The principles of religious liberty were ill understood through many years before, and subsequently to, the time of Henry V. The sentiments of persons in every rank of life in those days seem to have been built upon an understanding, that the authorities, ecclesiastical and civil, were bound in duty to expel heresy by force. It was not the case of a dominant party enacting penalties abhorrent from the sympathies of the mass of the people; "the people themselves wished to have it so, and the priests bore rule by their means." So thorough a triumph had the gigantic policy of Rome achieved over the freedom, and the wills, and the judgments of the inhabitants of Europe! Like her other victories, this too was the work of progressive inroads on the liberties (p. 325) of Christians. Never at rest, ever active, the arch-conqueror fastened to her chariot-wheels, one by one, the most valued rights and most solemn duties of responsible agents. The right of private judgment in matters of religion had been resigned by the vast majority of the people of Christendom, and the duty and responsibility in each individual of searching for the truth himself had been laid aside long before Henry V. was called to take a part in the affairs of this world. Bold and noble spirits, indeed, were found in successive periods to assert their own rights and to declare the privileges and the duties of their fellow-creatures, and to think for themselves in a matter which so deeply involved their own individual and eternal welfare; whilst the bulk of mankind in Christendom not only resigned their faith to the absolute control of the priesthood, but exacted also from their fellow-citizens a similar surrender, on pain of losing their share in the protection and advantages of the state. Thus had heresy, in various nations of Europe, become synonymous with rebellion and treason; a rejection of the determinations of the church in matters of doctrine was identified in most men's minds with rejection of the authority of the civil magistrate;[250] and every one who dared to dispute the jurisdiction of Rome was regarded as a dangerous (p. 326) innovator, and an enemy to his own country.