But in England, the protective spirit being much less active than in France, we should expect to find that chivalry, as its offspring, had less influence. And such was really the case. The honours that were paid to knights, and the social distinctions by which they were separated from the other classes, were never so great in our country as in France.336 As men became more free, the little respect they had for such matters still further diminished. In the thirteenth century, and indeed in the very reign in which burgesses were first returned to parliament, the leading symbol of chivalry fell into such disrepute, that a law was passed obliging certain persons to accept that rank of knighthood which in other nations was one of the highest objects of ambition.337 In the fourteenth century, this was followed by another blow, which deprived knighthood of its exclusively military character; the custom having grown up in the reign of Edward III. of conferring it on the judges in the courts of law, thus turning a warlike title into a civil honour.338 Finally, before the end of the fifteenth century, the spirit of chivalry, in France still at its height, was in our country extinct, and this mischievous institution had become a subject for ridicule even among the people themselves.339 To these circumstances we may add two others, which seem worthy of observation. The first is, that the French, notwithstanding their many admirable qualities, have always been more remarkable for personal vanity than the English;340 a peculiarity partly referable to those chivalric traditions which even their occasional republics have been unable to destroy, and which makes them attach undue importance to external distinctions, by which I mean, not only dress and manners, but also medals, ribbons, stars, crosses, and the like, which we, a prouder people, have never held in such high estimation. The other circumstance is, that duelling has from the beginning been more popular in France than in England; and as this is a custom which we owe to chivalry, the difference in this respect between the two countries supplies another link in that long chain of evidence by which we must estimate their national tendencies.341
The old associations, of which these facts are but the external expression, now continued to act with increasing vigour. In France, the protective spirit, carried into religion, was strong enough to resist the Reformation, and preserve to the clergy the forms, at least, of their ancient supremacy. In England, the pride of men, and their habits of self-reliance, enabled them to mature into a system what is called the right of private judgment, by which some of the most cherished traditions were eradicated; and this, as we have already seen, being quickly succeeded, first by scepticism, and then by toleration, prepared the way for that subordination of the church to the state, for which we are pre-eminent, and without a rival, among the nations of Europe. The very same tendency, acting in politics, displayed analogous results. Our ancestors found no difficulty in humbling the nobles, and reducing them to comparative insignificance. The wars of the Roses, by breaking up the leading families into two hostile factions, aided this movement;342 and, after the reign of Edward IV., there is no instance of any Englishman, even of the highest rank, venturing to carry on those private wars, by which, in other countries, the great lords still disturbed the peace of society.343 When the civil contests subsided, the same spirit displayed itself in the policy of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. For, those princes, despots as they were, mainly oppressed the highest classes; and even Henry VIII., notwithstanding his barbarous cruelties, was loved by the people, to whom his reign was, on the whole, decidedly beneficial. Then there came the Reformation; which, being an uprising of the human mind, was essentially a rebellious movement, and thus increasing the insubordination of men, sowed, in the sixteenth century, the seeds of those great political revolutions which, in the seventeenth century, broke out in nearly every part of Europe. The connexion between these two revolutionary epochs is a subject full of interest; but, for the purpose of the present chapter, it will be sufficient to notice such events, during the latter half of the sixteenth century, as explain the sympathy between the ecclesiastical and aristocratic classes, and prove how the same circumstances that were fatal to the one, also prepared the way for the downfall of the other.
When Elizabeth ascended the throne of England, a large majority of the nobility were opposed to the Protestant religion. This we know from the most decisive evidence; and, even if we had no such evidence, a general acquaintance with human nature would induce us to suspect that such was the case. For, the aristocracy, by the very conditions of their existence, must, as a body, always be averse to innovation. And this, not only because by a change they have much to lose and little to gain, but because some of their most pleasurable emotions are connected with the past rather than with the present. In the collision of actual life, their vanity is sometimes offended by the assumptions of inferior men; it is frequently wounded by the successful competition of able men. These are mortifications to which, in the progress of society, their liability is constantly increasing. But the moment they turn to the past, they see in those good old times which are now gone by, many sources of consolation. There they find a period in which their glory is without a rival. When they look at their pedigrees, their quarterings, their escutcheons; when they think of the purity of their blood, and the antiquity of their ancestors – they experience a comfort which ought amply to atone for any present inconvenience. The tendency of this is very obvious, and has shown itself in the history of every aristocracy the world has yet seen. Men who have worked themselves to so extravagant a pitch as to believe that it is an honour to have had one ancestor who came over with the Normans, and another ancestor who was present at the first invasion of Ireland – men who have reached this ecstacy of the fancy are not disposed to stop there, but, by a process with which most minds are familiar, they generalize their view; and, even on matters not immediately connected with their fame, they acquire a habit of associating grandeur with antiquity, and of measuring value by age; thus transferring to the past an admiration which otherwise they might reserve for the present.
The connexion between these feelings and those which animate the clergy is very evident. What the nobles are to politics, that are the priests to religion. Both classes, constantly appealing to the voice of antiquity, rely much on tradition, and make great account of upholding established customs. Both take for granted that what is old is better than what is new; and that in former times there were means of discovering truths respecting government and theology which we, in these degenerate ages, no longer possess. And it may be added, that the similarity of their functions follows from the similarity of their principles. Both are eminently protective, stationary, or, as they are sometimes called, conservative. It is believed that the aristocracy guard the state against revolution, and that the clergy keep the church from error. The first are the enemies of reformers; the others are the scourge of heretics.
It does not enter into the province of this Introduction to examine how far these principles are reasonable, or to inquire into the propriety of notions which suppose that, on certain subjects of immense importance, men are to remain stationary, while on all other subjects they are constantly advancing. But what I now rather wish to point out, is the manner in which, in the reign of Elizabeth, the two great conservative and protective classes were weakened by that vast movement, the Reformation, which, though completed in the sixteenth century, had been prepared by a long chain of intellectual antecedents.
Whatever the prejudices of some may suggest, it will be admitted, by all unbiassed judges, that the Protestant Reformation was neither more nor less than an open rebellion. Indeed, the mere mention of private judgment, on which it was avowedly based, is enough to substantiate this fact. To establish the right of private judgment, was to appeal from the church to individuals; it was to increase the play of each man's intellect; it was to test the opinions of the priesthood by the opinions of laymen; it was, in fact, a rising of the scholars against their teachers, of the ruled against their rulers. And although the reformed clergy, as soon as they had organised themselves into a hierarchy, did undoubtedly abandon the great principle with which they started, and attempt to impose articles and canons of their own contrivance, still,