history of those times than is to be found in Goldsmith's Abridgment, believe that, if James had held his own religious opinions without wishing to

make proselytes, or if, wishing even to make 5 proselytes, he had contented himself with

exerting only his constitutional influence for that purpose, the Prince of Orange would ever have been invited over. Our ancestors, we suppose,

knew their own meaning; and, if we may believe 10 them, their hostility was primarily not to popery,

but to tyranny. They did not drive out a tyrant because he was a Catholic; but they excluded Catholics from the crown, because they thought

them likely to be tyrants. The ground on which 15 they, in their famous resolution, declared the

throne vacant, was this, “that James had broken the fundamental laws of the kingdom.” Every man, therefore, who approves of the Revolution of

1688 must hold that the breach of fundamental 20 laws on the part of the sovereign justifies resist

ance. The question, then, is this: Had Charles the First broken the fundamental laws of England?

No person can answer in the negative unless he 25 refuses credit, not merely to all the accusations

brought against Charles by his opponents, but to the narratives of the warmest Royalists, and to the confessions of the King himself. If there be any

truth in any historian of any party who has related 30 the events of that reign, the conduct of Charles, from his accession to the meeting of the Long Parliament, had been a continued course of oppression and treachery. Let those who applaud the Revolution and condemn the Rebellion mention one act of James the Second to which a parallel is 5 not to be found in the history of his father. Let them lay their fingers on a single article in the Declaration of Right, presented by the two Houses to William and Mary, which Charles is not acknowledged to have violated. He had, accord- 10 ing to the testimony of his own friends, usurped the functions of the legislature, raised taxes without the consent of parliament, and quartered troops on the people in the most illegal and vexatious manner. Not a single session of parliament 15 had passed without some unconstitutional attack on the freedom of debate. The right of petition was grossly violated; arbitrary judgments, exor bitant fines, and unwarranted imprisonments, were grievances of daily occurrence. If these things do 20 not justify resistance, the Revolution was treason; if they do, the Great Rebellion was laudable.

But, it is said, why not adopt milder measures? Why, after the King had consented to so many reforms and renounced so many oppressive preroga- 25 tives, did the parliament continue to rise in their demands at the risk of provoking a civil war? The ship-money had been given up. The Star Chamber had been abolished. Provision had been made for the frequent convocation and secure 30

deliberation of parliaments. Why not pursue an end confessedly good by peaceable and regular means? We recar again to the analogy of the

Revolution. Why was James driven from the 5 throne? Why was he not retained upon conditions? He too had offered to call a free parliament, and to submit to its decision all the matters in dispute. Yet we are in the habit of praising our

forefathers, who preferred a revolution, a disputed 10 succession, a dynasty of strangers, twenty years of

foreign and intestine war, a standing army, and a national debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a tried and proved tyrant. The Long Parliament

acted on the same principle, and is entitled to the 15 same praise. They could not trust the King. He

had, no doubt, passed salutary laws; but what assurance was there that he would not break them? He had renounced oppressive prerogatives; but

where was the security that he would not resume 20 them? The nation had to deal with a man whom

no tie could bind, a man who made and broke promises with equal facility, a man whose honor had been a hundred times pawned, and never redeemed.

Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands on still stronger ground than the Convention of 1688. No action of James can be compared to the conduct of Charles with respect to the Petition of

Right. The Lords and Commons present him 30 with a bill in which the constitutional limits of

25

5

his power are marked out. He hesitates; he evades; at last he bargains to give his assent for five subsidies. The bill receives his solemn assent: the subsidies are voted; but no sooner is the tyrant relieved than he returns at once to all the arbitrary measures which he had bound himself to abandon, and violates all the clauses of the very Act which he had been paid to pass.

For more than ten years the people had seen the rights which were theirs by a double claim, by 10 immemorial inheritance, and by recent purchase, infringed by the perfidious King who had recognized them. At length circumstances compelled Charles to summon another parliament: another chance was given to our fathers: were they to 15 throw it away as they had thrown away the former? Were they again to be cozened by le Roi le veut? Were they again to advance their money on pledges which had been forfeited over and over again? Were they to lay a second Petition of 20 Right at the foot of the throne, to grant another lavish aid in exchange for another unmeaning ceremony, and then to take their departure, till, after ten years more of fraud and oppression, their prince should again require a supply, and 25 again repay it with a perjury? They were compelled to choose whether they would trust a tyrant or conquer him. We think that they chose wisely and nobly.

The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of 30 other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content themselves with

calling testimony to character. He had so many 5 private virtues! And had James the Second no

private virtues? Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, destitute of private virtues? And what, after all, are the

virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not 10 more sincere than that of his son, and fully as

weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary

household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them.

A good father! A good husband! Ample apolo15 gies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood!

We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his mar

riage vow! We accuse him of having given up his 20 people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot

headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defence is that he took his little son on his knee, and kissed him! We censure him for having

violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after 25 having, for good and valuable consideration,

promised to observe them; and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning! It is to such consider

ations as these, together with his Vandyke dress, 30 his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he