forefathers' old St. Stephen's. At the worst, what was done then but
that without which it is said to be impossible to carry on a
Government now? Take an instance from the Parliament of 1539, one in
which there is no doubt Government influence was used in order to
prevent as much as possible the return of members favourable to the
clergy--for the good reason that the clergy were no doubt, on their
own side, intimidating voters by all those terrors of the unseen
world which had so long been to them a source of boundless profit and
power.

Cromwell writes to the King to say that he has secured a seat for a
certain Sir Richard Morrison; but for what purpose? As one who no
doubt 'should be ready to answer and take up such as should crack or
face with literature of learning, if any such should be.' There was,
then, free discussion; they expected clever and learned speakers in
the Opposition, and on subjects of the deepest import, not merely
political, but spiritual; and the Government needed men to answer
such. What more natural than that so close on the 'Pilgrimage of
Grace,' and in the midst of so great dangers at home and abroad, the
Government should have done their best to secure a well-disposed
House (one would like to know when they would not)? But surely the
very effort (confessedly exceptional) and the acknowledged difficulty
prove that Parliament were no mere 'registrars of edicts.'

But the strongest argument against the tyranny of the Tudors, and
especially of Henry VIII. in his 'benevolences,' is derived from the
state of the people themselves. If these benevolences had been
really unpopular, they would not have been paid. In one case we have
seen, a benevolence was not paid for that very reason. For the
method of the Tudor sovereigns, like that of their predecessors, was