THE INTERREGNUM.

own. He had, a few days before, in a paper written with hisown hand, pronounced that plan to be clearly the best thatcould be adopted. The deliberations of the Lords who sup-ported that plan had been carried on under his roof. Hissituation made it his clear duty to declare publicly what hethought. Nobody can suspect him of personal cowardice orof vulgar cupidity. It was probably from a nervous fear ofdoing wrong that, at this great conjuncture, ho did nothing:but he should have known that, situated as he was, to donothing was to do wrong. A man who is too scrupulous totake on himself a grave responsibility at an important crisisought to be too scrupulous to accept the place of first ministerof the Church and first peer of the realm.

It is not strange, however, that Sancroft’s mind shouldhave been ill at ease; for he could hardly be blind to the ob-vious truth that the scheme which he had recommended to hisfriends was utterly inconsistent with all that he and hisbrethren had been teaching during many years. That theKing had a divine and indefeasible right to the regal power,and that the regal power, even when most grossly abused,could not, without sin, be resisted, was the doctrine in whichthe Anglican Church had long gloried. Did this doctrine thenreally mean only that the King had a divine and indefeasibleright to have his effigy and name cut on a seal which was to bedaily employed in despite of him for the purpose of com-missioning his enemies to levy war on him, and of sending hisfriends to the gallows for obeying him? Did the whole duty ofa good subject consist in using the word King? If so, Fairfax atNaseby and Bradshaw in the High Court of Justice had per-formed all the duty of good subjects. For Charles had beendesignated by the generals who commanded against him, andeven by the judges who condemned him, as King. Nothing inthe conduct of the Long Parliament had been more severelyblamed by the Church than the ingenious device of using thename of Charles against himself. Every one of her ministershad been required to sign a declaration condemning as traito-rous the fiction by which the authority of the sovereign hadMacaulay, History. III. 27