or, had been detested. The Puritan, betrayed and evil
entreated, deserted by all the timeservers who, in his prosperity, had
claimed brotherhood with him, hunted from his home, forbidden under
severe penalties to pray or receive the sacrament according to his
conscience, yet still firm in his resolution to obey God rather than
man, was, in spite of some unpleasing recollections, an object of pity
and respect to well constituted minds. These feelings became stronger
when it was noised abroad that the court was not disposed to treat
Papists with the same rigour which had been shown to Presbyterians. A
vague suspicion that the King and the Duke were not sincere Protestants
sprang up and gathered strength. Many persons too who had been disgusted
by the austerity and hypocrisy of the Saints of the Commonwealth began
to be still more disgusted by the open profligacy of the court and of
the Cavaliers, and were disposed to doubt whether the sullen preciseness
of Praise God Barebone might not be preferable to the outrageous
profaneness and licentiousness of the Buckinghams and Sedleys. Even
immoral men, who were not utterly destitute of sense and public spirit,
complained that the government treated the most serious matters as
trifles, and made trifles its serious business. A King might be
pardoned for amusing his leisure with wine, wit, and beauty. But it was
intolerable that he should sink into a mere lounger and voluptuary, that
the gravest affairs of state should be neglected, and that the public
service should be starved and the finances deranged in order that
harlots and parasites might grow rich.

A large body of Royalists joined in these complaints, and added many
sharp reflections on the King's ingratitude. His whole revenue, indeed,
would not have sufficed to reward them all in proportion to their own
consciousness of desert. For to every distressed gentleman who
had fought under Rupert or Derby his own services seemed eminently
meritorious, and his own sufferings eminently severe. Every one had
flattered himself that, whatever became of the rest, he should be
largely recompensed for all that he had lost during the civil troubles,
and that the restoration of the monarchy would be followed by the
restoration of his own dilapidated fortunes. None of these expectants
could restrain his indignation, when he found that he was as poor under
the King as he had been under the Rump or the Protector. The negligence
and extravaga