No conscience molten into gold,
Nor forged accusers bought and sold,
No cause deferred, nor vain spent journey,
For there Christ is the King's Attorney. …
—Sir Walter Raleigh,
A Passionate Man's Pilgrimage
In English history the seventeenth century is the locus classicus of the struggle between the prerogatives of the king and the rights of Parliament. And the student, looking beyond James II and Charles I, tends to see the Revolution of 1688 and the Civil War of the 1640's latent in the first two decades of the century. Indeed, the struggle between James I and Parliament in these years has more than once been stated in moral terms: the supporters of prerogative were wrong, Parliament and the common law were right. More than one student has regarded the seventeenth century as Tanner did: a drama, the prologue of which is the reign of James I, and the final act the Revolution of 1688. The suggestiveness of this analogy obscures the real nature of the struggle; one looks for events on the stage and neglects the world outside it.