ad disarmed, it would soon have been
compelled to submit to the dictation of the other. But England,
protected by the sea against invasion, and rarely engaged in warlike
operations on the Continent, was not, as yet, under the necessity
of employing regular troops. The sixteenth century, the seventeenth
century, found her still without a standing army. At the commencement
of the seventeenth century political science had made considerable
progress. The fate of the Spanish Cortes and of the French States
General had given solemn warning to our Parliaments; and our
Parliaments, fully aware of the nature and magnitude of the danger,
adopted, in good time, a system of tactics which, after a contest
protracted through three generations, was at length successful.

Almost every writer who has treated of that contest has been desirous to
show that his own party was the party which was struggling to preserve
the old constitution unaltered. The truth however is that the old
constitution could not be preserved unaltered. A law, beyond the control
of human wisdom, had decreed that there should no longer be governments
of that peculiar class which, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
had been common throughout Europe. The question, therefore, was not
whether our polity should undergo a change, but what the nature of
the change should be. The introduction of a new and mighty force had
disturbed the old equilibrium, and had turned one limited monarchy after
another into an absolute monarchy. What had happened elsewhere would
assuredly have happened here, unless the balance had been redressed by
a great transfer of power from the crown to the parliament. Our princes
were about to have at their command means of coercion such as no
Plantagenet or Tudor had ever possessed. They must inevitably have
become despots, unless they had been, at the same time, placed under
restraints to which no Plantagenet or Tudor had ever been subject.

It seems certain, therefore, that, had none but political causes been
at work, the seventeenth century would not have passed away without
a fierce conflict between our Kings and their Parliaments. But other
causes of perhaps greater potency contributed to produce the same
effect. While the government of the Tudors was in its highest vigour
an event took place which has coloured the destinies of all Christian
nations, and in an especial manner the destinies of England. Twice
during the middle ages the min