ABSTRACT
It will be suffici-ent for our purpose merely to advert to the war which unhappily followed, in which men of the same country, and even of the same family, were arrayed against each other in deadly strife. Such a contest eannot fail of being a fearful calamity, and admits of no justification short of absolute overwhelming necessity, which did not exist in the present case. True patriotism would have avoided the dreadful alternative of civil war, and endeavoured, by combining whatever was right in the adverse claims, to frame a basis for mutual concession. That both parties were to some extent right can hardly be doubted, when a Hampden is seen perilling his life on one side, and a Falkland on the other. The appeal to the sword, in this as in most other instances, led to the sword's obtaining the mastery. It now fell into the hands of a man of rare genius and indomitable resolution ; and whatever be our opinion of Cromwell as a man, a citizen, or a subject, all must admit that his government, after he attained the supremacy, was eminently successful, and one of the most brilliant recorded in history. But Cromwell's career was stained with the death of his sovereign, which it is impossible not to condemn, and which no pleadings of necessity
1649. can justify. After a trial in which his accusers sat as Execution h' . d h k' b h d d h h f ofChas. r. IS JU ges, t e mg was e ea e on t e 30t o
January 1649, and for a time royalty was extinct in England.
