rown to lusty
manhood; it dismissed its governess, the Church, and laid claim to
that omnipotence and absolute sovereignty which Hobbes regretfully
expounded in his _Leviathan_.[1172] The idea supplied an excuse to
despots and an inspiration to noble minds. "Surely," wrote a genuine
patriot in 1548,[1173] "every honest man ought to refuse no pains, no
travail, no study, he ought to care for no reports, no slanders, no
displeasure, no envy, no malice, so that he might profit the commonwealth
of his country, for whom next after God he is created." The service of
the State tended, indeed, to encroach on the service of God, and to
obliterate altogether respect for individual liberty. Wolsey on his
death-bed was visited by qualms of conscience, but, as a rule, victims
to the principle afford, by their dying words, the most striking (p. 434)
illustrations of the omnipotence of the idea. Condemned traitors are
concerned on the scaffold, not to assert their innocence, but to
proclaim their readiness to die as an example of obedience to the law.
However unfair the judicial methods of Tudor times may seem to us, the
sufferers always thank the King for granting them free trial. Their
guilt or innocence is a matter of little moment; the one thing needful
is that no doubt should be thrown on the inviolability of the will of
the State; and the audience commend them. They are not expected to
confess or to express contrition, but merely to submit to the decrees
of the nation; if they do that, they are said to make a charitable and
godly end, and they deserve the respect and sympathy of men; if not,
they die uncharitably, and are held up to reprobation.[1174] To an age
like that there was nothing strange in the union of State and (p. 435)
Church and the supremacy of the King over both; men professed Christianity
in various forms, but to all men alike the State was their real
religion, and the King was their great High Priest. The sixteenth
century, and especially the reign of Henry VIII., supplies the most
vivid illustration of the working, both for good and for evil, of the
theory that the individual should be subordinate in goods, in life and
in conscience to the supreme dictates of the national will. This
theory was put into practice by Henry VIII. long before it was made
the basis of any political philosophy, just as he practised
Erastianism before Erastus gave it a name.

[Footnote 1172: The _Leviathan_ is