Henry VIII

He is Machiavelli's Prince in action.

The storm cleared the air and dissipated many a pestilent vapour, but it left a trail of wreck and ruin over the land. The nation purchased political salvation at the price of moral debasement; the individual was sacrificed on the altar of the State; and popular subservience proved the impossibility of saving a people from itself.

The contrast was almost as flagrant in many a State trial in the reign of Henry VIII.; no king was so careful of law,[1175] but he was not so careful of justice. Therein lay his safety, for the law takes no cognisance of injustice, unless the injustice is also a breach of the law, and Henry rarely, if ever, broke the law. Not only did he keep the law, but he contrived that the nation should always proclaim the legality of his conduct.

men professed Christianity in various forms, but to all men alike the State was their real religion, and the King was their great High Priest.

Henry, indeed, was the typical embodiment of an age that was at once callous and full of national vigour, and his failings were as much a source of strength as his virtues.

This was the real tyranny of Tudor times; men were dominated by the idea that the State was the be-all and end-all of human existence.

Henry VIII.'s reign the State in England had grown to lusty manhood; it dismissed its governess, the Church, and laid claim to that omnipotence and absolute sovereignty which Hobbes regretfully expounded in his Leviathan.

They were conscious of no inconsistency; the common law was very well as a general rule, but the highest law of all was the welfare of the State.

He combined in his royal person the parts of despot and demagogue, and both he clothed in Tudor grace and majesty.

It is called a theological age, but it was also irreligious, and its principal feature was secularisation.