Borrowing in practice the old maxim of Roman law, _cujus regio, ejus religio_,[19] he placed himself in the seat of authority in religion and presumed to define the faith of which Leo had styled him defender.

Others have made themselves despots by their mastery of many legions, through the agency of a secret police, or by means of an organised bureaucracy.

Yet Henry's standing army consisted of a few gentlemen pensioners and yeomen of the guard; he had neither secret police nor organised bureaucracy.
Even then Englishmen boasted that they were not slaves like the French,[20] and foreigners pointed a finger of scorn at their turbulence.
Had they not permanently or temporarily deprived of power nearly half their kings who had reigned since William the Conqueror?
Yet Henry VIII.

not only left them their arms, but repeatedly urged them to keep those arms ready for use.[21] He eschewed that air of mystery with which tyrants have usually sought to impose on the mind of the people.
All his life he moved familiarly and almost unguarded in the midst of his subjects, and he died in his bed, full of years, with the spell of his power unbroken and the terror of his name unimpaired.
[Footnote 16: Bainbridge, Wolsey, Fisher, Pole.
Bainbridge was a cardinal after Julius II's own heart, and he received the red hat for military services rendered to that warlike Pope (_Ven.
Cal._, ii., 104).] [Footnote 17: There were two Dukes of Norfolk, the second of whom was attainted, as was the Duke of Buckingham; the fourth Duke was Henry's brother-in-law, Suffolk.] [Footnote 18: Empson and Dudley.] [Footnote 19: "Sua cuique civitati religio est, nostra nobis." Cicero, _Pro Flacco_, 28; _cf._ E.
Bourre, _Des Inequalites de condition resultant de la religion en droit Romain_, Paris, 1895.] [Footnote 20: _Cf._ Bishop Scory to Edward VI.

in Strype, _Eccl.