Though the brief experience of seven years, during which the Statute of Henry VIII. remained in force, had. amply shadowed forth its beneficial effects, yet it was repealed in the following reign,^ and interest upon loans was again entirely forbidden, under pe- nalty of forfeiture of the principal and usury charged, imprisonment, fine, and ransom at the king's pleasure ; premising " that usury is, by the word of God, utterly prohibited, as a vice most odious and detestable, as in divers places of the Holy Scriptures is evident to be seen." By this act of repeal, which gave great dissatisfaction in the mercantile and manufacturing districts, where its effects were the more severely ' 5 & 6 Edward VI., c. 20.
THE REFORMATION. 47 felt, the common law and ecclesiastical jurisdictions were revived, and the Church regained and swayed her power with as much vengeance, though with less effect than formerly ; for the Reformation, which had already made great progess, was a powerful counteracting influence. The seeds of true religion, real liberty, and enlightenment, had been planted, and became too firmly rooted ever to be overturned ; and though the ancient cruel and sanguinary laws against heretics and usurers were all revived, and enforced with shocking barbarity by the Catholic Church, against every person and thing obnoxious to it, yet (altough she continued in the ascendant during this and the following reign of Queen Mary), the more enlightened and liberal opinions on usury, which may be said to have sprung, in part, from the Statute of Henry VIII., survived, if they did not gather strength, during the gloomy period of its suspension.
The severity of the Statute of Edward the VI., however, defeated its own object, for instead of dimin- ishing, usury greatly increased,^ and this fact is re- cited in the Statute of Elizabeth,^ restoring the Act of Henry VIII.,