C' Onstilutional History.
523
His treat-
ment of the
church ;
of the
nobility ;
of the par-
liament.
His dicta-
torship.
[c∏ΛP.
baronage1 ; he broke the connexion between the English and
Konian churches, and, declaring himself her head on e.ιrth, left the
English church2 altogether dependent on her own weakened
resources, and suspended and practically suppressed the legisla-
tive powers of convocation 3. He constructed a new nobility
out of the ruins of the old, and from new elements enriched by
the spoils of the church : a nobility which had not the high
traditions of the medieval baronage, and was by the very con-
dition of its creation set in opposition to the ecclesiastical
influences which had hitherto played so great a part. But
with the commons Henry did not directly meddle : true he
used his parliaments merely to register his sovereign acts ; took
money from his people as a loan, and wiped away the debt by
parliamentary enactment4 ; took for his proclamations the force
of laws, and obtained a ‘ lex regia ’ to make him the supreme
lawgiver5 ; he arrested and tried and executed those whom he
suspected of enmity, demanding and receiving the thanks of the
commons for his most arbitrary acts. That by these means he
carried the nation over a crisis in which it might have suffered
worse evils, is a theory which men will accept or reject ac-
cording as they are swayed by the feelings which -were called
into existence by the changes he effected.
1 TIie smaller monasteries were dissolved by the Act 27 Hen. VIlI,
c. 28 ; after many of the larger houses had surrendered, the rest were dis-
solved by the Aet 31 Hen. VIII, c. ɪʒ ; and the Order of the Hospitallers,
by 32 Hen. VIII, c. 24. Colleges, chantries, and free chapels were given
to the king by ɪ Edw. VI, c. 14.
* 2 This was enacted by 26 Hen. VIII, c. ɪ : ‘ That the king our sovereign
lord, his heirs and successors kings of this realm, shall be taken accepted
and reputed the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England
called Anglicana Ecclesia.' The exact terms Iiadbeen discussed in Convo-
cation as early as 1531, and accepted in a modified form.
3 By the Act of Submission (25 Hen. VIII, c. 19), and the instrument
signed by the clergy, May 15, 1532, it was declared that there should be
no legislation in Convocation without the king’s licence, and that the
existing canon law should be reviewed by a commission of thirty∙two
persons, half lay and half clerical.
4 Stat. 21 Hen. VIII, c. 24, and 35 Hen. VIII, c. 12.
5 Stat. 31 Hen. VIII, c. 8. ‘ That always the king for the time being
with the advice of his honourable council may set forth at all times by the
authority of this Act his proclamations . . . and that those same shall be
obeyed observed and kept as though they were made by Act of Parliament
for the time in them limited unless the king’s highness dispense with them
or any of them under his great seal.’
XXi.] Later History. 523
Elizabeth carried on the dictatorship which her father Positionof
. . 1 . „ 1 . Elizabeth,
had. won, and which the misgovernment of the intervening
reigns had rendered even more necessary than before. In spite
of mistakes and under many inevitable drawbacks, she earned
her title to the supremacy she wielded, and, so long as she
lived, the better side of a strong governmental policy showed
itself. She acted as the guide of the nation which she saw
strong enough to choose its own course; making herself the
exponent of the country’s ambition, she ruled the ship of state
by steering it ; she could not direct the winds or even trim the
sails, but she could see and avoid the rocks ahead.
The Tudor dictatorship left a sad inheritance to the Stewarts. Jamesiand
τ . 1 1 . ` . , his theory of
James 1 was not content with the possession, without a theory, royal power,
of supremacy. The power which Henry VIII had wielded he
formulated ; and challenged the convictions of a people growing
more thoughtful as they grew also stronger. His dogmatic
theories forced the counteracting theories into premature life :
his ecclesiastical policy, the outcome of Elizabeth’s, gave a
political standing-ground to puritanism ; and puritanism gave
to the political warfare in which the nation was henceforth
involved a relentless character that was all its own. He left Charles ɪ
his throne to a son who had not the power to guide if he termine the
had had the chance : whose theory of sovereign right was °
incompatible with the constitutional theory which, rising as
it were from the dead, had found its exposition among the
commons. The lords of the new baronage neither loved the
clergy nor trusted the people. Divided between the king and
liberty, they sank for the time into moral and legal insigni-
ficance ; and, however singly or personally eminent, ceased
for a time to be recognised as an estate of the republic. The
clergy, committed to the fatal theory that was destroying the
king, had already fallen. The king himself, too conscientious
to be politic, scarcely strong enough to be faithfully conscien-
tious ; neither trusting nor having cause to trust his people,
who neither trusted nor had cause to trust him, fell before
the hostility of men for whose safety it was necessary that
he should die, and the hatred of fanatics who combined person