Carlyle’s mind is often warped; his vision often dim; but there are times when he speaks like an inspired seer, and never more so than when dealing with the execution of the Stuart King: “This action of the English Regicides did in effect strike a damp like death through the heart of Flunkyism universally in this world. Whereof Flunkyism, Cant, Cloth-Worship, or whatever ugly name it have, has gone about incurably sick ever since; and is now at length, in these generations, very rapidly dying. The like of which action will not be needed for a thousand years again.... Thus ends the Second Civil War. In Regicide; in a Commonwealth, and Keepers of the Liberties of England. In punishment of delinquents; in abolition of Cobwebs—if it be possible in a Government of Heroism and Veracity; at lowest of Anti-Flunkyism, Anti-Cant, and the _endeavor_ after Heroism and Veracity.” [Illustration: Interior of Westminster Hall. Where Parliament sat and where King Charles I. was tried and sentenced. ] IV THE IRISH AND SCOTCH WARS The successful Revolutionary party now enacted that the people of England and of all the dominions and territories thereunto belonging were constituted and established as a Commonwealth, or Free State, to be governed by the representatives of the people in Parliament and by whomsoever the Parliament should appoint as officers and ministers; the King and the House of Lords being both abolished. No provision was at first made by which any man should lawfully be recognized as chief in the new Commonwealth; but, as a matter of fact, there was one man, and one man only, who had to be acknowledged, however unwillingly, as master and leader. There were many upright and able civil servants; many high-minded and fervent reformers; many grim and good captains: but waist-high above them all rose the mighty and strenuous figure of Oliver Cromwell. It may well be that, hitherto, personal ambition had played an entirely subordinate part in all his actions. Now, in the turmoil of the Revolution, in the whirlpool of currents which none but the strongest man could breast, he became ever more and more conscious of his own great powers—powers which he knew were shared by no other man. With the sense of power came the overmastering desire to seize and wield it.