The first scene puts the great quarrel forward as the ground on which the drama is to be wrought.

An attempt is made to represent the various elements of the popular storm in the characters of Pym, Hampden, the younger Vane and others, and especially in the relations between Pym and Strafford, who are set over, one against the other, with some literary power.

But the lines on which the action is wrought are not simple.

No audience could follow the elaborate network of intrigue which, in Browning's effort to represent too much of the history, he has made so confused.

Strong characterisation perishes in this effort to write a history rather than a drama.