[402] Prescott’s Appendix to Robertson’s History of Charles V.
[403] Prescott.
[404] It was private conscience, rather than private property, that quarrelled with and limited princes. The Puritan Revolution in England (1640-1660) was a puritan revolution—it sprang from the religious motive first and foremost. The economic motive was secondary. The “economic interpretation of history” is always tempting, but men’s souls have always mattered more than their pockets. Englishmen fought Charles I for the sake of free consciences rather than for the sake of free pockets. This is a large issue, on which much could be written; but I feel sure that religion came first in our Civil War.—E. B.
I do not agree. Loath as I am to differ from E. B., I can find no evidence of any religious issue as important as the issue of taxation either in the English Civil War or the American War of Independence.—H. G. W.
I did not mention the Americans. I will surrender them to H. G. W.—E. B.
[405] Englishmen did try to control the foreign policy of James I, because it involved questions of religion, and because their primary concern was religious. They wanted foreign policy to be directed to the militant defence of Protestantism. James I, a good internationalist (in his way), and at any rate a lover of peace, wanted to secure European peace by diplomacy—and failed to do so. His parliaments, and all seventeenth-century parliaments, were vitally interested in foreign policy.—E. B.
[406] A very good general history of Great Britain, too little known as yet, is A. D. Innes’ History of the British Nation (1912).
[407] This is not the same Simon de Montfort as the leader of the crusades against the Albigenses, but his son.
[408] But Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hogarth, Gray, Gibbon, for instance!—G. M. And the golden age of the great cabinet-makers!—P. G.
Exactly! Culture taking refuge in the portraits, libraries, and households of a few rich people. No national culture in the court, nor among the commonalty; a steady decay.—H. G. W.