Samuel Rawson Gardiner

“ Elizabeth no doubt had a political object in showing no favour to either of her expectant heirs. By encouraging Catherine's hopes she would drive her Catholic subjects to desperation. By encouraging Mary's she would drive her Protestant subjects to desperation. Yet there was also strong personal feeling to account for her conduct. She was resolved never to marry, however much her resolution might cost her. Yet she too was a very woman, hungry for manly companionship and care, and, though a politician to the core, was saddened and soured by the suppression of her womanly nature. ”

“ Wolsey and the Renascence.—In scheming for the elevation of his own country by peace instead of by conquest, Wolsey reflected the higher aspirations of his time. No sooner had internal order been secured, than the best men began to crave for some object to which they could devote themselves, larger and nobler than that of their own preservation. Wolsey gave them the contemplation of the political importance of England on the Continent. ”

“ As the Commons supported Shaftesbury, Charles, on March 28, dissolved his third Short Parliament. So much was he afraid that the Whig members and their servants might lay violent hands on him, that he drove in one coach to Christchurch Hall, where the House of Lords was sitting, and sent his robes by another, in order that it might not be guessed that a dissolution was intended. He soon found that he could now count on popular support in almost every part of England. The mass of people judge more by what they see than by what they hear. ”

“ The young men imagined that the king of Spain would be so pleased with this unusual compliment, that he would use his influence—and, if necessary, his troops—to obtain the restitution of the Palatinate to Charles's brother-in-law, the Elector Frederick. The Infanta's brother, Philip IV., was now king of Spain, and he had lately been informed by his sister that she was resolved not to marry a heretic. Her confessor had urged her to refuse. "What a comfortable bedfellow you will have!" he said to her: "he who lies by your side, and will be the father of your children, is certain to go to hell." ”

“ In 1521 the Duke of Buckingham, son of the Buckingham who had been beheaded by Richard III., was tried and executed as a traitor. His fault was that he had great wealth, and that, being descended from the Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son of Edward III., he had not only cherished some idea of claiming the throne after Henry's death, but had chattered about his prospects. In former days justice was not to be had by those who offended the great lords. Now, one despot had stepped into the place of many, and justice was not to be had by those who offended the king. ”

“ Of the cavalry in England Fairfax was to be general, but no officer under him was to hold a higher rank than that of colonel, a rule which would enable Cromwell's opponents in Parliament to oust him from his position in the army. So strong was the feeling in the nation for peace, and for the diminution of the heavy burden of taxation which the maintenance of the army required, that the Presbyterians would probably have gained their object had they acted with reasonable prudence, as a large number of soldiers had no sympathy with the religious enthusiasts in the ranks. ”

“ Calvinism.—The returning exiles had brought home ideas even more distasteful to Elizabeth than the rejection of ceremonies. The weak point of the Lutherans in Germany, and of the reformers in England, had been their dependence upon the State. This dependence made them share the blame which fell upon rulers who, like Henry VIII., were bent on satisfying their passions, or, like Northumberland, on appropriating the goods of others. Even Elizabeth thought first of what was convenient for her government, and secondly, if she thought at all, of the quest after truth and purity. ”

“ In 1648 a yet smaller minority came to the conclusion that security could only be obtained if he were deprived of life. In depriving the king of life all had been done which force could do. The army could guard a scaffold, but it could not reconstruct society. The vast majority of that part of the nation which cared about politics at all disliked being ruled by an army even more than it had formerly disliked being ruled by Charles, and refused its support to the new institutions which, under the patronage of the army, were being erected in the name of the people. ”

“ In those days, when half of every body of infantry fought with pikes, and the other half with inefficient muskets, it was seldom that foot-soldiers could withstand a cavalry charge in the open, and the whole of Charles's infantry, after a short resistance, surrendered on the spot. Rupert returned only in time to see that defeat was certain. The king, with what horse he could gather round him, made off as fast as he could. The stake played for at Naseby was the crown of England, and Charles had lost it. ”

“ The man who in religion counted his own individual faith as the one thing necessary was likely to count his own individual convictions in social or political matters as worth more to him than his obedience to the authority of any government. In Luther's teaching was to be found the spirit of political as well as of religious liberty. This side of it, however, was not likely to reveal itself at once. After a time Luther shook off entirely the claims of the Papacy upon his obedience, but he magnified the duty of obeying the princes who gave him their support in his struggle with the Pope. ”

“ Protestantism, as the Lutheran tenets began to be called in 1529, spread into England, though as yet it gained a hold only on a few scattered individuals. Here and there thoughtful men, dissatisfied with the teaching given to them and with the lives of many of their teachers, embraced the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith. Even the best of them could hardly be expected to treat with philosophic calm the doctrines which they had forsaken; whilst some of their converts took a pleasure in reviling the clergy and the common creed of the vast majority of Englishmen. ”

“ It had been Wolsey's policy to summon Parliament as seldom as possible. It was to be Henry's policy to summon it as frequently as possible. He no longer feared the House of Lords, and either he or Wolsey's late servant, Thomas Cromwell, an able and unscrupulous man, who rose rapidly in Henry's favour, perceived the use which might be made of the House of Commons. By his influence the king could carry the elections as he pleased, and when Parliament met in 1529 it contained a packed House of Commons ready to do the king's bidding. ”

“ On the one hand, the Protestants, few as they were, were too active and intelligent to be suppressed, and, if Mary's burnings had been unavailing, it was not likely that milder measures would succeed. On the other hand, the experience of the reign of Edward VI. had shown that immutability in doctrine and practice could only be secured by dependence upon the immutable Papacy, and Elizabeth had made up her mind that she would depend on no one but herself. She would no more place herself under the Pope than she would place herself under a husband. ”

“ In 1586, after an attempt (after Alençon's fashion) to seize the government for himself, Leicester returned to England, having accomplished nothing. What Elizabeth did not do was done by a crowd of young Englishmen who pressed over to the Netherlands to fight as volunteers for Dutch freedom. The best known of these was Sir Philip Sidney, whose head and heart alike seemed to qualify him for a foremost place amongst the new generation of Englishmen. Unhappily he was slain in battle near Zutphen. As he lay dying he handed a cup of water untasted to another wounded man. ”

“ Henry's allies had got what they wanted, and in 1514 Henry discovered that to conquer France was beyond his power. Louis was ready to come to terms. He was now a widower. Old in constitution, though not in years, he was foolish enough to want a young wife. Henry was ready to gratify him with the hand of his younger sister Mary. The poor girl had fallen in love with Henry's favourite, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, a man of sturdy limbs and weak brain, and pleaded hard against the marriage. ”

“ In the face of such danger he could no longer allow Ireland to remain as disorganised as it had been in his father's reign and in the early years of his own, lest Ireland should become the stepping-stone to an invasion of England. In Ireland the Celtic chiefs maintained their independence, carrying on destructive wars with one another, both they and their followers being inspired (p. 402) with a high spirit of tribal patriotism, but without the slightest idea of national union. ”

“ The destinies of England were to be placed in the hands of the new Parliament, which was to be freely elected. The Restoration was a foregone conclusion. The predominant wish of Englishmen was to escape from the rule of soldiers, and, as every recent form of civil government had been discredited, it was natural to turn back to that which had flourished for centuries, and which had fallen rather through the personal demerits of the last king than through any inherent vices of the system. ”

“ Charles could, however, leave his western possessions to his son, and in 1556 he completed the surrender of them. Mary's husband then became Philip II. of Spain, ruling also over large territories in Italy, over Franche Comté, and the whole of the Netherlands, as well as over vast tracts in America, rich in mines of silver and gold, which had been appropriated by the hardihood, the cruelty, and the greed of Spanish adventurers. No prince in Europe had at his command so warlike an army, so powerful a fleet, and such an abounding revenue as Philip had at his disposal. ”

“ The only real solution of the difficulty lay in a frank acknowledgment that the nation must be allowed to have its way for evil or for good. Oliver, however, suspected—doubtless with truth—that, if the nation were freely consulted, it would sweep away not only the Protectorate, but Puritanism itself. Practically, therefore, the question at issue was whether the Government should be controlled by Parliament or by the army. ”

“ Their decision ranged against the king all who cared about preserving their property, as the Metropolitical visitation had ranged against him all who cared for religion in a distinctly Protestant form. Yet, even now, the Tudor monarchy had done its work too thoroughly, and had filled the minds of men too completely with the belief that armed resistance to a king was unjustifiable, to make Englishmen ripe for rebellion. ”

“ The fact was, that they were now more afraid of the army than of the king, believing it to be ready to declare not merely for toleration of the sects, but also for a more democratic form of government than suited many of the noblemen and gentlemen who sat on the benches of the Lords and Commons. In March the Commons voted that only a small body of cavalry should be kept up in England, and no infantry at all, except a small force needed to garrison the fortresses, and also that when the infantry regiments were broken up the disbanded soldiers should be asked to volunteer for service in Ireland. ”

“ Queen Catharine and Anne Boleyn.—It was a great disappointment to Henry that he had no surviving male children. England had never been ruled by a queen, and it was uncertain whether Henry's daughter, Mary, would be allowed to reign. Henry had already begun to ask himself whether he might not get rid of his wife, on the plea that a marriage with his brother's wife was unlawful, and this consideration had the greater weight with him because Catharine was five years older than himself and was growing distasteful to him. ”

“ Pym once more took the lead, and proposed the impeachment of Strafford, as the king's chief adviser in the attempt to carry on war in defiance of Parliament. Strafford had also collected an Irish army for an attack on Scotland, and it was strongly believed that he had advised the king to use that army to reduce England as well as Scotland under arbitrary government. The mere suspicion that he had threatened to bring an Irish army into England roused more than ordinary indignation, as, in those days, Irishmen were both detested and despised in England. ”

“ The Scottish Parliament, soon after the accession of James, passed a law punishing with death any one attending a conventicle. Argyle, believing, in his exile in Holland, that all honest Scots would be ready to join him against the tyranny of the Government, sailed early in May at the head of a small expedition, and arrived in the Firth of Clyde. He had himself no military skill, and his followers, no less ignorant than himself, overruled everything that he proposed. ”