Excerpt from Political Thought in England From Bacon to Halifax The power that was lost by the Papacy and the Church was grasped by Henry VIII and held firmly in his strong hands; and in the struggle for national existence which filled the reign Of Elizabeth the country was content that its destinies should be controlled by a powerful and popular monarch. Nothing, no worldly thing under the sun, she declared, is so dear to me as the love and goodwill of my subjects and her people knew that she was Speaking the truth. The nation consented to the Tudor despotism; but it was only as champions Of the national aspira tions, religious and political, that the Tudors were able to exercise an autocratic sway. With the defeat of the Armada the country began to realise that the need for an iron hand had passed, and when the virgin Queen was in her grave new breezes began to blow. Devotion to her had been personal, not official. The individualistic leaven of the Reformation had been silently at work for two generations, and the Puritan sects had convinced themselves that autocracy was incompatible with the religious freedom they claimed for themselves as the highest of earthly privileges. If a conflict was to be avoided between the crown and the people it could only be by the exercise of unusual tact. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.