trust for the poor. Far from that, they are allowed to forbid the erecting of houses, and to drive from their land persons objectionable to them. They could, if they pleased, clear them all off—they do effectually prevent villages from increasing.
The political meaning of the "Royal Supremacy" was absolute monarchy. And it is undeniable that Henry made it include a real Spiritual Headship. Rather than acknowledge this Spiritual Headship of a temporal prince Sir Thomas More laid his head on the block. Henry asserted and exercised the right of the King to prescribe both the form of worship and the dogma. He was presently to put forth a new Book of Common Prayer, and to force it upon an unwilling people by the sword. Never was there a more glaring delusion than that which regards Henry as our deliverer from religious tyranny. He only abolished the jurisdiction of the Pope to set up a far worse jurisdiction of the temporal power. His own tyranny was worse than that of any Pope—the Pope was far off, the King was near. His "Supremacy" was the destruction of civil and religious liberty, not its establishment. He himself gave no religious liberty at all ; and such liberty as was granted afterwards was only liberty to follow the established religion. There is this sort of religious liberty even in Turkey.
The King could never have plundered the monasteries if he had not first made himself absolute. The murders of Fisher and More struck such terror that none dared to oppose his will. But he did not trust to intimidation alone: he packed his Parliaments, and he took particular pains to pack the Parliament which was to dissolve the religious orders. There are extant letters of Southampton and Sadler to Cromwell, narrating their success in journeys undertaken with this end. Other arguments were used. One of the greatest authorities on English law, in his greatest work gives them:
"On the King's Behalf, the Members of both Houses were informed in Parliament that no King or Kingdom were safe, but where the King had three Abilities; First, To live of his own, and able to defend his Kingdoms upon any sudden Invasion
