derly, and assuring her of his affection. The chancellor, however, ignorant of this reconciliation, came next day to arrest Catharine, pursuant to the king's warrant, but was dismissed by Henry, with the approbrious appellations of knave, fool, and beast25. So violent and capricious was the temper of that prince!

But although the queen was so fortunate as to appease Henry's resentment against herself, she could not save those whom she most respected. Catharine and Cranmer excepted, the king punished with unfeeling rigour all others, who presumed to differ from him in religious opinions; but more especially in the capital tenet, transubstantiation. Among the unhappy victims committed to the flames for denying that absurb doctrine, was Anne Ascue, a young woman of singular beauty and merit, connected with the principal ladies at court, and even with the queen. She died with great tranquillity and fortitude, refusing to earn, by recantation, a pardon, though offered her at the stake26.

Nor did Henry's tyrannical and persecuting spirit confine its vengeance to religious offenders: it was no less severe against such as excited his political jealousy. Amongst these were the duke of Norfolk and his gallant son the earl of Surrey. The duke had rendered considerable services to the crown; and although understood to be the head of the Catholic party, he had always conformed to the religion of the court. He had acquired an immense fortune in consequence of the favours bestowed upon him by Henry, and was confessedly the first subject in England. That eminence drew upon him the king's jealousy As Henry found his death approaching he was afraid that Norfolk might disturb the government during his son's minority, or alter his religious system.

The earl of Surrey was a young nobleman of the most promising hopes, distinguished by every accomplishment

25. Burnet, vol. i. Herbert, p. 560. Fox, Acts and Monuments, vol. ii. 26. Id. Ibid.

which could adorn a scholar, a courtier, or a soldier of that age. But he did not always regulate his conduct by the caution and reserve which his situation required; and as he had declined all proposals of marriage among the nobility, Henry imagined that he entertained hopes of espousing his eldest daughter, the princess Mary. The suspicion of such a dangerous ambition was enough. Both he and his father, the duke of Norfolk, were committed to the Tower; tried for high treason, and condemned to suffer death, without any evidence of guilt being produced against either of them; unless that the earl had quartered the arms of Edward the Confessor on his scutcheon, which was considered as a proof of his aspiring to the crown, although the practice and pri vilege of so doing had been openly avowed by himself, and maintained by his ancestors. Surrey was immediately executed, and an order was issued for the execution of Norfolk; but the king's death happening in the interval, nothing farther was done in the matter27.

A. D. 1547.

Henry's health had long been declining, and his approaching dissolution had been foreseen by all around him, for some days; but as it had been declared treason to foretel the king's death, no one durst inform him of his condition, lest he should, in the first transports of his fury, order the author of such intelligence to immediate punishment. Sir Anthony Denny, however, at last ventured to make known to him the awful truth. He signified his resignation, and desired that Cranmer might be sent for. The primate came, though not before the king was speechless; but as he still seemed to retain his senses, Cranmer desired him to give some sign of his dying in the faith of Christ. He squeezed the primate's hand, and immediately expired, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and thirty-eighth of his reign28; affording, in his end, a striking example, that composure in the hour of death is not the inseparable charac

27. Burnet, vol. i. Fox, vol. ii.

28. Burnet. Herbert. Fuller. teristic

teristic of a life well spent, nor vengeance in this world the universal fate of blood-thirsty tyrants. Happily we know, that there is a state beyond the grave, where all accounts will be settled, and a tribunal before which every one must answer for the deeds done in the flesh; otherwise we should be apt to conclude, from seeing the same things happen to the just and to the unjust, to the cruel and the merciful, that there was no eye in heaven that regarded the actions of man, nor any arm to punish.

But the history of this reign, my dear Philip, yields other lessons than those of a speculative morality; lessons which come home to the breast of every Englishman, and which he ought to remember every moment of his existence. It teaches us the most alarming of all political truths: "That absolute despotism may prevail in a state, and yet "the form of a free constitution remain." Nay, it even leads us to a conjecture, still more interesting to Britons, "That in this country, an ambitious prince may most suc

cessfully exercise his tyrannies under the shelter of those "barriers which the constitution has placed as the security "of national freedom; of our lives, our liberty, and our property."

Henry changed the national religion, and, in a great measure, the spirit of the laws of England. He perpetrated the most enormous violences against the first men in the kingdom; he loaded the people with oppressive taxes, and he pillaged them by loans, which it was known he never meant to repay; but he never attempted to abolish the parliament, or even to retrench any of its doubtful privileges. The parliament was the prime minister of his tyrannical administration. It authorised his oppressive taxes, and absolved him from the payment of his debts; it gave its sanction to his most despotic and sanguinary measures; to measures, which, of himself, he durst not have carried into execution; or which, if supposed to be merely the result of his own arbitrary will, would have roused the spirit of

the

the nation to assert the rights of humanity, and the privileges of a free people: and law would have been given to the tyrant's power, or some arm would have been found bold enough to rid the world of such a scourge, by carrying vengeance to his heart.

The conclusion which I mean to draw from these facts and reasonings is, and it deserves our most serious attention. That the British constitution, though so happily poised, that no one part of it seems to preponderate; though so admirably constructed that every one of the three estates is a check upon each of the other two, and both houses of parliament upon the crown; though the most rational and perfect system of freedom that human wisdom has framed, it is no positive security against the despotism of an artful or tyrannical prince; and that, if Britons should ever be. come slaves, such an event is not likely to happen, as in France, by the abolition of our national assembly, but by the corruption of its members; by making that proud bul wark of our liberty, as in ancient Rome, the means of our slavery. Our admirable constitution is but a gay curtain to conceal our shame, and the iniquity of our oppressors, unless our senators are animated by the same spirit which gave it birth. If they can be overawed by threats, seduced from their duty by bribes, or allured by promises, another Henry may rule us with a rod of iron, and drench once more the scaffold with the best blood of the nation: the parliament will be the humble and secure instrument of his tyrannies.

We must now, my dear Philip, return to the continent, where we left Charles V. attempting that despotism which Henry VIII. had accomplished.

LETTER

LETTER LXI.

A GENERAL VIEW OF THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE, INCLUDING THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY, FROM THE FIRST MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, IN 1546, TO THE PEACE OF RELIGION CONCLUDED AT PASSAU, IN 552.

A. D. 1546.

IN consequence of the resolution of the emperor Charles V. to humble the Protestant princes, his chief motive, as has been observed, for concluding a disadvantageous peace with Francis I. he sent ambassadors to Constantinople, and concluded a dishonourable truce with Solyman II. He stipulated, that his brother Ferdinand should pay an annual tribute to the Porte for that part of Hungary which still acknowledged his sway, and that the sultan should retain the imperial and undisturbed possession of the other'. Charles at the same time entered into an alliance with Paul III. the reigning pontiff, for the extirpation of heresy; or, in other words, for oppressing the liberties of Germany, under pretence of maintaining the jurisdiction of the Holy See.

Meanwhile a general council had been assembled at Trent, by the authority of the pope, in order to regulate the affairs of religion. But the protestants, though they had appealed to a general council, refused to acknowledge the legality of this, which they were sensible was convoked to condemn, not to examine their opinions. The proceedings of the council confirmed them in this resolution; they therefore renounced all connection with it; and as they had discovered the emperor's ambitious views, they began to prepare for their own defence.

The emperor, whose schemes were not yet ripe for execution, though much chagrined at this obstinacy, smothered

1. Barre, tom. viii. Mem. de Ribier.