"The great popularity of the Stuarts — certainly more allied to personal causes than we can at present calculate — is a curious fact. It was not one of those feelings drawn from hoar antiquity, when habit has become religion. No — their ascension to the throne was of recent occurrence. Neither were they grafted into the heart by that enthusiasm which, more than all others, dazzles and delights, viz., military renown. No victories, no conquests, excited the imagination, and confounded theirs and the glory of England together. Their reigns had been most pacific, and their few warlike attempts unsuccessful ; and yet what devotion and attachment they inspired ! — fortune, liberty, and life, were yielded, and joyfully, in their cause. Wrongs were forgiven ; violated privileges and outraged laws forgotten ; and nothing but the still mightier spirit of fanaticism could have been opposed with any success to the spirit of loyalty. It was Charles's bigotry that cost him his crown. If he had given up the bishops, uncurled his hair, and spoken through his nose, he might have been an absolute monarch in all but name. As it was, he contrived to die a martyr, and to be mourned with a degree of personal affection which one, now-a-days, scarcely expects from the nearest and dearest friends."