1641 THE COMMONS AND THE ARMY. 325 Steps taken by the Lords. meeting of the officers is to be seen in a fresh effort of the Lords to remove the cause of the evil. On the one hand they renewed their urgency with the City to lend the money needed to pay off both the English and the Scottish armies, and on the other hand they once more pressed the King to give an answer to the petition of the Houses for the discharge of the Irish army and the disarmament of the English Catholics. In the Commons the fear of immediate military intervention was predominant. Attention was called to the letter which had been written by the officers to Northumberland on March 20,2 in which they expressed their readiness to fight the Scots. The House passed a resolution that any officer commanding an attack without orders from the King given upon the advice of Parliament, except in case of invasion, should be taken as an enemy to the King and State.3 April 6. Fear in the Commons of military in tervention. of Parlia ment. The wording of the resolution passed unheeded by. It was but the expression of that which all men there felt to be a The King to necessity. Yet to say that the King's orders were act by advice only to be obeyed if they were given upon the advice of Parliament was a strange innovation on established usage. The presumption of the law had been hitherto, as the judges and Strafford had never been weary of saying, that the King would act for the general good of the community, even if at some particular moment he set the general feeling at naught. The resolution of the Commons was the first crude attempt to find a remedy for the evils produced by the King's effort to free himself entirely from every obligation to consult the wishes of the nation. Further charges against Strafford. Before this fear of military violence Strafford's offences April 7. assumed a deeper dye. On the 7th the story of his threats to the aldermen and his violent enforcement of ship-money was duly told. On the next day Erle returned to the charge of bringing over the Irish He showed that in the commission granted to Strafford L. J. iv. 207, 209. 2 Page 314. April 8. army." • D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. 9. L. J. ii. 116. See p. 318. For once Mr. Sanford makes a mistake; he argues (304) in August he was empowered to repress revolts in England, and argued that it must have been evidently intended that his army should land in England. Strafford replied that his commission was a mere copy of Northumberland's, and that it was so drawn by the King's directions. On other points which were raised Strafford was no less successful. April 8. It was impossible that the managers should leave their case thus. Hitherto they had been unwilling to compromise the younger Vane. They now resolved that Vane's notes the copy which had been taken of the notes which he had surreptitiously obtained from his father must to be pro duced. be produced on the following morning.2 When the morning came Strafford did not appear. He sent a message announcing that he was too ill to leave the Tower. Pym and his associates seem to have fancied there was a plot intended to create delay. They felt illness. that the Lords were slipping away from them. They April 9. Strafford's were not even sure of their hold over the Commons. That unhappy religious question stood in the way of all harmonious. action, and it had only been by a majority of 39 that the truce with the Scots had been prolonged for another fortnight. There were many who wished, in the interest of the bishops, that another war might break out, in which the Scots might be less successful than they had been before.3 that Whitelocke's account of this day's proceedings is untrustworthy, because he cannot find anything like it in Rushworth. Rushworth, however, breaks off at the end of the proceedings of the 7th, and only gives separate speeches afterwards. The story is to be found substantially as Whitelocke gives it in the Brief and Perfect Relation, which is, as Mr. Palgrave has pointed out, a most valuable contemporary account of the trial. 1 Bankes gave evidence that it was so. Gawdy's Notes, Add. MSS. 14,828, fol. 31 b. The elder Vane stated on the 10th that he first heard that his son had taken the papers on Thursday last;' and this, together with the probability that such a step would be taken after Erle's failure, seems to fix the resolution of the leaders for that afternoon. The party meaning of this division is shown by the names of the tellers. D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiv. fol. 161. See, too, Tomkins to Lambe, April 12, S. P. Dom. cccclxxix. 27. 1641 April 10. Fresh evi dence THE HOUSES AT VARIANCE. 327 On the roth Strafford was once more at the bar. As he was about to speak, Glyn interrupted him, offering fresh evidence on the Irish army, as well as on another matter of less importance. Strafford asked to be allowed also to produce fresh evidence. After two long adjournments, the Lords decided as fairly as it was possible for them to do. Both sides were to name the articles to which they wished to recur.1 offered. The in flexible party. 2 The peers had dealt with the emergency as became judges. In the Lower House there were some to whom their impartiality was of evil omen. In that House there was 'a rigid, strong, and inflexible party,' which held that if Strafford were 'not found a traitor, the Parliament must make him so for the interest of the public.' Though the managers were ready to go on with their case, they were stopped by shouts of "Withdraw! withdraw!" from the benches on which the Commons were sitting. The shouts were answered by indignant cries of "Adjourn! adjourn!" from the Lords. Both Houses left the Hall in confusion. "The King laughed, and the Earl of Strafford was so well pleased therewith that he would not hide his joy!" Well might Charles and Strafford make merry. That which had been long looked forward to as possible had come to pass. The two Houses were at issue with one another. The sitting had been broken up without even the appointment of a day for the resumption of the trial. 1 L. F. iv. 212. There is a slightly different account in the Brief and Perfect Relation. The Earl of Strafford Characterised, Somers Tracts, iv. 231. 'D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. fol. 27. Tomkins to Lambe, April 12, S. P. Dom. cccclxxix. 27. Brief and Perfect Relation, 57. 328 CHAPTER XCVIII. THE BILL OF ATTAINDER. THE Commons returned to their own House in an angry mood. Glyn at once called on Pym and the younger Vane to tell what 1641. April 15. Vane's notes they knew of evidence not yet disclosed. Vane told the House how he had found a paper of notes in disclosed. his father's study, how he had taken a copy of them, and how Pym had copied that copy. Pym confirmed the latter part of the statement. The elder Vane rose to say that the original notes had been burnt by the King's command. He appeared to be much agitated. "An unhappy son of his," he said, "had brought all this trouble upon him." So much of the notes was then read as bore upon the matter in hand;' and the Secretary was asked whether the paper which had been produced corresponded with the original. He replied that it did, and that he had himself taken notes of it before he destroyed it.2 The effect of this statement was strongly corroborative of the evidence which had been given by the Secretary before the Lords. No doubt the charge that Strafford had used the words about the Irish army of which he had professed to have no recollection, rested now, as it had rested before, on the single 'It is unnecessary to go into the question whether the younger Vane was justified in betraying the secret. It was a case of a conflict of duties. If he had found evidence that a murder was about to be committed, he ought to have used the knowledge, acquired in any way, to save the person threatened. When he showed the notes to Pym, the danger of an actual attack from Ireland was still impending. 2 D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiv. fol. 162 1641 THE COMMONS IN A STRAIT. 329 evidence of Vane. It was, however, one thing to say that Vane had allowed a misrepresentation to grow up in a treacherous and hostile memory: it was another thing to say that he had been guilty of forgery. Even if it were thought possible that he might have descended so low, the fact that Charles had sent for the notes and had ordered them to be burnt-a fact which is established not merely by Vane's assertion, but by Charles's silence—seems to show conclusively that they were notes officially taken with the cognisance of the King, and therefore liable to be called for by him at any moment. It is perfectly incredible that Vane should have knowingly inserted a falsehood in a paper which was so likely to come under the eye of the incriminated person.1 What are the Com mons to do? With this additional evidence before them the Commons had to reconsider their position. Evidently the proper course was that which the managers had intended to pursue-to lay the notes before the Lords, and to allow Strafford to occupy two or three days with the additional evidence which he wished to bring forward. The 'inflexible party,' which was not the party of Pym and Hampden, was weary of the long delay. They regarded the judicial impartiality of the Lords as open treason to the commonwealth. They showed themselves apt pupils of Strafford; or rather they shared in his belief that, as the safety of the people was the supreme law, so it was to be made, in moments of emergency, to override all positive legality. If Strafford had wielded the ancient weapon of the prerogative to render the monarchy absolute, why should not they have recourse to another ancient weapon, the Bill of Attainder, to strike down absolute monarchy impersonated in its strongest champion? No doubt this method of procedure had some advantages. It was more honest and outspoken. It professed to punish Strafford because he had broken a law which ought to have been in existence, instead of twisting an existing law to make it mean something which all impartial persons-if any there then were-knew perfectly well that it did not mean.2 It also commended itself 1 See page 125, note. 2 "Now the secret of their taking this particular way is conceived to |