d, however the later Stuarts might strive to revive them,
England could safely "go to play." English religion was never to be more
in danger. English liberty was never to be really in peril from the
efforts of kings after a personal rule. Whatever reaction might come
about, it would never bring into question the great constitutional
results that the Long Parliament had wrought. But with the end of this
older work a new work began. The constitutional and ecclesiastical
problems which still in one shape or another beset us started to the
front as subjects of national debate in the years between the close of
the Civil War and the death of the king. The great parties which have
ever since divided the social, the political, and the religious life of
England, whether as Independents and Presbyterians, as Whigs and Tories,
as Conservatives and Liberals, sprang into organized existence in the
contest between the Army and the Parliament. Then for the first time
began a struggle which is far from having ended yet, the struggle
between political tradition and political progress, between the
principle of religious conformity and the principle of religious
freedom.

[Sidenote: Religious liberty.]

It was the religious struggle which drew the political in its train. The
victory of Naseby raised a wider question than that of mere toleration.
"Honest men served you faithfully in this action," Cromwell wrote to the
Speaker of the House of Commons from the field. "Sir, they are trusty: I
beseech you in the name of God not to discourage them. He that ventures
his life for the liberty of his country, I wish he trust God for the
liberty of his conscience." The storm of Bristol encouraged him to
proclaim the new principle yet more distinctly. "Presbyterians,
Independents, all here have the same spirit of faith and prayer, the
same presence and answer. They agree here, have no names of difference;
pity it is it should be otherwise anywhere. All that believe have the
real unity, which is the most glorious, being the inward and spiritual,
in the body and in the head. For being united in forms (commonly called
uniformity), every Christian will for peace' sake study and do as far as
conscience will permit. And from brethren in things of the mind we look
for no compulsion but that of light and reason." The increasing firmness
of Cromwell's language was due to the growing irritation of his
opponents. The two parties became every day more clearly d