As an historical study, what the French call une etude, it deserves a very high place, and it contains one sentence which all democrats would do well to learn: "Popular forms are possible only when individual men can govern their own lives on moral principles, and when duty is of more importance than pleasure, and justice than material expediency." That represents the best side of Carlyle's teaching; the subordination of material objects, the supremacy of the moral law.
Carlyle, however, did not care for the book, as appears in the following letter from Froude to Lady Derby: "April 26th, 1879 .-- You are a most kind critic.

If I have succeeded in creating interest in so old a subject my utmost wishes are accomplished.

I am very curious indeed to hear what Lord D.says.

I can guess that he thinks I ought to have said more in defence of the Constitutionalists, and that I have hardly used Cicero.

Carlyle reduced me to the condition of a 'drenched hen'-- to use one of his own images.