, though in a
sense it dated from St. Austin of Canterbury, became under Henry
VIII. a self-contained institution, independent of Rome and subject
to the supremacy of the Crown.

Elizabeth altered the form of words in which her father had
expressed his ecclesiastical authority; but the substance was in
both cases the same. The sovereign was everything. The Bishop of
Rome was nothing. There has never been in the Church of England
since the divorce of Katharine any power to make a Bishop without
the authority of the Crown, or to change a doctrine without the
authority of Parliament, nor has any layman been legally subject to
temporal punishment by the ecclesiastical courts. Convocation cannot
touch an article or a formulary. King, Lords, and Commons can make
new formularies or abolish the old. The laity owe no allegiance to
the Canons, and in every theological suit the final appeal is to the
King in Council, now the Judicial Committee. Since the accession of
Elizabeth divine service has been performed in English, and the
English Bible has been open to every one who can read. Yet there are
people who talk as if the Reformation meant nothing, was nothing,
never occurred at all. This theory, like the shallow sentimentalism
which made an innocent saint and martyr of Mary Stuart, has never
recovered from the crushing onslaught of Froude.

Mr. Swinburne in the Encyclopaedia Britannica reduces the latter
theory to an absurdity, by demonstrating that if Mary was innocent
she was a fool. In his defence of Elizabeth Froude stops short of
many admirers. He was disgusted by her feminine weakness for
masculine flattery; he dwells with almost tedious minuteness upon
her smallest intrigues; he exposes her parsimonious ingratitude to
her dauntless and unrivalled seamen. Yet for all that he brings out
the vital difference between her and Mary Tudor, between the
Protestant and Catholic systems of government. Elizabeth boasted,
and boasted truly, that she did not persecute opinion. If people
were good citizens and loyal subjects, it was all the same to her
whether they went to church or to mass. Had it been possible to
adopt and apply in the sixteenth century the modern doctrine of
contemptuous indifference to sectarian quarrels, there was not one
of her subjects more capable of appreciating and acting upon it than
the great Queen herself. But in that case she would have estranged
her friends without conciliating her opponents. She would