The idea of freedom was taking shape; hence the Reformation. Not that the country sympathized with Henry's desire to divorce Queen "Katherine, but Pope Clement was at the mercy of Emperor Charles, and the latter was naturally unwilling to allow his niece to be divorced. Neither Henry nor England would tolerate a private matter being held up in this way. The original issue of Henry v. Katherine was swallowed up in that of England v. Rome. Still, Henry had no wish to be a heretic:
the compromise he arrived at was extraordinary one. It was to keep Catholicism intact but with the King functioning in place of the Pope as Supreme Head of a local universal Church of England. Other nations achieved Protestantism; England may almost be said to have blundered into it. The motive inspiring the breakaway from Rome was one of pure and simple patriotism in the cruelest sense Then follows a most interesting accotint of how, in spite of Henry's efforts to repudiate Rome and the Reformation simultaneously, and even after Mary's efforts, oise "identical with that of the than ever was the Protestant the English Bible had now been Shape of the Prayer Book, "The two of the vulgar tongue in the themselves declarations the Armada, turned once more to internal matters. The Stuart theoly (which came from the Continent) of the Divine Right of Kings was unacceptable to English ideas of liberty; so was Cromwell's military dictatorship, to which he so unwillingly found himself, committed. However, the Revolution of 1688 proved. not only that the Common Yaw of England had survived but also that it had triumphed, never again to be seriously challenged.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.