England had not stopped at the constitutional questions which presuppose an assured social order. We have more than once remarked on the significance of the attempt to overthrow Episcopacy, which formed one of the fundamental conditions of English society, and of the constitution. This had been done earlier still in Scotland, though not without serious danger, in the first stage of the Reformation movement, in which the truth of doctrines and the salvation of men’s souls were at stake. It was otherwise in England, where doctrines in general were undisputed, and the episcopal order, which was most intimately connected with the doctrine, had the deepest root in the nation. That Parliament thought to destroy and uproot this order is, among all its undertakings, the one which most distinctly bore the character of revolution--for where should destruction once begun find an end?--and of one-sided party violence. To the King it was in a measure useful, for by opposing it he regained a tenable position and the possibility of resistance. He could now with obvious truth retort on his opponents the charge which they had made against him, of seeking to overthrow the laws of England. Charles could assert that he would never permit any alteration in the lawful condition of England. ‘Nolumus leges Angliae mutari’ was firmer ground for him than the indefinite and questionable rights of prerogative, which at an earlier time he had sought to maintain and extend. No words are needed to show the universal historical [A.D. 1642.] importance of these contests in Great Britain; both the purely constitutional ones, and those extending into the domain of revolution, of whose development we have undertaken to treat. It was our object to watch the origin of them on this classic ground of all constitutional history. It is an event which concerns all, this shaking of the foundations of the old British state. Whether they would stand the shock, or, if not, what shape public affairs would in that case assume, was a question which must concern the Continent also; the civilised world is still busy day by day with more or less conspicuous complications of the spiritual and political struggles arising from similar opposing principles. FOOTNOTES: [300] Mr. Godolphin. Cp. Verney, Notes 3 Dec. [301] Journals of the House of Commons, 4th November, 1641. [302] Copy of the articles, in Forster’s Arrest of the Five Members 114. [303] Bates, Elenchus motuum 31: ‘Suasu quorundam qui a sacris erant, etiam ipsius parlamenti senatorum.’ [304] Journals of the Commons ii. 317. [305] D’Ewes in Sanford 465, ‘(These five gentlemen) were sent to this day by the Earl of Essex--that the King intended to come to the House of Commons to seize upon them there.’ According to Verney they had at the opening of the morning sitting ‘information that they should be taken away by force.’