13
CHAPTER II
INTRODUCTION (continued)
We may take the cessation of the anarchy which subsisted under Stephen as the point at which to commence our preliminary sketch of the relations of Church and State in England previously to the Tudor times. We cannot but observe that the power of the Church had in the interval since Henry I.'s time largely increased, for we find that, as Mr. Green points out,[1] what Henry II. endeavoured to do in the Constitutions of Clarendon, was little else than to restore the system of William the Conqueror; but that, though he was a strong man, he was unable to accomplish it successfully.
From his time on we find three contending parties in the State—the king, the baronage, and the Church, and somewhat later a fourth, viz. the people, gradually emerging into importance. The last of these, indeed, did not play any great part until the reign of Edward I., from which time, first as represented in Parliament, and afterwards on more than one occasion by insurrection, the people rose gradually into the position of a power which had to be reckoned with, and in the reign of Edward III. and Richard II. they became for a time very formidable. During the interval, the barons and the Church had between them acted as checks upon the power of the Crown, but each of the three had varied in their relations to one another; each two making
- ↑ Green, History of the English People, vol. i. p. 165.
