1540 CHARLES HESITATES. 135 of the alarm Windebank appeared before Rossetti, conjuring him to write to Rome for help in money and men. The Pope, it was probably thought, would be ready to assist the King, especially as the subjects who now endangered his throne were always ready to clamour for the persecution of the Catholics, whilst Charles had extended to them some measure of protection.1 Strafford blamed. May 15. Fresh pre made. up Whilst overtures so ruinous were being made to Rome, voices were raised at Whitehall in condemnation of Strafford. Why, it was asked, had he brought things to such a pass without sufficient forces at his disposal to compel submission. The attack on the prisons brought matters to a crisis. Six thousand foot were ordered from the trained bands of Essex, Kent, and Hertcautions. fordshire. It was impossible to fall back thus on popular support without conceding something to the popular Concessions agitation. On the 15th, the day after the attack on the prisons, Hotham and Bellasys, together with the four aldermen, were set at liberty, though the latter were required to enter into bond to appear in the Star Chamber when called on. The next day, when the Lord May 16. The loan not Mayor and aldermen repeated their refusal to rate pressed. any man to the loan, they were sent away without further reproaches. On the 17th the sheriffs of London were ordered to make a bonfire of a large number of Roman Catholic 1 Rossetti's letter of May 5 is not to be found amongst the Record Office Transcripts, but its purport is clear from Barberini's reply of June 30, and from Rossetti's answer to Barberini of Aug. Windebank is directly stated to have made the overture. It is impossible that he should have done so without orders from the Queen or the King. That the Queen knew of this seems made out by the fact that Rossetti as a matter of course communicated Barberini's reply to her, and also by the part she subsequently took in pressing for similar help in the course of 1641. On the other hand, the long conversation with Windebank, related in the lastnamed letter, turns so entirely on the King's proceedings, that it seems very likely that the secretary was originally commissioned by him. Indeed, if the Queen had opened the negotiation without her husband's knowledge she would hardly have employed a Secretary of State. 25 20 30 2 Montreuil's despatch, May 14, Bibl. Nat. Fr. 15,995, fol. 87. 20, May 17. Roman Catholic with books which had recently been seized. Even a party of young lawyers, who had drunk confusion to the Archbishop, were dismissed by the Council on the plea, sugbooks burnt. gested to them by Dorset, that they had been really drinking confusion to the Archbishop's foes. There was even Proposed talk of taking up again the dropped negotiation with negotiation Scotland. With the exception of Loudoun, the Scotland. Scottish commissioners were set at liberty.' Traquair was asked whether he would undertake a mission to Edinburgh to preside over the Parliament which was to meet in June. On his refusal, Hamilton was requested to go. The King, however, proposed to delay Hamilton's journey, and to prorogue the Scottish Parliament for another month, on the characteristic ground that by the middle of July he would know whether he was to have a loan from Spain which would enable him to make war on Scotland.2 Abandonment of Strafford's Such was the end of Charles's first attempt to do all that power would admit. Though a list of names of those qualified to lend was sent in by the aldermen, the project of forcing a loan from the London citizens was tacitly policy. abandoned. Efforts would still be made to enforce the payment of ship-money and coat-and-conduct money; but even if ship-money and coat-and-conduct money were collected with more regularity than was likely to be the case they would not pay the army in the field. By pressure upon official persons the loan which had been begun with the Privy Councillors was raised by May 15 to 232,530.3 But this sum had been already spent, and except in the very unlikely case of a loan from Spain no way appeared to meet the necessities of war. The feeling with which Strafford's violence was regarded by loyal but un Bibl. Nat. Fr. 15,995, fol. May 22, Ven. Transcripts. Rossingham's 89, 91. Giustinian to the Doge, 16.40 May 18. Northum berland's letter to Conway. DESPONDENCY AT COURT. 137 enthusiastic subjects was well expressed by Northumberland. "The nature of most men," he wrote to Conway, who had already been sent to drill the cavalry in the North, "is not willingly to acknowledge an error until they needs must, which is some of our condition here at this time. We have engaged the King in an expensive occasion, without any certain ways to maintain it; all those that are proposed to ourselves have hitherto failed, and though our designs of raising this great army are likely to fail, yet are we loth to publish that which cannot many days be concealed. In plain terms I have little hope to see you in the North this year, which I profess I am extremely sorry for, conceiving it will be dishonourable to the King, and infamous for us that have the honour to be his ministers, when it shall be known that he shall be obliged to give over the design."1 Strafford's Strafford was no longer at hand to inspire courage into the fainting hearts at Whitehall. For some days he had been absent from the Council table, suffering from an conversation attack of dysentery. On the first news of the tumults, with Bristol. Bristol had sought him out, and had urged him to give his voice for another Parliament. To the calm, good sense of Bristol, the policy of adventure into which the King had been drawn seemed devoid of all the higher elements of statesmanship. When, some months later, Bristol gave an account of his conversation with Strafford on this occasion, he stated that he never understood by the discourse of the Earl of Strafford that the King should use any force or power of arms, but only some strict and severe course in raising money by extraordinary ways for his supplies in the present danger.' To Bristol's plea for another Parliament Strafford was entirely deaf. He did not indeed show any 'dislike of the said discourse, but said he held it not counsellable at that time, neither did the present danger of the kingdom, which was not imaginary, but real and pressing, admit of so slow and uncertain remedies; that the Parliament, in this great distress of the King and kingdom, ' Northumberland to Conway, May 18, S. P. Dom. 2 The date is fixed as being not long after the dissolution, and also by the reference to the Lambeth tumults and the mutinies of the soldiers. had refused to supply the King by the ordinary and usual ways, and, therefore, the King must provide for the safety of the kingdom by such ways as he should hold fit, and this examinant remembereth the said Earl of Strafford used this sentence, Salus reipublicæ suprema lex. This examinant likewise thinketh that at the same time the said Earl of Strafford used some words to this purpose, that the King was not to suffer himself to be mastered by the frowardness, or undutifulness of the people, or rather, he conceived, by the disaffection of some particular men.' Bristol proceeded to depose that, according to the best of his memory, Strafford added, 'that when the King should see himself master of his affairs, and that it should be seen that he wanted not power to go through with his designs -as he hoped he would not do-then he conceived that' it would be advisable to call a Parliament and nobody should contribute more than himself to all moderate counsels.'1 Strafford's unpopu larity. When these words of high courage, worthy of a better cause, were uttered, Strafford's health was already giving way. The violence of the disease was doubtless aggravated by all that was passing around him. The scowling discontent of the gentry, the suppressed hatred of the London citizens, the growing detestation of the populace, which coupled his name at last with that of Laud in its anger, might have been met calmly and defiantly, if the assailed minister had been sure of support from his Sovereign. Strafford knew that his adversaries were not inactive; that Holland, and Pembroke, and Dorset were sounding his faults in Charles's His secrets ear; that Privy Councillors, in spite of their oath divulged. of secrecy, had betrayed to members of the House of Commons the resolution taken to dissolve Parliament some days before it was publicly announced; 3 and that the secret of his negotiation with Spain had been no better kept. 'Bristol's Deposition, Jan. 14, 1641, Sherborne MSS. 21 4 2 Montreuil's despatch, May Bibl. Nat. Fr. 1,599, fol. 89. 31' Form of Oath, May 27, S. P. Dom. cccclv. 11. Salvetti's News-Letter, May 8, 15 The security offered on the mer 18, 25 chants' goods, however, seems to have remained a secret. 1640 His health gives way. STRAFFORD'S ILLNESS. 139 The strain was too great for the weakly body in which that will of iron was enshrined. In Ireland, during his last visit, he had been racked by gout and dysentery. On his return he had been borne to London in a litter. When he found himself once more at the centre of affairs, he had shaken off his weakness. He had stepped without an effort into a commanding position in the Council. He had organised the House of Lords in resistance to the Commons. Then, when the dissolution came, it was he who had taken the lead in the high-handed compulsion which was to gather up the resources of an unwilling nation to be used for purposes in which it took no pleasure. A week after the dissolution the excitement of the conflict had told upon him, and he was again suffering. Then came the bitter disappointment of failure. On the 15th, the day on which the aldermen were released, he was forced to receive the Spanish ambassadors in bed. Two or three days later, his life was in imminent danger. In some few the knowledge called forth expressions of bitter sorrow. One royalist poet, ignorant of what another year was to bring forth, called upon him to live, not for his own sake, but for the sake of his country. His personal friends were broken-hearted with grief. Wandesford, left behind as Lord Deputy to rule Ireland in his name, passed on the bitter tidings to Ormond. "The truth is," he wrote, "I am not master of myself, therefore I cannot enlarge myself much. If you did not love this man well of whom I speak, I would not write thus much." Then came days on which hope returned, and on the 24th the King visited him, to congratulate him on his convalescence. In the presence of the king, Strafford had no eyes for the vacillation of the man. To him Charles was still what Elizabeth had been to her subjects, the living personification of government, at a time when government was sorely needed. True to his cere May 24. His convalescence. 2 Velada to Philip IV., May 15, Brussels MSS. Sec. d'Etat Esp. cclxxxiv. 258. This curious poem, probably the work of Cartwright, has recently been printed in the Camden Miscellany, vol. viii., from the MS. in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. |