ask was allotted
to him, he, like every other man, ought to be judged. He was
inconsistent: he can bear the reproach of it. He ended by accepting
and approving what he had commenced with persecuting; yet it was with
the honest inconsistency which distinguishes the conduct of most men
of practical ability in times of change, and even by virtue of which
they obtain their success. If at the commencement of the movement he
had regarded the eucharist as a "remembrance," he must either have
concealed his convictions or he would have forfeited his throne; if he
had been a stationary bigot, the Reformation might have waited for a
century, and would have been conquered only by an internecine war.

But as the nation moved the King moved, leading it, but not outrunning
it; checking those who went too fast, dragging forward those who
lagged behind. The conservatives, all that was sound and good among
them, trusted him because, he so long continued to share their
conservatism; when he threw it aside he was not reproached with breach
of confidence, because his own advance had accompanied theirs.

Protestants have exclaimed, against the Six Articles bill; Romanists
against the Act of Supremacy. Philosophers complain that the
prejudices of the people were needlessly violated, that opinions
should have been allowed to be free, and the reform of religion have
been left to be accomplished by reason. Yet, however cruel was the Six
Articles bill, the governing classes even among the laity were
unanimous in its favor. The King was not converted by a sudden
miracle; he believed the traditions in which he had been trained; his
eyes, like the eyes of others, opened but slowly; and unquestionably,
had he conquered for himself in their fulness the modern principles
of toleration, he could not have governed by them a nation which was
itself intolerant. Perhaps, of all living Englishmen who shared
Henry's faith, there was not one so little desirous as himself of
enforcing it by violence. His personal exertions were ever to mitigate
the action of the law, while its letter was sustained; and England at
its worst was a harbor of refuge to the Protestants, compared to the
Netherlands, to France, to Spain, or even to Scotland.

That the Romanists should have regarded him as a tyrant is natural;
and were it true that English subjects owed fealty to the Pope, their
feeling was just. But however desirable it may be to leave religious
opinions unfettered