The union of the houses of York and Lancaster under Henry VII. begins a new period in English history. Part of his reign was disturbed by Perkin Warbeck and other pretenders to the throne, in support of whose claims the turbulent nobles found vent for their restlessness. But the greater part of his long reign was distinguished from preceding reigns as a time of peace and economy. During it, men's minds ripened for the great events of the next reign. Henry VIII. succeeded, under the most favora ble auspices. He found the alliance of his now important country courted by both of his great contemporaries, Francis I.' and Charles V. But the interest of the foreign complications of the reign merges in the struggle between the courts of E. and of Rome. The origin of the contest was the divorce which Henry desired to have from Catharine of Aragon, his brother's widow, to whom he had been married by papal license. Cran mer and the English church pronounced the marriage to be null, but a formal decree of divorce by the head of the church was then thought necessary in Catholic Europe. Pope Clement and the consistory, influenced by Spanish counsels, delayed, by every possible means, the decision of the question. E., however, was ready enough to support Henry. Wickliffe and his adherents had done not a little to shake the attachment of the nation to a foreign spiritual authority, by preaching doctrines which dispensed with the necessity for it. A parliament met, when the commons took the significant step of presenting a long memorial of complaints against the church. The pope, still showing no signs of yielding, bills followed, declaring the king the head of the church ; render ing the inferior clergy amenable to the civil courts: abolishing the payment of the first year's fruits of ecclesiastical livings to Rome; and perhaps a more important thing than any of these, declaring that no convocation should meet unless the king should summon it, and that no ecclesiastical canons should have force except with the king's consent. To these measures, the pope replied by refusing the divorce, and excommunicating the king (1533 A.D.). The breach thus became irreparable.
A new act was passed giving to the magistrates the power of judging in questions of heresy. The next step was the suppression of nearly 400 of the smaller monasteries. The subsidence of an insignificant popular reaction, incited by the lower clergy, was followed by the suppression of the great abbeys. All these changes, however, touched only matters of church government. On matters of faith, Henry and his parliaments were as orthodox as the most conservative could wish. They embodied the leading doctrines of Romanism, disputed by the Protestants, in an act of parliament, known among the people as " the bloody.six articles," and enforced conformity under severe penalties.
Henry was succeeded by Edward VI. His reign was marked by the general progress which the reformation now made from questions of government to questions of doc trine. More thoroughly than ever the power of the clergy was sapped. The Book of Common Prayer (1548 A.D.) deprived them of the mysterious authority which the use of a foreign language in worship gave them iu the eyes of the people, and the 42 articles of the church of E. (1552 A.D.), the foundation of the present 39, denied, among other
things, their power to work miracles in the elevation of the mass.
The next reign saw the inevitable reaction: The superstitions of the populace had been too rudely handled, and—as often happens before a crisis—there came a period of physical suffering. The conversion of cornfields into sheep-walks, induced by the high value of wool as an article of export, had thrown many out of employment, and the country was, moreover, infested with the crowd of vagrants whom the monasteries had been wont to maintain. The popular dissatisfaction coupled these things with the refor mation. Thus the opportunity was prepared for the atrocities of the reign of Mary. The queen herself was interested, by her mother's honor and her own, to uphold the Roman ist faith ; and her gloomy temper, aggravated by her unhappy childless marriage, believed that it did true service to God when it gave the rein to the bigotry of Pole and Bonner. In her first parliament (1553 A.D.), the whole legislation of Edward VI. was repealed, leaving the church of E. one in ceremonial and doctrine with the church of Home. Another parliament (155'5 A.D.) repealed the legislation of Henry VIII., thus re-establish ing the papal supremacy. Everything that the reformers had done thus undone. Still the adherents of the reformation were numerous, and when legislation failed to convert them, the fires of Smithfield were tried. Hooper, bishop of Gloucester, was one of the first to suffer. Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer,. followed, and the number who perished is not less than 300 by fire, and 100 by torture and the cruelties of confinement. Nothing more was wanted to turn the popular mind at once and forever from the church of Rome.
The accession of the Protestant princess Elizabeth came as a relief to the whole nation. The Rdmanists themselves were weary of the policy which made E. the tool of Spain, and were sickened with the cruelties which had been enacted. Elizabeth began by releasing from prison all confined on charges of heresy. Parliament followed (1559 A.D.) with acts restoring the royal supremacy over the church, and returning in general to the legislation of Edward VI. The prayer-book and the 39 articles were adjusted as they still exist. Fortunately for the country, the ministry of Elizabeth, guided by the able hand of Cecil, was one of peace. No opportunity was lost of aiding the Protestant cause throughout Europe; but Elizabeth had almost no open wars, and her long reign was disturbed by almost no domestic collisions. The mistake committed in detaining the queen of Scotland in an English prison, gave a constant incitement to disaffection among the adherents of the old faith, but no serious consequences ensued. Towards the close of the reign, Protestant and Catholic were alike patriotic in repelling the Armada (1588 A.D.). On the death of Elizabeth, the crowns of E. and Scotland were united.