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 discontent 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

Men's minds were now so over-excited by constant talk and rumours of desperate plots, that the slightest circumstance sufficed to create perilous alarm. On the 5th of May, as Sir Walter 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."

193

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 Two days after the fatal Saturday, on Monor a friend could suggest to him, for the preser- day, the 10th of May, the commission empowervation of a friend or servant; and by such un-ing the Earl of Arundel (the lord privy-seal) and prelatical, 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. Ac-cution, Charles sent a letter to the lords by the cording 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 letter 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 pri

1 Williams was promoted to York on the 4th of December of this same eventful year, 1641. 2 Clarendon, Hist.

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 exe

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 mercy, and the concluding words made the doom 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.'

"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

& 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;

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.

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.

gust 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.

rooms." But in the meantime, Laud, advertised | grant of tonnage and poundage, which he now of his approach, came up to the window. Then accepted as a gift from his people. Six subsidies the earl bowed himself to the ground and said, had also been voted. Three other acts were like"My lord, your prayers and your blessing." The wise presented, one imposing a poll-tax for the dearchbishop lifted up his hands and bestowed both, fraying of the charges of the armies, the second but overcome with grief he fell to the ground, and third putting down for ever the High Comand the procession moved onwards. But after he mission Court and the detestable Star Chamber, had proceeded a little further, Strafford bent him- which had, in fact, both fallen into decrepitude self a second time, and said, "Farewell, my lord; at the opening of the present parliament. On God protect your innocence." According to the the 2d of July, Charles gave his assent to the laborious Rushworth, the clerk of the parlia-poll-tax bill, probably hoping that it would disment, 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. 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 The important events which we have had to leave. The multitude collected to see him die condense have carried us over some family inciwas estimated at 100,000 men, women, and chil- dents which were far from being of insignificant dren; but all preserved a respectful and awe- moment. In the autumn of 1638, the intriguing, struck silence. He had prepared the heads of a turbulent, conscienceless Mary de' Medici, Queenspeech, which he now delivered. He said, that dowager of France, and mother to Henrietta he was come to submit to the judgment passed Maria, arrived in England, and was conducted against him; that he did submit with a quiet and in great state through London. Cardinal Richecontented mind, freely forgiving all the world. lieu, after a hard contest, had driven her out of His conscience, he said, bore him witness that France with disgrace and in poverty. Her daughhe was innocent, although it was his ill-hap to ter, the Queen of Spain, could not, or would not be misconstrued. The executioner severed his grant her an asylum: the Queen of England had neck at one blow, and holding up the bleeding more filial tenderness, or more power, and after head towards the people, cried, "God save the long entreaties she prevailed upon Charles to reking!" The people scarcely believed what they ceive and maintain her. The country, the relisaw; they shouted not, they gave way to no ma- gion, the manners of this royal refugee all renlignant or triumphant feelings; but in the even-dered her obnoxious to the people. The sailors ing they testified their joy and satisfaction by who brought her over called the equinoctial gales lighting bonfires in the streets.2

1

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 Say. The Marquis of Hertford was made governor to the prince, the Earl of Essex lordchamberlain, and the Earl of Leicester, another nobleman of the popular party, was made Lordlieutenant 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 bypaths with them that they ended (possibly they had begun) by never trusting him. On the 22d of June the commons presented to the king their 1 This paper was picked up on the scaffold after his head had

fallen.

2 Rushworth; Nalson; May, Sir P. Warwick.

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' Medici and her train of priests came in for a large share of abuse. Terrified at some great crowds and tumults during the trial of Strafford, she 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. 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, he moved that the house would entreat 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 jealousies in the hearts of his majesty's

2 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."