crown to the parliament. Our princes were about to have at their
command means of coercion such as no Plantagenet or Tudor had
ever possessed. They must inevitably have become despots, unless
they had been, at the same time, placed under restraints to which
no Plantagenet or Tudor had ever been subject.

It seems certain, therefore, that, had none but political causes
been at work, the seventeenth century would not have passed away
without a fierce conflict between our Kings and their
Parliaments. But other causes of perhaps greater potency
contributed to produce the same effect. While the government of
the Tudors was in its highest vigour an event took place which
has coloured the destinies of all Christian nations, and in an
especial manner the destinies of England. Twice during the middle
ages the mind of Europe had risen up against the domination of
Rome. The first insurrection broke out in the south of France.
The energy of Innocent the Third, the zeal of the young orders of
Francis and Dominic, and the ferocity of the Crusaders whom the
priesthood let loose on an unwarlike population, crushed the
Albigensian churches. The second reformation had its origin in
England, and spread to Bohemia. The Council of Constance, by
removing some ecclesiastical disorders which had given scandal to
Christendom, and the princes of Europe, by unsparingly using fire
and sword against the heretics, succeeded in arresting and
turning back the movement. Nor is this much to be lamented. The
sympathies of a Protestant, it is true, will naturally be on the
side of the Albigensians and of the Lollards. Yet an enlightened
and temperate Protestant will perhaps be disposed to doubt
whether the success, either of the Albigensians or of the
Lollards, would, on the whole, have promoted the happiness and