e king." Whether the cause for which he died was to prevail, or
whether the sacrifice had been in vain, hung on the answer which would
be given to this momentous question. In a few days or weeks an answer
came in a form to which in that age no rejoinder was possible; and the
only uncertainty which remained at Canterbury was whether it was
lawful to use the ordinary prayers for the repose of the dead man's
soul, or whether, in consequence of the astounding miracles which
were instantly worked by his remains, the Pope's judgment ought not to
be anticipated, and the archbishop ought not to be at once adored as a
saint in heaven.

CHARACTER OF HENRY VIII.

From the 'History of England'

Protestants and Catholics united to condemn a government under which
both had suffered; and a point on which enemies were agreed was
assumed to be proved. When I commenced the examination of the records,
I brought with me the inherited impression, from which I had neither
any thought nor any expectation that I should be disabused. I found
that it melted between my hands, and with it disappeared that other
fact, so difficult to credit, yet as it had appeared so impossible to
deny, that English Parliaments, English judges, English clergy,
statesmen whose beneficent legislature survives among the most valued
of our institutions, prelates who were the founders and martyrs of the
English Church, were the cowardly accomplices of abominable
atrocities, and had disgraced themselves with a sycophancy which the
Roman Senate imperfectly approached when it fawned on Nero.

Henry had many faults. They have been exhibited in the progress of the
narrative: I need not return to them. But his position was one of
unexampled difficulty; and by the work which he accomplished, and the
conditions, internal and external, under which his task was allotted
to him, he, like every other man, ought to be judged. He was
inconsistent: he can bear the reproach of it. He ended by accepting
and approving what he had commenced with persecuting; yet it was with
the honest inconsistency which distinguishes the conduct of most men
of practical ability in times of change, and even by virtue of which
they obtain their success. If at the commencement of the movement he
had regarded the eucharist as a "remembrance," he must either have
concealed his convictions or he would have forfeited his throne; if he
had been a stationary bigot, the Reformation might have waited fo