With the reign of Henry VIII. commenced the period of religious change--the struggles for religious liberty against ecclesiastical dominance. Limited as were the achievements of Henry and Elizabeth, in this respect, by prevailing bigotry and narrowness of view as well as by diverse personal characteristics, they none the less did great service to the country and the people. The rule of Cromwell--who, in the exercise of Royal power and the possession of regal personal ability, may properly be included in such a connection--gave that liberty of worship to a portion of the masses with which previous Sovereigns had more especially endowed the classes. During the reign of the Stuarts religious dissensions and ecclesiastical controversies and intermittent persecutions, illustrated the predominant passion of the period; and forced the weak or indifferent monarch of the moment to be an unconscious factor in the progress towards that general toleration which the Revolution of 1688 and the crowning of William and Mary finally accomplished. But, whether it was Henry persecuting the monks, or Elizabeth the Roman Catholics, or Mary the Protestants, or Cromwell the Episcopalians, or Charles II. the Dissenters, each ruler was being led, to a great degree, by the undercurrent of surrounding bigotry and was, in the main, representative of a strong, popular sentiment of the time. Henry voiced the national uprising against Rome, just as the second Charles embodied popular reaction against the Puritans, and as William of Orange was enabled to lead a successful opposition to the gloomy and personal bigotry of the last of the Royal Stuarts.