What had really happened was a change not in the attitude of statesmen towards the nation, but in the attitude of the nation at large towards the class that governed it. From the triumph of Puritanism in 1640 the supreme, irresistible force in English politics had been national opinion. It created the Long Parliament. It gave it its victory over the Church and the Crown. When a strange turn of events placed Puritanism in antagonism to it, it crushed Puritanism as easily as it had crushed Royalty. It was national opinion which restored the Stuarts; and no sooner did the Stuarts cross its will than it threatened their throne in the Popish Plot and swept them from the country in the Revolution. The stubborn purpose of William wrestled in vain with its turns of sentiment; even the genius of Marlborough proved helpless in a contest with it. It was indeed irresistible whenever it acted. But as yet it acted only by spurts. It had no wish to interfere with the general course of administration or policy; in the bulk of the nation indeed there was neither the political knowledge nor the sustained interest in politics which could have prompted such an interference. It was only at critical moments, when great interests were at stake, interests which it could understand and on which its mind was made up, that the nation roused itself and "shook its mighty mane." The reign of the Stuarts indeed did much to create a more general and continuous attention to public affairs. In the strife of the Exclusion Bill and in the Popish Plot Shaftesbury taught how to "agitate" opinion, how to rouse this lagging attention, this dormant energy of the people at large; and his opponents learned the art from him. The common statement that our two great modern parties, the Whig and the Tory, date from the Petitioners and Abhorrers of the Exclusion Bill is true only in this sense, that then for the first time the masses of the people were stirred to a more prolonged and organized action in co-operation with the smaller groups of professed politicians than they had ever been stirred to before. [Sidenote: Becomes powerless.]