The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: being burned by the University of Oxford, in company with those of
Milton, Languet, and others, as "pernicious books, and damnable
doctrines, destructive to the sacred persons of Princes, their state
and government, and of all human society." And thus the seed which
Buchanan had sown, and Milton had watered--for the allegation that
Milton borrowed from Buchanan is probably true, and equally
honourable to both--lay trampled into the earth, and seemingly
lifeless, till it tillered out, and blossomed, and bore fruit to a
good purpose, in the Revolution of 1688.
To Buchanan's clear head and stout heart, Scotland owes, as England
owes likewise, much of her modern liberty. But Scotland's debt to
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