Strafford did not want to die.
CHAPTER III
MR. PYM AND AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
When Mr. Cromwell had seen Lord Strafford ride away into the late summer dust of gold, he returned to his lodging and, packing up his effects, went back to Huntingdon. He was lately removed from St. Ives to Ely, and was become of late a more quiet, sombre man than even formerly, for he had received a blow his soul had staggered under, namely, the death of his eldest son, a gallant youth still at college. Yet he was soon withdrawn again from his grazing grounds and his cattle, his harvesting, and buying, and selling, for the King called a Parliament, and the people sent up from the boroughs and shires all the flower of English gentlehood, the Cursons, Ashtons, Leighs, Derings, Ingrams, Fairfaxes, Cecils, Polles, Grenvils, Trevors, Carews, and Edgcombes, all fine old names deep rooted in English soil—most of them the very men who had formed the late Parliament which the King had so summarily dismissed—and with them came Mr. Cromwell, borough Member for Cambridge, a silent man still, waiting for the Divine guidance which had been promised him when he entered into Covenant with the Lord.
Soon after the session opened, a motion was moved for inquiry into Irish affairs, and Mr. Cromwell, seeing Mr. Pym as they left the House together, called out to him and said—
"It is my Lord Strafford you strike at, is it not?"
And Mr. Pym answered "Yes."
The two gentlemen walked together down Whitehall. There were a great many of the meaner sort abroad, hustling and clamouring and passing rumour from mouth to mouth about the progress of the Scots and the humour of the King, all of them big with hopes of the things the Parliament men would do, now they were gotten together; of how the bishops would be put down for ever, the new taxes taken off, and His Majesty's design for bringing over an army of Irish or French Papists finally defeated.
As they neared Whitehall—that portentous and haughty palace behind whose closed gates Majesty endured humiliation as best might be—Mr. Pym, looking round him in his stately way at the robust and eager crowd, touched his companion's arm.