Pope; her throne was given to another; | fered, not from those which they had her subjects were incited to rebellion; committed, that the existence of disher life was menaced; every Catholic content among them must be inferred. was bound in conscience to be a traitor; There were libels, no doubt, and proit was therefore against traitors, not phecies, and rumours, and suspicions, against Catholics, that the penal laws strange grounds for a law inflicting were enacted. capital penalties, ex post facto, on a large body of men.

In order that our readers may be fully competent to appreciate the merits of this defence, we will state, as concisely as possible, the substance of some of these laws.

As soon as Elizabeth ascended the throne, and before the least hostility to her government had been shown by the Catholic population, an act passed prohibiting the celebration of the rites of the Romish Church on pain of forfeiture for the first offence, of a year's imprisonment for the second, and of perpetual imprisonment for the third.

Eight years later,' the bull of Pius deposing Elizabeth produced a third law. This law, to which alone, as we conceive, the defence now under our consideration can apply, provides that, if any Catholic shall convert a Protestant to the Romish Church, they shall both suffer death as for high treason.

We believe that we might safely content ourselves with stating the fact, and leaving it to the judgment of every plain Englishman. Recent controversies have, however, given so much importance to this subject, that we will offer a few remarks on it.

furnished at least as good a plea for the burning of Protestants, as the conspiracies against Elizabeth furnish for the hanging and embowelling of Papists.

A law was next made in 1562, enacting, that all who had ever graduated at the Universities or received holy In the first place, the arguments orders, all lawyers, and all magistrates, which are urged in favour of Elizabeth should take the oath of supremacy apply with much greater force to the when tendered to them, on pain of case of her sister Mary. The Catholics forfeiture and imprisonment during the did not, at the time of Elizabeth's accesroyal pleasure. After the lapse of sion, rise in arms to seat a Pretender three months, the oath might again be on her throne. But before Mary had tendered to them; and, if it were again given, or could give, provocation, the refused, the recusant was guilty of high most distinguished Protestants attemptreason. A prospective law, however ted to set aside her rights in favour of severe, framed to exclude Catholics the Lady Jane. That attempt, and from the liberal professions, would the subsequent insurrection of Wyatt, have been mercy itself compared with this odious act. It is a retrospective statute; it is a retrospective penal statute; it is a retrospective penal statute against a large class. We will The fact is that both pleas are not positively affirm that a law of this worthless alike. If such arguments description must always, and under all are to pass current, it will be easy to circumstances, be unjustifiable. But prove that there was never such a the presumption against it is most thing as religious persecution since violent; nor do we remember any crisis, the creation. For there never was a either in our own history, or in the religious persecution in which some history of any other country, which odious crime was not, justly or unwould have rendered such a provi-justly, said to be obviously deducible sion necessary. In the present case, from the doctrines of the persecuted what circumstances called for extraor-party. We might say, that the Cæsars dinary rigour? There might be dis- did not persecute the Christians; that affection among the Catholics. The they only punished men who were prohibition of their worship would na- charged, rightly or wrongly, with burnturally produce it. But it is from ing Rome, and with committing the their situation, not from their conduct, foulest abominations in secret assemfrom the wrongs which they had suf-blies; and that the refusal to throw

frankincense on the altar of Jupiter was not the crime, but only evidence of the crime. We might say, that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was intended to extirpate, not a religious sect, but a political party. For, beyond all doubt, the proceedings of the Huguenots, from the conspiracy of Amboise to the battle of Moncontour, had given much more trouble to the French monarchy than the Catholics have ever given to the English monarchy since the Reformation; and that too with much less excuse. The true distinction is perfectly obvious. To punish a man because he has committed a crime, or because he is believed, though unjustly, to have committed a crime, is not persecution. To punish a man, because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.

generally thonght that licentiousness and cruelty of the worst description are likely to be the fruits, as they often have been the fruits, of Antinomian opinions. This chain of reasoning, we think, is as perfect in all its parts as that which makes out a Papist to be necessarily a traitor. Yet it would be rather a strong measure to hang all the Calvinists, on the ground that, if they were spared, they would infallibly commit all the atrocities of Matthias and Knipperdoling. For, reason the matter as we may, experience shows us that a man may believe in election without believing in reprobation, that he may believe in reprobation without being an Antinomian, and that he may be an Antinomian without being a bad citizen. Man, in short, is so inconsistent a creature that it is impossible to reason from his belief to his conduct, or from one part of his belief to another.

We do not believe that every EnWhen Elizabeth put Ballard and glishman who was reconciled to the Babington to death, she was not per- Catholic Church would, as a necessary secuting. Nor should we have accused consequence, have thought himself her government of persecution for pass-justified in deposing or assassinating ing any law, however severe, against Elizabeth. It is not sufficient to say overt acts of sedition. But to argue that the convert must have acknowthat, because a man is a Catholic, | ledged the authority of the Pope, and he must think it right to murder a heretical sovereign, and that because he thinks it right he will attempt to do it, and then, to found on this conclusion a law for punishing him as if he had done it, is plain persecution.

If, indeed, all men reasoned in the same manner on the same data, and always did what they thought it their duty to do, this mode of dispensing punishment might be extremely judicious. But as people who agree about premises often disagree about conclusions, and as no man in the world acts up to his own standard of right, there are two enormous gaps in the logic by which alone penalties for opinions can be defended. The doctrine of reprobation, in the judgment of many very able men, follows by syllogistic necessity from the doctrine of election. Others conceive that the Antinomian heresy directly follows from the doctrine of reprobation; and it is very

that the Pope had issued a bull against the Queen. We know through what strange loopholes the human mind contrives to escape, when it wishes to avoid a disagreeable inference from an admitted proposition. We know how long the Jansenists contrived to believe the Pope infallible in matters of doctrine, and at the same time to believe doctrines which he pronounced to be heretical. Let it pass, however, that every Catholic in the kingdom thought that Elizabeth might be lawfully murdered. Still the old maxim, that what is the business of everybody is the business of nobody, is particularly likely to hold good in a case in which a cruel death is the almost inevitable consequence of making any attempt.

Of the ten thousand clergymen of the Church of England, there is scarcely one who would not say that a man' who should leave his country and friends to preach the Gospel among

Neither

savages, and who should, after labour- | founders of the Church were guilty of ing indefatigably without any hope of religious persecution mean only that reward, terminate his life by martyr- the founders of the Church were not dom, would deserve the warmest ad- influenced by any religious motive, we miration. Yet we doubt whether ten perfectly agree with them. of the ten thousand ever thought of the penal code of Elizabeth, nor the going on such an expedition. Why more hateful system by which Charles should we suppose that conscientious the Second attempted to force Episcomotives, feeble as they are constantly pacy on the Scotch, had an origin so found to be in a good cause, should be noble. The cause is to be sought in omnipotent for evil? Doubtless there some circumstances which attended the was many a jolly Popish priest in the Reformation in England, circumstances old manor-houses of the northern coun- of which the effects long continued to ties, who would have admitted, in be felt, and may in some degree be theory, the deposing power of the Pope, traced even at the present day. but who would not have been ambitious to be stretched on the rack, even though it were to be used, according to the benevolent proviso of Lord Burleigh, "as charitably as such a thing can be," or to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, even though, by that rare indulgence which the Queen, of her special grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, sometimes extended to very mitigated cases, he were allowed a fair time to choke before the hangman began to grabble in his entrails.

In Germany, in France, in Switzerland, and in Scotland, the contest against the Papal power was essentially a religious contest. In all those countries, indeed, the cause of the Reformation, like every other great cause, attracted to itself many supporters influenced by no conscientious principle, many who quitted the Established Church only because they thought her in danger, many who were weary of her restraints, and many who were greedy for her spoils. But it was not But the laws passed against the Pu- by these adherents that the separation ritans had not even the wretched ex- was there conducted. They were welcuse which we have been considering. come auxiliaries; their support was In this case, the cruelty was equal, the too often purchased by unworthy comdanger infinitely less. In fact, the pliances; but, however exalted in rank langer was created solely by the cruelty. or power, they were not the leaders in But it is superfluous to press the argu- the enterprise. Men of a widely difment. By no artifice of ingenuity can ferent description, men who redeemed the stigma of persecution, the worst great infirmities and errors by sincerity, blemish of the English Church, be ef- disinterestedness, energy, and courage, faced or patched over. Her doctrines, men who, with many of the vices of we well know, do not tend to intoler-revolutionary chiefs and of polemic diance. She admits the possibility of vines, united some of the highest quasalvation out of her own pale. But this circumstance, in itself honourable to her, aggravates the sin and the shame of those who persecuted in her name. Dominic and De Montfort did not, at least, murder and torture for differences of opinion which they considered as trifling. It was to stop an infection which, as they believed, hurried to certain perdition every soul which it seized, that they employed their fire and steel. The measures of the English government with respect to the Papists and Puritans sprang from a widely different principle. If those who deny that the

lities of apostles, were the real directors. They might be violent in innovation and scurrilous in controversy. They might sometimes act with inexcusable severity towards opponents, and sometimes connive disreputably at the vices of powerful allies. But fear was not in them, nor hypocrisy, nor avarice, nor any petty selfishness. Their one great object was the demolition of the idols and the purification of the sanctuary. If they were too indulgent to the failings of eminent men from whose patronage they expected advantage to the church, they never flinched before

is not strange, therefore, that his character should have been the subject of fierce controversy. We need not say that we speak of Cranmer.

persecuting tyrants and hostile armies. | there is one, and one only, whose conFor that theological system to which duct partiality itself can attribute to they sacrificed the lives of others with- any other than interested motives. It out scruple, they were ready to throw away their own lives without fear. Such were the authors of the great schism on the Continent and in the northern part of this island. The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of Condé and the King of Navarre, the Earl of Moray and the Earl of Morton, might espouse the Protestant opinions, or might pretend to espouse them; but it was from Luther, from Calvin, from Knox, that the Reformation took its character.

Mr. Hallam has been severely censured for saying with his usual placid severity, that, "if we weigh the character of this prelate in an equal balance, he will appear far indeed removed from the turpitude imputed to him by his enemies; yet not entitled to any extraordinary veneration." We will venture to expand the sense of Mr. Hallam, and to comment on it thus:-If we consider Cranmer merely as a statesman, he will not appear a much worse man than Wolsey, Gardiner, Cromwell, or Somerset. But, when an attempt is made to set him up as a saint, it is scarcely possible for any man of sense who knows the history of the times to preserve his gravity. If the memory of the archbishop had been left to find its own place, he would have soon been lost among the crowd which is mingled

"A quel cattivo coro

Degli angeli, che non furon ribelli,
Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se foro."

And the only notice which it would
have been necessary to take of his

name would have been

England has no such names to show; not that she wanted men of sincere piety, of deep learning, of steady and adventurous courage. But these were thrown into the back ground. Elsewhere men of this character were the principals. Here they acted a secondary part. Elsewhere worldliness was the tool of zeal. Here zeal was the tool of worldliness. A King, whose character may be best described by saying that he was despotism itself personified, unprincipled ministers, a rapacious aristocracy, a servile Parliament, such were the instruments by which England was delivered from the yoke of Rome. The work which had been begun by Henry, the murderer of his wives, was continued by Somerset, the murderer of his brother, and completed by Elizabeth, the murderer of her guest. Sprung from brutal passion, nurtured by selfish policy, the Reformation in England displayed little of what had, in other countries, The origin of his greatness, common distinguished it, unflinching and un- enough in the scandalous chronicles of sparing devotion, boldness of speech, courts, seems strangely out of place in and singleness of eye. These were in-a hagiology. Cranmer rose into favour deed to be found; but it was in the by serving Henry in the disgraceful lower ranks of the party which opposed affair of his first divorce. He prothe authority of Rome, in such men as moted the marriage of Anne Boleyn Hooper, Latimer, Rogers, and Taylor. with the King. On a frivolous pretence Of those who had any important share he pronounced that marriage null and in bringing the Reformation about, void. On a pretence, if possible, still Ridley was perhaps the only person more frivolous, he dissolved the ties who did not consider it as a mere poli- which bound the shameless tyrant to tical job. Even Ridley did not play a Anne of Cleves. He attached himself to very prominent part. Among the Cromwell while the fortunes of Cromstatesmen and prelates who principally well flourished. He voted for cutting gave the tone to the religious changes, off Cromwell's head without a trial

"Non ragioniam di lui; ma guarda, e passa.” But, since his admirers challenge for him a place in the noble army of martyrs, his claims require fuller discussion.

when the tide of royal favour turned. | secution, Jane was to be seduced into He conformed backwards and forwards treason. No transaction in our annals as the King changed his mind. He is more unjustifiable than this. If a heassisted, while Henry lived, in con- reditary title were to be respected, Mary demning to the flames those who denied possessed it. If a parliamentary title the doctrine of transubstantiation. He were preferable, Mary possessed that found out, as soon as Henry was dead, also. If the interest of the Protestant that the doctrine was false. He was, religion required a departure from the however, not at a loss for people to ordinary rule of succession, that inburn. The authority of his station and terest would have been best served by of his grey hairs was employed to over-raising Elizabeth to the throne. If the come the disgust with which an intelligent and virtuous child regarded persecution. Intolerance is always bad. But the sanguinary intolerance of a man who thus wavered in his creed excites a loathing, to which it is difficult to give vent without calling foul names. Equally false to political and to religious obligations, the primate was first the tool of Somerset, and then the tool of Northumberland. When the Protector wished to put his own brother to death, without even the semblance of a trial, he found a ready instrument in Cranmer. In spite of the canon law, which forbade a churchman to take any part in matters of blood, the archbishop signed the warrant for the atrocious sentence. When Somerset had been in his turn destroyed, his destroyer received the support of Cranmer in a wicked attempt to change the course of the succession.

The apology made for him by his admirers only renders his conduct more contemptible. He complied, it is said, against his better judgment, because he could not resist the entreaties of Edward. A holy prelate of sixty, one would think, might be better employed by the bedside of a dying child, than in committing crimes at the request of the young disciple. If Cranmer had shown half as much firmness when Edward requested him to commit treason as he had before shown when Edward requested him not to commit murder, he might have saved the country from one of the greatest misfortunes that it ever underwent. He became, from whatever motive, the accomplice of the worthless Dudley. The virtuous scruples of another young and amiable mind were to be overcome. As Edward had been forced into per

foreign relations of the kingdom were considered, still stronger reasons might be found for preferring Elizabeth to Jane. There was great doubt whether Jane or the Queen of Scotland had the better claim; and that doubt would, in all probability, have produced a war both with Scotland and with France, if the project of Northumberland had not been blasted in its infancy. That Elizabeth had a better claim than the Queen of Scotland was indisputable. To the part which Cranmer, and unfor tunately some better men than Cranmer, took in this most reprehensible scheme, much of the severity with which the Protestants were afterwards treated must in fairness be ascribed.

The plot failed; Popery triumphed; and Cranmer recanted. Most people look on his recantation as a single blemish on an honourable life, the frailty of an unguarded moment. But, in fact, his recantation was in strict accordance with the system on which he had constantly acted. It was part of a regular habit. It was not the first recantation that he had made; and, in all probability, if it had answered its purpose, it would not have been the last. We do not blame him for not choosing to be burned alive. It is no very severe reproach to any person that he does not possess heroic fortitude. But surely a man who liked the fire so little should have had some sympathy for others. A persecutor who inflicts nothing which he is not ready to endure deserves some respect. But when a man who loves his doctrines more than the lives of his neighbours, loves his own little finger better than his doctrines, a very simple argument à fortiori will enable us to estimate the amount of his benevolence.