Note 135 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

May thus answers, by a sort of prophetic anticipation, this passage of Clarendon: "Another sort of men," he says, "and especially lords and gentlemen, by whom the pressures of the government were not much felt, who enjoyed their own plentiful fortunes, with little or insensible detriment, looking no farther than their present safety and prosperity, and the yet undisturbed peace of the nation, whilst other kingdoms were embroiled in calamities, and Germany sadly wasted by a sharp war, did nothing but applaud the happiness of England, and called those ungrateful factious spirits, who complained of the breach of laws and liberties; that the kingdom abounded with wealth, plenty, and all kinds of elegancies more than ever; that it was for the honour of a people, that the monarch should live splendidly, and not be curbed at all in his prerogative, which would bring him into greater esteems with other princes, and more enable him to prevail in treaties; that what they suffered by monopolies was insensible and not grievous, if compared with other states; that the Duke of Tuscany sat heavier upon his people in that very kind; that the French king had made himself an absolute lord, and quite depressed the power of parliaments, which had been there as great as in any kingdom, and yet that France flourished, and the gentry lived well; that the Austrian princes, especially in Spain, laid heavy burdens upon their subjects. Thus did many of the English gentry, by way of comparison, in ordinary discourse, plead for their own servitude.

"The courtiers would begin to dispute against parliaments, in their ordinary discourse, that they were cruel to those whom the king favoured, and too injurious to his prerogative; that the late parliament stood upon too high terms with the king, and that they hoped the king should never need any more parliaments. Some of the greatest statesmen and privy-counsellors would ordinarily laugh at the ancient language of England, when the word liberty of the subject was named. But these gentlemen, who seemed so forward in taking up their own yoke, were but a small part of the nation (though a number considerable enough to make a reformation hard) compared with those gentlemen who were sensible of their birth-rights and the true interest of the kingdom; on which side the common people in the generality, and the country freeholders stood, who would rationally argue of their own rights, and those oppressions that were laid upon them." Hist. of Parliament, p. 12 (edit. 1812).