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CHAP. IX.

his opponents. Under the advice of the Marquis of Hamilton, he had entered into negotiations with Lords Bedford, Say, Essex, and the popular leaders, for the formation of a new privy council, and proposals were further made for appointing Pym chancellor of the exchequer; Hampden, tutor of the Prince of Wales; Holles, secretary of state; and St. John, attorney-general. But these negotiations were not carried on with any hopes of success by either party, and, whilst they were going on, other proposals reached the King far more adapted to his feelings. Discontent had spread in the army; the Queen, who was perpetually meddling in public affairs, and leading Charles astray, hearing of it, established a correspondence with the malcontents, and encouraged them, and a petition was drawn up, which Charles suffered himself to be persuaded to sign and approve of. This petition was as menacing to the parliament as the petitions which the Commons daily received were to the crown and the church. It stated the many valuable concessions which the King had made to the people, adverted to the riotous assemblages which had lately attempted to control the sovereign and the parliament, and prayed that the army might march to London, for the purpose of protecting the King and the two houses.

But the vigilance of the patriots detected this project, and their promptitude defeated it. Pym, who was chairman of the committee appointed to watch the safety of the two houses, had his spies everywhere; Goring, one of the conspirators, revealed the whole plot to the Earl of Bedford, and although the petition had not been presented, and nothing had been done to advance the project, the King's signature, and his known approval of the scheme, proved fatal to all further negotiations between him and the popular leaders. From that moment, Pym, Hampden, and their colleagues, who had hitherto discountenanced extreme measures, united themselves closely to the fanatical Presbyterians, the only party of whose co-operation they were sure, whose devotion was inexhaustible, who alone had fixed principles, ardent passions, a revolution to accomplish, and a popular force' to accomplish it with. The death of the Earl of Bedford, in May, removed the only man from the popular ranks whom Charles liked to trust; and it is melancholy to reflect, that had the King only ceased to listen to his Queen and those about him, who were always mischievously advising him, he would, at this juncture, have escaped the exorbitant demands which were afterwards made upon him, and even saved his favourite Episcopacy.*

* Guizot's Eng. Rev., 98-100; Hallam, I., 539, Note; Lingard, X., 34.

1641

33. The trial of Strafford, and its attendant circumstances. Clarendon says that the King's chief end in entering into these negotiations with the popular leaders, was to save the life of Strafford, and to preserve the church from ruin; and that the determination of the popular leaders to proceed against the earl led Charles to break off the negotiations. But this statement is unsupported by any evidence; neither Pym nor Hampden were opposed to the church; and the real cause of the negotiations being broken off, was the discovery of the army plot. The trial of Strafford, therefore, began soon after these unfortunate attempts at reconciliation (March 22nd). The whole House of Commons was present to support the impeachment; and with them sat, for the same purpose, commissioners from Ireland and Scotland. Eighty peers acted as judges, the bishops absenting themselves, according to the old custom in trials of life or death. Westminster Hall had been fitted up for this great trial; the greatest, indeed, in English history, excepting the equally memorable one of Warren Hastings, in the same place, two hundred years afterwards. Above the peers, who had the Commons on each side of Mode in them, in a closed gallery, sat the King and Queen; and which it around, in galleries and on raised steps, were the spectators. Each morning, at nine, the prisoner was brought by water from the Tower; when he entered, he made three obeisances to the Earl of Arundel, the high steward, knelt at the bar, then rose and bowed to the lords on his right and left. Two hundred trainbands formed his daily body-guard, and, at the King's urgent request, the axe was not carried before him. Thirteen managers, of whom Pym was chief, opened the proceedings with some definite charge; their witnesses were then examined upon oath; after which the court adjourned for half an hour, that Strafford might have time to advise with his counsel, who sat behind him. When the court resumed, Strafford spoke in his defence, and produced his witnesses, who, according to the practice of the age, were not examined upon oath. The managers then spoke to the evidence, and the prisoner was remanded to the Tower. Thus the proceedings went on for thirteen days.

was

conducted.

The articles against him amounted to eight and twenty, all of which had been given to him three weeks before, that he might prepare his answers. Three of these articles charged him with treason, the others with acts and words which, though not treasonable separately, yet, in the aggregate, amounted to The what may be called accumulative treason, because they proved in him a charges. fixed endeavour to subvert the fundamental laws and liberties of the country. This latter charge was the great object of the Commons, who undertook to show that, * History of the Rebellion, Book III.

CHAP. IX. "no matter with what motive, any actions undertaken which had a tendency to prove destructive to the state amounted, in legal effect, to a traitorous design against the sovereign."* The proofs by which this tremendous accusation was sustained, were deduced from a series of actions which extended over the three great divisions of the earl's public functions. As president of the council of the north, he was charged with having procured powers subversive of the laws, and with having distinctly announced tyrannical intentions, by declaring that the people should find "the King's little finger heavier than the loins of the law." As governor of Ireland, he was accused of having publicly asserted "that the Irish were a conquered nation, and that the King might do with them as he pleased." He was charged with having arrogated an authority beyond what the crown had ever lawfully enjoyed, and even beyond the example of former viceroys; that he had billeted soldiers on peaceable inhabitants, till he compelled them to submit to his illegal demands; that he had raised an army, and offered it to the King for the subjection of England; that he had, of his own authority, granted monopolies, appropriated the customs, increased the rates on merchandise, imprisoned people without trial, prevented the redress of his injustice by forbidding any one to leave Ireland without his special licence, and that he had committed numerous acts of oppression against individuals who were personally obnoxious to him. As chief minister of England, he was charged with having advised the King to act in defiance of the law, to coin base money, to make a new levy of ship money, and generally to govern the kingdom by his own authority, without the intervention of parliament.

Strafford replied to all these charges with a temper and eloquence which extorted praise even from his adversaries. To some of them he opposed warrants from the King, some he peremptorily denied, and others he sought to elude. As the trial proceeded, it was plain that the managers of the Commons had failed in much of the effect of their evidence, and popular opinion began to be divided. But, on the 10th of April, before the opening of that day's trial, Pym suddenly rose in his place in the House of Commons, and announced a communication respecting the Earl of Strafford, of vital importance. The doors were instantly locked, and the veteran leader then produced a paper, containing "a copy of notes taken at a junto of the privy council for the Scots affairs, about the 5th of May last."

These were notes made by Sir Henry Vane the elder, and they had been placed in Pym's hands by the younger Sir Harry Vane, who had discovered them in his The notes father's study, and they declared, that Strafford had said to the King discovered that his majesty, having tried the affection of his people, was absolved from all rule of government, and could do what his power would admit, Vane. and be acquitted before God and man; and that he had an army in Ireland which he might employ "to reduce this kingdom to obedience."

by

Sir Harry

On the ground of this advice, Pym then moved, that a bill of attainder against Strafford should be read a first time, which was accordingly done. On the 13th, the notes were read in Westminster Hall, immediately before the earl made his famous defence; on the day following, the attainder was read a second

*Forster's Lives, II., 384.

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imprudent

save the

time, and passed on the 21st.* When the King heard of this, he renewed his former offers of concession; and a plot was entered into for the escape of Strafford from the Tower. The army plot before spoken of, was also going on, and the King offered to Bedford the disposal of all the great offices of state, if he would save the life of the earl. The condition was accepted, and that nobleman was in the course of bringing the negotiation to a successful issue, when he unfortunately died. The King soon after went down to the House of Lords, and, by the The King's advice of Lord Say, it is said, made a speech which sealed attempts to the doom of the unfortunate prisoner. He had been earl. present during the whole of the trial, he said, and he could not condemn the earl of high treason, and, therefore, could not assent to the bill of attainder when it should be brought to him. But that Strafford, he went on, was guilty of misdemeanours was evident, and for these he should punish him by exclusion from office during his life. This speech, no doubt, was well meant, but it was ill advised, and when Strafford heard of it, he gave himself up for lost. The Commons immediately resented it as a flagrant violation of the privilege of parliament; the preachers passionately declaimed against it in their sermons next day, which was Sunday (May 2nd), and on the Monday, mobs paraded the streets, insulting all who were supposed to be friendly to the King, and shouting "justice! justice!" declaring they would have the head of Strafford or of the King. At this crisis, Pym, who had reserved the decisive blow till now, denounced, from his place in the house, the plots of the court and the army against parliament (May 3rd), and while the minds of his hearers were thus wild with terror and excitement, he proposed a protestation, binding them to defend their religion against discovered popery, their liberties against despotism, and their King against the enemies of the nation. Every member present (Edward Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, being the second name on the paper) signed this protestation, and it was then circulated in various copies, for universal signature, throughout the kingdom. The sensation thus created was felt everywhere; the popular alarm increased daily; and the patriot leaders took advantage of it to achieve a still more memorable measure. The famous bill to secure the existence of the parliament, by enacting that "Act for it could only be dissolved by its own consent, was hastily brought in (May 6th), sent to the Lords next day, and parliament."

Army plot

the

perpetual

It is a curious fact, that while Hampden opposed the passing of this attainder, Hyde supported it. Falkland also supported it in the House of Lords. (See Forster's Historical and Biographical Essays.)

CHAP. IX.

presented to the King for his assent, together with the bill of attainder which the Lords passed on the 8th. Charles, stricken with consternation at the discovery of the plots for overawing the parliament by the army, readily assented to this revolutionary measure, by which the House of Commons was, in the short space of three days, made independent of the crown and the people; and which, if it had been maintained, would have converted the government into "something like a Dutch aristocracy."*

Strafford

The terrible bill of attainder did not pass the Lords without experiencing some impediments. On the conclusion of the trial, the peers had voted only two of the charges proved: those which charged the earl with having quartered soldiers upon people without lawful cause, and with having imposed of his own authority an illegal oath (against the covenant) on all Scotsmen dwelling in Ireland. But when they appealed to the judges for their judicial opinion on these points, the latter answered unanimously, that Strafford deserved to undergo the pains and penalties of high treason by law. Proceeding upon this judicial attainted. opinion, the Lords passed the bill of attainder next day (May 8th), voting upon the articles judicially, and not as if they were enacting a legislative measure. A deputation from the Lords carried up the bill to the King, requesting his assent; they were accompanied by a mob of 2,000 men, most of them armed; and the King, fearing that his palace would be forcibly broken into, reluctantly promised to assent to the bill on Monday, that day being Saturday. Before this, on the 4th of May, he had received a letter from Strafford, begging the King to to the King, assent to the bill, and so save himself. But when Carleton, the secretary of state, went to the Tower (May 10th), and told the earl that the King had consented, he expressed the greatest surprise, and exclaimed, "Nolite confidere princibus et filiis hominum, quia non est salus in illis."

His letter

The day following, the King made a last effort to save the earl's life; but it was, unfortunately, like the rest of his doings, mischievous and ill advised. Denzil Holles, whose sister Strafford had married, undertook to save his doomed relative, and he wrought on so many, "that he believed, if the King's party had struck into it, the earl might have been saved." But while this negotiation was thus successfully advancing, the King sent a

Charles's last at

tempts to save him.

letter to the Lords by the Prince of Wales, requesting them to commute the sentence of death to that of perpetual imprisonment; yet stating, that if no less than the earl's .* Hallam, I., 532. + Burnet's Own Times, Book I.; Lingard, X., 28, Note.

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