prelates and clergy. The municipal | be our wisdom to look with jealousy corporations took, with few exceptions, on schemes of innovation, and to guard the same side. In the House of Commons the opposition preponderated, but not very decidedly. from encroachment all the prerogatives with which the law has, for the public good, armed the sovereign." Neither party wanted strong argu- Such were the views of those men of ments for the course which it was dis- whom the excellent Falkland may be posed to take. The reasonings of the most regarded as the leader. It was conenlightened Royalists may be summed tended on the other side with not less up thus:-"It is true that great abuses force, by men of not less ability and have existed; but they have been re- virtue, that the safety which the liberdressed. It is true that precious rights ties of the English people enjoyed was have been invaded; but they have been rather apparent than real, and that the vindicated and surrounded with new arbitrary projects of the court would securities. The sittings of the Estates be resumed as soon as the vigilance of of the realm have been, in defiance of the Commons was relaxed. True it all precedent and of the spirit of the con-was-such was the reasoning of Pym, stitution, intermitted during eleven of Hollis, and of Hampden-that many years; but it has now been provided good laws had been passed: but, if that henceforth three years shall never good laws had been sufficient to restrain elapse without a Parliament. The Star the King, his subjects would have had Chamber, the High Commission, the little reason ever to complain of his adCouncil of York, oppressed and plun-ministration. The recent statutes were dered us; but those hateful courts have now ceased to exist. The Lord Lieutenant aimed at establishing military despotism; but he has answered for his treason with his head. The Primate tainted our worship with Popish rites, and punished our scruples with Popish cruelty; but he is awaiting in the Tower the judgment of his peers. The Lord Keeper sanctioned a plan by which the property of every man in England was placed at the mercy of the Crown; but he has been disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take refuge in a foreign land. The ministers of tyranny have expiated their crimes. The victims of tyranny have been compensated for their sufferings. It would therefore be most unwise to persevere further in that course which was justifiable and necessary when we first met, after a long interval, and found the whole administra-rived which inflamed the passions and tion one mass of abuses. It is time to confirmed the opinions of both. The take heed that we do not so pursue our great chieftains of Ulster, who, at the victory over despotism as to run into time of the accession of James, had, anarchy. It was not in our power to after a long struggle, submitted to the overturn the bad institutions which royal authority, had not long brooked lately afflicted our country, without the humiliation of dependence. They shocks which have loosened the founda- had conspired against the English gotions of government. Now that those vernment, and had been attainted of institutions have fallen we must hasten treason. Their immense domains had to prop the edifice which it was lately been forfeited to the crown, and had our duty to batter. Henceforth it will soon been peopled by thousands of surely not of more authority than the Great Charter or the Petition of Right. Yet neither the Great Charter, hallowed by the veneration of four centuries, nor the Petition of Right, sanctioned, after mature reflection, and for valuable consideration, by Charles himself, had been found effectual for the protection of the people. If once the check of fear were withdrawn, if once the spirit of opposition were suffered to slumber, all the securities for English freedom resolved themselves into a single one, the royal word; and it had been proved by a long and severe experience that the royal word could not be trusted. The two parties were still regarding each other with cautious The Irish hostility, and had not yet mea- Rebellion. sured their strength, when news ar English and Scotch emigrants. The lessly persecuted, as a sincere Protestnew settlers were, in civilisation and ant; and so notorious was his dupliintelligence, far superior to the native city, that there was no treachery of population, and sometimes abused which his subjects might not, with their superiority. The animosity pro- some show of reason, believe him capaduced by difference of race was in- ble. It was soon whispered that the creased by difference of religion. rebellion of the Roman Catholics of Under the iron rule of Wentworth, Ulster was part of a vast work of scarcely a murmur was heard: but, darkness which had been planned at when that strong pressure was with- Whitehall. drawn, when Scotland had set the After some weeks of prelude, the example of successful resistance, when first great parliamentary con- The England was distracted by internal flict between the parties, which Remonquarrels, the smothered rage of the have ever since contended, and strance. Írish broke forth into acts of fearful are still contending, for the governviolence. On a sudden, the aboriginal ment of the nation, took place on the population rose on the colonists. A twenty-second of November 1641. It war, to which national and theological was moved by the opposition, that the hatred gave a character of peculiar House of Commons should present to ferocity, desolated Ulster, and spread the King a remonstrance, enumerating to the neighbouring provinces. The the faults of his administration from castle of Dublin was scarcely thought the time of his accession, and expressing secure. Every post brought to London the distrust with which his policy was exaggerated accounts of outrages still regarded by his people. That which, without any exaggeration, assembly, which a few months before were sufficient to move pity and had been unanimous in calling for the horror. These evil tidings roused to reform of abuses, was now divided the height the zeal of both the great into two fierce and eager factions of parties which were marshalled against nearly equal strength. After a hot each other at Westminster. The Royal- debate of many hours, the remonstrance ists maintained that it was the first was carried by only eleven votes. duty of every good Englishman and Pro- The result of this struggle was testant, at such a crisis, to strengthen highly favourable to the conservative the hands of the sovereign. To the party. It could not be doubted that opposition it seemed that there were only some great indiscretion could prenow stronger reasons than ever for vent them from shortly obtaining the thwarting and restraining him. That predominance in the Lower House. the commonwealth was in danger was The Upper House was already their undoubtedly a good reason for giving own. Nothing was wanting to ensure large powers to a trustworthy magis- their success, but that the King should, trate: but it was a good reason for in all his conduct, show respect for the taking away powers from a magistrate laws and scrupulous good faith towards who was at heart a public enemy. To his subjects. raise a great army had always been the King's first object. A great army must now be raised. It was to be feared that, unless some new securities were devised, the forces levied for the reduction of Ireland would be employed against the liberties of England. Nor was this all. A horrible suspicion, unjust indeed, but not altogether unnatural, had arisen in many minds. The Queen was Catholic: the King was not regarded by the Puritans, whom he had merci His first measures promised well. He had, it seemed, at last discovered that an entire change of system was necessary, and had wisely made up his mind to what could no longer be avoided. He declared his determination to govern in harmony with the Commons, and, for that end, to call to his councils men in whose talents and character the Commons might place an avowed Roman confidence. Nor was the selection ill made. Falkland, Hyde, and Colepepper, all three distinguished by the part which they had taken in reform- | overwhelmed them with shame and ing abuses and in punishing evil minis- dismay. He sent the Attorney Geneters, were invited to become the con- ral to impeach Pym, Hollis, Hampfidential advisers of the Crown, and den, and other members of the House were solemnly assured by Charles that of Commons of high treason at the he would take no step in any way bar of the House of Lords. Not affecting the Lower House of Parlia- content with this flagrant violation of ment without their privity. the Great Charter and of the uninterrupted practice of centuries, he went in person, accompanied by armed men, to seize the leaders of the opposition within the walls of Parliament. A Had he kept this promise, it cannot be doubted that the reaction which was already in progress would very soon have become quite as strong as the most respectable Royalists would have The attempt failed. The accused desired. Already the violent members members had left the House a short of the opposition had begun to despair time before Charles entered it. of the fortunes of their party, to sudden and violent revulsion of feeling, tremble for their own safety, and to both in the Parliament and in the talk of selling their estates and emi-country, followed. The most favourgrating to America. That the fair able view that has ever been taken of prospects which had begun to open the King's conduct on this occasion by before the King were suddenly over- his most partial advocates is that he cast, that his life was darkened by ad- had weakly suffered himself to be versity, and at length shortened by hurried into a gross indiscretion by the violence, is to be attributed to his own evil counsels of his wife and of his faithlessness and contempt of law. courtiers. But the general voice loudly The truth seems to be that he de-charged him with far deeper guilt. At tested both the parties into which the House of Commons was divided: nor is this strange; for in both those parties the love of liberty and the love of order were mingled, though in different proportions. The advisers whom necessity had compelled him to call round him were by no means men after his own heart. They had joined in condemning his tyranny, in abridging his power, and in punishing his instruments. They were now indeed prepared to defend in a strictly legal way his strictly legal prerogative; but they would have recoiled with horror from the thought of reviving Wentworth's projects of Thorough. They were, therefore, in the King's opinion, traitors, who differed only in the degree of their seditious malignity from Pym and Hampden. the very moment at which his subjects, after a long estrangement produced by his maladministration, were returning to him with feelings of confidence and affection, he had aimed a deadly blow at all their dearest rights, at the privileges of Parliament, at the very prin ciple of trial by jury. He had shown that he considered opposition to his arbitrary designs as a crime to be expiated only by blood. He had broken faith, not only with his Great Council and with his people, but with his own adherents. He had done what, but for an unforeseen accident, would probably have produced a bloody conflict round the Speaker's chair. Those who had the chief sway in the Lower House now felt that not only their power and popularity, but their lands and their necks, were staked on the He accordingly, a few days after he event of the struggle in which they Impeach had promised the chiefs of the were engaged. The flagging zeal of constitutional Royalists that the party opposed to the court revived members. no step of importance should in an instant. During the night which be taken without their knowledge, followed the outrage the whole city of formed a resolution the most mo-London was in arms. In a few hours mentous of his whole life, carefully the roads leading to the capital were concealed that resolution from them, covered with multitudes of yeomen and executed it in a manner which | spurring hard to Westminster with the ment of the five badges of the parliamentary cause in resistance was not to be expected. Yet their hats. In the House of Commons it will be difficult to show that the the opposition became at once irresisti- Houses could safely have exacted less. ble, and carried, by more than two They were truly in a most embarrassing votes to one, resolutions of unprece- position. The great majority of the dented violence. Strong bodies of the nation was firmly attached to hereditrainbands, regularly relieved, mounted tary monarchy. Those who held reguard round Westminster Hall. The publican opinions were as yet few, and gates of the King's palace were daily did not venture to speak out. It was besieged by a furious multitude whose therefore impossible to abolish kingly taunts and execrations were heard even government. Yet it was plain that in the presence chamber, and who no confidence could be placed in the could scarcely be kept out of the royal King. It would have been absurd in apartments by the gentlemen of the household. Had Charles remained much longer in his stormy capital, it is probable that the Commons would have found a plea for making him, under outward forms of respect, a state pri soner. from London. He quitted London, never to return Departure till the day of a terrible and of Charles memorable reckoning had arrived. A negotiation began which occupied many months. Accusations and recriminations passed backward and forward between the contending parties. All accommodation had become impossible. The sure punishment which waits on habitual perfidy had at length overtaken the King. It was to no purpose that he now pawned his royal word, and invoked heaven to witness the sincerity of his professions. The distrust with which his adversaries regarded him was not to be removed by oaths or treaties. They were convinced that they could be safe only when he was utterly helpless. Their demand, therefore, was, that he should surrender, not only those prerogatives which he had usurped in violation of ancient laws and of his own recent promises, but also other prerogatives which the English Kings had always possessed, and continue to possess at the present day. No minister must be appointed, no peer_created, without the consent of the Houses. Above all, the sovereign must resign that supreme military authority which, from time beyond all memory, had appertained to the regal office. That Charles would comply with such demands while he had any means of those who knew, by recent proof, that he was bent on destroying them, to content themselves with presenting to him another Petition of Right, and receiving from him fresh promises similar to those which he had repeatedly made and broken. Nothing but the want of an army had prevented him from entirely subverting the old constitution of the realm. It was now necessary to levy a great regular army for the conquest of Ireland; and it would therefore have been mere insanity to leave him in possession of that plenitude of military authority which his ancestors had enjoyed. The When a country is in the situation in which England then was, when the kingly office is regarded with love and veneration, but the person who fills that office is hated and distrusted, it should seem that the course which ought to be taken is obvious. dignity of the office should be preserved: the person should be discarded. Thus our ancestors acted in 1399 and in 1689. Had there been, in 1642, any man occupying a position similar to that which Henry of Lancaster occupied at the time of the deposition of Richard the Second, and which William of Orange occupied at the time of the deposition of James the Second, it is probable that the Houses would have changed the dynasty, and would have made no formal change in the constitution. The new King, called to the throne by their choice, and dependent on their support, would have been under the necessity of governing in conformity with their wishes and opinions. But there was no prince of the blood royal in the parliamentary party; and, though that party contained many respect for constituted authority and men of high rank and many men of dread of violent innovation. That eminent ability, there was none who party had recently been in hopes of towered so conspicuously above the obtaining by peaceable means the asrest that he could be proposed as a cendency in the House of Commons; candidate for the crown. As there was but every such hope had been blighted. to be a King, and as no new King The duplicity of Charles had made his could be found, it was necessary to old enemies irreconcileable, had driven leave the regal title to Charles. Only back into the ranks of the disaffected one course, therefore, was left and a crowd of moderate men who were in that was to disjoin the regal title from the very act of coming over to his the regal prerogatives. side, and had so cruelly mortified his best friends that they had for a time stood aloof in silent shame and resent The change which the Houses proposed to make in our institutions, though it seems exorbitant, when dis-ment. Now, however, the constitutional tinctly set forth and digested into arti- Royalists were forced to make their cles of capitulation, really amounts to choice between two dangers; and they little more than the change which, in thought it their duty rather to rally the next generation, was effected by round a prince whose past conduct they the Revolution. It is true that, at the condemned, and whose word inspired Revolution, the sovereign was not de- them with little confidence, than to prived by law of the power of naming suffer the regal office to be degraded, his ministers: but it is equally true and the polity of the realm to be enthat, since the Revolution, no minister tirely remodelled. With such feelings, has been able to retain office six months many men whose virtues and abilities in opposition to the sense of the House would have done honour to any cause of Commons. It is true that the sove-ranged themselves on the side of the reign still possesses the power of creat-King. ing peers, and the more important power of the sword: but it is equally true that in the exercise of these powers the sovereign has, ever since the Revolution, been guided by advisers who possess the confidence of the representatives of the nation. In fact, the leaders of the Roundhead party in 1642, and the statesmen who, about half a century later, effected the Revolution, had exactly the same object in view. That object was to terminate the contest between the Crown and the Parliament, by giving to the Parliament a supreme control over the executive administration. The statesmen of the Revolution effected this indirectly by changing the dynasty. The Roundheads of 1642, being unable to change the dynasty, were compelled to take a direct course towards their end. We cannot, however, wonder that the demands of the opposition, importing as they did a complete and formal transfer to the Parliament of powers which had always belonged to the Crown, should have shocked that great party of which the characteristics are ap Commence- In August 1642 the sword was at length drawn; and soon, in almost every shire of the kingdom, two hostile factions peared in arms against each other. It is not easy to say which of the contending parties was at first the more formidable. The Houses commanded London and the counties round London, the fleet, the navigation of the Thames, and most of the large towns and seaports. They had at their disposal almost all the military stores of the kingdom, and were able to raise duties, both on goods imported from foreign countries, and on some important products of domestic industry. The King was ill provided with artillery and ammunition. The taxes which he laid on the rural districts occupied by his troops produced, it is probable, a sum far less than that which the Parliament drew from the city of London alone. He relied, indeed, chiefly, for pecuniary aid, on the munificence of his opulent adherents. Many of these mortgaged their land, pawned their jewels, and broke up their silver chargers and |