He could not, however,
forbear expressing his displeasure at the jealousy entertained against
him, and at the intention which the commons discovered of retrenching
his prerogative.
This law brought great distress for some time upon the Irish; but it has
occasioned their applying with greater industry to manufactures, and has
proved in the issue beneficial to that kingdom.
CHAPTER LXV.
[Illustration: 1-802-hyde-park.jpg HYDE PARK]
CHARLES II.
{1668.} Since the restoration, England had attained a situation which
had never been experienced in any former period of her government,
and which seemed the only one that could fully insure, at once, her
tranquillity and her liberty: the king was in continual want of supply
from the parliament, and he seemed willing to accommodate himself
to that dependent situation. Instead of reviving those claims of
prerogative, so strenuously insisted on by his predecessors, Charles had
strictly confined himself within the limits of law, and had courted,
by every art of popularity, the affections of his subjects. Even
the severities, however blamable, which he had exercised against
nonconformists, are to be considered as expedients by which he strove to
ingratiate himself with that party which predominated in parliament.
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