History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution — Volume 2

From the opening

Wilkins, /Concilia Magnae Britanniae/, iii., 1737. /Historia Regis Henrici Septimi a Bernardo Andrea Thosolate/ (André of Toulouse), edited by J. Gairdner, 1858. Capella-Sneyd, /A Relation or True Account of the Isle of England ... under Henry VII./ (written by Capella, the Venetian Ambassador, 1496-1502, and edited by C. A. Sneyd, 1847). /A London Chronicle during the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII./ (Camden Miscellany, vol. iv., 1859). Sir Thomas More's /Utopia/ (written 1516, edited by E. Arber, 1869). More's English works, edited by William Rastell, 1557. Bridgett, /Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More/, 1891. Busch-Todd, /England under the Tudors/, 1892-95. Gasquet, /The Eve of the Reformation/, 1900; /Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries/, 1888; /The Old English Bible/, etc., 1897; /The Great Pestilence/, 1893; /Parish Life in Mediaeval England/, 1906; /English Monastic Life/, 1904. Capes, /A History of the English Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries/, 1909. Seebohm, /Oxford Reformers/ (3rd edition), 1877. Stone, /Reformation and Renaissance Studies/, 1904. Gairdner, /Lollardy and the Reformation/, vol. i., 1908. Lilly, /Renaissance Types/, 1901. Bridgett, /History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain/ (new edition, 1908). Rivington, /Rome and England/, 1897. Lingard, /History of England/, 10 vols., 1849. Hunt-Poole, /Political History of England/, v., 1910. /Cambridge Modern History/, vol. i., 1902.

With the advent of Henry VII. to the throne (1485) a new era opened in the history of England. The English nation, weakened by the Wars of the Roses and tired of a contest that possessed little interest for the masses, was not unwilling to submit itself without reserve to the guidance of a strong ruler provided he could guarantee peace both at home and abroad. Practically speaking, hitherto absolutism had been unknown. The rights that had been won by the barons on the plains of Runnymede were guarded jealously by their descendants, and as a result the power of the king, more especially in regard to taxation, was hedged round by several restrictions.

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