am free of fear, the articles that are coming I apprehend not. The Irish business is passed, and better than I expected, their proofs being very scant. God's hand is with us, for what is not we might expect to have been sworn from thence? All will be well, and every hour gives more hope than other."1

On April 10, a serious quarrel broke out between the two Houses on the question of the admissibility of some fresh evidence. A riotous scene took place in Westminster Hall, and there seemed likely to be a permanent breach. "The Commons on both sides of the House," says Baillie, “raise in a fury, with a shout of Withdraw! Withdraw! Withdraw! get all their feet, on with their hats, cocked their beavers in the King's sight. We all did fear it should go to a present tumult." "The King laughed," says another eye-witness, "and the Earl of Strafford was so well pleased therewith that he would not hide his joy."

The same afternoon the Commons decided to bring in a Bill of Attainder. "The secret of their taking this way is conceived to be to prevent the hearing of the Earl's lawyers, who give out that there is no law yet in force whereby he can be condemned to die for aught yet objected against him, and therefore their intent is by this Bill to supply the defect of the laws therein." 2 A member

1 This letter is printed by Dr. Whitaker, p. 222, as a postscript to Strafford's letter of Nov. 5, 1640, but is really a separate letter of fourteen lines, and should be dated April 4, 1641. The internal evidence is conclusive.

2 Baillie, i. 346; Cal. State Papers Domestic, 1640-1, p. 540. See Gardiner, ix. pp. 327, 330.

of the Commons adds, "If the House of Commons proceed to demand judgment of the Lords, without doubt they will acquit him, there being no law extant whereupon to condemn him of treason. Wherefore the Commons are determined to desert the Lords' judicature, and to proceed against him by Bill of Attainder, whereby he shall be adjudged to death upon a treason now to be declared." 1

Under these circumstances "the rigid, strong, and inflexible party" in the Commons broke away from the control of their ordinary leaders, and adopted the Bill of Attainder brought in by Sir Arthur Hesilrige. It appears from the diary of Sir Symond D'Ewes that Pym was opposed to proceeding by Bill of Attainder, and wished to carry the impeachment to its close, in which desire he seems to have been also backed by Hampden. The Bill passed its first reading on April 10, the second on April 14, and the third on April 21.

One result of this change of procedure was that it entirely altered the King's attitude towards Strafford's trial. If the Lords passed the Bill the King's confirmation would be required. "Unhappy men," says Baillie, "putts the King daily in harder straits. Had the Commons gone on in the former way of pursuit, the King might have been a patient, and only beheld the striking off of Strafford's head; but now they have put them on a Bill which will force the King either to be our agent and formal voicer to his death, or else do the world

1 Twelfth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Coke MSS. ii. 278.

knows not what."1 Strafford's chief hope was in the Lords. They might decline to pass the Bill, or they might suggest some compromise which the Commons would be obliged to accept. Strafford himself, now less confident, suggested such a middle course. "It is told me," he wrote to Hamilton on April 24, "that the Lords are inclinable to preserve my life and family, for which their generous compassions the great God of mercy will reward them; and surely should I die upon this evidence, I had much rather be the sufferer than the judge.

"All that I shall desire from your lordship is, that divested of all public employment, I may be permitted to go home to my own private fortune, there to attend my own domestic affairs, and education of my children, with as little asperity of words or marks of infamy as possibly the nobleness and justice of my friends can procure for me, with a liberty to follow my own occasions as I shall find best for myself. This is no unreasonable thing I trust to desire, all considered that may be said in my case (for I vow my fault that should justly draw any heavy sentence on me, I yet do not see :) yet this much obtained will abundantly satisfy a mind hasting first to quiet, and a body broken with afflictions and infirmities." 2

A party in the House of Lords, headed by Lords Bristol, Clare, and Savile, endeavoured to forward an arrangement of the kind here suggested. The day before this letter to Hamilton was written, the King himself had promised Strafford in words quoted by Browning on

1 Baillie, Letters, ed. Laing, p. 350.

2 Burnet, Lives of the Hamiltons, pp. 232, 507, ed. 1852.

d

p. 252-that he should not suffer in "life, honour, or fortune." Charles now came forward himself and appealed to the Lords to consent to this compromise. His speech1 was made on May 1st, and the Attainder Bill had passed its second reading in the Lords on April 27th. A week before the speech might have had some effect: it could have no effect now.2

More fatal even than the King's hesitation was his incapacity to confine himself to constitutional action, or to adhere persistently to the policy of relying on the Lords.

Schemes to bribe the Governor of the Tower to let Strafford escape, or to introduce into that fortress a body of troops devoted to the King, were connected with a wider plot to bring up the army from the north to overawe the Parliament. The King was directly involved in these designs, and their disclosure by Pym on May 5 ruined Strafford's last hope. The suspicions and the fears which their discovery excited put an end to the possibility of a compromise which should save Strafford's life. It was the revelation of the Army Plot rather than the dread of mob violence which induced the Lords to pass the Attainder Bill. On the morning of May 8,3 the Bill passed the House of Lords by 26 to 19 votes, and it was presented to the King for his assent on the same afternoon. Four days earlier Strafford had written to the King to release him from his promise.1

1 P. 264.

2 Gardiner, History of England, ix. 347.

3 Gardiner, ix. 355.

4 May 4. See the letter itself on p. 266. Browning mistakenly places it after the passing of the Bill by the Lords.

ix. 362.

See Gardiner,

Of the struggle which the King made before he yielded, Browning gives no account. His Privy Council with one accord advised him to yield. The judges when consulted replied that they held Strafford to have been guilty of treason. Out of five bishops summoned to discuss the moral question, only Juxon and Usher advised him to satisfy his conscience by refusing his assent. A shouting mob crowded the street and threatened an attack on Whitehall. Late on the evening of May 9 Charles gave way. At last the King protested at the council table that if his person only were in danger, he would gladly venture it to save Lord Strafford's life, but seeing his wife, children, and all his kingdom were concerned in it, he was forced to give way unto it; "which he did not express without tears." 1

Of that consent Charles repented all his life. In one of his letters to the Queen he speaks of "that base, sinful concession concerning the Earl of Strafford.” In another he writes, "Nothing can be more evident than that Strafford's innocent blood hath been one of the great causes of God's just judgments upon this nation by a furious civil war; both sides hitherto being almost equally punished as being in a manner equally guilty." When he was negotiating with the army in 1647, Berkeley describes him as specially opposing the suggested provisions against his adherents," saying that he would have no man to suffer for his sake, and that he repented of nothing so much as the Bill against my Lord Strafford."

1 Forster, British Statesmen, vi. 71. Letter of the Elector Palatine.