It is a fact, and not a fancy, that Henry provided from the spoils
of the monasteries for the defence of the realm, that he founded new
bishoprics from the same source, that he disarmed the ecclesiastical
tribunals, and broke the bonds of Rome. The corruption of at least
the smaller monasteries, some of which were suppressed by Wolsey
before the rise of Cromwell, is established by the balance of
evidence, and the disappearance of the Black Book which set forth
their condition was only to be expected in the reign of Mary. The
crime which weighs most upon the memory of the King is the execution
of Fisher and More.

More, though he persecuted heretics, is the saint and philosopher of
the age. Of Fisher Macaulay says that he was worthy to have lived in
a better age, and died in a better cause. But what if these good
men, from purely conscientious motives, would have brought over a
Spanish army to coerce their Protestant fellow-subjects and their
lawful sovereign? That, and not speculative error, is the real
charge against them. Henry did all he could to put himself in the
wrong. His atrocious request that More "would not use many words on
the scaffold" makes one hate him after the lapse of well-nigh four
hundred years. The question, however, is not one of personal
feeling. Good men go wrong. Bad men are made by providence to be
instruments for good. It is not More, nor Fisher, it is the
Bluebeard of the children's history-books who gave England Miles
Coverdale's Bible, who freed her from the yoke that oppressed France
till the Revolution, and oppresses Spain to-day. Froude's first four
volumes are an eloquent indictment of Ultramontanism, a plea for the
Reformation, a sustained argument for English liberties and freedom
of thought. No such book can be impartial in the sense of admitting