When, towards the end of the fifth century, the Roman empire was broken up, there followed, as is well known, a long period of ignorance and of crime, in which even the ablest minds were immersed in the grossest superstitions. During these, which are rightly called the Dark Ages, the clergy were supreme: they ruled the consciences of the most despotic sovereigns, and they were respected as men of vast learning, because they alone were able to read and write; because they were the sole depositaries of those idle conceits of which European science then consisted; and because they preserved the legends of the saints and the lives of the fathers, from which, as it was believed, the teachings of divine wisdom might easily be gathered.

Such was the degradation of the European intellect for about five hundred years, during which the credulity of men reached a height unparalleled in the annals of ignorance. But at length the human reason, that divine spark which even the most corrupt society is unable to extinguish, began to display its power, and disperse the mists by which it was surrounded. Various circumstances, which it would be tedious here to discuss, caused this dispersion to take place at different times in different countries. However, speaking generally, we may say that it occurred in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and that by the twelfth century there was no nation now called civilized, upon whom the light had not begun to dawn.

It is from this point that the first great divergence between the European nations took its rise. Before this time their superstition was so great and universal, that it would avail little to measure the degree of their relative darkness. Indeed, so low had they fallen, that, during the earlier period, the authority of the clergy was in many respects an advantage, as forming a barrier between the people and their rulers, and as supplying the sole instance of a class that even made an approach to intellectual pursuits. But when the great movement took place, when the human reason began to rebel, the position of the clergy was suddenly changed. They had been friendly to reasoning as long as the reasoning was on their side.[271] While they were the only guardians of knowledge, they were eager to promote its interests. Now, however, it was falling from their hands: it was becoming possessed by laymen: it was growing dangerous: it must be reduced to its proper dimensions. Then it was that there first became general the inquisitions, the imprisonments, the torturings, the burnings, and all the other contrivances by which the church vainly endeavoured to stem the tide that had turned against her.[272] From that moment there has been an unceasing struggle between these two great parties,—the advocates of inquiry, and the advocates of belief: a struggle which, however it may be disguised, and under whatever forms it may appear, is at bottom always the same, and represents the opposite interests of reason and faith, of scepticism and credulity, of progress and reaction, of those who hope for the future, and of those who cling to the past.

This, then, is the great starting point of modern civilization. From the moment that reason began, however faintly, to assert its supremacy, the improvement of every people has depended upon their obedience to its dictates, and upon the success with which they have reduced to its standard the whole of their actions. To understand, therefore, the original divergence of France and England, we must seek it in the circumstances that took place when this, which may be called the great rebellion of the intellect, was first clearly seen.

If now, with a view to such inquiry, we examine the history of Europe, we shall find that just at this period there sprung up the feudal system: a vast scheme of polity, which, clumsy and imperfect as it was, supplied many of the wants of the rude people among whom it arose.[273] The connexion between it and the decline of the ecclesiastical spirit is very obvious. For the feudal system was the first great secular plan that had been seen in Europe since the formation of the civil law: it was the first comprehensive attempt which had been made, during more than four hundred years, to organize society according to temporal, not according to spiritual circumstances, the basis of the whole arrangement being merely the possession of land, and the performance of certain military and pecuniary services.[274]

This was, no doubt, a great step in European civilization, because it set the first example of a large public polity in which the spiritual classes as such had no recognized place;[275] and hence there followed that struggle between feudality and the church, which has been observed by several writers, but the origin of which has been strangely overlooked. What, however, we have now to notice is, that by the establishment of the feudal system, the spirit of protection, far from being destroyed, was probably not even weakened, but only assumed a new form. Instead of being spiritual, it became temporal. Instead of men looking up to the church, they looked up to the nobles. For, as a necessary consequence of this vast movement, or rather as a part of it, the great possessors of land were now being organized into an hereditary aristocracy.[276] In the tenth century, we find the first surnames:[277] by the eleventh century most of the great offices had become hereditary in the leading families:[278] and in the twelfth century armorial bearings were invented, as well as other heraldic devices, which long nourished the conceit of the nobles, and were valued by their descendants as marks of that superiority of birth to which, during many ages, all other superiority was considered subordinate.[279]

Such was the beginning of the European aristocracy, in the sense in which that word is commonly used. With the consolidation of its power, feudality was made, in reference to the organization of society, the successor of the church;[280] and the nobles, becoming hereditary, gradually displaced in government, and in the general functions of authority, the clergy, among whom the opposite principle of celibacy was now firmly established.[281] It is, therefore, evident, that an inquiry into the origin of the modern protective spirit does, in a great measure, resolve itself into an inquiry into the origin of the aristocratic power; since that power was the exponent, and, as it were, the cover under which the spirit displayed itself. This, as we shall hereafter see, is likewise connected with the great religious rebellion of the sixteenth century; the success of which mainly depended on the weakness of the protective principle that opposed it. But, reserving this for future consideration, I will now endeavour to trace a few of the circumstances which gave the aristocracy more power in France than in England, and thus accustomed the French to a closer and more constant obedience, and infused into them a more reverential spirit than that which was usual in our country.

Soon after the middle of the eleventh century, and therefore while the aristocracy was in the process of formation, England was conquered by the Duke of Normandy, who naturally introduced the polity existing in his own country.[282] But, in his hands, it underwent a modification suitable to the new circumstances in which he was placed. He, being in a foreign country, the general of a successful army composed partly of mercenaries,[283] was able to dispense with some of those feudal usages which were customary in France. The great Norman lords, thrown as strangers into the midst of a hostile population, were glad to accept estates from the crown on almost any terms that would guarantee their own security. Of this, William naturally availed himself. For, by granting baronies on conditions favourable to the crown, he prevented the barons[284] from possessing that power which they exercised in France, and which, but for this, they would have exercised in England. The result was, that the most powerful of our nobles became amenable to the law, or, at all events, to the authority of the king.[285] Indeed, to such an extent was this carried, that William, shortly before his death, obliged all the landowners to render their fealty to him; thus entirely neglecting that peculiarity of feudalism, according to which each vassal was separately dependent on his own lord.[286]

But in France, the course of affairs was very different. In that country the great nobles held their lands, not so much by grant, as by prescription.[287] A character of antiquity was thus thrown over their rights; which, when added to the weakness of the crown, enabled them to exercise on their own estates, all the functions of independent sovereigns.[288] Even when they received their first great check, under Philip Augustus,[289] they, in his reign, and indeed long after, wielded a power quite unknown in England. Thus, to give only two instances: the right of coining money, which has always been regarded as an attribute of sovereignty, was never allowed in England, even to the greatest nobles.[290] But in France it was exercised by many persons independently of the crown, and was not abrogated until the sixteenth century.[291] A similar remark holds good of what was called the right of private war; by virtue of which the nobles were allowed to attack each other, and disturb the peace of the country with the prosecution of their private feuds. In England the aristocracy were never strong enough to have this admitted as a right,[292] though they too often exercised it as a practice. But in France it became a part of the established law; it was incorporated into the text-books of feudalism, and it is distinctly recognized by Louis IX. and Philip the Fair,—two kings of considerable energy, who did every thing in their power to curtail the enormous authority of the nobles.[293]

Out of this difference between the aristocratic power of France and England, there followed many consequences of great importance. In our country the nobles, being too feeble to contend with the crown, were compelled, in self-defence, to ally themselves with the people.[294] About a hundred years after the Conquest, the Normans and Saxons amalgamated; and both parties united against the king in order to uphold their common rights.[295] The Magna Charta, which John was forced to yield contained concessions to the aristocracy; but its most important stipulations were those in favour of ‘all classes of freemen.’[296] Within half a century, fresh contests broke out; the barons were again associated with the people, and again there followed the same results,—the extension of popular privileges being each time the condition and the consequence of this singular alliance. In the same way, when the Earl of Leicester raised a rebellion against Henry III., he found his own party too weak to make head against the crown. He, therefore, applied to the people:[297] and it is to him that our House of Commons owes its origin; since he, in 1264, set the first example of issuing writs to cities and boroughs; thus calling upon citizens and burgesses to take their place in what had hitherto been a parliament composed entirely of priests and nobles.[298]

The English aristocracy being thus forced, by their own weakness, to rely on the people,[299] it naturally followed, that the people imbibed that tone of independence, and that lofty bearing, of which our civil and political institutions are the consequence, rather than the cause. It is to this, and not to any fanciful peculiarity of race, that we owe the sturdy and enterprising spirit for which the inhabitants of this island have long been remarkable. It is this which has enabled us to baffle all the arts of oppression, and to maintain for centuries liberties which no other nation has ever possessed. And it is this which has fostered and upheld those great municipal privileges, which, whatever be their faults, have, at least, the invaluable merit of accustoming free men to the exercise of power, giving to citizens the management of their own city, and perpetuating the idea of independence, by preserving it in a living type, and by enlisting in its support the interests and affections of individual men.

But the habits of self-government which, under these circumstances, were cultivated in England, were, under opposite circumstances, neglected in France. The great French lords being too powerful to need the people, were unwilling to seek their alliance.[300] The result was, that, amid a great variety of forms and names, society was, in reality, only divided into two classes—the upper and the lower, the protectors and the protected. And, looking at the ferocity of the prevailing manners, it is not too much to say, that in France, under the feudal system, every man was either a tyrant or a slave. Indeed, in most instances, the two characters were combined in the same person. For, the practice of subinfeudation, which in our country was actively checked, became in France almost universal.[301] By this, the great lords having granted lands on condition of fealty and other services to certain persons, these last subgranted them; that is, made them over on similar conditions to other persons, who had likewise the power of bestowing them on a fourth party, and so on in an endless series;[302] thus forming a long chain of dependence, and, as it were, organizing submission into a system.[303] In England, on the other hand, such arrangements were so unsuited to the general state of affairs, that it is doubtful if they were ever carried on to any extent; and, at all events, it is certain that, in the reign of Edward I., they were finally stopped by the statute known to lawyers as Quia emptores.[304]

Thus early was there a great social divergence between France and England. The consequences of this were still more obvious when, in the fourteenth century, the feudal system rapidly decayed in both countries. For in England, the principle of protection being feeble, men were in some degree accustomed to self-government; and they were able to hold fast by those great institutions which would have been ill adapted to the more obedient habits of the French people. Our municipal privileges, the rights of our yeomanry, and the security of our copyholders, were, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the three most important guarantees for the liberties of England.[305] In France such guarantees were impossible. The real division being between those who were noble, and those who were not noble, no room was left for the establishment of intervening classes; but all were compelled to fall into one of these two great ranks.[306] The French have never had any thing answering to our yeomanry; nor were copyholders recognized by their laws. And, although they attempted to introduce into their country municipal institutions, all such efforts were futile; for, while they copied the forms of liberty, they lacked that bold and sturdy spirit by which alone liberty can be secured. They had, indeed, its image and superscription; but they wanted the sacred fire that warms the image into life. Every thing else they possessed. The show and appliances of freedom were there. Charters were granted to their towns, and privileges conceded to their magistrates. All, however, was useless. For it is not by the wax and parchment of lawyers that the independence of men can be preserved. Such things are the mere externals; they set off liberty to advantage; they are as its dress and paraphernalia, its holiday-suit in times of peace and quiet. But, when the evil days set in, when the invasions of despotism have begun, liberty will be retained, not by those who can show the oldest deeds and the largest charters, but by those who have been most inured to habits of independence, most accustomed to think and act for themselves, and most regardless of that insidious protection which the upper classes have always been so ready to bestow, that, in many countries, they have now left nothing worth the trouble to protect.

And so it was in France. The towns, with few exceptions, fell at the first shock; and the citizens lost those municipal privileges which, not being grafted on the national character, it was found impossible to preserve. In the same way, in our country, power naturally, and by the mere force of the democratic movement, fell into the hands of the House of Commons; whose authority has ever since, notwithstanding occasional checks, continued to increase at the expense of the more aristocratic parts of the legislature. The only institution answering to this in France was the States-General; which, however, had so little influence, that, in the opinion of native historians, it was hardly to be called an institution at all.[307] Indeed, the French were, by this time, so accustomed to the idea of protection, and to the subordination which that idea involves, that they were little inclined to uphold an establishment which, in their constitution, was the sole representative of the popular element. The result was, that, by the fourteenth century, the liberties of Englishmen were secured;[308] and, since then, their only concern has been to increase what they have already obtained. But in that same century, in France, the protective spirit assumed a new form; the power of the aristocracy was, in a great measure, succeeded by the power of the crown; and there began that tendency to centralization which, having been pushed still further, first under Louis XIV., and afterwards under Napoleon, has become the bane of the French people.[309] For by it the feudal ideas of superiority and submission have long survived that barbarous age to which alone they were suited. Indeed, by their transmigration, they seemed to have gained fresh strength. In France, every thing is referred to one common centre, in which all civil functions are absorbed. All improvements of any importance, all schemes for bettering even the material condition of the people must receive the sanction of government; the local authorities not being considered equal to such arduous tasks. In order that inferior magistrates may not abuse their power, no power is conferred upon them. The exercise of independent jurisdiction is almost unknown. Every thing that is done must be done at head quarters.[310] The government is believed to see every thing, know every thing, and provide for every thing. To enforce this monstrous monopoly there has been contrived a machinery well worthy of the design. The entire country is covered by an immense array of officials;[311] who, in the regularity of their hierarchy, and in the order of their descending series, form an admirable emblem of that feudal principle, which ceasing to be territorial, has now become personal. In fact, the whole business of the state is conducted on the supposition that no man either knows his own interest, or is fit to take care of himself. So paternal are the feelings of government, so eager for the welfare of its subjects, that it has drawn within its jurisdiction the most rare, as well as the most ordinary, actions of life. In order that the French may not make imprudent wills, it has limited the right of bequest; and, for fear that they should bequeath their property wrongly, it prevents them from bequeathing the greater part of it at all. In order that society may be protected by its police, it has directed that no one shall travel without a passport. And when men are actually travelling, they are met at every turn by the same interfering spirit, which, under pretence of protecting their persons, shackles their liberty. Into another matter, far more serious, the French have carried the same principle. Such is their anxiety to protect society against criminals, that, when an offender is placed at the bar of one of their courts, there is exhibited a spectacle which is no idle boast to say we, in England, could not tolerate for a single hour. There is seen a great public magistrate, by whom the prisoner is about to be tried, examining him in order to ascertain his supposed guilt, re-examining him, cross-examining him, performing the duties, not of a judge, but of a prosecutor, and bringing to bear against the unhappy man all the authority of his judicial position, all his professional subtlety, all his experience, all the dexterity of his practised understanding. This is, perhaps, the most alarming of the many instances in which the tendencies of the French intellect are shown; because it supplies a machinery ready for the purposes of absolute power; because it brings the administration of justice into disrepute, by associating with it an idea of unfairness; and because it injures that calm and equable temper, which it is impossible fully to maintain under a system that makes a magistrate an advocate, and turns the judge into a partizan. But this, mischievous as it is, only forms part of a far larger scheme. For, to the method by which criminals are discovered, there is added an analogous method, by which crime is prevented. With this view, the people, even in their ordinary amusements, are watched and carefully superintended. Lest they should harm each other by some sudden indiscretion, precautions are taken similar to those with which a father might surround his children. In their fairs, at their theatres, their concerts, and their other places of public resort, there are always present soldiers, who are sent to see that no mischief is done, that there is no unnecessary crowding, that no one uses harsh language, that no one quarrels with his neighbour. Nor does the vigilance of the government stop there. Even the education of children is brought under the control of the state, instead of being regulated by the judgment of masters or parents.[312] And the whole plan is executed with such energy, that, as the French while men are never let alone, just so while children they are never left alone.[313] At the same time, it being reasonably supposed that the adults thus kept in pupilage cannot be proper judges of their own food, the government has provided for this also. Its prying eye follows the butcher to the shambles, and the baker to the oven. By its paternal hand, meat is examined lest it should be bad, and bread is weighed lest it should be light. In short, without multiplying instances, with which most readers must be familiar, it is enough to say that in France, as in every country where the protective principle is active, the government has established a monopoly of the worst kind; a monopoly which comes home to the business and bosoms of men, follows them in their daily avocations, troubles them with its petty, meddling spirit, and, what is worse than all, diminishes their responsibility to themselves; thus depriving them of what is the only real education that most minds receive,—the constant necessity of providing for future contingencies, and the habit of grappling with the difficulties of life.

The consequence of all this has been, that the French, though a great and splendid people,—a people full of mettle, high-spirited, abounding in knowledge, and perhaps less oppressed by superstition than any other in Europe,—have always been found unfit to exercise political power. Even when they have possessed it, they have never been able to combine permanence with liberty. One of these two elements has always been wanting. They have had free governments, which have not been stable. They have had stable governments, which have not been free. Owing to their fearless temper, they have rebelled, and no doubt will continue to rebel, against so evil a condition.[314] But it does not need the tongue of a prophet to tell that, for at least some generations, all such efforts must be unsuccessful. For men can never be free, unless they are educated to freedom. And this is not the education which is to be found in schools, or gained from books; but it is that which consists in self-discipline, in self-reliance, and in self-government. These, in England, are matters of hereditary descent—traditional habits, which we imbibe in our youth, and which regulate us in the conduct of life. The old associations of the French all point in another direction. At the slightest difficulty, they call on the government for support. What with us is competition, with them is monopoly. That which we effect by private companies, they effect by public boards. They cannot cut a canal, or lay down a railroad, without appealing to the government for aid. With them, the people look to the rulers; with us, the rulers look to the people. With them, the executive is the centre from which society radiates;[315] with us, society is the instigator, and the executive the organ. The difference in the result has corresponded with the difference in the process. We have been made fit for political power, by the long exercise of civil rights; they, neglecting the exercise, think they can at once begin with the power. We have always shown a determination to uphold our liberties, and, when the times are fitting, to increase them; and this we have done with a decency and a gravity natural to men to whom such subjects have long been familiar. But the French, always treated as children, are, in political matters, children still. And as they have handled the most weighty concerns in that gay and volatile spirit which adorns their lighter literature, it is no wonder that they have failed in matters where the first condition of success is, that men should have been long accustomed to rely upon their own energies, and that before they try their skill in a political struggle, their resources should have been sharpened by that preliminary discipline, which a contest with the difficulties of civil life can never fail to impart.

These are among the considerations by which we must be guided, in estimating the probable destinies of the great countries of Europe. But what we are now rather concerned with is, to notice how the opposite tendencies of France and England long continued to be displayed in the condition and treatment of their aristocracy; and how from this there naturally followed some striking differences between the war conducted by the Fronde, and that waged by the Long Parliament.

When, in the fourteenth century, the authority of the French kings began rapidly to increase, the political influence of the nobility was, of course, correspondingly diminished. What, however, proves the extent to which their power had taken root, is the undoubted fact, that, notwithstanding this to them unfavourable circumstance, the people were never able to emancipate themselves from their control.[316] The relation the nobles bore to the throne became entirely changed; that which they bore to the people remained almost the same. In England, slavery, or villenage, as it is mildly termed, quickly diminished, and was extinct by the end of the sixteenth century.[317] In France, it lingered on two hundred years later, and was only destroyed in that great Revolution by which the possessors of ill-gotten power were called to so sharp an account.[318] Thus, too, until the last seventy years, the nobles were in France exempt from those onerous taxes which oppressed the people. The taille and corvÉe were heavy and grievous exactions, but they fell solely on men of ignoble birth;[319] for the French aristocracy, being a high and chivalrous race, would have deemed it an insult to their illustrious descent, if they had been taxed to the same amount as those whom they despised as their inferiors.[320] Indeed, every thing tended to nurture this general contempt. Every thing was contrived to humble one class, and exalt the other. For the nobles there were reserved the best appointments in the church, and also the most important military posts.[321] The privilege of entering the army as officers was confined to them;[322] and they alone possessed a prescriptive right to belong to the cavalry.[323] At the same time, and to avoid the least chance of confusion, an equal vigilance was displayed in the most trifling matters, and care was taken to prevent any similarity, even in the amusements of the two classes. To such a pitch was this brought, that, in many parts of France, the right of having an aviary or a dovecote depended entirely on a man's rank; and no Frenchman, whatever his wealth might be, could keep pigeons, unless he were a noble; it being considered that these recreations were too elevated for persons of plebeian origin.[324]

Circumstances like these are valuable, as evidence of the state of society to which they belong; and their importance will become peculiarly obvious, when we compare them with the opposite condition of England.

For in England, neither these nor any similar distinctions have ever been known. The spirit of which our yeomanry, copyholders, and free burgesses were the representatives, proved far too strong for those protective and monopolizing principles of which the aristocracy are the guardians in politics, and the clergy in religion. And it is to the successful opposition made by these feelings of individual independence that we owe our two greatest national acts—our Reformation in the sixteenth, and our Rebellion in the seventeenth century. Before, however, tracing the steps taken in these matters, there is one other point of view to which I wish to call attention, as a further illustration of the early and radical difference between France and England.

In the eleventh century there arose the celebrated institution of chivalry,[325] which was to manners what feudalism was to politics. This connexion is clear, not only from the testimony of contemporaries, but also from two general considerations. In the first place, chivalry was so highly aristocratic, that no one could even receive knighthood unless he were of noble birth;[326] and the preliminary education which was held to be necessary was carried on either in schools appointed by the nobles, or else in their own baronial castles.[327] In the second place, it was essentially a protective, and not at all a reforming institution. It was contrived with a view to remedy certain oppressions as they successively arose; opposed in this respect to the reforming spirit, which, being remedial rather than palliative, strikes at the root of an evil by humbling the class from which the evil proceeds, passing over individual cases in order to direct its attention to general causes. But chivalry, so far from doing this, was in fact a fusion of the aristocratic and the ecclesiastical forms of the protective spirit.[328] For, by introducing among the nobles the principle of knighthood, which, being personal, could never be bequeathed, it presented a point at which the ecclesiastical doctrine of celibacy could coalesce with the aristocratic doctrine of hereditary descent.[329] Out of this coalition sprung results of great moment. It is to this that Europe owes those orders, half aristocratic half religious,[330] the Knights Templars, the Knights of St. James, the Knights of St. John, the Knights of St. Michael: establishments which inflicted the greatest evils on society; and whose members, combining analogous vices, enlivened the superstition of monks with the debauchery of soldiers. As a natural consequence, an immense number of noble knights were solemnly pledged to ‘defend the church;’ an ominous expression, the meaning of which is too well known to the readers of ecclesiastical history.[331] Thus it was that chivalry, uniting the hostile principles of celibacy and noble birth, became the incarnation of the spirit of the two classes to which those principles belonged. Whatever benefit, therefore, this institution may have conferred upon manners,[332] there can be no doubt that it actively contributed to keep men in a state of pupilage, and stopped the march of society by prolonging the term of its infancy.[333]

On this account, it is evident that, whether we look at the immediate or at the remote tendency of chivalry, its strength and duration become a measure of the predominance of the protective spirit. If, with this view, we compare France and England, we shall find fresh proof of the early divergence of those countries. Tournaments, the first open expression of chivalry, are of French origin.[334] The greatest and, indeed, the only two great describers of chivalry are Joinville and Froissart, both of whom were Frenchmen. Bayard, that famous chevalier, who is always considered as the last representative of chivalry, was a Frenchman, and was killed when fighting for Francis I. Nor was it until nearly forty years after his death that tournaments were finally abolished in France, the last one having been held in 1560.[335]

But in England, the protective spirit being much less active than in France, we should expect to find that chivalry, as its offspring, had less influence. And such was really the case. The honours that were paid to knights, and the social distinctions by which they were separated from the other classes, were never so great in our country as in France.[336] As men became more free, the little respect they had for such matters still further diminished. In the thirteenth century, and indeed in the very reign in which burgesses were first returned to parliament, the leading symbol of chivalry fell into such disrepute, that a law was passed obliging certain persons to accept that rank of knighthood which in other nations was one of the highest objects of ambition.[337] In the fourteenth century, this was followed by another blow, which deprived knighthood of its exclusively military character; the custom having grown up in the reign of Edward III. of conferring it on the judges in the courts of law, thus turning a warlike title into a civil honour.[338] Finally, before the end of the fifteenth century, the spirit of chivalry, in France still at its height, was in our country extinct, and this mischievous institution had become a subject for ridicule even among the people themselves.[339] To these circumstances we may add two others, which seem worthy of observation. The first is, that the French, notwithstanding their many admirable qualities, have always been more remarkable for personal vanity than the English;[340] a peculiarity partly referable to those chivalric traditions which even their occasional republics have been unable to destroy, and which makes them attach undue importance to external distinctions, by which I mean, not only dress and manners, but also medals, ribbons, stars, crosses, and the like, which we, a prouder people, have never held in such high estimation. The other circumstance is, that duelling has from the beginning been more popular in France than in England; and as this is a custom which we owe to chivalry, the difference in this respect between the two countries supplies another link in that long chain of evidence by which we must estimate their national tendencies.[341]

The old associations, of which these facts are but the external expression, now continued to act with increasing vigour. In France, the protective spirit, carried into religion, was strong enough to resist the Reformation, and preserve to the clergy the forms, at least, of their ancient supremacy. In England, the pride of men, and their habits of self-reliance, enabled them to mature into a system what is called the right of private judgment, by which some of the most cherished traditions were eradicated; and this, as we have already seen, being quickly succeeded, first by scepticism, and then by toleration, prepared the way for that subordination of the church to the state, for which we are pre-eminent, and without a rival, among the nations of Europe. The very same tendency, acting in politics, displayed analogous results. Our ancestors found no difficulty in humbling the nobles, and reducing them to comparative insignificance. The wars of the Roses, by breaking up the leading families into two hostile factions, aided this movement;[342] and, after the reign of Edward IV., there is no instance of any Englishman, even of the highest rank, venturing to carry on those private wars, by which, in other countries, the great lords still disturbed the peace of society.[343] When the civil contests subsided, the same spirit displayed itself in the policy of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. For, those princes, despots as they were, mainly oppressed the highest classes; and even Henry VIII., notwithstanding his barbarous cruelties, was loved by the people, to whom his reign was, on the whole, decidedly beneficial. Then there came the Reformation; which, being an uprising of the human mind, was essentially a rebellious movement, and thus increasing the insubordination of men, sowed, in the sixteenth century, the seeds of those great political revolutions which, in the seventeenth century, broke out in nearly every part of Europe. The connexion between these two revolutionary epochs is a subject full of interest; but, for the purpose of the present chapter, it will be sufficient to notice such events, during the latter half of the sixteenth century, as explain the sympathy between the ecclesiastical and aristocratic classes, and prove how the same circumstances that were fatal to the one, also prepared the way for the downfall of the other.

When Elizabeth ascended the throne of England, a large majority of the nobility were opposed to the Protestant religion. This we know from the most decisive evidence; and, even if we had no such evidence, a general acquaintance with human nature would induce us to suspect that such was the case. For, the aristocracy, by the very conditions of their existence, must, as a body, always be averse to innovation. And this, not only because by a change they have much to lose and little to gain, but because some of their most pleasurable emotions are connected with the past rather than with the present. In the collision of actual life, their vanity is sometimes offended by the assumptions of inferior men; it is frequently wounded by the successful competition of able men. These are mortifications to which, in the progress of society, their liability is constantly increasing. But the moment they turn to the past, they see in those good old times which are now gone by, many sources of consolation. There they find a period in which their glory is without a rival. When they look at their pedigrees, their quarterings, their escutcheons; when they think of the purity of their blood, and the antiquity of their ancestors—they experience a comfort which ought amply to atone for any present inconvenience. The tendency of this is very obvious, and has shown itself in the history of every aristocracy the world has yet seen. Men who have worked themselves to so extravagant a pitch as to believe that it is an honour to have had one ancestor who came over with the Normans, and another ancestor who was present at the first invasion of Ireland—men who have reached this ecstacy of the fancy are not disposed to stop there, but, by a process with which most minds are familiar, they generalize their view; and, even on matters not immediately connected with their fame, they acquire a habit of associating grandeur with antiquity, and of measuring value by age; thus transferring to the past an admiration which otherwise they might reserve for the present.

The connexion between these feelings and those which animate the clergy is very evident. What the nobles are to politics, that are the priests to religion. Both classes, constantly appealing to the voice of antiquity, rely much on tradition, and make great account of upholding established customs. Both take for granted that what is old is better than what is new; and that in former times there were means of discovering truths respecting government and theology which we, in these degenerate ages, no longer possess. And it may be added, that the similarity of their functions follows from the similarity of their principles. Both are eminently protective, stationary, or, as they are sometimes called, conservative. It is believed that the aristocracy guard the state against revolution, and that the clergy keep the church from error. The first are the enemies of reformers; the others are the scourge of heretics.

It does not enter into the province of this Introduction to examine how far these principles are reasonable, or to inquire into the propriety of notions which suppose that, on certain subjects of immense importance, men are to remain stationary, while on all other subjects they are constantly advancing. But what I now rather wish to point out, is the manner in which, in the reign of Elizabeth, the two great conservative and protective classes were weakened by that vast movement, the Reformation, which, though completed in the sixteenth century, had been prepared by a long chain of intellectual antecedents.

Whatever the prejudices of some may suggest, it will be admitted, by all unbiassed judges, that the Protestant Reformation was neither more nor less than an open rebellion. Indeed, the mere mention of private judgment, on which it was avowedly based, is enough to substantiate this fact. To establish the right of private judgment, was to appeal from the church to individuals; it was to increase the play of each man's intellect; it was to test the opinions of the priesthood by the opinions of laymen; it was, in fact, a rising of the scholars against their teachers, of the ruled against their rulers. And although the reformed clergy, as soon as they had organised themselves into a hierarchy, did undoubtedly abandon the great principle with which they started, and attempt to impose articles and canons of their own contrivance, still, this ought not to blind us to the merits of the Reformation itself. The tyranny of the Church of England, during the reign of Elizabeth, and still more during the reigns of her two successors, was but the natural consequence of that corruption which power always begets in those who wield it, and does not lessen the importance of the movement by which the power was originally obtained. For men could not forget that, tried by the old theological theory, the church of England was a schismatic establishment, and could only defend itself from the charge of heresy by appealing to that private judgment, to the exercise of which it owed its existence, but of the rights of which 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 apostacy, 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.

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 fulness 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.[344] 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 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,[345] 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 common.

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.[346]

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.[347] 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.[348]

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 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.’[349] 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.[350] 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 disqualified 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.[351] 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.

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