On the well-trodden ground of the progress of the war, it is unnecessary
for our purposes to dwell. The issues involved were truly tremendous.
The evolution of the English Constitution had left it undecided to whom
the supreme power in the nation did rightfully accrue: and this was,
perhaps, the most practical question at issue.[29:1] As between
Parliament and King, the question was, whether the supreme power was to
continue to be wielded by a king whose temporal jurisdiction was to be
limited only by ancient laws interpreted by judges of his own creation
and removable at his pleasure, or by the representatives of the nation
in Parliament assembled? It was left to the Model Army to remind the
members of the Long Parliament that their power, as that of "all future
representatives of this nation, is inferior only to theirs who choose
them."[29:2] However, to make both King and Church responsible to
Parliament was, in truth, the one common aim of the whole Parliamentary
party; and, as Gardiner well points out,[29:3] "every year which passed
after the Restoration made it more evident that, for the time at least,
the most substantial gains of the long conflict had fallen to those who
had concentrated their efforts on this object."

Keeping in view the reforms secured during the first session of the Long
Parliament, it may fairly be urged that everything necessary to this end
had been gained prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, everything, of
course, save the control of the sword; and this, if the King could have
been trusted, was not immediately urgent, and would necessarily have
followed the control of the purse. "If the King could have been
trusted!" In these words the key to the whole situation is to be found.
The Parliamentary leaders could not, did not, dared not, trust the
King: hence the power of the sword had to be wrested from his grasp. It
was this that made the Civil War inevitable. It was this that rendered
constitutional government, government by discussion, government by