1641 CHARLES AND HENRY PERCY. 315 as their lieutenant-general. Otherwise they would be without a leader, and would suffer for their indiscretion in showing their teeth before they were able to bite. Effect of the Strafford s trial upon The conferences between Jermyn and Suckling on the one hand, and Chudleigh on the other, took place during the first week of Strafford's trial. Though neither Suckling's first week of scheme nor Percy's seemed at first to have had any special reference to that trial, it may well have been Charles. that the effect of the outcry for what the House of Commons called justice inclined Charles to look to the army as a weapon which he might lawfully wield in order to secure Strafford as well as himself from irregular violence. At all events in the course of Sunday, the 28th,' he listened Percy's con- to Percy's story, and was persuaded that Suckling's project was too wild to be feasible. In the end, how ever, he urged Percy to meet Suckling and his friends, in the hope that the two parties might be brought to act together. The project of bringing the army to support him by a March 28. versation with the King. Goring's story was that he was first informed of Suckling's project on a Sunday morning in the middle of Lent. As Lent began on March 10, this would be March 28 or, with less probability, April 4. Mr. Brodie supposes that the latter was meant. There is, however, evidence which seems to me conclusive in favour of the earlier date. Chudleigh arrived in London on March 21, and remained for eight or nine days, leaving, therefore, about the 29th or 30th. In his examination on May 10 he stated that he left Yorkshire to come back to London, on April 5, ana that, as he then failed to find Goring, he followed him to Portsmouth on April 10. If, however, the Sunday in the middle of Lent had been April 4, Goring, who certainly remained in London during some days after his conversation with Suckling, would have been accessible to Chudleigh on the 5th. It does not follow that Goring really heard of the plot for the first time on March 28. It is not likely that his acceptance of the office designed for him should have been made a subject of conversation with Chudleigh during that officer's first visit, unless he had been previously spoken to on the matter; and he probably came nearer the truth when, on his examination of June 16, he said that Suckling had offered him the lieutenant-generalship about three months before, which would bring it to about March 16, four or five days before Chudleigh's arrival. If the date, however, of March 28 is unimportant in relation to Goring's own conduct, it enables us to fix the date of the interview of Jermyn and Goring with Percy which was held on the following day. petition, whilst the question whether force was to be ultimately used or not was left undetermined, was certain to commend itself to a mind like that of Charles, ever anxious to cover acts of real violence with the cloak of legality.' March 29. On the evening of the 29th, Jermyn, taking Goring with him, proceeded to Percy's lodgings at Whitehall, where he found the rest of the Parliamentary officers assembled. The discus- Having first taken an oath of secrecy, Jermyn and sion in Percy's Goring pleaded hard to be allowed to bring Suckling lodgings. to the conference. But Suckling was in bad odour with all military men, and the officers would not entrust him with their secrets. Jermyn spoke of the plan for bringing up the army. Goring then said that nothing could be accomplished unless the army were brought up and the Tower seized. He then asked how the chief commands were to be disposed of. "If he had not a condition worthy of him, he would have nothing to do with the matter." He and Jermyn insisted that Newcastle must command in chief. Percy suggested the name of Holland, whilst others put forward the claims of Essex. Evidently more than a mere personal question was at issue. The name of Newcastle was significant of a complete breach with Parliament as a whole. The names of Holland and Essex were significant of an intention to maintain a Parliamentary system, as it was understood in the Upper House. To the proposal for making Goring lieutenant-general, Percy and his friends would not listen for an instant. Nor would they hear of the plan for marching the army to London and attacking the Tower. Jermyn and Percy were therefore commissioned to call on the King to decide between their respective projects. There could be little doubt how his decision would be given. In his examination on June 14 (D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. 315 b) Pollard said that Mr. Percy disliked the proposition of bringing up the army, and that they had no such plot to bring the same to London, but, being asked how he then meant to make good his propositions The sentence is incomplete; but, whatever Pollard may have said, it is unlikely that Charles ever answered the question to himself. See Goring's examinations of June 16 in Moore's Diary, Harl. MSS. cccclxxviii. 81 b. 1641 THE PLOT BETRAYED. 317 "All these ways," he said to Jermyn, when he had heard his Charles's account of Suckling's plan, "are vain and foolish, decision. and I will think of them no more."1 Goring saw clearly enough that the appearance of moderation which recommended the alternative project to the King would ensure its failure, and he had now learnt that he was not Goring's dis to derive any personal advantage from its success. satisfaction. As he left the meeting he told Jermyn that 'he liked none of these consultations." "You are ready enough," replied Jermyn, "to enter into any wild business, but you like not the company. A day or two later there was a second meeting which led to no better understanding than the first. Goring made up his mind that, as he was not to be lieutenant-general of the King's army, he would gain the favour of the King's adversaries. He sought out Newport, who was now an active member of the Opposition in the House of Lords, and told him as much of the plot as it suited his purposes to tell. Newport carried him to Bedford and Mandeville. If he said to them what he afterwards said in the House of Commons, he asserted that he had recommended the march to London, not because he really thought of advising it, but in order to convince the others that a mere petition, unaccompanied by violence, would be altogether futile. He ended by asking that his own part in the discovery might be concealed. April 1. He betrays the plot. Bedford and Mandeville at once communicated the secret to Pym and to some of the other leading members of the Commons. It was agreed that Goring should return to his post Pym in. formed. as Governor of Portsmouth, possibly with the object of placing him out of the reach of further temptation. Nothing 3 1 Goring's examination, June 19. Percy to Northumberland, June 14, An Exact Collection, 215, 2'7; Ashburnham's examination, June 14, D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. 316 b. 2 Goring's examination, June 15, D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. 328. Manchester in his Memoirs (Nalson, ii. 273) speaks as if Pym's' revelation in the House had followed immediately; but the depositions are against him. was openly done in consequence of his revelation. It must be remembered that Pym had not yet learned that there had ever been any serious project of bringing up the army at all. All that he knew was, that there was a plan for inducing the army to present a petition, and he may have thought it best to wait till the petition was presented before taking any active measures to avert further danger. Strafford's There was nothing upon the surface to connect the army petition with Strafford's trial. The King's right to pardon Effect of the the Earl, after conviction, had not been mentioned revelation on amongst the points to be urged, yet it was inevitable trial. that Goring's revelations should make Pym, if possible, more determined than before to exact the uttermost penalty from Strafford. His life or death was now more than ever a question of danger or safety to the State. A conjunction between an acquitted Strafford and an army of Royalist political tendencies was one which few in either House could contemplate with evenness of mind. It was probably not altogether by accident that the last charges relating to Strafford's Irish government were hurried over on April 3, and that some of them were entirely dropped. April 5. Charge of bringing in the Irish army. On the 5th the scene of the accusation was transferred to English ground. By the mouth of Bulstrode Whitelocke, a son of the judge, and himself a lawyer of some repute, the Commons alleged that not only had Strafford instigated the King to make war on the Scottish nation, but that at the time when the Short Parliament was summoned to vote supplies to support that war, he had offered 'to serve His Majesty in any other way in case the Parliament should not support him.' In pursuance of this plan he had raised an army of Irish Papists, and had conspired with Sir George Radcliffe 'for the ruin and destruction of the kingdom of England and of His Majesty's subjects, and altering and subverting the fundamental laws and established government of this kingdom.' With this object he had declared his opinion that if the Parliament failed to supply the King, he might use his prerogative as he pleased to levy what he needed, and that he should be acquitted of God and man, if he took 1641 Strafford's VANE'S EVIDENCE. 319 some courses to supply himself, though it were against the will of his subjects. Having subsequently procured by false representations the dissolution of that Parliament, he had wickedly given counsel to the King 'that, having tried the affections of his people, he was to do everything that power would admit; and that His Majesty had tried all ways and was refused, and should be acquitted towards God and man; and that he had an army in Ireland which he might employ to reduce this kingdom.' The managers had little difficulty in showing that Strafford had held that if Parliament refused the King's supply when he needed it for national objects, he was justified in ideas about taking it by force. It was the very central point of his political creed. As usually happens, his followers had exaggerated the thought of their patron. "His Majesty," Radcliffe had said, "had an army of 30,000 men, and he had 400,000l. in his purse and a sword by his side, and if he should want money who could pity him?" "The Commonwealth," said Strafford's brother, Sir George Wentworth, "is sick of peace, and will not be well till it is conquered again." He probably meant that unanimity would only be produced after an English army had been defeated by the Scots; but it was easy to understand his words as referring to a victorious army from Ireland. the use of force. The Irish army. Undoubtedly that which called forth the greatest indignation against Strafford was the belief that he had threatened to employ his Irish army against Englishmen. As a matter of mere law it was absolutely indifferent whether he had proposed to bring it over or not. If it were not punishable to advise the King to 'do all that power would admit,' it would not become punishable to advise him to maintain his rights by means of an army composed not of his English but of his Irish subjects. As a matter of sentiment it made considerable difference. It was natural, therefore, that Pym and the other managers should leave no stone unturned to prove that Strafford had really given this particular advice. A copy of notes made by the elder Vane of the words used at the Committee of Eight after the dissolution of the Short Parliament Vane's evidence. |