Note 249 — Chapter X
Reading edition
Parl. Hist. iii. 45, 48. It seems natural to think that, if the moderate party were able to contend so well against their opponents, after the desertion of a great many royalist members who had joined the king, they would have maintained a decisive majority, had these continued in their places. But it is to be considered, on the other hand, that the king could never have raised an army, if he had not been able to rally the peers and gentry round his banner, and that in his army lay the real secret of the temporary strength of the pacific party.