Looking back, we find that with Henry VII the absolutism of the Crown,
or "personal monarchy," began in England. Yet the repressive power of
that "personal monarchy" procured peace for the English people and,
despite "benevolences" and other exactions, they grew into a stronger
national unity.
Simultaneously with this increase of royal authority came the
discovery of a "New World," in which England and her colonies were to
have the chief part. A century will elapse before those discoveries
begin to bear fruit. After that, our attention will no longer be
confined to the British Islands, but will be fixed as well on that
western continent where British enterprise and English love of liberty
were destined to find a new and broader field of activity.