ree great victims
--Strafford, Laud, and Charles--deserved their fate. It is certain
that they were put to death illegally, and therefore unjustly. At the
same time, the superior enlightenment and wisdom were not always on
the side of parliament. But we have no thread through the enormous
intricacy and complexity of modern politics except the idea of
progress towards more perfect and assured freedom, and the divine
right of free men. Judged by that test, the three culprits must be
condemned. That is a principle which cuts very deep, and reaches
far, and we must be prepared to see how it applies in thousands of
other instances, in other countries, and in other times, especially
the times in which we live.

When war broke out, the country was divided, not unequally. North and
west were for the king; but north and west were backward in comparison
with the south-east, which possessed London and the longer purse. The
familiar line from South Devon to the Humber simplifies too much. For
Charles held Oxford and Nottingham, while the parliament had the
seaports, though not all the intervening region, from Plymouth to
Hull, and reached the Severn at Gloucester, and the Irish Sea about
the Mersey. Parties were not moved to their depths on either side, as
men are by the question of existence, and the contending armies were
generally small. Therefore, the struggle was slack and slow, and the
Presbyterian sects became masters of the situation, and decided for
the parliament. At first, through want of energy, great opportunities
were lost. In Montrose Scotland produced a soldier of genius; but in
England the Ironsides prevailed by their organisation and
discipline. German writers on military history declare Cromwell to
have been the best leader of cavalry in modern war, the master and
superior of their own Frederic, whose fame is due largely to his skill
in that arm. The end was an overwhelming victory and a crushing
defeat. But as the chief cause was the genius of one extraordinary
man, and the sudden growth and spreading of the religious party to
which he belonged, the effect lasted no longer than his life. The
fabric he had reared was overthrown without an effort, offering no
resistance to the destroyer. The soldier, therefore, was greater than
the statesman. Opinion, of late years, has become very favourable to
Cromwell, thanks chiefly to Mr. Gardiner. But until the Lives by
Mr. Firth and Mr. Morley are comple