nopolies.

a point of conscience and of honour the United Provinces to the Spanish with many men of generous natures to power, the firm establishment of Henry sacrifice their country to their religion. the Fourth on the throne of France. A succession of dark plots, formed by and the death of Philip the Second, Roman Catholics against the life of the had secured the State and the Church Queen and the existence of the nation, against all danger from abroad, an kept society in constant alarm. What- obstinate struggle, destined to last ever might be the faults of Elizabeth, during several generations, instantly it was plain that, to speak humanly, began at home. the fate of the realm and of all reformed Churches was staked on the security of her person and on the success of her administration. To strengthen her hands was, therefore, the first duty of a patriot and a Protestant; and that duty was well performed. The Puritans, even in the depths of the prisons to which she had sent them, prayed, and with no simulated fervour, that she might be kept from the dagger of the assassin, that rebellion might be put down under her feet, and that her arms might be victorious by sea and land. One of the most stubborn of the stubborn sect, immediately after his hand had been lopped off for an offence into which he had been hurried by his intemperate zeal, waved his hat with the hand which was still left him, and shouted "God save the Queen!" The sentiment with which these men regarded her has descended to their posterity. The Nonconformists, rigorously as she treated them, have, as a body, always venerated her memory.

It was in the Parliament of 1601 that the opposition which had, dur- Question ing forty years, been silently of the mo gathering and husbanding strength, fought its first great battle and won its first victory. The ground was well chosen. The English sovereigns had always been entrusted with the supreme direction of commercial police. It was their undoubted prerogative to regulate coin, weights, and measures, and to appoint fairs, markets, and ports. The line which bounded their authority over trade had, as usual, been but loosely drawn. They, therefore, as usual, encroached on the province which rightfully belonged to the legislature. The encroachment was, as usual, patiently borne, till it became serious. But at length the Queen took upon herself to grant patents of monopoly by scores. There was scarcely a family in the realm which did not feel itself aggrieved by the oppression and extortion which this abuse naturally caused. Iron, oil, vinegar, coal, saltpetre, lead, starch, yarn, skins, leather, glass, could be bought only at exorbitant prices. The House of Commons met in an angry and determined mood. It was in vain that a courtly minority blamed the Speaker for suffering the acts of the Queen's Highness to be called in question. The language of the discontented party was high and menacing, and was echoed by the voice of the whole nation. The coach of the chief minister of the crown was surrounded by an indignant populace, who as a wise and politic princess, for delivering cursed the monopolies, and exclaimed her kingdom from the difficulties in which it that the prerogative should not be sufwas involved at her accession, for preserving fered to touch the old liberties of the Protestant reformation against the potent attempts of the Pope, the Emperor, and King England. There seemed for a moment of Spain abroad, and the Queen of Scots and to be some danger that the long and her Popish subjects at home... She was the glory of the age in which she lived, and will be the admiration of posterity."-History of the Puritans, Part I. Chap. viii.

*

During the greater part of her reign, therefore, the Puritans in the House of Commons, though sometimes mutinous, felt no disposition to array themselves in systematic opposition to the government. But, when the defeat of the Armada, the successful resistance of

*The Puritan historian, Neal, after censuring the cruelty with which she treated the sect to which he belonged, concludes thus: "However, notwithstanding all these blemishes, Queen Elizabeth stands upon record

glorious reign of Elizabeth would have a shameful and disastrous end. She, however, with admirable judgment and

self at the head of the reforming party, redressed the grievance, thanked the Commons, in touching and dignified language, for their tender care of the general weal, brought back to herself the hearts of the people, and left to her successors a memorable example of the way in which it behoves a ruler to deal with public movements which he has not the means of resisting.

temper, declined the contest, put her- | beth, the conquest, which had been begun more than four hundred years before by Strongbow, was completed by Mountjoy. Scarcely had James the First mounted the English throne when the last O'Donnel and O'Neil who have held the rank of independent princes kissed his hand at Whitehall. Thenceforward his writs ran and his judges held assizes in every part of Ireland; and the English law superseded the customs which had prevailed among the aboriginal tribes.

In the year 1603 the great Queen died. That year is, on many accounts, one of the most im

Scotland and Ireland be

come parts portant epochs in our history.

of the

same em

England.

The population of Scotland, with the exception of the Celtic tribes which were thinly scattered over the Hebrides and over the mountainous parts of the northern shires, was of the same blood with the population of England, and spoke a tongue which did not differ from the purest English more than the dialects of Somersetshire and Lancashire differed from each other. In Ireland, on the contrary, the population, with the exception of the small English colony near the coast, was Celtic, and still kept the Celtic speech and manners.

In extent Scotland and Ireland were nearly equal to each other, and were It was then that both Scot-together nearly equal to England, but pire with land and Ireland became parts were much less thickly peopled than of the same empire with England, and were very far behind England. Both Scotland and Ireland, England in wealth and civilisation indeed, had been subjugated by the Scotland had been kept back by the Plantagenets; but neither country had sterility of her soil; and, in the midst been patient under the yoke. Scotland of light, the thick darkness of the midhad, with heroic energy, vindicated her dle ages still rested on Ireland. independence, had, from the time of Robert Bruce, been a separate kingdom, and was now joined to the southern part of the island in a manner which rather gratified than wounded her national pride. Ireland had never, since the days of Henry the Second, been able to expel the foreign invaders; but she had struggled against them long and fiercely. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the English power in that island was constantly declining, and, in the days of Henry the Seventh, sank to the lowest point. The Irish dominions of that prince consisted only of the counties of In natural courage and intelligence Dublin and Louth, of some parts of both the nations which now became Meath and Kildare, and of a few sea- connected with England ranked high. ports scattered along the coast. A In perseverance, in self-command, in large portion even of Leinster was not forethought, in all the virtues which yet divided into counties. Munster, conduce to success in life, the Scots Ulster, and Connaught were ruled by have never been surpassed. The Irish, petty sovereigns, partly Celts, and on the other hand, were distinguished partly degenerate Normans, who had by qualities which tend to make men forgotten their origin and had adopted interesting rather than prosperous. the Celtic language and manners. But, They were an ardent and impetuous during the sixteenth century, the race, easily moved to tears or to laughEnglish power had made great pro- ter, to fury or to love. Alone among gress. The half savage chieftains the nations of northern Europe they who reigned beyond the pale had had the susceptibility, the vivacity, submitted one after another to the the natural turn for acting and rhelieutenants of the Tudors. At length, toric, which are indigenous on the a few weeks before the death of Eliza-shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In

legislature extended over Ireland. The executive administration was entrusted to men taken either from England or from the English pale, and, in either case, regarded as foreigners, and even as enemies, by the Celtic population.

mental cultivation Scotland had an in- | pass no law which had not been predisputable superiority. Though that viously approved by the English Privy kingdom was then the poorest in Chris- Council. The authority of the English tendom, it already vied in every branch of learning with the most favoured countries. Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food were as wretched as those of the Icelanders of our time, wrote Latin verse with more than the delicacy of Vida, and made discoveries in science which would have added to the renown of Galileo. Ireland could boast of no Buchanan or Napier. The genius, with which her aboriginal inhabitants were largely endowed, showed itself as yet only in ballads which, wild and rugged as they were, seemed to the judging eye of Spenser to contain a portion of the pure gold of poetry.

But the circumstance which, more than any other, has made Ireland to differ from Scotland remains to be noticed. Scotland was Protestant. In no part of Europe had the movement of the popular mind against the Roman Catholic Church been so rapid and violent. The Reformers had vanquished, deposed, and imprisoned their idolatrous sovereign. They would not enScotland, in becoming part of the dure even such a compromise as had British monarchy, preserved her dig- been effected in England. They had nity. Having, during many genera-established the Calvinistic doctrine, tions, courageously withstood the Eng-discipline, and worship; and they lish arms, she was now joined to her made little distinction between Popery stronger neighbour on the most hon- and Prelacy, between the Mass and ourable terms. She gave a King in- the Book of Common Prayer. Unforstead of receiving one. She retained tunately for Scotland, the prince whom her own constitution and laws. Her she sent to govern a fairer inheritance tribunals and parliaments remained had been so much annoyed by the entirely independent of the tribunals pertinacity with which her theologians and parliaments which sate at West- had asserted against him the privileges minster. The administration of Scot- of the synod and the pulpit that he land was in Scottish hands; for no hated the ecclesiastical polity to which Englishman had any motive to emigrate she was fondly attached as much as it northward, and to contend with the was in his effeminate nature to hate shrewdest and most pertinacious of all anything, and had no sooner mounted races for what was to be scraped to- the English throne than he began to gether in the poorest of all treasuries. show an intolerant zeal for the governNevertheless Scotland by no means ment and ritual of the English Church. escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources. Though in name an independent kingdom, she was, during more than a century, really treated, in many respects, as a subject province.

The Irish were the only people of northern Europe who had remained true to the old religion. This is to be partly ascribed to the circumstance that they were some centuries behind their neighbours in knowledge. But other causes had cooperated. The ReIreland was undisguisedly governed formation had been a national as well as a dependency won by the sword. as a moral revolt. It had been, not Her rude national institutions had only an insurrection of the laity against perished. The English colonists sub- the clergy, but also an insurrection of mitted to the dictation of the mother all the branches of the great German country, without whose support they race against an alien domination. It could not exist, and indemnified them-is a most significant circumstance that selves by trampling on the people no large society of which the tongue is among whom they had settled. The not Teutonic has ever turned Protesparliaments which met at Dublin could tant, and that, wherever a language

Diminu

import

All such expectations were strangely disappointed. On the day of the accession of James the First tion of the England descended from the ance of rank which she had hitherto England held, and began to be re- accession garded as a power hardly of the second order. During many years the

after the

of James L.

derived from that of ancient Rome is | sovereigns had been highly considered spoken, the religion of modern Rome throughout Christendom. It might, to this day prevails. The patriotism therefore, not unreasonably be expected of the Irish had taken a peculiar di- that England, Scotland, and Ireland rection. The object of their animosity combined would form a state second to was not Rome, but England; and they none that then existed. had especial reason to abhor those English sovereigns who had been the chiefs of the great schism, Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth. During the vain struggle which two generations of Milesian princes maintained against the Tudors, religious enthusiasm and national enthusiasm became inseparably blended in the minds of the vanquished great British monarchy, under four race. The new feud of Protestant and Papist inflamed the old feud of Saxon and Celt. The English conquerors, meanwhile, neglected all legitimate means of conversion. No care was taken to provide the vanquished nation with instructors capable of making themselves understood. No translation of the Bible was put forth in the Irish language. The government contented itself with setting up a vast hierarchy of Protestant archbishops, bishops, and rectors, who did nothing, and who, for doing nothing, were paid out of the spoils of a Church loved and revered by the great body of the people.

There was much in the state both of Scotland and of Ireland which might well excite the painful apprehensions of a farsighted statesman. As yet, however, there was the appearance of tranquillity. For the first time all the British isles were peaceably united under one sceptre.

successive princes of the House of Stuart, was scarcely a more important member of the European system than the little kingdom of Scotland had previously been. This, however, is little to be regretted. Of James the First, as of John, it may be said that, if his administration had been able and splendid, it would probably have been fatal to our country, and that we owe more to his weakness and meanness than to the wisdom and courage of much better sovereigns. He came to the throne at a critical moment. The time was fast approaching when either the King must become absolute, or the Parliament must control the whole executive administration. Had James been, like Henry the Fourth, like Maurice of Nassau, or like Gustavus Adolphus, a valiant, active, and politic ruler, had he put himself at the head of the Protestants of Europe, had he gained great victories over Tilly and It should seem that the weight of Spinola, had he adorned Westminster England among European nations with the spoils of Bavarian monasought, from this epoch, to have greatly teries and Flemish cathedrals, had he increased. The territory which her hung Austrian and Castilian banners new King governed was, in extent, in St. Paul's, and had he found himnearly double that which Elizabeth self, after great achievements, at the had inherited. His empire was the head of fifty thousand troops, brave, most complete within itself and the well disciplined, and devotedly attached most secure from attack that was to be to his person, the English Parliament found in the world. The Plantagenets would soon have been nothing more and Tudors had been repeatedly under than a name. Happily he was not a the necessity of defending themselves man to play such a part. He began against Scotland while they were en- his administration by putting an end gaged in continental war. The long to the war which had raged during conflict in Ireland had been a severe and many years between England and perpetual drain on their resources. Yet Spain; and from that time he shunned even under such disadvantages those | hostilities with a caution which was

VOL. I.

D

proof against the insults of his neigh- and not a contract of which the perbours and the clamours of his subjects. formance could be demanded. It is X Not till the last year of his life could evident that this theory, though inthe influence of his son, his favourite, tended to strengthen the foundations his Parliament, and his people com- of government, altogether unsettles bined, induce him to strike one feeble them. Does the divine and immutable blow in defence of his family and of law of primogeniture admit females, or his religion. It was well for those exclude them? On either supposition whom he governed that he in this mat- half the sovereigns of Europe must be ter disregarded their wishes. The usurpers, reigning in defiance of the effect of his pacific policy was that, law of God, and liable to be disposin his time, no regular troops were sessed by the rightful heirs. The docneeded, and that, while France, Spain, trine that kingly government is pecuItaly, Belgium, and Germany swarmed liarly favoured by Heaven receives no with mercenary soldiers, the defence of countenance from the Old Testament; our island was still confided to the for in the Old Testament we read that militia. the chosen people were blamed and punished for desiring a king, and that they were afterwards commanded to withdraw their allegiance from him. Their whole history, far from counte

Doctrine

right.

As the King had no standing army, and did not even attempt to form one, it would have been wise in him to avoid any conflict with his people. But such was his indiscretion that, while he alto-nancing the notion that succession in gether neglected the means which alone order of primogeniture is of divine could make him really absolute, he con- institution, would rather seem to indistantly put forward, in the most offen- cate that younger brothers are under sive form, claims of which none of his the especial protection of heaven. predecessors had ever dreamed. Isaac was not the eldest son of Abraof divine It was at this time that those ham, nor Jacob of Isaac, nor Judah of strange theories which Filmer Jacob, nor David of Jesse, nor Soloafterwards formed into a system, and mon of David. Nor does the system which became the badge of the most of Filmer receive any countenance violent class of Tories and high church- from those passages of the New Testamen, first emerged into notice. It was ment which describe government as an gravely maintained that the Supreme ordinance of God: for the government Being regarded hereditary monarchy, under which the writers of the New as opposed to other forms of govern- Testament lived was not a hereditary ment, with peculiar favour; that the monarchy. The Roman Emperors rule of succession in order of primo- were republican magistrates, named by geniture was a divine institution, the senate. None of them pretended anterior to the Christian, and even to to rule by right of birth; and, in fact, the Mosaic dispensation; that no both Tiberius, to whom Christ comhuman power, not even that of the manded that tribute should be given, whole legislature, no length of adverse and Nero, whom Paul directed the possession, though it extended to ten Romans to obey, were, according to centuries, could deprive a legitimate the patriarchal theory of government, prince of his rights; that the authority usurpers. In the middle ages the docof such a prince was necessarily always trine of indefeasible hereditary right despotic; that the laws, by which, in would have been regarded as heretical: England and in other countries, the for it was altogether incompatible with prerogative was limited, were to be re- the high pretensions of the Church of garded merely as concessions which Rome. It was a doctrine unknown to the sovereign had freely made and the founders of the Church of Engmight at his pleasure resume; and land. The Homily on Wilful Rebelthat any treaty which a king might lion had strongly, and indeed too conclude with his people was merely a strongly, inculcated submission to condeclaration of his present intentions, stituted authority, but had made no dis