tion of power from the people, and he has no just claim to any other power but this.' 1

1 De Laudibus Legum Angliae, c. 9, 13. See also his treatise on Absolute and Limited Monarchy, and De Natura Legis Naturae.' Two centuries previously, Bracton, writing under Henry III., had borne very similar testimony to the limited nature of the English kingship: 'Lex autem habet superiorem, Deum. Item Legem, per quam factus est rex. Item Curiam suam, videlicet comites, barones, quia comites dicuntur quasi socii regis, et qui habet socium, habet magistrum; et ideo, si rex fuerit sine fraeno, id est, sine lege, debent ei fraenum ponere, nisi ipsimet fuerint cum rege sine fraeno.'-L. ii. c. 16, § 3

CHAPTER X.

THE TUDOR PERIOD. (A.D. 1483-1603.)

REIGNS OF HENRY VII., HENRY VIII, EDWARD VI., MARY.

characteris

Period.

THE Tudor period is almost synchronous with the 16th General century, an age remarkable for its material prosperity, its es of the intellectual and religious activity, and its political retro- Tudor gression. The mighty impulse given to commerce by the discovery of America and of the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, coupled with the certainty imparted to the science of navigation by the use of the compass, caused an enormous increase of the wealth of the middle classes. Intent upon the acquisition of private gain, the merchants and traders were for the most part satisfied to leave questions of government to others, so long as they themselves were permitted to pursue their avocations in peace. Simultaneously with the extraordinary expansion of commerce there were other causes at work which tended to withdraw men's minds from the consideration of purely political topics.

The revival of learning, and its rapid dissemination among all classes through the medium of the printingpress, the profound religious agitation of the Reformation, and the spirit of bold inquiry which it excited concerning matters of the deepest interest hitherto generally accepted as beyond dispute,—all contributed to concentrate popular attention upon intellectual and religious progress,, to the neglect of politics. On the continent of Europe, the introduction of standing armies, and the revolution in

the art of war which made it 'a distinct science and a distinct trade,' had emancipated rulers from the chief restraint on their power-the fear of an armed peopleand enabled them to either utterly sweep away, or reduce to empty formalities, the national assemblies which had once been as free and as potent as our own early Parliaments. The free constitutions of Castile and Aragon were successively overthrown by Charles V. and Philip II.; and the States-General of France, after languishing for a time, ceased altogether in 1614, until resuscitated in 1789, for their final meeting on the eve of the Great Revolution. In England, too, parliamentary institutions passed through a season of trial. That they did not perish here as on the Continent, was mainly due to our insular position, which rendered the nation comparatively secure against foreign invasion, and thus obviated for a lengthened period the necessity of employing regular troops. In a less degree the personal character of Henry VIII. was also instrumental in the preservation of our liberties. Tyrant as he was, he was yet animated by a scrupulous regard for the letter of the law. While his fellow-tyrants abroad were everywhere overthrowing free institutions, Henry was in all things showing them the deepest outward respect. Through his reign he took care to do nothing except in outward and regular legal form, nothing for which he could not shelter himself under the sanction either of precedent or of written law.' If he could get the letter of the law on his side he was satisfied; otherwise his conscience was uneasy.' This peculiar character of Henry's tyranny, his anxiety to do everything in proper parliamentary and judicial form, ‘while it degraded parliamentary and judicial institutions at the time, really did a great deal to strengthen

1 Macaulay, Hist. Eng. i. 34. Henry VII. had a small body-guard of 50 archers, and Henry VIII. 50 horse-guards, each attended by an archer, demilance and couteiller, making 200 in all; but even this small force was, probably on account of the expense, soon given up.

2 Freeman, Growth of Eng. Const., 101: Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1871, on 'The Use of Historical Documents.'

1

and preserve them for better days.' The Parliament was indeed so disgracefully subservient and sycophantic that there was little temptation for the King to endeavour to destroy an institution which served to cover his most outrageous proceedings with a convenient and plausible appearance of popular approbation. When Henry had cut off Anne Boleyn's head on one day and married Jane Seymour the next morning, the Parliament gravely listened to a speech from the Lord Chancellor, assuring the world that the King did not do it 'in any carnal concupiscence,' and immediately proceeded to pass an Act declaring that it was all done of the King's most excellent goodness'!? Such being the temper of the national representatives, it is not surprising to find Henry holding high their privileges, as in Ferrer's Case, or writing to the Pope, in 1529: 'The discussions in the English Parliament are free and unrestricted; the Crown has no power to limit their debates, or to control the votes of their members. They determine everything for themselves, as the interests of the Commonwealth require.' +

The reaction towards absolutism which had set in during the latter part of Henry VI.'s reign, culminated under Henry VIII. We have got into a state of things,' observes Dr. Freeman, 'when Parliaments were ready to proscribe anybody, or to ordain anything, when judges were ready to declare anything to be the law, when juries were ready to find any verdict, when bishops and convocations were ready to declare anything to be true and orthodox, at the mere bidding of the capricious despot on the throne. We have reached the state which our forefathers called unlaw, not the state when law is silent, but the state when law had turned about and become its own opposite, the state when the institutions which were meant to declare right, and truth, and

1 Freeman, Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1871.

2 Speech of Lord Chancellor Audeley in 1536, Lords' Journals, p. 84; 28 Hen. VIII. c. 7; Froude, Hist. Eng. ii. 503.

freedom, had been turned into engines of wrong, and falsehood, and bondage.'1 Independently of the general political apathy to which allusion has been made, the extraordinary subservience of Parliament during the Tudor age, so unlike its demeanour at an earlier and at a later period, is to be accounted for by the fact that the old nobility, the leaders in former struggles for liberty, had been cut off in the Wars of the Roses, and the Commons had not yet acquired sufficient importance and self-reliance to act alone. The temporal lords summoned by Henry VII. to the Parliament of 1485 were only 29 in number, and of these several were new creations. The new nobility which grew up under Henry VII. and his son owed everything to the royal favour, and were restrained from independent action alike by gratitude, by interest, and by fear of the resolute vengeance which those monarchs unsparingly dealt out to all who opposed them. A watchful jealousy of all individuals likely to disturb their power was a characteristic of all the Tudor sovereigns. The nobles found safety and advancement by acting the part of courtiers rather than of parliamentary barons. Henry VII.,' says Lord Bacon, ‘kept a strait hand on his nobility; and chose rather to advance clergymen and lawyers, which were more obsequious to him, but had less interest in the people.' The same policy was pursued by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. The remnant of the old nobility, the Percies, Nevilles, and Howards, were disgusted at the advancement of men like Wolsey, Cromwell, Cecil, Bacon, and Walsingham. The rebellion of the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, in 1569, was as much a protest against the 'newe set-upp nobles,' as against the 'new-found religion' and the incarceration of Mary Queen of Scots, the representative of the ancient faith. At the same time the House of Commons,

1 Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1871.

2 In their proclamation the rebels justified their proceedings on the ground that the Queen was surrounded by divers newe set upp nobles, who not onlie go aboute to overthrow and put downe the ancient nobilitie of the realme, but also have misused the Queen's majestie's owne personne, and also have by the