d temptations more
severe, or has suffered more shamefully from false witness and fanatical
hatred. But the prejudices which have been hence aroused are so strong,
such great interests, religious and political, are involved in their
maintenance, that they will doubtless prevail in the popular mind until
our literature receives,--what an age of research and of the scientific
spirit should at last be prepared to give us,--a tolerably truthful
history of the Elizabethan period. (1889)

B: p. 102

_Heroes both_;--_Each his side_;--In regard to the main issue at stake in
the Civil War, and the view taken of it throughout this book, let me here
once for all remark that no competent and impartial student of our
history can deny a fair cause to each side, whatever errors may have been
committed by Charles and by the Parliament, or however fatal for some
fifteen years to liberty and national happiness were the excesses and the
tyranny into which the victorious party gradually, and as it were
inevitably, drifted. 'No one,' says Ranke (whom I must often quote,
because to this distinguished foreigner we owe the single, though too
brief, narrative of this period in which history has been hitherto,
treated historically, that is, without judging of the events by the light
either of their remote results, or of modern political party), 'will make
any very heavy political charge against Strafford on the score of his
government of Ireland, or of the partisan attitude which he had taken up
in the intestine struggle in England in general; for the ideas for which
he contended were as much to be found in the past history of England as
were those which he attacked:' --and Hampden's conduct may claim
analogous justification. If the Parliament could appeal to those
mediaeval precedents which admitted the right of the people through their
representatives, to control taxation and (more or less) direct national
policy, Charles, (and Strafford with him), might as lawfully affirm that
they too were standing 'on the ancient ways'; on the royal supremacy
undeniably exercised by Henry II or Edward I. by Henry VIII and by
Elizabeth. Both parties could equally put forward the prosperity of
England under these opposed modes of government: Patriotism, honour,
conscience, were watchwords which either might use with truth or abuse
with profit. If the great struggle be patiently studied, the moral
praise and censure so freely given, according to a