other circumstances; they ferved however to fhew, that Henry had loft the affections of his fubjects, though they did not produce a revolution. He was unworthy of their affection, because his perverse will was with him the fole measure of law and justice. His keeping up the forms of the conftitution, was an insult on his fubjects, while he made his parliaments ridiculous, contemptible, odious, intolerable, the inftruments merely of violence and oppreffion. When he thought the Duke of Buckingham had lived long enough, why did he not have recourse to the bowftring? Why involve his parliament in the guilt of shedding innocent blood? Why did he not fend a fleepy potion to his queen Ann Bullen, when he had fallen in love with Jane Seymour? Why did he not open the veins of his favourites, when he was weary of them? And why did he not order off the heads of the Earl of Surrey, the Duke of Norfolk, the Marchioness of Exeter, and the Countess of Salisbury, by his own authority? He chose rather R 2

to

to triumph over his parliaments, and make them pafs bills of attainder, without bringing the parties to trial, or attempting to produce any proof against them. He fhould have been contented to exercise the authority with which his parliament had invested him, when they fettled the fupremacy on him, and passed the fix articles of religion, as by the former of these the lives of all the Roman catholics, and by the latter the lives. of all the Proteftants were wholly at his mercy.-Henry did not wifh to reign in the hearts of his fubjects: the principle of his government was fear: he was a defpot.

The short reign of Edward the VIth was a reign of great confufion; in the former part of it, his uncle, as Protector, ufurped an arbitrary power; in the latter part of it, the Protector was fupplanted by the Earl of Warwick, and loft his life upon the block, as the Earl of Warwick himself did in the fucceeding reign. The infurrections in this reign arose partly from the change in the national religion,

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gion, but chiefly from the oppreffions which the poor met with from the rich by their inclosures. The restless ambition of the Earl of Warwick proved his ruin. By marrying his fon to lady Jane Grey, and procuring an affignment of the crown for her, he hoped to be continued in the protectorship, which he had seized; but his tyrannical difpofition made him hated and abhorred by all ranks of people. His abject foul funk at the first appearance of difficulty, and he himself proclaimed Queen Mary.

Queen Mary trod in the fteps of her father, and wrote the annals of her reign in blood. Her laft proclamation fhewed how fit fhe was to be trufted with de

fpotic power, how much fhe loved her fubjects, how ready fhe was to protect them, and what pains fhe took to secure allegiance. In this proclamation she declared, "That whoever had any heretical books, and did not prefently burn them without reading, fhould be esteemed rebels, and executed without delay by martial law."-In her fhort reign there

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there was only one infurrection; this was raised by Sir Thomas Wyatt, a Roman catholic. He dreaded the queen's marriage with Philip, who, being a Spaniard, made the English fear left he should introduce the inquifition, and arbitrary power, Their fears were not without foundation; for he did this afterwards in the Netherlands.

Queen Elizabeth had fome title to arbitrary power, by that argument which would prove abfolute monarchy to be the best government, as that by which God himself governs the universe, because the partook of his wisdom and goodness; yet no fovereign ever made a more temperate ufe of power, confidering the peculiarity of her circumstances. When the afcended the throne, fhe found a blood-thirsty religion established in the kingdom; fhe had been witness to the devaftation it had made, and knew that nothing less than the extirpation of the Proteftants would fatisfy its votaries.

Locke on Government.

She

She had a formidable rival in the perfon of Mary Queen of Scots, who was of this fanguinary religion; and no contemptible adversary in the perfon of the Pope, who being the head of this religion, was acknowledged as univerfal fovereign, and the great disposer of kingdoms. There was no way for her to ftop the effufion of human blood, but by changing this religion; for this religion cannot tolerate: neither was there any other way for her to provide for the fecurity of her own person, and the allegiance of her subjects. In the eleven firft years of her reign, not one Papift was perfecuted for his religion but after Pope Pius the Vth had published his bull, abfolving her fubjects from their oaths, and their allegiance; after many conspiracies, had been formed, and frequent attempts had been made by Catholics and Jefuits to affaffinate her, with a view to feat Mary on the throne, no wonder that the fhould contract the bounds of toleration: yet for ten years after this, not above twelve priests were put to death, and most of these for treaR 4 fon.