Page images
PDF
EPUB

his enemies, who would become more bold and dangerous when they found that they were feared. But this did not reconcile Wentworth to the disappointment, which he continued to feel bitterly, until the king sending for him in September 1639, he was in January following raised to his long-desired dignity, the earldom of Strafford. At the same time he was raised from the title of deputy to that of lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and was likewise made a knight of the garter.

1

On his return to Ireland, where he reinained about à fortnight, he sat in parliament, had four subsidies granted, appointed a council of war, and gave orders to levy 8000 men, which with 2000 foot, and 1000 horse, which was the standing army in Ireland, and 5000 horse to be joined with them, were to be sent into Scotland, under his lordship's command, to reduce that country to obedience.

He then embarked for England, although at that time labouring under serious indisposition. On his recovery, he was made lieutenant-general of the English forces in the North, but the king having agreed to a truce with the Scots, his lordship had business of a more serious nature to attend to. On Nov. 3, 1640, the parliament, called afterwards the long parliament, met, and was composed of men who were determined to redress what they called abuses, by their own authority. In this design, the only dangerous obstacle which they feared to encounter, was the vigour and talents of Strafford. While the popular leaders detested him as a traitor to their cause, and the Scots as the implacable enemy of their nation, all equally dreaded those abilities which had laid Ireland prostrate at his feet, and which had almost inspired the royal counsels with decision. While he continued at the head of an army, there was no security that he might not, by some sudden movement, confound and crush their projects; and nothing seemed, therefore, possiblé to be achieved, till his destruction was first accomplished.

The apprehensions of the king soon brought their dreaded adversary into their power. When he compared the management of an Irish parliament by Strafford, with his own abortive attempts in England, Charles, without duly weighing the difference of circumstances, was led to expect from this minister's assistance, an issue no longer possible. Strafford hesitated to incur certain dangers in so hopeless a struggle. To the royal summons for his attendance in

parliament, he replied by an earnest request that he might be permitted to retire to his government in Ireland, or to some other place where he might promote the service of his majesty; and not deliver himself into the hands of his enraged enemies. But to these representations Charles refused to listen; and, with too much confidence in a firmness which had so often failed him, he encouraged his minister by a solemn promise, that "not a hair of his head should be touched by the parliament."

Strafford at length prepared to obey these repeated mandates; and having discovered a traitorous correspondence, in which his enemy Savile and some other lords had invited, the Scots to invade England, he resolved to anticipate and confound his adversaries by an accusation of these popular leaders. But no sooner were the Commons informed that he had taken his seat among the peers, than they ordered their doors to be shut; and after they had continued several hours in deliberation, Pym appeared at the bar of the House of Lords; and in the name of the Commons of England, impeached the earl of Strafford of high treason. This charge was accompanied by a desire that he should be sequestered from parliament, and forthwith committed to prison; a request which, after a short deliberation, was granted. A committee of thirteen was chosen by the lower House, to prepare a charge against him. The articles of impeachment, produced at his trial, were twentyeight in number, and regarded his conduct, as president of the council of York, as lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and as counsellor or commander in England. It would be impossible to detail all the circumstances of his trial, which was conducted with great solemnity; 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 masterly and eloquent speech he made on his trial has always been admired as one of the first compositions of the kind in that age.. "Certainly," say Whitlocke, who was chairman of the impeaching committee, 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

[ocr errors]

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." But his fate was determined upon. His enemies resolved to hasten it, at the expence of justice, by adopting a proceeding, which overstepped the established forms and maxims of law, and against which innocence could form no protection. Dreading the decision of the lords, if the charges and evidence were to be weighed by the received rules, they resolved to proceed by a bill of attainder: and to enact that Strafford was guilty of high treason, and had incurred its punishment. The commons endeavoured to veil the infamy of this proceeding, by an attempt, not less infamous, and still more absurd, to satisfy the legal rules of evidence. The advice of Strafford about the employment of the Irish army, and which, by a forced interpretation, was construed into a design to subdue England by that force, had hitherto been attested by the solitary evidence of sir Henry Vane; but an attempt was now made to maintain the charge by two witnesses, as the laws of treason required. The younger Vane, on inspecting some of his father's papers, discovered a minute, as it appeared, of the consultation at which the words imputed to Strafford were alleged to have been spoken; and this minute was recognised by the elder Vane, as taken down by him at the time, in his quality of secretary. In reporting this discovery to the House, Pym maintained, in a solemn argument, that the written evidence of sir Henry Vane, at the periód of the transaction, and his oral evidence at present, ought to be considered as equivalent to the testimony of two witnesses; and this extravagant position was actually sanctioned by the House, and adopted as a ground of their proceedings.

[ocr errors]

Several members, even among the personal enemies of Strafford, remonstrated against this complicated injustice, but in vain; and no obstacle could restrain the commons from pursuing their victim to death, nor were they without means to accelerate the progress of the bill of attainder in the upper House. House. As a warning to the lords, the names of the fifty-nine commoners who had voted against it, were posted up in conspicuous places, with this superscription, "The Straffordians, the men who to save a traitor would betray their country." The populace, indeed, were excited to every species of outrage, in order to intimidate the outrage, VOL. XXXI.

House of Lords as well as his Majesty, and they succeeded too well in both cases. Out of eighty lords who had been present during the whole trial, only forty-six now ventured to attend; and when the bill came to a vote, it was carried with eleven dissenting voices. The king, who dreaded that himself and family might fall victims to the vindictive rioters, summoned his privy-council to devise means for his safety, and they declared no other could be found but his assent to the death of Strafford; he represented the violence which he should thus impose on his conscience; and they referred him to the prelates, who, trembling under their own apprehensions, earnestly concurred in the advice of the privy-counsellors. 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.

Strafford, hearing of the king's irresolution and anxiety, wrote a letter, in which he entreated his majesty, 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. The magnanimity of this letter made little impression on the courtiers who surrounded the king; they now urged, that the full consent of Strafford to his own death absolved his majesty from every scruple of conscience; and after much anxiety and doubt, the king granted a commission to four noblemen to give the royal assent, in his name, to the bill, a measure ultimately as pernicious to Charles as it was now to Strafford, for with it was coupled his assent to the bill which rendered this parliament perpetual. But so much was his majesty at this time under the presence of terror, or regard for Strafford, that he did not perceive that this last bill was of fatal consequence to himself. In fact, in comparison with the bill of attainder, this concession made no figure in his eyes. A circumstance, says Hume, 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.

Strafford, notwithstanding his voluntary surrender of his

life, in the letter he wrote to the king, was not quite prepared to expect so sudden a dereliction by his sovereign. When secretary Carleton waited on him with the intelligence, and stated his own consent as the circumstance that had chiefly moved the king, the astonished prisoner inquired if his majesty had indeed sanctioned the bill? and when assured of the fatal truth, he exclaimed: "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men; for in them there is no salvation." Resuming, however, his accustomed fortitude, he began now to prepare for his fate, and employed the short interval of three days, which was allowed him, in the concerns of his friends and his family. He humbly petitioned the House of Lords to have compassion on his innocent children. He wrote his last instructions to his eldest son, exhorting him to be obedient and grateful to those entrusted with his education; to be sincere and faithful towards his sovereign, if he should ever be called into public service; and, as he foresaw that the revenues of the church would be despoiled, he charged him to take no part in a sacrilege which would certainly be followed by the curse of Heaven. He shed tears over the untimely fate of Wandesford, whom he had entrusted with the care of his government, and the protection of his family, and who, on learning the dangers of his friend and patron, had fallen a victim to grief and despair. In a parting letter to his wife, he endeavoured to support her courage; and expressed a hope, that his successor, lord Dillon, would behave with tenderness to her and her orphans. On being refused an interview with sir George Radcliffe and archbishop Laud, his fellow-prisoners in the Tower, he conveyed a tender adieu to the one, and to the other an earnest request for his prayers and his parting blessing.

His latest biographer remarks, that the day of Strafford's execution threw a brighter lustre over his name, than his most memorable transactions. As he passed along to Tower Hill, on which the scaffold was erected, the populace, who eagerly thronged to the spectacle, beheld his noble deportment with admiration. His tall and stately figure, the grave, dignified symmetry of his features, corresponded with the general impression of his character: and the mildness, which had taken place of the usual severity of his forehead, expressed repentance enlivened by hope, and fortitude tempered by resignation. In his address to the people from the scaffold, he assured them that he sub

« PreviousContinue »