with animosity more intense than that which, in the preceding
generation, had existed between Catholics and Protestants.

While the minds of men were in this state, the country, after a
peace of many years, at length engaged in a war which required
strenuous exertions. This war hastened the approach of the great
constitutional crisis. It was necessary that the King should have
a large military force. He could not have such a force without
money. He could not legally raise money without the consent of
Parliament. It followed, therefore, that he either must
administer the government in conformity with the sense of the
House of Commons, or must venture on such a violation of the
fundamental laws of the land as had been unknown during several
centuries. The Plantagenets and the Tudors had, it is true,
occasionally supplied a deficiency in their revenue by a
benevolence or a forced loan: but these expedients were always of
a temporary nature. To meet the regular charge of a long war by
regular taxation, imposed without the consent of the Estates of
the realm, was a course which Henry the Eighth himself would not
have dared to take. It seemed, therefore, that the decisive hour
was approaching, and that the English Parliament would soon
either share the fate of the senates of the Continent, or obtain
supreme ascendency in the state.

Just at this conjuncture James died. Charles the First succeeded
to the throne. He had received from nature a far better
understanding, a far stronger will, and a far keener and firmer
temper than his father's. He had inherited his father's political
theories, and was much more disposed than his father to carry
them into practice. He was, like his father, a zealous