I know no portion of history which a man might write with so much pleasure
as that of the great struggle in the time of Charles I., because he may
feel the profoundest respect for both parties. The side taken by any
particular person was determined by the point of view which such person
happened to command at the commencement of the inevitable collision, one
line seeming straight to this man, another line to another. No man of that
age saw _the_ truth, the whole truth; there was not light enough for that.
The consequence, of course, was a violent exaggeration of each party for
the time. The King became a martyr, and the Parliamentarians traitors, and
_vice versâ_. The great reform brought into act by and under William the
Third combined the principles truly contended for by Charles and his
Parliament respectively: the great revolution of 1831 has certainly, to an
almost ruinous degree, dislocated those principles of government again. As
to Hampden's speech[1], no doubt it means a declaration of passive
obedience to the sovereign, as the creed of an English Protestant
individual: every man, Cromwell and all, would have said as much; it was
the antipapistical tenet, and almost vauntingly asserted on all occasions
by Protestants up to that time. But it implies nothing of Hampden's creed
as to the duty of Parliament.
[Footnote 1:
On his impeachment with the other four members, 1642. See the "Letter to
John Murray, Esq. _touching_ Lord Nugent," 1833. It is extraordinary that
Lord N. should not see the plain distinction taken by Hampden, between not
obeying an unlawful command, and rebelling against the King because of it.
He approves the one, and condemns the other. His words are, "to _yield
obedience to_ the commands of a King, if against the true religion, against
the ancient and fundamental laws of the land, is another sign of an ill
subject:"--"To _resist_ the lawful power of the King; to raise insurrection
against the King; admit him adverse in his religion; _to conspire against
his sacred person, or any ways to rebel, though commanding things against
our consciences in exercising religion, or against the rights and
privileges of the subject_, is an absolute sign of the disaffected and
traitorous subject."--ED.]
_May_ 10. 1833.