1640 Northumberland's STRAFFORD VOTES FOR WAR. 121 Northumberland took up the word. In the morning he had voted against the dissolution, and he now gave his reasons for wishing the King to hold his hand. He belonged to a class of politicians whom enthusiastic partisans objection. always despise at their peril. He was not in the habit of thinking deeply on any subject, and had taken the command of the army, as he had before taken the command of the fleet, without any strong persuasion of the righteousness of the cause for which he was about to draw his sword. Personally he admired Strafford, and he liked his own position as a great nobleman at Court. He felt no attraction towards the aggressive Puritanism of the Commons; but he had an indecisive, as it is hardly to be imagined that both the King and the Peers would content themselves with anything incorrect. The notion that Vane's paper was stolen, and therefore could not have found its way into the House of Lords, will not bear the test of investigation. According to Lord Bute's MS., Whitelocke states that ‘this and all the rest of the papers concerning the charge against the Earl were entrusted to the care and custody of Whitelocke, the chairman of the Close Committee, and being for a time missing at the Committee, and because the Earl answered so fully, some were jealous of Whitelocke that he had let see it, the better to make his defence and to oblige the Earl.' He then goes on to show, not very conclusively, that Digby and not himself was the culprit. As, however, the reply of Strafford referred to was on April 5, and the paper was produced in the Commons on the Ioth, it is plain that it cannot have been actually lost at the time referred to, and it is not unlikely that Whitelocke's account of the matter being written down long after the event was not altogether correct. It is at all events distinctly negatived by D'Ewes's Diary, from which it appears under the date of April 23 (Harl. MSS. 164, fol. 185) that two papers were lost, neither of which was Vane's Notes. No one need be surprised that the paper in the House of Lords is in a clerk's hand, as both the original paper and the younger Vane's copy had been previously destroyed. I fancy that Whitelocke's copy was merely one set down from memory by some one who had only heard it read. It is of course quite a different question whether the notes, granting them to be Vane's, were really trustworthy. Vane had reason to bear hard upon Strafford; but there is something very characteristic in each utterance, and I am ready to accept the paper as substantially correct, though it is impossible to say more than this. Verbally accurate the notes do not even profess to be. The question of the Irish army will be discussed subsequently. stinctive feeling that to enter on a war without the support of the Commons, was a rash and headlong proceeding, which would probably end in disaster. How, he asked, could they 'make an offensive war' if they had no better means at their disposal than those which Strafford had just recited. They were in a difficulty whether 'to do nothing or to let them alone, or go on with a vigorous war.' Strafford's fierce, resolute spirit waved the objection. haughtily away. "Go on vigorously," he cried, and we can Strafford's fancy how his eyes flashed as he spoke, " or let them reply. alone." The broken, disjointed notes are all that remain to us. "No defensive war ; loss of honour and repution. The quiet of England will hold out long. You will languish as betwixt Saul and David. Go on with a vigorous. war, as you first designed, loose and absolved from all rules of government; being reduced to extreme necessity, everything is to be done that power might admit, and that you are to do. They refusing, you are acquitted towards God and man. You have an army in Ireland you may employ here to reduce this kingdom. Confident as anything under heaven, Scotland shall not hold out five months. One summer well employed will do it. Venture all I had, I would carry it or lose it. Whether a defensive war as impossible as an offensive, or whether to let them alone." Opinions of Strafford's vehement words were echoed by Laud and Cottington. "Tried all ways," said the Archbishop, "and refused all ways. By the law of God and man you should have subsistence, and ought to have it, and Cottington. lawful to take it." Cottington followed with an argument that, as the Scots were certain to enter into leagues with foreign Powers, an attack upon them was in reality 'a defence of this kingdom.' "The Lower House," he added, "are weary both of King and Church.1 All ways shall be just to raise money for this unavoidable necessity, therefore to be used, being lawful." Strafford again struck in. Commissions of 1 Ranke (Eng. Transl. ii. 196) speaks of this as a mere party statement. It is, however, quite true that the Commons wanted to get rid of kingship, as Charles and Cottington understood kingship. 1640 THE IRISH ARMY. 123 Those to whom they were array were to be put in execution. issued would be bound to bring the men to the Borders at the charge of the counties. "If any of the Lords," he added, 'can show me a better way, let them do it." To this some one feebly answered that the town was 'full of nobility, who' would 'talk of it." "I will make them smart for it," was Strafford's contemptuous reply. Was the Irish army to be employed in England? Eleven months afterwards, when the notes which were taken by Vane of these speeches were laid before the Long Parliament, opinion fixed upon the words relating to the employment of the Irish army in England as the most offensive to English feeling. Strafford then asserted that, as far as his memory served, he had never said anything of the kind; and Northumberland, Hamilton, Juxon, and Cottington, the only witnesses whom it was then possible to produce, gave similar evidence. No such project, they added, had ever been in contemplation. On the other hand, there is strong reason to believe that the charge did not arise from Vane's hostile imagination, or from more deliberate falsification. The suspicion was certainly abroad only two days after the meeting of the committee.. "The King of England," wrote Montreuil, who had been left by Bellievre to act as French agent till the appointment of an ambassador, "thinks of making use of the 10,000 Irishmen as well to bring to terms his English subjects as for the Scottish There is at least a strong probability that this language war. 17 ' Montreuil to Bellievre, May 7, Bibl. Nat. Fr. 15,995, fol. 84. In the following August Strafford was authorised to command an army or armies both to resist and withstand all invasions, tumults, seditions, conspiracies, or attempts that may happen in our kingdoms of England and Ireland, or our Dominion of Wales, to be made against our kingdom, state, safety, crown, or dignity, and also to be led into our kingdom of Scotland." Strafford's patent, Aug. 3, Carte MSS. i. fol. 247. These words, however, as Strafford afterwards stated, were merely copied from Northumberland's patent, which is printed in Rymer, xx. 364. The only difference between the parallel passages is the insertion of Ireland as a sphere of action, which would not be fitting in Northumberland's case, and the verbal substitution of the word kingdom' for 'person.' Probably this was a set form. I have sought in vain for Arundel's patent given in 1639. It seems never to was inspired by some knowledge of Strafford's speech in the committee. It is at least certain that in the formal document have been enrolled. Even the Privy Seal is not to be found at the Record Office. Strafford's argument at his trial that no Irish army was in existence is worthless. There was always a small army, and the new one was to have been ready by May 18. In Vane's notes the sentence about the quiet of England is followed by: "They refusing," i.e. the English, "you are acquitted before God and man;" and it seems to me likely enough that this outburst about the Irish army may have sprung to Strafford's lips at the bare thought of English refusal, though it was not quite in accord with what he had said before. The acquittal before God and man referred to acquittal for conduct towards the English, and the words about the Irish army would naturally also apply to the English. But I wish to be clearly understood as not giving any positive opinion on the matter. Vane's jottings will not bear dogmatism on either side. In fairness to those who accept an interpretation different from my own, I should add an extract from a letter written by Windebank to the King, after his flight in 1641. "I have received a signification of your Majesty's pleasure to declare and testify (upon my allegiance to your Majesty) whether in a debate in Council at a Committee about a defensive and offensive war with the Scots, I do remember that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland did say to your Majesty that, having tried the affections of your people, you were absolved from all rules of government, and were to do everything that power would admit, since your subjects had denied to supply you, and that in so doing you should be acquitted both of God and man, and that your Majesty had an army in Ireland, which you might employ to reduce this kingdom to obedience; to which, upon my allegiance to your Majesty, I do most humbly make this direct, clear, and true answer (which your Majesty may well remember) of that which passed in debate from time to time in Council at the Committee about a defensive and offensive war with the Scots, I do not remember that my Lord Lieutenant of Ireland did say to your Majesty the words above mentioned, or any other to that purpose, being confident that in a business so remarkable, and of so great moment, could not but have remembered them if they had been spoken. And, further, I do not remember that ever I so much as heard the least speech that the army in Ireland was to be employed to reduce the kingdom of England to obedience; and either I misunderstood the sense of the Committee from time to time, or else the consultations of the Committee concerning the disposing and employing of the Irish army did ever bend wholly another way." Windebank to the King, May 16, 1641, S. P. Dom. This letter, like the evidence of the other members of the Committee given at the trial, asserts far more than the mere transference of the pro 1640 WHAT DID STRAFFORD MEAN? 125 in which the command of the Irish army was subsequently conferred upon Strafford, the contingency of its employment against rebellion in England was specially provided for. Strafford probably had formed ate plan. Yet in spite of this, it may be reasonably doubted whether any deliberate purpose of preparing for an Irish occupation of England was ever entertained. Not only does no trace remain of any counsels, save those already no determin- mentioned, in which such a design formed a part, but everything that we learn of Strafford and Charles induces us to believe that neither of them had any real expectation that such a course would be necessary. To the end Strafford underrated the forces opposed to him. He believed that, apart from the ambition of the House of Commons, the real England was on his side, and would rally round him as soon as it learnt how grossly deluded it had been. With these posed employment of the Irish army from England to Scotland. It asserts that the writer had no recollection of the whole passage which preceded the words about Ireland. Is his inability to recollect all this to make us give up Vane's notes altogether? The passage quoted from Montreuil shows at least that the proposal of an attack from Ireland was talked of at this time. But, leaving this out of the question, it is impossible not to lay weight on the fact that Charles saw the notes before the meeting of the Long Parliament. The elder Vane stated in the House of Commons, April 12, 1641, according to D'Ewes, that Charles had sent for these notes. and had ordered them to be burnt. According to the Verney Notes (37), Vane said that he had himself 'moved the King to burn the papers, and the King consented to it.' Whichever of these two accounts is right, it is clear that Vane spoke of the King's knowledge of the notes as something beyond question. And it is also certain that, as far as we know, Charles never denied the statement. This would imply that they really were taken at the time, for the King's use. Private notes, forged in order to be subsequently flung at Strafford, would not come to the knowledge of the King. Is it not incredible that the whole of the passage from the assertion that the King was loose and absolved from all rules of government down to the sentence about Ireland, should have been put in without ground, when Vane must have known that the King might call for the notes at any moment? Verbal inaccuracies there must have been, and perhaps misapprehension of the drift of a sentence, but surely not the pure invention of whole sentences. Yet that is what the argument from the want of memory of the members of the Committee really comes to. |