r than
yield submission where their consciences forbade them; and their
isolated heroism has served to distinguish their memories. The pope, as
head of the Universal Church, claimed the power of absolving subjects
from their allegiance to their king. He deposed Henry. He called on
foreign princes to enforce his sentence; and, on pain of
excommunication, commanded the native English to rise in rebellion. The
king, in self-defence, was compelled to require his subjects to disclaim
all sympathy with these pretensions, and to recognise no higher
authority, spiritual or secular, than himself within his own dominions.
The regular clergy throughout the country were on the pope's side,
secretly or openly. The Charterhouse monks, however, alone of all the
order, had the courage to declare their convictions, and to suffer for
them. Of the rest, we only perceive that they at last submitted; and
since there was no uncertainty as to their real feelings, we have been
disposed to judge them hardly as cowards. Yet we who have never been
tried, should perhaps be cautious in our censures. It is possible to
hold an opinion quite honestly, and yet to hesitate about dying for it.
We consider ourselves, at the present day, persuaded honestly of many
things; yet which of them should we refuse to relinquish if the scaffold
were the alternative--or at least seem to relinquish, under silent
protest?

And yet, in the details of the struggle at the Charterhouse, we see the
forms of mental trial which must have repeated themselves among all
bodies of the clergy wherever there was seriousness of conviction. If
the majority of the monks were vicious and sensual, there was still a
large minority labouring to be true to their vows; and when one entire
convent was capable of sustained resistance, there must have been many
where there was only just too little virtue for the emergency--where the
conflict between interest and conscience was equally genuine, though it
ended the other way. Scenes of bitter misery there must have been--of
passionate emotion wrestling ineffectually with the iron resolution of
the Government: and the faults of the Catholic party weigh so heavily
against them in the course and progress of the Reformation, that we
cannot willingly lose the few countervailing tints which soften the
darkness of their conditions.

Nevertheless, for any authentic account of the abbeys at this crisis, we
have hitherto been left to our imagination. A