CHAPTER LIV.
CHARLES I {1640.} The causes of disgust which for above thirty years had daily been multiplying in England, were now come to full maturity, and threatened the kingdom with some great revolution or convulsion.

The uncertain and undefined limits of prerogative and privilege had been eagerly disputed during that whole period; and in every controversy between prince and people, the question, however doubtful, had always been decided by each party in favor of its own pretensions.

Too lightly, perhaps, moved by the appearance of necessity, the king had even assumed powers incompatible with the principles of limited government, and had rendered it impossible for his most zealous partisans entirely to justify his conduct, except by topics so unpopular, that they were more fitted, in the present disposition of men's minds, to inflame than appease the general discontent.

Those great supports of public authority, law and religion, had likewise, by the unbounded compliance of judges and prelates, lost much of their influence over the people; or rather had, in a great measure, gone over to the side of faction, and authorized the spirit of opposition and rebellion.

The nobility, also, whom the king had no means of retaining by offices and preferments suitable to their rank, had been seized with the general discontent, and unwarily threw themselves into the scale which already began too much to preponderate.