The divorce of Catharine of Aragon

Front matter

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Chapter I

Prospects of a disputed succession to the crown — Various claimants — Catherine incapable of having- further children — Irregularity of her marriage with the King- — Papal dispensations — First mention of the divorce — Situation of the Papacy — Charles V. — Policy of Wolsey — Anglo-French alliance — Imperial troops in Italy — Appeal of the Pope — Mission of Inigo de Mendoza — The Bishop of Tarhes — Legitimacy of the Princess Mary called in question — Secret meeting of the Legates' court — Alarms of Catherine — Sack of Rome by the Duke of Bourbon — Proposed reform of the Papacy — The divorce promoted by Wolsey — Unpopular in England — Attempts of the Emperor to gain Wolsey . . 21

Chapter II

Mission of Wolsey to Paris — Visits Bishop Fisher on the way — Anxieties of the Emperor — Letter of the Emperor to Henry VIII. — Large offers to Wolsey — Address of the French Cardinals to the Pope — Anne Boleyn chosen by Henry to succeed Catherine — Surprise and displeasure of Wolsey — Fresh attempts of the Emperor to bribe him — Wolsey forced to continue to advocate the divorce — Mission of Dr. Knight to Rome — The Pope at Orvieto — The Kingapplies for a dispensation to make a second marriage — Language of the dispensation demanded — Inferences drawn from it — Alleged intrigue between the King and Mary Boleyn ........... 41 vi Contents.

Chapter III

Anxiety of the Pope to satisfy the King — Fears of the Emperor

— Proposed alternatives — France and England declare war in the Pope's defence — Campeggio to be sent to England — The King's account of the Pope's conduct — The Pope's distress and alarm — The secret decretal — Instructions to Campeggio 02

Chapter IV

Anne Boleyn — Letters to her from the King — The Convent at Wilton — The Divorce — The Pope's promises — Arrival of Campeggio in England — Reception at the Bridewell Palace

— Proposal to Catherine to take the veil — Her refusal — Uncertainty of the succession — A singular expedient — Alarms of Wolsey — The true issue — Speech of the King in the City — Threats of the Emperor — Defects in the Bull of Pope Julius — Alleged discovery of a brief supplying them

— Distress of Clement ........ 70

CHAPTER V. Demands of the Imperial Agent at Rome — The alleged Brief

— Illness of the Pope — Aspirations of Wolsey — The Pope recovers — Imperial menaces — Clement between the anvil and the hammer — Appeal of Henry to Francis — The trial of the cause to proceed — Instructions to Campeggio — Opinion at Rome — Recall of Mendoza — Final interview between Mendoza and the King 80

Chapter VI

The Court at Blackfriars — The point at issue — The Pope's competency as judge — Catherine appeals to Rome — Imperial pressure upon Clement — The Emperor insists on the Pope's admission of the appeal — Henry demands sentence — Interference of Bishop Fisher — The Legates refuse to give judgment — The Court broken up — Peace of Cambray . . . „ .I)',*

Chapter VII

Call of Parliament — Wolsey to be called to account — Anxiety of the Emperor to prevent a quarrel — Mission of Eustace Chapuys — Long interview with the King — Alarm of Cath-

Contents. vii

Brine — Growth of Lutheranism — The English clergy — Lord Darcy's Articles against Wolsey — Wolsey's fall — Departure of Campeggio — Letter of Henry to the Pope — Action of Parliament — Intended reform of the Church — Alienation of English feeling from the Papacy . . . .110

Chapter VIII

Hope of Wolsey to return to power — Anger of Anne Boleyn and the Duke of Norfolk — Charles V. at Bologna — Issue of a prohibitory brief — The Pope secretly on Henry's side — Collection of opinions — Norfolk warns Chapuys — State of feeling in England — Intrigues of Wolsey — His illness and death 181

Chapter IX

Danger of challenging the Papal dispensing power — The Royal family of Spain — Address of the English Peers to the Pope - Compromise proposed by the 1 hike of Norfolk — The English Agents at Rome — Arrival of a new Nuncio in England — His interview with the King — Chapuys advises the King's excommunication — Position of the English clergy — Statute of Provisors — The clergy in a Praemunire — Remonstrances of the Nuncio — Despair of Catherine — Her letter to the Pope — Henry prepares for war — The introduction of briefs from Rome forbidden — Warnings given to the Spanish Ambassador and the Nuncio ...... 141

Chapter X

State of feeling in England — Clergy and laity — The Clergy in a Praemunire — The Royal Supremacy — Hesitation at Rome

— Submission of the Clergy — The meaning of the new title

— More and Fisher — Alarm of the Emperor — Appeal of Catherine to him — Unpopularity of Anne Boleyn — Threats of excommunication — Determination of Henry — Deputation of Peers to Catherine — Catherine's reply — Intolerable pretensions of the Emperor — Removal of Catherine from

the Court 157

Chapter XI

Proposals for the reunion of Christendom — Warning addressed to the Pope — Address of the English nobles to Queen Cathviii Contents.

erine — Advances of Clement to Henry — Embarrassments of the Pope and the Emperor — Unwillingness of the Pope to decide against the King — Business in Parliament — Reform of the English Church— Death of Archbishop Warham — Bishop Fisher and Chapuys — Question of annates — Papal Briefs — The Pope urged to excommunicate Henry — The Pope refuses — Anger of Queen Catherine's Agent . . 173

Chapter XII

Henry advised to marry -without waiting for sentence — Meeting of Henry and Francis — Anne Boleyn present at the interview— Value of Anne to the French Court — Pressure on the Pope by the Agents of the Emperor — Complaints of Catherine — Engagements of Francis — Action of Clement — The King conditionally excommunicated — Demand for final sentence — Cranmer appointed Archbishop of Canterbury — Marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn — Supposed connivance of the Pope — The Nuncio attends Parliament — The Act of Appeals — The Emperor entreated to intervene — Chapuys and the King !•«

Chapter XIII

The King's claim — The obstinacy of Catherine — The Court at Dunstable — Judgment given by Cranmer — Debate in the Spanish Council of State — Objections to armed interference — The English opposition — Warning given to Chapuys — Chapuys and the Privy Council — Conversation with Cromwell — Coronation of Anne Boleyn — Discussions at Rome — Bull supra Attentatis — Confusion of the Catholic Powers — Libels against Henry — Personal history of Cromwell — Birth of Elizabeth — The King's disappointment — Bishop Fisher desires the introduction of a Spanish army into England — Growth of Lutheranism ........ 218

Chapter XIV

Interview between the Pope and Francis at Marseilles — Proposed compromise — The divorce case to be heard at Cambray — The Emperor consents — Catherine refuses — The story of the Nun of Kent — Bishop Fisher in the Tower — Imminent breach with the Papacy —Catherine and the Princess Mary — Separation of the Princess from her mother — Catherine at Kimbolton — Appeals to the Emperor — Encourage-

Conic uis.

IX ment of Lutheranism — Last efforts at Rome — Final sentence delivered by the Pope — The Pope's authority abolished in England 243

CHAPTER XV. The Papal curse — Determined attitude of the Princess Mary

— Chapuys desires to be heard in Parliament — Interview with the King — Permission refused — The Act of Succession

— Catherine loses the title of Queen — More and Fisher refuse to swear to the statute — Prospects of rebellion in Ireland — The Emperor unwilling to interfere — Perplexity of the Catholic party — Chapuys before the Privy Council — Insists on Catherine's rights — Singular defence of the Pope's action — Chapuys's intrigues — Defiant attitude of Catherine

— Fears for her life — Condition of Europe — Prospect of war between France and the Empire — Unwillingness of the Emperor to interfere in England — Disappointment of Catherine — Visit of Chapuys to Kimbolton 260

Chapter XVI

Prosecution of Lord Dacre — Failure of the Crown — Rebellion in Ireland — Lord Thomas Fitzgerald — Delight of the Catholic party — Preparations for a rising in England — The Princess Mary — Lord Hussey and Lord Darcy — Schemes for insurrection submitted to Chapuys — General disaffection among the English Peers — Death of Clement VII. — Election of Paul III. — Expectation at Rome that Henry would now submit — The expectation disappointed — The Act of Supremacy — The Italian conjuror — Reginald Pole — Violence and insolence of Anne Boleyn — Spread of Lutheranism — Intended escape of the Princess Mary out of England . 283

Chapter XVII

Prospects of civil war — England and Spain — Illness of the Princess Mary — Plans for her escape — Spirit of Queen Catherine — The Emperor unwilling to interfere — Negotiations for a new treaty between Henry and Charles — Debate in the Spanish Council of State — The rival alliances — Disappointment of the confederate Peers — Advance of Lutheranism in England — Cromwell and Chapuys — Catherine and Mary the obstacles to peace — Supposed designs on Mary's life , m\

Contents.

CHAPTER XVIII. Negotiations for a treaty — Appeal of Catherine to the Emperor

— Fresh plans for the escape of Mary — Forbidden by the Emperor — The King' and his daughter — Suggestion of Dr. Butts — The clergy and the Reformation — The Charterhouse monks — More and Fisher in the Tower — The Emperor in Africa — The treaty — Rebellion in Ireland — Absolution of Lord Thomas Fitzgerald for the murder of the Archbishop of Dublin — Treason of Lord Hussey — Fresh debates in the Spanish Council — Fisher created cardinal — Trial and execution of Fisher and More — Effect in Europe . . . 318

Chapter XIX

Campaign of the Empe? or in Africa — Uncertainties at Rome — Policy of Francis — English preparations for war — Fresh appeals to the Emperor - Delay in the issue of the censures

— The Princess Mary — Letter of Catherine to the Pope — Disaffection of the English Catholics — Libels ag^ist Henry

— Cromwell and Chapuys — Lord Thomas Fitzgerald — Dangerous position of Henry — Death of the Duke of Milan

— Effect on European policy — Intended Bull of Paid III.

— Indecision of Charles — Prospect of war with France — Advice of Charles to Catherine — Distrust of the Emperor at the Papal Court — Warlike resolution of the Pope restrained

by the Cardinals ......... 347

Chapter XX

Illness of Queen Catherine — Her physicians' report of her health — Her last letter to the Emperor — She sends for Chapuys — Interview between Chapuys and Henry — Chapuys at Kimbolton — Death of Catherine — Examination of the body — Suspicion of poison — Chapuys's opinion — Reception of the news at the Court — Message of Anne Boleyn to the Princess Mary — Advice of Chapuys — Unpopularity of Anne — Court rumours . . . . . . . .371

Chapter XXI

Funeral of Catherine — Miscarriage of Anne — The Princess Mary and the Act of Supremacy — Her continued desire to escape — Effect of Catherine's death on Spanish policy — Desire of the Emperor to recover the English alliance — Chapuys and Cromwell — Conditions of the treaty — Efforts of the

Contents. xi

Emperor to recover Henry to the Church — Matrimonial schemes — Likelihood of a separation of the King from Anne

— Jane Seymour — Anne's conduct — The Imperial treaty

— Easter at Greenwich — Debate in Council — The French Alliance or the Imperial — The alternative advantages — Letter of the King to his Ambassador in Spain . . . 389

Chapter XXII

Easter at Greenwich — French and Imperial factions at the English court — Influence of Anne Boleyn — Reports of Anne's conduct submitted to the King — Flying rumours — Secret Commission of Enquiry — Arrests of various persons

— Sir Henry Norris and the King — Anne before the Privy Council — Sent to the Tower — Her behaviour and admissions — Evidence taken before the Commission — Trials of Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeton — Letter of Weston — Trial of Anne and her brother — Executions — Speech of Rochford on the scaffold — Anne sentenced to die — Makes a confession to Cranmer — Declared to have not been the King's lawful wife — Nature of the confession not known — Execution .......... 412

Chapter XXIII

Competition for Henry's hand — Solicitations from France and from the Emperor — Overtures from the Pope — Jane Seymour — General eagerness for the King's marriage — Conduct of Henry in the interval before Anne's execution — Marriage with Jane Seymour — Universal satisfaction — The Princess Mary — Proposal for a General Council — Neutrality of England in the war between France and the Empire . . 436

CHAPTER XXIV. Expectation that Henry would return to the Roman Communion

— Henry persists in carrying out the Reformation — The Crown and the clergy — Meeting of a new Parliament — Fresh repudiation of the Pope's authority — Complications of the succession — Attitude of the Princess Mary — Her reluctant submission — The King empowered to name his successor by will — Indication of his policy — The Pilgrimage of Grace

— Cost of the Reformation — The martyrs, Catholic and Protestant .....„.„„. 450

Index 4fin

THE DIVORCE

CATHERINE OF ARAGON.

Introduction

The mythic element cannot be eliminated out of history. Men who play leading parts on the world's stage gather about them the admiration of friends and the animosity of disappointed rivals or political enemies. The atmosphere becomes charged with legends of what they have said or done — some inventions, some distortions of facts, but rarely or never accurate. Their outward acts, being public, cannot be absolutely misstated ; their motives, being known only to themselves, are an open field for imagination ; and as the disposition is to believe evil rather than good, the portraits drawn may vary indefinitely, according to the sympathies of the describer, but are seldom too favourable. The more distinguished a man is the more he is talked about. Stories are current about him in his own lifetime, guaranteed apparently by the highest authorities ; related, insisted upon ; time, place, and circumstance accurately given — most of them mere malicious lies ; yet, if written down, to reappear in memoirs a hundred years hence, they are likely to pass for authentic, or at least probable. Even where there is no malice, imagination will still be active. People believe or disbelieve, repeat or suppress, according to their own inclinations ; and death, which ends the fends of unimportant persons, lets loose the tongues over the characters of the great. Kings are especially sufferers ; when alive they hear only flattery ; when they are gone men revenge themselves by drawing hideous portraits of them, and the more distinguished they may have been the more minutely their weaknesses are dwelt upon. " C'est un plaisir indicible," says Voltaire, " de donner des decrets contre des souverains morts quand on ne peut en lancer contre eux de leur vivant de peur de perdre ses oreilles." The dead sovereigns go their way. Their real work for good or evil lives after them; but they themselves are where the opinions expressed about their character affect them no more. To Csesar or Napoleon it matters nothing what judgment the world passes upon their conduct. It is of more importance for the ethical value of history that acts which as they are related appear wicked should be duly condemned, that acts which are represented as having advanced the welfare of mankind should be duly honoured, than that the real character of individuals should be correctly appreciated. To appreciate any single man with complete accuracy is impossible. To appreciate him even proximately is extremely difficult. Rulers of kingdoms may have public reasons for what they do, which at the time may be understood or allowed for. Times change, and new interests rise. The circumstances no longer exist which would explain their conduct. The student looks therefore for an explanation in elements which he thinks he understands — in pride, ambition, fear, avarice, jealousy, or sensuality; and, settling the question thus to his own satisfaction, resents or ridicules attempts to look for other motives.

Historic Legends. 3

So long as his moral judgment is generally correct, lie inflicts no injury, and he suffers none. Cruelty and lust are proper objects of abhorrence; he learns to detest them in studying the Tiberius of Tacitus, though the character described by the great Roman historian may have been a mere creation of the hatred of the old Roman aristocracy. The manifesto of the Prince of Orange was a libel against Philip the Second; but the Philip of Protestant tradition is an embodiment of the persecuting spirit of Catholic Europe which it would be now useless to disturb. The tendency of history is to fall into wholesome moral lines whether they be accurate or not, and to interfere with harmless illusions may cause greater errors than it aspires to cure. Crowned offenders are arraigned at the tribunal of history for the crimes which they are alleged to have committed. It may be sometimes shown that the crimes were not crimes at all, that the sufferers had deserved their fate, that the severities were useful and essential for some great and valuable purpose. But the reader sees in the apology for acts which he had regarded as tyrannical a defence of tyranny itself. Preoccupied with the received interpretation, he finds deeds excused which he had learnt to execrate; and in learning something which, even if true, is of no real moment to him, he suffers in the maiming of his perceptions of the difference between right and wrong. The whitewashing of the villains of tradition is, therefore, justly regarded as waste of labour. If successful, it is of imperfect value; if unsuccessful, it is a misuse of industry which deserves to be censured. Time is too precious to be squandered over paradoxes. The dead are gone ; the censure of mankind has written their epitaphs, and so they may be left. Their true award will be decided elsewhere.

4 The Divorce of Catherine of Aragott.

This is the eommonsense verdict. When the work of a man is done and ended ; when, except indirectly and invisibly, he affects the living world no more, the book is closed, the sentence is passed, and there he may be allowed to rest. The case is altered, however, when the dead still live in their actions, when their principles and the effects of their conduct are still vigorous and operative, and the movements which they initiated continue to be fought over. It sometimes happens that mighty revolutions can be traced to the will and resolution of a single man, and that the conflict continues when he is gone. The personal character of such a man becomes then of intrinsic importance as an argument for attack or defence. The changes introduced by Henry VIII. are still denounced or defended with renewed violence ; the ashes of a conflict which seemed to have been decided are again blown into a flame ; and what manner of man Henry was, and what the statesmen and churchmen were who stood by him and assisted him in reshaping the English constitution, becomes a practical question of our own time. By their fruits ye shall know them. A good tree cannot bear evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Roman Catholics argue from the act to the man, and from the man back to the act. The Reformation, they say, was a rebellion against an authority appointed by God for the rule of the world; it was a wicked act in itself; the author or the authors of it were presumably, therefore, themselves wicked ; and the worst interpretation of their conduct is antecedently probable, because a revolt against the Church of Christ could only have originated in depraved hearts. Or again, inverting the argument, they say with sufficient plausibility that the sins and crimes of the King are acknowledged

Character of Henry the Eighth. 5

facts of history; that from so bad a man no good thing could ever rise; that Henry was a visible servant of the devil, and therefore the Reformation, of which he was the instrument, was the devil's work. If the picture drawn of him by his Catholic contemporaries is correct, the inference is irresistible. That picture, however, was drawn by those whose faith he wounded and whose interests he touched, and therefore might be regarded with suspicion. Religious animosity is fertile in calumny, because it assumes beforehand that every charge is likely to be true in proportion to its enormity, and Catholic writers were credulous of evil when laid to the charge of so dangerous an adversary. But the Catholics have not been Henry's only accusers; all sorts and sects have combined in the general condemnation. The Anglican High Churchman is as bitter against him as Reginald Pole himself. He admits and maintains the separation from Rome which Henry accomplished for him ; but he abhors as heartily as Pole or Lingard the internal principles of the Reformation. He resents the control of the clergy by the civil power. He demands the restoration of the spiritual privileges which Henry and his parliaments took away from them. He aspires to the recovery of ecclesiastical independence. He therefore with equal triumph points to the blots in Henry's character, and deepens their shade with every accusation, proved or improved, which he can find in contemporary records. With him, too, that a charge was alleged at the time is evidence sufficient to entitle him to accept it as a fact.

Again, Protestant writers have been no less unsparing, from an imprudent eagerness to detach their cause from a disreputable ally. In Elizabeth's time it was a point of honour and loyalty to believe in the innocence of her mother. If Anne Boleyn was condemned on forged or false evidence to make way for Jane Seymour, what appears so clearly to us must have been far clearer to Henry and his Council ; of all abominable crimes committed by tyrannical princes there was never one more base or cowardly than Anne's execution; and in insisting on Anne's guiltlessness they have condemned the King, his ministers, and his parliaments. Having discovered him to have murdered his wife, they have found him also to have been a persecutor of the truth. The Reformation in England was at its outset political rather than doctrinal. The avarice and tyranny of the Church officials had galled the limbs of the laity. Their first steps were to break the chains which fretted them, and to put a final end to the temporal power of the clergy. Spiritual liberty came later, and came slowly from the constitution of the English mind. Superstition had been familiarised by custom, protected by natural reverence, and shielded from inquiry by the peculiar horror attaching to unbelief. The nation had been taught from immemorial time that to doubt on the mysteries of faith was the worst crime which man could commit; and while they were willing to discover that on their human side the clergy were but brother mortals of questionable character, they drew a distinction between the Church as a national institution and the doctrines which it taught. An old creed could not yield at once. The King did much; he protected individual Lutherans to the edge of rashness. He gave the nation the English Bible. He made Latimer a bishop. He took away completely and for ever the power of the prelates to punish what they called heresy ex officio and on their own authority; but the zeal of the ultra-Protestants broke loose when the restraint was taken off; the

Unanimity of Censure. 1

sense of the country was offended by the irreverence with which objects and opinions were treated which they regarded as holy, and Parliament, which had put a bit in the mouth of the ecclesiastical courts, was driven to a substitute in the Bill of the Six Articles. The advanced section in popular movements is usually unwise. The characteristic excellence of the English Reformation is, that throughout its course it was restrained by the law, and the Six Articles Bill, tempered as it was in the execution, was a permissible, and perhaps useful, measure in restraint of intemperance. It was the same in Germany. Anabaptists continued to be burnt in Saxony and Hesse long after Luther's revolt; Calvin thought the stake a fitting penalty for doubts upon the Trinity. John Knox, in Scotland, approved of witch-burning and sending mass-priests to the gallows. Henry could not disregard the pronounced feeling of the majority of the English people. He was himself but one of them, and changed slowly as they changed. Yet Protestant tradition has assumed that the bloody whip with six strings was an act of arbitrary ferocity. It considers that the King could, and ought to, have advanced at once into an understanding of the principle of toleration — toleration of the new opinions, and a more severe repression of the old. The Puritans and Evangelicals forgot that he had given them the English Testament. They forgot that by setting his foot upon the bishops he had opened the pulpits to themselves, and they classed him among the persecutors, or else joined in the shallow laughs of the ultramontane Catholics at what they pleased to call his inconsistency.

Thus from all sides a catena of invective has been wrapped about Henry's character. The sensible part of the country held its tongue. The speakers and writers were the passionate and fanatical of both persuasions, and by them the materials were supplied for the Henry VIII. who has been brought down to us by history, while the candid and philosophic thinkers of the last and present centuries have accepted the traditional figure. In their desire to be impartial they have held the balance equal between Catholics and Protestants, inclining slightly to the Catholic side, from a wish to conciliate a respectable body who had been unjustly maligned and oppressed; while they have lavished invectives upon the early Reformers violent enough to have satisfied even Pole himself, whose rhetoric has formed the base of their declamation.

Liberal philosophy would have had a bad time of it in England, perhaps in all Europe, if there had been no Henry VIII. to take the Pope by the throat. But one service writers like Macaulay have undoubtedly accomplished. They have shown that it is entirely impossible to separate the King from his ministers — to condemn Henry and to spare Cranmer. Protestant writers, from Burnet to Southey, have tried to save the reforming bishops and statesmen at Henry's expense. Cranmer, and Latimer, and Ridley have been described as saints, though their master was a villain. But the cold impartiality of Macaulay has pointed out unanswerably that in all Henry's most questionable acts his own ministers and his prelates were active participants — that his Privy Council, his parliaments, his judges on the bench, the juries empanelled to try the victims of his tyranny, were equally his accomplices; some actively assisting; the rest, if these acts were really criminal, permitting themselves to be bribed or terrified into acquiescence. The leading men of all descriptions, the nation itself, through the

Contemporary Judgment. 9

guilt of its representatives, were all stained in the same detestable colours. It may be said, indeed, that they were worse than the King himself. For the King at least may be pleaded the coarse temptations of a brutal nature ; but what palliation can be urged for the peers and judges who sacrificed Anne Boleyn, or More, or Fisher, according to the received hypothesis? Not even the excuse of personal fear of an all-powerful despot. For Henry had no Janissaries or Praetorians to defend his person or execute his orders. He had but his hundred yeomen of the guard, not more numerous than the ordinary followers of a second-rate noble. The Catholic leaders, who were infuriated at his attacks upon the Church, and would if they could have introduced foreign armies to dethrone him, insisted on his weakness as an encouragement to an easy enterprise. Beyond those few yeomen they urged that he had no protection save in the attachment of the subjects whom he was alienating. What strange influence was such a king able to exercise that he could overawe the lords and gentry of England, the learned professions, the municipal authorities? How was it that he was able to compel them to be the voluntary instruments of his cruelty? Strangest of all, he seems to have needed no protection, but rather to have been personally popular, even among those who disapproved his public policy. The air was charged with threats of insurrection, but no conspiracy was ever formed to kill him, like those which so often menaced the life of his daughter. When the North was in arms in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and a question rose among the leaders whether in the event of victory the King was to be deposed, it was found that anyone who proposed to remove him would be torn in pieces by the people.

Granting that Henry VIII. was, as Dickens said of him, u a spot of blood and grease" on the page of English history, the contemporary generation of Englishmen must have been fit subjects of such a sovereign. Every country, says Carlyle, gets as good a government as it deserves. The England of the Cromwells and the Cranmers, the Howards and the Fitzwilliams, the Wriothesleys and the Pagets, seems to have been made of baser materials than any land of which mankind has preserved a record. Roman Catholics may fairly plead that out of such a race no spiritual reform is likely to have arisen which could benefit any human soul. Of all the arguments which can be alleged for the return of England to the ancient fold, this is surely the most powerful.