committed to prison on the ground that they had given undutiful answers to the Council; and in this way, at least the appearance of an attack on the privileges of Parliament was avoided.

The Council then turned its attention to the financial diffi

Ship-money and coatand-conduct money enforced.

culties of the Crown. Sheriffs, who had been remiss in the collection of ship-money, were subjected to stern questioning by the Attorney-General, and orders were sent to the deputy-lieutenants to see that coatand-conduct money was duly paid.'

May 7.

and alder

On the 7th the Lord Mayor and aldermen were summoned before the Council. The King told them that he expected from them a loan of 200,000l. If they did not proLord Mayor vide the money, 'he would have 300,000l. of the men required City.' They were to return on the 10th with a list of such persons in their several wards as they believed to be capable of bearing their part of the loan, rated according to their means. On the appointed day they came Strafford lost his temper.

to lend.

May 10. Strafford's threats.

Sir,"

without the list. he said to the King, "you will never do good to these citizens of London till you have made examples of some of the aldermen. Unless you hang up some of them, you will do no good with them." 2 The King ordered the Lord Mayor, Garway, to resign his sword and collar of office; and though, at the intercession of the bystanders, he relented and restored them, he committed to prison four of the aldermen-Soames, Rainton, Geere, and Adkins-who had been specially firm in their refusal. One of them, Alderman Soames, gave nent of four particular offence. "I was held an honest man aldermen. whilst I was a commoner," he told the King to his face, "and I would continue to be so now I am an alderman.” The other aldermen professed their readiness to give in the names of the richer citizens, though they objected to rate them according to their means.3

Imprison

8

Rushworth, iii. 1,167. Rossingham's News-Letter, May 12, S. P. Dom. ccccliii. 24. Rossetti to Barberini, May R. O. Transcripts. 2 Rushworth, Strafford's Trial, 586.

78'

• Salvetti's News-Letter, May Council Register, May 10. Rossing

15'

1640

Strafford and the Spanish alliance.

SPANISH DIPLOMACY.

131

From the London citizens Strafford turned to the Spanish Court. He had always supported an alliance with Spain, and the recent occurrence in the Downs had strengthened him in his desire to break the maritime superiority of the Dutch. For the present, however, the conflict for empire must be waged in Scotland, and it was to gain the money rather than the fleets of Spain that his efforts Spanish ambassadors were directed. There were now no less than three in England. Spanish ambassadors in England. The Marquis of Velada and the Marquis Virgilio Malvezzi had come to the assistance of Cardenas, who, though he had been re-admitted to his right of audience, was in no good odour at the English Court. So great a diplomatic display was regarded by Charles. as a sign that the new ambassadors were instructed to accept the proposals of marriage of which he had communicated hints to Olivares a few months before.2 On this point, however, the ambassadors remained obstinately silent. They declared that the object of their mission was solely to treat of a league against the Dutch. Before the dissolution, commissioners, of whom Strafford was the leading spirit, had been appointed to negotiate with them on this subject. At once it appeared that there Negotiation was a radical difference of opinion between the two on the pro- parties. The Spaniards insisted that, by accepting the secret treaty of 1630, the English Government should bind itself to an open rupture with the States-General, with a view to the ultimate partition of the territory of the republic. The English diplomatists preferred to start from Necolalde's articles of 1634, which would not involve an avowed breach with the Dutch.

posed

alliance.

Under ordinary circumstances this radical difference of opinion would probably have brought the negotiation to an end. On May 10, however, the day of the imprisonment of ham's News-Letter, May 12, S. P. Dom. ccccliii. 24. Rossetti to Barberini, May, R. O. Transcripts.

This visit explains Milton's reference to him as their Malvezzi, that can cut Tacitus into slivers and steaks.' Ref. of Church Gov. Malvezzi must have been a well-known personage in London.

2 See page 89.

May 11. Strafford asks for a loan from Spain.

the aldermen, Strafford discovered the improbability that he would succeed in obtaining any considerable sum of money from the City. The next morning he visited the ambassadors in person. His master, he told them, was indeed ready, as soon as it was in his power, to join them in that league against the Dutch which was the object of their wishes; but it was not in his power to do so as long as Scotland was unconquered. To conquer Scotland a large sum of money was needed. Why should not the King of Spain lend 300,000l. for that purpose? As soon as Scotland was subdued war should be declared against the Dutch. Even for the present the English fleet could be used in conveying supplies to Flanders, and in protecting Dunkirk against a siege. Permission, too, would be given for the levy of 3,000 Irishmen for the Spanish service. The King of Spain should have ample security for the repayment of the loan, and, even if that failed, Philip might easily recompense himself by the seizure of the property of English merchants whose vessels happened at the time to be in Spanish harbours.1

The end of his tragic struggle against the world must have been drawing very near before even Strafford could have ventured on so audacious a proposal. The days which followed must have been for him the saddest in his life-far sadder than those in which, after the lapse of a year, he stood proudly conscious of the rectitude of his cause on the scaffold on Tower Hill. In vain was the iron will and the ready wit given him if he could not breathe his own hardihood into the breast of the

Hesitation

of Charles.

man without whom he was as powerless as an infant. In the very crisis of the struggle Charles hesitated and drew back. Strafford stood alone as the champion of the cause of monarchy.

It was not entirely without reason that Charles was terrified. On the 6th papers were posted up calling on the apprentices to Windebank to Hopton, May 11, Clar. S. P. ii. 83. Velada to the Cardinal Infant, April May Velada to Philip IV., May Brussels MSS. Secr. d'Etat Esp. cclxxxiv. fol. 153, 201, 214, 248, 258, 268, 276.

15, 16 25, 26'

2, 8 12, 18°

11, 13, 21, 231

1640

THE LAMBETH RIOTS.

133

join in hunting 'William the Fox' for breaking the Parliament.1

May 6.

Placards

against Laud.

May 11. Riots at Lambeth.

Three days later a placard was placed up in the Exchange inviting all who were faithful to the City, and lovers of liberty and the commonwealth, to assemble in St. George's Fields in Southwark, on the early morning of the 11th. Warned in time, the Council ordered that St. George's Fields should be occupied on the 11th by the Southwark trained bands.2 The apprentices were not so easily baffled. They waited quietly till the trained. bands had retired in the evening. A little before midnight a mob of some five hundred persons, for the most part journeymen and apprentices, answered to the summons. In this class the general dislike of Laud was sharpened by its own special grievances against the new monopolies. With a drum beating in front, the rabble took its way to Lambeth. Laud, warned in time, had placed his house in a state of defence, and had crossed the river to Whitehall for safety. The rioters, finding that their prey had escaped them, retired with threats of returning to burn down the house. Next morning May 12. the Council gave directions that watch should be kept by night as well as by day, and that the trained bands, of Middlesex and Surrey should be called in to help in preserving order. Several persons were arrested on suspicion. Insulting placards continued to be posted in the streets, threatening an attack on the apartments of the Queen's mother at St. James's, and calling on the mob to pull down her chapel and do what mischief they could to her priests. Others urged that Laud should be dragged out of Whitehall and murdered. One went so far as to announce that the King's palace was to let. Nor were these tumults confined to the mob alone. At Aylesbury some soldiers mutinied against their officers, and twenty-two houses were burnt down May 12. before the disturbance was quelled. In Kent the yeomen and farmers who had been pressed declared that they were not bound to go beyond the limits of their county, and left 2 Rushworth, iii. 1173.

Insulting placards.

Laud's Works, iii. 284.

3 Joachimi to the States General, fol. 190.

May 14. General insecurity.

the ranks in a body. On the night of the 14th the Court was startled by a fresh outrage. The prisons in which the rioters were confined were broken open by a mob, and the prisoners were set at liberty. It was plain that something must be done, if the country was not to lapse into anarchy. Orders were given to the deputy-lieutenants and the justices of the peace of several counties who happened to be in London, to return home to preserve order. Doubts, however, were freely expressed whether the guardians of the peace could be depended on. It was said that they had been sent from London to keep them from the temptation of imitating the Covenanting Tables. The support of the lower ranks was still more doubtful. The recent imprisonment of the aldermen had been felt by the City as an insult. The freeholders and farmers of Middlesex and Surrey had no love for Laud. They were heard to mutter that, if they must fight, they would rather fight against the Government than for it. The defence of the Queen's mother was especially distasteful. It was known that she had urged her daughter to use her influence with the King during the sitting of the late Parliament, and it was taken for granted that this influence had been used to hasten the dissolution. For the first time in the reign the name of Henrietta Maria herself was drawn into the political conflict. It could not well be otherwise. It had been so natural for her to take the part of her husband's Roman Catholic subjects; so natural, too, for her to urge their cause in contemptuous disregard of a public opinion of which she

The Queen asks the

Pope for aid.

neither understood the meaning nor estimated the weight. Yet, when all allowance has been made for the ignorance of a woman and a foreigner, it is difficult to speak with patience of the rash act of which Henrietta Maria, if not Charles himself, was now guilty. At the height

1 Laud's Diary, Works, iii. 235. Rushworth, iii. 1173. Rossetti to

૨૬,

15.

Barberini, May 25, R. O. Transcripts. Salvetti's News-Letter, May 25 Giustinian to the Doge, May 15, Ven. Transcripts. Rossingham's NewsLetter, May 19, Sloane MSS. 1,467, fol. 198. Deputy-Lieutenants of Kent to the Council, May 11, S. P. Dom. ccccliii. 11.