, it is certain that if England was legitimately
free, she could tolerate no difference of opinion on a question of
allegiance, so long as Europe was conspiring to bring her back into
slavery. So long as the English Romanists refused to admit without
mental reservation that, if foreign enemies invaded this country in
the Pope's name, their place must be at the side of their own
sovereign, "religion" might palliate the moral guilt of their treason,
but it could not exempt them from its punishment.

But these matters have been discust in the details of this history,
where alone they can be understood.

Beyond and besides the Reformation, the constitution of these islands
now rests in large measure on foundations laid in this reign. Henry
brought Ireland within the reach of English civilization. He absorbed
Wales and the Palatinates into the general English system. He it was
who raised the House of Commons from the narrow duty of voting
supplies, and of passing without discussion the measures of the Privy
Council, and converted them into the first power in the State under
the Crown. When he ascended the throne, so little did the Commons care
for their privileges that their attendance at the sessions of
Parliament was enforced by a law. They woke into life in 1529, and
they became the right hand of the King to subdue the resistance of the
House of Lords, and to force upon them a course of legislation which
from their hearts they detested. Other kings in times of difficulty
summoned their "great councils," composed of peers, or prelates, or
municipal officials, or any persons whom they pleased to nominate.
Henry VIII broke through the ancient practise, and ever threw himself
on the representatives of the people. By the Reformation and by the
power which he forced upon them he had so interwoven the House of
Commons with the highest business of the state that the peers
thenceforward sunk to be their shadow.

Something, too, ought to be said of his individual exertions in the
details of state administration. In his earlier life, tho active and
assiduous, he found leisure for elegant accomplishments, for splendid
amusements, for relaxations careless, extravagant, sometimes
questionable. As his life drew onward, his lighter tastes disappeared,
and the whole energy of his intellect was prest into the business of
the commonwealth. Those who have examined the printed state papers may
form some impression of his industry from the