7.V7V? OD UCTOR Y. 17 



as the noblest blood in England, he had suspended Par- 

 liament, taken the French king's bribes, and had robbed the 

 merchants by shutting up the Exchequer. He had not as yet 

 affronted the Church it is true, and he had withdrawn from his 

 insidious project of toleration. But he was strongly suspected 

 of having atoned for his debaucheries by embracing the 

 doctrines of the Roman Church, and of committing the 

 meanness of hypocrisy while he had secretly apostatised. 



I pointed out in a former volume (iv. 6) how close an 

 analogy there is between the deposition of James II and that 

 of Richard II. The wiser heads of the Revolution avoided 

 the error of making the king a martyr or a state prisoner. It 

 was probably owing to the sagacity of William that his 

 father-in-law and uncle fled, and so saved the new settlement 

 from anything worse than the spectacle of an abdicated 

 monarch who was living on the bounty of the English enemy, 

 and conspiring with hired assassins against the life of his 

 successor. 



The English Revolution achieved, among many other 

 enduring and fundamental reforms, two which are con- 

 spicuous. In the first place it made supply depend on the 

 will of Parliament, or rather on the House of Commons, and 

 therefore insured the annual sitting of Parliament and its 

 constant criticism of public affairs. It is true, as Macaulay 

 has pointed out, it took some time to develope the doctrine 

 of a Ministry, homogeneous in its policy and responsible to 

 Parliament, and indeed this doctrine never became settled 

 within the period contained in these volumes. Henceforward 

 then, expenditure, as well as finance, became the business of 

 1 louse of Commons ; and there were developed from time 

 me, within the walls of the House itself, men of rare 

 financial genius, such as were, for example, Montague and 

 ;>olc. In the costs of William's war, it should also be 

 mbcrecl, that, heavy as the bur re on the whole 



>n, the landowners under the land tax paid more than 

 full share of the public expenditure. It is true that 



VOL, v. C 



