Memorials of old north Wales . oems. Puritanism was intensely unpopular in acountry where people spent the Sabbath in athletic exer-cise. On the other hand, Welsh loyalty never rose tothe passionate heights of the Highlanders* enthusiasm for Prince Charlie, or the Breton passion for the Church andthe Son of St. Louis. The collapse of the Royalist partyin Wales at the close of the first Civil War is the common-place debacle of a cause for which men have no stomachto fight against hopeless odds. It is unredeemed by thepoetry that encircles the last stand of a few faithful untodeath. Of this epoc
Memorials of old north Wales . oems. Puritanism was intensely unpopular in acountry where people spent the Sabbath in athletic exer-cise. On the other hand, Welsh loyalty never rose tothe passionate heights of the Highlanders* enthusiasm for Prince Charlie, or the Breton passion for the Church andthe Son of St. Louis. The collapse of the Royalist partyin Wales at the close of the first Civil War is the common-place debacle of a cause for which men have no stomachto fight against hopeless odds. It is unredeemed by thepoetry that encircles the last stand of a few faithful untodeath. Of this epoch in Wales, John Williams, Bishop ofLincoln and Archbishop of York,^ was a typical man,and he brought this spirit into English politics. UnlikeCromwell or Laud, he stood for no principle. He smiledalike at the dreams of the enthusiasts of the HighChurch and the Puritan school, and he smiled at them in ^ His full-length portrait, here reproduced, was painted in 1625 by GilbertJackson ; it is at St. Johns College, Cambridge. 208. Archblshoi Williams. Archbishop Williams 209 a disagreeable way. He has not therefore left a namethat will appeal to the zealots of any political or religiousparty. It is not, however, only because he stood inopposition to the fiery idealists of his own day thatWilliams has fared badly in the judgment of , who was a man of moderate views, and who inone great crisis acted as Williams acted, has been recog-nised by the greatest critic of the nineteenth century asthe true martyr of the Civil War, Falkland, however, im-pressed all who met him by his personal charm and hisaesthetic piety. Williams, like Falkland, was a learnedman. He was also in his younger days a successfulcourtier. Yet by his passion and levity, as Clarendonsays, he gave great advantages to those who did notlove him, and, what is worse, his honour was not all this has been said, the fact remains that Williamswas a great practical politician, who, if his lot
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