parts, he had not any preferment to invite him to leave his poor college, which only gave him bread, till the vigor of his age was past. When he was promoted by King James, it was but to a poor bishopric in Wales, which was not so good a support for a bishop, as his college was for a private scholar, though a doctor. Parliaments at that time were frequent, and grew very busy; and the party under which he had suffered a continual persecution appeared very powerful, and they who had the courage to oppose them began to be taken notice of with approbation and countenance. In this way he came to be first cherished by the duke of Buckingham, after the latter had made some experiments of the temper and spirit of the other people, not at all to his satisfaction. From this time he prospered at the rate of his own wishes, and being transplanted out of his cold barren diocese of St. David's, into a warmer climate, he was left, as was said before, by that omnipotent favorite in that great trust with the king, who was sufficiently indisposed toward the persons or the principles of Mr. Calvin's disciples.

When he came into great authority, it may be that he retained too keen a memory of those who had so unjustly and uncharitably persecuted him before; and, I doubt, was so far transported with the same passions he had reason to complain of in his adversaries, that, as they accused him of popery, because he had some doctrinal opinions which they liked not, though they were in no way allied to popery; so he entertained too much prejudice to some persons, as if they were enemies to the discipline of the Church, because they concurred with Calvin in some doctrinal points.

122. Trial of the Earl of Strafford 1

All things being thus prepared and settled, on Monday, the twenty-second of March, 1641, the earl of Strafford was brought to the bar in Westminster Hall; the lords sitting in the middle of the hall in their robes; and the commoners, and some strangers of quality, with the Scotch commissioners, and the committee

1 Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, vol. i, pp. 306–308.

of Ireland, on either side. There was a close box made at one end, at a very convenient distance for hearing, in which the king and queen sat; His Majesty, out of kindness and curiosity, desiring to hear all that could be alleged. . . .

After his charge was read, and an introduction made by Mr. Pym, in which he called him "the wicked earl," some member of the House of Commons, being a lawyer, applied and pressed the evidence, with great sharpness of language; and, when the earl had made his defense, replied with the same liberty to whatsoever he said; taking all occasions of bitterly inveighing against his person. This reproachful way of acting was looked upon with so much approbation that one of the managers (Mr. Palmer) lost all his credit and interest with them, and never recovered it, for using a decency and modesty in his bearing and language toward him; though the weight of his arguments pressed more upon the earl than all the noise of the rest.

The trial lasted eighteen days. All the hasty or proud expressions he had uttered at any time since he was first made a privy councilor; all the acts of passion or power that he had exercised in Yorkshire, from the time that he was first president there; his engaging himself in projects in Ireland, . . . his billeting of soldiers and exercising of martial law in that kingdom, . . some casual and light discourses at his own table and at public meetings; and lastly, some words spoken in secret council in this kingdom, after the dissolution of the last parliament, were urged and pressed against him, to make good the general charge of "an endeavor to overthrow the fundamental government of the kingdom and to introduce an arbitrary power."

The earl behaved himself with great show of humility and submission; but yet with such a kind of courage as would lose no advantage; and, in truth, made his defense with all imaginable dexterity; answering this and evading that, with all possible skill and eloquence. Though he knew not, till he came to the bar, upon what parts of his charge they would proceed against him, or what evidence they would produce, he took

Attainder and Execution of the Earl of Strafford 251

very little time to recollect himself and left nothing unsaid that might make for his own justification.

123. Attainder and Execution of the Earl of Strafford 1

The bill of attainder in few days passed the House of Commons; though some lawyers, of great and known learning, declared that there was no ground in law to judge him guilty of high treason. Lord Digby (who had been, from the beginning, of the committee for the prosecution, and had much more prejudice than kindness to the earl) in a speech declared that he could not give his consent to the bill; not only because he was unsatisfied in the matter of law, but also because he was more unsatisfied in the matter of fact; those words, upon which the impeachment was principally grounded, being so far from being proved by two witnesses, that he could not acknowledge it to be by one. . . . The bill passed with only fifty-nine dissenting votes, there being nearly two hundred in the House; and was immediately sent up to the Lords, with this addition, "that the House of Commons would be ready the next day in Westminster Hall to give their lordships satisfaction in the matter of law, upon what had passed at the trial."

The earl was then again brought to the bar; the lords sitting as before, in their robes; and the commoners as they had done; amongst them, Mr. St. John (whom his majesty had made his Solicitor-General since the beginning of the parliament), argued for the space of nearly an hour the matter of law. Of the argument itself I shall say little, it being in print and in many hands; I shall only mention two notable propositions, which are sufficient indications of the person and the time. Lest what had been said on the earl's behalf, in point of law and upon the want of proof, should have made any impression on their lordships, he averred that private satisfaction to each man's conscience was sufficient, although no evidence had been given in at all; and as to the pressing the law, he said, “It was true

1 Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, vol. i, pp. 325-327, 361-364.

we give law to hares and deer, because they are beasts of chase; but it was never accounted either cruelty or foul play to knock foxes and wolves on the head as they are found, because they are beasts of prey." In a word, the law and the humanity were alike; the one being more fallacious, and the other more barbarous, than in any age had been vented in such an audience chamber.

The same day, as a better argument to the House of Lords speedily to pass the bill, the nine and fifty members of the House of Commons, who had dissented from that act, had their names written on pieces of parchment or paper, under this superscription, "Straffordians, or enemies to their country;" and these papers were fixed upon posts and the most visible places about the city. This action was as great and destructive a violation of the privileges and freedom of parliament as can be imagined: yet, being complained of in the House, not the least countenance was given to the complaint or the least care taken for the discovery of the guilty parties.

During these perplexities the earl of Strafford, taking notice of the straits the king was in, the rage of the people still increasing (from whence he might expect a certain outrage and ruin, how constant soever the king continued to him) . . . wrote a most pathetic letter to the king, full of acknowledgement of his favors; but presenting "the dangers which threatened himself and his posterity, by his obstinacy in those favors;" and therefore by many arguments imploring him "no longer to defer his assent to the bill, that so his death might free the kingdom from the many troubles it apprehended."

The delivery of this letter being quickly known, new arguments were used to overcome the opposition of the king. He was told that this free consent of Strafford's clearly absolved him from any further scruples about the execution of the earl. In the end they extorted from him an order to some lords to pass the bill; which was as valid as if he had signed it himself; though they comforted him even with that circumstance, "that his own hand was not in it." . . .

All things being thus transacted, to conclude the fate of this great person, he was on the twelfth day of May brought from the Tower of London (where he had been a prisoner nearly six months) to the scaffold on Tower Hill. Here, with a composed, undaunted courage, he told the people that he had come thither to satisfy them with his head; but that he much feared the reformation which was begun in blood would not prove so fortunate to the kingdom as they expected and he wished. After great expressions of his devotion to the Church of England, and the Protestant religion established by law and professed in that Church; of his loyalty to the king, and affection for the peace and welfare of the kingdom, with marvelous tranquillity of mind he delivered his head to the block, where it was severed from his body at a blow. Many of the bystanders who had not been over-charitable to him in his life, were much affected by the courage and Christianity of his death.

124. John Hampden 1

He was a gentleman of a good family in Buckinghamshire, born to a fair fortune, and of a most civil and affable deportment. In his earlier years, he indulged himself in all the sports, exercises, and company which were used by men of the most jolly conversation. Afterwards he retired to a more reserved and melancholic society, yet preserving his own natural cheerfulness and vivacity, and above all a flowing courtesy to all men.... He was rather of reputation in his own county than of public discourse or fame in the kingdom before the business of ship-money; but then he grew the argument of all tongues, every man inquiring who and what he was, that durst, at his own charge, support the liberty and property of the kingdom and rescue his country from being made a prey to the court. His carriage, throughout that agitation, was with such rare temper and modesty, that they who watched him narrowly to find some advantage against his person, to make

1 Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, vol. iii, pp. 67-69.