368 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

Professor Adams, are the fourteenth and the seventeenth
, centuries. But since the work of the earlier centuries was
interrupted by the Wars of the Roses and the Tudor des-
potism, we might as well speak here only of the constitu-
tional achievements of the Stuart and succeeding periods.

The Grand Monarchy of the Tudors was tolerated be-
cause it served national ends. Had the Stuarts been equally
capable and patriotic the struggle might have been post-
poned. Or if they had been content merely to reign, and
not ambitious to rule despotically by " divine right," they
would not have precipitated a crisis. But they had neither
tact nor patience. They interfered alike with civil and re-
ligious liberty. Meanwhile the nation—particularly the
middle classes—had become prosperous enough .to get restive
and intolerant. As Macaulay has said, "During two
hundred years all the sovereigns who had ruled England,
with the single exception of the unfortunate Henry VI, had
been strong-minded, high-spirited, courageous, and of prince-
ly bearing. Almost all had possessed abilities above the
ordinary level. It was no light thing that, on the very eve
of the decisive struggle between our Kings and their Parlia-
ments, royalty should be exhibited to the world stammering,
slobbering, shedding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn
sword, and talking in the style alternately of a buffoon and
a pedagogue."

James I nevertheless insisted :' As to dispute what God
may do is blasphemy, so it is sedition in subjects to dispute
what a King may do. I will not be content that my power
be disputed on.' So he and his son Charles I levied taxes,
appointed and dismissed ministers, followed policies, and
summoned or dissolved Parliaments, as it suited their arbit-
rary wills. When their needs compelled them to go to Par-
liament for grants of money, the latter bargained for their