"We need to see the sixteenth-century in terms of its own experience, not as the prehistory of a later revolution. We need to regard even the reigns of the early Stuarts without the conviction that the only thing of moment in their history is the ultimate breakdown of government which we know was to come. If thereafter we want to investigate the causes of the civil war, we need to remember that no revolution of the size claimed for this one ever so readily stopped short and reversed itself."