Had Strafford committed

To Pym the argument that the laws of Ireland had been violated was mainly important as showing a readiness to violate the laws of England as well. Very early in his conduct of the case he had to face the question treason? for which he must long ago have been prepared. If Strafford had done all that he was alleged to have done, if he had violated the law in innumerable instances for his own private ends, had he committed treason? The doctrine of treason as it had been elaborated in the Middle Ages, had fixed that name upon acts committed against the person or authority of the Sovereign. No one knew better than Strafford that in this sense he had not committed treason.

Pym's conception

of treason.

Pym, on the other hand, advanced a larger and nobler conception of the crime. It is possible that he was led to his argument by the extension of treason by the judges in the Tudor reigns from an attack on the King's personal authority to an attack such as Essex had contemplated in the last days of Elizabeth upon the system of government supported by the Sovereign. He now argued that the worst traitor was not he who attacked the Sovereign's person or government, but he who attacked the Sovereign in his political capacity, and, by undermining the laws which constituted his greatness, exposed him to disaster and ruin.

1

such as a

It might,

If the principle itself was politically grander than that which lay at the root of the old treason law, it had for judicial purDifficulty of poses the incurable defect, as it was thus presented, applying it. of a want of definiteness. The charge of treason might be reserved for offences of the blackest dye, deliberate attack by force of arms upon Parliament. on the other hand, be employed to cover any strong opposition to the popular sentiment. Already there had been signs that this danger was imminent. Finch and Berkeley, as well as Laud, had already been voted by the Commons to have been guilty of treason, and it required a very strong imagination to believe that the foundations of the State had really been endangered by either Finch or Berkeley. The time might soon

On this change, see the Introduction to Mr. Willis Bund's Selections of Cases from the State Trials.

1641

WHAT IS TREASON?

307 arrive when treason would be as light a word in the mouth of a member of Parliament as damnation had been in the mouth of a mediæval ecclesiastic.

Yet, even if it had been conceded that Pym's view of treason was the true one, and if care had been taken to restrict it to a deliberate conspiracy to change the existing system of government, it was hard to call upon Strafford to pay the penalty. Not only had he himself had no such deliberate intention of changing the government, but he had never had fair warning that what he was doing would be regarded in the light in which it was now seen. It might be well that the law of treason should be altered so as to include some actions which had been done by Strafford; but it was hard upon him, and of the worst possible example to future times, to inflict the penalty of death under an interpretation of the law which was now heard of for the first time.

March 25.

feeling in favour of Strafford.

tion in the

Strafford therefore had much to say on his own behalf. His vigorous defence told on his audience. Ladies who had obtained seats in Westminster Hall were loud in his Increasing praise. Amongst the peers the conviction was growing that, whatever else he might be, he was not a traitor. In the House of Commons, on the other Dissatisfac hand, the cry for blood was waxing louder. There was an increasing disposition to resent all licence given to the necessities of the defence as a delay of justice. The frequent adjournments of the Lords for the consideration of points of procedure were regarded as mere procrastination, and one member asked that the peers might be requested to stop the prisoner's mouth whenever he spoke at undue length.1

House of
Commons.

Undoubtedly the Commons were thinking more of the future than of the past. That which irritated them was not so much the thought that Strafford had been cruel to Mountnorris, or that he had converted to his own use several thousand pounds of the King's money, as the thought that if he was left alive he would soon be found at the

Causes of their displeasure.

' D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxii. 359.

head of an army prepared to drive them out of Westminster, and ready to explain that, startling as the proceeding might seem, it was only a temporary and accidental interruption of the harmonious working of the constitution.

Charles, of all men, was most anxious to save Strafford, but neither he nor the Queen could understand that they could only save him by entirely renouncing all thought of appealing to force. Already an offer had been made to them which they were loth entirely to reject, and that offer, if it were once known, would be sufficient to seal Strafford's fate.

Wants of the
English

army.

For some time the dissatisfaction in the English army had been on the increase. "This I will say of you of the Parlialiament," wrote one of the officers in January to his brother, who was a member of the House of Commons; "you are the worst paymasters I know. Next Tuesday we have six weeks due to us, and unless there be some speedy course taken for the payment you may well expect to hear that all our soldiers are in a mutiny, to the ruin of the country, for they are notable sheep-stealers already."

Effect of the
Commons'

vote in

Scots.

tion of the

English officers.

On March 6, in the very height of the pressure for payment to the Scots,2 the Commons had come to a vote, transferring to the troops of that nation 10,000l. which had been previously assigned to the English army. The news favour of the had naturally caused the gravest dissatisfaction amongst the troops in Yorkshire. Their talk ran on mutiny. Officers and soldiers were alike in distress. Henry Dissatisfac- Percy, brother of the Earl of Northumberland, Ashburnham, Wilmot, and Pollard, were members of the House of Commons as well as officers. "If such papers as that of the Scots," said Wilmot in the House, when the matter was under discussion, "will procure monies, I doubt not but the officers of the English army may easily do the like." When the vote had been passed these four officers consulted together. The resolution which they adopted was apparently a curious resultant from the double character which they bore. As officers of an army which had been stinted in its pay by the E. Verney to R. Verney, Jan. 15, Verney MSS. 2 Idem, March 8, ibid.

1641

An army petition

proposed by Percy and others.

THE ARMY DISSATISFIED.

309

House of Commons, they were ready to offer their services to the King. As members of the House of Commons they were bound to keep within the limits of constitutional law, at least after their own interpretation. They proposed to induce the officers in the North to sign a declaration that they would stand by the King if Parliamentary pressure were put upon him to compel him to assent to the exclusion of the bishops from the House of Lords, or to force him to disband the Irish army before the Scots were disbanded, or if the full revenue which he had enjoyed for so many years were not placed in his hands.

Such was the military version of the fundamental laws of the realm. Percy was commissioned to offer to the King the supThe King to port of the army on these terms. There can be very be informed. little doubt that he knew pretty well that these three points were precisely those on which Charles was most anxious

He has already heard of another plan.

The Queen

in her hopes

assistance.

Richelieu refuses to receive her in France.

that a stand should be made. Yet when he spoke to the King on the subject he was surprised to find that a more violent proposal still had already been laid before him.1

That proposal, like all other violent proposals to which Charles was called on to listen, was warmly supported by the Queen. Henrietta Maria had been ready in the disappointed beginning of March to clutch at any aid, however of foreign hopeless it might seem. She had been deeply disappointed in her expectation of foreign help. Richelieu had intimated to her, in his most polite phrases, that it would not be advisable, in her own interest, that she should visit France in this conjuncture of her affairs; and she reasonably conjectured that this advice concealed a preference for an alliance with a strong Parliament Percy to Northumberland, June 14 (Rushworth, iv. 255). It is impossible to trace out the dates of these early proceedings of Percy and his friends. The interview with the King must have taken place a few days before March 21, as from Chudleigh's evidence on Aug. 13 (Harl. MSS. clxiv. 28) it appears that Percy and his friends had drawn back (as Suckling expressed himself) about March 20; that is to say, probably on March 21, the date on which Chudleigh arrived from the North. The interview took place before this.

The Pope

her unless

the King

changes his religion.

to one with a weak king. She was, however, obliged to announce that she was no longer in danger of falling into a consumption, and that she was therefore able to endure the English climate.1 Annoying as this rebuff was, she was soon afterwards subjected to a still greater annoyance. Rossetti informed her that an answer to her application for will not help money had been received from Rome, and that the Pope would no nothing for her unless her husband declared himself a Catholic. He need not avow his conversion openly at first. It would be enough if the Papal authorities were left in no doubt of the fact. The Queen knew that the Pope might as well have refused her request in distinct terms. She told Rossetti that she wished much that it might be with her husband as His Holiness desired, but that everything depended on God. Why should not offers liberty the Pope content himself with that which was really practicable? If victory were gained with papal aid the Catholics should be permitted to keep open churches in England, and should be entirely freed from all impediments to the exercise of their religion.

The Queen

of worship for the

Catholics.

Father Philips adjured Rossetti to counsel the acceptance of this offer. He urged that the King was now in want only of money. He had men enough at his disposal. Irish Catholics were ready to serve him, and there were Protestants whose devotion could also be counted on. Whatever stipulations were made, the King's victory would turn to the advantage of the Catholics. Without their aid Charles would find it impossible to maintain his authority. The chief difficulty unfortunately lay with Charles himself. He was timid, and slow in coming to a resolution. Rossetti recommended that the Queen should be urged to employ herself on the good work of his conversion. She knew how the royal authority in France had been strengthened by her father's acknowledgment of the true faith.?

If no help was to be had from abroad, the eager, restless 1 Richelieu's Memoir for Chavigny, Avenel, vi. 756. Montreuil's despatch, March Bibl. Nat. Fr. 15,995, fol. 203.

14

2 Rossetti to Barberini, March 12, R. O. Transcripts.