The restoration of the Stuarts was a truly national occurrence. It presented itself with the advantages of an ancient government, reposing on the traditions and cherished remembrances of the country, and at the same time with the favourable auspices of a new government, exposed to no recent trial, and the faults and weight of which had not been lately experienced. The ancient monarchy was the only system of government, which for twenty years had not been condemned for its incapacity and its bad success in the administration of the country. These two causes rendered the Restoration popular: it was opposed only by the dregs of the violent parties; the public rallied around it with great good-will. In the opinion of the country at large, it was the only chance and means of forming a legal government, the fact which was most ardently desired by the community. This was also what the Restoration undertook to effect, the promise of a legal government was precisely what it held out. The first royalist party which took the management of affairs, after the return of Charles II., was in fact the legal party, represented by its ablest chief, the high chancellor Clarendon. From 1660 to 1667, Clarendon was prime minister, and possessed of the greatest influence in England. Clarendon and his friends reappeared with their ancient system, the absolute sovereignty of the king, restrained within legal limits, controlled in matters of taxation by the parliament, and in matters of private right and individual liberty by the tribunals of justice; but possessing, in the practice of government, properly so called, an almost entire independence, and the most decisive preponderance, to the exclusion, or even in spite of, the wishes of the majority in parliament, and especially of those of the House of Commons. On other points, they evinced a proper respect for legal order, a solicitude for the interests of the country, a noble sentiment of its dignity, and a moral tone highly grave and honourable. Such was the character of Clarendon's administration for seven years. But the fundamental ideas upon which this administration rested, the absolute sovereignty of the king, and the government raised beyond the sphere of the influence of parliament, were antiquated and dead in the public mind. Notwithstanding the reaction of the first moments of the Restoration, twenty years of parliamentary dominion had placed them beyond resuscitation. {223} A new element shortly burst out in the heart of the royalist party, personified in the Deists, rakes, or libertines, who participated in the ideas of the time, partook the belief that power was vested in the Commons, and caring little for legal order, or the absolute sovereignty of the king, were anxious only for their own success, and sought it wherever they perceived any means of influence or power to exist. They formed a party which allied itself with the discontented national party, and Clarendon was overthrown.