bigotry of Knox:—The gradual forgery of
the letters by which the Queen’s death was finally
obtained from the too-willing hands of Elizabeth’s
Cabinet:—The all but legally proved innocence
of Mary in regard to Darnley’s death, and the
Bothwell marriage. Taking her life as a whole,
it may be fairly doubted whether any woman has ever
been exposed to trials and temptations more severe,
or has suffered more shamefully from false witness
and fanatical hatred. But the prejudices which
have been hence aroused are so strong, such great
interests, religious and political, are involved in
their maintenance, that they will doubtless prevail
in the popular mind until our literature receives,—what
an age of research and of the scientific spirit should
at last be prepared to give us,—a tolerably
truthful history of the Elizabethan period. (1889)
Heroes both;—Each his side;—In
regard to the main issue at stake in the Civil War,
and the view taken of it throughout this book, let
me here once for all remark that no competent and
impartial student of our history can deny a fair cause
to each side, whatever errors may have been committed
by Charles and by the Parliament, or however fatal
for some fifteen years to liberty and national happiness
were the excesses and the tyranny into which the victorious
party gradually, and as it were inevitably, drifted.
‘No one,’ says Ranke (whom I must often
quote, because to this distinguished foreigner we
owe the single, though too brief, narrative of this
period in which history has been hitherto, treated
historically, that is, without judging of the events
by the light either of their remote results, or of
modern political party), ’will make any very
heavy political charge against Strafford on the score
of his government of Ireland, or of the partisan attitude
which he had taken up in the intestine struggle in
England in general; for the ideas for which he contended
were as much to be found in the past history of England
as were those which he attacked:’ —and
Hampden’s conduct may claim analogous justification.
If the Parliament could appeal to those mediaeval
precedents which admitted the right of the people through
their representatives, to control taxation and (more
or less) direct national policy, Charles, (and Strafford
with him), might as lawfully affirm that they too
were standing ‘on the ancient ways’; on
the royal supremacy undeniably exercised by Henry
II or Edward I. by Henry VIII and by Elizabeth.
Both parties could equally put forward the prosperity
of England under these opposed modes of government:
Patriotism, honour, conscience, were watchwords which
either might use with truth or abuse with profit.
If the great struggle be patiently studied, the moral
praise and censure so freely given, according to a
reader’s personal bias, will be found very rarely
justified. There was far, very far, less of
tyranny or of liberty involved in the contest, up to
1642, than partisans aver. To the actual actors
(nor, as retrospectively criticized by us) it is a
fair battle on both sides, not a contest ’between
light and darkness.’
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