sure on the Peers was too strong to make any other course The Bill in acceptable. Yet its advocates had already cause to Committee. regret that they had broken away from Pym. The debate on the order to go into committee had revealed the fact that the House of Commons was not unanimous even against Strafford. There was a scanty band1 which urged over again every point which had been made by the Earl himself. One member asked whether Strafford's acts had amounted to treason. Another wished to know what proof there was that the Irish army was intended to land in England. The poet Waller went to the root of the matter by asking what were the fundamental laws-a question which drew down on him a retort from Maynard, that, if he did not know that, he had no business to sit in the House. Yet in spite of the questionApril 15. ings of the minority it was resolved, before the afternoon of the 15th was over, that Strafford had endeavoured to subvert the fundamental laws of England. The Commons had now to learn how deeply they had Whether this was so or not-and his practical experience of the House of Commons makes his opinion of great weight-it is altogether another question whether the delay was greater than was to be expected over a question of such importance, and in which such a warm interest was taken on either side. The Bill went into committee on the 14th, and was read a third time on the 21st, but a week later, though only the afternoons were set apart for the discussion. No doubt D'Ewes (Harl. MSS. clxiii. fol. 45) says of the debate of the 14th that many made trifling objections 'which they did only to keep off the question from being put. I was much amazed to see so many of the House speak on the Earl of Strafford's side.' But we are not bound now to hold that no one had a right to urge all that could be said on Strafford's side. When such intolerance prevailed amongst Strafford's enemies, his few friends may be pardoned if they sometimes urged rather poor arguments in his favour. This was the first occasion on which the Commons had really discussed the case on its merits. "The long continuance of a Parliamentary contest," writes Mr. Palgrave, "is a sure sig that oppos g parties are very even." Perhaps so, when nothing is decided. But, when one side gives up point after point, it is a sign that one party is not sufficiently numerous to court a defeat. On the 19th there was a division on the most favourable ground that the Opposition could take, and D'Ewes tells us that they were beaten by at least three to one.-Harl. MSS. clxiv. fol. 180. 2 D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. fol. 43, 45; clxiv. fol. 172. 1641 A LEGAL ARGUMENT. offended the Lords. 337 In the ordinary course of the impeachment they should have appeared in Westminster Hall given to the to hear the arguments of counsel on both sides on Offence Lords. the legal questions arising out of the evidence. Pym and Strode asked that there might be no interruption of the proceedings. St. John, however, carried the House with him when he proposed to send a message asking the Peers to postpone their sitting which had been appointed for the purpose of hearing counsel, and informing them that the Commons had a Bill of Attainder under consideration.1 The Lords at once took fire. They answered that they would go on with the trial whether the Commons appeared or not. They would hear counsel and deliver judgment. to stop the The Commons, in return, declared their resolution to proceed with their Bill.2 They refuse trial. April 16. Hampden attempts to It was on such occasions that the weight of Hampden's character made itself felt. He seldom rose to speak, and he never spoke at any length. He now came to the support of the Lords. Let the managers, he said, mediate. be in their places to argue the question of law as they had before argued the question of fact. Pym seconded • him vehemently. He told the members that if they abandoned the impeachment they would 'much dishonour' themselves. The House was only convinced so far as to resolve to be present, as a committee, to listen to the arguments of Strafford's counsel without replying to them. April 17. The legal argument. The legal argument on behalf of Strafford was therefore duly heard. On the 19th the question, whether Strafford's acts amounted to treason, was fought out in the Commons. Selden and Holborne battled hard against the inevitable conclusion. The comtraitor by the mittee voted by three to one that Strafford was a April 19. Strafford declared a Commons. April 21. The proviso. With this vote the future of the Bill was practically settled as far as the Commons were concerned. The last C. J. ii. 121. D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. fol. 48. Moore's Diary, Harl. MSS. cccclxxxvi. fol. 179 b. debate on it in committee was on a proviso forbidding the judges to act upon the principles laid down in it in any other case.1 The third The motion for the third reading was opposed by Digby in an impassioned speech. He denied that the charge of bringing over the Irish army was sufficiently proved, and he Digby's speech. argued that, unless this were done, there was no evidence of treason. He was ready to consent to a Bill depriving Strafford of all power to do further hurt. To condemn him as a traitor would be a judicial murder. Such language had but little effect. Both Pym and Falkland declared in favour of passing the Bill, and it was read a third reading. time by a majority of 204 to 59. Large as the majority was, it was a majority in a thin House. In those days there were no published division-lists to keep members to their duty. Many a man who had courted election, grew weary of attendance as soon as the choice had to be made between giving offence to the King and giving offence to those in whose company he sat. Theatres and bowling-alleys-'the devil's chapels' as D'Ewes sternly called them—were more attractive than long discussions on constitutional law. Those who voted on the third reading of the Attainder Bill may fairly be taken as the average political strength of the Long Parliament. The vote had been carried by a coalition between the bulk of the two parties which were divided on ecclesiastical questions. Digby's Except Digby's, the only names of note amongst the conversion. minority were those of Selden and Holborne. Something of Digby's conversion from the violence of his opposition in the first days of the Parliament was, no doubt, due simply to a real dislike of the hard measure which was being dealt out to This was naturally taken hold of by Strafford's friends as showing that the House was aware that it was stretching the law. The view of the Commons was that they would not trust the judges with a power which they believed Parliament to be capable of exercising. As was said, 'The words to subvert the law-were very wide, and a corrupt judge might stretch them far.' D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiv. fol. 182. D'Ewes gave the only negative vote. He said it would be a great dishonour to the business, as if we had condemned him because we would condemn him.' 1641 THE QUEEN'S INFLUENCE. 339 Strafford by men with whom the speaker had already come into collision on other grounds. More was owing to the flatteries which the Queen was now dealing out lavishly around her, and of which Digby had his full share. His change of front can excite no surprise. His polished brilliancy of speech was far more suited to the Court than to Parliament, and he had none of that steadiness of purpose, or of that reverence for the character of the nation as a whole, which would have kept him long by the side of Pym. If the Queen had but little success in the Commons, she believed that her blandishments had been exercised not in vain The Queen's amongst the peers. Holland had been won over by influence over the peers. an offer of the command of the northern army, and Savile, the forger of the invitation to the Scots, by a promise that he should succeed Strafford in the presidentship of the North. Beauty with its tears passing into smiles may have done much with Digby. It was not likely to have had much effect with Bristol was striving for an object which Bristol's policy. his father. was worthy of a statesman's thought. He wanted. to bring the constitutional judgment of the Lords to bear upon the envenomed quarrel which was arising between the Commons and the King. He wished to save Strafford's life whilst incapacitating him from office. He also wished to maintain the episcopal constitution of the Church whilst surrounding it with safeguards against the abuse of such powers as might be left in the hands of the bishops. It was a high and noble policy-a policy which, if it could only have been carried into effect, would have spared England many a day of misery. Whether it was possible to carry it into practice in the face of the angry passions which had been aroused, is a question which is hard to answer. As matters now stood, it would be difficult for the Lords to avoid the appearance of being actuated in the House rather by regard for their own dignity than by a sense of duty. Scarcely had the Bill made its appearance amongst them when Savile, a man born to bring disgrace upon | See 313!! every party which he joined, cried out, 'that the Lower House Altercation of Lords. did encroach upon the Higher House's liberties, and did not know their duties." Being contradicted by Stamford, he answered rudely, and the affair almost ended in a duel. Yet, after all, Strafford's fate rested even more with the King than with the Peers, and for the moment it seemed that Charles would bow his neck to submit to the wise guidance of Bristol. "The misfortune that is fallen upon you," he wrote April 23. The King's letter to Strafford. to Strafford two days after the Attainder Bill passed the Commons, "by the strange mistaking and conjuncture of these times being such that I must lay by the thought of employing you hereafter in my affairs, yet I cannot satisfy myself in honour or conscience without assuring you now, in the midst of your troubles, that, upon the word of a king, you shall not suffer in life, honour, or fortune.”2 Rumours of changes. For the moment, too, it seemed likely that Charles would give some security that, if he had not changed his mind, he had changed his policy. Again, there were rumours official of a fresh distribution of offices. Bedford, who, without modifying his opinion that Strafford was a traitor, was ready to vote against the infliction of the death penalty in order to conciliate the King, was still named as Lord Treasurer. Saye, the most irreconcilable of Puritans, was to be Master of the Wards. Pym, it was supposed, as it had been supposed in February,3 was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. Twice in the course of the week he was admitted to an interview with the King.1 Efforts to save Strafford. What passed between Charles and Pym we have no means of knowing. It is quite possible that Pym refused to be content with anything short of Strafford's life. Essex, at all events, would not hear of any lesser penalty. Hyde, of whom it is not known whether he had given a silent vote for the Bill of Attainder, or had abstained from voting, was employed by Bedford to argue down Essex's objections. At Hyde's suggestion that a heavy fine or a long imprisonment would be a sufficient punishment, 1 One of the Scottish Commissioners to MSS. xxv., No. 155. (?), April 27. Wodrow 2 The King to Strafford, April 23, Strafford Letters, ii. 416. 3 See page 273. ♦ Tomkins to Lambe, April 26, S. P. Dom. cccclxxix. 74. |