CHAPTER LIX.
CHARLES I.
{1647.} The dominion of the parliament was of short duration.

No sooner had they subdued their sovereign, than their own servants rose against them, and tumbled them from their slippery throne.

The sacred boundaries of the laws being once violated, nothing remained to confine the wild projects of zeal and ambition: and every successive revolution became a precedent for that which followed it.
In proportion as the terror of the king's power diminished, the division between Independent and Presbyterian became every day more apparent; and the neuters found it at last requisite to seek shelter in one or the other faction.

Many new writs were issued for elections, in the room of members who had died, or were disqualified by adhering to the king; yet still the Presbyterians retained the superiority among the commons: and all the peers, except Lord Say, were esteemed of that party.

The Independents, to whom the inferior sectaries adhered, predominated in the army; and the troops of the new model were universally infected with that enthusiastic spirit.