Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/409

Rh All I can gather from this matter is, that our king Henry made a better bargain than his contemporary Francis, who divided the liberties of the church between himself and the pope, while the king of England seized them all to himself. But how comes he to number the want of synods in the Gallican church among the grievances of that concordate, and as a mark of their slavery, since he reckons all convocations of the clergy in England to be useless and dangerous? Or what difference in point of liberty was there, between the Gallican church under Francis, and the English under Harry? For the latter was as much a papist as the former, unless in the point of obedience to the see of Rome; and in every quality of a good man, or a good prince, (except personal courage, wherein both were equal) the French monarch had the advantage, by as many degrees as is possible for one man to have over another.

Henry VIII had no manner of intention to change religion in his kingdom; he continued to persecute and burn protestants, after he had cast off the pope's supremacy; and I suppose this seizure of ecclesiastical revenues (which Francis never attempted) cannot be reckoned as a mark of the church's liberty. By the quotation the bishop sets down to show the slavery of the French church, he represents it as a grievance, that bishops are not now elected there as formerly, but wholly appointed by the prince; and that those made by the court; have been ordinarily the chief advancers of schisms, heresies, and oppressions of the church. He cites another passage from a Greek writer, and plainly insinuates, that it is justly applicable to her majesty's reign: princes. IV.