The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

But, if these two facts be admitted, the question recurs, How is it that the governments of several kingdoms, and that of England in particular, had, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, merged into complete and unalloyed despotism? As our present interest in the question is restricted to England, we confine ourselves to that country, and proceed to treat of it in a few words.

Under the Tudors, the government grew to be altogether irresponsible, personal, and despotic, chiefly because under previous reigns, and constantly since the establishment of the Norman line of kings, the authority of Rome, which formed the only great counterpoise to kingly power at the time, had been gradually undermined, while the bishops, being deprived of the aid of the supreme Pontiff, had become mere tools in the hands of the monarchs.

The particular shape which the opposition to Rome took in England, compared with a similar opposition in Germany, has been already touched upon; it was found to be involved chiefly in the question of tribute-money and benefices, the latter being also reduced to a money difficulty. It was seen that the monks and the people sided generally with the kings, and gradually took a dislike and mistrust to every thing coming from Rome; the authority of the monarch, though not precisely strengthened thereby, was left without the control of a superior tribunal to direct him, and consequently the kings, if they chose, were left to follow the impulse of their own caprice, which, according to St. Thomas, forms the characteristic of tyranny.

Other causes, doubtless, contributed to pave the way for and consolidate the despotism of the Kings of England. Among such causes may be mentioned the extraordinary successes which attended the English arms, led by their warrior kings in France, and the frightful convulsions subsequently arising from the Wars of the Roses; but we doubt not the one mentioned above was the chief, and, of itself, would in the long-run have brought about the same result.

Protestantism, therefore, was neither the growth of freedom in England, nor did it plant freedom there at its introduction, inasmuch as the royal power became more absolute than ever by its predominance, and by the first principle which it laid down, that the king was supreme in Church as well as in state. Can its origin in England, then, be accounted for by the existence of a higher civilization, anterior to it in point of time, out of which it grew, or, at least, by a true aspiration toward such.

This question is as easy of solution as the first: There can be no doubt that the nations which remained either entirely or in the main faithful to the Church, in point of learning and civilization, ranked far beyond the Northern nations, where heresy so early found a permanent footing, and that in the South also the tendencies toward a higher civilization were at that time of a most marked and extraordinary character, so much so that the reign of Leo X. has become a household phrase to express the perfection of culture.

England, as a nation, was at that period only just beginning to emerge from barbarism, and in fact was the last of the European nations to adopt civilized customs and manners in the political, civil, and social relations of life.

In politics she was, until that epoch, plunged in frightful dynastic revolutions, and as yet had not learned the first principles of good government. In civil affairs, her code was the most barbarous, her feudal customs the most revolting, her whole history the most appalling of all Christendom. In social habits, she had scarcely been able to retain a few precious fragments of good old Catholic times; and the fearful scenes through which the nation had passed, which, according to J. J. Rousseau, for once expressing the truth, render the reading of that period of her history almost impossible to a humane man, had sunk her almost completely in degradation. The reader will understand that the England here spoken of is the England of three centuries ago, and not of to-day.

If by civilization is understood learning and the fine arts, what, in general phrase, is expressed by culture and refinement, how could England compare at the time with Italy, Flanders, Spain, France, all Latin or Celtic nations? How can it be pretended that she was better fitted for the reception of a more spiritual and elevating religion than any of the countries mentioned?

Two great names may be brought forward as proving that the expressions used are harsh and ill-founded—Shakespeare and Milton; a third, Bacon, we omit for reasons which our space forbids us to give.