e
world--pope, cardinals, councils, and all the learned faculties
together--had declared against him, the true secret of the matter lying
deeper, understood and appreciated by all the chief parties concerned, and
by the English laity, whose interests were at stake; but in all these
barren disputings ignored as if it had no existence.

It was perhaps less easy than it seems to have followed the main road. The
bye ways often promise best at first entrance into them, and Henry's
peculiar temper never allowed him to believe beforehand that a track which
he had chosen could lead to any conclusion except that to which he had
arranged that it should lead. With an intellect endlessly fertile in
finding reasons to justify what he desired, he could see no justice on any
side but his own, or understand that it was possible to disagree with him
except from folly of ill-feeling. Starting always with a foregone
conclusion, he arrived of course where he wished to arrive. His "Glasse of
Truth" is a very picture of his mind. "If the marshall of the host bids us
do anything," he said, "shall we do it if it be against the great captain?
Again, if the great captain bid us do anything, and the king or the emperor
commandeth us to do another, dost thou doubt that we must obey the
commandment of the king or emperor, and contemn the commandment of the
great captain? Therefore if the king or the emperor bid one thing, and God
another, we must obey God, and contemn and not regard neither king nor
emperor." And, therefore, he argued, "we are not to obey the pope, when the
pope commands what is unlawful."[286] These were but many words to prove
what the pope would not have questioned; and either they concluded nothing
or the conclusion was assumed.

We cannot but think that among the many misfortunes of Henry's life his
theological training was the greatest; and that directly or indirectly it
was the parent of all the rest. If in this unhappy business he had trusted
only to his instincts as an English statesman; if he had been contented
himself with the truth, and had pressed no arguments except those which in
the secrets of his heart had weight with him, he would have spared his own
memory a mountain of undeserved reproach, and have spared historians their
weary labour through these barren deserts of unreality.

CHAPTER IV

CHURCH AND STATE

The authorities of the church, after the lesson which they had received
from the parliament in