Charles with the
words: "If I granted your demands, I should be no more than the mere
phantom of a king."

By August, Charles had raised the royal standard at Nottingham, and war was
begun.

Five years later and Charles was a prisoner, to die in 1649 on the
scaffold. That same year monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished by
law; the Established Church had already fallen before the triumphant arms
of the Puritans.

Then, in 1653, the House of Commons itself fell--expelled by Cromwell; and
the task of the Lord Protector was to fashion a constitution that would
work.[55] What happened was the supremacy of the army. Parliament,
attenuated and despised, contended in vain against the Protector. On
Cromwell's death, and the failure of his son, Richard, the army declared
for Charles II., and there was an end to the Commonwealth.

THE DEMOCRATIC PROTEST--LILBURNE

In all these changes the great mass of the people had neither part nor lot;
and the famous leaders of the Parliamentary Party, resolute to curtail the
absolutism of the Crown, were no more concerned with the welfare of the
labouring people than the barons were in the time of John. The labouring
people--generally--were equally indifferent to the fortunes of Roundheads
and Cavaliers, though the townsmen in many places held strong enough
opinions on the matters of religion that were in dispute.[56]

That the common misery of the people was not in any way lightened by
Cromwell's rule we have abundant evidence, and it cannot be supposed that
the substitution of the Presbyterian discipline for episcopacy in the
Church, and the displacement of Presbyterians by Independents, was likely
to alleviate this misery.

Taxation was heavier than it had ever been before, and in Lancashire,
Westmorland, and Cumberland the distress was appalling.

Whitelocke, writing in 1649,[57] notes "that many families in Lancashire
were starved." "That many in Cumberland and Westmorland died in the
highways for want of bread, and divers left their habitations, travelling
with their wives and children to other parts to get relief, but could find
none. That the committees and Justices of the Peace of Cumberland signed a
certificate, that there were 30,000 families that had neither seed nor
bread-corn, nor money to buy either, and they desired a collection for
them, which was made, but much too little to relieve so great a multitude."

Cromwell, occupied with high affairs of State, had