The cruelty of the Tudor epoch has already been spoken of. Catholics and protestants, kings, popes, cardinals, ministers, Luthers, Calvins, Knoxes were all stained by it. Henry and More, we know, were no exceptions. But More’s cruelty differed from Henry’s in one important respect—there was nothing appertaining to self in it, except self-confidence. Henry’s cruelty was in the interest of himself—his person, his family, and his throne; More’s cruelty, although less limited perhaps, and more dangerous, was nevertheless in the interest of religion.
HENRY AND HIS PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENT.
NOTE VIII.
It is in his attitude to his people and his parliament that we see Henry at his best. His sagacity did not show itself in any deliberate or deeply reasoned policy, certainly not, we may allow with Dr. Stubbs, in any great act of “constructive genius;” it showed itself in seeing clearly the difficulties of the hour and the day, and in the hourly and daily success with which they were met. Henry and his father presided over the introduction of a new order of things, which new order, however, was a step only, not a cataclysm. They themselves scarcely knew the significance of the step or how worthily they presided over it. The world, indeed, knows little—history says little—of great and sudden acts of constructive genius. These gradually emerge from the growth of peoples; they do not spring from the brains of individuals royal or otherwise. If the vision of a ruler is clear and his aims good, he, more than others, may help on organic and beneficent growth. Full-blown schemes and policies, even if marked by genius, are rarely helpful and not infrequently they end in hindrance or even in explosion. The Stuarts had a large “scheme” touching church and king. It was a scheme of “all in all or not at all;” for them and their dynasty it ended in “not at all.” French history is brimful of “great acts of constructive genius” and has none of the products of development. For Celtic history is indeed a sad succession of fits, and not a process of quiet growth. How a succession of fits will end, and how growth will end, it is not difficult to foretel.
The government of peoples is for the most part and in the long run that which they deserve, that which they are best fitted for, and not at all that which, it may be, they wish for and cry out for. A people ready—fairly and throughout all strata ready—for that which they demand will not long demand in vain. Our fathers, under the Tudor Henrys and the Tudor Elizabeth, had the rule which was best fitted for them, which they asked for, which they deserved—a significant morsel, by the bye, of racial circumstance. It by no means follows, let it be noted, that what people and king together approved of was the ideal or the wisest. It is with policies as with all things else, the fittest, not the best, continue to hold the field.
Henry and Elizabeth had not only clearness of sight, but flexibility of mind also, and would doubtless have ruled over Puritan England with success; it lay in them to rule well over our modern England also. Charles I., by organisation and proclivity, would have fared badly at the hands of a Tudor parliament, and, again as a result of organisation and proclivity, Henry VIII. and the Long Parliament would have been excellent friends. Hand to mouth government, if it is also capable, is probably the best government for a revolutionary time. Conflicting parties are often kept quiet by mere suspense—by mingled hopes and fears. It has been well said of Henry of Navarre that he kept France, the home of political whirlwinds, tranquil for a time because the Protestants believed him to be a Protestant and the Catholics believed he was about to become a Catholic.
The majority of historians and all the compilers of history tell us that Henry’s parliaments were abject and servile. The statement is politically misleading and is also improbable on the grounds of organisation and race. It is one of many illustrations of the vice of purely literary judgments on men and movements; a vice which takes no account of physiology, of race, of organisation and proclivity. For we may be well assured that the grandsons of brave men and the grandfathers of brave men are never themselves cowards. One and the same people—especially a slow, steadfast, and growing people—does not put its neck under the foot of one king to-day and cut off the head of another king to-morrow. It is not difficult to see how the misconception arose: in a time of great trial the king and the people were agreed both in politics and in religion. The people held the king’s views; they admired his sagacity; they trusted in his honour. If a brother is attached to his brother and does not quarrel with him, is he therefore poor-spirited? If by rare chance a servant sees, possibly on good grounds, a hero in his master, is he therefore a poltroon? If a parliament and a king see eye to eye, is it just to label the parliament throughout history as an abject parliament?
Henry’s epoch, moreover, was not one of marked political excitement, and therefore the hasty observer jumps to the conclusion that it was not one of political independence. In each individual, in each community, in each people there is a sum-total of nerve force. In a given amount of brain substance—one brain or many—in a given amount of brain nutriment of brain vitality, there is a given quantity of nerve power. This totality of power will show itself it may be in one way strongly or in several ways less strongly; it cannot be increased, it cannot be lessened. On purely physiological grounds it may be affirmed that Bacon could not have thought and written all his own work and at the same time have also thought and written the life-work of Shakspere. Shakspere could not have added Bacon’s investigations to his own ‘intuitions.’ In our own time Carlyle could not have written “The French Revolution” and “The Descent of Man;” he could not have gone through the two trainings, gained the two knowledges, and lived the two lives which led to the two works. So it is with universities: when scholarship is robust, theology limps; and during the Tractarian excitement, so a great scholar affirms, learning in Oxford sank to a lower level. So with peoples: in a literary age religious feeling is less earnest; in a time of political excitement both religion and literature suffer. Henry’s era was one of abounding theological activity: Luthers, Calvins, and (later) Knoxes came to the front, and the front could not, never can, hold many dominant and also differing spirits. In Elizabeth’s time Marlowes and Shaksperes and Spensers were master spirits, and master spirits are never numerous. No doubt as civilisation goes on great men and great movements learn to move, never equally perhaps but more easily, side by side: more leaders come to the front—but is the front as brilliant? Choice spirits are more numerous—but are the spirits quite as choice? Another and a less partial generation must decide.