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| Charles I
Strafford's trial
by David Hume
The end, on which the king was most intent in changing ministers, was, to save the life of the earl of Strafford, and to mollify, by these indulgences, the rage of his most furious prosecutors. But so high was that nobleman’s reputation for experience and capacity, that all the new counsellors and intended ministers plainly saw, that, if he escaped their vengeance, he must return into favour and authority; and they regarded his death as the only security which they could have, both for the establishment of their present power, and for success in their future enterprizes. His impeachment, therefore, was pushed on with the utmost vigour; and, after long and solemn preparations, was brought to a final issue.
Immediately after Strafford was sequestered from parliament, and confined in the Tower, a committee of thirteen was chosen by the lower house, and entrusted with the office of preparing a charge against him. These, joined to a small committee of lords, were vested with authority to examine all witnesses, to call for every paper, and to use any means of scrutiny, with regard to any part of the earl’s behaviour and conduct.k After so general and unbounded an inquisition, exercised by such powerful and implacable enemies; a man must have been very cautious or very innocent, not to afford, during the whole course of his life, some matter of accusation, against him.
This committee, by direction from both houses, took an oath of secrecy; a practice very unusual, and which gave them the appearance of conspirators, more than ministers of justice.l But the intention of this strictness was to render it more difficult for the earl to elude their search, or prepare for his justification.
Application was made to the king, that he would allow this committee to examine privy-counsellors with regard to opinions delivered at the board: A concession which Charles unwarily made, and which thenceforth banished all mutual confidence from the deliberations of council; where every man is supposed to have entire freedom, without fear of future punishment or enquiry, of proposing any expedient, questioning any opinion, or supporting any argument. m
Sir George Ratcliffe, the earl’s intimate friend and confident, was accused of high treason, sent for from Ireland, and committed to close custody. As no charge ever appeared or was prosecuted against him, it is impossible to give a more charitable interpretation to this measure, than that the commons thereby intended to deprive Strafford, in his present distress, of the assistance of his best friend, who was most enabled, by his testimony, to justify the innocence of his patron’s conduct and behaviour.n
When intelligence arrived in Ireland of the plans laid for Strafford’s ruin, the Irish house of commons, though they had very lately bestowed ample praises on his administration, entered into all the violent counsels against him, and prepared a representation of the miserable state, into which, by his misconduct, they supposed the kingdom to be fallen. They sent over a committee to London, to assist in the prosecution of their unfortunate governor; and by intimations from this committee, who entered into close confederacy with the popular leaders in England, was every measure of the Irish parliament governed and directed. Impeachments, which were never prosecuted, were carried up against Sir Richard Bolton the chancellor, Sir Gerard Louther chief justice, and Bramhall bishop of Derry.o This step, which was an exact counterpart to the proceedings in England, served also the same purposes: It deprived the king of the ministers whom he most trusted; it discouraged and terrified all the other ministers; and it prevented those persons, who were best acquainted with Strafford’s counsels, from giving evidence in his favour before the English parliament.
[1641.] The bishops, being forbidden by the ancient canons to assist in trials for life, and being unwilling, by any opposition, to irritate the commons, who were already much prejudiced against them, thought proper, of themselves, to withdraw.p The commons also voted, that the new-created peers ought to have no voice in this trial; because the accusation being agreed to, while they were commoners, their consent to it was implied with that of all the commons of England. Notwithstanding this decision, which was meant only to deprive Strafford of so many friends, lord Seymour, and some others, still continued to keep their seat; nor was their right to it any farther questioned.q
To bestow the greater solemnity on this important trial, scaffolds were erected in Westminster-hall; where both houses sat, the one as accusers, the other as judges. Besides the chair of state, a close gallery was prepared for the king and queen, who attended during the whole trial.r
An accusation, carried on by the united effort of three kingdoms, against one man, unprotected by power, unassisted by council, discountenanced by authority, was likely to prove a very unequal contest: Yet such were the capacity, genius, presence of mind, displayed by this magnanimous statesman, that, while argument and reason and law had any place, he obtained an undisputed victory. And he perished at last, overwhelmed and still unsubdued, by the open violence of his fierce and unrelenting antagonists.
[March 22.] The articles of impeachment against Strafford are twenty-eight in number; and regard his conduct, as president of the council of York, as deputy or lieutenant of Ireland, and as counsellor or commander in England. But though four months were employed by the managers in framing the accusation, and all Strafford’s answers were extemporary; it appears from comparison, not only that he was free from the crime of treason, of which there is not the least appearance, but that his conduct, making allowance for human infirmities, exposed to such severe scrutiny, was innocent, and even laudable.
The powers of the northern council, while he was president, had been extended, by the king’s instructions, beyond what formerly had been practised: But that court being, at first, instituted by a stretch of royal prerogative, it had been usual for the prince to vary his instructions; and the largest authority, committed to it, was altogether as legal as the most moderate and most limited. Nor was it reasonable to conclude, that Strafford had used any art to procure those extensive powers; since he never once sat as president, or exercised one act of jurisdiction, after he was invested with the authority so much complained of.s
In the government of Ireland, his administration had been equally promotive of his master’s interest, and that of the subjects committed to his care. A large debt he had paid off: He had left a considerable sum in the exchequer: The revenue, which never before answered the charges of government, was now raised to be equal to them.t A small standing army, formerly kept in no order, was augmented, and was governed by exact discipline: And a great force was there raised and paid, for the support of the king’s authority against the Scottish covenanters.
Industry, and all the arts of peace, were introduced among that rude people: The shipping of the kingdom augmented a hundred fold:u The customs tripled upon the same rates:w The exports double in value to the imports: Manufactures, particularly that of linen, introduced and promoted.x Agriculture, by means of the English and Scottish plantations, gradually advancing: The protestant religion encouraged, without the persecution or discontent of the catholics.
The springs of authority he had enforced without over-straining them. Discretionary acts of jurisdiction, indeed, he had often exerted, by holding courts-martial, billetting soldiers, deciding causes upon paper-petitions before the council, issuing proclamations, and punishing their infraction. But discretionary authority, during that age, was usually exercised even in England. In Ireland, it was still more requisite, among a rude people, not yet thoroughly subdued, averse to the religion and manners of their conquerors, ready on all occasions to relapse into rebellion and disorder. While the managers of the commons demanded, every moment, that the deputy’s conduct should be examined by the line of rigid law and severe principles; he appealed still to the practice of all former deputies, and to the uncontroulable necessity of his situation.
So great was his art of managing elections, and balancing parties, that he had engaged the Irish parliament to vote whatever was necessary, both for the payment of former debts, and for support of the new-levied army; nor had he ever been reduced to the illegal expedients practiced in England, for the supply of public necessities. No imputation of rapacity could justly lie against his administration. Some instances of imperious expressions and even actions may be met with. The case of lord Mountnorris, of all those which were collected with so much industry, is the most flagrant and the least excusable.
It had been reported at the table of lord chancellor Loftus, that Annesley, one of the deputy’s attendants, in moving a stool, had sorely hurt his master’s foot, who was at that time afflicted with the gout. Perhaps, said Mountnorris, who was present at table, it was done in revenge of that public affront which my lord deputy formerly put upon him: BUT HE HAS A BROTHER, WHO WOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN SUCH A REVENGE. This casual, and seemingly innocent, at least ambiguous, expression, was reported to Strafford; who, on pretence that such a suggestion might prompt Annesley to avenge himself in another manner, ordered Mountnorris, who was an officer, to be tried by a court-martial for mutiny and sedition against his general. The court, which consisted of the chief officers of the army, found the crime to be capital, and condemned that nobleman to lose his head.y
In vain did Strafford plead in his own defence against this article of impeachment, that the sentence of Mountnorris was the deed, and that too unanimous, of the court, not the act of the deputy; that he spake not to a member of the court, nor voted in the cause, but sat uncovered as a party, and then immediately withdrew, to leave them to their freedom; that sensible of the iniquity of the sentence, he procured his majesty’s free pardon to Mountnorris; and that he did not even keep that nobleman a moment in suspence with regard to his fate, but instantly told him, that he himself would sooner lose his right hand than execute such a sentence, nor was his lordship’s life in any danger. In vain did Strafford’s friends add, as a further apology, that Mountnorris was a man of an infamous character, who paid court, by the lowest adulation, to all deputies, while present; and blackened their character, by the vilest calumnies, when recalled: And that Strafford, expecting like treatment, had used this expedient for no other purpose than to subdue the petulant spirit of the man. These excuses alleviate the guilt; but there still remains enough to prove, that the mind of the deputy, though great and firm, had been not a little debauched by the riot of absolute power, and uncontrouled authority.
When Strafford was called over to England, he found every thing falling into such confusion, by the open rebellion of the Scots, and the secret discontents of the English, that, if he had counselled or executed any violent measure, he might perhaps have been able to apologize for his conduct, from the great law of necessity, which admits not, while the necessity is extreme, of any scruple, ceremony, or delay.z But in fact, no illegal advice or action was proved against him; and the whole amount of his guilt, during this period, was some peevish, or at most imperious expressions, which, amidst such desperate extremities, and during a bad state of health, had unhappily fallen from him.
If Strafford’s apology was, in the main, so satisfactory, when he pleaded to each particular article of the charge, his victory was still more decisive, when he brought the whole together, and repelled the imputation of treason; the crime which the commons would infer from the full view of his conduct and behaviour. Of all species of guilt, the law of England had, with the most scrupulous exactness, defined that of treason, because on the side it was found most necessary to protect the subject against the violence of the king and of his ministers. In the famous statute of Edward III. all the kinds of treason are enumerated, and every other crime, besides such as are there expressly mentioned, is carefully excluded from that appellation. But with regard to this guilt, An endeavour to subvert the fundamental laws, the statute of treasons is totally silent: And arbitrarily to introduce it into the fatal catalogue, is itself a subversion of all law; and, under colour of defending liberty, reverses a statute the best calculated for the security of liberty, that had ever been enacted by an English parliament.
As this species of treason, discovered by the commons, is entirely new and unknown to the laws; so is the species of proof, by which they pretend to fix that guilt upon the prisoner. They have invented a kind of accumulative or constructive evidence, by which many actions either totally innocent in themselves, or criminal in a much inferior degree, shall, when united, amount to treason, and subject the person to the highest penalties inflicted by the law. A hasty and unguarded word, a rash and passionate action, assisted by the malevolent fancy of the accuser, and tortured by doubtful constructions, is transmuted into the deepest guilt; and the lives and fortunes of the whole nation, no longer protected by justice, are subjected to arbitrary will and pleasure.
“Where has this species of guilt lain so long concealed?” said Strafford in conclusion: “Where has this fire been so long buried, during so many centuries, that no smoke should appear, till it burst out at once, to consume me and my children? Better it were to live under no law at all, and by the maxims of cautious prudence, to conform ourselves the best we can, to the arbitrary will of a master; than fancy we have a law on which we can rely, and find at last, that this law shall inflict a punishment precedent to the promulgation, and try us by maxims unheard of till the very moment of the prosecution. If I sail on the Thames, and split my vessel on an anchor; in case there be no buoy to give warning, the party shall pay me damages: But, if the anchor be marked out, then is the striking on it at my own peril. Where is the mark set upon this crime? Where the token by which I should discover it? It has lain concealed, under water; and no human prudence, no human innocence, could save me from the destruction, with which I am at present threatened.
“It is now full two hundred and forty years since treasons were defined; and so long has it been, since any man was touched to this extent, upon this crime, before myself. We have lived, my lords, happily to ourselves at home: We have lived gloriously abroad to the world: Let us be content with what our fathers have left us: Let not our ambition carry us to be more learned than they were, in these killing and destructive arts. Great wisdom it will be in your lordships, and just providence, for yourselves, for your posterities, for the whole kingdom, to cast from you, into the fire, these bloody and mysterious volumes of arbitrary and constructive treasons, as the primitive christians did their books of curious arts, and betake yourselves to the plain letter of the statute, which tells you where the crime is, and points out to you the path by which you may avoid it.
“Let us not, to our own destruction, awake those sleeping lions, by rattling up a company of old records, which have lain for so many ages, by the wall, forgotten and neglected. To all my afflictions, add not this, my lords, the most severe of any; that I, for my other sins, not for my treasons, be the means of introducing a precedent, so pernicious to the laws and liberties of my native country.
“However these gentlemen at the bar say they speak for the commonwealth; and they believe so: Yet, under favour, it is I who, in this particular, speak for the commonwealth. Precedents, like those which are endeavoured to be established against me, must draw along such inconveniences and miseries, that, in a few years, the kingdom will be in the condition expressed in a statute of Henry IV.; and no man shall know by what rule to govern his words and actions.
“Impose not, my lords, difficulties insurmountable upon ministers of state, nor disable them from serving with chearfulness their king and country. If you examine them, and under such severe penalties, by every grain, by every little weight; the scrutiny will be intolerable. The public affairs of the kingdom must be left waste; and no wise man, who has any honour or fortune to lose, will ever engage himself in such dreadful, such unknown perils.
“My lords, I have now troubled your lordships a great deal longer than I should have done. Were it not for the interest of these pledges, which a saint in heaven, left me, I should be loth”—Here he pointed to his children, and his weeping stopped him.—“What I forfeit for myself, it is nothing: But, I confess, that my indiscretion should forfeit for them, it wounds me very deeply. You will be pleased to pardon my infirmity: Something I should have said; but I see I shall not be able, and therefore I shall leave it.
“And now, my lords, I thank God, I have been, by his blessing, sufficiently instructed in the extreme vanity of all temporary enjoyments, compared to the importance of our eternal duration. And so, my lords, even so, with all humility, and with all tranquillity of mind, I submit, clearly and freely, to your judgments: And whether that righteous doom shall be to life or death, I shall repose myself, full of gratitude and confidence, in the arms of the great Author of my existence.”a
Certainly, says Whitlockeb with his usual candor, never any man acted such a part, on such a theatre, with more wisdom, constancy, and eloquence, with greater reason, judgment, and temper, and with a better grace in all his words and actions, than did this great and excellent person; and he moved the hearts of all his auditors, some few excepted, to remorse and pity. It is remarkable, that the historian, who expresses himself in these terms, was himself chairman of that committee, which conducted the impeachment against this unfortunate statesman. The accusation and defence lasted eighteen days. The managers divided the several articles among them, and attacked the prisoner with all the weight of authority, with all the vehemence of rhetoric, with all the accuracy of long preparation. Strafford was obliged to speak with deference and reserve towards his most inveterate enemies, the commons, the Scottish nation, and the Irish parliament. He took only a very short time, on each article, to recollect himself: Yet he alone, without assistance, mixing modesty and humility with firmness and vigour, made such a defence that the commons saw it impossible, by a legal prosecution, ever to obtain a sentence against him.
But the death of Strafford was too important a stroke of party to be left unattempted by any expedient, however extraordinary. Besides the great genius and authority of that minister, he had threatened some of the popular leaders with an impeachment; and, had he not, himself, been suddenly prevented by the impeachment of the commons, he had, that very day, it was thought, charged Pym, Hambden, and others, with treason, for having invited the Scots to invade England. A bill of attainder was therefore brought into the lower house immediately after finishing these pleadings; and preparatory to it, a new proof of the earl’s guilt was produced, in order to remove such scruples as might be entertained with regard to a method of proceeding so unusual and irregular.
Sir Henry Vane, secretary, had taken some notes of a debate in council, after the dissolution of the last parliament; and being at a distance, he had sent the keys of his cabinet, as was pretended, to his son, Sir Henry, in order to search for some papers, which were necessary for completing a marriage-settlement. Young Vane, falling upon this paper of notes, deemed the matter of the utmost importance; and immediately communicated it to Pym, who now produced the paper before the house of commons. The question before the council was: Offensive or defensive war with the Scots. The king proposes this difficulty, “But how can I undertake offensive war, if I have no more money?” The answer ascribed to Strafford was in these words: “Borrow of the city a hundred thousand pounds: Go on vigorously to levy ship-money. Your majesty having tried the affections of your people, you are absolved and loose from all rules of government, and may do what power will admit. Your majesty, having tried all ways, shall be acquitted before God and man. And you have an army in Ireland, which you may employ to reduce this kingdom to obedience: For I am confident the Scots cannot hold out five months.” There followed some counsels of Laud and Cottington equally violent, with regard to the king’s being absolved from all rules of government.c
This paper, with all the circumstances of its discovery and communication, was pretended to be equivalent to two witnesses, and to be an unanswerable proof of those pernicious counsels of Strafford, which tended to the subversion of the laws and constitution. It was replied by Strafford and his friends, That old Vane was his most inveterate and declared enemy; and if the secretary himself, as was by far most probable, had willingly delivered to his son this paper of notes, to be communicated to Pym, this implied such a breach of oaths and of trust as rendered him totally unworthy of all credit. That the secretary’s deposition was at first exceedingly dubious: Upon two examinations, he could not remember any such words: Even the third time, his testimony was not positive, but imported only, that Strafford had spoken such or such-like words: And words may be very like in sound, and differ much in sense; nor ought the lives of men to depend upon grammatical criticisms of any expressions, much less of those which had been delivered by the speaker without premeditation, and committed by the hearer, for any time, however short, to the uncertain record of memory. That, in the present case, changing This kingdom into That kingdom, a very slight alteration! the earl’s discourse could regard nothing but Scotland, and implies no advice unworthy of an English counsellor. That even retaining the expression, This kingdom, the words may fairly be understood of Scotland, which alone was the kingdom that the debate regarded, and which alone had thrown off allegiance, and could be reduced to obedience. That it could be proved, as well by the evidence of all the king’s ministers, as by the known disposition of the forces, that the intention never was to land the Irish army in England, but in Scotland. That of six other counsellors present, Laud and Windebank could give no evidence; Northumberland, Hamilton, Cottington, and Juxon, could recollect no such expression; and the advice was too remarkable to be easily forgotten. That it was no-wise probable such a desperate counsel would be openly delivered at the board, and before Northumberland, a person of that high rank, and whose attachments to the court were so much weaker than his connections with the country. That though Northumberland, and he alone, had recollected some such expression, as that Of being absolved from rules of government; yet, in such desperate extremities as those into which the king and kingdom were then fallen, a maxim of that nature, allowing it to be delivered by Strafford, may be defended, upon principles the most favourable to law and liberty. And that nothing could be more iniquitous, than to extract an accusation of treason from an opinion simply proposed at the council-table; where all freedom of debate ought to be permitted, and where it was not unusual for the members, in order to draw forth the sentiments of others, to propose counsels very remote from their own secret advice and judgment.d
[Bill of attainder.] The evidence of Secretary Vane, though exposed to such unsurmountable objections, was the real cause of Strafford’s unhappy fate; and made the bill of attainder pass the commons with no greater opposition than that of fifty-nine dissenting votes. But there remained two other branches of the legislature, the king and the lords, whose assent was requisite; and these, if left to their free judgment, it was easily foreseen, would reject the bill without scruple or deliberation. To overcome this difficulty, the popular leaders employed expedients, for which they were beholden, partly to their own industry, partly to the indiscretion of their adversaries.
Next Sunday after the bill passed the commons, the puritanical pulpits resounded with declamations concerning the necessity of executing justice upon great delinquents.e The populace took the alarm. About six thousand men, armed with swords and cudgels, flocked from the city, and surrounded the houses of parliament.f The names of the fifty-nine commoners, who had voted against the bill of attainder, were posted up under the title of Straffordians, and betrayers of their country. These were exposed to all the insults of the ungovernable multitude. When any of the lords passed, the cry for Justice against Strafford resounded in their ears: And such as were suspected of friendship to that obnoxious minister, were sure to meet with menaces, not unaccompanied with symptoms of the most desperate resolutions in the furious populace.g
Complaints in the house of commons being made against these violences as the most flagrant breach of privilege, the ruling members, by their affected coolness and indifference, showed plainly, that the popular tumults were not disagreeable to them.h But a new discovery, made about this time, served to throw every thing into still greater flame and combustion.
Some principal officers, Piercy, Jermyn, ONeale, Goring, Wilmot, Pollard, Ashburnham, partly attached to the court, partly disgusted with the parliament, had formed a plan of engaging into the king’s service the English army, whom they observed to be displeased at some marks of preference given by the commons to the Scots. For this purpose, they entered into an association, took an oath of secrecy, and kept a close correspondence with some of the king’s servants. The form of a petition to the king and parliament was concerted; and it was intended to get this petition subscribed by the army. The petitioners there represent the great and unexampled concessions made by the king for the security of public peace and liberty; the endless demands of certain insatiable and turbulent spirits, whom nothing less will content than a total subversion of the ancient constitution; the frequent tumults which these factious malcontents had excited, and which endangered the liberty of parliament. To prevent these mischiefs, the army offered to come up and guard that assembly. “So shall the nation,” as they express themselves in the conclusion, “not only be vindicated from preceding innovations, but be secured from the future, which are threatened, and which are likely to produce more dangerous effects than the former.”i The draught of this petition being conveyed to the king, he was prevailed on, somewhat imprudently, to countersign it himself as a mark of his approbation. But as several difficulties occurred, the project was laid aside two months before any public discovery was made of it.
It was Goring who betrayed the secret to the popular leaders. The alarm may easily be imagined, which this intelligence conveyed. Petitions from the military to the civil power are always looked on as disguised, or rather undisguised commands; and are of a nature widely different from petitions presented by any other rank of men. Pym opened the matter in the house.k On the first intimation of a discovery, Piercy concealed himself, and Jermyn withdrew beyond sea. This farther confirmed the suspicion of a dangerous conspiracy. Goring delivered his evidence before the house: Piercy wrote a letter to his brother, Northumberland, confessing most of the particulars.l Both their testimonies agree with regard to the oath of secrecy; and as this circumstance had been denied by Pollard, Ashburnham, and Wilmot, in all their examination, it was regarded as a new proof of some desperate resolutions, which had been taken.
To convey more quickly the terror and indignation at this plot, the commons voted, that a protestation should be signed by all the members. It was sent up to the lords, and signed by all of them, except Southampton and Robarts. Orders were given by the commons alone, without other authority, that it should be subscribed by the whole nation. The protestation was in itself very inoffensive, even insignificant; and contained nothing but general declarations, that the subscribers would defend their religion and liberties.m But it tended to encrease the popular panic, and intimated, what was more expressly declared in the preamble, that these blessings were now exposed to the utmost peril.
Alarms were every day given of new conspiracies:n In Lancashire, great multitudes of papists were assembling: Secret meetings were held by them in caves and under-ground in Surrey: They had entered into a plot to blow up the river with gun-powder, in order to drown the city:o Provisions of arms were making beyond sea: Sometimes France, sometimes Denmark, was forming designs against the kingdom: And the populace, who are always terrified with present, and enraged with distant dangers, were still farther animated in their demands of justice against the unfortunate Strafford.
The king came to the house of lords: And though he expressed his resolution, for which he offered them any security, never again to employ Strafford in any branch of public business; he professed himself totally dissatisfied with regard to the circumstance of treason, and on that account declared his difficulty in giving his assent to the bill of attainder.p The commons took fire, and voted it a breach of privilege for the king to take notice of any bill; depending before the houses. Charles did not perceive that his attachment to Strafford was the chief motive for the bill; and that, the greater proofs he gave of anxious concern for this minister, the more inevitable did he render his destruction.
About eighty peers had constantly attended Strafford’s trial; but such apprehensions were entertained on account of the popular tumults, that only forty-five were present when the bill of attainder was brought into the house. Yet of these, nineteen had the courage to vote against it;q A certain proof, that, if entire freedom had been allowed, the bill had been rejected by a great majority.
In carrying up the bill to the lords, St. John, the solicitor-general, advanced two topics, well suited to the fury of the times; that, though the testimony against Strafford were not clear, yet, in this way of bill, private satisfaction to each man’s conscience was sufficient, even should no evidence at all be produced; and that the earl had no title to plead law, because he had broken the law. It is true, added he, we give law to hares and deer; for they are beasts of chace. But it was never accounted either cruel or unfair to destroy foxes or wolves, where-ever they can be found; for they are beasts of prey.r
After popular violence had prevailed over the lords, the same battery was next applied to force the king’s assent. The populace flocked about Whitehall, and accompanied their demand of justice with the loudest clamours and most open menaces. Rumours of conspiracies against the parliament were anew spread abroad: Invasions and insurrections talked of: And the whole nation was raised into such a ferment, as threatened some great and imminent convulsion. On which-ever side the king cast his eyes, he saw no resource of security. All his servants, consulting their own safety, rather than their master’s honour, declined interposing with their advice between him and his parliament. The queen, terrified with the appearance of so mighty a danger, and bearing formerly no good will to Strafford, was in tears, and pressed him to satisfy his people in this demand, which, it was hoped, would finally content them. Juxon alone, whose courage was not inferior to his other virtues, ventured to advise him, if, in his conscience, he did not approve of the bill, by no means to assent to it.s
Strafford, hearing of Charles’s irresolution and anxiety, took a very extraordinary step: He wrote a letter, in which he entreated the king, for the sake of public peace, to put an end to his unfortunate, however innocent, life, and to quiet the tumultuous people by granting them the request, for which they were so importunate.t “In this,” added he, “my consent will more acquit you to God than all the world can do besides. To a willing man there is no injury. And as, by God’s grace, I forgive all the world with a calmness and meekness, of infinite contentment to my dislodging soul; so, Sir, to you, I can resign the life of this world with all imaginable chearfulness, in the just acknowledgment of your exceeding favours.” Perhaps, Strafford hoped, that this unusual instance of generosity would engage the king still more strenuously to protect him: Perhaps he gave his life for lost; and finding himself in the hands of his enemies, and observing that Balfour, the lieutenant of the Tower, was devoted to the popular party;u he absolutely despaired of ever escaping the multiplied dangers, with which he was every way environed. We might ascribe this step to a noble effort of disinterestedness, not unworthy the great mind of Strafford; if the measure which he advised had not been, in the event, as pernicious to his master, as it was immediately fatal to himself.NOTE [X]
After the most violent anxiety and doubt, Charles at last granted a commission to four noblemen to give the royal assent, in his name, to the bill: Flattering himself, probably, in this extremity of distress, that, as neither his will consented to the deed, nor was his hand immediately engaged in it, he was the more free from all the guilt which attended it. These commissioners he empowered, at the same time, to give his assent to the bill which rendered the parliament perpetual.
The commons, from policy, rather than necessity, had embraced the expedient of paying the two armies by borrowing money from the city; and these loans they had repaid afterwards by taxes levied upon the people. The citizens, either of themselves or by suggestion, began to start difficulties, with regard to a farther loan which was demanded. We make no scruple of trusting the parliament, said they, were we certain, that the parliament were to continue till our repayment. But, in the present precarious situation of affairs, what security can be given us for our money? In pretence of obviating this objection, a bill was suddenly brought into the house, and passed with great unanimity and rapidity, that the parliament should not be dissolved, prorogued, or adjourned, without their own consent. It was hurried in like manner through the house of peers; and was instantly carried to the king for his assent. Charles, in the agony of grief, shame, and remorse, for Strafford’s doom, perceived not that this other bill was of still more fatal consequence to his authority; and rendered the power of his enemies perpetual, as it was already uncontroulable.x In comparison of the bill of attainder, by which he deemed himself an accomplice in his friend’s murder, this concession made no figure in his eyes:NOTE [Y] A circumstance, which, if it lessen our idea of his resolution or penetration, serves to prove the integrity of his heart, and the goodness of his disposition. It is indeed certain, that strong compunction for his consent to Strafford’s execution attended this unfortunate prince during the remainder of his life: and even at his own fatal end, the memory of this guilt, with great sorrow and remorse, recurred upon him. All men were so sensible of the extreme violence which was done him, that he suffered the less, both in character and interest, from this unhappy measure; and though he abandoned his best friend, yet was he still able to preserve, in some degree, the attachment of all his adherents.
Secretary Carleton was sent by the king to inform Strafford of the final resolution, which necessity had extorted from him. The earl seemed surprised, and, starting up, exclaimed in the words of Scripture, Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men: For in them there is no salvation.z He was soon able, however, to collect his courage; and he prepared himself to suffer the fatal sentence. Only three days’ interval was allowed him. The king, who made a new effort in his behalf, and sent, by the hands of the young prince, a letter addressed to the peers, in which he entreated them to confer with the commons about a mitigation of Strafford’s sentence, and begged at least for some delay, was refused in both requests.a
[Execution of Strafford.] Strafford, in passing from his apartment to Tower-hill, where the scaffold was erected, stopped under Laud’s windows, with whom he had long lived in intimate friendship; and intreated the assistance of his prayers, in those awful moments which were approaching: The aged primate dissolved in tears; and having pronounced, with a broken voice, a tender blessing on his departing friend, sunk into the arms of his attendants.b Strafford, still superior to his fate, moved on with an elated countenance, and with an air even of greater dignity than what usually attended him. He wanted that consolation, which commonly supports those who perish by the stroke of injustice and oppression: He was not buoyed up by glory, nor by the affectionate compassion of the spectators: Yet his mind, erect and undaunted, found resources within itself, and maintained its unbroken resolution, amidst the terrors of death, and the triumphant exultations of his misguided enemies. His discourse on the scaffold was full of decency and courage. “He feared,” he said, “that the omen was bad for the intended reformation of the state, that it commenced with the shedding of innocent blood.” Having bid a last adieu to his brother and friends who attended him, and having sent a blessing to his nearer relations who were absent; “And now,” said he, “I have nigh done! One stroke will make my wife a widow, my dear children fatherless, deprive my poor servants of their indulgent master, and separate me from my affectionate brother and all my friends! But let God be to you and them all in all!” Going to disrobe, and prepare himself for the block, “I thank God,” said he, “that I am nowise afraid of death, nor am daunted with any terrors; but do as chearfully lay down my head at this time, as ever I did when going to repose!” With one blow was a period put to his life by the executioner.c
Thus perished, in the 49th year of his age, the earl of Strafford, one of the most eminent personages that has appeared in England. Though his death was loudly demanded as a satisfaction to justice, and an atonement for the many violations of the constitution; it may safely be affirmed, that the sentence, by which he fell, was an enormity greater than the worst of those, which his implacable enemies prosecuted with so much cruel industry. The people, in their rage, had totally mistaken the proper object of their resentment. All the necessities, or, more properly speaking, the difficulties, by which the king had been induced to use violent expedients for raising supply, were the result of measures previous to Strafford’s favour; and if they arose from ill conduct, he, at least, was entirely innocent. Even those violent expedients themselves, which occasioned the complaint that the constitution was subverted, had been, all of them, conducted, so far as appeared, without his counsel or assistance. And whatever his private advice might be,d this salutary maxim he failed not, often and publicly, to inculcate in the king’s presence, that, if any inevitable necessity ever obliged the sovereign to violate the laws, this licence ought to be practised with extreme reserve, and, as soon as possible, a just atonement be made to the constitution, for any injury which it might sustain from such dangerous precedents.e This first parliament after the restoration reversed the bill of attainder; and even a few weeks after Strafford’s execution, this very parliament remitted to his children the more severe consequences of his sentence: As if conscious of the violence, with which the prosecution had been conducted.
[k] Clarendon, vol. i. p. 192.
[l] Whitlocke, p. 37.
[m] Clarendon, vol. i. p. 193.
[n] Idem, vol. i. p. 214.
[o] Rush. vol. v. p. 214.
[p] Clarendon, vol. i. p. 216.
[q] Idem, ibid.
[r] Whitlocke, p. 40. Rush. vol. iv. p. 41. May, p. 90.
[s] Rushworth, vol. iv. p. 145.
[t] Rush. vol. iv. p. 120, 247. Warwick, p. 115.
[u] Nalson, vol. ii. p. 45.
[w] Rush. vol. iv. p. 124.
[x] Warwick, p. 115.
[y] Rush. vol. iv. p. 187.
[z] Rush. vol. iv. 559.
[a] Rush. vol. iv. p. 659, &c.
[b] Page 41.
[c] Clarendon, vol. i. p. 223, 229, 230, &c. Whitlocke, p. 41. May, p. 93.
[d] Rushworth, vol. iv. p. 560.
[e] Whitlocke, p. 43.
[f] Idem ibid.
[g] Clarendon, vol. i. p. 232, 256. Rush. vol v. p. 248, 1279.
[h] Whitlocke, ut supra.
[i] Clarendon, vol. i. p. 247. Whitlocke, p. 43.
[k] Rush. vol. v. p. 240.
[l] Idem, ibid. p. 255.
[m] Clarendon, vol. i. p. 252. Rush. vol. v. p. 241. Warwick, p. 180.
[n] Dugdale, p. 69. Franklyn, p. 901.
[o] Sir Edw. Walker, p. 349.
[p] Rushworth, vol. v. p. 239.
[q] Whitlocke, p. 43.
[r] Clarendon, vol. i. p. 232.
[s] Ibid. p. 257. Warwick, p. 160.
[t] Clarendon, vol. i. p. 258. Rush. vol. v. p. 251.
[u] Whitlocke, p. 44. Franklyn, p. 896.
[NOTE [X]] Mr. Carte, in his life of the duke of Ormond, has given us some evidence to prove, that this letter was intirely a forgery of the popular leaders, in order to induce the king to sacrifice Strafford. He tells us, that Strafford said so to his son, the night before his execution. But there are some reasons, why I adhere to the common way of telling this story. 1. The account of the forgery comes through several hands, and from men of characters not fully known to the public. A circumstance which weakens every evidence. It is a hearsay of a hearsay. 2. It seems impossible, but young Lord Strafford must inform the king, who would not have failed to trace the forgery, and expose his enemies to their merited infamy. 3. It is not to be conceived but Clarendon and Whitlocke, not to mention others, must have heard of the matter. 4. Sir George Ratcliffe, in his life of Strafford, tells the story the same way that Clarendon and Whitlocke do. Would he also, who was Strafford’s intimate friend, never have heard of the forgery? It is remarkable, that his life is dedicated or addressed to young Strafford. Would not he have put Sir George right in so material and interesting a fact?
[x] Clarendon, vol. i. p. 261, 262. Rushworth, vol. v. p. 264.
[NOTE [Y]] What made this bill appear of less consequence was, that the parliament voted tonnage and poundage for no longer a period than two months: And as that branch was more than half of the revenue, and the government could not possibly subsist without it; it seemed indirectly in the power of the parliament to continue themselves as long as they pleased. This indeed was true in the ordinary administration of government: But on the approaches towards a civil war, which was not then foreseen, it had been of great consequence to the king to have reserved the right of dissolution, and to have endured any extremity rather than allow the continuance of the parliament.
[z] Whitlocke, p. 44.
[a] Rush. vol. v. p. 265.
[b] Nalson, vol. ii. p. 198.
[c] Rushworth, vol. v. p. 267.
[d] That Strafford was secretly no enemy to arbitrary counsel, appears from some of his letters and dispatches, particularly, vol. ii. p. 60. where he seems to wish that a standing army were established.
[e] Rushworth, vol. iv. p. 567, 568, 569, 570.
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