permitted to encroach on his more important duties he assisted at the council, perused his dispatches, and corresponded with his generals and ambassadors: nor did the minister, trusted and powerful as he was, dare to act till he had asked the opinion, and taken the pleasure of his sovereign. His natural abilities had been improved by study; and his esteem for literature may be inferred from the learned education which he gave to his children, and from the number of eminent scholars to whom he granted pensions in foreign states, or on whom he conferred promotion in his own. The immense treasure which he inherited from his father was perhaps a misfortune; because it engendered habits of expense not to be supported from the ordinary revenue of the crown and the soundness of his politics may be doubted, which, under the pretence of supporting the balance of power, repeatedly involved the nation in continental hostilities. Yet even these errors served to throw a lustre round the English throne, and raised its possessor in the eyes of his own subjects and of the different nations of Europe. But as the king advanced in age, his vices gradually developed themselves: after the death of Wolsey they were indulged without restraint. He became as rapacious as he was prodigal; as obstinate as he was capricious; as fickle in his friendships as he was merciless in his resentments. Though liberal of his confidence, he soon grew suspicious of those whom he had ever trusted; and, as if he possessed no other right to the crown than that which he derived from the very questionable claim of his father, he viewed with

an evil eye every remote descendant of the Plantagenets; and eagerly embraced the slightest pretexts to remove those whom his jealousy represented as future rivals to himself or his posterity. In pride and vanity he was, perhaps, without a parallel. Inflated with the praises of interested admirers, he despised the judgment of others; acted as if he deemed himself infallible in matters of policy and religion; and seemed to look upon dissent from his opinions as equivalent to a breach of allegiance. In his estimation, to submit and to obey, were the great, the paramount duties of subjects: and this persuasion steeled his breast against remorse for the blood which he shed, and led him to trample without scruple on the liberties of the nation.

When he ascended the throne, there still existed a spirit of freedom, which, on more than one occasion, defeated the arbitrary measures of the court, though directed by an able minister, and supported by the authority of the sovereign: but in the lapse of a few years that spirit had fled, and before the death of Henry the king of England had grown into a despot, the people had shrunk into a nation of slaves. The cause of this important change in the relation between the sovereign and his subjects, may be found not so much in the abilities or passions of the former, as in the obsequiousness of his parliaments, the assumption of the ecclesiastical supremacy, and the servility of the two religious parties which divided the nation.

LINGARD.

EDWARD VI.

It would be idle to delineate the character of a prince, who lived not till his passions could develop themselves, or his faculties acquire maturity. His education, like that of his two sisters, began at an early age. In abilities he was equal, perhaps superior, to most boys of his years; and his industry and improvement amply repaid the solicitude of his tutors. But the extravagant praises which have been lavished on him by his panegyrists and admirers may be received with some degree of caution. In the French and Latin letters, to which they appeal, it is difficult to separate the composition of the pupil from the corrections of the master: and since, to raise his reputation, deceptions are known to have been employed on some occasions, it may be justifiable to suspect that they were practised on others. The boy of twelve or fourteen years was accustomed to pronounce his opinion in the council with all the gravity of a hoary statesman. he had been previously informed of the subjects to be discussed; his preceptors had supplied him with short notes, which he committed to memory: and while he delivered their sentiments as his own, the lords, whether they were aware or not of the artifice, admired and applauded the precocious wisdom with which heaven had gifted their sovereign.

But

Edward's religious belief could not have been the result of his own judgment. He was compelled to take it on trust from those about him,

who moulded his infant mind to their own pleasure, and infused into it their own opinions or prejudices. From them he derived a strong sense of piety, and a habit of daily devotion, a warm attachment to the new, and a violent antipathy to the ancient doctrines. He believed it to be the first of his duties to extirpate what he had been taught to deem the idolatrous worship of his fathers; and with his last breath he wafted a prayer to heaven for the preservation of his subjects from the infection of "papistry." Yet it may be a question whether his early death has not proved a benefit to the Church of England, as it is at present established. His sentiments, like those of his instructors, were tinged with Calvinism: attempts were made to persuade him that episcopacy was an expensive and unnecessary institution; and the courtiers, whose appetite for church property had been whetted rather than satisfied by former spoliations, looked impatiently towards the entire suppression of the bishoprics and chapters. Of the possessions belonging to these establishments, one half had already been seized by the royal favourites: in the course of a few years their rapacity would have devoured the remainder.

LINGARD.

MARY.

THE foulest blot on the character of this queen is the long and cruel persecution of the reformers. The sufferings of the victims naturally begot an antipathy to the woman, by whose authority they

were inflicted.

It is, however, but fair to recollect what I have already noticed, that the extirpation of erroneous doctrines was inculcated as a duty by the leaders of every religious party. Mary only practised what they taught. It was her misfortune, rather than her fault, that she was not more enlightened than the wisest of her contemporaries.

With this exception, she has been ranked by the more moderate of the reformed writers, among the best, though not the greatest of our princes. They have borne honourable testimony to her virtues; have allotted to her the praise of piety and clemency, of compassion to the poor, and liberality to the distressed; and have recorded her solicitude to restore to opulence the families that had been unjustly deprived of their possessions by her father and brother, and to provide for the wants of the parochial clergy, who had been reduced to penury by the spoliations of the last government. It is acknowledged that her moral character was beyond reproof. It extorted respect from all, even from the most virulent of her enemies. The ladies of her household copied the conduct of their mistress: and the decency of Mary's court was often mentioned with applause by those who lamented the dissoluteness which prevailed in that of her successor.

The queen was thought by some to have inherited the obstinacy of her father; but there was this difference, that before she formed her decisions, she sought for advice and information, and made it an invariable rule to prefer right to expediency. One of the outlaws, who had ob