UNDER THE TUDORS WITH AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ON THE BY DURHAM DUNLOP/M.R.I.A. AUTHOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BATH," ETC. Luctus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis Imago.'-VIRGIL SECOND EDITION LONDON W. KENT AND CO. 23, PATERNOSTER ROW 1881 123 TO THE READER. THE purpose of this work is to present a popular sketch of the Ecclesiastical History of England, from the accession of Henry VIII., A.D. 1509, to the death of Elizabeth, A.D. 1603; with a view to illustrate some of the principal evils that were caused by the unfortunate establishment of the Church of the Reformation under the absolute supremacy of the Crown. It was the Tudors who thus fashioned and established the Ecclesiastical System of England, and thereby prepared the material for the revolutionary convulsion under the second Stuart, which, by a necessary reaction, overwhelmed both the Throne and the Church in one common, and not undeserved, catastrophe. It was intended, at first, to include "the Church under the Stuarts" in the present historical sketch, but the subject was found too extensive for the limits of a popular volume. For the same reason all reference to the history of the Reformed Church in Ireland has been omitted. It is sufficient to state, however, that the Ecclesiastical Policy of the Tudors in Ireland was even worse, were that possible, than what was so mercilessly carried out in England. It was not that in both countries the State Church enjoyed an invidious ascendancy over all other religious Denominations, but because that ascendancy, unjust and most offensive in itself, |