have here no city nor dwelling country at all; we seek one that we shall come to. And in what country soever we walk in this world, we are but as pilgrims and wayfaring men. And if I should take any country for mine own, it must be the country to which I come, and not the country from which I came."

Such language is that of soberness and honesty, but for this very reason it shows that the man who used it had scarcely the faintest sense of the obligations he owed to the land of his birth. What was to be done with More? He was too formidable a person to be treated with contempt. Of the temper of the English champions of Catholicism, and of the results of leniency towards them, we may judge by the case of Reginald Pole. Like More, he was one of the most cultured scholars of his time, and unlike More, he actually made fervent protestation of his love for England. This love expressed itself in a strange way. Henry had first tried to bribe him into loyalty with the Archbishopric of York, and then had allowed him to go free to the Continent. Pole took advantage of this liberty to publish a book, which shows to what infamy the love of Rome could drive an honourable man.

The book is an impassioned appeal for all English subjects to rebel, and for all foreign powers to invade England. The old medieval doctrine of Hildebrand and Becket is resuscitated, to the effect that the priests, who look after spiritual interests, are superior to kings, who are the guardians of no spiritual thing. The priests are as gods, the King is only their servant. Upon such premises as these it is too easy to raise a superstructure of treason, and Pole is resolved to stick at nothing. Every conceivable term of abuse is heaped upon the head of the unfortunate Henry, and all the half-stifled murmurs of disloyal subjects are condensed into one thunder of de

nunciation.

The book, or pamphlet, displays an ingenuity positively

fiendish, in devising the ruin of the country its author professed to love. An appeal is made to the Emperor to leave off fighting even the Turk, and plunge his sword into England's bosom. Francis is exhorted to sink his differences with Charles, and join in the holy work of invasion. Language is even used in order to inflame the Spanish soldiers, who had already taken part in the sack of Rome, and who were shortly to make the name of Alva stink in the nostrils of humanity, to show their prowess not upon the sands of Africa or the plains of Piedmont, but amid the fields and villages of England. It seems but a little thing after this, that Pole deliberately appealed, and with the object of making his appeal heard, to the thousands of dissatisfied English subjects, to join with French and Spanish invaders in the work of dethroning their sovereign, and fixing the yoke of the priests, or gods, the yoke of a petty Italian tyrant, upon their necks and their King's neck for ever. “I call to witness that love of my country which is engrafted in me by nature that love of the Church which is given to me by the Son of God. . . ." Alas! no man, were he ever so honest, can serve two masters.

Such was the language of one who excelled in learning and virtue, and yet was unable to reconcile his conscience. with his country. Is there any reason to believe that Sir Thomas More, if he had been on the Continent instead of in the Tower, would have taken a different view of the situation, or that he would have been any more loyal because he differed from Pole in professing to have no country at all? The influence of Pole was troublesome enough, for he travelled about the Continent doing everything he could to harm England, but what if to Pole's influence had been added that of the most eloquent and persuasive man in Europe? And supposing More had been allowed to dwell scatheless in the Tower. Would it not have been an admission that the Crown which hanged

and quartered lesser men, was afraid of proceeding to extremities against the greatest? Would not the fact that the oath of allegiance was evaded, through royal connivance, by More and Fisher, have encouraged others in evasion? Would not their names have been the watchword of every rebellion, and their rescue the object of every London mob? And might they not have found means directly or by implication to encourage resistance? Fisher, as we now know, did actually stoop to intrigues with the foreigner, and for his own harmlessness, as for More's, there was no security but his oath or his death.

It is to be hoped that our account of the motives which guided the actors during the crisis, will not be interpreted into a moral eulogy of Henry VIII, still less into an indiscriminate attack on the characters of his victims. There is, in truth, little that is admirable about the King's character except his courage and ability. The times, we have seen, called for such a man, and there is much in common between him and William the Conqueror. The nation was not fit for a hero like Oliver Cromwell or Nelson, and if it had got such a one it would not have followed him. A vulgar desire of conquest for its own sake went along with grovelling materialism. The spirit of obedience, of sacrifice for a cause, was only seen in the case of a few martyrs, and England is remarkable for the facility with which the greater part of the people were ready to slip from one faith to another at the bidding of the Government. Some part of the country was always ripe for revolt, and the main grievance was usually something that touched the pocket. To unite and persevere in the pursuit of any noble ideal seemed a feat of which Englishmen were incapable. But strength they could and did appreciate. Theirs was the untamed violence of imperfect civilization, but not the effeminate softness we call decadence. They wanted drill, and from a sergeant who should teach them to wheel and manœuvre as one man at the word of com

mand, or go to instant death by drumhead court-martial in case of disobedience; they were surrounded by enemies, annihilation stared them in the face. What wonder if the sergeant had but little consideration for the feelings of one or two gentler or more cultured than the rest, whose hearts were not in the service, and who cooled the allegiance of others! Their case was a sad one in all conscience, but, right or wrong, such is the way of war, and the way of the grim sergeants who have to make armies out of mobs.

Our task is to record the growth of one love, and not to write a history of England, and we need not pursue with any minuteness the subsequent political events of Henry VIII's reign. The policy of the "Terror "proved not only successful, but even merciful. The execution of More and Fisher had created such a fear of Henry's name, that opposition was effectively silenced, and Cromwell and his master were able to go on with the delicate and dangerous task of suppressing the monasteries, with temporary impunity. When, three years later, what everybody had foreseen came to pass, and half of England was in rebellion, the hopes and efforts of that strange patriot, Reginald Pole, were frustrated, and Henry was able to cope with his northern subjects, without the additional complication of a Spanish or French invasion. As it was, it needed all his skill and all his firmness to master the situation, but master it he did, and henceforth he was able to secure at least the allegiance of his own realm. It is a sign of his popularity that, even when they were in arms against him, the rebels still professed their loyalty to a King who, they thought, had been led astray by a wicked minister.

One proof of Henry's sympathy with his people is the fact that in spite of his quarrel with Rome, he never allowed himself to become the tool of the Protestant Reformation. It was upon this rock that the genius of

Cromwell split. At what seemed the height of his power, when he had just been made Earl of Essex, Cromwell and the Duke of Norfolk, the representatives of the old and the new theologies, were in tacit but deadly antagonism. At last the Duke, belike with that sleek vulpine smile of his, rose at the Council to arrest his rival for high treason. Henceforth there could be no doubt as to Henry's attitude; the Defender of the Faith was its defender still, and the terror, which had struck down the Pope's upholders, was put in motion against his heretics. Not, however, with the merciless severity of the acts themselves, for Henry's principle was always to make a few striking examples and let the rest go.

The Protestant cause does not seem to have made such headway during Henry's reign as we might have expected from the previous vogue of Lollardy. It was enough for most Englishmen that the Bishop of Rome should have no authority in the Church of England, without introducing new-fangled notions out of Germany. It was inevitable, however, that the revolt from Rome would go beyond the denial of the Pope's authority. Whether we approve of it or no, we cannot deny the grandeur and complex thoroughness of the Catholic organization. It had been the product of ages of struggle with Imperial Rome, with heresy, with triumphant barbarism, with feudal tyranny. Not only were its servants organized and their functions assigned with a nicety equalled by no army and no state in history, but the individual life of every Christian man was subjected to a discipline equally minute. The elaborate machinery of fasting, penance, and confession was part of a cunningly devised system for training the soul, in the same way as we train a recruit in the army. Not only was this training searching and severe, but so elastic as to embrace every variety of temperament. Those who, like the blessed Angela of Foligno and St. John of the Cross, were capable