His son, or whoso should be
his heir, must succeed to an undisputed inheritance, even if it should
be necessary to make away with all the nobility of the realm, and most
of the people, in order to secure the so-much-desired quiet.
Church-yards were to be filled in order that all England might be
reduced to the condition of a church-yard. That _Red Spectre_
which has so often frightened even sensible men since 1789, and caused
some remarkably humiliating displays of human weakness during our
generation and its immediate predecessor, was, it should seem, ever
present to the eyes of Henry VIII. He saw Anarchy perpetually
struggling to get free from those bonds in which Henry VIII. had
confined that monster, and he cut off nearly every man or woman in
whose name a plea for the crown could be set up as against a Tudor
prince or princess. Like his father, to use Mr. Froude's admirable
expression, "he breathed an atmosphere of suspended insurrection," and
he was fixed and firm in his purpose to deprive all rebelliously
disposed people of their leaders, or of those to whom they would
naturally look for lead and direction. The axe was kept continually
striking upon noble necks, and the cord was as continually stretched by
ignoble bodies, because the King was bent upon making insurrection a
failing business at the best.
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