Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/158

 138 TIte Family Immigration to New England.

people were slow to learn the differ- sharp and untenable," with " an elo- ence. Of the two evils, James was to quence full of fervor." That young be preferred. Charles ascends the man is yet to be heard from. His throne with flattering promises, attends name is Cromwell, known in history prayers and listens to sermons, pays as Oliver Cromwell. His briefly- his father's debts and promises to reported speech of six lines is destined reform the Court. Let us see what to be weightier than the edicts of a he does. The brilliant but profligate king. The session was brief. Popery Buckingham is retained as prime minis- and Arminianism, unjust taxation and ter. Charles marries the beautiful voluntary payment of taxes not ordered Henrietta Maria, the Roman Catholic by Parliament, were declared treason- princess of France. He fits out fleets able and hostile principles in Church against Spain and other quarters, and and State, — so said Parliament, demands heavy taxes to meet his heavy " You are a Parliament of vipers," — expenses. Parliament is on its dignity, so said the king ; and, on the tenth of and demands its proper recognition. March, Parliament was dissolved, not He dissolves it, and calls another, to meet again in the old historic hall That is more rebellious, and that he for eleven long years ; until, in 1640, summarily dissolves. Men of high the majesty of an outraged people and low degree go to prison at the rises superior to the majesty of an king's behest, and the disobedient were outraging ruler. Now follow the threatened with severer penalties. attempted riveting of the chains of

The people of England are aroused, a despotic and unscrupulous power, as the king of the earth sets himself which does not understand the temper against their claims in behalf of the of the common people, nor the royal prerogative. The king and the methods of counteracting a great people are at war. Which will come popular upheaval in society, off conquerer? There is only one It is not easy to resist the iron pres- answer to that question, for the batde sure of a tyrant ; but, to our ancestors, IS one between the pigmy and the it was far better than to accept the giant. The contest grows sharper as peace and profit which might follow the months go on, and the people are abject submission. To borrow the in constant alarm. Murders are words of De Tocqueville : " They cling common, and even Buckingham, the to freedom for its native charms inde- favorite minister, dies at the point of pendent of its gifts, — the pleasure of the assassin's knife, and the murderer speaking, acting, and breathing without goes to the Tower and the scaffold restraint, under no master but God and accompanied by the tumultuous cheers the Law." The EngUshmen of the of London. Soon comes the Parlia- first half of the seventeenth century nient of 1629, in which the popular were the fathers of the men who leaders make their great remonstrance fired shots at Lexington and Concord, against the regal tyranny. In that " heard round the world." House sat a plain young man, with But how do the royal prerogatives ordinary cloth apparel, as if made by affect our ancestors in England } Our an old-country tailor, " his counte- fathers were of common mould, and nance swollen and reddish, his voice feel the unjust demand of the tax-gath-

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