withdrawn. Cromwell left none who could support his burden. Charles
II., who had been more than once foiled in trying to get in by the back
door of his father's kingdom, was now invited to enter by the front,
and amid shouts of joy was placed on the throne.




CHAPTER X.


Time brings its revenges. The instinct for beauty, and for joy and
gladness, had been for twenty-one years repressed by harshly
administered Puritanism. There was a thrill of delight in greeting a
gracious, smiling king, who would lift the spell of gloom from the
nation. Charles did this, more fully than was expected. Never was the
law of reaction more fully demonstrated! The Court was profligate, and
the age licentious. The reign of Charles was an orgy. When he needed
more money for his pleasures, he bargained with Louis XIV. to join him
in a war upon Protestantism in Holland, for the consideration of
200,000 pounds!

We wonder how he dared thus to goad and prod the British Lion, which
had devoured his Father. But that animal had grown patient since the
Protectorate. England treated Charles like a spoiled child whose
follies entertained her, and whose misdemeanors she had not the heart
to punish.

[Sidenote: Act of Habeas Corpus, 1679.]