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 is not strange, therefore, that his chaaway their own lives without fear.racter should have been the subject of Such were the authors of the great fierce controversy. We need not say schism on the Continent and in the that we speak of Cranmer. 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

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 Somername would have been set, the murderer of his brother, and completed by Elizabeth, the murderer "Non ragioniam di lui; ma guarda, e passa.” of her guest. Sprung from brutal But, since his admirers challenge for him passion, nurtured by selfish policy, the a place in the noble army of martyrs, Reformation in England displayed his claims require fuller discussion. 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,

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 intel- foreign relations of the kingdom were ligent and virtuous child regarded per- considered, still stronger reasons might secution. Intolerance is always bad. be found for preferring Elizabeth to But the sanguinary intolerance of a Jane. There was great doubt whether man who thus wavered in his creed Jane or the Queen of Scotland had the excites a loathing, to which it is dif- better claim; and that doubt would, in ficult to give vent without calling foul all probability, have produced a war names. Equally false to political and both with Scotland and with France, to religious obligations, the primate was if the project of Northumberland had first the tool of Somerset, and then the not been blasted in its infancy. That tool of Northumberland. When the Elizabeth had a better claim than the Protector wished to put his own brother Queen of Scotland was indisputable. to death, without even the semblance To the part which Cranmer, and unforof a trial, he found a ready instrument tunately some better men than Cranmer, in Cranmer. In spite of the canon took in this most reprehensible scheme, law, which forbade a churchman to much of the severity with which the take any part in matters of blood, the Protestants were afterwards treated archbishop signed the warrant for the must in fairness be ascribed. 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 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 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

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-amount of his benevolence.

But his martyrdom, it is said, re- | ficult to see from what motives, and on deemed every thing. It is extraor- what plan, such persons would be indinary 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, 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.

clined 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 Ca-
tholic doctrines and rites were to be
retained in the Church of England.
But the King was to exercise the con-
trol which had formerly belonged to the
Roman Pontiff. In this Henry for a
time succeeded. The extraordinary
force of his character, the fortunate si-
tuation in which he stood with respect
to foreign powers, and the vast re-
sources which the suppression of the
monasteries placed at his disposal,
enabled him to oppress both the re-
ligious factions equally. He punished
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

Somerset had as little principle as his coadjutor. Of Henry, an orthodox From this compromise the Church Catholic, except that he chose to be of England sprang. In inany respects, his own Pope, and of Elizabeth, who indeed, it has been well for her that, certainly had no objection to the theo-in an age of exuberant zeal, her prinlogy of Rome, we need say nothing. cipal founders were mere politicians. These four persons were the great To this circumstance she owes her authors of the English Reformation. moderate articles, her decent cereThree of them had a direct interest in monies, her noble and pathetic liturgy. the extension of the royal prerogative. Her worship is not disfigured by mumThe fourth was the ready tool of any mery. Yet she has preserved, in a far who could frighten him. It is not dif-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.

Elizabeth clearly discerned the advantages which were to be derived from a close connection between the monarchy and the priesthood. At the After our civil contests, time of her accession, indeed, she evi- it became the fashion to say that Presdently meditated a partial reconciliation byterianism was connected with Rewith Rome; and, throughout her whole publicanism; just as it has been the life, she leaned strongly to some of the fashion to say, since the time of the most obnoxious parts of the Catholic French Revolution, that Infidelity is system. But her imperious temper, connected with Republicanism. It is her keen sagacity, and her peculiar perfectly true that a church, constisituation, soon led her to attach herself tuted on the Calvinistic model, will not completely to a church which was all strengthen the hands of the sovereign her own. On the same principle on so much as a hierarchy which consists which she joined it, she attempted to of several ranks, differing in dignity drive all her people within its pale by and emolument, and of which all the persecution. She supported it by severe members are constantly looking to the penal laws, not because she thought Government for promotion. But exconformity to its discipline necessary perience has clearly shown that a Calto salvation; but because it was the vinistic church, like every other church, fastness which arbitrary power was is disaffected when it is persecuted, making strong for itself; because she quiet when it is tolerated, and actively expected a more profound obedience loyal when it is favoured and cherished. from those who saw in her both their Scotland has had a Presbyterian estabcivil and their ecclesiastical chief, than lishment during a century and a half. from those who, like the Papists, as- Yet her General Assembly has not, cribed spiritual authority to the Pope, during that period, given half so much or from those who, like some of the trouble to the government as the ConPuritans, ascribed it only to Heaven. vocation of the Church of England To dissent from her establishment was gave during the thirty years which to dissent from an institution founded followed the Revolution. That James with an express view to the mainte- and Charles should have been mistaken nance 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

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 church and the throne.