8

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP,

XI.

1689 .

captivated by that most attractive of all superstitions? Was it■ strange that, persecuted and calumniated as he had been by animplacable faction, his disposition should have become sternerand more severe than it had once been thought, and that, whenthose who had tried to blast his honour and to rob him of hisbirthright were at length in his power, he should not have suf-ficiently tempered justice with mercy? As to the worst chargewhich had been brought against him, the charge of trying tocheat his daughters out of their inheritance by fathering a sup-posititious child, on what grounds did it rest? Merely on slightcircumstances, such as might well be imputed to accident, or tothat imprudence which was but too much in harmony with hischaracter. Did ever the most stupid country justice put a boyin the stocks without requiring stronger evidence than that onwhich the English people had pronounced their King guilty ofthe basest and most odious of all frauds? Some great faults hehad doubtless committed: nothing could be more just or con-stitutional than that for those faults his advisers and toolsshould be called to a severe reckoning; nor did any of thoseadvisers and tools more richly deserve punishment than theRoundhead sectaries whose adulation had encouraged him topersist in the fatal exercise of the dispensing power. It was afundamental law of the land that the King could do no wrong,and that, if wrong were done by his authority, his counsellorsand agents were responsible. That great rule, essential to ourpolity, was now inverted. The sycophants, who were legallypunishable, enjoyed impunity: the King, who was not legallypunishable, was punished with merciless severity. Was it pos-sible for the Cavaliers of England, the sons of the warriors whohad fought under Rupert, not to feel bitter sorrow and indigna-tion when they reflected on the fate of their rightful liege lord,the heir of a long line of princes, lately enthroned in splendourat Whitehall, now an exile, a suppliant, a mendicant? His