第66章 Letter XVI(3)

It was so.But still the commons lost nothing,and gained much.They were more under subjection to the crown;but they were less under subjection to the lords and the Church.Not only the dependencies on these were broken,but the lords and the Church were made more dependent on the crown than the commons had been on them.The lords were obliged to attend the court at their own expense,and might alienate their estates to defray this expense.A great part of the lands of the Church were confiscated and parcelled out to those who could buy,at very cheap rates;and the increase of trade,which begun about this time to be very considerable,put the commons into a condition of being the buyers.Thus were the old foundations of property and power sapped on one side,and new foundations laid on the other.Some of the weight of the Church continued in the scale of the lords,and some of it hath gone since into that of the commons.The parliamentary control of the crown did not become less,but it became more equally and more usefully placed.Democracy was so well poised with aristocracy,after this great change,that if they divided,they could not invade one another;and if they united,they could not be invaded by the monarchy.Far different was the case in other countries,where the crown got the better of the lords,and baffled,at least in some degree,the monstrous attempts of ecclesiastical usurpation.In France,for instance,when the encroachments of the papal power were checked,the Church compounded with the crown,and an alliance succeeded,of the monarchy with the hierarchy.But if the Church was able to compound,the nobility was forced to submit in that kingdom;so that the authority and wealth of the Church being fixed on the side of the crown,the whole strength and influence of the nobility being taken from them,and incorporated with the power of the crown,and the commons having nothing to do in that government but to pay taxes,and carry arms,the kings of France are become absolute monarchs;and whatever liberty,or appearance of liberty,there was in that constitution,it is totally destroyed.