should enable Strafford to establish his innocence. What, then, could have induced an assembly of high-minded English gentlemen, many of them, doubtless, patterns of kindness and honour in every private relation of life, to originate or uphold such glaring iniquity? The answer is plain. They were inflamed at the moment with party spirit, a passion which, in its excess, absorbs reflection and conscience, and listens to nothing except its own blind and fiery impulses.

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The bill of attainder did not put an end to the trial. The patriots were willing to accept the chance of a judgment in their favour, and the statute was a reserve force to ensure the victory in the event of a prior defeat. To prop up both trial and bill Pym paraded to the Commons on the 10th of April a new piece of evidence which was formally adduced on the 13th in Westminster Hall. To levy war against the king was treason by the statute of Edward. The Commons substituted the article that Strafford had intended to levy war against the kingdom. Sir Henry Vane, the elder, a bitter enemy of the earl, was expected to prove the charge by advice which Strafford had delivered at the councilboard. His testimony was entirely inadequate to the purpose, and Whitelock, to whose share the article fell, declined to press it. Sir Walter Earl, who volunteered to perform the office, met with such ill success, that he was very blank and out of countenance,' and the Queen, who sat in a latticed box, erected for the purpose, having asked his name, said that that water-dog-an intended pun upon Walter-' did bark but not bite, but the rest did bite close.' Strafford himself was content to reply to the discomfited knight that where nothing was proved against him he knew their lordships' great wisdom and justice would expect no defence.' The article was abandoned, but in desperation at the course which the trial was taking, Pym now brought forth a note made by Secretary Vane of a fragment of the conversation held at the council, in which Strafford is represented as saying, 'You have an army in Ireland that you may employ to reduce this kingdom to obedience; for I am confident the Scots cannot hold out five months.' The memorandum, which had been in Pym's possession for months, was stolen by the younger Vane from the cabinet of the elder. Intrusted with the keys to search for some legal documents, he took the opportunity to pry into his father's secret papers, and imparted his discovery to Pym. That a son should abuse his father's confidence by reading and filching his private memoranda revolts our notions of honour. No member of Parliament in the present day would dare to avow the treachery; no House of Commons could be got to countenance it. The patriots of the time of Charles I. were not so nice. 'Many

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speeches,'

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speeches,' says Clarendon, were made in commendation of the conscience, integrity, and merits of the young man,' and the majority by receiving gratefully the stolen goods at least became accessaries after the fact. The paper, to the calmer judgment of succeeding generations, seems as worthless as the means of obtaining it were disgraceful. If this kingdom' meant the country in which the council was held it referred to England, but the title of the notes attested that the conversation related solely to a war with Scotland, which was in open rebellion, and this kingdom' might easily be understood of the country which was the subject of discussion. Or this might have been a slip of the tongue for that, or the error might have been Vane's, who may neither have attended to the precise phrase of the earl, nor studied verbal accuracy in an abridged report which was solely designed for his personal use. The rest of the council, and among them Lord Northumberland, who was no partisan of the court, swore that they could not recollect any words of the kind, and that there never was a question or hint of employing the Irish army against England. The consultation, too, was held on the 5th of May, the very day on which the short Parliament was dissolved, when a man excited by the conflict might have uttered a passing passionate expression, which he himself would renounce. Yet strange to say this piece of evidence, which was open to every species of objection, was, as we are told by May, the principal cause of the death of Strafford. The force of the testimony was in the animosity of the prosecutors who put the worst possible construction upon the flimsiest proofs, and appropriated to themselves that benefit of the doubt which is always given to the prisoner. He pronounced his final celebrated defence on the 13th of April, and on the 14th the Commons, to show how little weight they attached to it, read the act of attainder a second time. The third reading took place on the 21st, when 204 members voted in favour of the measure, and 59 against it. In the minority was the honoured name of Selden, but the most powerful argument against the bill proceeded from Lord Digby, who, in accordance with the practice which then became frequent, published his speech. The lovers of liberty, who constituted the majority of the Commons, ordered that it should be burnt by the hangman.

The struggle was next to persuade the Lords to confirm the verdict. The majority were known to be favourable to the prisoner, and Charles, to encourage them in their good disposition, sent for both Houses on the first of May, and told them he was satisfied that Strafford had been guilty of misdemeanours, and was not fit to fill any office in the commonwealth, no, not

SO

so much as that of a constable;' but that since he was unable in conscience to condemn him of high-treason he appealed to the parliament to respect his scruples, and adopt the milder judgment. When the sagacious Strafford heard what the King had done, he perceived that his fate was sealed. The public was in that state of feverish excitement when any irregular interference on the part of the Crown was sure to add to the exasperation. The Commons loudly complained of the breach of privilege in the attempt to dictate to the parliament what course it should pursue upon a pending measure; and their followers out of doors were more than ever resolved to defeat the efforts of the anxious monarch. The next day was Sunday, and the patriot preachers thundered forth from their pulpits the necessity of ' justice' upon certain great delinquents. On the Monday six thousand citizens, stimulated by these harangues, and the secret instigation of their ringleaders, went down to Westminster, armed with swords and cudgels, and re-echoing the cry of Justice! justice!' endeavoured to intimidate the peers by threats. Their trade, they said, was decayed; they were in want of bread; and it was all because 'justice' had not been done upon a great delinquent. When the bill of attainder passed the Commons, a list of the fifty-nine members who voted against it was pasted upon the Exchange, with these words for a heading, The names of those men who to save a traitor would betray their country. The same list was now posted up by the rabble at Westminster, with the title of Straffordians,' as a significant hint to refractory lords. The rioters, indeed, vowed that they would have the head of Strafford or the head of Charles. The Commons refused to attempt the suppression of these disgraceful proceedings. The King,' says Baxter, 'called them tumults; the parliament called them the city's petitioning!'

While the armed rioters were overawing the Upper House, Pym, to aid their efforts, was detailing to the Lower a dreadful conspiracy to control the legislature in the opposite direction. When the truce was made with the insurgent Scotch they agreed to send commissioners to London to negotiate a permanent treaty for the settlement of the differences between their nation and the King. These ambassadors were in league with the English patriots; and it was upon the Scotch army that both relied to effect their objects. The King, impatient to have the troops disbanded, for the same reason that his enemies were anxious to keep them together, readily granted every demand; but the English,' wrote Principal Baillie, required no such haste; for they are still in that fray, that if we and our army were gone, yet were they undone.' The commissioners wilfully protracted

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the

the negotiations, and the patriots in return sought every means of gratifying the commissioners. Money was, next to bigotry, the prevailing passion of the hungry invaders from the north, who contrived to turn war itself into profit, and convert an insurrection for religion into an article of commerce. In addition to the daily allowance for the support of their troops, the House of Commons, in obedience to their mercenary humour, voted them in February a gift of 300,0007., as a friendly relief for their losses and necessities.' 'Three hundred thousand pounds sterling,' writes the delighted Baillie; 5,400,000 merks Scots is a pretty sum in our land.' But it was easier to vote money than to raise it; and the Scotch were eager creditors. 'The Lower House has given up their bill,' wrote one of their leaders, Wariston, the day after the act of attainder had passed in the Commons; we have Strafford's life. They are thinking on monies for us. Lord encourage and direct them!' The prayer that the legislature might be encouraged and directed in thinking on monies for their northern allies shows that their cravings could not be prudently neglected; and one method adopted was to employ the sums due to the royal army in payment of the Scotch. Discontent in consequence became early rife in the English camp; and projects were formed for delivering Charles from the constraint which was put upon him by the Parliament. Though the king gave some sort of sanction to the proceedings of the malcontents nothing had been done, and the notion was abandoned for the present. M. Guizot is of opinion, from an attentive examination of the documents, that Pym had long been acquainted with the secret, but he reserved his information for a moment when it would further some important purpose, and that moment had arrived. He told, in addition, of a design of the French to effect a descent at Portsmouth, and of plots to liberate Strafford. He succeeded in raising a panic; and the more men's fears were roused, the more they felt the necessity of crushing the traitor in the Tower. A protestation which Pym proposed for maintaining the Protestant religion against Popery, and defending the King, the privileges of Parliament, and the liberties of the subject, as though they were all in imminent danger, assisted to propagate and intensify the alarm. The Commons subscribed the vow at once, the Lords imitated their example, and the entire nation was directed to do the same. With these fresh incentives, the rabble continued to assemble daily. The majority of the Peers, who were friendly to Strafford, were effectually scared away; the Catholic nobles were excluded by their inability to take the new protestation denouncing Popery, and the bishops had absented themselves from the beginning of the impeachment,

impeachment, under the notion that a canon prohibited their order from sitting in judgment on a capital case, which might end in a sentence of death. Out of eighty peers who were present at the trial but forty-five voted on the bill of attainder. Of these, nineteen acquitted him entirely, and the remaining twentysix declared him guilty on only two charges-one, that he had quartered troops on the Irish to compel obedience to his arbitrary demands; the other, that he had imposed an unlawful oath on the Scotch in the island. The judges were asked whether these particulars amounted to treason, and they unanimously answered yes. The Act was passed on the 8th of May, and the fate of Strafford rested with the King.

He tried many means to save him, but all failed, and the sole method left was steadily to refuse at any cost to shed the blood of the man whose principal crime was to have served him too well. It was on his behalf that the deeds had been done for which Strafford was impeached, and they had received his warmest approval. His far-seeing Minister, sensible from the first of the danger which awaited him, begged that he might be excused from putting himself into the power of a Parliament which would prosecute his destruction.' Charles insisted upon his attendance, and solemnly protested to him, 'that not one hair of his head should be touched. Strafford repeated his forebodings, and Charles replied that he could not dispense with his assistance. He came accordingly against his own better judgment, and was immediately arrested. Charles wrote to him in the Tower to re-assure him. 'On the word of a king,' he said, he should not suffer in life, honour, or fortune,' truly adding that even this was a very mean reward to so faithful and able a servant.' To have drawn him by the most pressing entreaties, and the most binding assurances into the pit that was dug for him, and then to consign him to an ignominious death, seemed an impossible breach of the word of a king.' That Charles should have committed it has left an indelible stain upon his memory, which not all his bitter repentance can efface, because the fact that he could ever be guilty of the deed is a grievous imputation upon the goodness of his heart. The case against him is rendered worse, if it be true, as Whitelock asserts, that he was chiefly induced to pass the bill by the letter of Strafford soliciting to be sacrificed to the welfare of his sovereign and his country. This generous act would have been one more motive to a generous mind for standing by him to the last. That he should ever,' says Whitelock, 'be brought to assent was admired [wondered at] by most of his subjects, as well as by foreigners ; and when the news was conveyed to the unhappy earl, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and

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exclaimed,