Thus we see that, through the entire reigns of the house of Tudor, that is, the most despotic and arbitrary of our princes, the forms of liberty were still kept up, and the constitution maintained, even amidst the advantages of all sorts which offered for the destruction of both. The parliament indeed was obsequious, was servile, was directed, if you will; but every proceeding was authorised and confirmed by parliament. The king in the mean time found himself at his ease; perhaps believed himself absolute, and considered his application to parliaments as an act of mere grace and popular condescension. At least, after so long experience of their submission, the elder James certainly thought himself at liberty to entertain this belief of them. But he was the first of our princes that durst avow this belief plainly and openly. He was stimulated, no doubt, to this usurpation of power in England, by the memory of his former subjection, of servitude rather, to the imperious church of Scotland. But this was not all. Succeeding to so fair a patrimony as that of a mighty kingdom, where little or no opposition had been made for some reigns to the will of the sovereign; to a kingdom too, securely settled in the possession of its favoured religion, which had occasioned all the dangers, and produced all the condescension, of the preceding princes; bringing, besides, with him to the succession, an undisputed title and the additional splendor of another crown; all these advantages meeting in his person at that point of time, he ventured to give way to his natural love of dominion, and told the people to their face, that the pretended rights of their parliaments were but the free gifts and graces of their kings: that every high point of government, that is, every point which he chose to call by that name, was wrapt up in the awful mystery of his prerogative: and, in a word, that “it was sedition for them to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power[13].”
Such, you know, was the language, the public language to his parliaments, of James the First. But these pretences, which might have been suffered perhaps, or could not have been opposed, under the Tudor line, were unluckily out of season, and would not pass on a people who knew their own rights, had saved to themselves the exercise of them, and came now at length to feel and understand their importance. For, as I before observed, the principal cause that had lifted the crown so high, was the depression of the barons. The great property which had made them so formidable, was dispersed into other hands. The nobility were therefore too low to give any umbrage to the crown. But the commons were rising apace; and in a century had grown to that height, that on the accession of the Scotch family, the point of time when the new king dreamed of nothing but absolute sovereignty[14], they were now in a condition to assert the public liberty, and, as the event shewed but too soon, to snatch the sceptre itself out of their king’s hands.
However, in that interval of the dormant power of the commons it was, that the prerogative made the largest shoots, till in the end it threatened to overshadow law and liberty. And, though the general reason is to be sought in the humiliation of the church, the low estate of the barons, and the unexerted, because as yet unfelt, greatness of the commons, the solution will be defective if we stop here. For the regal authority, so limited by the ancient constitution, and by the continued use of parliaments, could never in this short space have advanced itself beyond all bounds, if other reasons had not co-operated with the state of the people; if some more powerful and special causes had not conspired to throw round the person of the sovereign those rays of sacred opinion, which are the real strength as well as gilding of a crown.
Of these I have occasionally mentioned several; such as “the personal character and virtues of the princes themselves; the high adventurous designs in which they were engaged; the interest, the people found or promised to themselves in supporting their power; the constant successes of their administration; and the unremitting spirit and vigour with which it was carried on and maintained.” All these considerations could not but dispose the people to look up with reverence to a crown, which presented nothing to their view but what was fitted to take their admiration, or imprint esteem. Yet all these had failed of procuring to majesty that profound submission which was paid to it, or of elevating the prince to that high conceit of independency which so thoroughly possessed the imagination of King James, if an event of a very singular nature, and big with important consequences, had not given the proper occasion to both.
SIR J. MAYNARD.
I understand you to mean the overthrow of the papal dominion, which had so long eclipsed the majesty of our kings; and held them in a state of vassalage, not only to the triple crown, but, which was more disgraceful, to the mitre of their own subjects.
BP. BURNET.
Rather understand me to mean, what was indeed the consequence of that event, THE TRANSLATION OF THE POPE’S SUPREMACY TO THE KING. This, as I take it, was the circumstance of all others which most favoured the sudden growth of the imperial power in this nation. And because I do not remember to have seen it enlarged upon as it deserves, give me leave to open to you, somewhat copiously, the nature of this newly-acquired headship, and the numerous advantages which the prerogative received from it.
The PAPAL SUPREMACY, as it had been claimed and exercised in this kingdom, was a power of the highest nature. It controlled every rank and order in the state, and, in effect, laid the prince and people together at the mercy of the Roman pontiff. There is no need to recount the several branches of this usurped authority. It is enough to say, that it was transcendant in all respects that could in any sense be taken to concern religion. And who, that has looked into the papal story, needs be told that, by a latitude of interpretation, every thing was construed to be a religious concern, by which the pope’s power or interest could be affected?
Under the acknowledgment then of this super-eminent dominion, no steps could possibly be taken towards the reformation of religion, or even the assertion of the just rights and privileges of the crown. But the people were grown to have as great a zeal for the former of these considerations, as the king for the latter. And in this juncture it was, that Henry, in a sudden heat, threw off the supremacy; which the parliament, to prevent its return to the pope, very readily invested in the king.