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elevating in listening to the advice of the most firm-souled, bold-hearted of his servants; and against that great supporter of all his claims, that fiery down-trampler of his enemies, and deep-thoughted counsellor of his most desperate acts, the Commons rose with a ferocious cry as soon as they felt he was in their power. The victims of the Star Chamber-Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, who had lost their ears by its orderwere indemnified with money, and their sentences reversed; Finch, the lord-keeper, and Windbanke, the Secretary of State, made their escape abroad, and Laud himself was complained of by the Scots, and sent into confinement.

§ 28. It soon became known that Strafford had come to London by the king's command; that he bore as audacious and unabashed a front as ever, and relied on his eloquence when he came to be heard in his defence. He went down to the House of Peers, and almost before he could take his seat, the committee of the Commons, led by Mr. Pym, appeared at the bar, and impeached him of high crimes and misdemeanours. The triumph in the accuser's eye was answered by the indomitable pride of Strafford's. "Alas! they had been friends in youth;" and when their political and social union was broken up by Wentworth's secession from the reforming ranks, Pym had said to him, "You leave us, but we will never leave you while there is a head upon your shoulders." This must have recurred to Strafford when the well-known voice was pursuing him to the death. When the denunciation closed he was carried off to the Tower. Some few minor performers in the scenes of oppression and injustice which had marked the last eleven years were visited with fines and imprisonment; but the attention of the nation was fixed on the fate of the "Grand Apostate," who was brought to trial with all the solemnity befitting so momentous an event. The scene was Westminster Hall. A throne in the centre typified the actual presence of the fountain of justice; seats in front contained peers and legal sages of the land, and the audience con

the

A.D. 1640.] IMPEACHMENT OF LORD STRAFFORD.

559

sisted of the members of the House of Commons, ranged on benches round the walls, and representing the cities and boroughs of the whole of England. Room was also made for a committee of complainers from the Irish parliament; the Scots had their envoys mingled with the vast assembly, so that the three kingdoms were fairly in face of their great adversary; and he stood up with unflinching courage in that tremendous ordeal, rising superior by the sole energy of his mind to the bodily pains which racked his limbs, the consciousness of guilt which lay heavy on his heart, and the doubts he must have entertained of the constancy and support of the man for whose sake he had sacrificed all.

The trial was the greatest forensic display ever known up to that date. Pym and the other managers were the most eloquent men of their time, and pleaded now with their lives in their hands; for it was felt that the losing party on this great arbitrament would certainly fall by the axe. Strafford, greater in his deserted adversity than in the days of his overbearing power, answered his accusers point by point, relying on the wording of his commission and the warrants and personal orders of the king. Acts of violence, of injustice; and libertinage were proved against him beyond denial, but all these stopped short of the great crime which would forfeit his life. Other things he passed lightly by, and showed such readiness, such dignity and vigour in the whole week of taunt and interrogatory during which he stood up to be baited every day from morn till eve, before that hostile, frowning, and prejudiced assemblage, that opinion began to turn; his own distinction began to be generally entertained. No number of misdemeanours can grow by accumulation into treason. The bar was filled with admiration of his acuteness; ladies began to look favourably on the great earl, with his complexion "manly black," and his powerful features raised into poetic grandeur by the exigencies of the cause, when all of a sudden the missing clue was found-the deadly proof came forth.

The speech he had made to the king, in the Council of the 5th of May of the year before, was discovered in the notebook of the Secretary Vane, and was forwarded by his son, young Harry Vane, to the accusers. "You have an army in Ireland that you might employ to reduce this kingdom to obedience." His doom from that hour was assured. The Commons, though continuing his impeachment before the Lords, brought in a Bill of Attainder against him in their own House, and found him guilty by a majority of four to one. The bill was carried to the Upper House, and Charles himself interfered: he addressed the Lords, and assured them no man had advised him to employ force against the malcontents in England. He had attended the trial, he said, and pronounced Lord Strafford free from the stain of treason; but, by a shameful compromise, acknowledged at the same time, that he had disqualified himself for office, and was not fit to serve him or the Commonwealth in the lowest capacity. Nineteen of the peers made a more courageous effort, by voting against the attainder; but alarm maddened the whole country; mobs surrounded the parliament; reports were rife of attempts at - of the approach of the northern army of fleets ready to receive and protect the oppressor-of the flight of the queen to excite foreign invasion; and the bill was passed by a majority of twenty-six.

rescue

Charles was agonized with fear and regret. He tried to save his faithful servant, and consulted his council on the scruples that vexed his conscience. One of the bishops told him that, as Charles Stuart, his conscience ought to interfere to protect Lord Strafford; but as king, he was bound to let his conscience do what his interest commanded. Another bishop (Juxon), who was a safer friend, told him that if he knew the earl to be free from guilt, it would be better to perish along with him than shed one drop of innocent blood. Pausing, hesitating, arguing, and at last yielding, Charles signed the fatal assent; and Strafford exclaimed, " Put not your trust in

A.D. 1640-1641.] BOLD PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMONS. 561

princes." He had written, indeed, to beg him not to hesitate in agreeing to his death, if his sacrifice would help in restoring peace between him and his people, and the king accepted the offering of his servant's life. Instead of casting all upon the hazard of refusal, and throwing himself on the generous feelings of the country, he put his name to the order for execution, and only interceded with the inexorable House that they would delay the fatal stroke till Saturday. As he passed to the scaffold, Strafford knelt and received the blessing of Laud, who occupied a chamber, through the barred window of which he could only stretch his hand. Four more years of imprisonment, and a similar death by the hands of the executioner, scarcely glutted the vengeance of the Commons on this zealous and injudicious churchman, whose hatred of dissent and puritanism drove him to the very verge of popery.

§ 29. Parliament proceeded at headlong speed when Strafford was out of their way. They passed an Act continuing their existence till a vote of their own should put an end to it. This was, in fact, assuming a dictatorial authority, and, in the circumstances of the case, it was one of the bold revolutionary steps by which liberty is preserved by a temporary sacrifice of the appearance of it. Without this they were liable at any moment to a dissolution or prorogation, by which the whole machinery of government would have come to a stand, and all improvement been prevented. All the instruments of tyranny were broken; Star Chamber, High Commission, monopolies, ship-money, compulsory knighthood and other relics of feudal servitude, were abrogated at once. Commissioners had already been sent into all parts of England to purify the parish churches of papistical and superstitious ornaments, whether old or new. Both the armies were paid, and an offering of three hundred thousand pounds made to the Covenanters in token of brotherly regard. Hampdem, Pym, Cromwell, Hyde, Falkland, Culpepper, and many

others of the Liberal leaders, seemed intent on further alterations, and the country appeared ripe for any alteration either in Church or State.

Yet the king, who had unbounded reliance on the meanness and dishonesty of mankind, encouraged himself with hope. He had won over Wentworth from the popular cause by pandering to his ambition, and many others by coarser and more humiliating bribes. Why should the virtuous and pompous Mr. Hyde, or the sentimental and moral Lord Falkland, be less sensible to the charms of power or the romance of coming to the rescue of an unfriended king? Both had pursued his late favourite to the death-urging the too pliant Pym, as they thought him, to more certain means for his destruction. But this, which to another would have been a reason for looking on those leaders in the Commons as his irreconcileable enemies, was no bar in Charles's eyes to their coming over to his side. He therefore submitted silently to the proceedings of the Parliament, looking forward to the time. when he should be able to reverse them.

§ 30. In August he went to Scotland, and immediately the intrigues of all the northern factions began. Charles was graceful and fascinating in manner, and was nearly successful in winning over the Presbyterian leaders by the kindness of his address, and the sanctimonious air with which he listened to interminable discourses from Henderson and the other orators of the Kirk. Plots were discovered or suspected in many quarters. Passions had risen so high that assassination had lost its horror. An attempt was made on Pym's life in England, and Montrose wrote from his prison in Edinburgh to the king, "frankly undertaking to make away" with Hamilton and Argyle, whom he accused of being false to his majesty's cause. This offer was not accepted, but the threatened nobles were alarmed in a short time by the discovery of a scheme to seize their persons and carry them out of the country. Common opinion pointed to the king as cognizant

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