Now this is certainly not the case.

The Puritans in the great struggles of the reign of Charles I.
may have possessed more valuable ideals than the Royalists, but it is a very vulgar error to suppose that they were any more idealistic.

In Browning's play Pym is made almost the incarnation of public spirit, and Strafford of private ties.

But not only may an upholder of despotism be public-spirited, but in the case of prominent upholders of it like Strafford he generally is.

Despotism indeed, and attempts at despotism, like that of Strafford, are a kind of disease of public spirit.