CHAPTER V. THE PURITAN AGE AND THE RESTORATION (1625-1700)

  Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour. 
     England hath need of thee: she is a fen 
     Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen, 
  Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 
  Have forfeited their ancient English dower 
    Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; 
    Oh! raise us up, return to us again, 
  And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

                   Wordsworth, “Sonnet on Milton”

    HISTORICAL OUTLINE. The period from the accession of Charles I in 
    1625 to the Revolution of 1688 was filled with a mighty struggle 
    over the question whether king or Commons should be supreme in 
    England. On this question the English people were divided into two 
    main parties. On one side were the Royalists, or Cavaliers, who 
    upheld the monarch with his theory of the divine right of kings; on 
    the other were the Puritans, or Independents, who stood for the 
    rights of the individual man and for the liberties of Parliament 
    and people. The latter party was at first very small; it had 
    appeared in the days of Langland and Wyclif, and had been 
    persecuted by Elizabeth; but persecution served only to increase 
    its numbers and determination. Though the Puritans were never a 
    majority in England, they soon ruled the land with a firmness it 
    had not known since the days of William the Conqueror. They were 
    primarily men of conscience, and no institution can stand before 
    strong men whose conscience says the institution is wrong. That is 
    why the degenerate theaters were not reformed but abolished; that 
    is why the theory of the divine right of kings was shattered as by 
    a thunderbolt when King Charles was sent to the block for treason 
    against his country.

    The struggle reached a climax in the Civil War of 1642, which ended 
    in a Puritan victory. As a result of that war, England was for a 
    brief period a commonwealth, disciplined at home and respected 
    abroad, through the genius and vigor and tyranny of Oliver 
    Cromwell. When Cromwell died (1658) there was no man in England 
    strong enough to take his place, and two years later “Prince 
    Charlie,” who had long been an exile, was recalled to the throne as 
    Charles II of England. He had learned nothing from his father's 
    fate or his own experience, and proceeded by all evil ways to 
    warrant this “Epitaph,” which his favorite, Wilmot, Earl of 
    Rochester, pinned on the door of his bedchamber:

      Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King, 
        Whose word no man relies on, 
      Who never said a foolish thing, 
        Nor ever did a wise one.