England, besides, still continued to possess the immense advantage of being one undivided state.

Had it been, like France, divided into several distinct dominions, it would also have had several national assemblies. These assemblies, being convened at different times and places, for this and other reasons never could have acted in concert; and the power of withholding subsidies, a power so important when it is that of disabling the sovereign, and binding him down to inaction, would then have only been the destructive privilege of irritating a master, who would have easily found means of obtaining supplies from other quarters.

The different parliaments, or assemblies of these seve45 ral states, having thenceforth no means of recommending themselves to their sovereign but their forwardness in complying with his demands, would have vied with each other in granting what it would not only have been fruitless, but even highly dangerous, to refuse. The king would not have failed soon to demand, as a tribute, a gift he must have been confident to obtain; and the outward form of consent would have been left to the people, only as an additional means of oppressing them without danger.

But the King of England continued, even in the time of the Tudors, to have but one assembly before which he could lay his wants, and apply for relief. How great soever the increase of his power was, a single parliament alone could furnish him with the means of exercising it; and whether it was that the members of this parliament entertained a deep sense of their advantages, or whether private interest exerted itself in aid of patriotism, they at all times vindicated the right of granting, or rather refusing, subsidies; and amidst the general wreck

of every thing they ought to have held dear, they at least clung obstinately to the plank which was destined to prove the instrument of their preservation.

Under Edward VI., the absurd tyrannical laws 46 against high treason (instituted under Henry VIII.) were abolished. But this young and virtuous prince having soon passed away, the bloodthirsty Mary astonished the world with cruelties, which nothing but the fanaticism of a part of her subjects could have enabled her to execute.

Under the long and brilliant reign of Elizabeth, England began to breathe anew, and the Protestant religion, being seated once more on the throne, brought with it some more freedom and toleration.

The Star Chamber, that effectual instrument of the tyranny of the two Henries, yet continued to subsist: the inquisitorial tribunal of the High Commission (2) was even instituted; and the yoke of arbitrary power lay still heavy on the subject. But the general affection of the people for a queen, whose former misfortunes had created such a general concern, the imminent dangers which England escaped, and the extreme glory attending that reign, lessened the sense

(2) "The Court of High Commission in ecclesiastical causes" was erected under the statute of this queen, which revived those of 26 and 35 Henry 8, declaring the king supreme head of the church; and although it was an inquisitorial tribunal, yet so mildly was it conducted, that it was generally held at the time that the commissioners ought to confine themselves to offences against the laws then newly made for the protection of the reformed religion, and to inflict ecclesiastical censure as a punishment rather than fine or imprisonment; and the Judges mostly gave relief to all who felt themselves aggrieved by this commission.-Editor.

of such exertions of authority, as would, in these days, appear the height of tyranny, and served at that 47 time to justify, as they still do to excuse, a princess whose great talents, though not her principles of government, render her worthy of being ranked among the greatest sovereigns.

Under the reign of the Stuarts, the nation began to recover from its long lethargy. James the First, a prince rather imprudent than tyrannical, drew back the veil which had hitherto disguised so many usurpations, and made an ostentatious display of what his predecessors had been contented to enjoy.

He was incessantly asserting that the authority of kings was not to be controlled, any more than that of God himself. Like Him, they were omnipotent; and those privileges to which the people so clamorously laid claim as their inheritance and birthright, were no more than an effect of the grace and toleration of his royal ancestors (b).

Those principles, hitherto only silently adopted in the cabinet and in the courts of justice, had maintained their ground in consequence of this very ob48 scurity. Being now announced from the throne, and resounded from the pulpit, they spread an universal alarm. Commerce, besides, with its attendant arts, and above all that of printing, diffused more salutary notions throughout all orders of the people; a new light began to rise upon the nation, and that spirit of opposition frequently displayed itself in this reign,

(b) See his declaration made in parliament in the years 1610

and 1621.

to which the English monarchs had not for a long time past been accustomed.

But the storm, which was only gathering in clouds during the reign of James, began to mutter under Charles I., his successor; and the scene which opened to view, on the accession of that Prince, presented the most formidable aspect.

The notions of religion, by a singular concurrence, united with the love of liberty: the same spirit which had made an attack upon the established faith, now directed itself to politics: the royal prerogatives were brought under the same examination as the doctrines of the church of Rome had been submitted to; and as a superstitious religion had proved unable to support the test, so neither could an authority, pretended to be unlimited, be expected to bear it.

The commons, on the other hand, were recovering from the astonishment into which the extinction 49 of the power of the nobles had at first thrown them. Taking a view of the state of the nation, and of their own, they became sensible of their whole strength; they determined to make use of it, and to repress a power, which seemed for so long a time to have levelled every barrier. Finding amongst themselves men of the greatest capacity, they undertook that important task with method and by constitutional means; and thus had Charles to cope with a whole nation, put in motion and directed by an assembly of statesmen.

And here we must observe, how different were the effects produced in England by the annihilation of the power of the nobility, from those which the same events had produced in France.

In France, where, in consequence of the division of the people, and of the exorbitant power of the nobles, the people were accounted nothing, when the nobles themselves were suppressed, the work was completed.

In England, on the contrary, where the nobles had ever vindicated the rights of the people equally with their own,-in England, where the people had successively 50 acquired most effectual means of influencing the motions of the government, and above all were undivided, when the nobles themselves were cast to the ground, the body of the people stood firm, and maintained the public liberty.

The unfortunate Charles was, however, totally ignorant of the dangers that surrounded him. Seduced by the example of the other sovereigns of Europe, he was not aware how different in reality his situation was from theirs: he had the imprudence to exert with rigour, an authority which he had no ultimate resources to support: a union was at last effected in the nation, and he saw his enervated prerogatives 51 dissipated with a breath (c). By the famous Act, called

(c) It might here be objected, that when, under Charles I., the regal power was obliged to submit to the power of the people, the king possessed other dominions besides England, viz Scotland and Ireland, and therefore seemed to enjoy the same advantage as the kings of France, that of reigning over a divided empire or nation. But to this it is to be answered, that, at the time we mention, Ireland, scarcely civilized, only increased the necessities, and consequently the dependence, of the king; while Scotland, through the conjunction of peculiar circumstances, had thrown off her obedience. And though those two states, even at present, bear no proportion to the compact body of the kingdom of England, and seem never to have been able, by their union with it, to procure to the king any dangerous resources, yet the circumstances which took place in both at