I can't tell you exactly how the modern State evolved in England, except to say that Parliament grew more powerful at the expense of the monarchy, and mass democracy spread, but apparently the intermediating institutions of churches, families, guilds, and other voluntary associations seem to have declined in influence. They moved away from the Patriarcha of Robert Filmer and towards the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes. Is that an increase in godlessness and insolence? It does seem to be a shift away from natural/divine law towards artificial/man-made law.