tance. Each man, through the
entire social scale down even to the peasantry, had felt a personal
interest, a personal pride in the repulse of the Spaniards and the
upholding of the Queen. She tyrannized over them as a woman; they
defended her as men. But when this foreigner, this Scotch king, came to
rule them, they saw no need to yield him such exact obedience. Freedom
of thought had brought with it new political ideas, and men talked much
of the authority of Parliament and their right to tax themselves. James,
on the contrary, had a large conception of the "divine right" of kings,
not to be restricted by any law whatever, and a still larger opinion of
his own personal ability and unfailing wisdom. Gradually there grew up a
distinct opposition between King and Parliament, centring always on that
one question--who should lay the taxes, that is, who provide the income
of the King? The English revolution, like the American one to follow,
gave to principles far more noble in themselves the air of a mere money
dispute.

James, dying in 1625, left a very pretty quarrel to his son. Charles I,
more able and kingly than his father, but equally obstinate, equally
devoted to the Stuart doctrine of a king's divinity, finally endeavored
to rule without summoning any of these arguing parliaments. To
accomplish this he had to gather money by other methods, declared
illegal by his people. Always appealing to the law, they grew more and
more bitter as Charles turned it against them, putting in office judges
who would do his will, reestablishing the ancient Court of Star-Chamber,
with its power to torture witnesses.

Moreover, there was growing up in England a type of more extreme
Protestantism. The English Church had retained many of the forms of
Rome, including its hierarchal system of priests and bishops. These were
dear to the hearts of the Stuart kings, whose Protestantism had never
been very radical. The Scotch Church, on the other hand, had swung far
from Rome indeed, and many Protestants everywhere refused to have any
priestly interpreter intervene between them and their own consciences,
their own beliefs. In England these men came to be called Puritans.
They were deeply earnest; religion was ever in their thoughts; they had
protested even against the wickedness of the theatre in Shakespeare's
time; and now as they watched the light frivolity of the court they
became imbittered. They called Charles the "man of sin." Round these