by Henry VIII and by
Elizabeth. Both parties could equally put forward the prosperity of
England under these opposed modes of government: Patriotism, honour,
conscience, were watchwords which either might use with truth or abuse
with profit. If the great struggle be patiently studied, the moral
praise and censure so freely given, according to a reader's personal
bias, will be found very rarely justified. There was far, very far, less
of tyranny or of liberty involved in the contest, up to 1642, than
partisans aver. To the actual actors (nor, as retrospectively criticized
by us) it is a fair battle on both sides, not a contest 'between light
and darkness.'
We, looking back after two centuries, are of course free to recognize,
that one effect of the Tudor despotism had been to train Englishmen
towards ruling themselves;--we may agree that the time had come for Lords
and Commons to take their part in the Kingdom. But no proof, I think it
may be said, can be shown that this great idea, in any conscious sense,
governed the Parliaments of James and Charles. It is we who,--reviewing
our history since the definite establishment of the constitutional
balance after 1688, and the many blessings the land has enjoyed,--can
perceive what in the seventeenth century was wholly hidden from
Commonwealth and from King.
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