While the jealous lovers of liberty maintained, that a king, whose title depended on the parliament, would naturally be more attentive to the interests, at least to the humors of the people, the passionate admirers of monarchy considered all dependence as a degradation of kingly government, and a great step towards the establishment of a commonwealth in England.
But though his union with the political royalists brought great accession of force to the king, he derived no less support from the confederacy which he had at this time the address to form with the church of England.

He represented to the ecclesiastics the great number of Presbyterians and other sectaries, who had entered into the popular party; the encouragement and favor which they met with; the loudness of their cries with regard to Popery and arbitrary power.

And he made the established clergy and their adherents apprehend, that the old scheme for the abolition of prelacy as well as monarchy was revived, and that the same miseries and oppressions awaited them, to which, during the civil wars and usurpations, they had so long been exposed.
The memory also of those dismal times united many indifferent and impartial persons to the crown, and begat a dread lest the zeal for liberty should ingraft itself on fanaticism, and should once more kindle a civil war in the kingdom.

Had not the king still retained the prerogative of dissolving the parliament, there was indeed reason to apprehend the renewal of all the pretensions and violences which had ushered in the last commotions.

The one period appeared an exact counterpart to the other: but still discerning judges could perceive, both in the spirit of the parties and in the genius of the prince, a material difference; by means of which Charles was enabled at last, though with the imminent peril' of liberty, to preserve the peace of the nation.
The cry against Popery was loud; but it proceeded less from religious than from party zeal, in those who propagated, and even in those who adopted it.