who was King in possession, discontentedly endured the new
government.

It may be doubted whether that government was not, during the
first months of its existence, in more danger from the affection
of the Whigs than from the disaffection of the Tories. Enmity can
hardly be more annoying than querulous, jealous, exacting
fondness; and such was the fondness which the Whigs felt for the
Sovereign of their choice. They were loud in his praise. They
were ready to support him with purse and sword against foreign
and domestic foes. But their attachment to him was of a peculiar
kind. Loyalty such as had animated the gallant gentlemen who
fought for Charles the First, loyalty such as had rescued Charles
the Second from the fearful dangers and difficulties caused by
twenty years of maladministration, was not a sentiment to which
the doctrines of Milton and Sidney were favourable; nor was it a
sentiment which a prince, just raised to power by a rebellion,
could hope to inspire. The Whig theory of government is that
kings exist for the people, and not the people for the kings;
that the right of a king is divine in no other sense than that in
which the right of a member of parliament, of a judge, of a
juryman, of a mayor, of a headborough, is divine; that, while the
chief magistrate governs according to law, he ought to be obeyed
and reverenced; that, when he violates the law, he ought to be
withstood; and that, when he violates the law grossly,
systematically and pertinaciously, he ought to be deposed. On the
truth of these principles depended the justice of William's title
to the throne. It is obvious that the relation between subjects
who held these principles, and a ruler whose accession had been
the triumph of these principles, must have been altogether