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Martyrs , a prohibition no doubt intended as a compliment to the Catholics . The intimate union between Laud and Strafforde , ( which furnishes not an unapt illustration of the benefits arising from the coalition of Church and State , ) and the designs entertained by them against the Constitution , are developed by Mr . Hallam , who makes the following just remarks upon the character of Strafforde :
" The passages which I have thus largely quoted will , I trust , leave no doubt in any reader ' s mind , that the Earl of Strafforde was party in a conspiracy to subvert the fundamental laws and libertiesof his country . For here are not , as upon his trial , accusations of words spoken in heat , uncertain as to proof and of ambiguous interpretation ; nor of actions variously reported and capable of some explanation , but the sincere unbosoming of the heart in
letters never designed to come to light . And if we reflect upon this man ' s cool-blooded apostacy on the first lure to his ambition , and on his splendid abilities , that enhanced the guilt of that desertion , we must feel some indi gnation at those who have palliated all his iniquities , and even ennobled his memory with the attributes of patriot heroism . Great he surely was , since that epithet can never be denied without paradox , to so much comprehension of mind , such ardour and energy , such courage and eloquence , those
commanding qualities of soul , which , impressed upon his dark and stern countenance , struck his contemporaries with mingled awe and hate , and still live in the unfading colours of Vandyke . But it may be reckoned as a sufficient ground for distrusting any one ' s attachment to the English Constitution , that he reveres the name of the Earl of Strafforde . "
In his review of the character of the Long Parliament , Mr . Hallam has steered a middle course between Hume and Godwin , justifying and commending their conduct so long as they sought only to bridle the prerogative , and commenting , in terms of perhaps too great severity , upon their subsequent proceedings . From the vantage ground of later times we discern with ease and clearness those beneficial courses which were hidden in darkness
and obscurity from the eyes that sought them . The members of the Long Parliament , until overpowered by the Independent party , whose designs undoubtedly went to the establishment of a Republic , appear to have meditated only the secure and lasting re-establishment of the Constitution ; and if they resorted to expedients at variance not only with the laws but with any system of good government , it must be remembered that the extraor * dinary perils with which they were environed , in some measure justified the
exertion of extraordinary powers . The irregular and arbitrary proceedings of this body , in securing their existence and authority , which are much commented upon by Mr . Hallam , do not seem to us by any means so objectionable as the apathy and tardiness which they displayed in the settlement of the nation , after they had gained an unquestionable superiority over the Court . It is true , that the duplicity and total want of faitn of the King rendered the observance of any treaty with him a matter of considerable
doubt ; but it is difficult to believe that securities might not have been obtained by the Parliament , which should have made any future infraction of the Constitution by the King impossible . But , after all , and with all the light which the researches of later times have thrown upon the history of this period , it is a most difficult task to say in what manner arid at what precise moment the Parliament could , with safety to the liberties of the country , have accommodated the great struggle in which they were engaged . In a late number we had occasion to ooserve with regret the want of a
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170 Review . —Hallam ' $ Constitutional History of England .
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1828, page 170, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2558/page/26/
