freedom or the proteus that resists or betrays freedom. At many points the Stuart cause resembles that of constitutional monarchy on the Continent, as it was in France under Lewis XVIII., and in Prussia under the Emperor William. If Bismarck had been there he would have been the strength of the Royalists, and Cromwell might have met his match.
On almost every occasion, under James I., opposition made itself felt, and it became practically important, and anticipated the future in 1621. Then the Commons, guided by the most famous English lawyer, Coke, struck down Bacon, and deprived the Stuarts of the ablest counsellor they ever had. Impeachment and responsibility of ministers remained.
James's reign is also the beginning of colonial empire. Virginia was a cavalier settlement, proceeding from the epoch of exploration and the search for gold; and New England was a plebeian and sectarian establishment, planted by men who fled from oppression. They did not carry with them very clear notions of human right; but these ripened under their oppressive rule among those whom they persecuted. There was local self-government and federation in Connecticut, and spiritual self-government and toleration in Rhode Island; and from there the two institutions spread to the United States, and when the time came, the cavaliers of Virginia, who went out under James I., surpassed the fugitives of the Mayflower. They produced the Declaration of Independence, and bequeathed to America religious liberty and the political function of the Supreme Court. Of the first five presidents, four were Virginians. And in our own history, the ablest of the men who resisted Cromwell had studied practical politics in Massachusetts Bay.
The third political event by which the reign of the first Stuart profoundly influenced the modern world is the rise of those whom we call Congregationalists when we think of them as a Church, and Independents when we mean a party. It is on their account that this epoch is more fitly called the Puritan Reformation than the Puritan
