to do what he thought criminal and disgraceful? To apply, even by
strictly constitutional means, a violent pressure to his conscience,
seemed to zealous royalists ungenerous and undutiful. But strictly
constitutional means were not the only means which the Whigs were
disposed to employ. Signs were already discernible which portended the
approach of great troubles. Men, who, in the time of the civil war and
of the Commonwealth, had acquired an odious notoriety, had emerged
from the obscurity in which, after the Restoration, they had hidden
themselves from the general hatred, showed their confident and busy
faces everywhere, and appeared to anticipate a second reign of the
Saints. Another Naseby, another High Court of Justice, another usurper
on the throne, the Lords again ejected from their hall by violence, the
Universities again purged, the Church again robbed and persecuted, the
Puritans again dominant, to such results did the desperate policy of the
opposition seem to tend.

Strongly moved by these apprehensions, the majority of the upper and
middle classes hastened to rally round the throne. The situation of the
King bore, at this time, a great resemblance to that in which his father
stood just after the Remonstrance had been voted. But the reaction of
1641 had not been suffered to run its course. Charles the First, at the
very moment when his people, long estranged, were returning to him with
hearts disposed to reconciliation, had, by a perfidious violation of the
fundamental laws of the realm, forfeited their confidence for ever.
Had Charles the Second taken a similar course, had he arrested the Whig
leaders in an irregular manner, had he impeached them of high treason
before a tribunal which had no legal jurisdiction over them, it is
highly probable that they would speedily have regained the ascendancy
which they had lost. Fortunately for himself, he was induced, at this
crisis, to adopt a policy singularly judicious. He determined to conform
to the law, but at the same time to make vigorous and unsparing use
of the law against his adversaries. He was not bound to convoke a
Parliament till three years should have elapsed. He was not much
distressed for money. The produce of the taxes which had been settled on
him for life exceeded the estimate. He was at peace with all the world.
He could retrench his expenses by giving up the costly and useless
settlement of Tangier; and he might hope for pecuniary aid from Fran