showed its
Presbyterian temper, and its leaders had only begun to draw up terms on
which the king's restoration might be assented to, when they found that
Monk was in negotiation with the exiled Court. All exaction of terms was
now impossible; a Declaration from Breda, in which Charles promised a
general pardon, religious toleration, and satisfaction to the army, was
received with a burst of national enthusiasm; and the old Constitution
was restored by a solemn vote of the Convention, "that according to the
ancient and fundamental laws of this Kingdom, the government is, and
ought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons." The king was at once invited
to hasten to his realm; and on the twenty-fifth of May Charles landed at
Dover, and made his way amidst the shouts of a great multitude to
Whitehall. "It is my own fault," laughed the new king with
characteristic irony, "that I had not come back sooner; for I find
nobody who does not tell me he has always longed for my return."

[Sidenote: Fall of Puritanism.]

In his progress to the capital Charles passed in review the soldiers
assembled on Blackheath. Betrayed by their general, abandoned by their
leaders, surrounded as they were by a nation in arms, the gloomy silence
of their ranks awed even the careless king with a sense of danger. But
none of the victories of the New Model were so glorious as the victory
which it won over itself. Quietly, and without a struggle, as men who
bowed to the inscrutable will of God, the farmers and traders who had
dashed Rupert's chivalry to pieces on Naseby field, who had scattered at
Worcester the "army of the aliens," and driven into helpless flight the
sovereign that now came "to enjoy his own again," who had renewed beyond
sea the glories of Crecy and Agincourt, had mastered the Parliament, had
brought a king to justice and the block, had given laws to England, and
held even Cromwell in awe, became farmers and traders again, and were
known among their fellow-men by no other sign than their greater
soberness and industry. And, with them, Puritanism laid down the sword.
It ceased from the long attempt to build up a kingdom of God by force
and violence, and fell back on its truer work of building up a kingdom
of righteousness in the hearts and consciences of men. It was from the
moment of its seeming fall that its real victory began. As soon as the
wild orgy of the Restoration was over, men began to see that nothing
that was really worthy in