Passing down to the body of the people, we find that L20 a year and heavy duties to do for it, represented the condition of the squire of the parish.  By the 2nd of Henry V. “the wages” of a parish priest were limited to L5 6s. 8d., except in cases where there was a special license from the bishop, when they might be raised as high as L6.  Both squire and priest had sufficient for comfort.  Neither was able to establish any steep difference between himself and the commons among whom he lived, so far as concerned outward advantages.

The habits of all classes were free, open, and liberal.  In frank style the people lived in “merry England,” displaying the “glory of hospitality,” England’s pre-eminent boast, by the rules according to which all tables were open to all comers without reserve.  To every man, according to his degree, who chose to ask for it, there was free fare and free lodging.  The people hated three things with all their hearts—­idleness, want, and cowardice.

A change, however, was coming upon the world, the meaning and direction of which even still is hidden from us, a change from era to era.  Chivalry was dying; the abbey and castle were soon together to crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, and convictions of the old world were passing away never to return.  A new continent had arisen beyond the western sea.  The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth itself, unfixed from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in the awful vastness of the universe.  In the fabric of habit which they had so laboriously built for themselves mankind were to remain no longer.

II.—­The Fall of Wolsey’s Policy

Times were changed in England since the second Henry walked barefoot through the streets of Canterbury, and knelt while the monks flogged him on the pavement in the Chapter House, doing penance for Becket’s murder.  The clergy had won the battle in the twelfth century because they deserved it.  They were not free from fault and weakness, but they felt the meaning of their profession.  Their hearts were in their vows, their authority was exercised more justly, more nobly, than the authority of the crown; and therefore, with inevitable justice, the crown was compelled to stoop before them.

The victory was great, but, like many victories, it was fatal to the conquerors.  It filled them with the vanity of power; they forgot their duties in their privileges, and when, a century later, the conflict recommenced, the altering issue proved the altering nature of the conditions under which it was fought.  The nation was ready for sweeping remedies.  The people felt little loyalty to the pope.  The clergy pursued their course to its end.  They sank steadily into that condition which is inevitable from the constitution of human nature, among men without faith, wealthy, powerful, and luxuriously fed, yet condemned to celibacy and cut off from the common duties and common pleasures of ordinary life.