UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND.

181

ly less ignoble than avarice. Among those politicians -who, chap.from the Restoration to the accession of the House of Ha-nover, were at the head of the great parties in the state, veryfew can be named whose reputation is not stained by what, inour age, would be called gross perfidy and corruption. It isscarcely an exaggeration to say that the most unprincipledpublic men who have taken part in affairs within our memorywould, if tried by the standard which was in fashion duringthe latter part of the seventeenth century, deserve to be re-garded as scrupulous and disinterested.

While these political, religious, and moral changes were|coVtanataking place in England, the royal authority had been withoutdifficulty reestablished in every other part of the Britishislands. In Scotland the restoration of the Stuarts had beenhailed with delight; for it was regarded as the restoration ofnational independence. And true it was that the yoke whichCromwell had imposed was, in appearance, taken away, thatthe Estates again met in their old hall at Edinburgh, and thatthe Senators of the College of Justice again administered theScottish law according to the old forms. Yet was the indepen-dence of the little kingdom necessarily rather nominal thanreal: for, as long as the King had England on his side, he hadnothing to apprehend from disaffection in his other dominions.

He was now in such a situation that he could renew the attemptwhich had proved destructive to his father without any dangerof his father’s fate. Charles the First had tried to force his ownreligion by his regal power on the Scots at a moment when bothhis religion and his regal power were unpopular in England;and he had not only failed, but had raised troubles which hadultimately cost him his crown and his head. Times had nowchanged: England was zealous for monarchy and prelacy; andtherefore the scheme which in the preceding generation hadbeen in the highest degree imprudent might be resumed withlittle risk to the throne. The government resolved to set up a