THE DEATH OF STRAFFORD

DURING these perplexities, the Earl of Strafford, taking notice of the straits the king was in, the rage of the people still increasing (from whence he might expect a certain outrage and ruin), how constant soever the king continued to him; and, it may be, knowing of an undertaking (for such an undertaking there was) by a great person, who had then a command in the Tower, "that if the king refused to pass the bill, to free the kingdom from the hazard it seemed to be in, he would cause his head to be stricken off in the Tower,") writ a most pathetical letter to the king, full of acknowledgment of his favours; but lively presenting "the dangers, which threatened himself and his posterity, by his obstinacy in those favours;" and therefore by many arguments conjuring him "no longer to defer his assent to the bill, that so his death might free the kingdom from the many troubles it apprehended."

The delivery of this letter being quickly known, new arguments. were applied: "that this free consent of his own clearly absolved the king from any scruple that could remain with him ;" and so in the end they extorted from him, to sign a commission to some lords to pass the bill: which was as valid as if he had signed it himself; though they comforted him even with that circumstance, "that his own hand was not in it."

It may easily be said, that the freedom of the parliament, and his own negative voice, being thus barbarously invaded, if his majesty had, instead of passing that act, come to the house and dissolved the parliament; or if he had withdrawn himself from that seditious city, and put himself in the head of his own army; much of the mischief, which hath since happened, would have been prevented. But whoever truly considers the state of affairs at that time; the prevalency of that faction in both houses; the rage and fury of the people; the use that was made by the schismatical preachers (by whom all the orthodox were

silenced) of the late protestation in their pulpits; the fears and jealousies they had infused into the minds of many sober men, upon the discourse of the late plot; the constitution of the council-table, that there was not an honest man durst speak his conscience to the king, for fear of his ruin; and that those, whom he thought most true to him, betrayed him every hour, insomuch as his whispers in his bedchamber were instantly conveyed to those against whom those whispers were; so that he had very few men to whom he could breathe his conscience and complaint, that were not suborned against him, or averse to his opinions that on the other side, if some expedient were not speedily found out, to allay that frantic rage and combination in the people, there was reason enough to believe, their impious hands would be lifted up against his own person, and (which he much more apprehended) against the person of his royal consort; and lastly, that (besides the difficulty of getting thither except he would have gone alone) he had no ground to be very confident of his own army: I say, whoever sadly contemplates this, will find cause to confess, the part which the king had to act was not only harder than any prince, but than any private gentleman, had been incumbent to; and that it is much easier, upon the accidents and Occurrences which have since happened, to determine what was not to have been done, than at that time to have foreseen, by what means to have freed himself from the labyrinth in which he was involved.

All things being thus transacted, to conclude the fate of this great person, he was on the twelfth day of May brought from the Tower of London (where he had been a prisoner near six months) to the scaffold on Tower-hill; where, with a composed, undaunted courage, he told the people, "he was come thither to satisfy them with his head; but that he much feared, the reformation which was begun in blood would not prove so fortunate to the kingdom, as they expected, and he wished:" and after great expressions "of his devotion to the church of England, and the protestant religion established by law, and professed in that church; of his loyalty to the king, and affection to the peace and welfare of the kingdom;" with marvellous tranquillity of mind, he delivered his head to the block, where it was severed from his body at a blow; many of the standers by, who had not been over charitable to him in his life, being much affected with the courage and Christianity of his death.

Thus fell the greatest subject in power, and little inferior to any in fortune, that was at that time in any of the three kingdoms; who could well remember the time when he led those people, who then pursued him to his grave. He was a man of great parts, and extraordinary endowments of nature; not unadorned with some addition of art and learning, though that again was more improved and illustrated by the other; for he had a readiness of conception, and sharpness of expression, which made his learning thought more than in truth it was. His first inclinations and addresses to the court were only to establish his greatness in the country; where he apprehended some acts of power from the old lord Savile, who had been his rival always there, and of late had strengthened himself by being made a privy counsellor, and officer at court; but his first attempts were so prosperous that he contented not himself with being secure from his power in the country, but rested not, till he had bereaved him of all power and place in court; and so sent him down, a most abject, disconsolate, old man, to his country, where he was to have the superintendency over him too, by getting himself at that time made lord president of the north. These successes, applied to a nature too elate and arrogant of itself, and a quicker progress into the greatest employments and trust, made him more transported with disdain of other men, and more contemning the forms of business, than happily he would have been, if he had met with some interruptions in the beginning, and had passed in a more leisurely gradation to the office of a statesman.

He was, no doubt, of great observation, and a piercing judgment, both into things and persons; but his too good skill in persons made him judge the worse of things; for it was his misfortune to be of a time wherein very few wise men were equally employed with him; and scarce any (but the Lord Coventry, whose trust was more confined) whose faculties and abilities were equal to his; so that upon the matter he wholly relied upon himself: and discerning many defects in most men, he too much neglected what they said or did. Of all his passions, his pride was most predominant; which a moderate exercise of ill fortune might have corrected and reformed; and which was by the hand of Heaven strangely punished, by bringing his destruction upon him by two things that he most despised, the people and Sir Harry Vane. In a word, the epitaph, which Plutarch records that Sylla wrote for himself, may not be unfitly

applied to him: "that no man did ever pass him, either in doing good to his friends, or in doing mischief to his enemies;" for his acts of both kinds were most exemplary and notorious.

(From the History of the Rebellion.)

THE CITY OF LONDON

THE city of London, as the metropolis of England, by the situation the most capable of trade, and by the most usual residence of the court, and the fixed station of the courts of justice for the public administration of justice throughout the kingdom, the chief seat of trade, was, by the successive countenance and favour of princes, strengthened with great charters and immunities, and was a corporation governed within itself; the mayor, recorder, aldermen, sheriffs, chosen by themselves; several companies incorporated within the great corporation; which, besides notable privileges, enjoyed lands and perquisites to a very great revenue. By the incredible increase of trade, which the distractions of other countries, and the peace of this, brought, and by the great license of resort thither, it was, since the access of the crown to the king, in riches, in people, in buildings, marvellously increased, insomuch as the suburbs were almost equal to the city; a reformation of which had been often in contemplation, never pursued, wise men foreseeing that such a fulness could not be there, without an emptiness in other places; and whilst so many persons of honour and estates were so delighted with the city, the government of the country must be neglected, besides the excess, and ill husbandry, that would be introduced thereby. But such foresight was interpreted a morosity, and too great an oppression upon the common liberty; and so, little was applied to prevent so growing a disease.

As it had these and many other advantages and helps to be rich, so it was looked upon too much of late time as a common stock not easy to be exhausted, and as a body not to be grieved by ordinary acts of injustice; and therefore, it was not only a resort, in all cases of necessity, for the sudden borrowing great sums of money, in which they were commonly too good merchants for the crown, but it was thought reasonable, upon any specious pretences, to void the security, that was at any time given for money so borrowed.

So after many questionings of their charter, which were ever removed by considerable sums of money, a grant made by the king in the beginning of his reign (in consideration of great sums of money) of good quantities of land in Ireland, and the city of Londonderry there, was avoided by a suit in the starchamber; all the lands, after a vast expense in building and planting, resumed into the king's hands, and a fine of fifty thousand pounds imposed upon the city. Which sentence being pronounced after a long and public hearing, which time they were often invited to a composition, both in respect of the substance, and the circumstances of proceeding, made a general impression in the minds of the citizens of all conditions, much to the disadvantage of the court; and though the king afterwards remitted to them the benefit of that sentence, they imputed that to the power of the parliament, and rather remembered how it had been taken from them, than by whom it was restored; so that, at the beginning of the parliament, the city was as ill affected to the court as the country was; and therefore chose such burgesses to sit there, as had either eminently opposed it, or accidentally been oppressed by it.

The chief government and superintendency of the city is in the mayor and aldermen; which, in that little kingdom, resembles the house of peers; and as subordinate the common council is the representative body thereof, like the house of commons, to order and agree to all taxes, rates, and such particulars belonging to the civil policy. The common council are chosen every year, so many for every parish, of the wisest and most substantial citizens, by the vestry and common convention of the people of that parish; and as the wealthiest and best reputed men were always chosen, so, though the election was once a year, it was scarce ever known that any man once chosen was afterwards rejected or left out, except upon discovery of an enormous crime, or decaying in fortune to a bankrupt; otherwise, till he was called to be alderman, or died, he continued, and was every year returned of the common council.

After the beginning of this parliament, when they found by their experience in the case of the Earl of Strafford, of what consequence the city might be to them, and afterwards found, by the courage of the present lord mayor, Sir Richard Gurney, who cannot be too often nor too honourably mentioned, that it might be kept from being disposed by them; and that the men of wealth and ability, who at first had concurred with them, began