Stuart dynasty

BROKEN PURPOSES. 245
gone by when it is necessary in the interests of
truth to stigmatise extravagant excesses which ac-
companied the successful issue of what, once a
popular movement, soon degenerated into govern-
ment by a fanatical oligarchy, and finally owned a
despot's sway. It, so to speak, goes without saying
that the tyranny of the Rump proved itself far more
detestable to the English mind than the unconstitu-
tional expansion of the royal prerogative which had
originally brought the late King into antagonism
with Pym, Hampden, and Fairfax, as representa-
tives of public opinion. Moreover, at this distance
of time it is no disloyalty to the Crown which bids
one acknowledge freely that the eminence which
England gained among the States of Europe under
Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate unites with the glory
gained at sea by the magnificent republican sailor
Blake to rescue that administration from the oppro-
brium provoked by domestic occurrences generally,
and especially by the destruction of all constitutional
liberty. On the other hand it is but just to the later
Stuarts to record how the Protector's leading mistake
in foreign policy, when he depressed Spain in the
hour of her decline, and allied himself with France,
helped to create the situation which, in after years,
rendered Louis XIV. a terror to Europe, and neces-
sitated the expensive wars of William III. and
Queen Anne. He was enticed into this apparently
all-conquering, but eventually dangerous course, by
the wily political stratagems of Cardinal Mazarin,
Minister of France.