of the New Learning; mat; pia," its scope and of three fifteenths to £30,000.1 As the king refused to forgive this audacious act, the offender found it expedient for a time to seek safety in seclusion. From that seclusion he emerged, as a light after the beginning of the present reign, as one of the bright lights of the New Learning, whose daring spirit of inquiry he undertook to extend beyond the domain of mere educational and religious reform into that of social and political speculation. Drawn by his wit and wisdom into the service of the court, he was sent more than once upon diplomatic missions as a diplo to the Low Countries. While thus employed by a despotism which he despised, More embodied in a work, published in 1516,2 his protest against the whole scheme of social and political oppression which Wolsey had just begun to organize into a vast and comprehensive system. The conceit upon the "Uto which the "Utopia" is founded is that, upon one of his diplomatic missions, More had met by chance a sailor, who had character; been a companion of Amerigo Vespucci in his voyages to the New World, from whom he learned of the kingdom of "Nowhere." In this vague intellectual vision of a higher and better social and political life, in this "ultra-Platonic fancy, bred of the Platonism of the Renaissance," 4 we find beneath the idealism of the dreamer, not only a statement of all the grave social, religious, and political questions involved in the life about him, but also a series of philosophical speculations as to their solution, far in advance of the age in which the writer lived. In nothing is this prescience more manifest than in his premature announcement of the principle of religious toleration; toleration, embodied in the statement that in Utopia every man could hold whatsoever religious opinion he would, and propagate the same by argument, but without offence to the aspirations religion of others. It was, however, to the cause of the laborprovement ing poor bowed down like beasts of burden under a system ing classes; of social tyranny whose evils had been intensified by a scheme religious for the im of the labor 1 The leading contemporary authority is the life by his son-in-law, William Roper, to which is added an appendix of letters. Chiswick, 1817. The very best recent contribution is the Life by W. H. Hutton, a rising scholar of St. John's College, Oxford. 2 Utopia, originally printed in Latin, 1516. Translated into English by Robinson, and edited by Edward Arber, 1869. All references will be to the Arber ed. 3 "Thence the Portuguese Hythlodaye wanders to the island of Nowhere,' which to More's mind was ‘beyond the line equinoctial' between Brazil and India." Arber, Int. p. iv. 4 Pollock, Hist. of the Science of Politics, p. 22. -- 5 Arber ed., p. 145. 1 of erroneous legislation which extended from the earlier Statutes of Laborers to the statute (6 Hen. VIII. c. 3) by which parliament had last attempted to fix the rate of wages 1- that the sensitive mind of More addressed itself with the greatest zeal and sympathy. This whole system of oppression he denounces as nothing but a conspiracy of the rich against the poor, a conspiracy through which the rich are ever striving to pare away something further from the daily wages of the poor by private fraud and even by public law, so that the wrong already existing is made yet greater by means of the law of the state. In the realm of "Nowhere" no such conditions 1 The important and continuous history of the Statutes of Laborers may be summarized as follows: The foundations of the system for the regulation of the wages of labor were laid by 23 Edw. III. (1349) and 25 Edw. III. (1357); the first of which, passed to prevent a rise in wages as a consequence of the Black Death, provided that all laborers should be forced to serve for the rate which prevailed before the plague began, while the second rendered the first measure more stringent by denying to the laborer the right to quit his parish in search of better employment. Then followed a long series of statutes confirming, amending, extending, and modifying the original acts with the double purpose of regulating wages and preventing and punishing as conspiracies all combinations to raise them. Chief among that series are the following: 12 Rich. II. CC. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (1388); 7 Hen. IV. c. 17 (1405); 2 Hen. V. c. 4 (1414); 6 Hen. VI. c. 3 (1427); 6 Hen. VIII. c. 3 (1514); 2 & 3 Edw. VI. c. 15 (1548); and 5 Eliz. c. 4 (1562). The comprehensive statute last named, which remained in force during a long period of time, was supplemented during the eighteenth century by a set of acts regulating particular trades and prohibiting combinations in respect to wages payable in such trades. Among these may be mentioned, 7 Geo. I. st. 1, c. 13 (as to journeymen tailors); 12 Geo. I. C. 34 (as to woollen manufacturers); 22 Geo. II. c. 27 (as to the hat trade); 17 Geo. III. c. 55 (as to silk weavers); and 36 Geo. III. c. 111 (as to the paper trade). These special regulations widened in 1799 into a general act, 39 Geo. III. c. 81, which provided for a suppression of all combinations of workmen for the purpose of raising wages. That act, after remaining in force one year, was superseded by 40 Geo. III. c. 60, which, while it encouraged the reference of labor disputes to arbitration, perpetuated the prohibitions against combinations down to 1824. In that year was passed 5 Geo. IV. c. 95, which, after repealing all prior laws as to combinations, put the whole subject upon a new basis by treating labor as a commodity to be bought and sold according to the ordinary rules of trade. After remaining in force only one year, that act, which was charged with encouraging all kinds of combinations, was superseded by 6 Geo. IV. c. 129, an act of the same general character, but with more stringent provisions against combinations. During the next fifty years the courts carried what was claimed to be the old common law doctrine, that trade unions or combinations in restraint of trade were criminal conspiracies, to such an extent that in 1871 a contrary principle was declared by statute (34 & 35 Vict. c. 31). In order to render that act more effective was passed the "Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act" of 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 86), which provided that no agreement by two or more in furtherance or contemplation of a trade dispute should be considered as an indictable conspiracy unless the act agreed upon would be criminal if committed by one person only. Upon the whole subject, see Reeves' Hist. Eng. Law, vol. iii. (Finlason ed.), pp. 128, 365, 413; vol. iv. p. 344; Sir J. F. Stephen's Hist. of the Criminal Law, vol. iii. pp. 203, 204. 2 Arber ed., p. 159. declared to of all pun ishment; as these exist, because there the whole aim of legislation is to nurture and develop the laboring classes as the true foundation of society, by providing for their physical, moral, and intellectual welfare. There the cottages of the poor are light and cleanly, there the period of daily toil is reduced to nine hours, there a system of public education is provided by law for all.1 And here should be noted the comment which the writer makes upon the injustice of punishing too severely men who have been badly taught in their youth, and whose morals have been corrupted from childhood.2 An appeal is made for a readjustment of punishment upon the basis of a just relation reformation between the penalty and the offence. Reformation is declared be the end to be the end of all punishment, "nothing else but the destruction of vices and the saving of men." 3 Amid these humane aspirations for the improvement of the intellectual, moral, and physical condition of the laboring classes, the larger question involving the maintenance of political liberty against the growing despotism of the monarchy is by no means lost sight of. Regardless of the danger which such a dissent from the prevailing king worship involved, the suggestion is boldly made that a king should be removed who is even suspected of a be deposed; design to enslave his people. Then follows an outline of the process through which a people may be enslaved by a straining straining of the law in favor of the royal authority. Where favor of the such a tendency exists there will never be wanting some pretence for deciding in the king's favor; as that equity is on his side; or the strict letter of the law, or some forced interpretation of it. While the equal administration of justice is undermined by the growth of such false principles, the notion that the English is an absolute instead of a limited monarch is fostered by the maxim that the king can do no wrong, however much he may wish to do it; that not only the property but the persons of his subjects are his own; and that a man has a right to no more than the king's goodness thinks fit not to take from him. When disentangled from much that is fanci when a king should the law in crown; account of ful, such is the essence of the social, religious, and political More, on creed of the great thinker, who, on account of his popular his popular sympathies and consequent influence with the commons, was influence, elected at the instance of the crown to preside as speaker in speaker in 1523. the approaching parliament. made makes an mand for response assert The opposition which Wolsey encountered when he came wolsey in person to the commons, "with all his pillar and pole-axe unprecebearers," to present his terrible demand for a sum which could dented debe raised only by the imposition of a property-tax of twenty money; per cent., shows that something of the old spirit still lingered. The commons listened to him in silence; and when the speaker was called upon for a reply, his response was that according to More's the ancient liberties of the house, they were not bound to make for the answer, and that as speaker he could make no reply until commons; he received their instructions. After a long contention the matter was settled by a vote which granted much less than had been asked, payable in four years in instalments.2 Then followed an extraordinary demand 3 upon the clergy, whom the cardinal, by virtue of his legatine authority, attempted to assemble in a national synod. This assault upon their consti- clergy tutional right to grant money only in convocation the clergy their right resisted, and not until after a four months' struggle did the to grant money only matter end in a compromise. The bulk of the great sums in convothus extorted from clergy and laity was expended in another expedition to France and in aid of the allies in Italy, without materially advancing the ambitious schemes of either king or cardinal. The struggle was nevertheless continued, with a pressing need for money as the inevitable consequence, until 1526, when matters reached a crisis. Then it was that the the forced cardinal, unwilling to meet a fresh rebuff from the hands of 1526; parliament, attempted to enforce another loan of a sixth from the laity and a fourth from the clergy, through royal commissioners. In the teeth of a stern popular opposition, which brought the country to the verge of such a peasants' war as was then raging in Germany, the demand was unconditionally 1 See More's Life of Sir T. More, p. 51; Roper's, p. II. Hall, Par. Hist., vol. i. p. 488; Dowell, Hist. of Taxation, vol. i. p. 131. 8 Amounting to fifty per cent. on the yearly income of their benefices. 4 Wilkins, Conc., iii. 701; Strype, vol. i. p. 49. The fifty per cent. demanded was voted payable at ten per cent. each year for five years. cation; loan of withdrawn.1 With this failure to raise more money really ended the Austrian alliance, through which the king had downward striven to realize his dream of French conquest, and the carWolsey's dinal his hope of a papal election. From that time may be dated the downward turn in Wolsey's fortunes. turn in fortunes. Luther and Two years before the election of Charles V. to the imperial crown, a startling event occurred within his dominions which affected the whole after-history of the Christian world. The movement set on foot by Luther, who in 1517 fixed certain propositions against a church gate at Wittenberg, rapidly grew and widened, until it broke the medieval conception of an indivisible Christendom 2 by disuniting the Teutonic nations from communion with the See of Rome. The ultimate outcome of this movement has been a widely extended system of Christian theology, which rests upon the right of private judgment as opposed to the dogma of an infallible church. Although in its broader and more general aspects the religious movement known as the Reformation may be thus considered as an indivisible whole, the fact remains that in each country in which it has prevailed it has assumed a special and peculiar form, which can only be clearly defined in the light of its local history. In no one of the Teutonic nations did the protest of Luther find a fainter echo than in the English kingdom. From the court and the higher classes it received Luther and no response at all. So outraged was the king by Luther's contumacy, which the emperor had been slow to punish, that he felt called upon as a Christian prince and as a trained theologian to enter the lists against him; and in July, 1521, he published in reply to Luther's "Babylonian Captivity of the Church" an "Assertion of the Seven Sacraments," 5 a performance for which he was rewarded by Leo with the newly coined title of "Defender of the Faith." The replies of Sir 8 No one has stated this with more force than Buckle, Hist. of Civilization, vol. i. in each it has a special Henry VIII.; 1 Hall, 696, 700; Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 709. In Kent the commissioners were resisted and put to flight, while in Suffolk four thousand men took up arms. The next benevolence was the "amiable grannte" of 1528. Dowell, vol. i. p. 201. 2 As to the medieval theory which regarded the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church as two aspects merely of a single and indivisible Christian monarchy, see vol. i. pp. 369–371. 4 "In Germany all classes shared the common feeling; in England it was almost confined to the lowest."-Froude, Hist. Eng., vol. i. p. 506. 5 This work, printed by Pynson in 1521, did not attempt new lines of thought; it adhered strictly to received tradition. This new title, granted to the king |