Those legal checks which, while the sovereign remained dependent on his subjects, had been adequate to the purpose for which they were designed, were now found wanting.  The dikes which had been sufficient while the waters were low were not high enough to keep out the springtide.  The deluge passed over them and, according to the exquisite illustration of Butler, the formal boundaries, which had excluded it, now held it in.  The old constitutions fared like the old shields and coats of mail.  They were the defences of a rude age; and they did well enough against the weapons of a rude age.  But new and more formidable means of destruction were invented.  The ancient panoply became useless; and it was thrown aside, to rust in lumber-rooms, or exhibited only as part of an idle pageant.

Thus absolute monarchy was established on the Continent.  England escaped; but she escaped very narrowly.  Happily our insular situation, and the pacific policy of James, rendered standing armies unnecessary here, till they had been for some time kept up in the neighbouring kingdoms.  Our public men, had therefore an opportunity of watching the effects produced by this momentous change on governments which bore a close analogy to that established in England.  Everywhere they saw the power of the monarch increasing, the resistance of assemblies which were no longer supported by a national force gradually becoming more and more feeble, and at length altogether ceasing.  The friends and the enemies of liberty perceived with equal clearness the causes of this general decay.  It is the favourite theme of Strafford.  He advises the King to procure from the judges a recognition of his right to raise an army at his pleasure.  “This place well fortified,” says he, “for ever vindicates the monarchy at home from under the conditions and restraints of subjects.”  We firmly believe that he was in the right.  Nay; we believe that, even if no deliberate scheme, of arbitrary government had been formed, by the sovereign and his ministers, there was great reason to apprehend a natural extinction of the Constitution.  If, for example, Charles had played the part of Gustavus Adolphus, if he had carried on a popular war for the defence of the Protestant cause in Germany, if he had gratified the national pride by a series of victories, if he had formed an army of forty or fifty thousand devoted soldiers, we do not see what chance the nation would have had of escaping from despotism.  The judges would have given as strong a decision in favour of camp-money as they gave in favour of ship-money.  If they had been scrupulous, it would have made little difference.  An individual who resisted would have been treated as Charles treated Eliot, and as Strafford wished to treat Hampden.  The Parliament might have been summoned once in twenty years, to congratulate a King on his accession, or to give solemnity to some great measure of state.  Such had been the fate of legislative assemblies as powerful, as much respected, as high-spirited, as the English Lords and Commons.