The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 17Dryden, John
General
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 17
Dryden, John
English literature
As for the title of Queen Elizabeth to the crown, the histories lie
open; and I shall not be over-forward to meddle with the rights of
princes, especially since the answerer has avoided that dispute. It is
enough in general to say, that her interest carried her against the
Pope, whose power if good, she was illegitimate. She had also been
informed by the English resident at Rome, that the Pope expected she
should acknowledge her crown from him, and not take upon her to be queen
without his leave. These were strong solicitations, in a new unsettled
succession, for her to shake off a religion, whereof his Holiness is head
on earth. What matter of conscience was in the case, I say not; but her
temporal interest lies bare-faced and uppermost to view, in reassuming
of the supremacy, and (to make the breach yet wider) in subverting the
foundations of the faith. For the affront is the same, to turn round
a man’s hat, and to strike him on the face; but the advantage is the
greater in a lusty blow.
But the handle by which our answerer would have the Reformation taken,
is not by the causes and effects, the means and management, and indeed
the whole series of history: these are nothing to concern his present
enquiry, though they raised such scruples in the Duchess, and will
do in any other conscientious reader; he will have the Reformation
considered his own way, that is, in the political part of it, and the
ecclesiastical. Now the political part (if you observe him,) he gives for
gone at the first dash: “It was grounded,” he says, “on such maxims as
are common to statesmen at all times, and in all churches, who labour to
turn all revolutions and changes to their own advantage.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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