No true Englishman could have expected, or indeed wished, that the King
should purchase permission to become a state-puppet, shackled in all his
movements, obliged to sanction the cruel and illegal acts of his enemies
by a breach of his coronation-oath, and compelled to abandon the
established church and the lives of his faithful friends to their
inveterate animosity. In vain was it privately suggested by the most
moderate of the Parliamentary commissioners, that it was expedient to
close on any terms, and unite with than to humble a party whose
desperate purposes, supported by the popularity of their pretensions,
threatened destruction to all their opponents. The King determined never
to seem to barter his conscience for personal safety. He at that time
foresaw what he afterwards so affectingly expressed in a letter to his
nephew Prince Rupert, "that he could not flatter himself with an
expectation of success more than to end his days with honour and a good
conscience, which obliged him to continue his endeavours, not despairing
that God would, in due time, avenge his own cause.
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