This scheme, regarded from the historical point of view, appears totally subversive of both Church and State in England. For there was this difference between England and the other Protestant countries, that she alone retained Episcopacy with its claims to apostolic succession. A movement in the episcopal order had, as we have shown, if [A.D. 1641] not actually caused the Reformation, at any rate effectually promoted it. Consequently England had remained much nearer not merely to the ecclesiastical institutions, but also to the general conditions of the middle ages, than the other Protestant countries. In them the change was made in open war with the prelates: in Germany, through an alliance of the lower clergy with the territorial authorities, which were invested with power enough for the purpose throughout the empire; in Switzerland by the independent action of the people at large: this in Scotland had gone so far as to frame a new ecclesiastical establishment. Just as the Stuart kings, in attempting to reduce the Scottish Church under the dominion of bishops, were running counter to its historical principles, so the attempt to destroy Episcopacy in England was an attack on the recognised foundations of the Anglican Church. There might be more justification for those who were induced by political considerations to attempt to set aside the bishops: for in England as elsewhere the alliance of Episcopacy with the crown had undoubtedly gone too far in the way of strengthening the royal authority: but when it came to overthrowing and annihilating Episcopacy altogether, or even to destroying its hold on the constitution and the country, the very bases of English society were assailed. Pym certainly thought that, since Parliament had formerly demolished monastic institutions, it was within its authority to treat Episcopacy in the same fashion. The objection was that the dissolution of the monasteries had not destroyed one of the chief branches of the legislative authority, and that the prelates at the time of the Reformation had co-operated heartily with Parliament, and though once in danger had been saved by the fact of their intimate connexion with the entire constitution of the country. Obviously this would be materially affected by their removal, and the preponderance of the Lower House finally secured, for what opposition could the Upper House without the bishops offer to its measures?