tion for

martial

Power beyond the So

the people fo reprefented, being freemen, were Obliga- trained univerfally to bear arms, and were under penalties to prefent themselves, at stated exercife. periods, for martial exercife in their counties and fhires. Only because he wielded an authority, therefore, not ftrictly his, and for the ufe of which he was not directly refponfible, could the fovereign in fuch cafe ever affume to be all-powerful. There was a power beyond, which the people had now for two centuries vereign. uniformly recognised, and which alone could be the inftrument, whoever might be the immediate agent, of changes affecting themfelves. They faw the lower House continue to grant fubfidies, not to be raised by any other means; and they faw it continued to be ufed in the propofal of ftatutes, which without All legif- its confent could never become binding. It lation in gave their fole validity to the bills of attainder which ftruck down the guilty, or shed the blood of the innocent; and only by its fanction had one-fifth of the landed property of the nation been transferred fuddenly to new proprietors. As the times of the Tudors wore on, too, and left the character of their work, and its refults, more vifible, the members of that House began to claim for it worthier Subftance affociations. "I have heard of old Parliaas well as "ment men," faid Peter Wentworth from his place there, in the latter half of Elizabeth's by them reign," that the banishment of the Pope and "Popery, and the reftoring of true Religion, "had their beginning from this houfe, and "not from the bifhops."

name of Commons.

form claimed

beth's

of the

Queen:

dema

by the people, however, either through themfelves or their reprefentatives, in this great reign. The authority of the two Houfes had Elizabeen reduced, at her acceffion, to a point fo reign. low that not a barrier any longer interpofed itself between the fovereign authority and the popular allegiance. But in placing herself Character freely amongst her fubjects, in making their interests hers, in condefcending to their amusements and their prejudices, as if they were her children, they were yet made to feel that they must fubmit themselves to the difcipline of children. Defiring rather the fame of A foa fovereign demagogue than a fovereign prince, vereign the afpiring tendencies found no countenance gogue. from her, and the mayor and the alderman had better chances of her favour than the man of literature or genius. But the people had their AdvanSpenfers and their Shakespeares, in her defpite; tages they had their translation of the Bible, with of the People. its leffons of charity and brotherhood; they had as free access to the literature of the ancient writers as to that of the living and furpaffing genius which furrounded them; adventure and chivalry moved, in well-known forms and living realities, through the land 1; Results of and the commoneft people might lift caps, as the Rethey paffed along the ftreets, to Drake, to formation. Sidney, or to Raleigh. The work was thus far accomplished which Erafmus and his friends at Oxford had begun; and it was only neceffary that thofe rifing influences that had Oxford marked the acceffion of the Tudor family leffons should appear in full and active operation on complete. the minds of the English people, to fentence to

Change

ing.

a gradual but certain downfall the half-political impend half-patriarchal fyftem of this famous woman, by far the greatest of her race. The fons and daughters of the Arcadia were the parents of the men of Charles and Cromwell.

Rife of

difcon

tent.

The

The Queen had been twelve years upon the religious throne when difcontent took an ominous and threatening form. An effential feature in the Tudor fyftem had been that the framework of the ancient hierarchy of Rome fhould be left untouched. At a time when politics were fuddenly become fubordinated to religion, the idea of unlimited fpiritual dominion was too valuable to be furrendered, carrying with it, as it did by a very fimple analogy, unlimited temporal dominion alfo. This dominion had moreover been placed, by the aids of fupremacy blished and uniformity, at the abfolute use and difpofal Church. of the fovereign; and in thus formally affuming the caft-off robes of the Pope, Elizabeth rivalled her father in the even partiality of her perfecutions. Indeed, her antagonism to the Romanist was in fome refpects less keen and perfonal than to the Proteftant non-conImpulfes formist. She loved to the latest moment of of Refor her life the gorgeous ceremonials of religion, reftrained, as fhe cherished all that placed in fubjection to

newly efta

mation

over

authority the fenfes and the faith of men; and

while, with this feeling, fhe adhered to forms.

and ceremonies which her mafculine fenfe A danger would elfe have put afide in fcorn, and clothed her own bishops with the fupreme authority fhe had ftruck down from thofe of Rome, she unhappily overlooked altogether the poffibility of danger from fuch reftraints to the impulfes

looked.

of the Reformation. But this danger was now at hand.

In the year 1570, the institution of epif-Cartwright's copacy in the Proteftant church was openly Lectures affailed by the Lady Margaret's profeffor of at Cambridge. divinity at Cambridge. There had been an 1570. active difcuffion going on for fome years, on matters of minor confideration. Tippets had been violently contefted, and fad and ferious had been disputes upon the furplice. But now, to the amazement of the imperious Parker, who had declared that he would maintain to the death these effentials of the new religion, all further mention of fuch matters ceafed, and the archbishop was fummoned to maintain to the death neither tippet nor furplice, but the whole ecclefiaftical hierarchy of England. Cart- Puritan wright's lectures were as a match to a train, party and a formidable party of puritans ftarted up in England. It is not, however, neceffary to dwell on the ftruggle that enfued. It was fo far conducted with fpirit by individual members of the Houfe of Commons, as to achieve Its leaders feveral folid acceffions to the privileges of that in House house, and to leave on lasting record a valuable of Comprotest against the Tudor fyftem as one which centuries of English liberty rejected and difclaimed. Indeed, if Elizabeth had been lefs wife and prudent, if her perfonal expenditure had been wafteful or her exchequer ill fupplied, it might have gone hardly with her. In vain fhe Vain atpacked the house with placemen, and flooded the tempts to country party with upwards of fixty new mem-them. bers. Still the Stricklands and the Wentworths remained, and still in every feffion there was

mons.

fubdue

Laft act of

eft Tudor.

at least placed on record the duty and right of parliament to inquire into every public matter and to remedy every proved abuse. The cry of English liberty was never raised more piercingly, though it remained for later days. to fend back to it a louder and more terrible echo.

Elizabeth herself, in the clofing years of her the great reign, fhowed that the had not remained unconscious or unmoved by the vehemence and fharpness of that cry. Greatest of the Tudors as the unquestionably was, it was when her authority might feem to have been moft weakened, that fhe bequeathed to the race which fucceeded hers, by her last act of fovereignty, an example which might have faved them the throne, if they could have profited by it. Unhappily they could only imitate her in the qualities which provoked, and not in those which fubdued or turned aside, resistance. It is a ftriking fact in the career of this great Queen, that she could put afide her hatred and pathy to contempt even of Puritanifm itself, when fhe Puritans.faw it had become fo transfufed with the defires and wants of the people as to represent no longer a religious difcontent alone.

Eliza

beth's anti

with

While

fhe believed it to be confined within that limit, the prison and the rack were the only replies Puritan fhe made to it: becaufe fhe knew that from fympathy all ferious attacks to maintain it, the cause she championed then protected her most effectbeth. ually; and that from the very dungeons into which he might throw the Puritan leaders, they would yet be ready to offer up, as they did, their prayers for the fafety of herself and

Eliza