en made Clerk of the Closet. This man,
named Edward Petre, was descended from an honourable family. His manners
were courtly: his speech was flowing and plausible; but he was weak and
vain, covetous and ambitious. Of all the evil counsellors who had access
to the royal ear, he bore, perhaps, the largest part in the ruin of the
House of Stuart.

The obstinate and imperious nature of the King gave great advantages to
those who advised him to be firm, to yield nothing, and to make himself
feared. One state maxim had taken possession of his small understanding,
and was not to be dislodged by reason. To reason, indeed, he was not in
the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called,
was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed
to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and,
as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was
erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and
conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections.
[57] "I will make no concession," he often repeated; "my father made
concessions, and he was beheaded." [58] If it were true that concession had
been fatal to Charles the First, a man of sense would have known that a
single experiment is not sufficient to establish a general rule even
in sciences much less complicated than the science of government; that,
since the beginning of the world, no two political experiments were ever
made of which all the conditions were exactly alike; and that the only
way to learn civil prudence from history is to examine and compare an
immense number of cases. But, if the single instance on which the King
relied proved anything, it proved that he was in the wrong. There can be
little doubt that, if Charles had frankly made to the Short Parliament,
which met in the spring of 1640, but one half of the concessions which
he made, a few months later, to the Long Parliament, he would have
lived and died a powerful King. On the other hand, there can be no doubt
whatever that, if he had refused to make any concession to the Long
Parliament, and had resorted to arms in defence of the ship money and
of the Star Chamber, he would have seen, in the hostile ranks, Hyde and
Falkland side by side with Hollis and Hampden. But, in truth, he would
not have been able to resort to arms; for nor twenty Cavaliers would
have joined his standard. It was to his large concessions alone tha