was, had it not been for the diversion effected in his favour by the
landing of the Scandinavian pretender in the North, and the failure of
provisions in Harold's Channel fleet, which compelled it to put into
port. Louis of France was called in as a deliverer by the barons who
were in arms against the tyranny of John; and it is not necessary to
discuss the Tory description of the coming of William of Orange as a
conquest of England by the Dutch. Bonaparte threatened invasion, but
unhappily was unable to invade: unhappily we say, because if he had
landed in England he would assuredly have there met his doom; the
Russian campaign would have been antedated with a more complete result,
and all the after-pages in the history of the Arch-Brigand would have
been torn from the book of fate. England is indebted for her political
liberties in great measure to the Teutonic character, but she is also in
no small measure indebted to this immunity from invasion which has
brought with it a comparative immunity from standing armies. In the
Middle Ages the question between absolutism and that baronial liberty
which was the germ and precursor of the popular liberty of after-times
turned in great measure upon the relative strength of the national
militia and of the bands of mercenaries kept in pay by overreaching
kings. The bands of mercenaries brought over by John proved too strong
for the patriot barons, and would have annulled the Great Charter, had
not national liberty found a timely and powerful, though sinister,
auxiliary in the ambition of the French. Prince Charles I. had no
standing army, the troops taken into pay for the wars with Spain and
France had been disbanded before the outbreak of the Revolution; and on
that occasion the nation was able to overthrow the tyranny without
looking abroad for assistance. But Charles II. had learned wisdom from
his father's fate; he kept up a small standing army; and the Whigs,
though at the crisis of the Exclusion Bill they laid their hands upon
their swords, never ventured to draw them, but allowed themselves to be