From Fraser's Magazine.

THE STORY OF THE DEATH OF THOMAS,

EARL OF STRAFFORD. A.D. 1641.

IT needs some courage to tell again the oft-told story of the death of the Earl of Strafford; by an easy stretch of memory twenty-two narratives describing the closing months of that statesman's life may be reckoned up. And though these many story-tellers vary in ability, from Macaulay to Oldmixon, and though according to some Strafford was both "good and great," and to others "that wicked Earl," still all so far agree, that they ascribe his death to the overpowering authority of Pym and his associates, all ascribe the passage through the House of Lords of

the Attainder Bill to threats from a Lon

don mob; all aver that Charles I. did what he could to save his minister. Instead, however, of attempting another version of Stratford's trial, and with absolute indifference about his guilt, we propose to show that these two-and-twenty narratives are throughout untrue, that the impeachment of Strafford was a failure, his Attainder Bill a blunder, and that his condemnation by the Upper House was due solely to the King; that he, and he alone, brought death on his faithful servant.

Our story is not a pleasant one; it is not agreeable to an Englishman to tarnish the renown of the "popular party" in the Long Parliament, or to add gloom to the shadows upon the character of Charles I. It is distressing to think that such a man as Strafford fell before the

As our story is not based on mere surmise, or on the comparison of one received account with another, but is what may be called "self-contained" and selfsupported, we shall not contradict, step by step, the statements of our predecessors, or show how they are misled; nor shall we venture on a minute investigation into the King's motives as regards Strafford. First shall be exhibited — and it must be at some length — the true position occupied by the popular party between November 11, 1640, and May 12, 1641, the dates of Strafford's arrest and execution; then it will be shown that the Attainder Bill but increased the chances of his safety; and then, that the King's overthrew all prospect of his escape, at actions, dictated by Strafford's enemies, the very time when his acquittal was confidently expected.

A false impression has been created about the opening scene of this tragedy. King Charles, it must be remembered, renewed in 1640 his attempt to force the

Scottish nation to a conformity in Church

a

government, and the failure of that attempt must be recalled: the royal army being stationed in Yorkshire, and the English frontier wholly unguarded, the Scottish army advanced, defeated small body of our troops at Newburn, occupied Newcastle, and all the northern counties. This took place in August. September was spent in negotiation; the Long Parliament was summoned; and on the 26th of October a cessation of arms between England and Scotland being intrigues of those "old subtle foxes "he agreed to, the final settlement of peace justly called "the Court vermin." Still was adjourned to London. During this this is the impression forced on us, almost lull in public events Strafford returned against our will, by a long-continued to his Yorkshire home-"Old Wentstudy of all the authorities at the Rolls worth Woodhouse." He was full of genOffice and in the British Museum, both eral anxiety, he noticed the "rare art in MS. and in print, relating to the years and malice" of the Earl of Bristol and 1639–41; and arising especially from the his other associates, and their evident

examination of diaries which Sir S. D'Ewes and his brother note-takers in Parliament scribbled on their knees, descriptive of events which took place before their eyes.*

Among these authorities I include "A Brief and Perfect Relation of the Trial of Thomas, Earl of Strafford." Though published in 1647, evidently this

pamphlet was written in 1641, and by one in the Earl's

service. This Relation is the stock from which the compilers of the State Trials, and of Rushworth's and Nalson's Collections, drew their narratives: passages from it are inserted in Heylin's Laud, and Ratcliffe's Memoirs of Strafford; this Relation is, in fact, the sole origin of all the descriptions of the closing scenes of that statesman's life. Reference will be made to it as, Narrative, 1647.

intention to make him the scapegoat for And so again, to create the impression the wide-spread misery of the year 1640. that unthinking haste and over-masterful He also was aware of the fierce malignity power governed Parliament at the very of his enemies, and apprehensive about outset of Strafford's trial, we are told that "the great matters "against him they ex- Pym, rising suddenly from his seat in the pected to hear "out of Ireland; " and House of Commons, the doors being though unwilling to leave Yorkshire, not locked, drove them, by a long-continued because he dreaded quitting the shelter blast of invective directed against the of the army, but because he wished to Earl, to accuse him of high treason: and fulfil the duty there entrusted to him; that the Lords were surprised, by equal still, according to his own description, he rapidity of action, into his committal. was hastened up" to London, by fellow- The Commons, in truth, acted on procouncillors whom he evidently distrusted. ceedings extending over four days, and But he never, it would seem, shrank from on the report of a select committee.* meeting his adversaries; certainly he was They even prefaced the impeachment at not ordered up from Yorkshire by the the bar of the Upper House by a previKing. He was sent for to correct a blun- ous message, "touching things against der made by the Lord Keeper, told "that the Earl of Strafford." Nor had that there was a great want" of him at West-charge been justified by an enumeration minster, and that if he "had been there of his "high and imperious actions in that folly had not been committed." And England and Ireland," and his "passionhis last impression was one of cheerful- ate advices:" that was expressly reness, he thought that “to the best of my served. The accusation was founded on judgment, we gain much rather than lose. "my Lord Mountnorris his cause, and The Irish business is past, and better than I expected, their proofs being scant. . . . All will be well, and every hour gives more hope than the other."*

papists suffered in England to increase under arms." § These were the sole charges: the first was an act of severity, perhaps of injustice, committed in 1635 upon a subordinate in the Irish Government; the second, as might be expected from its vague character, was "set aside" in Westminster Hall.

These are Strafford's words and feelings, expressed in a letter written the very night before he quitted Yorkshire for London, to his intimate friend, Sir. G. Ratcliffe; and they make it impossible to Strafford, then, was, on the 11th of Nobelieve the statements of the sham-con-vember, 1640, impeached of high treason, temporary chronicler, who asserts that on the deliberate verdict of Parliament, the Earl was forced by the King to place for actions which, supposing they were himself within the power of his enemies, crimes, certainly were not treasons. But and that he journeyed to London expect- these petty charges were only the excuse ing certain death, trusting for safety to for his arrest. He was, in truth, placed his monarch's solemn pledge. This gives at the bar that day as the author of the a far more picturesque idea for an open- quarrel between the King and his people, ing chapter in Strafford's impeachment of the dissolution of the Short Parliathan the reality, which was that he quit-ment, the injuries caused by the preparated the army reluctantly "but not very tions for war with Scotland, and of the unwillingly;" that he came up in good disasters of that war. On him was hope, merely on the call of his official charged England's disgraceful defeat by colleagues. The object of the invention, however, is plain: it is to create the feeling, that from the very beginning Straf ford foresaw the scaffold, and looked to the King alone as his protector.

* Letter to Sir G. Ratcliffe, begun November 5, and ended Sunday, November 8, 1640. Ratcliffe Correspondence, 214-223.

So little was secrecy attempted, that Sir W. Pennyman, an intimate friend of Strafford's, was placed upon MSS. (162), 4

this Committee, November 7, 1640. D'Ewes, Harleian

† Nov. 11. 1640. D'Ewes, Harleian MSS. (162), pp.

5, 6.

Clarendon, ed. 1838, p. 73.

§ November 11, 1640. D'Ewes, Harleian MSS. (162), 4-7.

where would be the "daily diet" from the Court he drew for his household, as Secretary of State, and his fees and official gains? And hence arose that tenacity of memory, as well may be supposed, which enabled Vane, unlike the rest of his fellow-councillors, to prove at the trial Strafford's suggestion to the King-that by the Irish army England might be reduced to obedience.

the Scots, the shame that this disgrace | seizure only some letters, and Pym a rested unavenged, and the triumphant oc- trunk full of parliamentary journals cupation of our northern counties by a "which can do him little hurt"; † still hated and despised invader. Vane had committed a breach of parliaBut if Straford came to London trust-mentary privilege, punishable, perhaps by ing that nothing more would be heard a fine, certainly by imprisonment. And, from Ireland, not fearing a capital charge," as Mr. Speaker had the warrants," ‡ and not relying on any special promise of that punishment might be both swift and protection from his master; and if, when heavy. At any moment Vane might be he appeared in the House of Lords, he taken from the Treasury Bench in the was suddenly arrested on the charge of House, and placed at its Bar; and then high treason, a charge based on no proof at all, but entertained because he was odious to the community, then it will be felt, that as time went on, when the tale of all his evil acts and thoughts against our three nations had been told, that the fate of that "wicked Earl" was certain. This is the natural expectation: the contrary, however, was the fact. He was in March "favoured by not a few" among the men who impeached him in November on such trivial charges, and by a "great party in the Upper House;" and he was regarded by a large and influential mass of his fellow countrymen with admiration and regard.* Such was the power of the man, and the force of circumstances. The attack on him was foiled: the blow directed against him returned upon his accusers. Their strength, and then their weakness, to place this fact before our readers, must be estimated with precision. And this estimate, as it has never been attempted before, must be set out in full.

Willing helpers, also, to the work in Westminster Hall, were found among Strafford's subordinates in the Irish Government, greedy to profit by his downfall. They furnished, accurately penned, the charge that he quartered soldiers on peaceable subjects, to starve them into submission to his decrees. This offence ultimately secured his conviction; the exulting words of the draftsmen on their completion of that article, “now the bird is our own," § were fully justified.

And from some members of the House of Lords co-operation against Strafford might be expected; for their pecuniary Strafford's accusers, at the outset of interest was bound up with his fate. To their "great business," derived assist-stay the advance of the victorious Scots ance from that blast of popular wrath during the last September, an immediate which sent him to prison; and then turning to more material aid, they had under their thumb that most important witness, Sir H. Vane, the Secretary of State. In that capacity, obeying the King's commands, immediately after the dissolution of the Short Parliament, he signed warrants, under which messengers searched the rooms, even the coat pockets of Pym and Hampden, and carried off their papers. And though Hampden lost by this

Earl of Strafford Characterized. Written during April 1641. Somers' Tracts, iv. 231; May's History of the Parliament, 62.

loan from the City of 200,000l. had been required; and the Earl of Bristol, and a few other members of the Great Council of Peers, were constrained to give the security of their bonds for repayment of the loan. Whilst Strafford was in prison they were free from anxiety; but he at large, amid the altered circumstances

* Lambeth Library was thus enriched by MSS. No. 1030, 108. Bishop William's Remembrances to Mr. Hampden.

Newsletter, May 12, 1640. Rolls Office. Clarendon, ed. 1839, 77.

Com. Journ., ii. 26.

§ Ratcliffe Correspondence, 232.
Rushworth, iii. 1281.

that might arise, those bonds would certainly assume a most unpleasant aspect. And it is a singular conjuncture of events to find that the Commons voted a resolution pledging the State to repay that loan for which the Peers had bound themselves, on the very day which witnessed the passage of the Attainder Bill through the Upper House.*

bore then,* nor will the justice of that name be doubted now, after a description of the forces which opposed them.

As the very groundwork of their policy, they were compelled to draw on themselves odium, to resist popular instincts, even to inflict injury on their countrymen. For they were driven to make common cause with the Scotch invaders; For help outside the walls of Parlia- and to procure the postponement of their ment, Strafford's opponents would rely claims till after Strafford's trial. On on that "sink of all the ill-humour of the these terms alone could be obtained the kingdom," the City of London. Were it protection of the Scottish army, and the needed, an effectual hold was placed on checkmate which it placed on the royal the then Lord Mayor, because he, as forces afforded the sole chance of obSheriff, was mixed up in one of the worst taining the offender's trial. But this was cases of oppression committed by the a policy offensive to national feeling, and Star Chamber Court; † but the hatred of productive both of serious danger, and his community against Strafford needed of positive injury to the country. To no stimulus. The bench of aldermen did keep the Covenanters in England, peace not forget their appearance before the could not be concluded between us and King's Council during the previous au- Scotland. We had to endure the sight tumn, or who it was that "burst out of a victorious enemy upon our soil, livwith the proposal "to hang up some of ing on us, threatening us, humiliating us, them." And the whole City was moved and causing protracted anxiety during by the alarming change that had come most anxious time. And this debatable over the Tower of London. Hitherto time of strife was full of imminent risk; unarmed: now "sakers and basiliscs" the conquering army had to be opposed pointed from the battlements against by our army, the one stationed over London Bridge and Tower Street; case against the other; temptation to outand round shot lay heaped on the bat- break of hostility was constant, a ready teries; soldiers kept guard behind earth- field was opened to the intriguer against baskets and planks set with pikes, with the State. "granadoes, dark-fire beacons, spoons, and lynstocks," ready to hand. Even while Parliament was sitting, the men were seen "training cannon" and mounting "many other guns" upon the Tower walls.§

These ominous appearances were ascribed to Strafford; and rumour played its part to confirm this impression. Somebody declared that he heard that London would shortly be battered down, and another that his master Strafford "would subdue the City." And the City could make its resentment felt; as sole money-holder it was an estate in the realm equal in power to Parliament.

All the helpers on which Pym and his associates could rely have been mentioned save two; the King was one-the other, themselves; they were "the inflexible party," this was the title they *May 8, 1641. Com. Journ. ii. 139; D'Ewes, Har

leian MSS. (164), 1,003.

† Dr. Leighton's Case, orders for his reparation. Com. Fourn. . 124. Rolls

Official Minutes, Ootober 10 and 20, 1640.

Office.

§ November 11, 1640. D'Ewes, Harleian MSS. (162), 5.

Somers' Tracts, iv. 210; D'Ewes, Harleian MSS. (162), 5.

con

Much pecuniary injury, also, was inflicted by that policy upon us. As neither army could be disbanded till Strafford was dispatched, the cost of 80,000l. a month † must be incurred for the pay and maintenance of those "foreign temned" troops and of our own army, hardly less obnoxious; and this, though the king's debts were "huge," the military arrears daily on the increase, and the royal navy absolutely non-existent, though panic of foreign invasion then was rife, even beyond our power of fellow-feeling. These distracted times, also, had paralyzed the industry of England; the condition of the northern counties was pitiable, owing to the brutality and pillage of our troops, and to exactions from the hungry Scot. And the cry of a distressed people naturally provoked the demand to get rid of the invader either in peace or by war; a proposal that destroyed the prospects of the "inflexible party." Nor could they, in place of the "wholesome tempting hope of seeing days again," or of the gratification of re

*Strafford Characterized; Somers' Tracts, iv. 232. † Clarendon, ed. 1839, 113.