ficuit to see from what motives, and on what plan, such persons would be inclined to remodel the Church. The scheme was merely to transfer the full cup of sorceries from the Babylonian enchantress to other hands, spilling as little as possible by the way. The Catholic doctrines and rites were to be retained in the Church of England. But the King was to exercise the control which had formerly belonged to the Roman Pontiff. In this Henry for a time succeeded. The extraordinary force of his character, the fortunate situation in which he stood with respect to foreign powers, and the vast resources which the suppression of the monasteries placed at his disposal, enabled him to oppress both the re

But his martyrdom, it is said, redeemed every thing. It is extraordinary that so much ignorance should exist on this subject. The fact is that, if a martyr be a man who chooses to die rather than to renounce his opinions, Cranmer was no more a martyr than Dr. Dodd. He died, solely because he could not help it. He never retracted his recantation till he found he had made it in vain. The Queen was fully resolved that, Catholic or Protestant, he should burn. Then he spoke out, as people generally speak out when they are at the point of death and have nothing to hope or to fear on earth. If Mary had suffered him to live, we suspect that he would have heard mass and received absolution, like a good Catholic, till the accession of Elizabeth, |ligious factions equally. He punished and that he would then have purchased, by another apostasy, the power of burning men better and braver than himself.

We do not mean, however, to represent him as a monster of wickedness. He was not wantonly cruel or treacherous. He was merely a supple, timid, interested courtier, in times of frequent and violent change. That which has always been represented as his distinguishing virtue, the facility with which he forgave his enemies, belongs to the character. Slaves of his class are never vindictive, and never grateful. A present interest effaces past services and past injuries from their minds together. Their only object is self-preservation; and for this they conciliate those who wrong them, just as they abandon those who serve them. Before we extol a man for his forgiving temper, we should inquire whether he is above revenge, or below it.

Somerset had as little principle as his coadjutor. Of Henry, an orthodox Catholic, except that he chose to be his own Pope, and of Elizabeth, who certainly had no objection to the theology of Rome, we need say nothing. These four persons were the great authors of the English Reformation. Three of them had a direct interest in the extension of the royal prerogative. The fourth was the ready tool of any who could frighten him. It is not dif

with impartial severity those who re-
nounced the doctrines of Rome, and
those who acknowledged her juris-
diction. The basis, however, on which
he attempted to establish his power
was too narrow to be durable. It
would have been impossible even for
him long to persecute both persuasions.
Even under his reign there had been
insurrections on the part of the Ca-
tholics, and signs of a spirit which was
likely soon to produce insurrection on
the part of the Protestants. It was
plainly necessary, therefore, that the
Crown should form an alliance with
one or with the other side.
cognise the Papal supremacy, would
have been to abandon the whole de-
sign. Reluctantly and sullenly the go-
vernment at last joined the Protestants.
In forming this junction, its object was
to procure as much aid as possible for
its selfish undertaking, and to make
the smallest possible concessions to the
spirit of religious innovation.

To re

From this compromise the Church of England sprang. In many respects, indeed, it has been well for her that, in an age of exuberant zeal, her principal founders were mere politicians. To this circumstance she owes her moderate articles, her decent ceremonies, her noble and pathetic liturgy. Her worship is not disfigured by mummery. Yet she has preserved, in a far greater degree than any of her Pro

testant sisters, that art of striking the | by considering conformity and loyalty senses and filling the imagination in as identical, at length made them so. which the Catholic Church so emi- With respect to the Catholics, indeed, nently excels. But, on the other hand, the rigour of persecution abated after she continued to be, for more than a her death. James soon found that hundred and fifty years, the servile they were unable to injure him, and handmaid of monarchy, the steady that the animosity which the Puritan enemy of public liberty. The divine party felt towards them drove them of right of kings, and the duty of passively necessity to take refuge under his obeying all their commands, were her throne. During the subsequent confavourite tenets. She held those tenets flict, their fault was any thing but disfirmly through times of oppression, loyalty. On the other hand, James persecution, and licentiousness; while hated the Puritans with more than the law was trampled down; while judg-hatred of Elizabeth. Her aversion to ment was perverted; while the people them was political; his was personal. were eaten as though they were bread. The sect had plagued him in Scotland, Once, and but once, for a moment, and where he was weak; and he was debut for a moment, when her own termined to be even with them in Engdignity and property were touched, land, where he was powerful. Perseshe forgot to practise the submission cution gradually changed a sect into a which she had taught. faction. That there was any thing in the religious opinions of the Puritans which rendered them hostile to monarchy has never been proved to our satisfaction. After our civil contests, it became the fashion to say that Presbyterianism was connected with Republicanism; just as it has been the fashion to say, since the time of the French Revolution, that Infidelity is connected with Republicanism. It is perfectly true that a church, constituted on the Calvinistic model, will not strengthen the hands of the sovereign so much as a hierarchy which consists of several ranks, differing in dignity and emolument, and of which all the members are constantly looking to the Government for promotion. But experience has clearly shown that a Calvinistic church, like every other church, is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favoured and cherished. Scotland has had a Presbyterian establishment during a century and a half. Yet her General Assembly has not, during that period, given half so much trouble to the government as the Convocation of the Church of England gave during the thirty years which followed the Revolution. That James and Charles should have been mistaken

Elizabeth clearly discerned the advantages which were to be derived from a close connection between the monarchy and the priesthood. At the time of her accession, indeed, she evidently meditated a partial reconciliation with Rome; and, throughout her whole life, she leaned strongly to some of the most obnoxious parts of the Catholic system. But her imperious temper, her keen sagacity, and her peculiar situation, soon led her to attach herself completely to a church which was all her own. On the same principle on which she joined it, she attempted to drive all her people within its pale by persecution. She supported it by severe penal laws, not because she thought conformity to its discipline necessary to salvation; but because it was the fastness which arbitrary power was making strong for itself; because she expected a more profound obedience from those who saw in her both their civil and their ecclesiastical chief, than from those who, like the Papists, ascribed spiritual authority to the Pope, or from those who, like some of the Puritans, ascribed it only to Heaven. To dissent from her establishment was to dissent from an institution founded with an express view to the maintenance and extension of the royal pre-in this point is not surprising. But we rogative. are astonished, we must confess, that This great Queen and her successors, men of our own time, men who have

Hyde extols its loyal and

before them the proof of what tolera- | wonderful. tion can effect, men who may see with conciliatory spirit. Its conduct, we their own eyes that the Presbyterians are told, made the excellent Falkland are no such monsters when government in love with the very name of Parliais wise enough to let them alone, should ment. We think, indeed, with Oliver defend the persecutions of the six- St. John, that its moderation was teenth and seventeenth centuries as carried too far, and that the times indispensable to the safety of the required sharper and more decided church and the throne. councils. It was fortunate, however, that the King had another opportunity of showing that hatred of the liberties of his subjects which was the ruling principle of all his conduct. The sole crime of the Commons was that, meeting after a long intermission of parliaments, and after a long series of cruelties and illegal imposts, they seemed inclined to examine grievances before they would vote supplies. For this insolence they were dissolved almost as soon as they met.

How persecution protects churches and thrones was soon made manifest. A systematic political opposition, vehement, daring, and inflexible, sprang from a schism about trifles, altogether unconnected with the real interests of religion or of the state. Before the close of the reign of Elizabeth this opposition began to show itself. It broke forth on the question of the monopolies. Even the imperial Lioness was compelled to abandon her prey, and slowly and fiercely to recede before the assailants. The spirit of liberty grew with the growing wealth and intelligence of the people. The feeble struggles and insults of James irritated instead of suppressing it; and the events which immediately followed the accession of his son portended a contest of no common severity, between a king resolved to be absolute, and a people resolved to be free.

The famous proceedings of the third Parliament of Charles, and the tyrannical measures which followed its dissolution, are extremely well described by Mr. Hallam. No writer, we think, has shown, in so clear and satisfactory a manner, that the Government then entertained a fixed purpose of destroying the old parliamentary constitution of England, or at least of reducing it to a mere shadow. We hasten, however, to a part of his work which, though it abounds in valuable information and in remarks well deserving to be attentively considered, and though it is, like the rest, evidently written in a spirit of perfect impartiality, appears to us, in many points, objectionable.

We pass to the year 1640. The fate of the short Parliament held in that year clearly indicated the views of the King. That a Parliament so moderate in feeling should have met after so many years of oppression is truly

in

Defeat, universal agitation, financial embarrassments, disorganization every part of the government, compelled Charles again to convene the Houses before the close of the same year. Their meeting was one of the great eras in the history of the civilised world. Whatever of political freedom exists either in Europe or in America, has sprung, directly or indirectly, from those institutions which they secured and reformed. We never turn to the annals of those times without feeling increased admiration of the patriotism, the energy, the decision, the consummate wisdom, which marked the measures of that great Parliament, from the day on which it met to the commencement of civil hostilities.

The impeachment of Strafford was the first, and perhaps the greatest blow. The whole conduct of that celebrated man proved that he had formed a deliberate scheme to subvert the fundamental laws of England. Those parts of his correspondence which have been brought to light since his death place the matter beyond a doubt. One of his admirers has, indeed, offered to show "that the passages which Mr. Hallam has invidiously extracted from the correspondence between Laud and Strafford, as proving their design to introduce a thorough tyranny, refer not to any such design, but to a thorough

reform in the affairs of state, and the thorough maintenance of just authority." We will recommend two or three of these passages to the especial notice of our readers.

all to be governed by their year-books, you in England have a costly example." We are really curious to know by what arguments it is to be proved, that the power of interfering in the law-suits of individuals is part of the just authority of the executive government.

All who know any thing of those times, know that the conduct of Hampden in the affair of the ship- It is not strange that a man so caremoney met with the warm approbation less of the common civil rights, which of every respectable Royalist in Eng- even despots have generally respected, land. It drew forth the ardent eulo-should treat with scorn the limitations gies of the champions of the preroga- which the constitution imposes on the tive and even of the Crown lawyers royal prerogative. We might quote themselves. Clarendon allows Hamp-pages: but we will content ourselves den's demeanour through the whole with a single specimen::-"The debts proceeding to have been such, that even of the Crown being taken off, you may those who watched for an occasion govern as you please: and most resoagainst the defender of the people, were lute I am that may be done without compelled to acknowledge themselves borrowing any help forth of the King's unable to find any fault in him. That lodgings." he was right in the point of law is now universally admitted. Even had it been otherwise, he had a fair case. Five of the Judges, servile as our Courts then were, pronounced in his favour. The majority against him was the smallest possible. In no country retaining the slightest vestige of constitutional liberty can a modest and decent appeal to the laws be treated as a crime. Strafford, however, recommends that, for taking the sense of a legal tribunal on a legal question, Hampden should be punished, and punished severely, "whipt," says the insolent apostate, "whipt into his senses. If the rod," he adds, "be so used that it smarts not, I am the more sorry." This is the maintenance of just authority.

Such was the theory of that thorough reform in the state which Strafford meditated. His whole practice, from the day on which he sold himself to the court, was in strict conformity to his theory. For his accomplices various excuses may be urged, ignorance, imbecility, religious bigotry. But Wentworth had no such plea. His intellect was capacious. His early prepossessions were on the side of popular rights. He knew the whole beauty and value of the system which he attempted to deface. He was the first of the Rats, the first of those statesmen whose patriotism has been only the coquetry of political prostitution, and whose profligacy has taught governments to adopt the old maxim of the slave-market, that it is cheaper to buy than to breed, to imIn civilised nations, the most arbi- port defenders from an Opposition than trary governments have generally to rear them in a Ministry. He was suffered justice to have a free course in the first Englishman to whom a peerage private suits. Strafford wished to make was a sacrament of infamy, a baptism every cause in every court subject to into the communion of corruption. As the royal prerogative. He complained he was the earliest of the hateful list, that in Ireland he was not permitted to so was he also by far the greatest; elomeddle in cases between party and quent, sagacious, adventurous, intrepid, party. "I know very well," says he, ready of invention, immutable of pur"that the common lawyers will be pose, in every talent which exalts or passionately against it, who are wont destroys nations preeminent, the lost to put such a prejudice upon all other Archangel, the Satan of the apostasy. professions, as if none were to be trusted, The title for which, at the time of his or capable to administer justice, but desertion, he exchanged a name hothemselves; yet how well this suits nourably distinguished in the cause of with monarchy, when they monopolise | the people, reminds us of the appellation

which, from the moment of the first treason, fixed itself on the fallen Son of the Morning,

"Setan;-so call him now. - His former

name

Is heard no more in heaven."

meted out to him from his own ini-
quitous measure. But if justice, in the
whole range of its wide armoury, con-
tained one weapon which could pierce
him, that weapon his pursuers were
bound, before God and man, to employ.
"If he may

Find mercy in the law, 'tis his: if none,
Let him not seek't of us."

Such was the language which the
Commons might justly use.

Yet

The defection of Strafford from the popular party contributed mainly to draw on him the hatred of his contemporaries. It has since made him an object of peculiar interest to those whose lives have been spent, like his, in proving that there is no malice like Did then the articles against Strafford the malice of a renegade. Nothing can strictly amount to high treason? Many be more natural or becoming than that people, who know neither what the one turncoat should eulogize another. articles were, nor what high treason is, Many enemies of public liberty have will answer in the negative, simply been distinguished by their private because the accused person, speaking virtues. But Strafford was the same for his life, took that ground of dethroughout. As was the statesman, fence. The Journals of the Lords such was the kinsman, and such the show that the Judges were consulted. lover. His conduct towards Lord They answered, with one accord, that Mountmorris is recorded by Clarendon. the articles on which the Earl was conFor a word which can scarcely be victed, amounted to high treason. This called rash, which could not have been judicial opinion, even if we suppose it made the subject of an ordinary civil to have been erroneous, goes far to action, the Lord Lieutenant dragged a justify the Parliament. The judgment man of high rank, married to a relative pronounced in the Exchequer Chamof that saint about whom he whimpered ber has always been urged by the apoto the Peers, before a tribunal of slaves. logists of Charles in defence of his Sentence of death was passed. Every conduct respecting ship-money. thing but death was inflicted. Yet the on that occasion there was but a bare treatment which Lord Ely experienced majority in favour of the party at whose was still more scandalous. That noble-pleasure all the magistrates composing man was thrown into prison, in order the tribunal were removable. The deto compel him to settle his estate in a cision in the case of Strafford was unamanner agreeable to his daughter-in-nimous; as far as we can judge, it was law, whom, as there is every reason unbiassed; and, though there may be to believe, Strafford had debauched. room for hesitation, we think on the These stories do not rest on vague re- whole that it was reasonable. It may port. The historians most partial to be remarked," says Mr. Hallam, "that the minister admit their truth, and the fifteenth article of the impeachment, censure them in terms which, though charging Strafford with raising money too lenient for the occasion, are still by his own authority, and quartering Bevere. These facts are alone sufficient troops on the people of Ireland, in to justify the appellation with which order to compel their obedience to his Pym branded him, “the wicked Earl." | unlawful requisitions, upon which, and In spite of all Strafford's vices, in upon one other article, not upon the spite of all his dangerous projects, he whole matter, the Peers voted him was certainly entitled to the benefit of guilty, does, at least, approach very the law; but of the law in all its rigour; nearly, if we may not say more, to of the law according to the utmost a substantive treason within the statute strictness of the letter, which killeth. of Edward the Third, as a levying of He was not to be torn in pieces by a war against the King." This most mob, or stabbed in the back by an as-sound and just exposition has provoked Bassin. He was not to have punishment a very ridiculous reply. "It should

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