JAMES THE SECOND.

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Whigs had been but too ready to employ, but which hadalways been regarded by the Tories as, in all cases, un-lawful.

The greatest Anglican doctors of that age had maintainedthat no breach of law or contract, no excess of cruelty, ra-pacity, or licentiousness, on the part of a rightful King,could justify his people in withstanding him by force. Someof them had delighted to exhibit the doctrine of nonresistancein a form so exaggerated as to shock common sense andhumanity. They frequently and emphatically remarked thatNero was at the head of the Roman government when SaintPaul inculcated the duty of obeying magistrates. The in-ference which they drew was that, if an English King should,without any law but his own pleasure, persecute his subjectsfor not worshipping idols, should fling them to the lions inthe Tower, should wrap them up in pitched cloth and setthem on fire to light up Saint James’s Park, and should go onwith these massacres till whole towns and shires were leftwithout one inhabitant, the survivors would still be boundmeekly to submit, and to be torn in pieces or roasted alivewithout a struggle. The arguments in favour of this pro-position were futile indeed: but the place of sound argumentwas amply supplied by the omnipotent sophistry of interestand of passion. Many writers have expressed wonder thatthe high spirited Cavaliers of England should have beenzealous for the most slavish theory that has ever been knownamong men. The truth is that this theory at first presenteditself to the Cavalier as the very opposite of slavish. Its ten-dency was to make him not a slave but a freeman and a master.It exalted him by exalting one whom he regarded as his pro-tector, as his friend, as the head of his beloved party andof his more beloved Church. , When Republicans were do-minant the Royalist had endured wrongs and insults whichthe restoration of the legitimate government had enabledhim to retaliate. Rebellion was therefore associated in hisimagination with subjection and degradation, and monarchicalauthority with liberty and ascendency. It had never crossedhis imagination that a time might come when a King, a Stuart,Macaulay, History. III.

CHAP.

IX.

I68S.