measures of state most proper to be adopted; and when the constitution of the country was in reality undergoing an alteration, while it appeared to be the same as in preceding times. Those who succeeded him discovered the change, and took the proper means to prevent its unhappy consequences: but the discovery, though afterwards easy to be made, was perhaps at that time placed out of the reach of human sagacity. The good qualities of Charles were more calculated to accelerate than to retard the fury of the storm, which threatened, and soon burst around him. Too scrupulous an adherence to his rights as a king, and his extraordinary zeal for the church of England, contributed to introduce the train of events, which proved so fatal to himself, and so disastrous to his country. In the early part of his reign, he was induced to exercise with too much severity that undefined prerogative, over the odious part of which the cautious Elizabeth had drawn a veil, but which her successor James had exerted with ostentatious parade upon trivial occasions. However inquisitorial the constitution of the star chamber and the high commission court was, or however rigid the punishments, which they denounced against state offences; their authority was fully sanctioned by ancient customs. Few if any clamours had been raised against their proceedings during the reigns of former sovereigns. But, unhappily for Charles, the decrees of the star chamber at first excited popular invectives and tumult, and finally provoked a steady and determined opposition. The people called with a peremptory voice for a general redress of grievances. It ought for ever to be remembered, that this call was obeyed, and that the fullest concessions were made on the part of the king previous to the great rebellion. But as suspicions were entertained of the sincerity of his declarations, his sacrifices to the parliament, connected with some rash actions and unguarded expressions, were considered rather as the result of compulsion than of choice. Cromwell, Fairfax, Ireton, and all the popular leaders, therefore, failed not to embrace an opportunity so favourable to their ambition. They fired the minds of their party with their own fanaticism, and plunged the nation into all the horrors of a civil war. The refusal of Charles to resign the appointment of officers in the militia, was a signal for the commencement of hostilities; and the royal sword was finally drawn for the maintenance of what the king deemed a just prerogative, long after the parliament had recourse to arms. The last scene of this tragical period is such as the humane historian must lament to record, and the friend to regal government must peruse with reluctance and horror; for it was closed with the solemn mockery of an illegal trial, and the murder of a monarch upon the scaffold.*. The violent convulsion, which subverted the throne, afforded an ample field of action to the abilities of the politic and hypocritical CROMWELL. He not only sought his safety in the destruction of the king, but established a complete despotism upon the ruins of the regal power. Under his conduct the army, as the prætorian bands had acted in the Roman empire, overawed the clamours of contending factions, and gave a master to their distracted country. The talents, courage, and political skill of the protector shone equally in his conduct at home, and in his transactions abroad; and no prince who ever swayed the sceptre of this nation impressed the potentates of Europe with a more lively sense of the energy of the English councils, and the terror of the English arms. To add to the wonders of his extraordinary history, amidst the alarms and the exertions of returning loyalty, he died a natural death, while he was attempting to convert a military government into one more permanent and more congenial to the temper of his countrymen.† *January 30, A. D. 1649. Excidat illa dies avo, nec postera credant Lord Clarendon concludes his character in these words: "He was the worthiest gentleman, the best master, the best friend, the best husband, the best father, and the best Christian, that the age he lived in produced,"-Clarendon's History, vol. iii, p. 199. This eminent writer is supposed by some to have recorded rather a vindication of Charles than an impartial History of the Rebellion: but a proper exs amination of his work will show that he was not much influenced by any unfair bias in favour of the unfortunate monarch. There are, it is true, some palliations and softening expressions with respect to the king: but Clarendon has given as free an opinion of the origin of the Civil War, as any republican could have done. Speaking of the illegal proceedings of the star chamber, he says, "those foundations of right by which men valued their security, to the apprehension and understanding of wise men, were never more in danger of being destroyed." Book I, p. 67. † His character by Lord Clarendon is thus concluded: "In a word, as he was guilty of many crimes, against which damnation is denounced, and for which hell fire is prepared; so he had some good qualities, which have caused the memory of some men in all ages to be celebrated: and he will be looked upon by posterity as a brave wicked man." History of the rebellion, vol. iii, p. 509. The conduct of the parliament after the restoration, A. D. - 1660. at first sight appears to have been highly inconsistent. In the former part of the reign of Charles II. he was flattered by their most abject devotion to his will; and towards the conclusion of it, he was assailed by their deter'mined opposition. But the apparent inconsistency of their conduct may be reconciled by adverting to the alteration of circumstances. The people, rescued from the despotism of Cromwell, and the oppression of his emissaries, were led, by the extravagance of their joy, after the re-establishment of the ancient family, to express the most complete submission to the will of their sovereign, and to testify the most ardent wishes to exalt the crown above the attack of popular rage. But when the projects of the king to introduce popery and arbitrary government were detected, they suddenly awoke to a full sense of a danger, alarming as that which they had recently escaped. The tide of popular opinion therefore turned with violence against the king, who with his brother, the duke of York, was nearly carried away by its current. The commons boldly exerted their privileges. To the attention which they paid to the oppression of an obscure individual, England is indebted for the final improvement of the act of Habeas Corpus, which rescues the prisoner as well from the delay of trial, which the ministers of the crown may devise, as from the hardship of confinement out of his native country.* This statute may be regarded as an invaluable supplement to magna charta; and the attentive reader of our history will not fail to remark, that such measures as these were taken to extend the sphere of liberty, during the reign of arbitrary princes. A. D. 1684. This spirited house of commons impeached the earl of Danby, who had basely been instrumental in making his master a pensioner of France; they declared their hostility to popery, and deliberated upon the exclusion of the duke of York from the crown, in consequence of his avowed attachment to that religion, and his marriage with a papist. The death of the witty and dissipated Charles II. while annulling the charters of great towns, and meditating schemes in order to make future parliaments obsequious to his inclination, saved him from the resentment of an incensed people. The conduct of James II. congenial in his principles, *A. D. 1679. Hume, vol. viii, p. 107. Letters of Junius, p. 226. De Lolme, p. 192, 362, 486. Rapin, vol. ii, p. 675, 707. Earl of Danby. Hume, vol. viii, p. 86. and more bold in the avowal and the execution of his designs than his brother, met with its due reward. A. D. 1684. The established religion of the country was insulted by the erection of a popish chapel in the midst of the royal camp; the rights of election were infringed by the despotic appointment of a popish president to Magdalen college in the university of Oxford; the privileges of parliament were violated by a standing army, maintained in the time of profound peace, without their consent; and the exercise of the right of subjects to present petitions to the king was punished by the imprisonment of six bishops in the tower. Popery and slavery seemed to be again returning with hasty steps; and the spirit of determined opposition was roused to check their advances. WILLIAM, prince of Orange, descended from the illustrious house of Nassau, grandson of Charles I. was invited to share the throne with Mary, the daughter of James. The king, struck with consternation at the desertion of his army, his fleet, and even his own children, threw up the reins of government, and was indebted to the clemency, or perhaps the policy of his enemies, for a secure, escape into France. The reign of the Stuarts consisted in a continued struggle for power between the monarch and his subjects. The public mind was kept in a constant state of fermentation; and the times, however favourable to the exercise of political skill and courage, seemed to allow no leisure for the cultivation of the intellectual powers, or the growth of knowledge, which is usually the improvement of tranquillity and repose. Yet, amid the turbulence of this period was founded the Royal Society, an institution, which has been particularly favourable to the promotion of science and genuine philosophy. The revolution was a most distinguishing epoch in the history of England, as it altered the line of succession by a power immediately derived from the people, and gave such an ascendant to their liberty, as to extend its influence, secure its continuance, and place it upon a solid and durable foundation. The means by which it was ac complished, without the effusion of blood, at least upon English ground, were as extraordinary as the importance of it was great, not only to Britain, but to the common interests of Europe. At the auspicious moment, when William III. gave his assent to the bill of rights, the fabric of the constitution was completed. The most valuable parts of the feudal system, and the recent plans of liberty, were consolidated in ope consistent and uniform mass of jurisprudence. A. D. 1688. The privileges of the people, and the prerogative of the king, were weighed in the balance of justice; and were ascertained and defined, not so much by prescription on the one hand, or the predominance of a democratic party on the other, as by the more enlarged and moderate principles of reason and expediency. The important change then introduced into the succession to the throne was calculated to exclude the repetition of such an event, against which the laws had not, before provided a remedy. That the crown should never more be possessed by a papist, was an important declaration made by the bill of rights: and with such alarming apprehensions did the revolutionists view a monarch of that description, that they thought it necessary to deprive the fuཏྭཱ? ture kings of England of the right given to every subject of choosing his own religion. The arguments in favour of this restriction were cogent and irresistible. The religious liberty of the people was regarded as intimately connected with their civil welfare. A recent example had taught them, that the character of a popish prince was inseparable from that of a despot; and they wished for ever to prevent the repetition of the wrongs and outrages, which had sprung from the union of bigotry with arbitrary power. Influenc-. ed by a spirit of moderation, and rather seeking a remedy for past abuses, than framing a government upon principles of hazardous and untried theory, they made few changes in the established laws and statutes. But they thought it a duty incumbent upon them to embrace this opportunity of giving their due strength, vigour, and authority, to the liberty of the subject. Accordingly, the ascendancy of the law above the will of the king was fully declared, his dispensing authority was judged illegal, and the undoubted privileges of the subject to petition for a redress of grievances, and to provide for his self-defence, were guarded against violation, in the most clear and positive terms. The king was invested with every power, which his predecessors had exercised over parliaments, corporations, the army, and the navy, except the power of doing injury; and his subjects were laid under those equitable restraints, which were most consistent with rational liberty. And to complete their independence, the privileges of Englishmen were not solicited as a favour, but asserted in the most emphatical terms, as an undoubted and inherent right. Allegiance and protection were declared reciprocal ties depend |