In England, James I. the successor of Elizabeth had escaped, himself, his family and his parliament, from the powder plot, hatched by the Jesuits and other agents of the sovereign pontiff. A prodigal and consequently indigent king, James had seen the formation of the opposite parties of Whigs and Tories. The House of Commons, in which the Whigs governed, resisted Charles I.; Charles menaced, they insulted him; he takes arms, they compel him to fly; he perishes on a scaffold, the ignoble victim of tragical proceeding. The protector of the English republic, Cromwell, tyrannizes over it, and renders it powerful: but Cromwell dies, and Monk delivers England up to Charles II. The inconstancy and contradictions which accumulated during this new reign, disclose the indecisive influence of the Roman court; the catholics are tolerated, accused, protected, excluded from employments; five Jesuits are decapitated; the king dissolves the parliament, and signs the act of Habeas Corpus; an anti-papistical oath is enacted, and the duke of York, who refuses to take it, is, nevertheless, appointed to the rank of high admiral; soon after he succeeds Charles his brother, under the name of James II. and wearies by barbarous executions the patience of his subjects. James without friends, even among the catholics whom he loaded with favours, deserts himself, and loses without a combat his degraded sceptre. The English government re-organized itself, and William of Nassau, prince of Orange, the son-in-law of James, was called to the throne of Great Britain. William, at the same time Statholder in Holland, and king of England, governed both countries with energy, and triumphed over the conspiracies continually fomented or encouraged against him by the Holy See. Thus disturbances and crimes, the weakening of catholicity, the restoration of the civil authorities, such have been among the English of the seventeenth century the only results of the dark manœuvres of the court of Rome. The peace of Munster, in 1648, proclaimed the independence of the united provinces. In spite of the soil, the climate, and their discord, Holland, already flourishing, and freed from the Spanish yoke, assumed a distinguished rank among the powers escaped from the dominion of the Holy See. The king of Spain, Philip III. also lost Artois, which Louis XIV. became master of, and Portugal which crowned the duke of Braganza king. Charles II. son of Philip IV. lost Franche Comte, died without children, and bequeathed his kingdom to a grandson of the king of the French. The ascendancy which the popes still possessed over Spain, so fallen herself, and who seemed to place herself under French influence, was therefore a weak resource.