Edmund Burke

A constant emulation in courtesy and politeness, as well as in military exploits, had been kept up between him and Saladin.

This was his last wound: afflicted by his children in their deaths and harassed in their lives, mortified as a father and a king, worn down with cares and sorrows more than with years, he died, cursing his fortune, his children, and the…

He followed closely the plan of his predecessor, to reduce the great vassals, and the King of England, who was the greatest of them; but he followed it with far more skill and vigor, though he made use of the same instruments in the work.

In the East, where the rivalship of brothers is so dangerous, such is the force of paternal power amongst a rude people, we scarce ever hear of a son in arms against his father.

At that time Europe had not emerged out of barbarism, yet this great natural bond of society was extremely weak.

The parental authority, respectable at all times, ought to have the greatest force in times when the manners are rude and the laws imperfect.

Though these measures were taken with the greatest judgment, and seemed to promise a peaceful evening to his reign, the seeds of rebellion remained still at home, and the dispositions that nourished them were rather increased abroad.

He therefore wisely aimed at acquiring the favor of that body, and turning to his own advantage a power he should in vain attempt to overthrow, but which he might set up against another power, which it was equally his interest to reduce.

The king had experienced how dangerous it was to attempt removing foundations so deeply laid both in strength and opinion.

The Papal authority, so often subservient, so often prejudicial to his designs, he called to his assistance in a cause which did not misbecome it,--the cause of a father attacked by his children.

It was on this trying occasion that Henry displayed a greatness independent of all fortune.

But these histories, seeming clear-sighted in the obscure affairs of so blind an antiquity, instead of passing for treasuries of ancient facts, are regarded by the judicious as modern fictions.

The clergy, in whose cause he fell, equalled him to the most holy martyrs; compassion for his fate made all men forget his faults; and the report of frequent miracles at his tomb sanctified his cause and character, and threw a general…

The horror of this barbarous action, increased by the sacredness of the person who suffered and of the place where it was committed, diffused itself on all sides with incredible rapidity.

But as no negotiation had prepared the Pope in favor of laws designed in reality to abridge his own power, it was no wonder that he rejected them with indignation.

By this step the king seemed to doubt the entireness of his own authority in his dominions; and by calling in foreign aid when it served his purpose, he gave it a force and a sort of legal sanction when it came to be employed against…

Our ancestors, having united the Church dignities to the secular dignities of baronies, had so blended the ecclesiastical with the temporal power in the same persons that it became almost impossible to separate them.

It is sufficiently known, that the first Christians, avoiding the Pagan tribunals, tried most even of their civil causes before the bishop, who, though he had no direct coercive power, yet, wielding the sword of excommunication, had…

Their share both in the elevation and depression of that prince showed that they possessed a power inconsistent with the safety and dignity of the state.

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…

And, indeed, there seems to have been at that juncture but little occasion to limit a power which seemed not more than sufficient to correct all the evils of an unlimited liberty.

The charter, and the other favorable acts, the scaffolding of his ambition, when he saw the structure raised, he threw down and contemned.

The lamentable representation given by history of those barbarous times justifies the pictures in the old romances of the castles of giants and magicians.

Those who dwelt in the open country they forced into their castles, and after pillaging them of all their visible substance, these tyrants held them in dungeons, and tortured them with a thousand cruel inventions to extort a discovery of…

They infested the highroads, and put a stop to all trade by plundering the merchants and travellers.