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indeed, have gone "thorough" — who would scarcely have hesitated at any state crime. His opinions delivered in council were tolerably well known, but he maintained that the worst of these did not amount to treason. "Opinions," said he, "may make an heretic, but that they made a traitor, I have never heard till now."

On the 10th of April, Pym, Strafford's evil genius, intimated to the commons that he had to communicate a matter of the last importance. Instantly an order was given that the members should remain in their places and the doors be locked; and then Pym and Harry Vane the younger were called upon to declare what they knew of the matters contained in the 23d article of the impeachment. Pym produced and read "a copy of notes taken at a junto of the privy council for the Scots affairs, about the 5th of May last." These notes had been taken by the older Vane, one of the secretaries of state; but there are different accounts of the way in which his son got possession of them. Whitelock, who was actively engaged on the trial, says that Secretary Vane, being out of town, sent his son the key of his study, that he might look into his cabinet for some papers which the secretary wanted; that the son, in looking over many papers, lighted upon these notes, which being so decisive against Strafford and so important to the public, he held himself bound in duty and conscience to discover them; and that thereupon he showed them to Pym. Others assert that the papers were purposely put in the way of his son by the elder Vane because he hated Strafford; while others again affirm, that the son purloined them, to the sore displeasure of his father. The weightiest part of these private notes of the council was this "Your majesty," Strafford was made to say, "having tried all ways, and being refused, shall be acquitted before God and man, You are absolved and loosed from all rule of government, and free to do what power will admit: and you have an army in Ireland that you may employ to reduce this kingdom to obedience; for I am confident the Scots cannot hold out five months."

After Strafford had made his reply to this additional proof, Arundel, the lord-steward, told him that if he had anything further to say in his defence he should proceed, because the court intended to prepare for their speedy judgment. The prisoner, though suffering greatly in body as well as mind (for his old enemies, the gout and stone, had revisited him in the Tower), made a summary of the several parts of his former defence, and concluded with very eloquent and pathetic words.' "Certainly," adds Whitelock,

The bitter Baillie says, "At the end he made such a pathetic oration for half an hour as ever comedian did on the stage. The matter and expression was exceedingly brave. Doubtless, if he

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never any man acted such a part on such a theatre with more wisdom, constancy, and eloquence; with greater reason, judgment, and temper; and with a better grace in all his words and gestures." He moved many men to pity: but Pym was pitiless; he considered the life of the great criminal, in any circumstances, as dangerous to the liberties of his country; and he and Glynne learnedly aggravated his offences, and maintained that they should be punished as treason. On the 17th of April the point of law was argued for the earl, for Strafford was allowed counsel, which had not always been the case in prosecutions for high treason. But by this time the commons had changed their tack, fearing the increasing good feeling of the peers towards the prisoner, and the royal prerogative of pardoning him after sentence. They had resolved to proceed with a bill of attainder against Strafford for endeavouring to subvert the liberties of his country. This bill encountered a much stronger opposition in the commons than had been expected. Upon the 19th of April, upon the motion for the engrossment of the bill, there was a sharp debate; the eloquent Lord Digby, hitherto one of the most popular members, speaking vehemently against it. His lordship admitted that Thomas, Earl of Strafford, was a name of hatred in the present age by his practices, and fit to be made a terror to future ages by his punishment. "I believe him," said he, "still that grand apostate to the commonwealth, who must not expect to be pardoned in this world till he be despatched to the other." But then he objected to the validity of the evidence, which he thought had altogether failed to establish treason as the law then stood. "God keep me," said his lordship, "from giving judgment of death on any man, and of ruin to his innocent posterity, upon a law made à posteriori. . . . To condemn my Lord of Strafford judicially as for treason, my conscience is not assured that the matter will bear it: and as to doing it by the legislative power, my reason cannot agree to that; since I am persuaded neither the lords nor the king will pass the bill, and consequently that our passing it will be a cause of great divisions and combustions in the state. And therefore my humble advice is, that, laying aside this bill of attainder, we may think of another, saving only life, such as may secure the state from my Lord of Strafford, without endangering it as much by division concerning his had grace and civil goodness, he is a most eloquent man. One passage is most spoken of his breaking off, in weeping and silence, when he spoke of his first wife. Some took it for a true

defect in his memory, others for a notable part of his rhetoric: some, that true grief and remorse at that remembrance had stopped his mouth: for they say that his first lady being with child, and finding one of his mistress's letters, brought it to him, and chiding him therefore, he struck her on the breast, whereof she shortly died."

punishment as he hath endangered it by his prac- | ford, who offered him £22,000, and (it is said) a tices." matrimonial alliance.

After the utter failure of these, and of other and far more desperate schemes, Charles resolved to try whether he could not prevail over the commons in an audience; and on the 1st of May he called both Houses of Parliament before him, and passionately desired of them not to proceed severely against the earl. He told them that originally he had not had any intention of speaking in this business, but now it had come to pass, through their proceeding by attainder, that he, of necessity, must have part in the judgment; he told them that they all knew he had been present at the hearing of the trial, from the one end to the other, and so was conversant with all their proceedings that way, and the nature of their evidence; that in his conscience he could not condemn him of high treason. He left it to their lordships (he never mentioned the commons in this address) to find some way or other to bring

selves and the kingdom safe; and he proposed that Strafford should be punished as for misdemeanours and not treason.2

In law, in reason, in humanity, Digby's speech was conclusive: but others saw no security to the state except in the block; and the violent passions of some within the house, stimulated and encouraged to action by the still more violent passions of many without, opposed themselves to his lordship, who, moreover, was now suspected, and upon very good grounds, of being won over to the court through the fascinations of the queen. On the 21st of April the bill of attainder was passed in the commons by an immense majority,' and sent up in the afternoon to the lords. The peers showed no great haste in despatching the bill. To quicken them, mobs gathered round the parliament house, crying for Strafford's blood; and a petition to the same effect, and signed by many thousands, was presented by the city of London. The commons sent up Mr. Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, to acquaint their lordships that they had heard that the Earl of Straf-him out of this great strait, and yet keep themford was designing to escape; and to desire that he might be made a close prisoner, and the guards strengthened. It is indeed quite certain that several attempts were made to release the prisoner, On their return to their own house, the comand that schemes were entertained, which, if mons testified their discontent at the king's interthey had succeeded, would have sent the leaders ference, and his invasion of their privileges. The of the commons to take his place in the Tower. following day was a Sunday, which gave the Charles had hastened to assure Strafford that, Puritan preachers the opportunity of inflaming though he might be forced to make some sacri- the popular mind, by preaching the necessity of fices to the violence of the times, he would never justice upon great delinquents, and proving by consent that so faithful a servant should suffer Scripture texts that Heaven would be highly in life, fortune, or honours. The king entertained gratified by a bloody sacrifice. Their discourses a plan, which seemed feasible: one hundred trusty produced the desired effect: on the following soldiers were to be suddenly introduced into the morning, a fierce rabble of about 6000 issued Tower; and these men, it was calculated, would from the city, and thronged down to Westminster give him the entire command of that fortress. and the Houses of Parliament, with clubs and Another plan was to remove Strafford from the staves, crying out for justice against the Earl of Tower, under the pretext of conveying him to Strafford. At the same time there was almost another prison, and to rescue him on the journey. as great a ferment within the commons' house, But there was one calculation in which the de- where Pym and his friends were imparting invisers of these various designs were in fault. Bal-formation about some practices in the north "to four, the lieutenant of the Tower, without whom distract the English army, and to debauch them The commons soon nothing could be done, was proof to bribes and against the parliament." royal promises: he was attached to the popular voted that it was necessary to close the sea-ports, cause--perhaps intimidated by the formidable and to desire his majesty to command that no aspect of the city of London, and by the prospect person attending upon himself, the queen, or of danger to himself; he refused to obey the royal prince, should depart without leave of his mawarrant, and turned scornfully away from Straf-jesty, granted upon the humble advice of his par

Only fifty-four, or, as Whitelock says, fifty-nine members of the lower house voted against the bill; and on the following

morning the names of these gentlemen were placarded in the streets as Straffordians, who, to save a traitor, were willing to betray their country. Nalson says that exceptions were taken

in the house at Digby's eloquent speech upon the Friday following, when his lordship explained; that for the present there was nothing done, though afterwards the sleeping revenge roused itself, and upon the 15th of July the speech, by order of

the house, was burned by the common hangman-An Impartial Collection of the Great Affairs of State, &c.

liament; and, after further debate, they resolved that a "solemn protestation" should be taken by the whole house, promising, vowing, and protesting, in the presence of God, to maintain, with their life, power, and estates, the true reformed Protestant religion against all Popery and Popish innovation; to maintain and defend his majesty's royal person and estate, as also the power and

2 Rushworth.

Men's minds were now so over-excited by constant talk and rumours of desperate plots, that the slightest circumstance sufficed to create peri

privilege of parliaments, the lawful rights and | Soon after, the Protestation was tendered to the liberties of the subject, &c. Mr. Maynard read, whole kingdom, as the Covenant had been in and probably composed this bond, which, though Scotland, with the same intimation, that whosoless emphatic, and far shorter, was an evident ever refused it should be set down as an enemy imitation of the Scottish Covenant. It was in- to his country's liberties and religion. stantly subscribed by the speaker, and by every member present.' Forthwith they despatched a message to the lords, to acquaint them with their alarms, arising out of the secret practices to dis-lous alarm. On the 5th of May, as Sir Walter content the army, &c., and to request that a select committee might be appointed to take examinations upon oath, concerning desperate plots and designs. And at the same time the commons agreed upon a letter to the army in the north, to assure them that they should have money, and that the house could not doubt of their affections to the parliament, notwithstanding the efforts made to corrupt them. Nor did they stop here: to provide against foreign invasion, they ordered that the forces in Wiltshire and Hampshire should be drawn towards Portsmouth, and the forces in Kent and Sussex concentrated at Dover; and they declared that any man advising or assisting the introduction of any foreign force should be reputed a public enemy to the king and kingdom. These resolutions were sent up to the lords in the afternoon, together with the Protestation, which the commons desired might also be taken by every member of their lordships' house. On the morrow, the 4th of May, the lords desired a conference with the commons; and when the two houses met, the lord privy-seal stated that his majesty had. taken notice how the people assembled in such unusual numbers (while he was speaking the houses were surrounded by another mob from the city), that the council and peace of the kingdom might be thereby interrupted, and, therefore, as a king that loved peace, and made it his care that all proceedings in parliament might be free, his majesty desired that these interruptions might be removed, and wished both houses to devise how this might be done. The lords further declared, at this conference, that they were drawing to a conclusion of the bill of attainder, but that they were so encompassed with multitudes of people, that their lordships might be conceived not to be free, unless those multitudes were sent to their homes. This was soon done; for the lords having agreed to and taken the Protestation, Dr. Burgess, a popular preacher, went out and addressed the mob. The doctor acquainted them with the Protestation, read that bond to them, and besought them in the name of the parliament to retire quietly to their houses; and they all departed forthwith. It was a full house, wanting only a very few members; 415 took the Protestation. Rushworth gives the list. We know not why many historians state the number at 300.

2 Among these resolutions was one, "that strict inquiry be made what Papists, priests, and Jesuits be now about town

Earl was making a report to the house of some fabulous plot to blow them all up after the fashion of Guido Fawkes, the breaking or cracking of a plank under the weight of two corpulent members caused a terrible excitement, and the march of civic troops to the house. The citizens collected in immense numbers; one regiment of the train-bands armed upon beat of drum, and they all proceeded together towards Westminster to secure the parliament; but, finding there was no cause, they returned again. It may possibly be that some men looked upon this false alarm as a good experiment on the devotion of the citizens to the parliament; and the result was certainly well calculated to warn the king. On the following day the house was informed that six or eight dangerous conspirators-among whom were Henry Jermyn (the queen's favourite) and Henry Percy, both members of the House of Commons-had fled, and that the queen was preparing to go after them. On Friday, the 7th of May, the lords passed the bill abrogating the king's prerogative to dissolve parliament, and also the bill of attainder against Strafford. Both were passed in a thin house--for the Catholic peers would not take the Protestation, and kept away, and the friends of Strafford, it is said, were afraid of the mob. Those present voted, that the 15th and 19th articles had been fully proved, and that Strafford, as therein charged, had levied money in Ireland by force, in a warlike manner; and had forcibly imposed an unlawful oath upon the subjects in Ireland. They consulted the judges, and the judges unanimously declared that these offences amounted to treason! The bill was passed in the lords by a majority of twenty-six to nineteen. On the morrow, the 8th of May, the commons requested the lords to join with them to move his majesty for his consent to the bill of attainder, as they conceived that the peace of the kingdom depended upon the immediate execution of that bill; and the upper house agreed to their request, and sent a certain number of peers to wait upon his majesty. Charles was now without hope and without help. His own feeling, his pride, his honour, suggested that he ought to risk any extremity rather than seal Strafford's doom; but he had not moral courage for this course.

The prisoner in the Tower held

3 Whitelock.

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 a similar 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."

his life by a thread. But still, to do something | soner was willing to throw off his afflicted mortal for his servant, or to salve over his own conscience, Charles, on the morrow-it was a Sunday -summoned his privy council together at Whitehall, called in some of the judges and bishops, propounded several scruples, imparted his doubts and misgivings, and asked their opinions. Honest, plain-spoken Juxon, Bishop of London, boldly advised him not to consent to the shedding of the blood of a man whom in his heart he believed to be innocent. Williams, the old Bishop of Lincoln, and now about to be Archbishop of York,' was of a very different opinion. He told Charles "that there was a private and a public conscience; that his public conscience as a king might not only dispense with, but oblige him to do that which was against his private conscience as a man; and that the question was, not whether he should save the Earl of Strafford, but whether he should perish with him; that the conscience of a king to preserve his kingdom, the conscience of a husband to preserve his wife, the conscience of a father to preserve his children (all which were now in danger), weighed down abundantly all the considerations the conscience of a master or a friend could suggest to him, for the preservation of a friend or servant; and by such unprelatical, ignominious arguments, in plain terms, advised him, even for conscience' sake, to pass that act." Three "others of the same function, for whose learning and sincerity the king and the world had greater reverence"-Usher, Primate of Armagh, Moreton, Bishop of Durham, and another bishop, advised Charles to guide his conscience by the opinion of his judges. The judges, it is said, refused to give any reasons for their opinion, and merely stated that the case of Strafford, as put to them by the lords, was treason. The majority of the council pressed upon him the votes of both houses of parliament and the imminent danger of a refusal; and, late on Sunday evening, Charles reluctantly subscribed a commission to give his assent to the bill. According to one account, he shed tears; according to another, he exclaimed that the condition of the doomed Strafford was happier than his own. On the preceding Tuesday the prisoner had addressed a remarkable and a very touching let-mercy, and the concluding words made the doom ter to the king. He bemoaned the fate of his numerous progeny who must be beggared by his attainder; he spoke of the king's conscience, but he declared that he was quite ready to die in order to establish a "blessed agreement" between his majesty and his subjects; nay, he even requested the king to pass the bill of attainder. Some writers are of opinion that, in penning this letter, Strafford was heroically sincere; that the pri1 Williams was promoted to York on the 4th of December of

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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 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 would make him as glorious a potentate and as rich a prince as any of his predecessors. 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; for it is scarcely possible to conceive a more trembling and miserable petition for

of death prominent, and, as it were, inevitable. They were these-"But if no less than his life can satisfy my people, I must say 'fiat justitia.'

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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 letter was twice read in the upper house, and after “serious

3 Whitelock.

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

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 by you in your house: in it you see my mind;

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BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE TOWER OF LONDON.-From a Drawing made between 1681 and 1689 by order of Lord Dartmouth, Governor-General of the Ordnance.-From the Vetusta Monumenta.

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I hope you will use it to my honour." The next the morrow morning, when he came forth to die, day was the fatal Wednesday. During the preced- he said, as he drew near to that part of the Tower ing night, the last of his stormy career, Strafford where the archbishop was confined, "Master Lieureceived the visit of Archbishop Usher, whom tenant, though I do not see the archbishop, give he requested to go to his old friend and fellow- me leave to do my last observance towards his prisoner Laud, and beg him to lend him his 'Almost immediately after the execution, the commons passed prayers that night, and give him his blessing a bill relieving Strafford's issue from all consequences of the atwhen he should go abroad on the morrow.

On tainder.

!

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