Position of
Oliver Crom-
well.
The Restor-
ation.
The Revo-
lution.
524 Constitutional History. [chap.
and office in one comprehensive curse,—a sacrifice to the policy
anti principles of his enemies, the victim and the martyr to
his own. The place which Cromwell took, when he had
wrested the government from the incapable hands that were
trying to hold it, was one which he, with his many great
gifts and his singular adaptation to the wants of the time,
might have filled well, if any man could. But the whole
national mechanism was now disjointed, and he did not live
long enough to put it together in accordance either with its
old conformation or with a new one which he might have
devised. So the era of the Commonwealth passed over, a
revolution proved to be premature by the force of the reaction
which followed it, by the strength of the elements which it
suppressed without extinguishing them, and by the fact, which
later history proved, that it involved changes far too great to
be permanent in an ancient full-grown people.
If the absolutism of the Tudors must in a measure answer
for the sins of the Stewarts, and the sins of the Stewarts for
the miseries of the Rebellion, the republican government must
in like measure be held responsible for the excesses of the
Restoration. Both the Rebellion and the Restoration were
great educational experiments. The arrogance of puritanism
had been almost as fatal to the political unity of the commons,
as the doctrine of divine right had been to the king and the
church. The Restoration saw the strange alliance of a church,
purified by suffering, with the desperate wilfulness of a court
that had lost in exile all true principle, all true conception
of royalty. Stranger still, the nation acquiesced for many
years in the support of a government which seemed to reign
without a policy, without a principle, and without a parlia-
ment. But most strange of all, out of the weakness and foul-
ness and darkness of the time, the nation, church, peers and
people, emerge with a strong hold on better things ; prepared
to set out again on a career which has never, since the Revolu-
tion of ɪ 688, been materially impeded. But this is far beyond
the goal which we have set ourselves, and would lead on,
through questions the true bearings of which are even now
XXi.] Personality of Kings. 525
being for the first time adequately explored, into a history
which has yet to be written.
456. Keeping this general outline well in view, but not
guiding our investigation by special regard to it, we may now
approach the main subject of the chapter, and come down to
details which, however mutually unconnected, have a distinct
value, as they help to supply colour and substance to the
shadowy impersonations of the great drama.
Few dynasties in the whole history of the world, not even strongdɪa-
the Caesars or the Antonines, stand out with more distinct pɪ-mtagenet"
personal character than the Plantagenets. Without having the k'ng3'
rough, half-Titan, half-savage, majesty of the Norman kings,
they are, with few exceptions, the strong and splendid central
figures of the whole national life. Each has his well-marked
individual characteristics. No two are closely alike, each has
qualities which, if not great in themselves, are magnified and
made important by the strength of the will which gives them
expression. There is not a coward amongst them ; even the
one man of the race who is a careless and incapable king, has
the strong will of his race, and a latent capacity for exertion
which might have saved him. All of them, or nearly all, lived Public life
before the eyes of their subjects; some were oppressivelyoftheMn8S’
ubiquitous : the later kings from Edward I onwards could
speak the language of their people, and all of them doubtless
understood it. Whatever there was in any one of them that
could attract the love of the people was freely shown to the
people : their children were brought up with the sons and
daughters of the nobles, were at an early age introduced into
public life, endowed with estates and establishments of their
own, and allowed, perhaps too freely, to make their own way
to the national heart. It can, indeed, scarcely be said that any
of the Plantagenet kings after his elevation to the throne
enjoyed a perfect popularity. Henry II was never beloved ;
the Londoners adorned their streets with garlands when Richard
came home, but a very slight experience of his personal govern-
ment must have sufficed them ; John hated and was hated of
all ; IIenry III no man cared for ; Edward I was honoured