1641

CHARLES AND THE ARMY.

343

at the same time he was doing his best to conciliate these very Scots, and was assuring them of his intention to come to Scotland in person to preside over the next sitting of Parliament.1

Plan for a

violent dis

solution of

Other plans there were of still more extensive reach. Charles and the Queen were to take refuge at Hampton Court, whence they would find the way open to Portsmouth. There they would find Goring, and they still fancied Parliament. Goring to be true. An armed force was to be sent to seize the Tower, and the Northern army was to march on London. The Irish army, together with any troops which Frederick Henry might be disposed to lend, was to be summoned to Portsmouth, unless indeed it could be more profitably employed elsewhere. In the midst of the clash of arms, Parliament was to be dissolved, and Charles would be indeed a king once more.2

Such fantasies as these could hardly be reduced to practical

de' Scozzesi, non meno che a quella de' più seditiosi d'Inghilterra ancora.' Ven. Transcripts. A contemporary letter embodied in the Brief and Perfect Relation (p. 83) mentions a rumour that the Dutchmen have offered money to the King for a new service of war.'

1 One of the Scottish Commissioners to xxv. No. 155.

-, April 27, Wodrow MSS.

2 Quando si agitava la causa del V. Rè d'Irlanda e di volerlo in qualunque maniera salvarlo dalla morte, si determinò da quelle M. Mtà l'andata all' Amtoncurt, et in questo mentre mandar gente a sorprendere la Torre di Londra, rompere il Parlamento, et havendosi di gia acquistata buona parte dell' esercito regio ritirarsi le persone Reali a Posmur, porto di mare forse il più forte che sia in quei Regni. Così credevasi di liberare il V. Rè, e dar leggi à quelli che le volevano distruggere, sperando di poter ciò più commodamente effettuare mediante gl'aiuti di Hibernia e d'Olanda, se non per altra parte, almeno per il medesimo porto. Ma mentre le loro M. Mtà stavano apparechiate per eseguire le cose predette, sopragiunse corriero con avviso che il Governatore di Posmur, benche havesse giurato fedeltà al Rè, haveva dato in mano al Parlamento la piazza. Al che s'aggiunse parimente che il Capitano della Torre rifutò di consegnar le chiavi di essa a S. Mtà, et il popolo trovavasi preparato per andar a Vitale, a passarene anche ad Amtoncurt, se fosse fatto besogno.' Rossetti Jan. 30 to Barberini, 1642, R. O. Transcripts. The refusal of the LieuFeb. 9' tenant was on May 2, which brings the formation of the scheme to the end of April.

April 28. Plan for

Strafford's

escape known.

shape. Something, too, was certain to ooze out. On the 28th it was known that for some weeks a vessel, chartered by Strafford's secretary, Slingsby, had been lying in the Thames, and that the master, being questioned about his destination, had answered gruffly, that it was nothing to him on what service he was employed so long as he had victuals and pay. The suspicions which the Commons were thus led to entertain could not but be heightened by a speech addressed to them by the King on the afternoon of the very day on which they had received information of the preparations for Strafford's flight. In involved phraagain refuses seology, Charles gave them to understand that he meant to keep the Irish army together till the English and Scottish forces in the north were disbanded. 2 Strange as it may seem, Charles appears to have expected gratitude for the announcement. The King, wrote D'Ewes, “stayed a pretty while looking about, but there was

The King

to disband

the Irish army.

Dissatisfaction of the Commons.

not one man gave him the least hum or colour of plaudit to his speech, which made him, after some time of expectation, depart suddenly. Many were much grieved at this speech, because they saw no sudden hope of dissolving the said Irish, popish army.” 3

April 29.

St. John's argument.

On the following day, in the midst of the investigations into the plans for Strafford's escape, and with the King's refusal to disband the Irish army fresh in their minds, the Lords were called on, to listen to St. John's argument on the legality of the Bill of Attainder. When he spoke, St. John had doubtless heard something at least of the rumours which were afloat, something perhaps of Charles's expectation from the Dutch marriage, or of the plan for bringing the army from the North, and he had certainly listened to the King's unsatisfactory speech of the preceding afternoon. Under the influence of this he broke away from the long chain of statute and precedent, upon which it was his business to L. F. iv. 229.

'D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. 110. See also the story of the three women listening through the keyhole. An Exact Collection, 235.

2 C. F. ii. 131.

D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. fol. 113.

1641

ST. JOHN'S ARGUMENT.

345

rely. "We give law," he said, "to hares and deer, because they be beasts of chase; it was never accounted either cruelty or foul play to knock foxes and wolves on the head as they can be found, because they be beasts of prey. The warrener sets traps for polecats and other vermin for the preservation of the warren." Strafford's maxims were thus turned against himself.1 The Commons, too, claimed, in a moment of supreme danger to be loose and absolved from all rules of govern

ment.

urgent

There can be little doubt that by this time the Attainder Bill was gaining ground in the House of Lords.2 The growing Charles's belief that plots, the extent of which it was imposappeal to the sible to know, were entertained at Court, would do Lords. more to convert the Lords than all St. John's eloquence. On the 30th, too, when the report of the King's speech of the 28th was read by the speaker, the Commons again testified their dissatisfaction. "There followed," according to D'Ewes, "a long silence in respect it gave so little hope of disbanding the Irish army, and yet that the King pressed us to disband the other two armies, and told us that we were masters of the same." 3 No wonder that Bristol and Savile, the two

4

In

1 Rushworth, Strafford's Trial, 703. We are told that several times in the course of this speech Strafford raised his hands to protest. Ranke's account this grows into a special protest against this part of the speech.

2 Writing of the King's speech of May 1, Giustinian says that it was made sospettando il Rè che l'odio di molti Parlamentarii con le gelosie di rendere mal sodisfatto il popolo persuadino ad abbraciarlo,' i.e., the Bill of Attainder. A letter which reports news from another letter written on the 29th or 30th is more explicit. The writer says that the Bill of Attainder had been read twice in the Upper House, and the passing is yet doubtful, Thirty Lords are for it, but many of the fifty lords are come about, and therefore it is generally conceived the Earl will lose his head. Other letters say that Mr. St. John did make such an excellent argument as satisfied the opposites.'-King to Calthorpe, May 1, Tanner MSS. lxvi. fol. 72.

3 D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. fol. 120.

4 These names are given in the letter of Father Philips (Rushworth, iv. 257). Clarendon gives Saye's name instead of Savile's. It is not likely

who were most anxious that Strafford's life should be spared by a constitutional vote of the House of Lords, urged Charles to come forward to give assurance that, in pleading for the life of the prisoner, he had no wish to restore him to authority in the kingdom. No doubt there was hazard in the step. The Lords might take umbrage at an interference by the King in a matter pending before them. Charles, however, had already brought matters to such a pass that to refrain from interfering was infinitely more hazardous.

intervention.

The King consented to do as Bristol and Savile asked. Probably he was glad to do anything which gave him a chance of extricating himself from the wild schemes in which he was entangled. On the morning of May 1 the Usher of May 1. The King's the Black Rod knocked at the door of the Commons. A whisper ran round the benches that a dissolution was imminent—a dissolution, which, as most men there believed, would be promptly followed by acts of violence. Maxwell at once reassured the members. "Fear not, I warrant you,” 1 he · said with a smile, as he summoned them to the Upper House. When they arrived there they found the King on the throne. He had come, he said, to give three assurances. No one had ever advised him to bring the Irish army to England. No discussion had ever taken place in his presence, in which the disloyalty of his English subjects had been assumed. He had never been advised to change the least of the laws of England, far less the whole of them. He hoped, therefore, that a way might be found to satisfy justice without pressing on his conscience. He had already resolved that Strafford was unfit to serve him in any office, if it were but that of a constable. "Therefore," he ended by saying, "I leave it to you, my lords, to find some such way as to bring me out of this great strait, and keep ourselves and the kingdom from such inconveniences. Certainly,

that Savile was anxious to befriend Strafford, but he must have known that to procure the replacement of a sentence of death by one of banishment or imprisonment was the surest way to stand well at Court. The name of Bristol is conclusive against any suggestion that the action was meant to injure and not to save Strafford.

1 D'Ewes's Diary, Harl. MSS. clxiii. 122.

1641

THE KING'S INTERVENTION.

347

he that thinks him guilty of high treason in his conscience may condemn him of misdemeanour." 1

Effect of the

The tone of the last sentence was undoubtedly unwise. It had too much the air of a dictator calling on the Lords to vote to order. Strafford considered the King's intervenKing's inter- tion to be in itself impolitic.2 If it was so, what is ference. to be said for those wicked schemes which by comparison give to it almost the air of superhuman wisdom?

on the

Church

question.

A week before, the speech might have had some effect. It could have no effect now. If the Lords remained unmoved, there was no chance of moving the Commons. No clearer evidence of the depth of feeling against Strafford can be found Compromise than in the fact that the two ecclesiastical parties agreed upon a compromise in the face of the existing danger. Hampden and Falkland came to an understanding that Episcopacy should be reformed, not abolished. A Bill for the exclusion of the clergy from secular Exclusion offices, and for shutting out the bishops from the House of Lords, had passed the Commons without serious opposition, and had been carried up to the Peers that very morning. It was known already that Charles had said in conversation that he would never give his assent to such a Bill. So dissatisfied were the Commons that Pym prudently moved an adjournment as soon as they returned to their own House after listening to the King's speech, 'lest they should break out in some rash distemper.'

The Bishops'

Bill.

May 2.

the Princess

3

The next day was a Sunday. It had been fixed Marriage of for the celebration of the marriage of Charles's eldest daughter. Prince William of Orange, the bearer of the most illustrious name in Europe, a bright hopeful lad of

Mary.

1 Rushworth, iv. 239. Bristol and Savile must not be held responsible for the wording of the speech.

2 Strafford to the King, May 1, Rushworth, iv. 251.

3 Clarendon, iii. 330. Falkland is stated to have said after the autumn vacation that Mr. Hampden had assured him that, if the Bill might pass, there would be nothing more attempted to the prejudice of the Church.' As the Bill did not pass, Hampden no doubt considered himself relieved from his promise.