etail of such frivolous events
as those with which it is filled, or attend to a tedious narrative
which would follow, through a series of fifty-six years, the caprices
and weaknesses of so mean a prince as Henry? The chief reason why
Protestant writers have been so anxious to spread out the incidents of
this reign is, in order to expose the rapacity, ambition, and
artifices of the court of Rome; and to prove that the great
dignitaries of the Catholic church, while they pretended to have
nothing in view but the salvation of souls, had bent all their
attention to the acquisition of riches, and were restrained by no
sense of justice or of honour in the pursuit of that great object [a].
But this conclusion would readily be allowed them, though it were not
illustrated by such a detail of uninteresting incidents; and follows,
indeed, by an evident necessity, from the very situation in which that
church was placed with regard to the rest of Europe. For, besides
that ecclesiastical power, as it can always cover its operations under
a cloak of sanctity, and attacks men on the side where they dare not
employ their reason, lies less under control than civil government;
besides this general cause, I say, the pope and his courtiers were
foreigners to most of the churches which they governed; they could not
possibly have any other object than to pillage the provinces for
present gain; and as they lived at a distance, they would be little
awed by shame or remorse, in employing every lucrative expedient which
was suggested to them. England being one of the most remote provinces
attached to the Romish hierarchy, as well as the most prone to
superstition, felt severely during this reign, while its patience was
not yet fully exhausted, the influence of these causes; and we shall
often have occasion to touch cursorily upon such incidents. But we
shall not attempt to comprehend every transaction transmitted to us;
and, till the end of the reign, when the events become more memorable,
we shall not always observe an exact chronological order in our
narration.
[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 623.]

[MN Settlement of the government.]
The Earl of Pembroke, who, at the time of John's death, was Mareschal
of England, was, by his office, at the head of the armies, and
consequently, during a state of civil wars and convulsions, at the
head of the government; and it happened fortunately for the young
monarch and for the nation, that the power could not ha