1641 satisfy the Scots, and if the Scots were not satisfied, they would recommence the war. On March 22, 1641, Strafford's trial was opened in Westminster Hall. All his overbearing actions were set forth at length, but, after all had been said, a doubt remained whether they constituted high treason, that crime having been strictly defined by a statute of Edward III. Young Sir Henry Vane, son of one of the Secretaries of State, found among his father's papers a note of a speech delivered by Strafford in a committee of the Privy Council just after the breaking up of the Short Parliament, in which he had spoken of the king as loose and absolved from all rules of government. "You have an army in Ireland," Strafford was reported to have said, "you may employ here to reduce this kingdom, for I am confident as anything under heaven, Scotland shall not hold out five months." The Commons were convinced that "this kingdom" meant England and not Scotland; but there were signs that the Lords would be likely to differ from them, and the Commons accordingly abandoned the impeachment in which the Lords sat as judges, and introduced a Bill of Attainder, to which, after the Commons had accepted it, the lords would have to give their consent if it was to become a law, as in the case of any ordinary bill. Pym would have preferred to go on with the impeachment, because he believed that Strafford was really guilty of high treason. He held that treason was not an offense against the king's private person, but against the king as a constitutional ruler, and that Strafford had actually diminished the king's authority by attempting to make him an absolute ruler, and thereby to weaken Charles's hold upon the good will of the people. This argument, however, did not break down the scruples of the Peers, and if Charles had kept quiet, he would have had them at least on his side. Neither he nor the queen could keep quiet. Before the end of 1640 she had urged the Pope to send her money and soldiers, and now she had a plan for bringing the defeated English army from Yorkshire to Westminster to overpower Parliament. Then came an attempt of Charles to get possession of the Tower, that he might liberate Strafford by force. Pym, who had learned the secret of the queen's army-plot, disclosed it, and the Peers, frightened at their danger, passed the Bill of Attainder. A mob gathered round Whitehall and howled for the execution of the sentence. Charles, fearing lest the mob should LORD STRAFFORD, ON THE ROAD TO EXECUTION, PASSES THE WINDOW OF THE IMPRISONED BISHOP LAUD, WHOSE BLESSING HE RECEIVES Painting by Paul Delaroche 1641 take vengeance on his wife, weakly signed a commission appointing commissioners to give the royal assent to the Bill, though he had promised Strafford that not a hair of his head should be touched. With the words, "Put not your trust in princes" on his lips, the great royalist statesman prepared for the scaffold. On May 12 he was beheaded, rather because men feared his ability than because his offenses were legally punishable with death. Englishmen would not have feared Strafford if they could have been sure that the king could be trusted to govern according to law, without employing force to settle matters in his own way. Yet, though the army-plot had made it difficult to feel confidence in Charles, Parliament was at first content to rely on constitutional reforms. On the day on which Charles assented to the bill for Strafford's execution he assented to another bill declaring that the existing Parliament should not be dissolved without its own consent, a stipulation which made the House of Commons legally irresponsible either to the king or to its constituents, and which could only be justified by the danger of an attack by an armed force at the bidding of the king. Acts were passed abolishing the Courts of Star Chamber and the High Commission, declaring ship-money to be illegal, limiting the king's claims on forests, prohibiting fines for not taking up knighthood, and preventing the king from levying Tonnage and Poundage or impositions without a Parliamentary grant. Taking these acts as a whole, they stripped the Crown of the extraordinary powers which it had acquired in Tudor times, and made it impossible for Charles, legally, to obtain money to carry on the government without the good-will of Parliament, or to punish offenders without the good-will of juries. All that was needed in the way of constitutional reform was thus accomplished. As far as law could do it, the system of personal government which Charles had in part inherited from his predecessors and in part had built up for himself, was brought to an end. Chapter XXXIV THE FORMATION OF PARLIAMENTARY PARTIES AND THE FIRST YEARS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1641-1644 I' LEADING DATES REIGN OF CHARLES I., A.D. 1625-1649-THE DEBATE ON THE GRAND F Charles could have inspired his subjects with the belief that he had no intention of overthrowing the new arrangements by force, there would have been little more trouble. Unfortunately, this was not the case. In August, indeed, the Houses succeeded in disbanding the English army in Yorkshire, and in dismissing the Scottish army across the Tweed; but in the same month Charles set out for Scotland, ostensibly to give his assent in person to the Acts abolishing episcopacy in that country, but in reality to persuade the Scots to lend him an army to coerce the English Parliament. Pym and Hampden suspecting this, though they could not prove it, felt it necessary to be on their guard. There would, however, have been little danger from Charles if political questions alone had been at stake. Parliament had been unanimous in abolishing his personal government, and no one was likely to help him to restore it by force. In ecclesiastical questions, however, differences arose early. All, indeed, wished to do away with the practices introduced by Laud, but there was a party, which though willing to introduce reforms into the Church, and to subject it to Parliament, objected to the introduction of the presbyterian system, lest presbyters should prove as tyrannical as bishops. Of |