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. If they set the lives of others at nought in comparison of their doctrines, they were equally ready to throw away their own. 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 Condé and the King of Navarre, Moray and 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.

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 So-
merset. 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 well, to preserve his gravity. If the
memory of the archbishop had been left to
find its own place, he would soon have 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 furo.'
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 when his admirers challenge for him a place in the noble army of martyrs, his claims require fuller discussion.

The shameful origin of his history, common enough in the scandalous chronicles of courts, seems strangely out of place in a hagiology. Cranmer rose into favour by serving Henry in a disgraceful affair of his first divorce. He promoted the marriage of Anne Boleyn with the king. On a frivolous pretence he pronounced it 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 his head without a trial, when the tide of royal favour turned. He conformed backwards and forwards as the king changed his mind. While Henry lived, he assisted in condemning to the flames those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. When Henry died, he found out that the doctrine was false. He was, however, not at a loss for people to burn. The authority of his station, and of his gray hairs, was employed to overcome the disgust with which an intelligent and virtuous child regarded persecution.

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 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 Intolerance is always bad. But the sanbe found; but it was in the lower ranks of the guinary intolerance of a man who thus waparty which opposed the authority of Rome, in vered in his creed, excites a loathing to which such men as Hooper, Latimer, Rogers, and it is difficult to give vent without calling foul Taylor. Of those who had any important names. Equally false to political and to re share in bringing the alteration about, the ex-ligious obligations, he was first the tool of cellent Ridley was perhaps the only person Somerset, and then the tool of Northumber 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 give 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

land. When the former wished to put his own brother to death, without even the form 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 So merset had been in his turn destroyed, his de stroyer received the support of Cranmer in his attempt to change the course of the succes. sion.

The apology made for him by his admirers only renders his conduct more contemptible. He complied, it is said, against his better judg ment, 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 committing crimes at the request of his disciple. If he 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 seduced into usurpation. 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, it 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 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 'o 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, tiil 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 acces-. sion 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. Those 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, with as little principle as his coadjutor, had a firmer and more commanding mind. Of Henry, an orthodox Catholic, excepting 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. But 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 rob the Babylonian enchantress of her ornaments, to transfer the full cup of her sorceries 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 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. 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 government should form an alliance with one or the other side. To recognise the Papal supremacy, would have been to abandon its whole design. Reluctantly and sullenly it at last joined the Protestants. In forming this junction, its object was to procure as much aid as possible for its selfish undertaking, and

HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.

to make the smallest possible concessions to the spirit of religious innovation.

From his compromise the Church of England sprung. 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 rights of kings, and the duty of passively obeying all their commands, were her favourite tenets. She held them 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 connec-
tion between the monarchy and the priesthood.
At the time of her accession, indeed, she evi-
dently 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 impe-
rious temper, her keen sagacity, and her pecu-
liar 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 salva-
tion, but because it was the fastness which ar-
bitrary power was making strong for itself;
because she expected a more profound obedi-
ence from those who saw in her both their
civil and their ecclesiastical head, 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 Hea-
ven. To dissent from her establishment was
to dissent from an institution founded with an
expres. view to the maintenance and extension
of the royal prerogative.

This great queen and her successors, by
considering conformity and loyalty as identi-
With respect to
cal, at length made them so.
the Catholics, indeed, the rigour of persecu-
tion 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 subse-
quent conflict, their fault was any thing but
disloyalty. On the other hand, James hated
the Puritans with far more than the hatred of
Elizabeth. Her aversion to them was politi-
cal; his was personal. The sect had plagued
him in Scotland, where he was weak: and he
VOL. I-10

was determined to be even with them in Eng-
land, where he was powerful. Persecution
gradually changed a sect into a 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 be
came the fashion to say that Presbyterianisin
was connected with Republicanism; just as
it has been the fashion to say, since the time
of the French Revolution, that Infidelity is con-
nected with Republicanism. It is perfectly
true, that a church constituted on the Calvin-
istic 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 As
sembly has not, during that period, given half
Convocation of the Church of England gave
so much trouble to the government as the
to it during the thirty years which followed the
Revolution. That James and Charles should
have been mistaken on this point, is not sur
prising. But we are astonished, we must con-
fess, when writers 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 mon-
sters, when government is wise enough to let
them alone, should defend the old persecutions,
on the ground that they were indispensable
How persecution protects churches and
to the safety of the church and the throne.
thrones was soon made manifest. A system-
atic 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 it 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
mediately followed the accession of his son,
of suppressing it. And the events which im-
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 Parlia-
ment 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 at that time the government en-
tertained 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,
G
though it abounds in valuable information, ani
in remarks well deserving to be attentiveiv

able.

considered; and though it is, like the rest, evi- | right in the point of law, is now universally dently written in a spirit of perfect imparti- admitted. Even had it been otherwise, he had ality, appears to us, in many points, objection- a fair case. Five of the judges, servile as our courts then were, pronounced in his favour. The majority against him was the smailest 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.

We pass to the year 1640. The fate of the short Parliament held in that year already 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 this assembly 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.

In civilized 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 Defeat, universal agitation, financial embar- other professions, as if none were to be trusted, rassments, disorganization in every part of the or capable to administer justice but themselves: government, compelled Charles again to con- yet how well this suits with monarchy, when vene the Houses before the close of the same they monopolize all to be governed by their year. Their meeting was one of the great eras year-books, you in England have a costly exin the history of the civilized world. What- ample." We are really curious to know by ever of political freedom exists either in Eu- what arguments it is to be proved, that the rope or in America, has sprung, directly or in- power of interfering in the lawsuits of indidirectly, from those institutions which they se-viduals is part of the just authority of the execured and reformed. We never turn to the cutive government. 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 any thing 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 his 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

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 perogative. 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 popu lar 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; 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 not an addition of honour, but a sacrament of infamy-a baptism into the communion of corruption. he was the earliest of the hateful list, so was he also by far the greatest-eloquent, saga.

As

cious, adventurous, intrepid, ready of inven- | for his life, took that ground of defence. The tion, immutable of purpose, in every talent Journals of the Lords show that the Judges which exalts or destroys nations, pre-eminent, were consulted. They answered with one acthe 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

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 the malice of a renegade. Nothing can be more natural or becoming, than that one turn-coat should eulo-peachment charging Strafford with raising mogize another.