father made concessions, and he was beheaded."58 If it were true
that concession had been fatal to Charles the First, a man of
sense would have known that a single experiment is not sufficient
to establish a general rule even in sciences much less
complicated than the science of government; that, since the
beginning of the world, no two political experiments were ever
made of which all the conditions were exactly alike; and that the
only way to learn civil prudence from history is to examine and
compare an immense number of cases. But, if the single instance
on which the King relied proved anything, it proved that he was
in the wrong. There can be little doubt that, if Charles had
frankly made to the Short Parliament, which met in the spring of
1640, but one half of the concessions which he made, a few months
later, to the Long Parliament, he would have lived and died a
powerful King. On the other hand, there can be no doubt whatever
that, if he had refused to make any concession to the Long
Parliament, and had resorted to arms in defence of the ship money
and of the Star Chamber, he would have seen, in the hostile
ranks, Hyde and Falkland side by side with Hollis and Hampden.
But, in truth, he would not have been able to resort to arms; for
nor twenty Cavaliers would have joined his standard. It was to
his large concessions alone that he owed the support of that
great body of noblemen and gentlemen who fought so long and so
gallantly in his cause. But it would have been useless to
represent these things to James.

Another fatal delusion had taken possession of his mind, and was
never dispelled till it had ruined him. He firmly believed that,
do what he might, the members of the Church of England would act
up to their principles. It had, he knew, been proclaimed from ten