Tales of a Grandfather Author:Walter Scott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. IV. Abuses of the Church of Rome.—Reformation in England—and in Scotland—War with England, and Death of James V. You remember, my dear child, that Ja... more »mes V. was nephew to Henry VIII. of England, being a son of Margaret, sister of that monarch. This connexion, and perhaps the policy of Henry, who was aware that it was better for both countries that they should remain at peace together, prevented for several years the renewal of the destructive wars between the two divisions of the island. The good understanding would probably have been still more complete, had it not been for the great and general change in religious matters, called in history the Reformation. I must give you some idea of the nature of this alteration, otherwise you cannot understand the consequences to which it led. After the death of Our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, the doctrine which he preached was planted in Rome, the principal city of the great Roman empire, by the Apostle Peter, as it is said, whom the Catholics, therefore, term the first Bishop of Rome. In process of time the Bishops of Rome, who succeeded, as they said, the Apostle in his office, claimed an authority over all others in Christendom. Good and well meaning persons, in their reverence for the religion which they had adopted, admitted these pretensions without much scrutiny. As the Christian religion was more widely received, the Emperors and Kings who embraced it, thought to distinguish their piety by heaping benefits on the church, and on the Bishops of Rome in particular, who at length obtained great lands and demesnes as temporal Princes; while in their character of clergymen, they assumed the title of Popes, and the full and exclusive authority over all their clergymen in the Christian world. As the people of these times wer...« less