Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/256

236 which followed witnessed the alternate supremacy of factions, where selfishness walked hand in hand with fanaticism, where petty passions disguised themselves under sacred names; and the just discontent of the nation with the reformers was allayed only at last when reaction had brought with it a bitter recompense of persecution, and the spirit of the dead King at length revived in Elizabeth. The true commentary on the Government of Henry VIII. is to be looked for in the reigns of his immediate successors. I know not whether I need add any other. To draw conclusions is the business of the reader. It has been mine to search for the facts among statutes and State Papers misinterpreted through natural prejudice and imperfect knowledge, and among neglected manuscripts fast perishing of decay.

But, as it would be affectation to seem to be unconscious that the character of the King, as presented in these volumes, is something different from that which modern tradition has ascribed to him, so for my own sake I desire to say that I have not advanced any novel paradox or conjectures of my own. The history of the reign of Henry VIII. is a palimpsest in which the original writing can still be read; and I have endeavoured only to reinstate the judgment upon his motives and his actions which was entertained by all moderate Englishmen in his own and the succeeding generation which was displaced only by the calumnies of Catholic or Antinomian fanatics, when the true records were out of sight; and when, in the establishment