Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/247



HAVE been long considering and conjecturing, what could be the causes of that great disgust, of late, against the clergy of both kingdoms, beyond what was ever known, till that monster and tyrant, Henry VIII, who took away from them, against law, reason, and justice, at least two thirds of their legal possessions; and whose successors (except queen Mary) went on with their rapine, till the accession of king James I. That detestable tyrant Henry VIII, although he abolished the pope's power in England, as universal bishop, yet what he did in that article, however just it were in itself, was the mere effect of his irregular appetite, to divorce himself from a wife he was weary of, for a younger and more beautiful woman, whom he afterward beheaded. But, at the same time, he was an entire defender of all the popish doctrines, even those which were the most absurd. And, while he put the people to