(September 1828)
_The Constitutional History of England, from the Accession of Henry VII.
to the Death of George II. By HENRY HALLAM. In 2 vols. 1827_
HISTORY, at least in its state of ideal perfection, is a compound of
poetry and philosophy. It impresses general truths on the mind by a
vivid representation of particular characters and incidents. But, in
fact, the two hostile elements of which it consists have never been
known to form a perfect amalgamation; and at length, in our own time,
they have been completely and professedly separated. Good histories, in
the proper sense of the word, we have not. But we have good historical
romances, and good historical essays. The imagination and the reason,
if we may use a legal metaphor, have made partition of a province of
literature of which they were formerly seized per my et per tout; and
now they hold their respective portions in severalty, instead of holding
the whole in common.
To make the past present, to bring the distant near, to place us in the
society of a great man or on the eminence which overlooks the field of
a mighty battle, to invest with the reality of human flesh and blood
beings whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified
qualities in an allegory, to call up our ancestors before us with all
their peculiarities of language, manners, and garb, to show us over
their houses, to seat us at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned
ward-robes, to explain the uses of their ponderous furniture, these
parts of the duty which properly belongs to the historian have been
appropriated by the historical novelist. On the other hand, to extract
the philosophy of history, to direct on judgment of events and men,
to trace the connection of cause and effects, and to draw from the
occurrences of former time general lessons of moral and political
wisdom, has become the business of a distinct class of writers.
Of the two kinds of composition into which history has been thus
divided, the one may be compared to a map, the other to a painted
landscape. The picture, though it places the country before us, does not
enable us to ascertain with accuracy the dimensions, the distances, and
the angles. The map is not a work of imitative art. It presents no scene
to the imagination; but it gives us exact information as to the bearings
of the various points, and is a more useful companion to the traveller
or the general than the painted landscape could be, though it were the
grandest that ever Rosa peopled with outlaws, or the sweetest over which
Claude ever poured the mellow effulgence of a setting sun.
It is remarkable that the practice of separating the two ingredients of
which history is composed has become prevalent on the Continent as well
as in this country. Italy has already produced a historical novel, of
high merit and of still higher promise. In France, the practice has been
carried to a length somewhat whimsical. M. Sismondi publishes a grave
and stately history of the Merovingian Kings, very valuable, and a
little tedious. He then sends forth as a companion to it a novel, in
which he attempts to give a lively representation of characters and
manners. This course, as it seems to us, has all the disadvantages of
a division of labour, and none of its advantages. We understand the
expediency of keeping the functions of cook and coachman distinct. The
dinner will be better dressed, and the horses better managed. But where
the two situations are united, as in the Maitre Jacques of Moliere, we
do not see that the matter is much mended by the solemn form with which
the pluralist passes from one of his employments to the other.
We manage these things better in England. Sir Walter Scott gives us
a novel; Mr. Hallam a critical and argumentative history. Both are
occupied with the same matter. But the former looks at it with the eye
of a sculptor. His intention is to give an express and lively image of
its external form. The latter is an anatomist. His task is to dissect
the subject to its inmost recesses, and to lay bare before us all the
springs of motion and all the causes of decay.
Mr. Hallam is, on the whole, far better qualified than any other
writer of our time for the office which he has undertaken. He has great
industry and great acuteness. His knowledge is extensive, various, and
profound. His mind is equally distinguished by the amplitude of its
grasp, and by the delicacy of its tact. His speculations have none of
that vagueness which is the common fault of political philosophy. On
the contrary, they are strikingly practical, and teach us not only the
general rule, but the mode of applying it to solve particular cases. In
this respect they often remind us of the Discourses of Machiavelli.
The style is sometimes open to the charge of harshness. We have also
here and there remarked a little of that unpleasant trick, which
Gibbon brought into fashion, the trick, we mean, of telling a story by
implication and allusion. Mr. Hallam however, has an excuse which Gibbon
had not. His work is designed for readers who are already acquainted
with the ordinary books on English history, and who can therefore
unriddle these little enigmas without difficulty. The manner of the book
is, on the whole, not unworthy of the matter. The language, even where
most faulty, is weighty and massive, and indicates strong sense in every
line. It often rises to an eloquence, not florid or impassioned,
but high, grave, and sober; such as would become a state paper, or a
judgment delivered by a great magistrate, a Somers or a D’Aguesseau.
In this respect the character of Mr. Hallam’s mind corresponds
strikingly with that of his style. His work is eminently judicial. Its
whole spirit is that of the bench, not that of the bar. He sums up with
a calm, steady impartiality, turning neither to the right nor to the
left, glossing over nothing, exaggerating nothing, while the advocates
on both sides are alternately biting their lips to hear their
conflicting misstatements and sophisms exposed. On a general survey,
we do not scruple to pronounce the Constitutional History the most
impartial book that we ever read. We think it the more incumbent on us
to bear this testimony strongly at first setting out, because, in the
course of our remarks, we shall think it right to dwell principally on
those parts of it from which we dissent.
There is one peculiarity about Mr. Hallam which, while it adds to the
value of his writings, will, we fear, take away something from their
popularity. He is less of a worshipper than any historian whom we can
call to mind. Every political sect has its esoteric and its exoteric
school, its abstract doctrines for the initiated, its visible symbols,
its imposing forms, its mythological fables for the vulgar. It assists
the devotion of those who are unable to raise themselves to the
contemplation of pure truth by all the devices of Pagan or Papal
superstition. It has its altars and its deified heroes, its relics and
pilgrimages, its canonized martyrs and confessors, its festivals and its
legendary miracles. Our pious ancestors, we are told, deserted the High
Altar of Canterbury, to lay all their oblations on the shrine of St.
Thomas. In the same manner the great and comfortable doctrines of the
Tory creed, those particularly which relate to restrictions on worship
and on trade, are adored by squires and rectors in Pitt Clubs, under the
name of a minister who was as bad a representative of the system which
has been christened after him as Becket of the spirit of the Gospel. On
the other hand, the cause for which Hampden bled on the field and Sidney
on the scaffold is enthusiastically toasted by many an honest radical
who would be puzzled to explain the difference between Ship-money and
the Habeas Corpus Act. It may be added that, as in religion, so in
politics, few even of those who are enlightened enough to comprehend the
meaning latent under the emblems of their faith can resist the contagion
of the popular superstition. Often, when they flatter themselves that
they are merely feigning a compliance with the prejudices of the vulgar,
they are themselves under the influence of those very prejudices. It
probably was not altogether on grounds of expediency that Socrates
taught his followers to honour the gods whom the state honoured, and
bequeathed a cock to Esculapius with his dying breath. So there is often
a portion of willing credulity and enthusiasm in the veneration which
the most discerning men pay to their political idols. From the very
nature of man it must be so. The faculty by which we inseparably
associate ideas which have often been presented to us in conjunction
is not under the absolute control of the will. It may be quickened into
morbid activity. It may be reasoned into sluggishness. But in a certain
degree it will always exist. The almost absolute mastery which Mr.
Hallam has obtained over feelings of this class is perfectly astonishing
to us, and will, we believe, be not only astonishing but offensive to
many of his readers. It must particularly disgust those people who, in
their speculations on politics, are not reasoners but fanciers; whose
opinions, even when sincere, are not produced, according to the
ordinary law of intellectual births, by induction or inference, but
are equivocally generated by the heat of fervid tempers out of the
overflowing of tumid imaginations. A man of this class is always
in extremes. He cannot be a friend to liberty without calling for
a community of goods, or a friend to order without taking under his
protection the foulest excesses of tyranny. His admiration oscillates
between the most worthless of rebels and the most worthless of
oppressors, between Marten, the disgrace of the High Court of justice,
and Laud, the disgrace of the Star-Chamber. He can forgive anything but
temperance and impartiality. He has a certain sympathy with the violence
of his opponents, as well as with that of his associates. In every
furious partisan he sees either his present self or his former self,
the pensioner that is, or the Jacobin that has been. But he is unable to
comprehend a writer who, steadily attached to principles, is indifferent
about names and badges, and who judges of characters with equable
severity, not altogether untinctured with cynicism, but free from the
slightest touch of passion, party spirit, or caprice.
We should probably like Mr. Hallam’s book more if, instead of pointing
out with strict fidelity the bright points and the dark spots of both
parties, he had exerted himself to whitewash the one and to blacken the
other. But we should certainly prize it far less. Eulogy and invective
may be had for the asking. But for cold rigid justice, the one weight
and the one measure, we know not where else we can look.
No portion of our annals has been more perplexed and misrepresented by
writers of different parties than the history of the Reformation. In
this labyrinth of falsehood and sophistry, the guidance of Mr. Hallam
is peculiarly valuable. It is impossible not to admire the even-handed
justice with which he deals out castigation to right and left on the
rival persecutors.
It is vehemently maintained by some writers of the present day that
Elizabeth persecuted neither Papists nor Puritans as such, and that the
severe measures which she occasionally adopted were dictated, not by
religious intolerance, but by political necessity. Even the excellent
account of those times which Mr. Hallam has given has not altogether
imposed silence on the authors of this fallacy. The title of the Queen,
they say, was annulled by the Pope; her throne was given to another; her
subjects were incited to rebellion; her life was menaced; every Catholic
was bound in conscience to be a traitor; it was therefore against
traitors, not against Catholics, that the penal laws were enacted.
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.
A law was next made in 1562, enacting, that all who had ever graduated
at the Universities or received holy orders, all lawyers, and all
magistrates, should take the oath of supremacy when tendered to them, on
pain of forfeiture and imprisonment during the royal pleasure. After the
lapse of three mouths, the oath might again be tendered to them; and
if it were again refused, the recusant was guilty of high treason. A
prospective law, however severe, framed to exclude Catholics from the
liberal professions, would 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 not positively affirm that a law of this description must always,
and under all circumstances, be unjustifiable. But the presumption
against it is most violent; nor do we remember any crisis either in our
own history, or in the history of any other country, which would
have rendered such a provision necessary. In the present case,
what circumstances called for extraordinary rigour? There might be
disaffection among the Catholics. The prohibition of their worship would
naturally produce it. But it is from their situation, not from their
conduct, from the wrongs which they had suffered, not from those which
they had committed, that the existence of discontent among them must be
inferred. There were libels, no doubt, and prophecies, and rumours and
suspicions, strange grounds for a law inflicting capital penalties, ex
post facto, on a large body of men.
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.
In the first place, the arguments which are urged in favour of Elizabeth
apply with much greater force to the case of her sister Mary. The
Catholics did not, at the time of Elizabeth’s accession, rise in arms
to seat a Pretender on her throne. But before Mary had given, or could
give, provocation, the most distinguished Protestants attempted to
set aside her rights in favour of the Lady Jane. That attempt, and the
subsequent insurrection of Wyatt, 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.
The fact is that both pleas are worthless alike. If such arguments are
to pass current, it will be easy to prove that there was never such a
thing as religious persecution since the creation. For there never was
a religious persecution in which some odious crime was not, justly
or unjustly, said to be obviously deducible from the doctrines of the
persecuted party. We might say, that the Caesars did not persecute the
Christians; that they only punished men who were charged, rightly or
wrongly, with burning Rome, and with committing the foulest abominations
in secret assemblies; 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.
When Elizabeth put Ballard and Babington to death, she was not
persecuting. Nor should we have accused her government of persecution
for passing any law, however severe, against overt acts of sedition. But
to argue that, because a man is a Catholic, 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 generally thought 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 Englishman who was reconciled to the
Catholic Church would, as a necessary consequence, have thought himself
justified in deposing or assassinating Elizabeth. It is not sufficient
to say that the convert must have acknowledged the authority of the
Pope, and 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 savages, and who should, after
labouring indefatigably without any hope of reward, terminate his life
by martyrdom, would deserve the warmest admiration. Yet we can doubt
whether ten of the ten thousand ever thought of going on such an
expedition. Why should we suppose that conscientious motives, feeble as
they are constantly found to be in a good cause, should be omnipotent
for evil? Doubtless there was many a jolly Popish priest in the old
manor-houses of the northern counties, who would have admitted, in
theory, the deposing power of the Pope, 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.
But the laws passed against the Puritans had not even the wretched
excuse which we have been considering. In this case, the cruelty was
equal, the danger, infinitely less. In fact, the danger was created
solely by the cruelty. But it is superfluous to press the argument.
By no artifice of ingenuity can the stigma of persecution, the
worst blemish of the English Church, be effaced or patched over. Her
doctrines, we well know, do not tend to intolerance. She admits the
possibility of salvation 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 founders of the Church were guilty
of religious persecution mean only that the founders of the Church were
not influenced by any religious motive, we perfectly agree with them.
Neither the penal code of Elizabeth, nor the more hateful system by
which Charles the Second attempted to force Episcopacy on the Scotch,
had an origin so noble. The cause is to be sought in some circumstances
which attended the Reformation in England, circumstances of which the
effects long continued to be felt, and may in some degree be traced even
at the present day.
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
by these adherents that the separation was there conducted. They were
welcome auxiliaries; their support was too often purchased by unworthy
compliances; but, however exalted in rank or power, they were not the
leaders in the enterprise. Men of a widely different description,
men who redeemed great infirmities and errors by sincerity,
disinterestedness, energy and courage, men who, with many of the vices
of revolutionary chiefs and of polemic divines, united some of the
highest qualities 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 persecuting tyrants and hostile armies. For that
theological system to which they sacrificed the lives of others without
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 Conde 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.
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 background. 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,
distinguished it; unflinching and unsparing devotion, boldness of
speech, and singleness of eye. These were indeed to be found; but it was
in the lower ranks of the party which opposed the authority of Rome, in
such men as Hooper, Latimer, Rogers, and Taylor. Of those who had any
important share in bringing the Reformation about, Ridley was perhaps
the only person who did not consider it as a mere political job. Even
Ridley did not play a very prominent part. Among the statesmen and
prelates who principally gave the tone to the religious changes, there
is one, and one only, whose conduct partiality itself can attribute to
any other than interested motives. It is not strange, therefore, that
his character should have been the subject of fierce controversy. We
need not say that we speak of Cranmer.
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 fedelia Dio, per se foro.”
And the only notice which it would have been necessary to take of his
name would have been
“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.
The origin of his greatness, common enough in the scandalous chronicles
of courts, seems strangely out of place in a hagiology. Cranmer rose
into favour by serving Henry in the disgraceful affair of his first
divorce. He promoted the marriage of Anne Boleyn with the King. On
a frivolous pretence he pronounced that marriage null and void. On a
pretence, if possible still more frivolous, he dissolved the ties which
bound the shameless tyrant to Anne of Cleves. He attached himself to
Cromwell while the fortunes of Cromwell flourished. He voted for cutting
off Cromwell’s head without a trial, when the tide of royal favour
turned. He conformed backwards and forwards as the King changed his
mind. He assisted, while Henry lived, in condemning to the flames those
who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. He found out, as soon as
Henry was dead, that the doctrine was false. He was, however, not at a
loss for people to burn. The authority of his station and of his grey
hairs was employed to overcome 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 persecution, Jane was to be seduced into
treason. No transaction in our annals is more unjustifiable than this.
If a hereditary title were to be respected, Mary possessed it. If a
parliamentary title were preferable, Mary possessed that also. If
the interest of the Protestant religion required a departure from the
ordinary rule of succession, that interest would have been best served
by raising Elizabeth to the throne. If the 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 unfortunately 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 a fortiori will enable us to estimate the amount of
his benevolence.
But his martyrdom, it is said, redeemed everything. 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, 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 difficult 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 religious factions equally. He punished with
impartial severity those who renounced the doctrines of Rome, and those
who acknowledged her jurisdiction. 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
Catholics, 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. To recognise the Papal supremacy, would have been to abandon
the whole design. Reluctantly and sullenly the government 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.
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 Protestant sisters,
that art of striking the senses and filling the imagination in which
the Catholic Church so eminently excels. But, on the other hand, she
continued to be, for more than a hundred and fifty years, the servile
handmaid of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liberty. The divine
right of kings, and the duty of passively obeying all their commands,
were her favourite tenets. She held those tenets firmly through times
of oppression, persecution, and licentiousness; while law was trampled
down; while judgment was perverted; while the people were eaten as
though they were bread. Once, and but once, for a moment, and but for
a moment, when her own dignity and property were touched, she forgot to
practise the submission which she had taught.
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 prerogative.
This great Queen and her successors, by considering conformity and
loyalty as identical at length made them so. With respect to the
Catholics, indeed, the rigour of persecution abated after her death.
James soon found that they were unable to injure him, and that the
animosity which the Puritan party felt towards them drove them of
necessity to take refuge under his throne. During the subsequent
conflict, their fault was anything but disloyalty. On the other hand,
James hated the Puritans with more than the hatred of Elizabeth. Her
aversion to them was political; his was personal. The sect had plagued
him in Scotland, where he was weak; and he was determined to be even
with them in England, where he was powerful. Persecution gradually
changed a sect into a faction. That there was anything 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 in this
point is not surprising. But we are astonished, we must confess,
that men of our own time, men who have before them the proof of what
toleration can effect, men who may see with their own eyes that the
Presbyterians are no such monsters when government is wise enough to
let them alone, should defend the persecutions of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries as indispensable to the safety of the church and
the throne.
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 wonderful. Hyde extols its loyal and conciliatory spirit. Its
conduct, we are told, made the excellent Falkland in love with the very
name of Parliament. We think, indeed, with Oliver St. John, that its
moderation was carried too far, and that the times required sharper
and more decided 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.
Defeat, universal agitation, financial embarrassments, disorganisation
in 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 who know anything of those times, know that the conduct of Hampden
in the affair of the ship-money met with the warm approbation of every
respectable Royalist in England. It drew forth the ardent eulogies
of the champions of the prerogative and even of the Crown lawyers
themselves. Clarendon allows Hampden’s demeanour through the whole
proceeding to have been such, that even those who watched for an
occasion against the defender of the people, were compelled to
acknowledge themselves unable to find any fault in him. That 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.
In civilised nations, the most arbitrary governments have generally
suffered justice to have a free course in private suits. Strafford
wished to make every cause in every court subject to the royal
prerogative. He complained that in Ireland he was not permitted to
meddle in cases between party and party. “I know very well,” says he,
“that the common lawyers will be passionately against it, who are wont
to put such a prejudice upon all other professions, as if none were to
be trusted, or capable to administer justice, but themselves: yet how
well this suits with monarchy, when they monopolise 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.
It is not strange that a man so careless of the common civil rights,
which even despots have generally respected, should treat with scorn the
limitations which the constitution imposes on the royal prerogative. We
might quote pages: but we will content ourselves with a single specimen:
“The debts of the Crown being taken off, you may govern as you please:
and most resolute I am that may be done without borrowing any help forth
of the King’s lodgings.”
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 import defenders from an
Opposition than to rear them in a Ministry. He was the first Englishman
to whom a peerage was a sacrament of infamy, a baptism into the
communion of corruption. As he was the earliest of the hateful list,
so was he also by far the greatest; eloquent, sagacious, adventurous,
intrepid, ready of invention, immutable of purpose, in every talent
which exalts or destroys nations pre-eminent, the lost Archangel,
the Satan of the apostasy. The title for which, at the time of his
desertion, he exchanged a name honourably distinguished in the cause of
the people, reminds us of the appellation which, from the moment of the
first treason, fixed itself on the fallen Son of the Morning,
“Satan;--so call him now--