And we may thus explain many things which appear rather puzzling in our history, notably the victory of Cromwell not only over the English Royalists but over the Scotch Covenanters.

It was the victory of that more happy-go-lucky sort of Protestantism, which had in it much of aristocracy but much also of liberty, over that logical ambition of the Kirk which would have made Protestantism, if possible, as constructive as Catholicism had been.

It might be called the victory of Individualist Puritanism over Socialist Puritanism.

It was what Milton meant when he said that the new presbyter was an exaggeration of the old priest; it was his _office_ that acted, and acted very harshly.
The enemies of the Presbyterians were not without a meaning when they called themselves Independents.

To this day no one can understand Scotland who does not realise that it retains much of its mediaeval sympathy with France, the French equality, the French pronunciation of Latin, and, strange as it may sound, is in nothing so French as in its Presbyterianism.
In this loose and negative sense only it may be said that the great modern mistakes of England can be traced to Luther.