:

evils which may happen by your refusal to pass this bill; and by this means to remove (praised be God) I cannot say this accursed, (but I confess) this unfortunate thing, forth of the way towards that blessed agreement, which God, I trust, shall ever establish between you and your subjects. Sir, my consent shall more acquit you herein to God than all the world can do besides to a willing man there is no injury done; and as, by God's grace, I forgive all the world with a calmness and meekness of infinite contentment to my dislodging soul, so, Sir, to you I can give the life of this world with all the cheerfulness imaginable, in the just acknowledgment of your exceeding favours; and only beg that, in your goodness, you would vouchsafe to cast your gracious regard upon my poor son and his three sisters, less or more, and no otherwise than as their (in present) unfortunate father may hereafter appear more or less guilty of this death. God long preserve your majesty.

"Your majesty's most faithful and humble subject and servant,

"STRAFFORD."

Some writers are of opinion that, in writing this letter, Strafford was heroically sincere; that the prisoner was willing to throw off his afflicted mortal coil, and that his life should be a peace-offering: but we confess we cannot entertain this notion, but are rather inclined to regard the letter as having been written to work upon the feelings of the king, who might probably have been expected to use it as he had used the letter of Goodman (which had saved that priest's life), and without any intention or expectation on the part of Strafford that his life should be sacrificed by his master. One of the best of contemporary authorities we have to follow says, that the king sent Carleton to the prisoner to acquaint him with what he had done, and the motives of it, especially the earl's own consent to die; that Strafford then seriously asked whether his majesty had passed the bill or not,- as not believing, without some astonishment, that the king would have done it,"—and that, being again assured that the bill was really passed, he rose from his chair, lifted up his eyes to heaven, laid his hand upon his heart, and said, "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, for in them there is no salvation."*

Two days after the fatal Saturday, on Monday, the 10th of May, the commission empowering the Earl of Arundel (the lord privy seal) and two other lords to give the royal assent to the bill for the execution of the Earl of Strafford upon the Wednesday following passed the great seal; and the Commons were sent for to the Lords, to be present at the giving the royal assent to that bill, and to the bill for doing away with the prerogative of dissolving parliament. And on the same day Charles sent to inform both Houses that the Irish army, which had caused so great an alarm, should be instantly disbanded; in return for which gracious message the Commons assured Charles that they

Whitelock,

would make him as glorious a potentate and as rich a prince as' any of his predecessors, "his majesty continuing still to take the advice of his great council, the parliament, in the management of the great affairs of the kingdom." On the morrow, the 11th of May, only one day before that fixed for the execution, Charles sent a letter to the Lords by the hands of the young Prince of Wales. The royal breast must have been occupied by greater fears than ever-Charles must have been selfishly indifferent by this time to the fate of his satellite; for it is scarcely possible to conceive a more trembling and miserable petition for mercy, and the concluding words made the doom of death prominent, and, as it were, inevitable.

"My lords,-I did yesterday satisfy the justice of the kingdom by passing the bill of attainder against the Earl of Strafford; but, mercy being as inherent and inseparable to a king as justice, I desire at this time in some measure to show that likewise, by suffering that unfortunate man to fulfil the natural course of his life in a close imprisonment; yet so, if ever he make the least offer to escape, or offer directly or indirectly to meddle in any sort of public business, especially with me, either by message or letter, it shall cost him his life, without further process: this, if it may be done without the discontentment of my people, will be an unspeakable contentment to me; to which end, as in the first place, I by this letter do earnestly desire your approbation, and, to endear it more, have chosen him to carry it that of all your house is most dear to me; so I desire that, by a conference, you will endeavour to give the House of Commons contentment, assuring you that the exercise of mercy is no more pleasing to me than to see both houses of parliament consent for my sake that I should moderate the severity of the law in so important a case. I will not say that your complying with me in this my intended mercy shall make me more willing, but certainly 'twill make me more cheerful, in granting your just grievances. But, if no less than his life can satisfy my people, I must say fiat justitia. Thus, again, recommending the consideration of my intention to you, I rest,

Your unalterable and affectionate friend, "CHARLES R. 'Postscript.-If he must die, it were charity to reprieve him till Saturday."

By this strange postscript Charles indeed manifestly surrendered Strafford, and gave the lords cause to suspect that he was doing something for decency but nothing in earnest. The contemptible letter was twice read in the Upper House, and after "serious and sad consideration," twelve peers were sent to tell the King that neither of the two intentions expressed in the letter could, with duty in them, or without danger to himself, the queen, and all the young princes, possibly be advised. Without permitting the twelve noble messengers to use any more words, Charles said,

"What I intended by my letter was with an 'if" it might be done with contentment of my people. If that cannot be," he added, "I say again fiat justitia! My other intention, proceeding out of charity for a few days' respite, was, upon certain information that his estate was so distracted that it necessarily required some few days for settlement."

To this

the lords replied, that it was their purpose to be suitors to his majesty, that favour might be showed to Strafford's innocent children, and that if the prisoner had made any provision for them the same might hold. Then Charles turned away from the lords, who stayed him to offer into his hands the letter which he had just sent to them. "My lords," said Charles, "what I have written to you I shall be content it be registered by you in your house: n it you see my mind, I hope you will use it to iy honour." The next day was the fatal Wed nesday. During the preceding night, the last of his stormy career, Strafford received the visit of Archbishop Usher, whom he requested to go to his old friend and now fellow-prisoner Laud, and beg him to lend him his prayers that night, and give him his blessing when he should go abroad on the morrow. He tried hard to obtain a personal interview with the fallen "summus pontifex," but this was denied him by the unrelenting Lieutenant of the Tower. "Master lieutenant," said he, 66 you shall hear what passes betwixt us: this is not a time either for him to plot heresy or for me to plot treason." Balfour replied, that his orders were strict, and that the prisoner might petition parliament for that favour. "No," said Strafford, "I have gotten my dispatch from them, and will trouble them no more. I am now petitioning a higher court, where neither partiality can be expected, nor error feared." On the morrow morning, when he came forth to die, he said, as he drew near to that part of the Tower where the archbishop was confined, "Master lieutenant, though I do not see the archbishop, give me leave to do my last observance towards his rooms." But in the meantime Laud, advertised of his approach, came up to the window. Then the earl bowed himself to the ground and said, "My lord, your prayers and your blessing." The archbishop lifted up his hands and bestowed both, but overcome with grief he fell to the ground, and the procession moved onwards. But after he had proceeded a little farther, Strafford bent himself a second time, and said, "Farewell, my lord; God protect your innocence." As in other memorable cases, death was less dreadful when near than when at a distance. According to the laborious Rushworth, the clerk of the parliament, and one of the innumerable eye-witnesses, he marched towards the scaffold upon Tower Hill more like a general at the head of an army than like a condemned man. At the Tower gate the lieutenant desired him to take coach, lest the people should push in upon him and tear him to pieces. "No, master lieu

Almost immediately after the execution the Commons passed a bill relieving Strafford's issue from all consequences of the attainder.

tenant," said he, "I dare look death in the face, and I hope the people too. Have you a care that I do not escape, and I care not how I die, whether by the hand of the executioner or the madness and fury of the people: if that may give them better content, it is all one to me." He was attended upon the scaffold by Archbishop Usher, the Earl of Cleveland, and his brother Sir George Wentworth; and other friends were present to take their last leave. The multitude collected to see him die was estimated at 100,000 men, women, and children; but all preserved a respectful and awe-struck silence. He had prepared the heads of a speech, which he now delivered.* He said, that he was come to submit to the judgment passed against him; that he did submit with a quiet and contented mind, freely forgiving all the world. His conscience, he said, bore him witness that he was innocent, although it was his ill-hap to be misconstrued. He added, and the words, with the time, place, and occasion, carried a solemn weight with them like the voice of a holy oracle,-" One thing I desire to be heard in, and do hope that for Christian charity sake I shall be believed: I was so far from being against parliaments, that I did always think parliaments in England to be the happy constitution of the kingdom and nation, and the best means, under God, to make the king and his people happy." He then said a few affectionate words about his fourth wife and his children, took off his doublet, did up his hair with his own hands, put on a white cap and laid his head upon the block. The executioner severed his neck at one blow, and holding up the bleeding head towards the people, cried, "God save the king." The people scarcely believed what they saw; they shouted not, they gave way to no malignant or triumphant feelings; but in the evening they testified their joy and satisfaction by lighting bonfires in the streets.†

The advancing spirit of mildness and mercy, the dislike of blood and all capital punishments which is now entertained by all enlightened and thinking persons (our fathers were strangers to it-the feeling was hardly known, even among the best and wisest, two centuries ago) would of itself lead us to disapprove of the execution of Strafford, although we feel perfectly convinced that that proud, and daring, and unscrupulous minister, was a systematic and most dangerous enemy to the liberties of his country. This is proved by his correspondence, which has since been brought to light, and to which we have re

↑ Rushworth.-Nalson.-May.-Sir Philip Warwick says, "And to show how mad this whole people were, especially in and about this then bloody and brutish city (London), in the evening of the day wherein he was executed, the greatest demonstrations of joy that pos sibly could be expressed ran through the whole town and countries hereabout; and many that came up to town on purpose to see the execution, rode in triumph back, waving their hats and with all expressions of joy, through every town they went, crying, His head is off; his head is off!' and in many places committing insolencies upon, and breaking the windows of those persons who would not solemnize this festival with a bonfire; so ignorant and brutish is a multitude.".

The death of Strafford completed the panic among the old placemen, most of whom now abandoned office in the hope of escaping impeachment. St. John had already been made attorney-general, and one of his first offices as such had been to drive on the trial of the great earl. On the 17th of May, the Lord Cottington gave up his place as master of the wards, which was conferred upon the puritanic and patriotic Lord Saye. The Marquess of Hertford was made governor to the prince, the Earl of Essex lord chamberlain, and the Earl of Leicester, another nobleman of the popular party, was made lord lieutenant of Ireland. All these men were strong in the confidence of the House of Commons, but, from their first moment of entering upon office, they were intolerable to the king, who never trusted them, and who pursued so many by-paths with them that they ended (possibly they had begun) by never trusting him. It has been conjectured that a different line of conduct on the part of Charles, and an honest confidence between the king and these ministers, might yet have secured the country from revolution and war but it was idle to expect any thing of the kind from the confirmed character and habits of the wretched prince; and it may be at least doubted whether any concession or conciliation could stop the onward march of that revolution, which had, in fact, begun with the trial, or at latest with the bill of attainder against Strafford. The new ministry, however, gave a new spirit to the Upper House, and the Lords, who, for some time, had been as timid as the old placemen, boldly threw out two bills sent up to them by the Commons, one to exclude the bishops from sitting in parliament, the other about a new form of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. On the 22d of June the Commons presented to the king their grant of tonnage and poundage, which he now accepted as a gift from his people. Six subsidies had also been voted. Three other acts were likewise presented, one imposing a poll-tax for the defraying the charges of the armies, the second and third putting down for ever the High Commission Court and the detestable Star-chamber, which had, in fact, both fallen into decrepitude at the opening of the present parliament. the 2nd of July, Charles gave his assent to the poll-tax bill, probably hoping that it would disgust the people, and turn them against their new legislators or rulers; but he demurred upon the other two acts. The Commons voted that he should pass all three, or none at all; and Charles, alarmed at their tone, on the 5th of July passed the other two also. "Many of the courtiers," says May, "and the nearest servants about the king, were very sorry that his majesty, seeing that he passed those two bills so soon after, had not freely done it at the same time with the poll-money; because it might be thought an unwillingness in him, and that his heart (which was then feared) did not perfectly concur with his people's desires; whereby much of the thanks, which so great a grace, freely and forwardly expressed, might have deserved, did seem in

On

a manner lost." Charles, in passing the bills abolishing the two strongholds and laboratories of tyranny and oppression, alluded to the reports of discontent, and expressed his surprise that two things of so great importance should have been expected from him without an allowance of time to consider of them; and he reminded the Commons of the great things he had already done this parliament, as granting that the judges hereafter should hold their places during good behaviour; limiting the forest laws; taking away ship-money; establishing the subjects' property in tonnage and poundage; granting triennial parliaments, &c. The Commons replied to all this with compli ments, but they knew that all these concessions had been wrung from him against the very grain of his heart.

The important events which we have had to condense have carried us over some family incidents which were far from being of insignificant moment. In the autumn of 1638, the intriguing, turbulent, conscienceless Mary de Medicis, Queen Dowager of France, and mother to HenriettaMaria, arrived in England, and was conducted in great state through London. Cardinal Richelieu, after a hard contest, had driven her out of France with disgrace and in poverty. Her daughter, the Queen of Spain, could not, or would not, grant her an asylum: the Queen of England had more filial tenderness, or more power, and after long entreaties she prevailed upon Charles to receive and maintain her. The country, the religion, the manners of this royal refugee all rendered her obnoxious to the people. The sailors who brought her over called the equinoctial gales which raged during her passage queen-mother-weather;" and popular superstition connected the coming of the papist and idolatress with a pestilence that was then raging. Nor were these prejudices removed by the liberality of the king, who granted her an enormous pension, and a patent or monopoly upon leather.*

Whenever the popular excitement was great, Mary de Medicis and her train of priests came in for a large share of abuse. At the time when Charles passed the bill of attainder against Strafford her case was brought before the House of Commons, which was informed that she was terrified at the great crowds and tumults, and therefore desired a guard for her security. The Commons, saying that they were bound in honour not to suffer any violence to be done to her, referred the business to a committee to consider what was best to be done. Mr. Henry Martin' reported that the committee had agreed to provide for her safety by all good ways and means; being, however, of opinion that the best thing she could do was to be gone out of England, as the said means might possibly prove ineffectual for her protection, he moved that, therefore, the House would intreat the Lords to join with them in a petition to his majesty that the queen-mother might be moved to depart the kingdom, the rather for the quieting those jea

• Her allowance is stated to have been as high as 1001. per diem.

lousies in the hearts of his majesty's well affected subjects, occasioned by some ill instruments about the queen's person, by the flocking of priests and papists to her house, and by the use and practice of the idolatry of the mass. Charles, however, held out; but Mary de Medicis was made restless and wretched by constant alarms, and soon showed that she was more anxious to leave England than ever she had been to come to it. The only thing that was wanting was money for her journey, and the Commons gladly voted her 10,000l. out of the poll-tax. In the month of July she took her departure, to become again a homeless wanderer; but she did not wander far, dying at Cologne shortly after. The pompous Earl of Arundel, the premier peer, the first nobleman of England, disgusted with the abolition of his marshal's court, and discerning that the repose of his country was like to be disturbed, took the opportunity of getting himself appointed to escort the queen-mother on her journey; and he presently proceeded to Italy, where he forgot his native land and its troubles in the pursuit of arts and antiquities, and where, according to Clarendon, he died with the same doubtful character as to religion in which he had lived. To the honour of the English nobility his was almost a solitary case: the rest stayed to brave the tempest, to fight for their principles of loyalty or of patriotism.

Henrietta Maria would gladly have accompanied her expelled mother, for she, too, was irritated to madness by the abolition or restriction of so much of the royal prerogative; and it might be, as was strongly suspected, that she was also eager to go in quest of foreign aid to restore the absolute sovereignty. Knowing that to depart the land without their permission would be dangerous or impracticable, she desired the House of Commons to allow her to go to Spa for the recovery of her health, which she alleged was much impaired "by some discontents of mind, and false rumours and libels spread concerning her." The Commons desired a conference with the Lords, who agreed with them to desire his majesty to persuade her to put off that journey abroad. A committee of both Houses waited upon Charles in the Banquetting House, and presented their considerations against her majesty's going. These considerations were founded upon "the great activity observed among English papists in foreign countries; on the great quantity of treasure in jewels, plate, and ready money packed up to be conveyed away by the queen; on the dishonour to the nation, if her majesty should, at this unseasonable time, go out of the kingdom upon any grief or discontent received there," &c. Charles pretended to be well satis

Rushworth.

The Commons said, "Because we understand, by Sir Theodore Mayern, that the chief cause of her majesty's sickness and distemper proceeds from the discontent of her mind, the House of Commons hath thought good to declare that, if anything within the power of parliament may give her majesty contentment, they are so tender of her health, both in due respect of his most excellent majesty and herself, that they will be ready to further her satisfaction in all things. so far as may stand with the public good, to which they are obliged." -Rushworth,

fied with these considerations, and the queen soon after sent a message to both Houses to thank them for their care of her health, which alone could have made her resolve upon this journey; to assure them that she would serve the king and kingdom at the hazard of her life; and to express a hope that they believed her to have so much interest in the good of this kingdom, that she could never wish anything to the prejudice of it. And, for the present, no more was said about her majesty's journey.

On the 4th of August, Serjeant Wild, in the name of the Commons of England, presented at the bar of the Upper House charges of impeachment against thirteen bishops* who had been most active in pursuing Laud's system, and who were especially charged with contriving, making, and promulgating, in the late convocation, several constitutions and canons ecclesiastical, contrary to the king's prerogative, the laws of the realm, the rights of parliament, and the properties and liberties of the people. By this measure, though the bill for depriving prelates of their seats had been lost, thirteen bishops were kept away from parliament.

The Scottish Covenanters, on the whole, had had a very comfortable time of it in the north of England: it had been for the interest of the Commons to keep them well supplied with money, and to administer to their comforts in other respects. The military duty was light, allowing an abundance of time for preaching and praying; and the English people had before, or they then contracted, an affection for the Calvinistic doctrine, which went far to subdue their old antipathies against the Scots. As long as the royal army was kept on foot at York, the parliament considered it unsafe to permit the departure of Leslie's army; and it was very easy for them to prolong the negotiations but at length, in the beginning of August, the treaty of pacification was concludedCharles agreeing, not merely to disband his army at York, but also to withdraw the strong garrisons which he had thrown into Berwick and Carlisle. He also gave an amnesty to the Scotch, and pledged himself in the most solemn manner to injure or molest no man for what was past. Scots obtained the security of the English parliament for payment of a balance of 220,000l. of the "brotherly assistance," and "with store of English money and spoils, and the best entertainment, they left their warm and plentiful quarters" -not, however, until Leslie had seen that Charles's army was really disbanding.† During the nego

The

They were Winchester, Coventry, Gloucester, Exeter, St. Asaph, Bath and Wells, Hereford, Ely, Bangor, Bristol, Rochester, Peterborough, and Llandaff; and the name of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, was put at the end of the list. The Commons did not forget to take notice of their bribes to the king. They said, in their impeachment, "And, to add more weight and efficacy to this their monstrous design, they did, at the same synod, under a specious and fair title, grant a benevolence or contribution to his majesty, to be paid by the clergy of that province, contrary to law."

On the conclusion of the treaty, the Earl of Bristol said in the Lords, "that he had something to deliver concerning the treaty of Ripon, of the reasons which moved those commissioners to agree unto it; and, though it might not be accounted so full of glory and