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296 Pollard : Political History of England
from the barons and the knights of the shire, of the crown's powers of
initiative in legislation, a step towards the transference of these powers to
ministers responsible to parliament.
Mr. Pollard's account of the relations between church and state and
church and is people of the greatest interest and value. Again and again
he points out and illustrates the sordid character of the English Reformation,
and shows how very little religion, in the true sense, had to do with
the matter, and what continuous factors were honest patriotism and dishonest
greed. Only a minority cared about a moral and intellectual
amendment. Northumberland's friends in 1552 desired a simpler ritual,
but at least one of their motives was an appetite for church goods, plate
and metal. Even in the Catholic reaction under Mary, the English would
not admit Pope or legate, except on the condition that the holders of the
distributed abbey lands should not be disturbed. Mr. Pollard points out
that English political instincts were more strongly developed than religious
feelings or moral sense, and respectable people thought it scarcely decent
to indulge conscience in defiance of the law. The faith was a matter for
the church to settle, and the clergy were responsible.
These chapters exhibit throughout a judgment illuminating and convincing,
the ease and freedom of complete mastery of the subject, and a
rhetorical perfection and happiness of expression very admirable and
engaging.
The volume re-tells some of the most romantic and perennially
interesting incidents in modern history, and some of the most perennially
and fiercely debated. Mr. Pollard has given most of them a more
accurate setting, and all of them a fresh interest.
ANDREW MARSHALL.
THE DAWN OF MODERN ENGLAND ; BEING A HISTORY OF THE
REFORMATION IN ENGLAND, 1509-1525. By
Carlos B. Lumsden.
Pp- 33- 8vo. London : Longmans, Green & Co. 1910. 95. nett.
MR. LUMSDEN'S book is of a highly polemical character, and fairly bristles
with statements, of which the general trend can merely be indicated but
scarcely discussed within the limits of a brief review.
in which the author hopes to
The book is the first of *
many
volumes '
bring his history down to the death of Charles I. it is
; but, although thus
the first of a series and as such necessarily incomplete in some still
respects,
the proportions are oddly arranged ; almost half of it is given up to the
purely political history of the time, whereas the section on the German
Reformation is strangely scant considering the part it played in influencing
the course of affairs in England ; also the conditions of the Church in
England in the early sixteenth century are practically untouched, and
popular religious opinion and feeling either in Germany or England is
left severely alone.
These latter omissions may possibly be rectified in a later volume, but
in regard to time one would expect them to appear in the present