Page:Landholding in England.djvu/70

 or Insurrection. Secondly, To aid his Confederates, otherwise they would never assist him. Thirdly, To reward his well-deserving Servants. Now the Project was, if the Parliament would give unto him all the Abbies, etc., that for ever, in Time then to come, he would take Order that the same should not be converted to private Use; but, first. That his Exchequer, for the Purposes aforesaid, should be enriched. Secondly, the Kingdom strengthened by the Maintenance of 40,000 well-trained Soldiers, with skilful Captains and Commanders. Thirdly, for the Benefit and Ease of the Subject, who never afterwards (as was pretended) in any Time to come, should be charged with Subsidies, Fifteenths, Loans, or other common Aids. &hellip; Now observe the Catastrophe. In the same Parliament of 32 Henry VIII., when the great and opulent Priory of St John's of Jerusalem was given to the King, he demanded, and had, a Subsidy both of the Laity and Clergy; and the like he had in 34 Henry VIII. and in 37 Henry VIII., he had another Subsidy. And since the Dissolution of the aforesaid Monasteries, he exacted great Loans, and against Law received the same" (Coke's Fourth Institute, folio 44).

An astonishing change came over political opinion. Of course, a king who was Supreme Head of the Church, must be supreme in the State. John Bale, one of the most unscrupulous and violent partisans of the Reformation, wrote a historical play, entitled "Kynge Johan," in which John is represented as a pious and patriotic monarch, and all who withstood his tyranny as resisting God. One