es and ceremonies,
discipline, and form of church government; and to fix the rank, offices
and emoluments of its ministers. She was also to exercise this power
entirely at her own discretion, free from the control of parliament or
the interference of the clerical body, and assisted only by such
commissioners, lay or ecclesiastical, as it should please herself to
appoint.

This exorbitant authority was first assumed by her arbitrary father when
it became his will that his people should acknowledge no other pope than
himself; and the servile spirit of the age, joined to the ignorance and
indifference on religious subjects then general, had caused it to be
submitted to without difficulty. In consequence, the title of Head of
the Church had quietly devolved upon Edward VI. as part of his regal
style; and while the duties of the office were exercised by Cranmer and
the Protector, the nation, now generally favorable to the cause of
reform, was more inclined to rejoice in its existence than to dispute
the authority by which it had been instituted. Mary abhorred the title,
as a badge of heresy and a guilty usurpation on the rights of the
sovereign pontiff, and in the beginning of her reign she laid it aside,
but was afterwards prevailed upon to resume it, because there was a
convenience in the legal sanction which it afforded to her acts of
tyranny over the consciences of men.

The first parliament of Elizabeth, in the fervor of its loyalty, decreed
to her, as if by acclamation, all the honors or prerogatives ever
enjoyed by her predecessors, and it was solely at her own request that
the appellation of Head, was now exchanged for the less assuming one of
Governess, of the English church. The power remained the same; it was,
as we have seen, of the most absolute nature possible; since, unlimited
by law, it was also, owing to its recent establishment, equally
uncontrolled by custom. It remains to the delineator of the character of
Elizabeth to inquire in what manner she acquitted herself, to her
country and to posterity, of the awful responsibility imposed upon her
by its possession.

A slight sketch of the circumstances attending the introduction of the
reformation into England, will serve to illustrate this important branch
of her policy.

On comparing the march of this mighty revolution in our own country with
its mode of progress amongst the other nations of Europe, one of the
first remarks which suggests itself is, that