the coast: nor did they ever look
with entire complacency on the standing army, till the French Revolution
gave a new direction to their apprehensions.

The coalition which had restored the King terminated with the danger
from which it had sprung; and two hostile parties again appeared
ready for conflict. Both, indeed, were agreed as to the propriety of
inflicting punishment on some unhappy men who were, at that moment,
objects of almost universal hatred. Cromwell was no more; and those who
had fled before him were forced to content themselves with the miserable
satisfaction of digging up, hanging, quartering, and burning the remains
of the greatest prince that has ever ruled England.

Other objects of vengeance, few indeed, yet too many, were found among
the republican chiefs. Soon, however, the conquerors, glutted with the
blood of the regicides, turned against each other. The Roundheads,
while admitting the virtues of the late King, and while condemning the
sentence passed upon him by an illegal tribunal, yet maintained that his
administration had been, in many things, unconstitutional, and that
the Houses had taken arms against him from good motives and on strong
grounds. The monarchy, these politicians conceived, had no worse enemy
than the flatterer who exalted prerogative above the law, who condemned
all opposition to regal encroachments, and who reviled, not only
Cromwell and Harrison, but Pym and Hampden, as traitors. If the King
wished for a quiet and prosperous reign, he must confide in those who,
though they had drawn the sword in defence of the invaded privileges of
Parliament, had yet exposed themselves to the rage of the soldiers in
order to save his father, and had taken the chief part in bringing back
the royal family.

The feeling of the Cavaliers was widely different. During eighteen years
they had, through all vicissitudes, been faithful to the Crown. Having
shared the distress of their prince, were they not to share his triumph?
Was no distinction to be made between them and the disloyal subject who
had fought against his rightful sovereign, who had adhered to Richard
Cromwell, and who had never concurred in the restoration of the Stuarts,
till it appeared that nothing else could save the nation from the
tyranny of the army? Grant that such a man had, by his recent services,
fairly earned his pardon. Yet were his services, rendered at the
eleventh hour, to be put in comparison with the toils and