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    sons , conspiracies , and practices , secretly practised , as well within the realih as without , to move and stir dissension , and to sow sedition ^ within the realm , intending thereby not only the destruction of the King , but also the whole subversion of his realm , being explained and declared , and so manifestly proved afore them , that they could not avoid of deny it . " "'It is not likely , " observes Mr . Turner , " that a Minister of State would have used

    such strong language as this without some adequate grounds . " Is it then improbable that Comwell should have attempted to impress upon the mind of the ambassador at the French Court , where his Master ' s cruelty had excited so much surprise and horror , that More had suffered justly , whatever his offence in fact was ? The next authority is the King ' s letter of the 25 th of June , which mentions " the treasons traitorously committed against us and pur laws , by the late Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More , " and a proclamation , which says , that More was "justly attainted and convicted of

    divers and sundry and manifest and detestable high treasons . " Does Mr . Turner imagine that the slightest credit is to be attached to statements like these , emanating from the very person whose injustice and cruelty they are cited to disprove ? According to Mr . Turner ' s ideas of historical authority , he might , with equal propriety , adduce the proclamation of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth against James II ., in order to prove that Charles II . was murdered by his brother .

    But it is not merely of the want of accuracy and research that we must complain in examining this portion of Mr . Turner's History : we must notice with disapprobation the principles which he promulgates , in order to shew that the Duke of Norfolk , and other distinguished men who formed Henry ' s cabinet , did not " kill men tyranically for differences of opinion or mere theoretical speculations . " Mr . Turner enters into an elaborate argument , the substance of which is , that when a government prescribes a certain

    doctrine to the people , no matter what it is , right or wrong , and the people choose to deny that doctrine , they are guilty of what Mr . Turner terms " a revolutionary revolt , " and to kill them is not to act tyrannically . They are not killed for differing in opinion from the government , but for saying that they differ in opinion ; and the reasoning of Mr . Turner has this singular result , that it is impossible for a government to put a man to death for a difference of opinion . If he is silent he cannot be put to death , for no one

    knows that he entertains the obnoxious opinion ; if he speaks , he is put to death , not for entertaining the opinion , but for expressing it , and thus being guilty of a " revolutionary revolt . " We find a distinction somewhat resembling this in Burnet : " It cannot but be confessed that to enact , under the pain of death , that none should

    deny the King ' s title , and to proceed upon that against offenders , is a very different thing from forcing them to swear the King to be the Supreme Head of the Church . " BurneVs Hist , of the i ? e / ., Vol . I . p . 351 . We cannot forbear transcribing the sensible and judicious annotation of Mr . Hargrave upon this passage , more especially as it affords a very complete answer to the reasoning of Mr , Turner in the note to which we have above alluded : " This souncTs more like an apology than just reasoning . Enforcing the oath

    of supremacy by the penalty of treason , was resorting to the highest punishment known to our law . Wherein , too , consisted the material difference in point of rigour between treason for not swearing to the King's supremacy , and treason for denying it ? Was it not equally the object of the statutes creating both crimes to compel the acknowledgment of the King ' s supremacy by the same extremity of punishment ? Can there be any reason to suppose that those who were concerned in the deaths of Bishop Fisher and

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    436 Review . —English Reformation .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1827, page 436, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1797/page/44/