CHAPTER LXVI
CHARLES II.
{1674.} IF we consider the projects of the famous cabal, it will appear
hard to determine, whether the end which those ministers pursued were
more blamable and pernicious, or the means by which they were to
effect it more impolitic and imprudent. Though they might talk only of
recovering or fixing the king's authority, their intention could be no
other than that of making him absolute; since it was not possible to
regain or maintain, in opposition to the people, any of those powers of
the crown abolished by late law or custom, without subduing the people,
and rendering the royal prerogative entirely uncontrollable. Against
such a scheme they might foresee that every part of the nation would
declare themselves; not only the old parliamentary faction, which,
though they kept not in a body, were still numerous, but even the
greatest royalists, who were indeed attached to monarchy, but desired to
see it limited and restrained by law. It had appeared, that the present
parliament, though elected during the greatest prevalence of the
royal party, was yet tenacious of popular privileges, and retained a
considerable jealousy of the crown, even before they had received any
just ground of suspicion.
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