FALL OF THE OLD ORDER 369'

rights and liberties which had been trampled upon by their
reckless sovereigns. But Charles I, prophetically anticipating
what submission to Parliamentary dictation would ulti-
mately end in, declared : * These being passed, we may be
waited on bareheaded, the style of Majesty continued to us,
and the King's authority declared by both Houses of Par-
liament may still be the style of your command, but as to
true and real power, we should remain but the outside, but
the picture, but the sign of a King.' Hence, to cut a long
story short, he preferred the scaffold to the fate of the House
of Windsor. Charles I was executed in 1649 as the climax
of Civil War, and England became a republic.

But this proved more a triumph of the Puritan army than
a victory for the constitutional and religious liberty of the
English people. It directly and immediately resulted in the
tyranny of Cromwell (1649-58) which, despite Carlyle's
rhapsodies, fastened upon England and Ireland a more in-
supportable autocracy than that of the Stuarts. His very
large standing army and excellent navy, both based on taxa-
tion which absolute rule alone could levy, and which rival
nations lacked, gave Cromwell and the English power (as
Mr. Hilaire Belloc has pointed out)1 an unrivalled position
in Europe. He humiliated Holland, crushed and nettled Ire-
land and tried to convert England into a vast monastery.
The result was that, no sooner than he was dead, England
cried " Never again!" In the words of Mr. Somervdl,
" Cromwell was relegated with Guy Fawkes to the historical
Chamber of Horrors, only to be rescued by Carlyle and the
Victorian historians."

After the Commonwealth experiment England reverted
again to monarchy. The futility of the restored Stuart

1. Oliver Cromwell, p. 4.