The Presbyterians—the men who controlled Parliament—were halting between two burdens. They would not push far enough against the King to make the Revolution a success, or to put a permanent end to despotism; and they would not eat their past words and deeds by turning wholly to his support. The King himself was obstinately bent on keeping the supreme power in his hands and setting the people under his feet, whatever he might promise; and this was the attitude of the large Royalist and Episcopalian party, which had showed, in supporting him, either that it cared little for liberty and eagerly championed a servility which it misnamed loyalty, or else that it feared disorder more than tyranny. On the other hand, the determined foes of Absolutism, the armed Independents, were even more cut off from the bulk of the nation by their good qualities than by their shortcomings. Their advocacy of toleration for every creed, their desire for legal reform, and their strong democratic tendencies, all put them so far in advance of the rest of the nation as to be completely out of touch with it; and they offended it even more than their harshness and narrowness, and the behavior of the bands of fantastic enthusiasts in their ranks. Moreover, the sincerity of their convictions, at a time when the practical application of belief in the rule of the majority was entirely new and strange, drove them to rely on their strong right arms, instead of upon the votes of a people which was mainly hostile or apathetic. When Cromwell acted with them, heedless of what the majority might think, he was making ready for a time when he might choose in turn to disregard the majority within their own ranks. Though neither Cromwell nor the Independents believed in the abstract in employing the army as an instrument of government, they were face to face with a condition of affairs in which, partly because of their own shortcomings, but very much more because of the shortcomings of their antagonists, they were driven to adopt this as the only possible course. Doubtless Cromwell was still acting as he sincerely believed the interests of the nation demanded. In the complex tissue of motives which go to determine a man’s deeds it is rarely possible to say that there is not some, and mayhap even a strong, element of self-interest and of desire for personal aggrandizement; yet Cromwell’s conduct toward the King goes to show that he would gladly have saved him had not the behavior of this typical Stuart been such as to render it impossible for an upright and far-seeing friend of English liberty longer to remain his ally.