But history provided more sober issues, and Browning's temperament habitually inclined him to stave off the violence of tragic passion which disturbs the subtle eddyings of thought and feeling.

Charles is no Regan, hardly even an Albany, no weakling either, but a man of sensitive conscience, who shifts and gyrates responsively to the complex play of motive which Browning brings to bear upon him.

Reluctantly he orders Victor's arrest, and when the old man, baffled and exasperated, is brought before him and imperiously demands the crown, he puts it upon his father's head.
Neither character is drawn with the power of Strafford, but the play is largely built upon the same contrasts between personal devotion and political expediency, the untutored idealism of youth and the ruses or rigidity of age.

This was a type of dramatic action which Browning imagined with peculiar power and insight, for it bodied forth a contrast between contending elements of his own nature.

Towards this type all his drama tended to gravitate.