the best
philosophical commentary on the Tudor system;
Hobbes was Tudor and not Stuart in all his ideas,
and his assertion of the Tudor _de facto_ theory of
monarchy as against the Stuart _de jure_ theory
brought him into disfavour with Cavaliers.]

[Footnote 1173: John Hales in _Lansdowne MS._, 238;
_England under Protector Somerset_, p. 216.]

[Footnote 1174: _L. and P._, x., 920; "all which
died charitably," writes Husee of Anne Boleyn and
her fellow-victims; Rochford "made a very catholic
address to the people saying he had not come there
to preach but to serve as a mirror and example,
acknowledging his sins against God and the King"
(_ibid._, x., 911; _cf._ xvii., 124). Cromwell and
Somerset had more cause to complain of their fate
than other statesmen of the time, yet Cromwell on
the scaffold says: "I am by the law condemned to
die, and thank my Lord God that hath appointed me
this death for mine offence.... I have offended my
prince, for the which I ask him heartily
forgiveness" (Foxe, v., 402). And Somerset says: "I
am condemned by a law whereunto I am subject, as we
all; and therefore to show obedience I am content
to die" (Ellis, _Orig. Letters_, II., ii., 215;
_England under Somerset_, p. 308). Compare
Buckingham in Shakespeare, "_Henry VIII._," Act
II., Sc. i.:--

"I bear the law no malice for my death
... my vows and prayers
Yet are the King's; and till my soul forsake
Shall cry for blessings on him."]

The devotion paid to the State in Tudor times inevitably made expediency,
and not justice or morality, the supreme test of public acts. The
dictates of expediency were, indeed, clothed in legal forms, but laws
are primarily intended to secure neither justice nor morality, but the
interests of the State; and the highest penalty known to the law is
inflicted for high treason, a legal and political crime