octrinal nature, to break loose from the hierarchy, which prevailed
throughout these nations; but they had only increased its strength;
the native clergy saw that its safety lay in the strictest adherence
to the maxims of the Universal Church. Similarly the character of the
Estates in England was akin to that of those in North France and
especially in the Netherlands; on this rests the sympathy which the
enterprises of Edward III and Henry V met with; for it was indeed the
feeling of these centuries, that the members of any one of the three
Estates felt themselves quite as closely bound to the members of the
same Estate in other lands as to their own countrymen of the other
Estates. There was but one Church, one Science, one Art in Europe: one
and the same mental horizon enclosed the different peoples: a romance
and a poetry varying in form yet of closely kindred nature was the
common possession of all. The common life of Europe flowed also in the
veins of England: an indestructible foundation for culture and
progressive civilisation was laid. But we saw to what point matters
had come notwithstanding, as regards the durability of its internal
system and its power. The Plantagenets had extended the rule of
England over Scotland and Ireland: in the latter it still subsisted,
but only within the narrow limits of the Border Pale; in the former it
was altogether overthrown. The best result that had been effected in
home politics, the attempt to unite the Powers of the country in
Parliament had, after a short and brilliant success, led to the
deepest disorder by disregarding the rights of birth. The degraded
crown above all had thus become the prize of battle for Pretenders
allied with France or Burgundy. But it could not possibly remain thus.
The time was come to give the English realm an independent position
and internal order corresponding at once to its insular situation and
to the degree of culture it had attained.

The first who attempted this with some success was Edward IV, of the
house of York, who in the war of the Roses had remained master of the
field.

But everywhere there began once more an era of autocratic princes.

CHAPTER I.

RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SUPREME POWER.

Edward IV was a most brilliant figure, the handsomest man of his time,
at least among the sovereigns, so that the impression he thus made was
actually a power in politics; we find him incessantly entangled in
love affairs: he was fon