des the Reformation, the constitution of these islands
now rests in large measure on foundations laid in this reign. Henry
brought Ireland within the reach of English civilization. He absorbed
Wales and the Palatinates into the general English system. He it was
who raised the House of Commons from the narrow duty of voting
supplies, and of passing without discussion the measures of the Privy
Council, and converted them into the first power in the State under
the Crown. When he ascended the throne, so little did the Commons care
for their privileges that their attendance at the sessions of
Parliament was enforced by a law. They woke into life in 1529, and
they became the right hand of the King to subdue the resistance of the
House of Lords, and to force upon them a course of legislation which
from their hearts they detested. Other kings in times of difficulty
summoned their "great councils," composed of peers, or prelates, or
municipal officials, or any persons whom they pleased to nominate.
Henry VIII. broke through the ancient practice, and ever threw himself
on the representatives of the people. By the Reformation and by the
power which he forced upon them, he had so interwoven the House of
Commons with the highest business of the State that the peers
thenceforward sunk to be their shadow.

Something, too, ought to be said of his individual exertions in the
details of State administration. In his earlier life, though active
and assiduous, he found leisure for elegant accomplishments, for
splendid amusements, for relaxations careless, extravagant, sometimes
questionable. As his life drew onwards, his lighter tastes
disappeared, and the whole energy of his intellect was pressed into
the business of the commonwealth. Those who have examined the printed
State papers may form some impression of his industry from the
documents which are his own composition, and the letters which he
wrote and received: but only persons who have seen the original
manuscripts, who have observed the traces of his pen in side-notes and
corrections, and the handwritings of his secretaries in diplomatic
commissions, in drafts of Acts of Parliament, in expositions and
formularies, in articles of faith, in proclamations, in the countless
multitude of documents of all sorts, secular or ecclesiastical, which
contain the real history of this extraordinary reign,--only they can
realize the extent of labor to which he sacrificed himself, and which
broug