It might be sufficient to point attention to the obvious difference between questions affecting the liberty of the subject, and questions of mere administration, were this the only occasion—or were it a fair sample of the only class of occasions—in which COTTON appears as an unofficial Councillor. But the fact is otherwise. And it is best to be explained, partly, by the unsettled character of party connection during the political strife of CHARLES’ reign, as well as long afterwards, and partly by peculiarities belonging to the man himself. [Sidenote: _Life of Sir John Eliot_, vol. i, p 468.] There are not many statesmen, even of that period, of whom it could be said as the able biographer of Sir John ELIOT says of Sir Robert COTTON: ‘He acted warmly with ELIOT and with the patriots in the first Parliament of CHARLES. At the opening of the third, he was tendering counsel to the King, _of which the obsequious forms have yet left no impression unfavourable to his uprightness and honour_.’ The result is unusual. How came it to pass? Perhaps the preceding pages may have already suggested to the reader’s mind more than one possible and plausible answer to this question. Here it may suffice to say that while Sir Robert COTTON was plainly at one with the Parliamentarian leaders in the main points of their civil policy, he never went to the extreme lengths of the puritanic faith, either in things secular, or in matters pertaining to Religion. On some religious questions he differed from them widely. In secular matters, a tyrannic Parliament would have been as little to his liking as a despotic king. Neither friend nor enemy—GONDOMAR excepted—ever called him a Puritan (or pretended-Puritan) in his lifetime, any more than they would have called him a Republican. His ultimate divergence was not cloaked. It was no bar to the entire respect, or to the love and close fellowship, of men like ELIOT, just because it was frankly avowed, and had no selfish aim. COTTON,—had he lived long enough,—would probably have ranged himself, at last, with the Cavaliers, rather than with the Roundheads. He would have had FALKLAND’S misgivings, and FALKLAND’S sorrow, but I think he would not have lacked FALKLAND’S self-devotion also. And, in another point, he resembled Lord FALKLAND. Both would have advised CHARLES to yield much of so-called ‘prerogative.’ Neither of them would have bade him to yield a grain of true royal honour. In later years, some words which COTTON wrote,—in 1627,—for the King’s eye may well have come back painfully into CHARLES’ memory:—‘To expiate the passion of the People,’ said Sir Robert, ‘with sacrifice of any of His Majesty’s servants, I have ever found to be no less fatal _to the Master_ than to the Minister, in the end.’