficient persuasions to admonish a Prince, then God will take away from us our present rulers, and leave us to the hands of our enemies. And then will ensue