its own proceedings were a constant infraction. It was evident, that if, in religious matters, private judgment were supreme, it became a high spiritual crime to issue any articles, or to take any measure, by which that judgment could be tied up; while, on the other hand, if the right of private judgment were not supreme, the church of England was guilty of apostasy, inasmuch as its founders did, by virtue of the interpretation which their own private judgment made of the Bible, abandon tenets which they had hitherto held, stigmatize those tenets as idolatrous, and openly renounce their allegiance to what had for centuries been venerated as the catholic and apostolic church.

74

This was a simple alternative; which might, indeed, be kept out of sight, but could not be refined away, and most assuredly has never been forgotten. The memory of the great truth it conveys was preserved by the writings and teachings of the Puritans, and by those habits of thought natural to an inquisitive age. And when the fullness of time had come, it did not fail to bear its fruit. It continued slowly to fructify; and before the middle of the seventeenth century, its seed had quickened into a life, the energy of which nothing could withstand. That same right of private judgment, which the early Reformers had loudly proclaimed, was now pushed to an extent fatal to those who opposed it. This it was which, carried into politics, overturned the government; and, carried into religion, upset the church. For, rebellion and heresy are but different forms of the same disregard of tradition, the same bold and independent spirit. Both are of the nature of a protest made by modern ideas against old associations. They are as a struggle between the feelings of the present and the memory of the past. Without the exercise of private judgment, such a contest could never take place; the mere conception of it could not enter the minds of men, nor would they even dream of controlling, by their individual energy, those abuses to which all great societies are liable. It is, therefore, in the highest degree natural, that the exercise of this judgment should be opposed by those two powerful classes, who, from their position, their interests, and the habits of their mind, are more prone than any other to cherish antiquity, cleave to superannuated customs, and uphold institutions which, to use their

74 Clarendon (Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 80), in a very angry spirit, but with perfect truth, notices (under the year 1640) the connexion between "a proud and venomous dislike against the discipline of the church of England, and so by degrees (as the progress is very natural) an equal irreverence to the government of the state too." The Spanish government, perhaps, more than any other in Europe, has understood this relation; and even so late as 1789, an edict of Charles IV. declared, "qu'il y a crime d'hérésie dans tout ce qui tend, ou contribue, à propager les idées révolutionnaires." Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, vol. ii. p. 130.

favourite language, have been consecrated by the wisdom of their fathers.

From this point of view, we are able to see with great clearness the intimate connexion which, at the accession of Elizabeth, existed between the English nobles and the Catholic clergy. Notwithstanding many exceptions, an immense majority of both classes opposed the Reformation, because it was based on that right of private judgment, of which they, as the protectors of old opinions, were the natural antagonists. All this can excite no surprise; it was in the order of things, and strictly accordant with the spirit of those two great sections of society. Fortunately, however, for our country, the throne was now occupied by a sovereign who was equal to the emergency, and who, instead of yielding to the two classes, availed herself of the temper of the age to humble them. The manner in which this was effected by Elizabeth, in respect, first to the Catholic clergy, and afterwards to the Protestant clergy, 75 forms one of the most interesting parts of our history; and in an account of the reign of the great queen, I hope to examine it at considerable length. At present, it will be sufficient to glance at her policy towards the nobles,—that other class with which the priesthood, by their interests, opinions, and associations, have always much in com

mon.

Elizabeth, at her accession to the throne, finding that the ancient families adhered to the ancient religion, naturally called to her councils advisers who were more likely to uphold the novelties on which the age was bent. She selected men who, being little burdened by past associations, were more inclined to favour present interests. The two Bacons, the two Cecils, Knollys, Sadler, Smith, Throgmorton, Walsingham, were the most eminent statesmen and diplomatists in her reign; but all of them were commoners; only one did she raise to the peerage; and they were certainly nowise remarkable, either for the rank of their immediate connexions, or for the celebrity of their remote ancestors. They, however, were recommended to Elizabeth by their great abilities, and by their determination to uphold a religion which the ancient aristocracy naturally opposed. And it is observable that, among the accusations which the Catholics brought against the queen, they taunted her, not only with forsaking the old religion, but also with neglecting the old nobility.76

75 The general character of her policy towards the Protestant English bishops is summed up very fairly by Collier; though he, as a professional writer, is naturally displeased with her disregard for the heads of the church. Collier's Eccles. Hist. of Great Britain, vol. vii. pp. 257, 258, edit. Barham, 1840.

76 One of the charges which, in 1588, Sixtus V. publicly brought against Elizabeth, was, that "she hath rejected and excluded the ancient nobility, and promoted

VOL. I.-30

Nor does it require much acquaintance with the history of the time to see the justice of this charge. Whatever explanation we may choose to give of the fact, it cannot be denied that, during the reign of Elizabeth, there was an open and constant opposition between the nobles and the executive government. The rebellion of 1569 was essentially an aristocratic movement; it was a rising of the great families of the north against what they considered the upstart and plebeian administration of the queen." The bitterest enemy of Elizabeth was certainly Mary of Scotland; and the interests of Mary were publicly defended by the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Westmoreland, and the Earl of Arundel; while there is reason to believe that her cause was secretly favoured by the Marquis of Northampton, the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Cumberland, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and the Earl of Sussex,78

The existence of this antagonism of interests could not escape the sagacity of the English government. Cecil, who was the most powerful of the ministers of Elizabeth, and who was

to honour obscure people." Butler's Mem. of the Catholics, vol. ii. p. 4. Persons also reproaches her with her low-born ministers, and says that she was influenced "by five persons in particular-all of them sprung from the earth,-Bacon, Cecil, Dudley, Hatton, and Walsingham." Butler, vol. ii. p. 31. Cardinal Allen taunted her with "disgracing the ancient nobility, erecting base and unworthy persons to all the civil and ecclesiastical dignities." Dodd's Church History, edit. Tierney, 1840, vol. iii. appendix no. xii. p. xlvi. The same influential writer, in his Admonition, said that she had injured England, "by great contempt and abasing of the ancient nobility, repelling them from due government, offices, and places of honour." Allen's Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland, 1588, (reprinted London, 1842), p. xv. Compare the account of the Bull of 1588, in De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. x. p. 175: "On accusoit Elisabeth d'avoir au préjudice de la noblesse angloise élevé aux dignités, tant civiles qu'ecclésiastiques, des hommes nouveaux, sans naissance, et indignes de les posséder."

"To the philosophic historian this rebellion, though not sufficiently appreciated by ordinary writers, is a very important study, because it is the last attempt ever made by the great English families to establish their authority by force of arms. Mr. Wright says, that probably all those who took a leading part in it "were allied by blood or intermarriage with the two families of the Percies and Neviles." Wright's Elizabeth, 1838, vol. i. p. xxxiv.; a valuable work. See also, in Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 730, a list of some of those who, in 1571, were attainted on account of this rebellion, and who are said to be "all of the best families in the north of England." But the most complete evidence we have respecting this struggle, consists of the collection of original documents published in 1840 by Sir C. Sharpe, under the title of Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569. They show very clearly the real nature of the outbreak. On 17th November, 1569, Sir George Bowes writes, that the complaint of the insurgents was that "there was certaine counsellors cropen" (i. e. crept) "in aboute the prince, which had excluded the nobility from the prince," &c., Memorials, p. 42; and the editor's note says that this is one of the charges made in all the proclamations by the earls. Perhaps the most curious proof of how notorious the policy of Elizabeth had become, is contained in a friendly letter from Sussex to Cecil, dated 5th January, 1569 (Memorials, p. 137), one paragraph of which begins, "Of late years few young noblemen have been employed in service."

T Hallam, i. p 130; Lingard, v. pp. 97, 102; Turner, xii. pp. 245, 247.

at the head of affairs for forty years, made it part of his business to study the genealogies and material resources of the great families; and this he did, not out of idle curiosity, but in order to increase his control over them, or, as a great historian says, to let them know" that his eye was upon them." The queen herself, though too fond of power, was by no means of a cruel disposition; but she seemed to delight in humbling the nobles. On them her hand fell heavily; and there is hardly to be found a single instance of her pardoning their offences, while she punished several of them for acts which would now be considered no offences at all. She was always unwilling to admit them to authority; and it is unquestionably true that, taking them as a class, they were during her long and prosperous reign treated with unusual disrespect. Indeed, so clearly marked was her policy, that when the ducal order became extinct, she refused to renew it; and a whole generation passed away to whom the name of duke was a mere matter of history, a point to be mooted by antiquaries, but with which the business of practical life had no concern.80 Whatever may be her other faults, she was on this subject always consistent. Although she evinced the greatest anxiety to surround the throne with men of ability, she cared little for those conventional distinctions by which the minds of ordinary sovereigns are greatly moved. She made no account of dignity of rank; she did not even care for purity of blood. She valued men neither for the splendour of their ancestry, nor for the length of their pedigrees, nor for the grandeur of their titles. Such questions she left for her degenerate successors, to the size of whose understandings they were admirably fitted. Our great queen regulated her conduct by another standard. Her large and powerful intellect, cultivated to its highest point by reflection and study, taught her the true measure of affairs, and enabled her to see, that to make a government flourish, its councillors must be men of ability and of virtue; but that if these two conditions are fulfilled, the nobles may be left to repose in the enjoyment of their leisure, unoppressed by those cares of the state for which, with a few brilliant exceptions, they are naturally dis

7 Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 241; an interesting passage. Turner (Hist. of England, vol. xii. p. 237) says, that Cecil "knew the tendency of the great lords to combine against the crown, that they might reinstate the peerage in the power from which the house of Tudor had depressed it."

80 In 1572 the order of dukes became extinct; and was not revived till fifty years afterwards, when James I. made the miserable Villiers, duke of Buckingham. Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 397. This evidently attracted attention; for Ben Jonson, in one of his comedies in 1616, mentions "the received heresy that England bears no dukes." Jonson's Works, edit. Gifford, 1816, vol. v. p. 47, where Gifford, not being aware of the extinction in 1572, has made an unsatisfactory note.

qualified by the number of their prejudices and by the frivolity of their pursuits.

After the death of Elizabeth, an attempt was made, first by James, and then by Charles, to revive the power of the two great protective classes, the nobles and the clergy. But so admirably had the policy of Elizabeth been supported by the general temper of the age, that it was found impossible for the Stuarts to execute their mischievous plans. The exercise of private judgment, both in religion and in politics, had become so habitual, that these princes were unable to subjugate it to their will. And as Charles I., with inconceivable blindness, and with an obstinacy even greater than that of his father, persisted in adopting in their worst forms the superannuated theories of protection, and attempted to enforce a scheme of government which men, from their increasing independence, were determined to reject, there inevitably arose that memorable collision which is well termed the great Rebellion of England. The analogy between this and the Protestant Reformation, I have already noticed; but what we have now to consider, and what in the next chapter, I will endeavour to trace, is the nature of the difference between our Rebellion, and those contemporary wars of the Fronde, to which it was in some respects very similar.

61

81 Clarendon (Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 216) truly calls it "the most prodigious and the boldest rebellion, that any age or country ever brought forth." See also some striking remarks in Warwick's Memoirs, p. 207.