[172] C. 15.
[173] C. 19, 20.
[174] C. 16.
[175] C. 28.
[176] Journals, 16th Dec.; Parl. Hist. 968; Nalson, 750. It is remarkable that Clarendon, who is sufficiently jealous of all that he thought encroachment in the Commons, does not censure their explicit assertion of this privilege. He lays the blame of the king's interference on St. John's advice; which is very improbable.
[177] "A greater and more universal hatred," says Northumberland in a letter to Leicester, Nov. 13, 1640 (Sidney Papers, ii. 663), "was never contracted by any person than he has drawn upon himself. He is not at all dejected, but believes confidently to clear himself in the opinion of all equal and indifferent-minded hearers, when he shall come to make his defence. The king is in such a straight that I do not know how he will possibly avoid, without endangering the loss of the whole kingdom, the giving way to the remove of divers persons, as well as other things that will be demanded by the parliament. After they have done questioning some of the great ones, they intend to endeavour the displacing of Jermyn, Newcastle, and Walter Montague."
[178] Clarendon, i. 305. No one opposed the resolution to impeach the lord lieutenant, save that Falkland suggested the appointment of a committee, as more suitable to the gravity of their proceedings. But Pym frankly answered that this would ruin all; since Strafford would doubtless obtain a dissolution of the parliament, unless they could shut him out from access to the king.
The Letters of Robert Baillie, Principal of the University of Glasgow (two vols. Edinburgh, 1775), abound with curious information as to this period, and for several subsequent years. Baillie was one of the Scots commissioners deputed to London at the end of 1640, and took an active share in promoting the destruction of episcopacy. His correspondence breathes all the narrow and exclusive bigotry of the presbyterian school. The following passage is so interesting that, notwithstanding its length, it may find a place here:—
"The lieutenant of Ireland came but on Monday to town late, on Tuesday rested, on Wednesday came to parliament, but ere night he was caged. Intolerable pride and oppression cries to Heaven for a vengeance. The lower house closed their doors; the speaker kept the keys till his accusation was concluded. Thereafter Mr. Pym went up, with a number at his back, to the higher house; and, in a pretty short speech, did, in the name of the lower house, and in the name of the commons of all England, accuse Thomas Earl of Strafford, lord lieutenant of Ireland, of high treason; and required his person to be arrested till probation might be heard; so Mr. Pym and his back were removed. The Lords began to consult on that strange and unexpected motion. The word goes in haste to the lord lieutenant, where he was with the king; with speed he comes to the house; he calls rudely at the door; James Maxwell, keeper of the black rod, opens: his lordship, with a proud glooming countenance, makes towards his place at the board head: but at once many bid him void the house; so he is forced, in confusion, to go to the door till he was 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 to him, before whom, that morning, the greatest of England would have stood discovered, 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 the place where he expected his coach, it was not there; so he behoved to return that same way, through a world of gazing people. When at last he had 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."—P. 217.
[179] The trial of Strafford is best to be read in Rushworth or Nalson. The account in the new edition of the State Trials, I know not whence taken, is curious, as coming from an eye-witness, though very partial to the prisoner; but it can hardly be so accurate as the others. His famous peroration was printed at the time in a loose sheet. It is in the Somers Tracts. Many of the charges seem to have been sufficiently proved, and would undoubtedly justify a severe sentence on an impeachment for misdemeanours. It was not pretended by the managers, that more than two or three of them amounted to treason; but it is the unquestionable right of the Commons to blend offences of a different degree in an impeachment.