22 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, fessed derogation of the constitutional principle L applied as a rule to State counsels, was allowed to advise the king behind the backs of his Min- isters, and from the king — the actual personal king — had always to take his orders. Whether owing its conception directly to a foreign de- signer, or only copied by natives from some foreign model, this establishment in its structure and attitude was so military that it seemed hardly English — seemed indeed a stiff plant from Ber- lin grafted into the life of free Westminster, As though for a civil war already begun, the field -marshal or general commanding in chief was supported by a well-chosen Staff, with an organisation which he always maintained upon the footing of a Headquarters Camp, having under him his adjutant - general, his quarter- master-general, his military secretary, his host of efficient though subordinate officers, his aides- de-camp personally attending him, his cavalry orderlies waiting to fly off at a word with de- spatches ; (^) and — whether importing a vow to
- have it out, some day or other, with the damn-
' able Parliamentarians,' or for some other less warlike purpose concealed from enquiring civil- ians — there sat all day in alcoves, open only on the side of the street, two ponderous troopers on horseback — riding each about twenty-two stone — who eternally, steadily, cheerfully looked across the gay road at Whitehall towards the site of the historic scaffold. The power of the ' personal ' king thus wielded by him at the Horse Guards was not
