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HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

chap, expiated those faults, and had undergone a long, and, it

-might be hoped, a salutary training in the school of adversity.

It was probable that Charles the Second would take warningby the fate of Charles the First. But, be this as it might,the dangers which threatened the country were such that, inorder to avert them, some opinions might well be com-promised, and some risks might well be incurred. It seemedbut too likely that England would fall under the most odiousand degrading of all kinds of government, under a govern-ment uniting all the evils of despotism to all the evils ofanarchy. Anything was preferable to the yoke of a successionof incapable and inglorious tyrants, raised to power, like theDeys of Barbary, by military revolutions recurring at shortintervals. Lambert seemed likely to be the first of theserulers; but within a year Lambert might give place to Des-borough, and Desborougk to Harrison. As often as thetruncheon was transferred from one feeble hand to another,the nation would be pillaged for the purpose of bestowing afresh donative on the troops. If the Presbyterians obstinatelystood aloof from the Royalists, the State was lost; and menmight well doubt whether, by the combined exertions ofPresbyterians and Royalists, it could be saved. For the dreadof that invincible army was on all the inhabitants of the island;and the Cavaliers, taught by a hundred disastrous fields howlittle numbers can effect against discipline, were even morecompletely cowed than the Roundheads.

The srmj While the soldiers remained united, all the plots and°jnd COt risings of the malecontents were ineffectual. But a few daysintoEn» a ^ er second expulsion of the Rump, came tidings whichl»nd. gladdened the hearts of all who were attached either tomonarchy or to liberty. That mighty force which had, duringmany years, acted as one man, and which, while so acting,had been found irresistible, was at length divided againstitself. The army of Scotland had done good service to the