kingham as his chief minister; and, when Buckingham
was assassinated, he chose others even more tyrannical and
unscrupulous; he insisted on taxing the people without their consent,
threw contempt on parliament, and drove the nation to rebellion. In
all his political acts he was infatuated, after making every allowance
for the imperfections of human nature. A wiser man would have seen the
rising storm, and might possibly have averted it. But Charles never
dreamed of it, until it burst in all its fury on his devoted head, and
consigned him to the martyr's grave. We pity his fate, but lament
still more his blindness. And so great was this blindness, that it
almost seems as if Providence had marked him out to be a victim on the
altar of human progress.

With the reign of Charles commences unquestionably the most exciting
period of English history, and a period to which historians have given
more attention than to any other great historical era, the French
Revolution alone excepted. The attempt to describe the leading events
in this exciting age and reign would be, in this connection, absurd;
and yet some notice of them cannot be avoided.

[Sidenote: The Struggle of Classes.]

For more than ten centuries, great struggles have been going on in
society between the dominant orders and sects. The victories gained by
the oppressed millions, over their different masters, constitute what
is called the Progress of Society. Defenders of the people have
occasionally arisen from orders to which they did not belong. When,
then, any great order defended the cause of the people against the
tyranny and selfishness of another order, then the people have
advanced a step in civil and social freedom.

When Feudalism weighed fearfully upon the people, "the clergy sought,
on their behalf, a little reason, justice, and humanity, and the poor
man had no other asylum than the churches, no other protectors than
the priests; and, as the priests offered food to the moral nature of
man, they acquired a great ascendency, and the preponderance passed
from the nobles to the clergy." By the aid of the church, royalty also
rose above feudalism, and aided the popular cause.

The church, having gained the ascendency, sought then to enslave the
kings of the earth. But royalty, borrowing help from humiliated nobles
and from the people, became the dominant power in Europe.

[Sidenote: Rise of Popular Power.]

In these struggles between nobles and the cle