st him, the charge of trying to cheat his daughters out of their
inheritance by fathering a supposititious child, on what grounds did it
rest? Merely on slight circumstances, such as might well be imputed to
accident, or to that imprudence which was but too much in harmony with
his character. Did ever the most stupid country justice put a boy in
the stocks without requiring stronger evidence than that on which the
English people had pronounced their King guilty of the basest and most
odious of all frauds? Some great faults he had doubtless committed,
nothing could be more just or constitutional than that for those faults
his advisers and tools should be called to a severe reckoning; nor did
any of those advisers and tools more richly deserve punishment than the
Roundhead sectaries whose adulation had encouraged him to persist in the
fatal exercise of the dispensing power. It was a fundamental law of the
land that the King could do no wrong, and that, if wrong were done by
his authority, his counsellors and agents were responsible. That great
rule, essential to our polity, was now inverted. The sycophants, who
were legally punishable, enjoyed impunity: the King, who was not legally
punishable, was punished with merciless severity. Was it possible for
the Cavaliers of England, the sons of the warriors who had fought under
Rupert, not to feel bitter sorrow and indignation when they reflected
on the fate of their rightful liege lord, the heir of a long line of
princes, lately enthroned in splendour at Whitehall, now an exile, a
suppliant, a mendicant? His calamities had been greater than even those
of the Blessed Martyr from whom he sprang. The father had been slain by
avowed and mortal foes: the ruin of the son had been the work of his
own children. Surely the punishment, even if deserved, should have been
inflicted by other hands. And was it altogether deserved? Had not the
unhappy man been rather weak and rash than wicked? Had he not some of
the qualities of an excellent prince? His abilities were certainly not
of a high order: but he was diligent: he was thrifty: he had fought
bravely: he had been his own minister for maritime affairs, and had, in
that capacity, acquitted himself respectably: he had, till his spiritual
guides obtained a fatal ascendency over his mind, been regarded as a man
of strict justice; and, to the last, when he was not misled by them, he
generally spoke truth and dealt fairly. With so many virtues h