ed near that age,
or, what perhaps is more decisive, all authors who have casually
made mention of those public transactions, still represent the civil
disorders and convulsions as proceeding from religious controversy,
and consider the political disputes about power and liberty as entirely
subordinate to the other. It is true, had the king been able to support
government, and at the same time to abstain from all invasion of
national privileges, it seems not probable that the Puritans ever could
have acquired such authority as to overturn the whole constitution: yet
so entire was the subjection into which Charles was now fallen, that,
had not the wound been poisoned by the infusion of theological hatred,
it must have admitted of an easy remedy. Disuse of parliaments,
imprisonments and prosecution of members, ship money, an arbitrary
administration; these were loudly complained of; but the grievances
which tended chiefly to inflame the parliament and nation, especially
the latter, were the surplice, the rails placed about the altar, the
bows exacted on approaching it, the liturgy, the breach of the Sabbath,
embroidered copes, lawn sleeves, the use of the ring in marriage, and
of the cross in baptism. On account of these were the popular leaders
content to throw the government into such violent convulsions; and, to
the disgrace of that age and of this island, it must be acknowledged,
that the disorders in Scotland entirely, and those in England mostly
proceeded from so mean and contemptible an origin.[**]

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 199. Whitlocke, p. 122. May, p. 81.

** Lord Clarendon (vol. i. p. 233) says, that the
parliamentary party were not agreed about the entire
abolition of episcopacy: they were only the root and branch
men, as they were called, who insisted on that measure. But
those who were willing to retain bishops, insisted on
reducing their authority to a low ebb, as well as on
abolishing the ceremonies of worship and vestments of the
clergy. The controversy therefore, between the parties was
almost wholly theological, and that of the most frivolous
and ridiculous kind.

Some persons, partial to the patriots of this age, have ventured to put
them in a balance with the most illustrious characters of antiquity; and
mentioned the names of Pym, Hambden, Vane, as a just parallel to those
of Cato, Brutus, Cassius. Profound capacity, indeed, undaunted courage,