That the man who did this had a commanding genius, all must be agreed. But whether he was the incarnation of evil, or of righteousness, must ever remain in dispute. We shall never know whether or not his death, in 1658, cut short a career which might have passed from a justifiable to an unjustifiable tyranny.
[Sidenote: Charles II., 1660.]
A fabric held up by one sustaining hand, must fall when that hand is withdrawn. Cromwell left none who could support his burden. Charles II., who had been more than once foiled in trying to get in by the back door of his father's kingdom, was now invited to enter by the front, and amid shouts of joy was placed on the throne.
CHAPTER X.
Time brings its revenges. The instinct for beauty, and for joy and gladness, had been for twenty-one years repressed by harshly administered Puritanism. There was a thrill of delight in greeting a gracious, smiling king, who would lift the spell of gloom from the nation. Charles did this, more fully than was expected. Never was the law of reaction more fully demonstrated! The Court was profligate, and the age licentious. The reign of Charles was an orgy. When he needed more money for his pleasures, he bargained with Louis XIV. to join him in a war upon Protestantism in Holland, for the consideration of 200,000 pounds!
We wonder how he dared thus to goad and prod the British Lion, which had devoured his Father. But that animal had grown patient since the Protectorate. England treated Charles like a spoiled child whose follies entertained her, and whose misdemeanors she had not the heart to punish.
[Sidenote: Act of Habeas Corpus, 1679.]
The "Roundheads," who had trampled upon the "Cavaliers," were now trampled upon in return. But even at such a time as this the liberties of the people were expanding. The Act of "Habeas Corpus" forever prevented imprisonment, without showing in Court just cause for the detention of the prisoner.
[Sidenote: Death of Charles II., 1685.] The House of Stuart, those children of the Guises, was always Catholic at heart, and Charles was at no pains to conceal his preferences. A wave of Catholicism alarmed the people, who tried to divert the succession from James, the brother of the King, who was extreme and fanatical in his devotion to the Church of Rome. But in 1685, the Masks and routs and revels were interrupted. The pleasure-loving Charles, who "had never said a foolish thing, and never done a wise one," lay dead in his palace at Whitehall, and James II. was King of England.
[Sidenote: Milton and Bunyan.]