legal commissions; he not only granted a general pardon to all the
malecontents; but he publicly and solemnly apologised for his infraction
of the laws.
His conduct, on this occasion, well illustrates the whole policy of his
house. The temper of the princes of that line was hot, and their
spirits high, but they understood the character of the nation that they
governed, and never once, like some of their predecessors, and some of
their successors, carried obstinacy to a fatal point. The discretion of
the Tudors was such, that their power, though it was often resisted,
was never subverted. The reign of every one of them was disturbed by
formidable discontents: but the government was always able either to
soothe the mutineers or to conquer and punish them. Sometimes, by timely
concessions, it succeeded in averting civil hostilities; but in general
it stood firm, and called for help on the nation. The nation obeyed
the call, rallied round the sovereign, and enabled him to quell the
disaffected minority.
Thus, from the age of Henry the Third to the age of Elizabeth, England
grew and flourished under a polity which contained the germ of our
present institutions, and which, though not very exactly defined, or
very exactly observed, was yet effectually prevented from degenerating
into despotism, by the awe in which the governors stood of the spirit
and strength of the governed.
But such a polity is suited only to a particular stage in the progress
of society. The same causes which produce a division of labour in the
peaceful arts must at length make war a distinct science and a distinct
trade. A time arrives when the use of arms begins to occupy the entire
attention of a separate class. It soon appears that peasants and
burghers, however brave, are unable to stand their ground against
veteran soldiers, whose whole life is a preparation for the day of
battle, whose nerves have been braced by long familiarity with danger,
and whose movements have all the precision of clockwork. It is found
that the defence of nations can no longer be safely entrusted to
warriors taken from the plough or the loom for a campaign of forty
days. If any state forms a great regular army, the bordering states
must imitate the example, or must submit to a foreign yoke. But, where
a great regular army exists, limited monarchy, such as it was in the
middle ages, can exist no longer. The sovereign is at once emancipated
from what had been the chief re
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