of having pensioned the Cardinal du Perron, Scaliger, Casaubon, and other eminent men of learning, and M. Guadet quotes passages from the royal letters and addresses which are marked by singular felicity of expression and bold yet apt imagery; as when he writes to Chastelux :

J'espère que vous pourrez assembler en bref les forces du pays. Mon armée de deçà en a grand besoin, je vous jure, et pour mon particulier, n'attends rien plus que votre vue et le joyeux premier soleil qui brillera dans vos cuirasses. Sur ce, faites au contraire de la Bible, ne l'arrêtez, mais l'avancez: ce sera miracle d'affection pour votre meilleur maître et plus assuré ami.'

Or when he justifies an act of bounty to a faithful supporter: 'Il est bien raisonnable que ceux qui travaillent au ménage de mes affaires aient quelque avantage par-dessus ceux qui ne s'éveillent qu'à leur bruit.

From the post-mortem examination, it appeared that his life, left to its natural termination, would have been long. Had it been spared, he might have placed the affairs of Europe on a new basis, immeasurably advanced the cause of civilization, returned from a fresh career of victory to cultivate anew the arts of peace, and have given his name to his age, which was the one thing wanting to place him above the Grand Monarque,the only legitimate sovereign who is ever named alongside of him as the pride and glory of France. We learn with surprise from M. Guadet that sundry writers have drawn a parallel between the two of whom it may be accurately said that the one undid the best of what the other had done,-witness the revocation of the Edict of Nantes: that the one blighted all that the other had left in bloom,-witness the condition of the people when Louis the Magnificent died. Indeed, the bare comparison will hardly be tolerated by any who look below the surface, who are not dazzled by tinsel, who can distinguish between personal and borrowed or reflected lustre, who can count the cost of the splendours of Versailles, or strip its haughty creator of his plumes; and the French must be impervious to all sound principles of national economy as well as blind to all the true virtues of royalty, if they do not hail their fourth Henry as the best and greatest of their kings.

ART.

ART. IX. The Submission of the Clergy, and Restraint of Appeals, 25 Henry VIII., Chap. 19.

THE

HE work of which the title is prefixed to this article cannot claim a place in the catalogue of current literature. It was published in the year 1533, and is therefore about three centuries and a half old. Nevertheless, it is not out of print, nor out of date; it still has its readers, and, as we hope to show in the following pages, there are reasons at the present time why it might be profitably read and studied, at least by some amongst us, more carefully than perhaps it is.

When Henry VIII. sat upon the throne of England, it cannot be doubted, even by those who take the most unfavourable view of that monarch and his doings, that the relations between Church and State needed reconsideration and adjustment. The immense power of the clergy, arising from the immensity of their possessions, from the number and size of the abbeys and other religious houses, to say nothing of views then current on the subject of power and influence essentially spiritual, constituted a practical difficulty for every monarch who desired to really govern within his own dominions. Had King Henry been the most chaste of monarchs, and had his reign been free, as every Englishman wishes that it had been, from the foul blot of matrimonial sins, he would still almost certainly have been brought face to face with the great problem of governing the country while the most influential and most highly educated body of his subjects only submitted to him with a qualification, and claimed powers and privileges with which he had nothing to do. The question involved in the phrase 'the submission of the clergy' must sooner or later have come to the front, independently of King Henry's anxiety to put away his wife.

It is well that these two things should be kept as much apart, the one from the other, in our minds as possible; and it is, in fact, quite possible to examine what King Henry and his Parliament actually did with regard to the great ecclesiastical questions of the day, without introducing for a single moment any mention of the divorce or of anything connected with it.

Let it be observed, then, that there were two things which the clergy, before the Reformation, claimed to do, and which King Henry determined that they should do no longer. In the first place, they claimed to make canons, constitutions, and the like, independently of the Crown; they would probably not have openly maintained that they had power to make any canon or constitution which should be directly contrary to the common

law

law of the land; but they would have claimed to promulge their canons and constitutions on their own account, and without licence from the Crown first obtained: manifestly a dangerous, and, if freely used, even an insufferable power. In the second place they claimed, and actually indulged in, the practice of appealing to the Court of Rome in matters commencing in the courts of this country: this being also a dangerous and insufferable practice, independently of any reference to particular cases of appeal, such as that in which King Henry himself took so lively an interest.

These claims of the clergy, accordingly, King Henry determined entirely to crush and destroy for evermore. The business was managed thus. The King opened negociations with the clergy in their convocation. After some discussion he required the subscription of the clergy to the following articles :

First, that no constitution or ordinance should be thereafter by the clergy enacted, promulged, or put in execution, unless the King's Highness did approve the same by his high authority and royal assent; and his advice and favour were also interposed for the execution of every such constitution amongst His Highness's subjects. Second, that whereas divers of the constitutions provincial, which had been heretofore enacted, were thought not only much prejudicial to the King's prerogative, but also much onerous to His Highness's subjects, it should be committed to the examination and judgment of thirty-two persons, whereof sixteen were to be of the upper and nether house of the temporalty, and other sixteen of the clergy; all to be appointed by the King's Highness. So that finally, whichsoever of the said constitutions should be thought and determined of the said thirty-two persons worthy to be abrogate and annulled, the same were to be afterwards taken away, and to be of no force and strength. Third, that all others of the said constitutions, which stood with God's laws and the King's, should stand in full strength and power, the King's Highness's royal assent given to the same."

Upon these articles, which, no doubt, seemed much more tremendous and revolutionary to the minds of the clergy then, than they do to any of us, whether clergy or laity, now, the famous Submission of the Clergy' was based. It follows nearly the language of the King's articles, but may be with advantage produced in its entirety. It runs thus:—

We your most humble subjects, daily orators, and beadsmen, of your Clergy of England, having our special trust and confidence in your most excellent wisdom, your princely goodness, and fervent zeal in the promotion of God's honour and Christian religion, and also in your learning, far exceeding in our judgment the learning of all other kings and princes that we have read of: and doubting nothing but that the same shall still continue and increase in your Majesty, first

do

do offer and promise in verbo sacerdotii here unto your Highness, submitting ourselves most humbly to the same, that we will never from henceforth enact, put in ure, promulge, or execute any new canons or constitutions provincial, or any other new ordinance, provincial or synodal, in our convocation or synod, in time coming, which convocation is, always hath been, and must be assembled only by your high commandment of writ; only your Highness by your royal assent shall license us to assemble our convocation, and to make, promulge, and execute such constitutions and ordinances as shall be made in the same, and thereto give your royal assent and authority.

Secondarily, that whereas divers of the constitutions, ordinances, and canons provincial or synodal, which have been heretofore enacted, be thought to be not only much prejudicial to your prerogative royal, but also overmuch onerous to your Highness's subjects; your clergy aforesaid is contented, if it may stand so with your Highness's pleasure, that it be committed to the examination and judgment of your Grace, and of thirty-two persons, whereof sixteen to be of the upper and nether house of the temporalty, and other sixteen of the clergy, all to be chosen and appointed by your most noble Grace. So that finally whichever of the said constitutions, ordinances, or canons provincial or synodal shall be thought and determined by your Grace, and by the most part of the said thirty-two persons, not to stand with God's laws and the laws of your realm, the same to be abrogated and taken away by your Grace and the clergy. And such of them as shall be seen by your Grace, and by the most part of the said thirty-two persons, to stand with God's laws and the laws of your realm, to stand in full strength and power, your Grace's most royal assent and authority, once impetrate, fully given to the same.'

King Henry must have been a happy man when he received into his royal hand a duly attested copy of this important document, expressed too in such flattering, and no doubt most sincere, language. He seems to have been satisfied with his present achievement; at all events he waited two years before he took the final step of turning the submission of the clergy into statute law. They had bound themselves with the golden cord of a priestly promise. The King determined to add to this, or to substitute for it, the iron chain of an Act of Parliament.

This Act, as already mentioned, included two subjects: the submission of the clergy, and the restraint of appeals. As the latter subject is one of no practical interest at the present time, and in this respect differs much, as we hope to show, from the former, we propose to pass over that portion of the Act which deals with appeals to Rome, and to confine our attention to that part which professes to give statutable force to the submission which the clergy had already made. We say professes, because it has been argued that the Act of Submission in reality

takes

takes more than the clergy had themselves conceded. Thus a recent writer * calls attention to the fact, that whereas the clergy said in their Submission, 'We will never from henceforth enact, put in ure, promulge, or execute any new canons,' &c., the Act of Parliament substitutes the double clause (which occurred in the draft of the Submission), 'We will never from henceforth presume to attempt, allege, claim, or put in ure, or to enact, promulge, or execute any canons,' &c., adding, however, to the latter part of it the word new, out of the Submission itself. Thus, he goes on to say, 'as Atterbury remarks, this part of their Submission was made to refer both to the past and to the future, both to their private and ministerial capacity, in their proceedings in their spiritual courts, and to their public and legislative capacity, as members of convocation.' It is quite true that in the preamble of the Act, the language of the Submission is incorrectly quoted; but it may be doubted whether the enacting portion has the force attributed to it. In Stephens's edition of the Act, the side-note gives this exposition: The clergy shall not enact any constitutions or ordinances without,' &c., which is according to the promise which the clergy had made. Their Submission,' says the writer above quoted, as agreed by themselves, was a different thing from their Submission as enforced by Parliament, although the Act professedly recited the Submission.' We do not think that this statement is substantially correct: at all events the Act seems to us not to have gone, to any extent worth speaking of, beyond the point to which the clergy had, under the persuasive compulsion of the King, consented to go. But it really matters comparatively little how the truth exactly stands. The submission of the clergy does not so much represent the clerical judgment of the time, as the advanced opinion of a clearheaded layman like Henry VIII.; and the Act of Submission, though politely based upon what the clergy themselves had done, bore to their conduct. something of the same kind fof relation as that which existed between the acts of Dick Turpin and the conduct of the unfortunate travellers who had made their submission when requested by that potentate to do so.

It is well for us in the present day to look as exclusively as possible to the Act of Submission, and not to the Submission itself upon which the Act professes to be based. We shall content ourselves with quoting the one important enacting clause, which is as follows::

p. 112.

*History of the Church of England,' by Richard Watson Dixon, M.A. Vol. i. Vol. 148.-No. 296.

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