ommonwealth disputing about matters of this sort on the eve of the
Restoration, to the Greeks of Constantinople contending about the
Azymite controversy while the Turks were breaching their walls. In fact,
however, this blindness was not confined to one party. Anthony Wood, a
Royalist, writing thirty years afterwards, speaks of the Restoration as
an event which no man expected in September, 1659. The Commonwealth was
no doubt dead as a Republic. "Pride's Purge," the execution of Charles,
and Cromwell's expulsion of the remnant of the Commons, had long ago
given it mortal wounds. It was not necessarily defunct as a
Protectorate, or a renovated Monarchy: the history of England might have
been very different if Oliver had bequeathed his power to Henry instead
of to Richard. No such vigorous hand taking the helm, and the vessel of
the State drifting more and more into anarchy, the great mass of
Englishmen, to the frustration of many generous ideals, but to the
credit of their practical good sense, pronounced for the restoration of
Charles the Second. It is impossible to think without anger and grief of
the declension which was to ensue, from Cromwell enforcing toleration
for Protestants to Charles selling himself to France for a pension, from
Blake at Tunis to the Dutch at Chatham. But the Restoration was no
national apostasy. The people as a body did not decline from Milton's
standard, for they had never attained to it; they did not accept the
turpitudes of the new government, for they did not anticipate them. So
far as sentiment inspired them, it was not love of license, but
compassion for the misfortunes of an innocent prince. Common sense,
however, had much more to do with prompting their action, and common
sense plainly informed them that they had no choice between a restored
king and a military despot. They would not have had even that if the
leading military chief had not been a man of homely sense and vulgar
aims; such an one as Milton afterwards drew in--

"Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell
From heaven, for even in heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold."

In the field, or on the quarter-deck, George Monk was the stout soldier,
acquitting himself of his military duty most punctually. In his
political conduct he laid himself out for titles and money, as little of
the ambitious usurper as of the self-denying patriot