Their first battle-field was England. The principle of the English Revolution was the struggle of free inquiry, the fruit of the Reformation, against the ruin of all political liberty, the fruit of the success of pure monarchy; an attempt to abolish absolute power in temporal as well as in spiritual affairs. Such is the character of that revolution in the course of our civilisation.
Why did this contest occur in England rather than elsewhere? Why were the revolutions of a political character more nearly simultaneous with those of a moral character in that country than on the continent?
The English royalty had undergone the same vicissitudes as the continental; in the reign of the Tudors, it reached a pitch of concentration and energy which it had never before known. I do not mean to say that the practical despotism of the Tudors was more violent, or more hurtful to England, than that of their predecessors had been. There were, I have no doubt, quite as many acts of tyranny, exactions, and violations of right under the Plantagenets as under the Tudors, and perhaps more. I am also of opinion that at this epoch the government of monarchy on the continent was more rough and arbitrary than in England. The new fact under the Tudors consisted in absolute power becoming systematic; royalty pretended to a primitive, indefeasible sovereignty, and assumed a tone and held a language which it had not previously ventured upon. The theoretical pretensions of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I., were far different from those put forth by Edward I. or Edward III., although practically the power of these last-named kings was neither less arbitrary nor extensive. I repeat, it was the principle or rational system of the monarchy which changed in England, during the sixteenth century, rather than its practical power; royalty claimed to be absolute and superior to all laws, even to those which it declared itself willing to respect.
On the other hand, the religious revolution was not accomplished in England as upon the continent; it was the work of the kings themselves. Not that the seeds of a popular reform had not long existed there also, and even put forth some shoots, which in all probability would have grown rapidly to maturity, but Henry VIII. took the initiative, and royalty led the way to revolution. It thence resulted, at least in the beginning, that as a reform of ecclesiastical abuses and tyranny, as a liberation of the human mind, the English reformation was much less complete than on the continent. It was made, as a matter of course, in the interests of its authors. The king and the retained episcopacy divided the spoils, both of wealth and of power, of the preceding government, the papacy. The consequence was not long in being felt. It was said that the reformation was made, whilst the greater part of the motives which had rendered it desirable still subsisted. It reappeared, therefore, under the popular form, clamouring against the bishops as it had exclaimed against the court of Rome, and accusing them of being so many popes. Whenever the general fate of the religious revolution was jeopardised, whenever it was a question of war against the ancient church, all portions of the reformed party rallied together, and confronted the common enemy; but the danger being over, the internal struggle recommenced, the popular reformation renewed its attack on the royal and aristocratical reformation, denounced its abuses, complained of its tyranny, and called upon it to keep its promises, and not to reproduce the power which it had so recently subverted.
About the same epoch, a movement for liberation, a craving for political liberty formerly unfelt, or at least not strongly, arose in the civil society. In the course of the sixteenth century, the commercial prosperity of England increased with extreme rapidity, and at the same time territorial wealth or landed property changed hands to a great extent. Sufficient attention has not been paid to the fact contained in the increased division of landed estates in the sixteenth century, in consequence of the ruin of the feudal aristocracy, and from many other causes which it would be too tedious to enumerate here. All authorities show us the number of landed proprietors prodigiously augmenting, and estates passing in a great measure into the possession of the gentry or small nobility, and the burgesses. The high nobility, or House of Lords, was at the commencement of the seventeenth century not nearly so rich as the House of Commons. There was therefore a great development of industrial resources and a great mutation in landed property at one and the same time. Contemporary with these two facts came up a third, the new movement of mind. The reign of Elizabeth is perhaps the era of the greatest literary and philosophical activity in England, the epoch of fertile and bold thoughts. The Puritans pushed unhesitatingly to all the consequences of a narrow but strong doctrine; other spirits, less moral and more liberal, careless of principle or system, welcomed with eagerness all ideas which promised satisfaction to their curiosity or aliment to their zeal for knowledge. Wherever the intellectual movement is hailed with delight, liberty soon becomes a necessity, and it promptly passes from the public mind into the government.
In some of the continental countries where the Reformation had broken out, a desire of the same nature, a certain longing for political liberty, had indeed manifested itself also, but the means of success were wanting to this new spirit; it knew not where to fix itself, finding no basis either in institutions or manners, but remaining vague and uncertain, seeking in vain how to set about satisfying itself. In England, it happened quite otherwise: there the spirit of political liberty, which reappeared in the sixteenth century, consequent upon the Reformation, had a basis and means of action in the ancient institutions, and in the whole social state.
There is no person who is ignorant of the first origin of the free institutions of England, or how the coalition of the great barons, in 1215, wrested from King John Magna Charta. It is not so generally known that the great charter was renewal and confirmed at repeated intervals by the majority of the kings. There were more than thirty confirmations of it between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. And not only was the charter confirmed, but new statutes were made in order to strengthen and develop it. It continued to subsist, therefore, without break or interval. At the same time the House of Commons was formed, and had taken its place in the supreme institutions of the country. It was under the race of the Plantagenets that it veritably took root; not that it played any great part in the state at that epoch, for the government, properly so called, did not come within the scope of its functions, even as a mere influence; it interfered only when it was called upon by the king, and almost always did so with reluctance and hesitation, as if fearing to engage and compromise itself, and displaying no eagerness to augment its power. But when it concerned the defence of private rights, the fortunes or dwellings of the citizens, individual liberty, in a word, the House of Commons upon such occasions performed its mission with great energy and constancy, and established all the principles which have become the basis of the English constitution.
After the Plantagenets, and especially under the Tudors, the House of Commons, or rather the whole parliament, presents itself under another aspect. It ceased to defend individual liberty so strenuously as under the Plantagenets. Arbitrary arrests, and violations of private rights, became much more frequent, and were oftener passed over in silence. As a counterpoise, the parliament held a greater place in the general government of the state. Henry VIII., for instance, needing a public support or instrument in order to change the religion of the country, and to regulate the succession to the throne, made use of the parliament, and especially of the House of Commons. Under the Plantagenets it had been an instrument of resistance, an assertor of private rights; under the Tudors it became an instrument of government, a participator in general politics; so that, at the end of the sixteenth century, although it had served or suffered almost all descriptions of tyranny, its importance had nevertheless greatly increased; its power was founded—that power upon which, in truth, representative government is based.
Therefore, when we refer to the state in which the free institutions of England stood at the end of the sixteenth century, we find the following facts:—First, certain maxims and principles of liberty, which had been constantly recorded, and of which the country and the legislature had never lost sight; secondly, certain precedents or examples of liberty, greatly mingled, it is true, with contrary precedents and examples, but sufficing to legitimate and give efficacy to remonstrances, and to support the advocates of liberty in the struggle commenced against arbitrary power or tyranny; thirdly, certain special and local institutions, fruitful as seeds of liberty, as juries, the right of assembly, and of being armed, and the independence of the municipal administrations and jurisdictions; fourthly, and finally, the parliament and its power, of which royalty had more need than ever, as it had alienated the greater part of its independent revenues, its domains, feudal rights, &c. and was obliged to have recourse, for its own sustenance, to the vote of the country.