From that day, whatever of confidence and loyal attachment had survived the misrule of seventeen years was, in the great body of the people, extinguished, and extinguished for ever.  As soon as the outrage had failed, the hypocrisy recommenced.  Down to the very eve of this flagitious attempt Charles had been talking of his respect for the privileges of Parliament and the liberties of his people.  He began again in the same style on the morrow; but it was too late.  To trust him now would have been, not moderation, but insanity.  What common security would suffice against a Prince who was evidently watching his season with that cold and patient hatred which, in the long-run, tires out every other passion?

It is certainly from no admiration of Charles that Mr. Hallam disapproves of the conduct of the Houses in resorting to arms.  But he thinks that any attempt on the part of that Prince to establish a despotism would have been as strongly opposed by his adherents as by his enemies, and that therefore the Constitution might be considered as out of danger, or, at least that it had more to apprehend from the war than from the King.  On this subject Mr. Hallam dilates at length, and with conspicuous ability.  We will offer a few considerations which lead us to incline to a different opinion.

The Constitution of England was only one of a large family.  In all the monarchies of Western Europe, during the middle ages, there existed restraints on the royal authority, fundamental laws, and representative assemblies.  In the fifteenth century, the government of Castile seems to have been as free as that of our own country.  That of Arragon was beyond all question more so.  In France, the sovereign was more absolute.  Yet even in France, the States-General alone could constitutionally impose taxes; and, at the very time when the authority of those assemblies was beginning to languish, the Parliament of Paris received such an accession of strength as enabled it, in some measure, to perform the functions of a legislative assembly.  Sweden and Denmark had constitutions of a similar description.

Let us overleap two or three hundred years, and contemplate Europe at the commencement of the eighteenth century.  Every free constitution, save one, had gone down.  That of England had weathered the danger, and was riding in full security.  In Denmark and Sweden, the kings had availed themselves of the disputes which raged between the nobles and the commons, to unite all the powers of government in their own hands.  In France the institution of the States was only mentioned by lawyers as a part of the ancient theory of their government.  It slept a deep sleep, destined to be broken by a tremendous waking.  No person remembered the sittings of the three orders, or expected ever to see them renewed.  Louis the Fourteenth had imposed on his parliament a patient silence of sixty years.  His grandson, after the War of the Spanish Succession, assimilated the constitution of Arragon