ked silently on. In all the earlier ecclesiastical changes, in
the contest over the Papal jurisdiction and Papal exactions, in the reform
of the Church courts, even in the curtailment of the legislative
independence of the clergy, the nation as a whole had gone with the king.
But from the enslavement of the priesthood, from the gagging of the
pulpits, from the suppression of the monasteries, the bulk of the nation
stood aloof. There were few voices indeed of protest. As the royal policy
disclosed itself, as the Monarchy trampled under foot the tradition and
reverence of ages gone by, as its figure rose bare and terrible out of the
wreck of old institutions, England simply held her breath. It is only
through the stray depositions of royal spies that we catch a glimpse of
the wrath and hate which lay seething under this silence of the people.
For the silence was a silence of terror. Before Cromwell's rise and after
his fall from power the reign of Henry the Eighth witnessed no more than
the common tyranny and bloodshed of the time. But the years of Cromwell's
administration form the one period in our history which deserves the name
that men have given to the rule of Robespierre. It was the English Terror.
It was by terror that Cromwell mastered the king. Cranmer could plead for
him at a later time with Henry as "one whose surety was only by your
Majesty, who loved your Majesty, as I ever thought, no less than God." But
the attitude of Cromwell towards the king was something more than that of
absolute dependence and unquestioning devotion. He was "so vigilant to
preserve your Majesty from all treasons," adds the Primate, "that few
could be so secretly conceived but he detected the same from the
beginning." Henry, like every Tudor, was fearless of open danger, but
tremulously sensitive to the lightest breath of hidden disloyalty; and it
was on this dread that Cromwell based the fabric of his power. He was
hardly secretary before spies were scattered broadcast over the land.
Secret denunciations poured into the open ear of the minister. The air was
thick with tales of plots and conspiracies, and with the detection and
suppression of each Cromwell tightened his hold on the king.

As it was by terror that he mastered the king, so it was by terror that he
mastered the people. Men felt in England, to use the figure by which
Erasmus paints the time, "as if a scorpion lay sleeping under every
stone." The confessional had no secrets