is surely
the most powerful.

Yet England shows no intention of returning. History may say what it
pleases, yet England remains tenacious of the liberties which were then
won for us, and unconscious of the disgrace attaching to them;
unconscious, also, that the version of the story which it accepts contains
anything which requires explanation. The legislation of Henry VIII., his
Privy Council, and his parliaments is the Magna Charta of the modern
world. The Act of Appeals and the Act of Supremacy asserted the national
independence, and repudiated the interference of foreign bishop, prince,
or potentate within the limits of the English empire. The clergy had held
for many centuries an _imperium in imperio_. Subject themselves to no law
but their own, they had asserted an irresponsible jurisdiction over the
souls and bodies of the people. The Act for the submission of these
persons reduced them to the common condition of subjects under the control
of the law. Popes were no longer allowed to dispense with ordinary
obligations. Clerical privileges were abolished. The spiritual courts,
with their intolerable varieties of iniquity, were swept away, or coerced
within rational limits. The religious houses were suppressed, their
enormous wealth was applied for the defence of the realm, and the worse
than Augean dunghill of abuses was cleared out with resolute hand. These
great results were accomplished in the face of papal curses, in defiance
of superstitious terrors, so despicable when bravely confronted, so
terrible while the spectre of supernatural power was still unexorcised; in
the face, too, of earthly perils which might make stout hearts shake, of
an infuriated priesthood stirring the people into rebellion, of an
exasperated Catholic Europe threatening fire and sword in the name of the
Pope. These were distinguished achievements, not likely to have been done
at all by an infamous prince and infamous ministers; yet done so well that
their work is incorporated in the constitution almost in the form in which
they left it; and this mighty revolution, the greatest and most
far-reaching in modern times, was accomplished without a civil war, by
firmness of hand, by the action of Parliament, and a resolute enforcement
of the law. Nor has the effect of Henry's legislation been confined to
England. Every great country, Catholic or Protestant, has practically
adopted its chief provisions. Popes no longer pretend a power of deposing