But the great aim of his policy was to break the power of the clergy, which each of his predecessors, since Edward, had alternately strove to raise and to depress,--at first in order to gain that potent body to their interests, and then to preserve them in subjection to the authority which they had conferred.
Burke analyzes the complex relationship between monarchy and the clergy throughout English history.
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But the course of succession is the healthy habit of the British Constitution.
When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.
They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.
The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.
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