the

freedom

that English Puritanism had in itself no neceffary antagonism to English Inftitutions and Government. The ancient limited monarchy, and a reformed church establishment, would To fave have fatisfied its authors. They were devout, ancient religious men, who claimed free exercise for monarchy. their religion; but infeparable from the Proteftant Reformation, and its overthrow of Roman Catholic bondage, to whofe immediate inspiration they owed their greatness, was the paffion for civil freedom no less than for religious liberty. The writers who would separate the religious from the political move- Civil and ment in the feventeenth century, and fo ftrive religious to underrate the earnestnefs of the effort it not included for political as well as religious feparable. emancipation, have their answer in the Grand Remonftrance. Liberty of confcience and of worship has its leading place therein, but only as the very bafis and condition of fuch other claims, conftituting civil government, as the right not to be taxed without confent, the Rights right to enjoyment of what is lawfully poffeffed, demanded the right to petition, the right to choofe repre- Remonfentatives, the right of those representatives to ftrance. freedom of debate, the right to pure adminif tration of justice, the right to individual freedom under protection of the laws.

by

Leaders of

Of the men by whom these great rights were fo afferted in the old English houfe of legiflature, and to whofe exertions and facrifices in the Long Parliament, their ultimate though the Long lefs complete acceptance by the Convention ParliaParliament is due, perhaps a nearer view is ment. afforded in this Work than hitherto has been

Their genius and greatness.

attainable in any printed record. It might indeed have been too near if the men had been lefs great. But they do not suffer by that clofer inspection. Their greatness, too, is affumed fo eafily and fo naturally exerted, as to raise no feeling of furprise but that in an age which produced them fuch a tyranny fhould have been poffible. To find, in the party struggles of two hundred years ago, a full and perfect anticipation of parliamentary conflicts of more modern days, may probably aftonish not a few; but ftill more startling is it to reflect, that, during the whole fifteen years defcribed in the Grand Remonftrance, while England lay gagged, imprifoned, mutilated, and plundered, under the moft vexatious and patience intolerable tyranny that ever tortured body durance. and foul at once, the yet contained thefe men.

Their

and en

Their re

But they had profoundly ftudied her history; and they had an immovable faith that her civil conftitution, outraged as it was, yet held within itself the fufficing means of recovery and retribution. Nor, happily for us, did they quite lofe this patient belief, until the fword was actually drawn; and hence it was that all the fpect for old laws and ufages of the land, all the old ways and precedents of parliament, all the and laws. ancient traditions of the rights of the three eftates, fucceffively drawn forth from their refting-place in records, charters, old books, and parchment rolls, were appealed to on either fide, were claimed by both fides, were tried, tested, and made familiar to all, in fuch debates and conflicts in the Houfe of Com

old pre

cedents

mons as thefe pages have defcribed. It was

due to

for later generations to enjoy what thus was toiled for fo gallantly, and only with infinite fuffering, and terrible drawbacks, won at laft. But the Leaders of the Long Parliament have Reverence had their reward in the remembrance and them. gratitude of their defcendants; and it will bode ill to the free inftitutions of England, when honour ceafes to be paid to the men whom Bishop Warburton truly characterised as the band of greateft geniufes for government that the world ever faw leagued together in one common caufe.

FF

INDEX.