liarly valuable. It is impossible not to admire the evenhanded justice with which he deals out castigation to right and left on the rival persecutors.

It is vehemently maintained by some writers of the present day, that the government of Elizabeth persecuted neither Papists nor Puritans as sich; and occasionally that the severe measures which it adopted were dictated, not by religious intolerance, but by political necessity. Even the excellent account of those times, which Mr. Hallam has given, has not altogether imposed silence on the authors of this fallacy. The title of the Queen, they say, was annulled by the Pope; her throne was given to another; her subjects were incited to rebellion; her life was menaced; every Catholic was bound in conscience to be a traitor; it was therefore against traitors, not against Catholics, that the penal laws were enacted.

That our readers may be the better able to appreciate the merits of this defence, we will state, as concisely as possible, the substance of some of these laws.

As soon as Elizabeth ascended the throne, and before the least hostility to her government had been shown by the Catholic population, an act passed, prohibiting the celebration of the rites of the Romish church, on pain of forfeiture for the first offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, and perpetual imprisonment for the third.

that if any Catholic shall convert a Protestam to the Romish church, they shall both suffe death, as for high treason.

We believe that we might safely content ourselves with stating the fact, and leaving it to the judgment of every plain Englishman. Recent controversies have, however, given so much importance to this subject, that we will offer a few remarks on it.

In the first place, the arguments which are urged in favour of Elizabeth, apply with much greater force to the case of her sister Mary. The Catholics did not, at the time of Eliza. beth's accession, rise in arms to seat a Pretender on her throne. But before Mary had given, or could give provocation, the most distinguished Protestants attempted to set aside her rights in favour of the Lady Jane. That attempt, and the subsequent insurrection of Wyatt, furnished at least as good a plea for the burning of Protestants as the conspiracies against Elizabeth furnish for the hanging and embowelling of Papists.

The fact is, that both pleas are worthless alike. If such arguments are to pass current, it will be easy to prove that there was never such a thing as religious persecution since the creation. For there never was a religious persecution, in which some odious crime was not justly or unjustly said to be obviously deducible from the doctrines of the persecuted party. We might say that the Cæsars did not persecute the Christians; that they only pu nished men who were charged, rightly or wrongly, with burning Rome, and with com mitting the foulest abominations in their as semblies; that the refusal to throw frankincence on the altar of Jupiter was not the crime, but only evidence of the crime. We might say that the massacre of St. Bartholemew was intended to extirpate, not a religious sect, but a political party. For, beyond all doubt, the proceedings of the Huguenots, from the conspiracy of Amboise to the battle of Mon coutour, had given much more trouble to the French monarchy than the Catholics have ever given to England since the Reformation; and that too with much less excuse.

A law was next made, in 1562, enacting, that all who had ever graduated at the Universities, or received holy orders, all lawyers, and all magistrates, should take the oath of supremacy when tendered to them, on pain of forfeiture, and imprisonment during the royal pleasure. After the lapse of three months, it might again be tendered to them; and, if it were again refused, the recusant was guilty of high treason. A prospective law, however severe, framed to exclude Catholics from the liberal professions, would have been mercy itself compared with this odious act. It is a retrospective statute; it is a retrospective penal statute; it is a retrospective penal statute against a large class. We will not positively affirm that a law of this description must always, and under all circum- The true distinction is perfectly obvious. stances, be unjustifiable. But the presumption To punish a man because he has committed a against it is most violent; nor do we remem- crime, or is believed, though unjustly, to have ber any crisis, either in our own history, or in committed a crime, is not persecution. To the history of any other country, which would punish a man because we infer from the na have rendered such a provision necessary. ture of some doctrine which he holds, or from But in the present, what circumstances called the conduct of other persons who hold the same for extraordinary rigour? There might be doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, disaffection among the Catholics. The prohi- is persecution; and is, in every case, foolish bition of their worship would naturally pro-and wicked. duce it. But it is from their situation, not from When Elizabeth put Ballard and Babington their conduct; from the wrongs which they to death, she was not persecuting. Nor should had suffered, not from those which they had committed, that the existence of discontent among them must be inferred. There were libels, no doubt, and prophecies, and rumours, and suspicions; strange grounds for a law inflicting capital penalties, ex post facto, on a large order of men.

Eight years later, the bull of Pius deposing Elizabeth produced a third law. This law, to which alone, as we conceive, the defence nov ander our consideration can apply, J rovides,

we have accused her government of persecu tion for passing any law, however severe, against overt acts of sedition. But to argue that because a man is a Catholic he must think it right to murder an heretical sovereign, and that because he thinks it right he will at tempt to do it, and then to found on this con. clusion a law for punishing him as if he had done it, is plain persecution.

If, indeed, all men reasoned in the same manner on the same dara, and always did what

they thought it their duty to do, this mode of dispensing punishment might be extremely judicious. But as people who agree about premises often disagree about conclusions, and as no man in the world acts up to his own standard of right, there are two enormous gaps in the logic by which alone penalties for opinions can be defended. The doctrine of reprobation, in the judgment of many very able men, follows by syllogistic necessity from the doctrine of election. Others conceive that the Antinomian and Manichean heresies directly follow from the doctrine of reprobation; and it is very generally thought that licentiousness and cruelty of the worst description are likely to be the fruits, as they often have been the fruits, of Antinomian and Manichean opinions. This chain of reasoning, we think, is as perfect in all its parts as that which makes out a Papist to be necessarily a traitor. Yet it would be rather a strong measure to hang the Calvinists, on the ground that if they were spared they would infallibly commit all the atrocities of Matthias and Knipperdoling. For, reason the matter as we may, experience shows us that a man may believe in election without believing in reprobation, that he may believe in reprobation without being an Antinomian, and that he may be an Antinomian without being a bad citizen. Man, in short, is so inconsistent a creature, that it is impossible to reason from his belief to his conduct, or from one part of his belief to another.

who would have admitted in theory the depos ing power of the Pope, but who would not have been ambitious to be stretched on the rack even though it were to be used, according to the benevolent proviso of Lord Burleigh, "as charitably as such a thing can be;" or to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, even though, by that rare indulgence which the queen, of her especial grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, sometimes extended to very mitigated cases, he were allowed a fair time to choke before the hangman began to grabble in his entrails.

But the laws passed against the Puritans had not even the wretched excuse which we have been considering. In their case the cruelty was equal, the danger infinitely less. In fact the danger was created solely by the cruelty. But it is superfluous to press the argument. By no artifice of ingenuity can the stigma of persecution, the worst blemish of the English church, be effaced or patched over. Her doctrines we well know do not tend to intolerance. She admits the possibility of salvation out of her own pale. But this circumstance, in itself honourable to her, aggravates the sin and the shame of those who persecuted in her name. Dominic and De Monfort did not at least murder and torture for differences of opinion which they considered as trifling. It was to stop an infection which, as they believed, hurried to perdition every soul which it seized that they employed their fire and steel. The measures We do not believe that every Englishman of the English government with respect to the who was reconciled to the Catholic church Papists and Puritans sprang from a widely would, as a necessary consequence, have different principle. If those who deny that the thought himself justified in deposing or assas- supporters of the Established Church were sinating Elizabeth. It is not sufficient to say guilty of religious persecution mean only that that the convert must have acknowledged the they were not influenced by religious motives, authority of the Pope, and that the Pope had we perfectly agree with them. Neither the issued a bull against the queen. We know penal code of Elizabeth, nor the more hateful through what strange loopholes the human system by which Charles the Second attempt. mind contrives to escape, when it wishes to ed to force Episcopacy on the Scotch, had an avoid a disagreeable inference from an admit-origin so noble. Their cause is to be sought ted proposition. We know how long the Jansenists contrived to believe the Pope infallible in matters of doctrine, and at the same time to believe doctrines which he pronounced to be heretical. Let it pass, however, that every Catholic in the kingdom thought that Elizabeth might be lawfully murdered. Still the old maxim, that what is the business of every body is the business of nobody, is particularly likely to hold good in a case in which a cruel death is the almost inevitable consequence of making any attempt.

Of the ten thousand clergymen of the Church of England, there is scarcely one who would not say that a man who should leave his country and friends to preach the gospel among savages, and who should, after labouring indefatigably without any hope of reward, terminate his life by martyrdom, would deserve the warmest admiration. Yet we doubt whether ten of the ten thousand ever thought of going on such an expedition. Why should we suppose that conscientious motives, feeble as they | are constantly found to be in a good cause, should be omnipotent for evil? Doubtless there was many a jolly Popish priest in the old nanor-houses of the northern counties,

in some circumstances which attended the Reformation in England-circumstances of which the effects long continued to be felt, and may in some degree be traced even at the present day.

In Germany, in France, in Switzerland, and in Scotland, the contest against the Papal power was essentially a religious contest. In all these countries, indeed, the cause of the Reformation, like every other great cause, attracted to itself many supporters influenced by no conscientious principle, many who quitted the Established Church only because they thought her in danger, many who were weary of her restraints, and many who were greedy for her spoils. But it was not by these adherents that the separation was there conducted. They were welcome auxiliaries; their support was too often purchased by unworthy compliances; but, however exalted in rank or power, they were not the leaders in the enter prise. Men of a widely different description, men who redeemed great infirmities and errors by sincerity, disinterestedness, energy, and cou. rage; men who, with many of the vices of re volutionary chiefs and of polemic divines, unit ed some of the highest qualities of apostles,

were the real directors. They might be vioent in innovation, and scurrilous in controversy. They might sometimes act with inexcusable severity towards opponents, and sometimes connive disreputably at the vices of powerful allies. But fear was not in them, nor hypocrisy, nor avarice, nor any petty selfishness. Their one great object was the demolition of the idols, and the purification of the sanctuary. If they were too indulgent to the failings of eminent men, from whose patronage they expected advantage to the church, they neɣer flinched before persecuting tyrants and hostile armies. If they set the lives of others at nought in comparison of their doctrines, they were equally ready to throw away their

own.

the sense of Mr. Hallam, and to comment on
it thus: If we consider Cranmer merely as a
statesman, he will not appear a much worse
man than Wolsey, Gardiner, Cromwell, or So
merset.

But when an attempt is made to set
him up as a saint, it is scarcely possible for
any man of sense, who knows the history of
the times well, to preserve his gravity. If the
memory of the archbishop had been left to
find its own place, he would soon have been
lost among the crowd which is mingled
"A quel cattivo coro

Degli' angeli, che non furon ribelli,
Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se furo."
And the only notice which it would have been
necessary to take of his name, would have

"Non ragioniam di lui; ma guarda, e passa." But when his admirers challenge for him place in the noble army of martyrs, his claims require fuller discussion.

Such were the authors of the great been schism on the continent and in the northern part of this island. The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of Condé and the King of Navarre, Moray and Morton, might espouse the Protestant opinions, or might pretend to espouse them; but it was from Luther, from Calvin, from Knox, that the Reformation took its character.

The shameful origin of his history, common enough in the scandalous chronicles of courts, seems strangely out of place in a hagiology. Cranmer rose into favour by serving Henry in a disgraceful affair of his first divorce. He promoted the marriage of Anne Boleyn with the king. On a frivolous pretence he pronounced it null and void. Ón a pretence, if possible, still more frivolous, he dissolved the ties which bound the shameless tyrant to Anne of Cleves. He attached himself to Cromwell, while the fortunes of Cromwell flourished. He voted for cutting off his head without a trial, when the tide of royal favour turned. He conformed backwards and forwards as the king changed his mind. While Henry lived, he assisted in condemning to the flames those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. When Henry died, he found out that the doctrine was false. He was, however, not at a loss for people to burn. The authority of his station, and of his gray hairs, was employed to overcome the disgust with which an intelligent and virtuous child regarded persecution.

England has no such names to show; not that she wanted men of sincere piety, of deep learning, of steady and adventurous courage. But these were thrown into the back-ground. Elsewhere men of this character were the principals. Here they acted a secondary part. Elsewhere worldliness was the tool of zeal. Here zeal was the tool of worldliness. A king, whose character may be best described by saying that he was despotism itself personified, unprincipled ministers, a rapacious aristocracy, a servile parliament-such were the instruments by which England was delivered from the yoke of Rome. The work which had been begun by Henry, the murderer of his wives, was continued by Somerset, the murderer of his brother, and completed by Elizabeth, the murderer of her guest. Sprung from brutal passion, nurtured by selfish policy, the Reformation in England displayed little of what had in other countries distinguished it-unflinching and unsparing devotion, boldness of speech, Intolerance is always bad. But the sanand singleness of eye. These were indeed to be found; but it was in the lower ranks of the guinary intolerance of a man who thus waparty which opposed the authority of Rome, in vered in his creed, excites a loathing to which such men as Hooper, Latimer, Rogers, and it is difficult to give vent without calling foul Taylor. Of those who had any important names. Equally false to political and to re share in bringing the alteration about, the ex-ligious obligations, he was first the tool of cellent Ridley was perhaps the only person Somerset, and then the tool of Northumber who did not consider it as a mere political job. Even Ridley did not play a very prominent part. Among the statesmen and prelates who principally give the tone to the religious changes there is one, and one only, whose conduct partiality itself can attribute to any other than interested motives. It is not strange, therefore, that his character should have been the subject of fierce controversy. We need not say that we speak of Cranmer.

Mr. Hallam has been severely censured for saying, with his usual placid severity, that "if we weigh the character of this prelate in an equal balance, he will appear far indeed removed from the turpitude imputed to him by his enemies; yet not entitled to any extraordinary veneration." We will venture to expand

land. When the former wished to put his
own brother to death, without even the form
of a trial, he found a ready instrument in
Cranmer. In spite of the canon law, which
forbade a churchman to take any part in mat-
When So
ters of blood, the archbishop signed the war-
rant for the atrocious sentence.
merset had been in his turn destroyed, his de
stroyer received the support of Cranmer in his
attempt to change the course of the succes
sion.

The apology made for him by his admirers only renders his conduct more contemptible. He complied, it is said, against his better judg ment, because he could not resist the entrea ties of Edward! A holy prelate of sixty, one would think, might be better employed by the

and have nothing to hope or to fear on earth. If Mary had suffered him to live, we suspect that he would have heard mass, and received absolution, like a good Catholic, till the acces sion of Elizabeth; and that he would then have purchased, by another apostasy, the power of burning men better and braver than himself.

bedside of a dying child, than committing crimes at the request of his disciple. If he had shown half as much firmness when Edward requested him to commit treason, as he had before shown when Edward requested him not to commit murder, he might have saved the country from one of the greatest misfortunes that it ever underwent. He became, from whatever motive, the accomplice of the We do not mean, however, to represent him worthless Dudley. The virtuous scruples of as a monster of wickedness. He was not another young and amiable mind were to be wantonly cruel or treacherous. He was mereovercome. As Edward had been forced into ly a supple, timid, interested courtier, in times persecution, Jane was to seduced into usurpa- of frequent and violent change. That which tion. No transaction in our annals is more has always been represented as his distinguishunjustifiable than this. If a hereditary title ing virtue, the facility with which he forgave were to be respected, Mary possessed it. If a his enemies, belongs to the character. Those parliamentary title were preferable, Mary pos- of his class are never vindictive, and never sessed that also. If the interest of the Pro- grateful. A present interest effaces past sertestant religion required a departure from the vices and past injuries from their minds toordinary rule of succession, that interest would gether. Their only object is self-preservation; have been best served by raising Elizabeth to and for this they conciliate those who wrong the throne. If the foreign relations of the them, just as they abandon those who serve kingdom were considered, still stronger rea- them. Before we extol a man for his forgiv sons might be found for preferring Elizabething temper, we should inquire whether he is to Jane. There was great doubt whether Jane or the Queen of Scotland had the better claim; and that doubt would, in all probability, have produced a war, both with Scotland and with France, if the project of Northumberland had not been blasted in its infancy. That Elizabeth had a better claim than the Queen of Scotland was indisputable. To the part which Cranmer, and unfortunately some better men than Cranmer, took in this most reprehensible scheme, much of the severity, with which the Protestants were afterwards treated, must in fairness be ascribed.

The plot failed; popery triumphed; and Cranmer recanted. Most people look on his recantation as a single blemish on an honourable life, the frailty of an unguarded moment. But, in fact, it was in strict accordance with the system on which he had constantly acted. It was part of a regular habit. It was not the first recantation that he had made; and, in all probability, if it had answered its purpose it would not have been the last. We do not blame him for not choosing to be burned alive. It is no very severe reproach to any person, that he does not possess heroic fortitude. But surely a man who liked the fire so little, should have had some sympathy for others. A persecutor who inflicts nothing which he is not ready to endure deserves some respect. But when a man, who loves his doctrines more than the lives of his neighbours, loves his own little finger better than his doctrines, a very simple argument, a fortiori, will enable us to estimate the amount of his benevolence.

But his martyrdom, it is said, redeemed every thing. It is extraordinary that so much ignorance should exist on this subject. The fact is, that if a martyr be a man who chooses to die rather than to renounce his opinions, Cranmer was no more a martyr than Dr. Dodd. He died solely because he could not help it. He never retracted his recantation, till he found he had made it in vain. The queen was fully resolved that, Catholic or Protestant, he should burn. Then he spoke out, as people generally peak out when they are at the point of death,

above revenge, or below it.

Somerset, with as little principle as his coadjutor, had a firmer and more commanding mind. Of Henry, an orthodox Catholic, excepting that he chose to be his own Pope, and of Elizabeth, who certainly had no objection to the theology of Rome, we need say nothing. But these four persons were the great authors of the English Reformation. Three of them had a direct interest in the extension of the royal prerogative. The fourth was the ready tool of any who could frighten him. It is not difficult to see from what motives, and on what plan, such persons would be inclined to remo del the Church. The scheme was merely to rob the Babylonian enchantress of her ornaments, to transfer the full cup of her sorceries to other hands, spilling as little as possible by the way. The Catholic doctrines and rites were to be retained in the Church of England. But the king was to exercise the control which formerly belonged to the Roman Pontiff. In this Henry for a time succeeded. The extraordinary force of his character, the fortunate situation in which he stood with respect to foreign powers, and the vast resources which the suppression of the monasteries placed at his disposal, enabled him to oppress both the religious factions equally. He punished with impartial severity those who renounced the doctrines of Rome, and those who acknow ledged her jurisdiction. The basis, however, on which he attempted to establish his power, was too narrow. It would have been impossi ble even for him long to persecute both persvasions. Even under his reign there had been insurrections on the part of the Catholics, and signs of a spirit which was likely soon to produce insurrection on the part of the Protestants. It was plainly necessary therefore that the government should form an alliance with one or the other side. To recognise the Papal supremacy, would have been to abandon its whole design. Reluctantly and sullenly it at last joined the Protestants. In forming this junction, its object was to procure as much aid as possible for its selfish undertaking, and

to make the smallest possible concessions to the spirit of religious innovation.

From s compromise the Church of England sprung. In many respects, ndeed, it has been well for her, that in an age of exuberant zeal, her principal founders were mere politicians. To this circumstance she owes her moderate articles, her decent ceremonies, her noble and pathetic liturgy. Her worship is not disfigured by mummery. Yet she has preserved, in a far greater degree than any of her Protestant sisters, that art of striking the senses, and filling the imagination, in which the Catholic Church so eminently excels. But on the other hand, she continued to be, for more than a hundred and fifty years, the servile handmaid of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liberty. The divine rights of kings, and the duty of passively obeying all their commands, were her favourite tenets. She held them firmly through times of oppression, persecution, and licentiousness; while law was trampled down; while judgment was perverted; while the people were eaten as though they were bread. Once and but once-for a moment, and but for a moment-when her own dignity and property were touched, she forgot to practise the submission which she had taught.

Elizabeth clearly discerned the advantages
which were to be derived from a close connec-
tion between the monarchy and the priesthood.
At the time of her accession, indeed, she evi-
dently meditated a partial reconciliation with
Rome. And throughout her whole life, she
leaned strongly to some of the most obnoxious
parts of the Catholic system. But her impe-
rious temper, her keen sagacity, and her pecu-
liar situation, soon led her to attach herself
completely to a church which was all her own.
On the same principle on which she joined it,
she attempted to drive all her people within
its pale by persecution. She supported it by
severe penal laws, not because she thought
conformity to its discipline necessary to salva-
tion, but because it was the fastness which ar-
bitrary power was making strong for itself;
because she expected a more profound obedi-
ence from those who saw in her both their
civil and their ecclesiastical head, than from
those who, like the Papists, ascribed spiritual
authority to the Pope, or from those who, like
some of the Puritans, ascribed it only to Hea-
ven. To dissent from her establishment was
to dissent from an institution founded with an
expres. view to the maintenance and extension
of the royal prerogative.

This great queen and her successors, by
considering conformity and loyalty as identi-
With respect to
ca., at ength made them so.
the Catholics, indeed, the rigour of persecu-
tic abated after her death. James soon found
that they were unable to injure him; and that
the animosity which the Puritan party felt
towards them, drove them of necessity to take
refuge under his throne. During the subse-
quent conflict, their fault was any thing but
lisloyalty. On the other hand, James hated
the Puritans with far more than the hatred of
Elizabeth. Her aversion to them was politi-
cal; his was personal. The sect had plagued
him in Scotland, where he was weak: and he

was determined to be even with them in Eng.
land, where he was powerful. Persecution
gradually changed a sect into a faction. That
there was any thing in the religious opinions
of the Puritans, which rendered them hostile
to monarchy, has never been proved to our
satisfaction. After our civil contests, it be
came the fashion to say that Presbyterianismı
was connected with Republicanism; just as
it has been the fashion to say, since the time
of the French Revolution, that Infidelity is con
nected with Republicanism. It is perfectly
true, that a church constituted on the Calvin-
istic model will not strengthen the hands of
the sovereign so much as a hierarchy, which
consists of several ranks, differing in dignity
and emolument, and of which all the members
are constantly looking to the government for
promotion. But experience has clearly shown
that a Calvinistic church, like every other
church, is disaffected when it is persecuted,
quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal
when it is favoured and cherished. Scotland
has had a Presbyterian establishment during
a century and a half. Yet her General As-
sembly has not, during that period, given half
so much trouble to the government as the
Convocation of the Church of England gave
to it during the thirty years which followed the
Revolution. That James and Charles should
have been mistaken on this point, is not sur-
prising. But we are astonished, we must con-
fess, when writers of our own time, men who
have before them the proof of what toleration
can effect, men who may see with their own
eyes that the Presbyterians are no such mon-
sters, when government is wise enough to let
them alone, should defend the old persecutions,
on the ground that they were indispensable
to the safety of the church and the throne.

How persecution protects churches and
thrones was soon made manifest. A system-
atic political opposition, vehement, daring, and
inflexible, sprang from a schism about trifles,
Before the close
akgether unconnected with the real interests
of religion or of the state.
of the reign of Elizabeth it began to show
itself. It broke forth on the question of the
monopolies. Even the imperial Lioness was
compelled to abandon her prey, and slowly ana
fiercely to recede before the assailants. The
spirit of liberty grew with the growing wealth
and intelligence of the people. The feeble
struggles and insults of James irritated instead
of suppressing it. And the events which im-
mediately followed the accession of his son,
portended a contest of no common severity,
between a king resolved to be absolute, and a
people resolved to be free.

The famous proceedings of the third Parlia ment of Charles, and the tyrannical measures which followed its dissolution, are extremely well described by Mr. Hallam. No writer, we think, has shown, in so clear and satisfactory a manner, that at that time the government entertained a fixed purpose of destroying the old parliamentary Constitution of England, or at least of reducing it to a mere shadow. We hasten, however, to a part of his work, which, though it abounds in valuable information, an1 in remarks well deserving to be attentive'r