Cassell's History of England, Vol. 2 (of 8) / From the Wars of the Roses to the Great Rebellion

by Anonymous

On the 11th of November, 1640, assuming an outward air of unconcern, Strafford went to take his seat in the House of Lords. The Earl of Northumberland, writing to the Earl of Leicester on the 13th, declared that "a greater and more universal hatred was never contracted by any person than he has drawn upon himself, yet he is not at all dejected." Before he appeared in the House, the impeachment had been carried thither from the Commons. Strafford at once hastened to meet his enemies. Baillie, who was one of the Scottish commissioners, gives this striking account of his arrest:—"He calls rudely at the door: James Maxwell, Keeper of the Black Rod, opens. His lordship, with a proud, gloomy countenance, makes towards his place at the board head; but at once many bid him avoid the House, so he is forced in confusion to go back till he is called. After consultation, being called in, he stands, but is commanded to kneel, and on his knees to hear the sentence. Being on his knees he is delivered to the Keeper of the Black Rod, to be prisoner, till he was cleared of these crimes the House of Commons had charged him with. He offered to speak, but was commanded to be gone without a word. In the outer room James Maxwell, required him, as prisoner, to deliver his sword. When he had got it, he cries with a loud voice for his man to carry my Lord-lieutenant's sword. This done, he makes through a number of people towards his coach, all gazing, no man capping him, before whom, that morning, the greatest of England would have stood uncovered, all crying, 'What is the matter?' He said, 'A small matter, I warrant you.' They replied, 'Yes, indeed, high treason is a small matter.' Coming to his place where he expected his coach, it was not there, so he behoved to return the same way, through a crowd of gazing people. When at last he found his coach, and was entering, James Maxwell told him, 'Your lordship is my prisoner, and must go in my coach;' so he behoved to do." In a few days he was committed to the Tower, and the Commons proceeded to deal with those next in degree. But Windebank, Secretary of State, and Finch the Lord Keeper, fled from the reach of their vengeance.

This, then, was the marvellous state of affairs at this moment. "Within less than six weeks," says Clarendon, "these terrible Reformers had caused the two greatest councillors of the kingdom—Laud and Strafford, whom they most feared, and so hated—to be removed from the king, and imprisoned under an accusation of high treason; and frightened away the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and one of the principal Secretaries of State into foreign kingdoms for fear of the like, besides preparing all the Lords of the Council, and very many of the principal gentlemen throughout England, who had been sheriffs and deputy-lieutenants, to expect such measure of punishment from their general votes and resolutions as their future demeanour should draw upon them for their past offences." And thus ended the ever memorable year 1640, in which the Parliament had secured the ascendency after fifteen years' determined struggle with the present king, and many more with his father; had humbled the proud and obstinate monarch; imprisoned his two arch-counsellors; impressed a salutary terror on the whole royal party; and initiated changes of the most stupendous kind.

The House of Commons commenced the year 1641 with an endeavour to secure annual Parliaments, and succeeded in obtaining triennial ones. They proposed that the issuing of the writs should take place at a fixed time, and to prevent the Crown from defeating this intention, they demanded, in case the king did not order the writs at the regular time, it should be imperative on the Lord Keeper or Lord Chancellor to do it; in case they neglected it, it should become the duty of the House of Lords to do so; if the Lords failed, then the sheriffs, and if the sheriffs neglected or refused, the people should proceed to elect their own representatives without any writs at all. To frustrate in future any hasty prorogations, by which the House of Commons was liable at any moment to be stopped by the Crown, they proposed that the king should not have power to prorogue or dissolve Parliament within fifty days of its meeting without its own consent.

At one time Charles would have resented so bold a measure most indignantly, and would have dissolved the audacious body at once; but now he condescended to reason with them in a far different tone. He protested against the measure as a direct encroachment on his prerogative, by which sheriffs and constables were to be endowed with powers that hitherto had been only kingly; but he was fain at last to give way, and the Bill, so far as regarded triennial Parliaments, was passed, and a Bill securing the Houses from hasty prorogation followed in May. By that act Charles tied up his hands from dissolving Parliament at all without its own consent, so that he could no longer defeat its measures as he had done. Thus a real and most momentous infringement on the prerogative was made, being brought about by the king's resistance to the cession of just rights. In obstinately claiming the people's privileges, he was driven to forfeit his own. He was now in a dilemma. The army of the Scots still lay in the North, and both the English Commons and the Scottish Commissioners in London were in no hurry to have it disbanded. Whilst it lay there well supported by Parliamentary allowance, the king and his friends were overawed and powerless, and both parties, the Commons of England and the Covenanters of Scotland, were the better able to press their claims and support each other. Both parties were bent on abolishing or reducing episcopacy.

The Scottish Commissioners exerted themselves with the leaders of the English Commons to move for the total abolition of episcopacy in England, and the establishment of Presbyterianism; but this led only to the development of a variety of views in the Commons. Some of the members favoured the Scottish proposal, and of these were the supporters of the petition with fifteen thousand signatures, brought in from London by Alderman Pennington, called the "root and branch petition." Others, as the Lords Wharton, Say, and Brooke, preferred the still more levelling system of the Independents. On the other hand, some of the most prominent Reformers—the Lords Digby and Falkland, and Selden and Rudyard—were opposed to the extinction of the bishops. Digby compared the London petition to a comet portending nothing but anarchy, and with its tail pointing to the North, meaning that it was a Scottish comet; and Lord Falkland was for relieving the bishops of their temporal cares, but not removing them from the Church altogether. The question was warmly debated for two days, but the fate of the bishops was deferred awhile by that of Strafford.

All being prepared, Strafford was brought from the Tower on the 22nd of March, 1641, and placed before the tribunal appointed to try him in Westminster Hall. He had been about three months in prison, and meanwhile a deputation had arrived from Ireland. They brought a petition, calling on the Commons of England to join them in obtaining his condign punishment. They enumerated their grievances and sufferings from his lawless violence under sixteen heads. The Commons welcomed the deputation, as may be supposed, and to obtain full evidence of Strafford's doings in Ireland, not only accused his most active instrument—Sir George Ratcliffe—of high treason, too, but almost every one of his willing subordinates, and secured all of them that they could, and kept them in readiness to be questioned, by which means they also prevented them from doing mischief with the army. The Scottish Commissioners were equally vehement in demanding justice against him for having counselled the king to put down their religion and government by force, and for offering to supply an army of Irish for the purpose. Thus all three kingdoms were arrayed against the common enemy.

After much debate, it had been concluded that the trial should take place in Westminster Hall, before the Lords and Commons. The Earl of Arundel was appointed to preside as Lord High Steward. On each side of the throne was erected a cabinet, where the king, queen, and Prince of Wales could sit without being seen, these cabinets having trellis work in front, and being hung with arras. Before the throne ran lines of seats for the peers, and woolsacks for the judges, and on each side of the peers were ranged seats for the Commons, who consented to sit uncovered there. Near them were the Scottish and Irish deputies, and there was a desk or dock enclosed for the prisoner and his counsel. One-third of the Hall was left open to the public, the rest being defended by a bar; and there was a gallery near for ladies, which was crowded by those of highest rank. There was an intense interest, indeed, felt by all classes, and the hall was daily so crowded, that Mr. Principal Baillie, minister of Kilwinning, whom we have already mentioned, says in the quaint manner of his time, "We always behoved to be there before five in the morning: the house was full before seven."

Strafford was brought from the Tower guarded by a hundred soldiers, who filled, with the officers, six barges; and on landing at Westminster he was received and conducted forward by two hundred of the train-band. All cross streets and entries were occupied by a strong force of constables and watchmen, placed there as early as four in the morning. The king, queen, and prince arrived about nine o'clock, and about the same time the prisoner was conducted into the Hall. On his appearance the porter demanded of the Usher of the Black Rod whether the axe should be borne before him; but the Usher said no, the king had expressly forbidden it.

The bishops did not appear amongst the lords, for their presence had been strongly objected to by the House of Commons, on the plea that the canons forbade their taking part in any trial which involved bloodshed—"clericus non debet interesse sanguini." But the real fact was that they were supporters of Laud, and Williams, of Lincoln, very adroitly volunteered a motion as from the prelates themselves, that they should be excused. The Commons had objected to those who had been made peers since Strafford had been impeached, as they were his avowed friends. All, except Lord Lyttelton, who had been made a baron and Lord Keeper in the place of the fugitive Finch, refused to comply and took their seats; and so says Clarendon, might the bishops, too, had they had the same spirit.

All being ready, the impeachment was read, consisting of twenty-eight capital articles, and then Strafford's reply to it, which filled two hundred sheets of paper. This occupied the first day. The court rose about two o'clock, and the prisoner was reconducted to the Tower. This was the routine of each day during the trial, which lasted eighteen days. On entering the court at nine o'clock, Strafford made three obeisances to the Earl of Arundel, the High Steward, two of which might be interpreted as intended for the king and queen, though they were not at first visible, nor during the whole time were supposed to be so; but the interest of the proceedings quickly made the king impatient of the trellis work, and, according to Baillie, he pulled it down with his own hands. "It was daily the most glorious assembly," continues Baillie, "that the isle could afford; yet the gravity was not such as I expected. After ten, much public eating, not only of confections, but of flesh and bread; bottles of beer and wine going thick from mouth to mouth without cups, and all this in the king's eye.... There was no outgoing to return, and often the sitting was till two, three, or four o'clock at night."