ctory to each other, and
insisted with relentless severity on the execution of those laws.

Under him, if ever, England appears as a commonwealth with a common
will, from which no deviation is allowed, but which moves forward
inclining now to the one side now to the other. It was no part of
Henry VIII's Tudor principles and inclinations to call the Parliament
together; but for his Church-enterprise it was indispensable. He gave
its tendencies their way and respected the opinion which it
represented: but at the same time he knew how to keep it at all times
under the sway of his influence. Never has any other sovereign seen
such devoted Parliaments gathered round him; they gave his
proclamations the force of law, and allowed him to settle the
succession according to his own views; they then gave effect to what
he determined.

In this way it was possible for Henry VIII to carry through a
political plan that has no parallel. He allowed the spiritual
tendencies of the century to gain influence, and then contrived to
confine them within the narrowest limits. He would be neither
Protestant nor Catholic, and yet again both; an unimaginable thing, if
it had only concerned these opinions: but he retained his hold on the
nation because his plan of separating the country from the Papal
hierarchic system, without taking a step further than was absolutely
necessary, suited the people's views.

In the earlier years it appeared as though he would alienate Ireland
by his religious innovations, since there Catholicism and national
feeling were at one. And there really were moments when the insurgent
chiefs in alliance with Pope and Emperor boasted that with French and
Scotch help they would attack the English on all sides and drive them
into the sea. But there too it proved of infinite service to him that
he defended dogma while he abandoned the old constitution. In Ireland
the monasteries and great abbeys were likewise suppressed; the
O'Briens, Desmonds, O'Donnels, and other families were as much
gratified as the English lords and gentlemen with the property almost
gratuitously offered them. Under these circumstances they recognised
Henry VIII as King of Ireland, almost as if they had a feeling of the
change of position as regards public law into which they thus came:
they received their baronies from him as fiefs and appeared in
Parliament.

Towards the end of his life Henry once more drew the sword against
France in alliance wit