It was the beginning of the power of parliaments, the beginning of that temper in the people which was to later furnish the extraordinary spectacle of a nation ruling its own kings and retaining a monarchy as a mere ornament to that independence which displayed undisguised is likely to be too stern an object to please a people full of levity and love of show. This party was represented by the Opposition that had galled and restricted the first Charles since his accession; he, however, rather disliked than feared them, and did not doubt that his authority would quell their republican principles.
With these men, among whom was John Pym and afterwards a nobler patriot, John Hampden, Sir Thomas took his seat; he went not into extremes against the court, but conducted himself moderately; he became Custos Rotulorum for the West Riding; presently the king was advised to make him Sheriff of York that he might be disqualified as a Parliamentary candidate; next he was imprisoned for refusing to pay a forced loan imposed by Charles; it seemed that he was committed beyond withdrawal to the Opposition, daily more daring; and that he was to be one of that band of men, firm willed and single minded, who discovered in an absolute monarchy a menace to the general good; but Wentworth did not see with them; tradition was strong in him, his imagination glorified loyalty; he saw in the king an instrument for procuring the greatness of the people; he saw a crisis approaching, a struggle drawing nearer, he chose his side, knowing perhaps that it was bound to lose, but seeing at least a chance for his own dormant abilities to strengthen and exalt a weakening institution. In 1628 the Duke of Buckingham was stabbed to the heart by one of those Puritans who were resolved that all pertaining to Kingship was fatal to their country’s peace, and in that year Thomas Wentworth took the place of the murdered favourite and became, with Laud of Canterbury, chief adviser to the King.
It was supposed by his former friends that he had covered himself with immortal infamy by his desertion of the popular party for that of the court, and their censure has been often echoed, it being assumed that because the cause he espoused was unsuccessful he wasted his genius in serving it; but in 1628 Sir Thomas may have hoped to make England as great as did Cromwell afterwards, and there was no prophet to tell him his judgment was deceived.
A personal friendship rose between him and the stately, formal King with whose traits he had much in common. Charles, grateful to the genius that took the place of Buckingham’s careless talents, created him in one year baron, viscount, and Lord President of the Council of the North.
The Puritan party viewed his rise with peculiar hatred; so hard is it for even just men to stifle the claims of party and see any good in that cause which is not their own.
“You have left us,” said John Pym, “but we will not leave you while your head is on your shoulders.”
In 1633 Wentworth was made Lord Deputy of Ireland, and endeavoured to reduce order into that vexed and discontented country by measures which were abused as despotic, but which were necessary to a man occupied with great schemes. England could never be a great empire while Ireland was an independent kingdom; his claim of Connaught only anticipated the inevitable, and if the army he was so abused for raising could have been kept together under his direction, the crown of England might have been saved. As far as time permitted, he introduced social benefits into the wretched land and encouraged the linen industry by planting flax.
But he was too late, perhaps too impetuous, blinded by his own genius for command into overlooking the steady rise of the democracy; he himself described his policy as “thorough.” Had he been allowed the time, he would have made a notable thing of this policy; but the tide was against him, and bore him sharply out to ruin.
Private malice, not his own faults, brought about his downfall, and he was thrown by a misuse of the law as wanton as any tyranny that could be brought against him. In 1639 John Pym carried out his threat and impeached him of high treason; Wentworth, newly created Lord Strafford, was committed to the Tower, and the outward disgrace and real glory of the man began.
It was one of the most memorable of all state trials, and lacked no element of the tragic, the strange, the terrible, or the dramatic.