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were better secured under the old forms, than they could be under any new establishment; and more especially that the one supreme executive was a necessary part of the political system, and that in endeavoring to do without the reality of a king they were forced to have recourse to an awkward imitation of one. Every act of Cromwell himself confirmed these truths. He had from the first a House of Commons; afterwards he endeavored to form a House of Lords also. He exercised the kingly prerogatives, and he came near assuming the regal title. Now he could not have acted thus from any affection for the old system, for he had come into power on the ruins of that system, and the natural course would have been for him to set up something different. Nor yet because no other plan had been thought of, for there was then no scarcity of new schemes of government. His conduct must have proceeded from the firm conviction that no other sort of government would answer.

*

This then was the great principle which the changes of those eventful ten years established—that the British constitution as it had so long existed was the natural and proper form of government for the country; that it was not the relic of a barbarous period, an incumbrance clogging the onward march of improvement, to be gradually removed as circumstances might permit, and to give place to other systems better suited to the views of an enlightened age; but a vital organization destined to grow with the growth and strengthen with the strength of the people; a xrñμa έs dei whose worth was not to be impaired by the lapse of years. Such was the lesson taught by Cromwell's usurpation, and it is not easy to set bounds to its value.

But how is this lesson to be interpreted? Shall we say that all open resistance to authority is indefensible, that the command, "Submit yourselves to the powers that be," is to be taken in its unlimited, unmitigated sense? That the

*The most famous of these was that of Harrington, as developed in his Commonwealth of Oceana. An Agrarian law and the ballot were the two main pillars of his political edifice, and the executive power was to be divided among a number of annual and triennial officers. Harrington was a great admirer of the Venetian republic, with the real history of which he was evidently but imperfectly acquainted.

people, whatever provocation may be given by their rulers, are to suffer to the uttermost; that it is better for them in every imaginable case

"To bear the ills they have

Than fly to others that they know not of?"

Such an inference has been drawn, we are aware; but it has been drawn most unfairly. Reason and experience alike protest against it. And this naturally leads us to consider an assertion which by dint of reiteration has come to be regarded by many as a truism-that popular resistance to oppression must invariably terminate in despotism; that "military rule is the eternal successor of civil convulsion." This misconception (to call it by its mildest name) originates in an exaggerated idea of the term revolution, or rather in a want of discrimination between the different kinds of revolutions.

The assertion certainly holds good in the case of a people who have been long kept in slavery and ignorance. When such men, goaded at length into fury by intolerable wrongs, shake off their oppressors, they are found incompetent to make a right use of the liberty which they have won. They have been so long in the dungeon that the daylight blinds them. Unacquainted with the first principles of government, they plunge headlong into the gulf of anarchy, in which they are tossed about till some crafty leader becomes first their idol and then their tyrant. But the case is widely different with nations who have always enjoyed, whether by right or sufferance, a considerable portion of political liberty. With them a revolution is not a change in the principles of government, but a forcible resistance to rulers who themselves wish to change the government by making it more despotic.* And neither can we see any abstract reason why

*The abolition of all previous institutions and laws was peculiar to the French Revolution, and was the great distinguishing feature of that awful movement. All other revolutions, of modern times at least, have proceeded on the recognition of some previously acknowledged principle. Even the vague apologies for governments in South America, amid all their turbulent antics, have retained one conservative But the principle. They have kept their religion--such as it is. Jacobin legislators of France swept away everything and began ab integro. They took little thought about settling the foundations;

a military despotism should necessarily follow such a revolution, nor would facts justify us in the supposition. When the people of America had won their liberties they sat quietly down to make a constitution for themselves, and though it was, as might be expected, a work of much time and trouble, we have no authority for supposing that during its progress any one man so much as dreamed of usurping the supreme power. And in the case immediately before us, though the people of England subjected themselves for a time to the yoke of a military despot, they were far from being hopelessly involved in bondage. They had tried Cromwell as an experiment; he did not suit them, and they brought back the old dynasty. And when that dynasty again proved unworthy of the trust reposed in it, and was swept away for ever by one effort of an indignant nation, who can say that this second revolution was not perfectly successful-that it failed in any degree to accomplish the objects proposed by it? It is indeed strange that men who are now enjoying the blessings that flowed from that glorious struggle should coolly lay down a principle which, if adopted by their forefathers, would have left them at this very moment grovelling under the dominion of Popery.

Thus then must we interpret the lesson of that eventful period; as conveying a warning to the throne no less than to the subject, as inculcating the wise maxims of real liberty, not the pernicious dogmas of bigotry and despotism. And it is for this very reason that we prize it so highly, and deem it cheaply purchased by all the immediate suffering of which it was the fruit.

The mention of the revolution of 1688 suggests to us one more consideration. It is not too much to say that both the comparative ease with which that great change was effected "they had brick for stone and slime for mortar, and they were to build a city and tower whose top should reach to heaven." No wonder that the ill-contrived and incongruous fabric tumbled about their ears as soon as they had put

up.

*"Aucun parti n'a regardé sa domination comme un gouvernement definitif. Les Royalistes, les Presbytériens, les Républicains, l'armée même le parti qui semblait le plus dévoué à Cromwell-tous étaient convaincus que c'était un maitre transitoire. Au fond il n'a jamais regné sur les esprits. Il n'était qu'un pis-aller, une nécessité de moment."--Guizot, Histoire de la Civilization en Europe.

and the complete success with which it was attended were mainly owing to the recent experience of the Protectorate. If on the one hand James II. had not been warned by the fate of his father, if he had not feared that he too might find his Cromwell, is it probable that he would have abandoned his throne as he did, almost without a struggle? Trusting not only to partisans at home but also to assistance from abroad, he might have involved the country at the same time in the horrors of civil war and of foreign invasion. The soldiery of Louis XIV. might have crossed the Channel to decide on British soil the succession to the British crown. If on the other hand the people had not already felt the evil consequences of departing from that form of government best adapted to ensure their happiness, would they have been likely to re-admit monarchy so readily and to preserve it so carefully as they did? How deeply might they not have plunged into the tide of reckless experiment !

We consider therefore that the usurpation of Oliver Cromwell was beneficial in its effects, not because it was a natural or proper government for the English nation, or one the longer continuance of which would have been desirable, but even because it was the very reverse. It was a necessary link in that great chain of events by which the fundamental principles of the British constitution were fully developed. It was the strongest devisable proof of the superiority of that constitution. Viewed in this, the only true light, it will not appear a chaotic mass of blood-stained ruins, but an integral and harmonious part of that goodly fabric which has grown up through successive ages to its present sublime altitude, and now stands forth triumphantly the admiration and the envy of mankind.

66 THE MILITARY ORDERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES."

Prize Essay, Trinity College, Cambridge, 1843.

"Il n'est aucune institution qui ne doive son origine à des besoins sociaux et qui ne touche par quelques points à l'organization d'un Etat."-NODIER.

If we wish to find an era in every respect the very antipodes of the present, we must not go back to the days of the heathen empires and republics, but must fix our attention on the feudal ages, which afford the strongest possible contrast to the modern constitution of society. Indeed it is only by a great effort of mind that we can transport ourselves back to those times and picture to ourselves the state of things that then existed. In the first place there was no third estate,-nothing answering to the popular or democratic element in modern governments. The masses, completely enslaved, were considered an inferior order of beings, created solely for the use of their lords. Nor was there anything corresponding to our notion of patriotism; its place was supplied by the idea of fealty. The vassal's whole duty was owing to his suzerain, and he had none left for his country. Nay, it is not too much to say that there was no settled government at all; at best we can only call it an armed truce.* Military leaders usurped the place of civil magistrates; charters and treaties were the substitutes for constitutions and laws; and instead of regular tribunals deciding in accordance with established principles, there were champions in armor and monks with bell, book, and candle, wager of battle and trial by ordeal.

Christianity was nominally the religion of Europe; but it was no longer that pure and undefiled religion to which the noble army of martyrs had borne testimony with their blood. The traditions of man had made the commandments of God

* See Robertson's Charles V., vol. i. p. 236, " On the Right of Private War;" and Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation Moderne, p. 115.

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