Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/278

 PARLIAMENT UNDER HENRY VIII.

(June 9, 1881.)

HE great question of the reign of Henry VIII is, no doubt, this: to what extent did he, in the remarkable career of destruction and reconstruction, of public and private self-will, of commingled revolutionism and conservatism, carry with him the assent and goodwill of his people? then, when we have determined to what extent the national participation in his measures is to be admitted, would be the time to ask by what means, he obtained that assent and goodwill. I do not flatter myself that I am going to answer the question or to solve the problem, either to your satisfaction or to my own. Far too many considerations are concerned in both, far too many facts of doubtful interpretation, and certainly too many historical theories. All that I can undertake to do is to prepare the clearing of the way for some later and more fully equipped investigator; more fully equipped, I say, because, as you will see, there is every reason to hope that in a few years, owing to the labours of the scholars employed in calendaring the State papers, many of the facts which are now capable of contradictory interpretations will be set forth in their true light and relation to one another.

In the former lecture I confined myself to such illustrations of the subject as belong to the royal character of Henry VIII himself; and you will not have mistaken my provisional conclusion that the great factor in the whole complication is the strong, intelligent, self-willed force of the king; that that alone seems to give purpose and. consistency to the eventful policy of the period; that Henry VIII is neither