d those old feudal
privileges which were an abomination in the eyes of the people.
Charles was not the man to make such a bargain. Few kings, in his age,
would have seen its necessity. But necessity there was. Civil war was
inevitable, without a compromise, provided both parties were resolved
on maintaining their ground. But Charles fancied that the Commons
could be browbeaten and intimidated into submission; and, moreover, in
case he was brought into collision with his subjects, he fancied that
he was stronger than they, and could put down the spirit of
resistance. In both of these suppositions he was wrong. The Commons
were firm, and were stronger than he was, because they had the
sympathy of the people. They believed conscientiously, especially the
Puritans, that he was wrong; that God gave him no divine right to
enslave them, and that they were entitled, by the eternal principles
of justice, and by the spirit of the constitution, to civil and
religious liberty, in the highest sense of that term. They believed
that their rights were inalienable and absolute; that, among them,
they could not be taxed without their own consent; and that their
constitutional guardians, the Commons, should be unrestricted in
debate. These notions of the people were _ideas_. On ideas all
governments rest. No throne could stand a day unless the people felt
they owed it their allegiance. When the main support of the throne of
Charles was withdrawn, the support of popular ideas, and this support
given to the House of Commons, at issue with the sovereign, what could
he do? What could Louis XVI. do one hundred and fifty years
afterwards? What could Louis Philippe do in our times? A king, without
the loyalty of the people, is a phantom, a mockery, and a delusion,
unless he have physical force to sustain him; and even then armies
will rebel, if they feel they are not bound to obey, and if it is not
for their interest to obey.

Now Charles had neither _loyalty_ nor _force_ to hold him on his
throne. The agitations of an age of unprecedented boldness in
speculations destroyed the former; the House of Commons would not
grant supplies to secure the latter. And they would not grant
supplies, because they loved themselves and the cause of the people
better than they loved their king. In short, it was only by his
concessions that they would supply his necessities. He would not make
the concessions, and the contest soon ended in an appeal to arms.

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