Did he believe that the
Stuarts were a good family, and fit to govern a country like
Britain? He knew that they were a vicious, worthless crew, and
that Britain was a degraded country as long as they swayed the
sceptre; but for those facts he cared nothing, they governed in a
way which he liked, for he had an abstract love of despotism, and
an abhorrence of everything savouring of freedom and the rights of
man in general. His favourite political picture was a joking,
profligate, careless king, nominally absolute--the heads of great
houses paying court to, but in reality governing, that king, whilst
revelling with him on the plunder of a nation, and a set of
crouching, grovelling vassals (the literal meaning of vassal is a
wretch), who, after allowing themselves to be horsewhipped, would
take a bone if flung to them, and be grateful; so that in love with
mummery, though he knew what Christianity was, no wonder he admired
such a church as that of Rome, and that which Laud set up; and by
nature formed to be the holder of the candle to ancient worm-eaten
and profligate families, no wonder that all his sympathies were
with the Stuarts and their dissipated insolent party, and all his
hatred directed against those who endeavoured to check them in
their proceedings, and to raise the generality of mankind something
above a state of vassalage, that is, wretchedness.
Pages:
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566