Charles I of England

“Distrust was the main obstacle to agreement between king and parliament, but it might not have been an insurmountable obstacle without the conjuncture of other factors, which involved the lower classes in the crisis and drove a deeper wedge into the ruling class. These other factors were the fear of papists, the sharp decline of trade and industry, and an upsurge of class-feeling and class-hostility.”

“From that day (4 January 1642) whatever of confidence and loyal attachment had survived the misrule of 17 years was, in the great body of the people,extinguished for ever.”

“Cruel necessity.”

“I tell you we will cut off his head with the crown upon it.”

“By the end of 1648 it was all over. Cromwell was Dictator. The Royalists were crushed; Parliament was a tool; the Constitution was a figment; the Scots were rebuffed, the Welsh back in their mountains; the Fleet was reorganized, London overawed. King Charles, at Carisbrooke Castle, where the donkey treads the water wheel, was left to pay the bill. It was mortal.”

“Charles did not wish to moderate between competing views; he expected compliance and he was perfectly capable of being disingenuous or duplicitous in order to win it.”

“If Presbyterianism, in such a supreme form, is truly an institution of Christ, it certainly stands apart from all others. It would be the first and only part of Christianity that needed to be established and spread with so much Christian bloodshed—a bloodshed that flows in a direction completely opposite to the early founders of Christianity and Episcopacy, who patiently sacrificed their own lives instead of violently taking others'. There seems to be too much human ambition in it to truly reflect Christ's teachings.”

“The respect and obedience that Christ and his Apostles showed to the rulers of the states they lived in is clearly shown in the Gospel. However, the idea that Christ or his Apostles ever commanded the establishment of an equal-ranking group of presbyters, in the way the Scots are trying to do, doesn't seem very debatable to me.”

“I confess that, speaking as a mere soldier or statesman, there is no probability of my ruin; yet, as a Christian, I must tell you that God will not suffer rebels and traitors to prosper, nor this cause be overthrown, and whatever personal punishment it shall please hi to inflict on me, must not make me repine, much less give over this quarrel... Indeed, I cannot flatter myself with the expectation of good success more than this, to end my days with honour and a good conscience.”