against those persons and measures of which they disapproved. In the instance before us, Sir John Strangeways declared in a petition, that although he was at his house in Dorsetshire, during the voting of Strafford's attainder yet his name had been inserted among the Straffordians,” and consequently his person had been rendered odious and his life endangered*. Many of the peers, apprehensive of incurring popular displeasure, disgracefully shrunk from their duty, for when the last great question involving the earl's life was decided, only forty-five of them were in the House of the eighty who had attended his trial. Of these nineteen voted in his favour, and twenty-six against him t.

The greatest known delinquent in this tragedy was the king. The others who sat in judgment upon the earl can never be ascertained to have acted against their consciences, until the day when the secrets of all hearts will be made manifest; but Charles the First has registered to all posterity that he sacrificed his friend with the hope of thereby benefiting himself. In the presence of all his parliament, after every proof had been gone through, the king declared, " in my conscience I cannot condemn him of high treason. To satisfy my people I would do great

* Rushworth's Collections, iv. 279. Warwick's Memoirs of Charles the First, 6.

+ Journal of the House of Lords. Whitelocke's Memorials. Nalson's Collections, &c.

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matters; but in this of conscience, no fear, no respect whatsoever shall ever make me go against it *." Yet in eight days after the king consented to his execution!

If a reference is made to what his best apologists have written upon this criminal consent, we shall find with regret that all the palliating circumstances they adduce, amount to no more than that Charles permitted death to be inflicted on one who he was convinced was innocent, because that death might benefit himself and his family. When we reflect that the sufferer was his friend, and remember the noble yet pathetic letter the earl wrote to him, whilst he yet balanced the decision of his fate; and that he was not without a mentor at the time, for Dr. Juxon to the last warned him, "that if he were not satisfied in his conscience he ought not to do it whatsoever happened t," we must feel that Charles had left none but the tyrant's plea, that he did it from policy; a plea of which he must have observed the universal applicability. when some few years subsequently he bowed down himself before the headsman. Charles was bitterly punished for this and all his errors, and in further mitigation of our indignant feeling towards him, it should be remembered that the struggle of his heart against consenting was long

* Journal of the House of Lords. Parliament. Hist., ix. 287. † Charles from experience ought to have confided in the advice of the irreproachable Dr. Juxon, for he told Sir Philip Warwick, "I never got his opinion freely in my life, but when I had it, I was ever the better for it." (Warwick's Memoirs, 96.)

and anguishing; that the hope to appease the clamour against those most dear to him was a powerful temptation; that the advice of some of his council was most base; and that his repentance was sincere and permanent.

No event in history more powerfully demonstrates the futility of that policy, which has recourse to criminal measures for support, than this consenting of Charles to the execution of the Earl of Strafford. The effects were totally the reverse of those intended to be produced.

Its first marked result was that it destroyed the confidence of the king's friends; for when they saw that there was no faith to be founded upon his promises, and that his word and his conscience were disregarded when his interests required, they naturally concluded that there was no assured safety to themselves. Consequently Lord Cottington resigned the mastership of the wards; Bishop Juxon his post of lord treasurer: the Earl of Newcastle declined the preceptorship of the prince, and the Earl of Pembroke retired from the lord chamberlainship*.”

Instead of conciliating the people it undoubtedly drew upon the king their contempt; and we may be proud to know, that there never yet was an individual who shrank from the suffering necessary to preserve his innocence that obtained the approbation of Englishmen. "That the king should be induced to consent to the execution of the earl," says Whitelocke, "was admired by most of his subjects, as well as by foreigners."

* Whitelocke's Memorial, &c.