23.] * * * * * The twenty-four years during which Henry VII.

had guided the destinies of England were a momentous epoch in the development of Western civilisation.

It was the dawn of modern history, of the history of Europe in the form in which we know it to-day.

The old order was in a state of liquidation.

The mediaeval ideal, described by Dante, of a universal monarchy with two aspects, spiritual and temporal, and two heads, emperor and pope, was passing away.